+++Ultramarines+++

The Ultramarines are a Codex Chapter descended from the Ultramarines Legion led by Roboute Guilliman (Row-baut Jewl-a-man). When the Primarch was rediscovered by the Emperor, Guilliman had ruled the planet Macragge for five years. In that short period of time, the planet had gone fome a corrupt aristocrasy supported by impoverished slaves, to a world where the people were prosperous and well fed. Guilliman destroyed the old social order, and in its place he instituted a system that rewarded honest and hard work, placing honorable men in charge of the government. It became a world who's "cities had been rebuilt in glittering marble and shining steel". Macagge's small fleet of spaceships ran regular trade routs between the local systems. Bringing raw materials, more people, and prosperity to Guilliman's thriving planet. "The Emperor was astounded to find a world so well ordered and prosperous, and realised at once that Roboute Guilliman was a Primarch of great ability and vision." During the Great Crusade, he commanded the Ultramarines who's base had been relocated to Maccrage. His greatest talents were waging war, and he led the Ultramarines to many great victories in the Galactic South. Guilliman succeeded in liberating more worlds than any other Primarch. In addition, through his organizational skills and tactical expertise during the Crusade, the Ultramarines suffered fewer casualties and grew to be the largest Space Marine Legion. Unfortunately, the great success of the Ultramarines had taken them to the southern edge of the galaxy just when they would be needed the most.

  The 'Horus Heresy' plunged the Imperium into a savage civil war, far from the loyalist forces of the Ultramarines. The traitor Horus had moved with such speed, that even the news of his treachery did not reach Guilliman until Terra itself was under siege. Being so far out of position, the Ultramarines were unable to provide much help to those heroic forces fighting on Earth against far superior numbers. Their most notable action during those times was the destruction of a large force of Traitor Marines moving to reinforce Horus' position. (Most likley, of the Night Lords. Possibly of the Alpha Legion.) After the death of Horus and the retreat of the Treacher Legions, the Ultramarines liberated many human worlds from Chaos occupation.

Due to the heavy losses suffered by loyal Marine Legions during the Heresy, the Ultramarines were divided and deployed across the entire Imperium in order to keep or restore order. They defended much of the galaxy from Ork hordes, Eldar pirates, and other threats to Imperial order.

Roboute Guilliman is credited as being the primary author of the 'Codex Astartes'. The holy tome created subsiquent to the Heresy which detailed the reorganization of Imperial forces. Its objectives included the recognition and correction of gene-seed defects revealed as a result of the corruption of the traitor marines by the Powers of Chaos. Seven years after the Heresy, the Codex was implimented in the Second Founding. The Ultramarines Legion was divided into a large number of 'Chapters', consisting of about one-thousand men. The exact number and names of Chapters created from the Ultramarines Legion has been lost through time. However, the 'Apocrypha of Skaros' is said to list the total as twenty-three, without listing the Chapters by name. Because the Ultramarines were divided into so many more Chapters than other Legions, their Gene-seed became the stock type for Marine Chapters.

In 698 M41 the Chapter was part of a combined Space Marine force led by Marneus Calgar, consisting of the Angels of Absolution, Lamenters, Marine's Errant, and the Silver Skulls. During this seven year crusade the force inflicted a series of major defeats on the Ork empire of Charadon "delaying the invasion by Waaagh Argluk by some thirty years."