After the Emperor discovered Roboute Guilliman on Macragge and placed the XIII Legion under his command, the Primarch entered the Great Crusade as one of the most naturally gifted commanders in the Imperium, but what made Guilliman different from many of his brother Primarchs was that his ambitions extended far beyond winning individual battles, because he understood that the true strength of an empire depended upon what happened after the fighting ended and believed that every conquered world should become a productive and defensible part of the expanding Imperium.
With Macragge established as the forward base of his growing Legion, Guilliman was granted an independent crusade command in the region by the Emperor and received the resources necessary to begin a new period of expansion, including a reorganised 12th Expeditionary Fleet equipped with modern warships supplied from Mars as a special gift from the Emperor.
The newly named Ultramarines immediately began expanding outward from Macragge, identifying human worlds that could be brought into Imperial Compliance while targeting hostile xenos strongholds for destruction. Their operations eventually carried them across enormous distances of the eastern galaxy, reaching as far north as the dead expanse where the Dominion of Storms ended and extending toward the eastern and southern limits of the known frontier at Ultima Thule, where the stars themselves began fading into the darkness beyond the galactic frontier.
For nearly a century, Guilliman's Legion repeatedly advanced from one campaign to another, and according to some Imperial records, the Ultramarines succeeded in bringing more human-settled worlds into the Imperium than the forces of any other individual Primarch, but the real achievement was not simply the number of victories recorded in their campaign histories, because Guilliman insisted that conquest had to be followed by the creation of stable government, industrial production and reliable defence.
Guilliman's Method of Conquest
Whenever the Ultramarines achieved Imperial Compliance on a new world, they did not simply leave behind a garrison and immediately move toward another target, because Guilliman's forces invested considerable effort into rebuilding the newly conquered society, establishing self-supporting defensive structures and ensuring that Imperial ideology and industrial systems became firmly integrated into the planet's future.
This approach gave the Ultramarines an enormous strategic advantage, because every world they incorporated into their expanding realm could become a source of resources, recruits, manufacturing capacity and logistical support for future campaigns. Instead of creating an increasingly long and fragile supply line stretching backward toward Macragge, Guilliman effectively created a chain of increasingly developed worlds capable of supporting one another and allowing his armies to operate farther and farther from their original base.
This was one of the clearest expressions of Guilliman's philosophy of warfare, because he viewed conquest as an integrated process rather than a single military event. A battle could destroy an enemy army, but only organisation could transform the resulting territory into a permanent Imperial possession, and only productive populations, functioning industries and secure transport routes could ensure that the Imperium's expansion remained sustainable.
In this sense, the Ultramarines were not simply conquering the galaxy for the Emperor; they were building the infrastructure that allowed the Great Crusade to continue.
The Rapid Growth of the Ultramarines
The success of Guilliman's strategy was accompanied by an extraordinary expansion in the size of the XIII Legion itself. Even before the Primarch's rediscovery, the Ultramarines had demonstrated an unusual ability to recover from casualties because their gene-seed was considered highly resilient and capable of supporting rapid multi-generational recruitment, but once Guilliman's organisational genius and genetic material were added to the equation, the Legion's growth accelerated dramatically.
Within months of the Legion's establishment on Macragge, the first new recruits arrived at the Fortress of Hera, which became the Legion's fortress-monastery and principal headquarters, beginning a process of recruitment and expansion that would continue throughout the Great Crusade. Recruitment did not remain limited to Macragge or the worlds already belonging to Ultramar, because Guilliman expanded the recruitment system across the numerous worlds and colony outposts reached by his conquering fleets.
The recruitment process was intensely selective, with only the strongest and most capable adolescent candidates being accepted, but the sheer geographical scale of the recruitment network meant that the Ultramarines could process far more potential recruits than many of their fellow Legions. The result was a self-reinforcing cycle in which successful campaigns produced more territory, more territory produced more resources and recruits, and those additional resources allowed Guilliman to deploy increasingly powerful forces during subsequent campaigns.
Guilliman also understood that numerical strength was useful precisely because it could reduce unnecessary casualties, which meant that his Legion's preference for avoiding wasteful attrition warfare could coexist with its enormous size. When the Ultramarines could deploy overwhelming force against an enemy, they did so in order to end conflicts quickly and reduce the number of Legionaries lost, creating a military doctrine in which numerical superiority was used not simply to destroy opponents but to protect the warriors who would be required for future campaigns.
Fighting the Great Enemies of the Crusade
The Ultramarines were not always able to win their battles without suffering serious losses, because the Great Crusade brought them into conflict with enemies whose military strength could not simply be neutralised through superior organisation. Savage Ork empires and other dangerous xenos species presented threats capable of inflicting heavy casualties even upon Guilliman's highly disciplined Legion, and in such situations the size of the Ultramarines became one of their greatest strategic advantages.
When thousands of Legionaries were lost in a particularly difficult campaign, Guilliman's vast recruitment network meant that the losses could often be replaced within only a few Terran years, allowing the Legion to continue expanding even after major battles that would have permanently weakened smaller forces.
This created an unusual situation in which the Ultramarines became both extremely large and extremely difficult to exhaust, because their commanders avoided unnecessary losses while their enormous recruitment system ensured that the casualties they could not avoid were eventually replaced.
The Legion's growing size eventually reached a point where the Ultramarines became the largest single Space Marine Legion by a considerable margin. By the time Horus was appointed Warmaster at the Triumph of Ullanor, the 12th Expeditionary Fleet had become so enormous that it was divided into numerous smaller expeditionary and persecution fleets, allowing the Ultramarines to operate across multiple regions simultaneously while maintaining the organisational structure necessary to support each force.
More Than 250,000 Ultramarines
The scale of Guilliman's Legion eventually became extraordinary even by the standards of the Great Crusade. Before the Isstvan III Atrocity, the Ultramarines were recorded as having more than 250,000 Astartes, a level of strength that would not be surpassed according to the source material, although secretive expansion among other Legions created uncertainty regarding the true numerical balance of power.
This immense military strength reflected decades of careful planning, but it also created a political problem that Guilliman could not entirely control. Ultramar had grown into an enormous realm popularly described as the Five Hundred Worlds, while the Ultramarines themselves possessed the manpower, ships and industrial support necessary to function almost independently of the Imperium's central authorities.
The Realm of Ultramar had therefore become something resembling an empire within the wider Imperium, possessing its own economic networks, recruitment systems, military forces and political structures. The very success that had made Guilliman one of the Emperor's greatest servants would eventually make him and his Legion appear dangerous to those who feared that such a powerful and relatively autonomous realm might become a rival centre of authority.
The Shadow of the Osiris Cluster Rebellion
Despite the extraordinary success of the Ultramarines, Guilliman understood that his Legion carried a psychological wound that could not be measured simply through numbers, territory or victories. That wound originated in the Osiris Cluster Rebellion, a defeat that had occurred shortly before Guilliman's reunion with the XIII Legion and which continued to influence the Legion's collective identity long after the battle itself had ended.
The defeat had begun the tenure of Marius Gage as Legion Master and became a deeply troubling memory within the XIII Legion, remaining largely unspoken while nevertheless influencing the mindset of its warriors and recruits. Guilliman recognised that the Legion could not completely move forward while the enemy responsible for that defeat remained alive, and he therefore became determined to locate the mysterious xenos known as the Osirian Psybrids and destroy them.
The Primarch approached the problem in the same manner that he approached almost every military challenge, through analysis, preparation and relentless examination of available information. He studied the original battle reports, reviewed gun-pict recordings and examined the deep auspex data stored within the cogitators of surviving Imperial warships, searching for even the smallest clues that might reveal the Psybrids' methods and future movements.
For decades, Guilliman continued to run theoretical battle scenarios against the Psybrids, repeatedly analysing how the Legion might respond if the xenos returned. The enemy did not appear, however, and years passed without conclusive evidence of their location, although scattered reports from Rogue Traders and frontier worlds described unexplained massacres and disappearances that might have been connected to the mysterious creatures.
Guilliman refused to dismiss these reports completely, because he understood that a dangerous enemy could remain hidden for decades before striking again, and eventually evidence began emerging from the region surrounding the Maelstrom.
Eurydice Terminal
Twenty-six years after the Osiris Rebellion, evidence connecting the Psybrids to a new series of atrocities was discovered near Maxilla Veritas close to the Warp rift known as the Maelstrom, but by the time Ultramarines cruisers reached the planet, the trail had already gone cold and the world itself stood as silent evidence of the Psybrids' passage. Then, near the end of 899.M30, Guilliman finally received definitive information that the creatures had been encountered in battle.
The report originated from Terra and concerned a force of the XII Legion, then still known as the War Hounds, operating near Eurydice Terminal under the command of Praetor Erad Krüg. The War Hounds had been fighting Ork void raiders belonging to the self-styled Glortian Empire when an unexpected third force entered the conflict, attacking both the Imperial defenders and the Orks.
The War Hounds had been severely outnumbered but had managed to prevent the Orks from establishing a foothold through brutal boarding actions and intense assaults on their landing zones, yet the appearance of the Psybrids transformed the conflict into something far more dangerous. The xenos possessed powerful psychic abilities and began manipulating the Orks themselves, enslaving a vast feral population and directing them against their own kind while also attempting to impose the same mental control upon the Imperial defenders.
Only the War Hounds proved capable of resisting the Psybrids' influence, but resistance alone could not compensate for their overwhelming numerical disadvantage. The Legion suffered catastrophic losses until enormous numbers of Orks entered the system, apparently representing much of the Glortian Empire, only to become additional weapons in the Psybrids' campaign of destruction.
The battle escalated further when additional Psybrid vessels appeared, bringing more enslaved xenos warriors and strange warships into the conflict. Eurydice Terminal became a gigantic killing ground in which Imperial warriors, Orks and Psybrids were locked into a battle that continued attracting more forces toward the system.
Then the Ultramarines arrived.
Guilliman's Vengeance
When Roboute Guilliman assessed the battlefield at Eurydice Terminal, he immediately adapted his plans to the circumstances before him and launched the Ultramarines into the conflict without delay. The surviving War Hounds requested that their remaining warriors be removed from their damaged vessel and allowed to participate in the coming attack, but Guilliman refused, deciding that this battle would be fought by the Ultramarines alone.
The strategy Guilliman selected was particularly striking because it rejected the safer methods for which the Ultramarines had become famous. Rather than maintaining distance and attempting to destroy the enemy through prolonged bombardment, Guilliman ordered an immediate boarding assault, directing the core of his fleet and nearly 100,000 Ultramarines directly into the heart of the enemy formation.
The decision demonstrated an important truth about Guilliman's military philosophy, because although he strongly opposed unnecessary casualties, he did not confuse caution with weakness. He understood that some enemies could only be defeated through direct and overwhelming action, and when sacrifice represented the most efficient or perhaps the only available path to victory, Guilliman and his Legion were prepared to pay the required price.
The Ultramarines fleet unleashed enormous firepower as gunships and assault rams surged from their launch bays while lance batteries and macrocannons hammered the Psybrid vessels. The strange hourglass-shaped ships responded with their own devastating weapons, turning the surrounding void into a battlefield filled with burning wreckage, exploding hulls and violent energy discharges.
Once the Ultramarines reached the enemy ships, the battle became an extraordinarily violent close-quarters assault. Legionaries fought through twisting corridors and encountered the Psybrids themselves, strange semi-solid beings who possessed immense psychokinetic power and attacked with psychic blasts capable of burning through the minds and bodies of their enemies. Yet the Ultramarines continued advancing, replacing every fallen warrior with more Legionaries until the Psybrids were gradually forced backward and surrounded.
Veterans in Terminator Armour and axe-and-shield-bearing Invictarii led the assault into the deepest sections of the enemy vessels, placing explosive charges throughout corridors and critical power junctions while Guilliman's warriors pursued their ancient enemy without hesitation. The psychological wound created by the Osiris Cluster Rebellion had finally become something tangible, and the Legion's desire for vengeance could no longer be separated from the battle itself.
Guilliman Faces the Psybrid King
At the heart of the largest Psybrid vessel, Roboute Guilliman finally encountered the leader of the creatures responsible for the Legion's old defeat. The Psybrid king was an enormous multi-limbed entity standing several times the height of a Primarch, possessing a bizarre almost equine head and the ability to unleash devastating psychic shockwaves powerful enough to damage Space Marine armour.
Even Guilliman's Terminator-armoured honour guard struggled against the creature's psychic attacks, while his Chief Battle Psyker Aaroth Ptolemy fought against it on the psychic plane. Despite the danger, Guilliman personally charged the creature rather than allowing his warriors to fight the battle alone.
The confrontation became a battle between physical and psychic power, with Ptolemy using every ounce of his ability to protect Guilliman from the Psybrid's mental assault while the Primarch attacked the creature directly. Ptolemy ultimately sacrificed his life so that Guilliman could remain protected from the xenos' psychic abilities, allowing the Primarch to continue the attack.
Guilliman finally killed the Psybrid king, tearing the creature apart before destroying its glowing brain beneath his foot, an act that represented the physical completion of the vengeance he had pursued for decades. Across the system, the other Psybrid vessels were destroyed by internal explosives or by the waiting Ultramarines fleets, leaving the xenos with no means of escape.
As the Psybrids died, their control over the enslaved xenos armies also collapsed, leaving the remaining Orks exhausted and vulnerable to the victorious Ultramarines, who drove them back into the darkness beyond the system.
The victory came at a considerable cost, with several thousand Ultramarines killed, including many veterans of the Legion's Terran origins who had deliberately sought to be among the first into the fighting so that they could finally erase the shame of the old defeat. Yet the price was accepted because Guilliman and his Legion believed that the destruction of the Psybrids was worth the sacrifice.
The Greatest Legion of the Great Crusade
The growth of the Ultramarines during the Great Crusade was therefore not simply the story of a Legion becoming larger, because Guilliman transformed his warriors into an enormous military system supported by a vast network of worlds, fleets, industries and recruitment centres. His victories expanded Ultramar, while Ultramar's growing resources allowed him to build an even larger Legion, and the larger Legion in turn gave him the ability to conquer and integrate even more territory.
This cycle eventually produced the enormous Realm of Ultramar and a Legion numbering hundreds of thousands of Astartes, but beneath the staggering numbers remained the same philosophy Guilliman had developed on Macragge. He believed in preparation rather than improvisation, organisation rather than chaos, overwhelming force rather than unnecessary attrition and the creation of lasting institutions rather than temporary military occupation.
The battle at Eurydice Terminal demonstrated that this philosophy did not make Guilliman unwilling to fight brutal wars. When necessary, he could unleash enormous forces directly against an enemy and personally enter the most dangerous part of the battle, but even his most violent actions remained connected to a larger strategic purpose.
By the closing decades of the Great Crusade, Roboute Guilliman had therefore become much more than the commander of the XIII Legion. He had created one of the largest military forces humanity had ever assembled, established an interstellar realm capable of supporting that force and developed a method of warfare in which military conquest and civilisation-building became inseparable.
The Ultramarines had become the embodiment of Guilliman's philosophy, and Ultramar had become the embodiment of his dream, but the very scale of this achievement would eventually create new dangers. A Legion of more than 250,000 Astartes, supported by a realm of hundreds of worlds and possessing an enormous degree of internal independence, was a force that even loyal allies could view with concern.
The Great Crusade had made Guilliman powerful, but it had also made him impossible to ignore, and when the galaxy eventually descended into civil war, the strength he had spent decades building would become both his greatest advantage and one of the greatest reasons his enemies would seek to destroy him.
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