The Beauty of Being Overwhelmed by Sheer Numbers!

The Imperium had a saying: no matter how desperate your situation was, even if you faced a catastrophe terrifying enough to topple the Imperium, all you had to do was hold on.

Because no matter how dire things got, if you could just hold out until the Ultramarines arrived, then all your despair, disaster, and misfortune would vanish completely beneath their assault!

Of course, there was one condition... you had to be able to "hold out."

Because of their "special nature," the Ultramarines were often targeted by the Chaos Gods. The Siege of Terra was one example.

The reason ultimately came down to the Ultramarines' Gene Seed and its exceptional stability, along with their inheriting their Gene-Father's remarkable political talents. These factors meant their "numbers" accounted for nearly half the Imperium's strength.

Some claimed that of the more than a million Space Marines currently on the Imperium's rolls, the Ultramarines made up the majority.

There was some exaggeration in that claim, but there was no denying that... the Ultramarines really were numerous!

You could glimpse their terrifying ability to mobilize forces in the Horus Heresy, sparked by Horus.

First came the Battle of Calth, early in the rebellion, where records clearly showed that fifty thousand Ultramarines had died.

Then, during the Siege of Macragge, another ten thousand or so Ultramarines were killed.

But what happened next?

The rebels had assumed the Ultramarines would never recover and would withdraw from the defense of Terra.

After all, since the start of the Horus Heresy, the Ultramarines had suffered losses totaling well over a hundred thousand. For any Legion, that would have been a devastating blow.

The Raven Guard, for example, had been driven to the point where the Raven King had to seek out the Emperor and ask for the "super Space