Event · M41

Ichar IV Campaign

The Ichar IV Campaign was fought in 993.M41 on Ichar IV, where Imperial forces broke an invasion by Hive Fleet Kraken during the Second Tyrannic War. The hive world’s manufactoria made it the industrial centre of a densely populated sector of the Ultima Segmentum, and its loss or survival carried consequences for the wider Imperial war effort against the Great Devourer. The campaign followed directly from the First Ichar IV Rebellion, in which a fundamentalist movement called the Brotherhood seized control of the planet and was later found, through the investigation of Inquisitor Agmar, to be a front for a Genestealer Cult awaiting its patriarch’s brood. That uprising was put down by the Ultramarines after heavy fighting through the hive cities, and it left Ichar IV weakened just as Hive Fleet Kraken began its advance across the Eastern Fringe. When splinter elements of Kraken descended on Ichar IV as part of the Second Tyrannic War, Chapter Master Marneus Calgar led the Ultramarines to the world’s defence alongside the Scythes of the Emperor, the Lamenters, the planet’s Astra Militarum garrison and the Adeptus Arbites. The Tyranid assault, directed by the Hive Mind through a Swarmlord, pressed the defenders through prolonged and costly fighting across the hive cities before the Imperial line held and the swarm was annihilated. Ichar IV is recorded as a Pyrrhic Imperial victory: the Tyranid attackers were destroyed, but the Scythes of the Emperor and the Lamenters were all but wiped out in the defence. The battle is counted, alongside the Aeldari of Iyanden’s defence of their craftworld at the Doom of Iyanden, among the actions that broke the momentum of Hive Fleet Kraken and brought the wider Tyrannic Wars against the Great Devourer to a close. Captain Cato Sicarius fought on Ichar IV with his command squad, the Lions of Macragge, from a Mark IIb Land Raider named Daelus, the fourth vehicle drawn from the Chapter’s armoury for the campaign. The Ultramarines also deployed Tarantula sentry guns, an unusual measure for the Chapter, to hold objectives and key ground while the Space Marines pressed forward, and the Venerable Dreadnought Brother Ferrio led the initial drop-pod landings.

See where Ichar IV Campaign occurred on the galactic map in the 41st Millennium.

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