Macragge's Honour

Grandpa Smurf's Pimpin' Ride.

Macragge's Honour is a Gloriana-class Battleship. It served as the flagship of the Ultramarines legion during the Great Crusade and the Horus Heresy. As of M42, it once more serves as Lord Commander Roboute Guilliman's flagship.

During the Horus Heresy

Before the Battle of Calth, the ship and its escorts were ambushed by the Word Bearers and its Daemon allies.

Under the command of Guilliman, Chapter Master Marius Gage, and then-sergeant Aeonid Thiel, its daemonic invaders were driven back. Guilliman then led a force of fifty terminators in a teleport attack to confront Kor Phaeron and his Gal Vorbak on the orbital platform they occupied.

The Word Bearers were eventually forced to flee on their flagship the Infidus Imperator. Guilliman ordered Gage to pursue the traitor flagship, which led to a running battle between the two battleships. At great cost the Imperator was destroyed, but the Honour was left in the warp without an accurate way of getting home, meaning none of the surviving crew had any idea if and when they would return to Macragge.

It somehow survived its ordeal in the warp, but by the time it managed to limp back into the Ultramar system, the Horus Heresy was long over, and the battles of the Scouring already fading from memory.

The ship was eventually repaired, but it never served in an active capacity in the Ultramarines fleet. In the ten millenia since then, it had become a shrine of sorts, a sad relic of a much brighter time.

Recent History

Upon Guilliman's return in the aftermath of the 13th Black Crusade, the Honour would be re-purposed once more as the Primarch's flagship. From there he would lead the campaign to first clear the Ultramar system of invaders, and later on, the burgeoning fleet that would make up the Terran Crusade.

When the Crusade got waylaid in the depths of the Maelstrom by the forces of the Red Corsairs. When Guilliman and the remnants of the Crusade followed Cypher and the Harlequins through the Webway, the Honour was one of the many ships that had to be left behind.

It is unknown just how long it stayed under Huron Blackheart's possession, but by the time of the Indomitus Crusade the Honour was once again under Guilliman's command. One can only assume that the Lord Commander suggested to a a certain Chapter that it would be "graciously gifted" to them if they managed to get it back from the Corsairs. Once they retreived it, Bobby G probably "politely" asked it back (likely at gunpoint) of course.

Since then it has continued to serve as Guilliman's flagship. It's been heavily retrofited and upgraded using tech care of Belisarius Cawl. Guilliman personally reckons that its performance increased about 10% since the modifications were done.

Meta

The Macragge's Honour features heavily in the novels Know No Fear and Dark Imperium, and the graphic novel Macragge's Honour.

It also serves as a playable unit in Battlefleet Gothic Armada II, where it arrives to reinforce Admiral Spire's fleet against the Iron Warriors and the Planet Killer.