Marneus Calgar

Marneus Calgar, in all his chavness.

Marneus Augustus Calgar (also known as The Notorious M.A.C, The MAC Daddy, Margayness Cockguzzler, Pimp Daddy Calgar, and Papa Smurf) is a character from the fictional Warhammer 40k universe. According to Matt Ward, 5th edition codex writer, Calgar is the spiritual liege of every Space Marine ever. All the Space Marines look up to him and strive ever jovially to be more like him and his Ultramarines, but because of their laughable shortcomings, most Chapters, including the Dark Angels, White Scars, Imperial Fists, Blood Angels, Iron Hands, Salamanders, Raven Guard, Space Wolves and all their successors, will never be as good. It is stressed constantly in the vanilla Space Marine codex and even mentioned a bit in the Blood Angels codex. The entirety of the Imperium awaits the day the Emperor awakes so that the Emperor may proclaim Calgar the rightful heir to the Imperial throne. As a surely irrelevant side note, Matt Ward plays Ultramarines (then later Necrons).

Calgar back in ye olden days. Note the Beakie helm.

Marneus Calgar is the current Chapter Master of the Ultramarines Chapter of Space Marines, and titled Lord Macragge. Following a skirmish against the Tyranid Hive Fleet Perseus in 976.M41, Calgar lost all four limbs as well as large areas of body tissue and his left eye. Now fitted with bionic replacements, he is more machine than man twisted and evil. Several fa/tg/uys have argued that he currently bears a prosthetic robotic penis .

And here is that old image in model form.

Calgar is one of the big three, the others being Dante and Logan, the three Chapter Masters the whole Imperium knows. While Dante is worshipped as a larger than life legend and Logan is beloved for being a bro to the common man, Calgar is respected for his leadership, both in battle and ruling Ultramar.

His characteristic weapons are the Gauntlets of Ultramar, which were reclaimed by the Primarch Roboute Guilliman from a Chaos Champion. These gauntlets allow Calgar to bash gaping holes in enemy lines, allowing his men to achieve victory for the Imperium in a joyous slaughter of the heretic forces across the galaxy. They do, however, make it extremely difficult to use restroom facilities, turn door handles, or hold small objects.

An unofficial nickname for Marneus is "Papa Smurf", due to other players referring to the Ultramarines as Smurfs and Calgar being their leader. The nickname has its origin in the actual miniatures' diminutive size and the fact that they are blue. One could also point out of course that the average cartoon smurf is either a total dick or pants-on-head-retarded, and requires Papa Smurf's constant leadership and guidance just to function on an everyday basis. This allows us to extend the metaphor in a hilarious way.

As of 6th edition he is also a xenos-loving bastard, having allowed the Tau to evacuate a planet that was facing Exterminatus due to a Tyranid infestation. To be fair, though, the Tau are one of two races (the other being Eldar) who work with the Imperials at points, so this could be just a bargaining chip to be used later.

He also dual-wielded Necron Pylons while the Ultramarines were retaking Damnos (before you ask, Phil Kelly wrote this, surprisingly).

On the Tabletop

It's just a flesh wound. He still deals with it better than a certain armless failure.

As of the 7thEd Codex, Calgar is pretty much the same as last edition, but he's taken a major debuff. Statwise he hasn't changed, being a Chapter Master who comes standard with artificer armour, a power sword, and Eternal Warrior, at the price of not taking a pistol. He costs 275 points, an extra 110 points tacked onto his price tag against taking Chapter Master with a similar build. Of course, you could shell out another 10 points and lose his grenades to upgrade for the Armour of Antilochus, the Terminator armour that doesn't prevent sweeping advances, and gives him a teleport homer and his signature power fists with the AP2 storm bolter. Who are we kidding, of course you're going to shell out for an upgrade that badass for that cheap.

Now for his special rules. First thing was that Calgar lost the ability to reroll armour penetration rolls; Since he has two power fists, that's not that big of a deal, unless your strategy relied on Calgar to pop that Land Raider or a pesky superheavy. Since Honour Guard are now counted as full-fledged Elite (read: takes up a slot on your force org chart), losing the ability to take three squads of those motherfuckers as a bonus can feel kinda painful. He also lost the special rule that allowed the Ultrasmurfs to automatically pass or fail any morale test they make. On the plus side, he retained the ability to invoke an extra Combat Doctrine during any turn, and when Calgar uses his own, all Ultras models get it (think Dreadnoughts and Land Raiders). Also, remember his ability to roll three Warlord Traits and choose? That was upgraded to choose any rollable Warlord Trait, allowing him to be he most tactically flexible HQ in the Codex.

So while he costs a ton, he's well worth itdoing okay for what he does for your army. Trying to build a Chapter Master with similar stats ends up costing around the same as him without the nifty morale shenanigans that Calgar has used to have. Seriously! Taking a Chapter Master with artificer armour, the Shield Eternal and The Burning Blade will build you a character who is better now worse than Calgar in CC, due to Calgar now striking at initiative also, a 3++, and blind (along with incandescent), and costs 5 points less. However, Calgar has his big, manly fists which, besides the 6 str 8 ap2 attacks on charge at I, give him an ap 2 storm bolter to really kill delicious terminators from afar, as well as the ability to choose his Warlord Trait (FNP). Also now with changes to the tactical doctrine, he is most likely going to be able to re-roll all ones to hit most of the time due to unlimited doctrines.

What we're saying is that Calgar is a decent choice for a Lord of War, but the tweaks have made him much less more of a killing machine than he used to be. Also, Unlimited doctrines.