The re-emergence of Hive Fleet Leviathan on the western fringes of the galaxy is far from the first time the forces of the Imperium have battled the Tyranids. This latest arrival might be the most apocalyptic threat yet, but it’s only the latest incursion in a centuries-long history of existential conflict.
Ymgarl – 500.M41
The earliest recorded contact between the Imperium and the Tyranid threat came more than 200 years before the arrival of the first Hive Fleet, on the moons of Ymgarl. There, Imperial merchant vessels encountered an unknown strain of alien with a tentacular facial array. Originally believed to be native to the region, the danger they represented soon became apparent, and they were purged by elements of the Salamanders Chapter.
No-one knows for sure how the Ymgarl Genestealers first arrived. Some believe them to have been vanguard scouts for Hive Fleet Behemoth, but others posit that they represent a spur of Hive Fleet Tiamet carried to the moons by Imperial shipping as long ago as M35.
The First Tyrannic War – 745.M41
The first encounter with Tyranids en masse was Hive Fleet Behemoth, two and a half centuries later.
Named for Tyran, the first planet they devoured, the newly-christened Tyranids barrelled through the galaxy with abandon, consuming planets, moons, and then entire systems. Marneus Calgar, Chapter Master of the Ultramarines, declared that Behemoth’s assault would be halted at Macragge.
Acting on intelligence from Inquisitor Kryptman* of the Ordo Xenos, the Ultramarines fortified their homeworld and struck the approaching aliens with a massive orbital force of warships, requisitioned merchant vessels, and anything else that could be equipped for battle.
Behemoth was defeated, albeit at great cost. Macragge remained infested, Calgar was crippled, and the Ultramarines’ entire 1st Company was killed, their veteran Terminators found lying where they fell defending the Polar Fortress to the last man.
The Second Tyrannic War – 990-993.M41
Following Behemoth’s destruction, an armed presence was maintained in the Eastern Fringes, but after more than two centuries without any further Tyranid encounters, the Administratum began to question the need for such a force.
Then Hive Fleet Kraken arrived.
The Ultramarines were once again called into action during the Ichar IV Campaign. Many other races were pulled into the conflict, from the T’au of the Damocles Gulf to the Aeldari Craftworld of Iyanden, which was almost reduced to a voidborne tomb.**
The Third Tyrannic War – 997.M41-Present
Less than five standard years after the defeat of Kraken, Inquisitor Kryptman discerned the emergence of a new Hive Fleet.
Hive Fleet Leviathan had arrived, a new threat greater than anything that had come before. As the Great Rift tore the galaxy in two, Leviathan faced resistance from the Imperium, resurgent heretics, xenos armies, and even the daemons of Chaos. Kryptman’s machinations saw its tendrils slowed – caught in a cordon of exterminated worlds, or lured into a quagmire of Ork warfare in the Octarius Sector*** – but never stopped.
The Tyranids had their sights set on yet another Space Marine home world, this time the Blood Angels – but so too did the forces of Chaos. This ensuing battle between aliens, daemons, and around 30,000 Sons of Sanguinius led by Commander Dante left Baal and its moons even more ruined than before.
The Fourth Tyrannic War?
Here it seemed Leviathan had been stopped in its tracks, and Roboute Guilliman could focus his attention on the Indomitus Crusade. But it turns out Leviathan was far from defeated, as the beast’s maw closes on the beleaguered Imperium once again, from a wholly new direction…
And that’s how the new edition of Warhammer 40,000 opens. Keep an eye on the Warhammer Community site for further news and updates, and subscribe to our newsletter to avoid missing out.
* This (ex-)Inquisitor has been declared a traitor, a fool, and a radical – but not, as of yet, wrong.
** This was also the war that spelled doom for the world of Mortrex…
*** And of course, the Death Korps of Krieg heard ‘quagmire’ and just had to get involved.