Suppression of the Macharian Heresy

The Suppression of the Macharian Heresy was a notable campaign conducted by the notoriously savage Minotaurs Space Marine Chapter following the death of Lord Commander Solar Macharius in 400.M41. After the death of Lord Solar Macharius those great domains that he had conquered for the Imperium fell into open civil war and anarchy between his seven Army Group Generals throughout the newly-conquered territories. These contested territories splintered into petty-empires, each lorded over by one Macharius's old Generals who had repudiated their oaths of loyalty to the Imperium, opposing each other as well as the authority of the Adeptus Terra, and with Space Marine Chapters now drawing sword upon each other in dispute and anger, the High Lords of Terra were forced to act decisively. This they did by calling in several waves of fresh Space Marine Chapters to bring the civil conflict to an end by exterminating heretical forces and bringing order to the region. One such Chapter operating under the High Lords' writ was the Minotaurs, then a Chapter all but unseen for millennia. They were a Chapter both familiar through their fell reputation and profoundly changed. A fleet-based Chapter, operating fully equipped and at peak strength, the Minotaurs fought as a single cohesive force that struck like a series of brutal axe blows at sources of schism and disorder, quickly earning themselves a bloody reputation by carrying out the orders of the High Lords without question or falter. During the suppression, it was the Minotaurs who formed the spearhead of the battle group which shattered the petty-empire of the outlaw Colonel Lyrias of the 11th Kahdu Armoured Corps, their Chapter's Land Raiders blasting apart the famed tanks of the elite Kahdusine 'Immortals' on the ice plains of Gyros Prime. They also carried out Exterminatus orders on the Hive World of Duval and the sword realms of the Hope Cluster. While on the ocean planet of Nereus they hunted down and obliterated the xenos-possessed remnants of the Imperial Paladins Chapter's 4th Company in the mazes of the sub-surface cavern cities, poisoning the seas of this once vital Agri-World.

The action from which the Minotaurs gained the most infamy during the Macharian Heresy would be known as the Euxine Incident, which resulted in the near-destruction of two Imperial Space Marine Chapters who had become locked in conflict. These Chapters were the Doom Warriors and the Inceptors. Formerly allies in the Macharian Crusade, they had come to blows over a matter of honour and were embroiled in a long running and highly protracted conflict fought under predetermined rules of engagement in the Euxcine System. With the two combatant Chapters refusing calls to end their battle and aid with the pacification, the Minotaurs were dispatched to sunder the two apart and end the strife. Caring nothing for the causes or rights of the two Chapters, the Minotaurs attacked in full force with their initial strike. Overmatched and broken, the Doom Warriors fled the system almost immediately in a barely organised retreat, however with most of their warships either destroyed or captured in orbit the Inceptors found themselves trapped on Euxcine before the Minotaurs' wrath. Relentlessly and systematically the honoured Second Founding Chapter was encircled and slowly destroyed piece by piece, until the last remaining Inceptors Space Marines were forced into a humiliating surrender, fewer than 100 Battle-Brothers survived. To add further insult to their ignominous defeat the Minotaurs stripped the fallen of many relics for their own armouries and took the ravaged Chapter's flagship, a Great Crusade-era assault transport that had served the Inceptors since their Founding, as a spoil of war. That such an ancient and revered Chapter and close scion of the Ultramarines could be almost annihilated in this fashion, and with the tacit agreement of the High Lords, sent shockwaves through many of the Space Marine Chapters who came to hear of it. The Minotaurs were denounced across Ultramar for their atrocities and forbidden to enter its bounds. Others of Guilliman's line have since sworn vengeance on the Chapter should the opportunity arise and honour permit them to carry it out.