Written by Dan Abnett and rendered by Neil Roberts, Macragges Honour is a sidestory of the Horus Heresy detailing part of the fateful battle of Calth, namely the one-on-one naval battle between the Ultramarine flagship Macragge's Honour and the Word Bearer flagship Infidus Imperator, as the latter attempts to flee the system with an important enemy leader on board.
Tropes include:
- Absurdly Sharp Claws: The warp-organisms that swarm the Honour's hull have claws sharp enough to perfectly carve an Ultramarine into a half-dozen bloody pieces.
- Big Bad: Kor Phaeron, Black Cardinal of the Word Bearers Legion.
- Bittersweet Ending: The Infidus Imperator is destroyed, but Macragge's Honour is stranded in the Warp with no way to get back home. Furthermore, Kor Phaeron survives and escapes to the Eye of Terror, discovering the daemon world that would eventually become Sicarus.
- Blind Jump: Phaeron uses his anthame to force open a warp rift for his ship to travel into the Immaterium, and Macragge's Honour attempts to give chase with only the enemy's wake as a navigation aid.
- The Captain: Ouon Hommed is acting-shipmaster in command of the Macragge's Honour.
- Dark Lord on Life Support: Kor Phaeron spends most of the story hooked up to life support, as Guilliman ripped out his primary heart during the battle on Calth.
- Eldritch Abomination: A daemon summoned onto the Ultramarine flagship by the Word Bearers' ritual.
- To a lesser extent, the man-sized warp-creatures that swarm the hull of the Honour during its chase through the Immaterium.
- Evil Is Not Well-Lit: The Honour is suitably lit up and colourful, but the Imperator's interior is illuminated by deep red light that obscures detail.
- Four-Star Badass: Marius Gage, master of the Ultramarines First Chapter.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Captain Mersaror, stranded aboard the Infidus Imperator, activates his armor's tracking beacon so his allies aboard the Macragge's Honour can finally detect and fire upon the Word Bearer ship.
- I Am the Noun: "We do not need calculations [for Warp travel], Shipmaster. We are the Warp!".
- Karma Houdini: Kor Phaeron escapes the destruction of his ship, and manages to find his way into the Eye of Terror.
- Oh, Crap!: Phaeron, when the seemingly-helpless Honour suddenly unleashes a salvo directly into his approaching ship.
- Scenery Porn: The starship battles are filled with plenty of explosions and laser fire.
- It gets even better when the ships enter the Warp. The void is filled with glowing nebulae, leering demonic eyes and mouths, and asteroids shaped like human skulls.
- The final page is possibly the crowning moment - A full-page splash of the Eye of Terror itself, in a Hubble-realistic render.
- Screw This, I'm Out of Here!: When his ship is about to be destroyed, Phaeron uses his anthame to open a warp portal and escape with his retinue, abandoning the crew of the Imperator.
- Space Battle: The entire story is a fighting chase between two starships.
- Stealth in Space: In the Warp, Macragge's Honour is incapable of tracking the enemy ship through normal means, forcing the crew to rely on visual confirmation to pursue the Imperator. The Word Bearers, being Chaos servants, don't have the same problem.
- We Will Use Manual Labour in the Future: The Honour's main cannon batteries are loaded by mobs of workers that chain-lift the giant shells into place.
