I read some fiction where it mentioned something aloing the lines of "chaos marines scary, but thank the emperor there are so few of them ".
This got me thinking, how many chaos marines are still out there? Sure, in model terms, there are A LOT of chaos armies. But in the fiction, are chaos marines slowly dying out and unable to replace their losses?
During the Horus Heresy half the legions turn to chaos and join Horus. Now 10,000 years later in the present day (yes, I AM a Chaplain, i live in the 41st millenium and count it as present day!(http://frothersunite.com/phpBB2/images/smiles/icon_doolally.gif)) and chaos marines have been fighting on and off, losing numbers to battling the Imperium, losing to mutation and losing to warring each other.
So how many chaos marines are around now? If you kill one, is that a major loss which cant be replenished? Do they still recruit? And if so, from what populations?
Quote from: Thantos on August 28, 2012, 09:38:35 AM
I read some fiction where it mentioned something aloing the lines of "chaos marines scary, but thank the emperor there are so few of them ".
This got me thinking, how many chaos marines are still out there? Sure, in model terms, there are A LOT of chaos armies. But in the fiction, are chaos marines slowly dying out and unable to replace their losses?
During the Horus Heresy half the legions turn to chaos and join Horus. Now 10,000 years later in the present day (yes, I AM a Chaplain, i live in the 41st millenium and count it as present day!(http://frothersunite.com/phpBB2/images/smiles/icon_doolally.gif)) and chaos marines have been fighting on and off, losing numbers to battling the Imperium, losing to mutation and losing to warring each other.
So how many chaos marines are around now? If you kill one, is that a major loss which cant be replenished? Do they still recruit? And if so, from what populations?
You mean those from the original legion? As far as the fluff is concerned, Chaos Space Marines also include those renegade chapters that have embraced Chaos.
As for the acquisition and requisition of such resources to make a Chaos Space Marine, there are many novels pulling things out from the basic recruitment found in the Blood Gorgons novels to the weird mutation birthing things like those in the Storm of Iron. If you want to throw in the time travelling properties of the Warp, you could also say that a constant influx of them are also coming in from the past, present, and future.
yeah in terms of various novels there's been quite a few interesting ways new Chaos Marines have popped back up I've seen. From bringing members of the Thousand Sons back from the dead, to stealing big containers of Gene Seed, to Daemons simply making people into marines there's plenty of ways.
The "thank the Emperor there's so few" is more of a perception thing I believe. Very rarely are there incursion out of the Eye from CSM, and even rarer are they considerable in size, but I would think that there's likely a very large number of Chaos Marines kicking around (perhaps even in the same ballpark as Space Marines), simply that they're all quite scattered and disorganized.
I am personally getting more than a little weary of the latest idea that has sprung from the Horus Heresy novels...
"A Chapter was, like, ten thousand Marines back then!"
I think Know No Fear is the guilty party in this one, as it provides figures that imply the Ultramarines may have had strengths of 300,000 Marines or more. Others may be part of it as well.
That... that just annoys me. It annoys me because the Heresy background always stated the Ultramarines split into around 28 Chapters, that they were one of the largest Legions, and they suffered very few losses during the Heresy. This means that Legions were 10-20x the size of Chapters, and that in turn fits why they were so terrifying. Seriously, imagine 20 Space Marine Chapters in a crusade, with Guard and Titan Legion support, and you have a force that will burn entire sectors.
Now... well, now it's much clearer that the Ultramarines took a huge hammering at Calth. Fine, I accept that, but for the numbers to make sense the Ultramarines now must have lost 90% of their fighting strength, if not more, during the Heresy. In fact, every Loyalist Legion must have suffered losses equal to or greater than that order of magnitude to explain the subsequent foundings.
This, of course, leaves us with a rather annoying option on the Chaos front; they didn't suffer these losses. Thus, there could still be three billion Word Bearers and eighty trillion Black Legionnaires running around... we just never get enough of them in one place to conquer the universe. ::)
You're also forgetting the decay and mutation in geneseeds among loyalists. Not to mention those destroyed in battle. Loyalists are fully in the material realm, meaning they've been fighting and losing geneseed for 10,000 years, yet the traitor marines have been in the warp or EOT where time flows differently. For some of them its been as few as a couple hundred years.
The time disparity could be a reason for there seeming to be so few. A chaos warband goes into the warp to resupply for 10 years and comes back out a thousand years later. Another reason is that getting out of the EoT has complications, IE why the 13th black crusade is attacking cadia. Aaron Dembski-Bowden approaches it interestingly in a couple of his night lord books, outright stating that any large force trying to break out of the eye would be seen and hammered by the primogenitors. Add to that when there was the 'largest gathering of night lords since the assault on terra' there were only 12 thousand of them.
Another thing is: why can't chaos marines recoup their losses? They have human followers, and human slaves. Why can't they implant the strongest 'genestock' then indoctrinate them? Hell, world eaters, night lords, iron warriors, and alpha legion likely have less mutation than the average loyalist marines due to time flow, culling of mutations, khorne's disdain for mutation, and with the iron warriors and world eaters the fact that their primarchs are, or recently have been alive. Even the alpha legion may or may not have a living primarch....
Quote from: Deraj on August 28, 2012, 04:23:40 PM
Another thing is: why can't chaos marines recoup their losses? They have human followers, and human slaves. Why can't they implant the strongest 'genestock' then indoctrinate them?
If the background in Black Crusade is anything to go by, it's down to the fact that only geneseed from other fallen Chaos Space Marines, or from Space Marines can be used. Genetic material from other humans just isn't suitable.
As far as numbers are concerned, the premise behind turning the Chaos codex into more of a renegade concept was due to the fragmentation of many Legions, and the dwindling numbers of Chaos Space Marines still in existence from the original Chaos Legions. Chaos Legion forces are rarely seen, and are somewhat few in number on the whole.
Quote from: Deraj on August 28, 2012, 04:23:40 PM
Another thing is: why can't chaos marines recoup their losses? They have human followers, and human slaves. Why can't they implant the strongest 'genestock' then indoctrinate them? Hell, world eaters, night lords, iron warriors, and alpha legion likely have less mutation than the average loyalist marines due to time flow, culling of mutations, khorne's disdain for mutation, and with the iron warriors and world eaters the fact that their primarchs are, or recently have been alive. Even the alpha legion may or may not have a living primarch....
Who says they can't recoup their losses? Every Legion has their access to a method to regain their losses, though some are higher priced than others (like the services of Fabulous Billy), and their base human stock is incredibly limited in viability. Most of their human stock are not screened like the Loyalists can, and are taken from raids or surviving humans in the Eye of Terror.
The Horus Heresy novels / audio dramas are bringing about massive numbers of marines in space marine Legions. For example, the Raven Guard were one of the smallest legions and numbered nearly 80,000 Space Marines when you listen to Ravens Flight.. if you put all the info in the drama together with 70 - 90 % casualties and then saying they've lost nearly 70,000 warriros, disregarding those that came to rescue the remaining warriors.
Know no Fear numbers the Ultramarines as a massive legion... but they also take EXTREME casualties due to the Calth incident.
Fear to Tread, the most recent book I've read, the Blood Angels number 80,000 warriors on planet... Space Marine Legions were massive, which means that with all of the splinter factions breaking away, there could be quite a few Chaos Marines to jump away from Terra and flee to the Eye of Terror.
Take into account information given about the Alpha Legion in the Deliverance Lost and they could be without number. All in all I'd say Chaos Marines out-number loyalists... but agree that very few times do they all leave the Eye together or unified... although the new Main Rulebook states that all traitor legions are leaving the Eye together for this 13th Black Crusade.
All in all, I'd again figure there may even be more traitor then loyal... not to mention they live on and on in the Eye without fear of time.
I don't buy any of these explanations, frankly.
The ludicrously-sized Legions is voided by the simple maths of the Loyalists - the only one that divided on the kind of scale to support these Legion sizes are the Ultramarines, who (until recently) are said to have gotten through the Heresy with minimal losses. Ergo, a 'full strength' Legion must have been around 10-30,000 Marines, not half a million as the Horus Heresy books seem to claim.
Secondly, on Chaos recruiting in the Eye. Yes, it is indeed possible... but that does not explain how all we ever see are 'warriors who have fought since the Horus Heresy'. On that front, GW royally shot themselves in the foot, and about two Editions ago should have just written those Chaos Marines off as having all now become either Chosen, Possessed, or irrevocably lost to the Cults. That way, you can have the armies of bad-ass super-elite warriors, or you can have armies of Chaos Marines who don't have ten thousand years of combat experience under their belt.
All I know is what I read, the books give me numbers and I relay those numbers.
GW has made it a habit of doing whatever they please, and sure they may have said a Legion was 30,000 Marines before, but now their books are published with 80 - 100's of thousands of Marines. If that's the case.. then I don't see arguing it. Games and lore will always change to suit the hobby, and I like the idea of massive Space Marine Legions, it makes the Heresy seem all the more grand.
I know it sometimes stinks to get used to a set standard and then see it remade, but in the end, we move forward. I know lots of people hate the new Necron lore.. but I know others who love it... But I still have to stand by Marine numbers for Chaos being in the 100's of thousands. But different books have different info.
I have always felt 40K lore should be viewed through the eyes of a historian.
Consider the following: 1066, William 'the bastard' of Normandy defeated King Harold at Hastings. The battle took place on or about the 14th of October, and Harold died to an arrow through the eye.
There are many details we do not know about that battle, but we can make assumptions. We can assume that Harold's army had very little cavalry or archers, because armies of that period rarely did. Cavalry was more common on the mainland, however, so even if no source stated they did, it's a fair assumption.
Now, in 40K terms, what we have is this: the post-Heresy fighting strengths of the Legions Astartes who remained loyal to the Imperium. Using that information, here is what we know...
Dark Angels: Confirmed at 4,000 strong (4 Codex Chapters).
White Scars: Approx. 5,000 strong (formed 5 Chapters, presumed Codex).
Space Wolves: Unknown (formed two Non-Codex Chapters).
Imperial Fists: Approx 4,000 strong (formed 4 Chapters, but possible Codex deviation).
Blood Angels: Confirmed at 6,000 strong (6 Codex Chapters).
Iron Hands: Approx 3,000 strong (3 Chapters, presumed Codex).
Ultramarines: At least 10,000 strong (10 known, named Codex Chapters). Other sources claim 24,000 (23 unnamed Codex successors).
Salamanders: Unknown (1-3 Chapters, presumed Codex).
Raven Guard; Approx 4,000 strong (formed 4 Chapters, presumed Codex).
So... let's assume that all Chapters are more or less 1,000 strong (for the sake of a conservative guess), and stick to purely confirmed Chapters. That puts the Loyalists at 35 Chapters, or 35,000 troops.
If you believe the new Heresy novels, that's less than what the Ultramarines had left over.
So be a historian for a moment; we know what was left after the Heresy, and we have claims of what happened during the Heresy that do not stack up with that. Which do you believe?
Well, at the current moment, the Heresy has not been fought to its conclusion... so it is possible that the Space Marine Legions were 80 to 100K strong and that due to the devastating losses of the Heresy they were left with minimal forces... as of yet the books obviously haven't taken us to anywhere where we can see what happened. At this stage of the Heresy we can assume that the Salamanders, and Iron Hands are all but destroyed... with minimal Marines left to their chapter.
The problem with comparing History to 40K is.. well, besides the obvious reality vs. science fiction.. is that what's written has to be taken as fact. The books are told through the eyes of the ones that were in the Heresy, they're not 'assumed' ideas of what happened or leave anything to speculation because they're shown as 'this is what happened'. I think this is what GW is doing because for too long they just never said anything about the Heresy save for a paragraph in the rulebooks. The idea of this long story is great in my mind.. but I digress because this is falling off topic, my apologies.
The only thing in my mind that can happen is that we follow the Heresy to its completion to see what happens in the end. It's entirely possible that we'll get to the end and almost EVERY Legion will become endangered.. which I think is still very plausible, even WITH 100K warriors to start. I still think the best knowledge we have of the Heresy is being slowly but surely published... I just find it hard to argue with it, but who knows.. maybe in the end everyone will be right... but like I said before... GW rarely cares what it's written before as they continue forward... so it really is almost an impossible question to answer...
How many? Who knows?
Quote from: Wargamer on September 04, 2012, 12:41:15 AM
So be a historian for a moment; we know what was left after the Heresy, and we have claims of what happened during the Heresy that do not stack up with that. Which do you believe?
Out of curiosity, why is one considered to be fact and the other just a claim? What can't they both just be claims? Or facts?
What makes the knowledge of what was left after the heresy more factual then the "claims" of what happened during? As far as I'm concerned they're both just sets of claims.
If we're looking at the information as historians we have to look at who wrote/left/created the information and consider why they did.
Where did the information on the numbers and chapters created after the heresy come from? Presumably the Imperium. Would they actually record the true numbers? Could they actually know the true numbers? What benefits would they gain by falsifying the numbers?
Then we have to ask the same sort of questions about the Horus Heresy books info. A few of the books have introductions that establish it as story being told to you by someone who was there. How much of the story do they embelish? Which parts are they not telling you? What made them decide to tell you what they do tell you?
And I guess we also have to do the same sort of thing on the information surrounding the Chaos Marines numbers and activities now. Most of the information is filtered through the Imperiums bias's. Haven't the Alpha Legion been declared as wiped out like 2-3 seperate times now?
The point is, we won't ever know the actual truth anyway and I don't think it matters to much that we won't, someone in the future will write something that contradicts in anyway and we'd just have to re adjust the truth again. That's not the say there isn't value in trying to understand it.
My guess is that the numbers in the Legions would be higher then we first thought. Think about how many people it would take to conquer a galaxy, let alone do it in 200yrs. It's a lot.
And hey, the series hasn't ended yet. I'm assuming all of the factions are going to face losses in the extreme which will bring the numbers closer to what we used to know. Sure the Ultramarines might suffer horrible losses and be left with 10000 (or 24000), but hey, thats probably relatively unscathed compared to what other factions might face.
The thing is, we know (albeit via an out of universe source) that the Legions began at around 10,000 strong. Andy Chambers mentions this, and that fits with the numbers I've presented.
According to Dan Abnett, 10,000 is one Company of Ultramarines, and there are around two dozen or more Companies of Ultramarines. That's a massive upsurge in a relatively short period of time, so much so that, for me at least, it lies well outside what is acceptable as a plausbile Legion size.
Now, go back to the Second Founding again. The Ultramarines got out of the Heresy pretty much intact, were one of the largest, if not the largest Legions, and we have claims they formed 24 Chapters total. That's 24,000 Marines, over double the starting strength of a Legion. Plausible? Very.
Now, Calth. The Heresy novels state Calth dealt the Ultramarines a crippling blow and devastated their Legion... but, again, our Second Founding source supports that. Why? Because there are only ten confirmed Chapters made from the Ultramarines Legion, and we know the Ultramarines were, as stated, a large Legion. 30,000 or so sounds believable for the Ultramarines, meaning they can easily suffer up to 2/3rds losses and still divide into a lot of Chapters.
But going from half a million to ten thousand? That rather smacks of someone either trying to hard, or just not understanding what numbers are...
Another thing I would point out here is that the early books are a lot more in line with the initial figures for the size of a Legion, the Thousand Sons, for example, are approximately 9000 strong when Prospero falls. I can't remember the figures for the Sons of Horus or the Emperor's Children but I believe they were around the 10k mark too. Why would there be such a huge gulf in numbers between the Ultramarines and the Warmaster's Legion? Or the Word Bearers and the Emperor's Children seeing as The First Heretic puts the Word Bearers numbers at 100k repeatedly. I personally think the numbers in some of the Heresy books are simply exaggeration in an attempt to entertain, which is unfortunate, I've come to expect better from Abnett and co.
Quote from: Matt1785 on September 04, 2012, 01:07:58 AM
Well, at the current moment, the Heresy has not been fought to its conclusion... so it is possible that the Space Marine Legions were 80 to 100K strong and that due to the devastating losses of the Heresy they were left with minimal forces... as of yet the books obviously haven't taken us to anywhere where we can see what happened. At this stage of the Heresy we can assume that the Salamanders, and Iron Hands are all but destroyed... with minimal Marines left to their chapter.
The problem with comparing History to 40K is.. well, besides the obvious reality vs. science fiction.. is that what's written has to be taken as fact. The books are told through the eyes of the ones that were in the Heresy, they're not 'assumed' ideas of what happened or leave anything to speculation because they're shown as 'this is what happened'. I think this is what GW is doing because for too long they just never said anything about the Heresy save for a paragraph in the rulebooks. The idea of this long story is great in my mind.. but I digress because this is falling off topic, my apologies.
The only thing in my mind that can happen is that we follow the Heresy to its completion to see what happens in the end. It's entirely possible that we'll get to the end and almost EVERY Legion will become endangered.. which I think is still very plausible, even WITH 100K warriors to start. I still think the best knowledge we have of the Heresy is being slowly but surely published... I just find it hard to argue with it, but who knows.. maybe in the end everyone will be right... but like I said before... GW rarely cares what it's written before as they continue forward... so it really is almost an impossible question to answer...
How many? Who knows?
Think about it. We all know our Space Marine lore more than well enough to know that the Codex Astartes was written to break up the surviving strength of the Legions into about-1000-marine-strong Chapters, right? This is, as 40k fluff goes, absolute rock solid certainty.
We also know that the event in which the Legions were first broken into chapters was the First Founding- Again, as solid a fact as you can get in 40k.
Here's the crucial bit- GW has provided us enough material that when you compile it we have a near completely locked-down list of the first founding, of exactly how many Chapters each Legion was broken into. Again, as 40k goes, this is basically incontrovertible fact.
Now, since we know effectively for a certainty that (especially at the First Founding) the Chapters created were a Codex-stipulated ~1000 marines strong (with one or two minor potential exceptions like the Black Templars, who might have been a couple times that),
we can just about incontrovertibly figure out the sum of the loyal Legions' strengths at the close of the Horus Heresy.I will not repeat the math for that here, because Wargamer already did that par excellence in his recent post.
Now.... We know the strengths of various legions at the close of the heresy. The most important thing in evaluating what "full strength" size makes sense is to compare the solidly-extrapolated "finishing" strengths with the stated relative size of each legion and the relative amount of casualties it's said to have taken.
When you do this, you end up with significantly more evidence that collectively indicates Legions of about 10k marines and Companies of 1,000 far, far more than it supports the idea of ten-thousand-marine-strong Grand Companies.
For instance, look at the chapters fluff has told us were at low strength or took particularly heavy casualties, and that fluff has also
not told us were of greater than average strength. The Salamanders, who were never numerous and who got massacred at Istvaaan. The Dark Angels, who tore themselves apart in a clandestine civil war. The Raven Guard, who were plagued by horrific mutations in the geneseed that left them drastically understrength for much of the heresy.
Look at the numbers; these chapters were all left at 3000-4000 marines at the close of the Heresy. That's consistent enough to be worth noting.
Now, we were told that these chapters took heavy casualties somehow, but only the Salamanders are stated to have come close to being wiped out.
Considering this- If we assume a Legion to be approximately 10,000 marines, then these chapters took 60-70% casualties- slightly less to slightly more than two thirds their "standing" strength. That definitely fits "heavy casualties/heavily reduced strength."
If we assume that each
Company is 10,000 marines so that a whole Legion was 100,000 Astartes, then with the stated legion strengths at the end, those chapters have instead taken 96-97% casualties. That isn't "Heavy losses," that's "nigh-obliteration."
Finally, compare to the legions that fared better, and the point really hammers itself home. The Blood Angels aren't mentioned as having taken especially horrendous numerical losses by comparison to other legions. We know from the calculations that the Blood Angels were broken into 6 chapters at the First Founding and thus had roughly 6,000 marines at the end of the heresy.
If a Legion is 10,000 marines, this means they took 40% losses during the heresy, retaining 60% fighting strength. So they were bloodied, but emerged with a majority of their forces still intact.
If, however, a legion is 100,000 marines, the Blood Angels would have had to take 94% casualties in order to wind up with only 6,000 marines at the end of the Heresy. This would still be near-total obliteration compared to their "proper" strength, scarcely any better off than the chapters that were supposed to have taken particularly heavy losses. And we -know- the Blood Angels are
not mentioned as one of those chapters.
Yes, the HH novels state the larger figure. But sci fi writers' lack of a sense of scale is legendary, and as we just saw, if you take what they say to be true, the numbers just don't stack up with how GW and those same authors themselves state the loyalist chapters fared. By contrast, the older, more established figure of an average Legion being 10,000 marines -does- result in numbers that make sense based on the sum of known material about the Horus Heresy and how loyal chapters were affected by it.
I was under the impression the current number of space marines in the 41st millennium was supposed to be about a million. one thousand chapters of one thousand marines (weird variances like Wolves and Templar notwithstanding). A "thousand thousand worlds, overlooked by a thousand thousand space marines, yet somehow it is enough" or something to that effect.
Now obviously that's more poetry than anything, but I imagine that might be what they're shooting for
Yes, currently there are meant to be one million Space Marines. That said, you have to remember that we've had ten millennia of unending war between the Legions forming and now. Back then, when the Emperor made those 200,000 Marines (20 Legions, 10,000 Marines apiece) he was trying to build the Imperium, and essentially held one star system.
The idea of the Chapter division was not "there can never be more Marines than there used to be", but to ensure that if the rot set in again it could be contained and destroyed without burning the Imperium to the ground.
In addition, the Legions only recruited from their home worlds (or systems, in the case of the Ultramarines). Given that only a select few are worthy, one would assume that the Legions could only grow so much due to the constant attrition they would suffer in battle. Once the Chapters were formed and scattered, you effectively increase the recruitment rate by several orders of magnitude, allowing the Chapters to swell to a million-strong collective force from a paltry 30-odd thousand starting point.
But... I stress again... that quote about their being a million Space Marines does not mention timescale. We do not know how long it took for the Imperium to reach that 'thousand Chapters' benchmark; they certainly didn't hit it by the second founding! All the fluff for the Imperium stresses how things get worse and worse year on year, suggesting that the thousand Chapters are a direct response to that - because the old 'Legion Strength' forces are simply not enough to do the job anymore.
So, let me steer this back to the Chaos side...
Going back to the numbers I used earlier for the Loyalists, I'd estimate around 70,000 Marines is a good headcount for what was left of the Traitor Legions. Now, that said, there are suggestions that they did not get out of the fight lighty. For now, I'm going to give just one example...
World Eaters: Let's face it, it doesn't look like there are many World Eaters left.
They were at the forefront of the Siege of the Emperor's Palace, which is going to have been a bloody affair no matter how you slice it. After that, the Battle of Skalathrax, they ceased to exist as a Legion.
That battle is important. We know the entire Legion was there, and we know they were all amassed on a single front, sieging an Emperor's Children held city. The entire Legion was seemingly in a single camp, seeing as Kharn managed to drive the entire Legion out of their hiding holes and into a meatgrinder. Finally, in the aftermath of the conflict, the Legion suffered heavy losses (read: "most" of the Legion) and fragmented into Warbands.
So, let's break that down, shall we?
We don't know how big the World Eaters Legion was, but looking at the Imperials who fought in the Emperor's Palace, we have three guidelines for size: Blood Angels (6,000 strong), White Scars (5,000 strong) and Imperial Fists (about 3-4,000 strong... after the Iron Cage). This means we can reasonably assume a minimum 6,000 World Eaters survived the Siege (remember, they were winning until Horus died...) and an acceptable upper tier of around 10-12,000.
"Most" of the Legion died at Skalathrax, which could mean almost anything. Even being kind and saying 60% died, that gives us around 2,400 Marines remaining for the low-end estimate, and 4,000 to 4,800 for the high end.
That is still a very large force, where it ever unified... just nowhere near the mind-screwingly huge numbers that are now being implied.
Quote from: DEF Knight on September 04, 2012, 06:07:34 PM
I was under the impression the current number of space marines in the 41st millennium was supposed to be about a million. one thousand chapters of one thousand marines (weird variances like Wolves and Templar notwithstanding). A "thousand thousand worlds, overlooked by a thousand thousand space marines, yet somehow it is enough" or something to that effect.
Now obviously that's more poetry than anything, but I imagine that might be what they're shooting for