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Many people have pointed out that the numbers don’t really add up if each chapter is 1k astartes but they are also active across countless battle zones across the whole galaxy. Although some people do make it work in their head.

I also know that many chapters have more than 1k marines but often they keep that a secret.

So would it be better if GW wrote (for example) that Guilliman decided to expand the Ultramarines to even beyond HH levels, making them the poster boys of the imperium, making them visible on many imperium worlds to bolster the faith and morale of its citizens, whilst leaving the smaller chapter last to specialist activities and war zones that require a very specific skill set.

Well first up most of the numbers don't make sense. They also won't make sense even if you try to do them scientifically because you're dealing with such a vast setting in an alternate reality and in the future. So depending on how you evaluate and weight things the "sensible" numbers can be all over the place.


Another element is perception. A galaxy is beyond most peoples comprehension/relatability. They just don't deal with such vast scales and numbers on a regular basis to easily put things into context. So if you suddenly go having millions of marines they no longer feel like the elite because most people equate a million to a very very big number. Even if 1million is a pitifully tiny number when you spread it out over a whole galaxy.



That said I was under the impression GW was doing this, just through Primaris instead of regular Marines. Indeed the lore seems to be stuck on a sticky spot between the two, esp as they are both in the game same army roster and structure. It's an area where some marketing and product choices are impacting the lore in strange ways.

I think they should expand the number. They mention the Emperor being the master of a million worlds in the opening text, so everyone who reads the lore immediately thinks, “one marine per world?”


Warhammer should just lean into the scale porn with marines the same way they do with hive worlds, Imperial navy ships, titans, ministratum and administratum size, etc..

Pretty sure Guilliman at least reconstituted/used the names of lost Chapters, populating them entirely with Primaris Astartes.

Who knows how many Chapters there now? I mean, he’s Regent. He wants a Founding, and there’s precious little to stop him having a Founding.

Though of course the 1,000 Head Count remains, because the basis of that decision is still solid.

mrFickle wrote:
Many people have pointed out that the numbers don’t really add up if each chapter is 1k astartes but they are also active across countless battle zones across the whole galaxy. Although some people do make it work in their head.

Doing maths of any kind when it comes to big settings always hurts the brain. It's better to not bother.

I also know that many chapters have more than 1k marines but often they keep that a secret.

Nah, most Chapters have more than 1k Space Marines and have done for some time, it's just limited to a couple hundred over the "limit". The standing battle companies will hit 1k Astartes but then there are the various offices such as the Librarius or Chaplaincy and the various pilots or vehicle commanders.

So would it be better if GW wrote (for example) that Guilliman decided to expand the Ultramarines to even beyond HH levels, making them the poster boys of the imperium, making them visible on many imperium worlds to bolster the faith and morale of its citizens, whilst leaving the smaller chapter last to specialist activities and war zones that require a very specific skill set.

Guilliman doesn't have absolute authority. He managed to convince the wider Imperial power structure to allow for the Primaris because collectively they knew how desperate the galactic situation was. There are probably about enough Astartes (assuming 1000 Chapters with about 1200 Astartes each) to make just over 6 Legions that would already be considered large (i.e. the Ultramarines, Iron Warriors, or Dark Angels). So just over a quarter of the total number of Legions but barely.
To bring the Astartes back to the numbers seen during the opening stages of the Heresy, Guilliman would have to find all his brothers, somehow convince the High Lords that this move wasn't an attempt to install the Primarchs as the leaders of the Imperium, and not get murdered by the Custodes who already don't trust him and would prefer he was still in stasis (if not dead). If Guilliman managed that, he'd then have to get the Imperium stable enough to be able to actually produce the new Astartes in such large numbers. It's easy to build Legions when you're conquering outwards and creating/discovering new tech but the modern Imperium is the total opposite. The Legiones Astartes are very much a dead concept in the modern Imperium.

I love how Gilliman being a thing has the Imperium on the knife edge of tearing itself apart if he tries too hard to improve the situation!

A grim and dark setting where you're basically sitting there with the solution to most of the immediate problems and he just can't do it because to do so would likely cause multiple powerful subfactions to rise up in opposition. Either purists claiming its Heretical or those concerned that he's going to steal their power and influence etc...
Heck with the way the Mechanicus work now the Imperiums technological level has gone backward in 10K years. Instead of advancing or at least maintaining they've wound up with machines they use now that they don't fully understand and huge gaps in what they know and use and comprehend.


Guilliman has to walk this fine line in a sea of madness, religion, superstition, power grabs and more.

One of my favourite things to come out of the Guilliman resurrection was the people saying 40k was going to lose it's backward feel, then the first book post-Rift came out, and literally nothing changes and the Imperium is still as awful as ever.

I can still see the horizon where GW decides to split the Imperium in half in the lore and plunge one half into total confusion and fragmentation. I still think such a move would be great in terms of opening up the setting to allowing afew more forces to establish themselves within the setting as Xenos forces and such without having to bend over backward to plot armour them (Tau) or the whole "Oh them, they've always been there, we just never really mentioned them*"



*which is at least a step up from Exoidtes and the "yep we mention them every chance we get - no no we don't make ANY models for them"

I think they shouldn't give solid numbers.

"Marines are a small fraction of actual bodies in the Imperium's service, but have outsize influence due to their elite training, equipment, and transhuman nature."

The problem isn't really the numbers of Marines; it's that those same Marines are written in to every conflict all at once.

I'd add three Zeros to Marine Numbers.
So there's 1 Billion in the Galaxy, a Chapter is 1 Mio. Marines. The Black Legion is 200 Mio. Marines - with a size like that I'd believe that they can pose a serious thread when attacking a Star system.
If there were 1 Million Space Wolves I can believe them appearing randomly at different spots in the galaxy.
The 1000 Marines number per chapter is ridiculously small in my view, immersion breaking even.
GW likes to portray Marines like normal soldiers - in trenches, getting gunned down by artillery or superheavy tanks, or getting worfed by some Genestealers. All these things are possible if Marines aren't the smallest and most unimportant army in the game that's supposed to get stuff done.

 Lord Damocles wrote:
The problem isn't really the numbers of Marines; it's that those same Marines are written in to every conflict all at once.

Yeah, it's this.

Also a couple other things:
1: The nature of the conflicts isn't really well spelled out. A lot of what Marines actually do is a highly concentrated overwhelming strike to opposition leadership, and then use a high operational tempo to take advantage of confusion.

2: Asymmetrical warfare is a b****, especially when it's existential in nature and you can deploy things like nukes and other WMTs.

3: Canonically, they also are often working alongside millions of Guardsmen or other branches of the Imperial forces. They don't do big conflicts on their own.

But also stuff like this. They take over the orbital defense platforms and then use them to pound the surface armies into dust.

Increasing by 10 or even by 100 times the cannonical number of marines wouldnt hurt anyone except those that believe that astartes are like film ninjas... Weak if encountered in big numbers but strong taken one by one.

I’m torn on this.

On one hand, Only A Million is a silly small number for the setting.

But on the other? It’s so in-keeping with the setting. There’s precious little Astartes can’t handily achieve. And the fact there are so pitifully few of them adds to the overall doom and gloom. Sure if a squad or two arrives, the enemy is in for a tough time, but the actual chances of His Angels turning up are laughable small, bordering on non-existent.

The flaw I think is in the background overly focussing on their exploits. Whilst of course it’s still the merest snapshot of a given war zone, when Marines crop up nine times out of ten and butter the opposition? We lose sight of their objective rarity.

I think I'd like the size of chapters to remain essentially the same but to have characters in a novel somewhere hang a lantern on the estimated number of marines in the galaxy.

"Amazing. And to think there are only a million of them."
"Come now. You don't really believe those old propoganda vids do you?"

Leave the old numbers questionably canon for the people who like them, but make it fuzzy enough that you can headcanon it as inaccurate. Especially post-Guilliman rebuilding a bunch of chapters with primaris.

 Lord Damocles wrote:
The problem isn't really the numbers of Marines; it's that those same Marines are written in to every conflict all at once.

Agreed, it makes the galaxy seem very small when this occurs, and a bit improbable if there's only a 1000 or so Marines and yet somehow the chapter is involved in several warzones simultaneously.

 Wyldhunt wrote:
I think I'd like the size of chapters to remain essentially the same but to have characters in a novel somewhere hang a lantern on the estimated number of marines in the galaxy.

"Amazing. And to think there are only a million of them."
"Come now. You don't really believe those old propoganda vids do you?"

Leave the old numbers questionably canon for the people who like them, but make it fuzzy enough that you can headcanon it as inaccurate. Especially post-Guilliman rebuilding a bunch of chapters with primaris.

Exalted!!!

It's worth remembering it's 1,000 men-at-arms, which is to say the dudes in the regular companies 1-10, not including fleet, household, reclusiam, apothecarium, and librariam and not a limit during action when they're allowed to hot-box as many as are needed (excess being one of the reasons new Chapters are founded). Presumably it all goes swimmingly until someone goes Badab. BTs get around it by never being all in the same place, and Wolf Wolfs get around it by murdering any efforts at censoring them.

 Overread wrote:
I can still see the horizon where GW decides to split the Imperium in half in the lore and plunge one half into total confusion and fragmentation.

They could call it... Imperium Nihlus!

Eh, I don't think ~1 million marines is that bad, so long as you accept the basic premise that 100 or 50 or 10 marines matter to a war on the scale of a planet or system. GW consistently says that number of marines does matter, so lets go with it.

The following is based on pre-Rift lore, it is a lot looser and messier after the galaxy is split and primaris are deployed.

Firstly, I am operating on the assumption of ~1 million marines and ~1 million Imperial worlds, so about 1 marine per planet.

Most marine strike forces are a demi-company (~50 marines) or company (~100 marines) in a single vessel (usually a strike cruiser, sometimes a battle barge or frigate or occasionally a rarer vessel), although forces as low as a single squad or as large as several chapters exist. That means there is a marine strike force for about every 100 worlds.

Now, not every Imperial world is engaged in warfare at once- we know wars stop and start on a given planet. Armageddon has, apparently, only had 3 noteworthy wars in about 8000 years , so most of that time has been relative peace.

I would be surprised if the percentage of Imperial worlds at war was as high as 20%, but if it was, that would mean roughly one in twenty warzones would have a marine strikeforce in attendance. However, the actual percentage of embattled worlds was probably much lower prior to the Great Rift.

That doesn't seem super rare, but rare enough to not be expected support. Now, there will also be marines on offensive campaigns against non-Imperial worlds, and concentrations of marines in particularly important warzones (30000 marines were estimated to be operating in the Armageddon sector during the Third War for Armageddon) which would draw marines away from other duties, but it will be in the same ballpark I think.

I think the best compromise on this would be for GW to write something along the lines of,

"Officially, there are roughly 1 thousand chapters, each having officially 1 thousand marines each. However, the Administratum knows that such precise numbers are impossible. New chapters are added each galactic year, along with chapters lost to the unending tide of humanities foes, and chapters that appear without prior records of their existence. Many chapters do not strictly adhere to the Codex, a document whose inflexible doctrine is, wisely, considered by many to be more of a guideline than a strict ruleset. Combat losses and the unpredictable nature of recruitment means that no chapter could possibly ever be at full strength. The recent spat of foundings of Primarus Space Marines has also led to an increase in chapters.

Therefore, unofficially, there may be many more chapters than the approximate number given, and many chapters may be above strength. This is technically a violation of the decrees of the Imperium. However, as hard pressed as the Imperium is, one must turn a blind eye to such minor offenses no matter the screeching of the Adepts and the Law Masters."

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I’m torn on this.

On one hand, Only A Million is a silly small number for the setting.

But on the other? It’s so in-keeping with the setting. There’s precious little Astartes can’t handily achieve. And the fact there are so pitifully few of them adds to the overall doom and gloom. Sure if a squad or two arrives, the enemy is in for a tough time, but the actual chances of His Angels turning up are laughable small, bordering on non-existent.
.

The original idea of the SM being small numbers of super elite soldiers that could take on anything was great when GW wasn’t pumping out lots of content and it was left to your imagination, but now I think they’ve made to much inconsistency in their own setting that I just don’t think it works. In the blood angles series on WH+ a squad of BA terminators gets wiped out pretty quick smart by a bunch of GSC but back in 2nd Ed that single squad of terminators would have cleared the whole planet of the GSC.

I do like the idea that the imperium has lost all control of how many chapters there are and just looks for any that are available at any given war zone. But then I also think that the first founding chapters like DA, BA and SW would fade into the background and not be seen as something special amongst the galaxy’s elite

They absolutely should have just quietly stuck an extra zero on with Primaris yes.

Just say that chapters were routinely doing that in practice and lying to the adminstratum anyway before.

There's just no way marine chapters (especially the Ultramarines) remain operational in the number of operations they're supposed to do with a thousand marines. Chapters would routinely lose a quarter of their operational strength in a warp storm and it's supposed to take a few hundred years to recover from that.

My head canon is 'add a zero' at least.

10k chapters, 10k marines per chapter.

Hey, more Minotaurs is a good thing! People need stomping.

I go with the idea that a Chapter is closer to 1,300-1,400 Astartes.

As in Chapters operate on the technicality of 1,000 "Battle Brothers" with the 1,000 Astartes composing the 10 Companies of 10 Squads each. Since every bit of lore suggests there's the Company Command squads, several Chaplains, a bunch of Apothecaries and what amounts to 1-2 companies of Techmarines for pilotting the various space ships, Thunderhawks and ground vehicles. That has to be a few hundred Astartes, yet every Chapter breakdown seems to not actually include their numbers in the tally of a Chapter.

Finally, it's not like a Chapter is just gonna cryo freeze, kill off or waitlist the 1,001th Neophyte till an active Battle Brother goes to visit the Emperor and a spot opens up. I imagine even the active roster of "Battle Brothers" usually hovers around 1,100 to reasonably handle recruitment and losses.

 Grey Templar wrote:
I think the best compromise on this would be for GW to write something along the lines of,

"Officially, there are roughly 1 thousand chapters, each having officially 1 thousand marines each. However, the Administratum knows that such precise numbers are impossible. New chapters are added each galactic year, along with chapters lost to the unending tide of humanities foes, and chapters that appear without prior records of their existence. Many chapters do not strictly adhere to the Codex, a document whose inflexible doctrine is, wisely, considered by many to be more of a guideline than a strict ruleset. Combat losses and the unpredictable nature of recruitment means that no chapter could possibly ever be at full strength. The recent spat of foundings of Primarus Space Marines has also led to an increase in chapters.

Therefore, unofficially, there may be many more chapters than the approximate number given, and many chapters may be above strength. This is technically a violation of the decrees of the Imperium. However, as hard pressed as the Imperium is, one must turn a blind eye to such minor offenses no matter the screeching of the Adepts and the Law Masters."

Excellent writting, but even 10 million adeptus astartes is a drop in the ocean of a Galaxy at war... Perhaps a Billion would be the lowest number at which Space Marines could be somewhat meaningfull... Otherwise they are just boutique/propaganda units (like Tigers in WWII ETO).

10 or 50 marines in a war zone with 10s of millions of soldiers/xenos involved (which is not crazy, thats less than WW2 level mobilization and many IOM worlds have Bigger populations than current day earth) is an anecdote.

When you think that the Necromunda Underhive alone could absorb 10 chapters without being conquered (not counting here the "magic bullet" of the chapters navy on orbit which even doe they account for 90% of a chapters firepower arent really astartes but rather support personel), the whole Astartes Hubris starts to feel likeva joke.

The previous numbers are ment to be a sensible educated guess. But if you are a toxic bolt porn addict that believes that a single tac marine alone can handle alone a whole IG regiment, you might feel offended.

In fairness, marines are not meant to be frontline troops. They're not supposed to sit in a trench and hold a planet, that is what guardsmen are for.

They are supposed to conduct special operations, taking/defending specific objectives.

Most marine engagements are going to be a single squad, or even fewer, marines doing a very specific task. Aiding an Imperial commander by taking out a few vital targets that are preventing a planetary invasion from proceeding. Defending an evacuation point while a VIP or some long lost relic is removed from the planet. Drop podding on top of a rebel general while he is inspecting a point, or lounging in his spacious manor.

In that sense, even a few space marines can turn the tide of an entire warzone. They're not going to hold off entire legions, but they will do work equivalent to entire legions.

A single marine may not be able to take a whole IG regiment frontally, but he can certainly sneak into the headquarters, kill the command staff, and sow enough chaos while he escapes to make the regiment completely useless. Or he can lead your own regiment into battle and inspire them to greater deeds.

 Grey Templar wrote:
A single marine may not be able to take a whole IG regiment frontally, but he can certainly sneak into the headquarters, kill the command staff, and sow enough chaos while he escapes to make the regiment completely useless. Or he can lead your own regiment into battle and inspire them to greater deeds.

But why bother? If you know the location of the enemy HQ then a barrage of Basilisk shells or a lance strike from orbit is way cheaper and easier to arrange than a single marine. There just isn't any meaningful task that can be done by small-numbers marines that can't be done better by other, much more widely available, assets. IMO GW needs to do one of two retcons:

1) Add an order of magnitude or three to the number of marines. There are billions of marines, and they're still elite compared to the trillions of guardsmen and uncountably many PDF soldiers.

or

2) Acknowledge that marines have minimal practical value and exist purely for religious and/or propaganda value. A squad of marines may be a completely worthless asset in practical terms but the possible existence of that squad gives something of immense value: hope that victory is possible. And so when the guardsmen are dying in the trenches, desperately holding on for just one more minute, they can have the hope that if they hold on a little longer their sacrifice will mean something and the marines will arrive to save them. Repeat this all over the Imperium, add in some religious preaching on the marines as symbols of the might of sacred humanity, and now you see some real value. This also neatly explains all of the in-universe claims about how powerful marines are and how a single squad can win a war despite the obvious absurdity of the claim. It's absurd and that's fine because it's all Imperial propaganda hyping up the few contributions of marines into something way more than they really are.

 Grey Templar wrote:
In fairness, marines are not meant to be frontline troops. They're not supposed to sit in a trench and hold a planet, that is what guardsmen are for.

They are supposed to conduct special operations, taking/defending specific objectives.

Most marine engagements are going to be a single squad, or even fewer, marines doing a very specific task. Aiding an Imperial commander by taking out a few vital targets that are preventing a planetary invasion from proceeding. Defending an evacuation point while a VIP or some long lost relic is removed from the planet. Drop podding on top of a rebel general while he is inspecting a point, or lounging in his spacious manor.

In that sense, even a few space marines can turn the tide of an entire warzone. They're not going to hold off entire legions, but they will do work equivalent to entire legions.

A single marine may not be able to take a whole IG regiment frontally, but he can certainly sneak into the headquarters, kill the command staff, and sow enough chaos while he escapes to make the regiment completely useless. Or he can lead your own regiment into battle and inspire them to greater deeds.

Marines are not imperial assasins (but in a huge and clunky power armor) ... Stop the Ninja Marine BS, its juvenile and almost bad taste.

If marines are special forces they are not seal/delta types (those are deathwatch or other dedicated kill teams) ... They are like a ranger company, ie yes they also hold ground in a pitch.

Its really easy to grasp.

While I agree that Marines could hold a trench and that they are closer to US Rangers or Royal Marine Commandos than Seal/SAS types, but using them as general infantry is a waste of resources.

Personally I would stop referring to Chapters as 1000 Marines strong, as that is blatantly not true. I would refer to a Chapter as a regiment in numbers.

You could add 000 to Chapter numbers and it would still not make sense. It would explain how Ultramarines are at all these battles. But not why they are all at full Chapter strength led by Marneus Calgar in most of them.