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I think that IF the Inquisition or any of the High Lords of Terra wanted to kill the SW, they should just pull a Celestial Lion on them.
The Celestial Lions were/barely are a chapter of SM who raised an unholy level of fuss about an Inquisitor killing a whole planet just because the Planetary Governor was a Chaos worshiping loon. The Celestial Lions lost a strike cruiser delegation on the way to Terra to tattle. When they went to Armageddon with their whole Chapter, they were given endless tides of faulty information. Their landing zone wasn't properly secured, the city they were told to hold was subject to both friendly and unfriendly artillery fire, and they got negative amounts of support from allied forces. From the instant they set foot on Armageddon, they were also under fire from "ork snipers" (who wielded imperial las weapons with enough skill to drill out the eyes and necks of every target), who killed each and every Apothecary the Celestial Lions had. At this time in the fluff, there are less than 96 Lions left, and that's only because Grimaldus of the Black Templars put them on a ship and sent them packing home to reinforce. And I for one would not put any money on them making a come back at all.
So if you want to kill a SM chapter, just send them into the eternal war with no rest, faulty intel, and endlessly under fire from everywhere. And make sure your "ork snipers" pack their ACTUAL rifles this time, the ones that can penetrate Iron Halo fields.

I'm not sure if anyone as touched on this, but there are around 12,000 space wolves. Each great company is its own chapter with their own armories and support staff. the only other SM chapter with that kind of numbers are the Black templars and possibly the ultramarine if you take into consideration all their successor chapters. Given the fact this is around the size of the Legions used to conquer whole solar systems unsupported I doubt the inquisition has the power to deal with that.
As of last counting I believe there exist around 1000 chapters of space marines (one of which is the Wolves) and the only SM chapter I can think of that dislike the Wolves are the Dark Angels. So given their status as a founding chapter with a standing service record siding in their favor I feel more chapters would side with them then against them.

There's actually not 13,000 SW. SW aren't restricted by codex size but that doesn't mean each great company has 1000 wolves. SW simply can't recruit enough guys to do this. They can only recruit from a single feral world and that's it. And we are talking feral world. Each great company is treated as its own chapter with its own armories and the sorts, however it's averaged from around 1200-2000 SW. In reality, the same is true for DA. They have several successors and are heavily tied together. The only one I can think of that has a codex and is relatively minor is BA and even then I don't really know how many BA successors there are (although there must be a few successors at the very least). Also, keep in mind that SW was never a large legion to begin with and it also expects their entire force on one planet when, as you mentioned, each is their own chapter meaning that they will likely be off planet. Technically, an Inquisition can garner enough forces to easily crush them. Or they could just do what they did to the Celestial Lions as others mentioned.

 StarTrotter wrote:
There's actually not 13,000 SW. SW aren't restricted by codex size but that doesn't mean each great company has 1000 wolves. SW simply can't recruit enough guys to do this. They can only recruit from a single feral world and that's it. And we are talking feral world. Each great company is treated as its own chapter with its own armories and the sorts, however it's averaged from around 1200-2000 SW.

I'm actually curious, why are the SW set at 2,000 marines? It's generally accepted that they have over 1,000 marines at any one time, but from there we (the collective fanbase) seem to be largely clueless as to how many actually exist. Each Great Company being its own mini chapter sounds about right to me, but still the numbers are muddled. I kinda doubt that recruiting from Fenris is actually holding them back in terms of size, if anything it's the Canis Helix in their gene-seed that's keeping them from growing.

Well, if you look at the Apoc formations, each Great Company is about the same size to slightly larger than a standard Space Marine Company (indeed they can be smaller). The exact size of each Great Company is unknown.

The slow recruitment rate (only drawing on the population of a single death world, high attrition during the initiation ceremony) and their rather haphazard approach to training (group the youngin's together and see who survives long enough to learn enough to be useful) make it hard for them to replenish their numbers.

 Troike wrote:

Wasn't a thumping, it was an even fight, it seems. The Marines didn't slaughter the Sisters, and the Sisters didn't slaughter the Marines. The Sisters just withdrew because the Ecclesiarchy decided it wasn't worth the effort.

But they likely did only face a single Great Company and the PDF, as the chapter is only rarely completely assembled on Fenris.
Also, the Ecclesiarchy decided to withdraw, which must have meant that they were losing the fight. Otherwise they would not have withdrawn. It may not have been a massacre, but the Sisters certainly were not winning the fight.

 LoyalistAlphaLegion wrote:

 StarTrotter wrote:
There's actually not 13,000 SW. SW aren't restricted by codex size but that doesn't mean each great company has 1000 wolves. SW simply can't recruit enough guys to do this. They can only recruit from a single feral world and that's it. And we are talking feral world. Each great company is treated as its own chapter with its own armories and the sorts, however it's averaged from around 1200-2000 SW.

I'm actually curious, why are the SW set at 2,000 marines? It's generally accepted that they have over 1,000 marines at any one time, but from there we (the collective fanbase) seem to be largely clueless as to how many actually exist. Each Great Company being its own mini chapter sounds about right to me, but still the numbers are muddled. I kinda doubt that recruiting from Fenris is actually holding them back in terms of size, if anything it's the Canis Helix in their gene-seed that's keeping them from growing.

According to the codex, a Great Company's numbers can vary heavily and depend on the fame and fortune of it's Wolf Lord. I can quite imagine Grimnar's company being close to a 1000 marines, but the others probably vary in size from 100-500 marines. There are indeed no set numbers.

Also, the recruiting of the SW (and many other chapters as well) is one of the many silly things in 40k. A feudal death world like Fenris could never sustain an entire chapter + supporting personnel. It could maybe be justified by saying that the SW recruit all of their supporting personnel (PDF, chapter serfs, naval crew etc.) from other worlds close to Fenris.

Except it's established that anyone not of Fenris (I.e. Not related to original gene-tailored settlers) that receives the Canix mutates immediately.

It's just yet another stupid thing about Wolves. Despite being on a death world, they somehow maintain a fleet 8x that of the average chapter, and they are all mad skilled despite being superstitious savages, and routinely spank Segmentum battle groups.

Space Wolves are basically the rule of cool as decided by a horny 12-year-old who just took a hit of angel dust.

 Omegus wrote:
Except it's established that anyone not of Fenris (I.e. Not related to original gene-tailored settlers) that receives the Canix mutates immediately.

It's just yet another stupid thing about Wolves. Despite being on a death world, they somehow maintain a fleet 8x that of the average chapter, and they are all mad skilled despite being superstitious savages, and routinely spank Segmentum battle groups.

Space Wolves are basically the rule of cool as decided by a horny 12-year-old who just took a hit of angel dust.

Don't they beat out Ultramar, acollection of planets and trained personnel?

 Omegus wrote:
Except it's established that anyone not of Fenris (I.e. Not related to original gene-tailored settlers) that receives the Canix mutates immediately.

It's just yet another stupid thing about Wolves. Despite being on a death world, they somehow maintain a fleet 8x that of the average chapter, and they are all mad skilled despite being superstitious savages, and routinely spank Segmentum battle groups.

Space Wolves are basically the rule of cool as decided by a horny 12-year-old who just took a hit of angel dust.

The chapter serfs etc. do not recieve the Canix, so they could be from anywhere. Also, it could be possible that Russ saw this problem and colonised several other neighbouring planets with Fenrisian settlers to create a larger population base. But it is all a matter of speculation of course.

Also, almost all Space Marine chapters recruit from feral or death worlds, so they are all savages
They do this because recruits from those worlds are physically superior to 'soft' people from civilised worlds, and thus more likely to make it through all the trials.

 Omegus wrote:
Except it's established that anyone not of Fenris (I.e. Not related to original gene-tailored settlers) that receives the Canix mutates immediately.

It's just yet another stupid thing about Wolves. Despite being on a death world, they somehow maintain a fleet 8x that of the average chapter, and they are all mad skilled despite being superstitious savages, and routinely spank Segmentum battle groups.

Space Wolves are basically the rule of cool as decided by a horny 12-year-old who just took a hit of angel dust.

Well, they did. They don't any more, as they threw that fleet away fighting the GK and the Inquisition.

They lost more men and material in that fight than they did at the Battle of the Fang when the Thousand Sons dropped out of the Warp right above Fenris and began bombing the place.

It's possible the Celestial Lions were eliminated while the Space Wolves were not because the Lions were deemed more of a problem. I'm not sure how often the Space Wolves publically bring such matters to bear like the Lions did.

It's also possible the Lions were eliminatABLE because of a specific set of circumstances during the 3rd War for Armegeddon that hasn't become present yet in regards to the Space Wolves. Presumably finding ways to station Snipers amongst an orc battle isn't an opportunity that presents itself every day, or maybe the wolves rely on different intelligence sources etc than the Lions do which are less vulnerable to sabotage and deception by the Inquisition (likely, given how little the wolves trust the Inquisition)

Sort of. Though, remember, we're talking about a fictional faction here that could have an author simply create the necessary circumstances to "CeleLion" the Space Wolves out.

It's not like the Space Wolves are actually doing anything that someone is not writing about in a book or a Codex or something. They aren't, for example, busy rebuilding their fleet on the sly right now.

Well, yea, that's why "it's possible". The answer to EVERYTHING in a fictional piece is really "because the authors wrote it that way", after all, so "it's possible" is the best you can get for anything that isn't written yet. Although whether or not the authors themselves are considering or taking that possibility into account is a good question, too, but not exactly one we can get an answer to easily in many cases.

That's what I'm saying. We can guess at all kinds of ways that things can go in the future, and base these guesses on all sorts of things taken from other books and Codices and all of that, which provides for a more informed guess than others...

.... but until it's written, then we don't have anything to go on. The next SW book might ignore most of the last 10,000 years of their history and make them everyone's favorite Chapter everywhere, flying around, kicking ass, getting jiggy with those new ab-human cat-girls.

I haven't read all the novels, but wasn't Russ adamantly against having his legion broken into chapters? But numbers of battle bothers and toes stepped on aside, there is a simple reason the space wolves are allowed to exist, their proximity to the eye of terror makes them key in the defense of the Imperium as a whole from the invasions of chaos. As for Fenris being a death world that doesn't mean a small population. From what I can gather a death world is a planet of extremes where humans may not be the top of the food chain. There is nothing saying that millions or even billions of people can't live there, their lives are just brutal.

No. His Legion was, at the time, barely 1000 troops. It *couldn't* be broken into Chapters. There was also the issue of the Canis Helix. They could not use SW geneseed in the populace of any other planet, so Fenris was the only viable population center for their Marines.

. From what I can gather a death world is a planet of extremes where humans may not be the top of the food chain. There is nothing saying that millions or even billions of people can't live there, their lives are just brutal.

The fact that Fenris has no cities and everyone lives in what are basically nomadic villages and tribes tells me the population is low. Its tectonic instability makes it difficult to produce food, which also adds to keeping the population low, and the people of one village regularly raid and kill the people from another is yet another aspect of Fenrisian life that keeps the population down.

 Iron_Captain wrote:
Also, the Ecclesiarchy decided to withdraw, which must have meant that they were losing the fight.

Not necessarily. It could have been a stalemate, in that the Wolves couldn't damage the Sisters enough to get rid of them and the Sisters couldn't beat the Wolves. This seems to be what the text implies, as the Sisters aren't said to be forced to withdraw, the Ecclesiarchy just decides to. No reference is made to the SoB losing or doing badly against the Wolves.

 BrotherHaraldus wrote:
How can that not be a win for SW and a loss for SoB?

Well, it was a draw in the sense that the Wolves didn't actually overcome or drive away the Sisters, they were just withdrawn by the Ecclesiarchy.

 easysauce wrote:

they took three ordos, which wasnt enough to kill the SW's single chapter, and each ordos is basically the "chapter" of the SOB, and if someone would like to go into more detail about the actual #'s involved in a SOB ordos, I would love to hear about how many troops ect are in each.

Firstly, there's Major Orders. There's six of them, and they are the main ones. These can number from 4000 to 7000 Sisters, depending on casaulties and recruitment numbers. Then you've got Minor Orders. All of these are detatchments that have split off from a Major Order to guard a specific area, and it's unknown how many Minor Orders exist in total. They can number 100 to 1000 Sisters, depending on how many Sisters originally split off (and of course their own casualties and recruitment numbers).

 easysauce wrote:
much more likely, is that they simply were not prepared for what they faced, as underestimating an enemy is one of the most common and reapeated mistakes in warfare, and the SOB dont get a free pass in this case.

Possibly the case. Obviously the Sisters had a tough fight on their hands. What one should note, though, is that the Ecclesiarchy were the ones to decide to withdraw, possibly not wanting to waste their SoBs in a protracted, avoidable conflict. Had the decision stayed with the Sisters. they probably would've happily kept on fighting the Wolves.

 Troike wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:
Also, the Ecclesiarchy decided to withdraw, which must have meant that they were losing the fight.

Not necessarily. It could have been a stalemate, in that the Wolves couldn't damage the Sisters enough to get rid of them and the Sisters couldn't beat the Wolves. This seems to be what the text implies, as the Sisters aren't said to be forced to withdraw, the Ecclesiarchy just decides to. No reference is made to the SoB losing or doing badly against the Wolves.

In the case of a siege, that means that the defender won. In a siege the attacking side's objective is to take the enemy stronghold. Any other outcome results in a loss for the attacker, as the defender's only objective is to prevent the attacker from accomplishing their objectives. The SW accomplished this objective, which means that they won.

^ That.

 Iron_Captain wrote:
In the case of a siege, that means that the defender won. In a siege the attacking side's objective is to take the enemy stronghold.

Note that I never claimed otherwise. The only point I've made that neither bested the other in combat. The Wolves didn't slaughter the Sisters, nor vice versa.

 liquidjoshi wrote:

But your canon can be what it wants. For instance, in my canon they're on the brink of being hunted down.

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

This is such a weird debate. All the charges against the Space Wolves are as fictional as the "plot armor" that defends them. GW makes it up as they go. History can be changed in the next BRB or in the next Codex... and it has been. I haven't read any of the novels, but I'm under the impression that some of them even contradict each other, to say nothing of contradicting Codices. I don't get the impression that the novelists are even communicating with each other about what's in their stories, much less how their stories might effect the metagame, which, yes, leads to writing stories, that, in the reality of the 40k universe, likely would lead to an Exterminatus against Fenris. They clearly don't have a structured outline. I'm pretty sure they don't even have that many rules about what they can or can't do in the books. Which leads to situations like this thread. I'm sorry, but you can't treat it like there's a coherent causality going on until or unless GW and their writers create a coherent causality, which hasn't happened yet.

The only specific issue where I'll weigh in is the mutation. The Emperor used his own genetic code for the basis of the Primarchs. He also worked directly on the project to create them. The Wulfen issue comes from Russ's gene seed. Anyone who claims that it's ~flawed~ is questioning the infallibility of the Emperor, so trying to take action on it could seriously be considered heresy. On the other hand, if the Emperor intended the Primarch and his Legion to have all the qualities we see in the Space Wolves, then the IoM can't very well lay waste to them for being exactly as the Emperor intended, because that would also be heresy. If we're looking at the 40k universe as a reality, then one commits heresy, either way, if they make an issue of Space Wolves and mutation.

What the Emperor did or did not intend is not known in M41.

After all, half his sons turned to Chaos and betrayed him. Was that intended in their design, too?

 Psienesis wrote:
What the Emperor did or did not intend is not known in M41.

That's actually what I was saying. Short of Logan ("He's got 'grim' RIGHT IN HIS NAME!") Grimnar rounding up the troops and attacking Terra, there's no way of knowing if they're doing what the Emperor intended or not. Which seems to be at least part of the reason there's no Exterminatus called against Fenris.

Haha some times it seems everyone dislikes spacewolves.
Honestly kind of makes me want to pick them up just cause i know i wouldnt see to many other people with them. But if i were going to play space marines it have to be BA

 Rotary wrote:
Haha some times it seems everyone dislikes spacewolves.
Honestly kind of makes me want to pick them up just cause i know i wouldnt see to many other people with them. But if i were going to play space marines it have to be BA

Actually given how long they have been around and how well they sell, I'd say there are a great number more people who like them than who dislike them. Its just much easier to voice your dislike on a community board.

It is indeed true that the voices of dissent speak the loudest.

Bran Dawri wrote:
The Ecclesiarchy only pulled out because their attack wasn't making any real progress. At no point did the Ecclesiarchy feel that they should stop due to the Astartes Chapter they were fighting happening to be a First Founding one.

TeeHee! you said pull out!

 Jayden63 wrote:

 Rotary wrote:
Haha some times it seems everyone dislikes spacewolves.
Honestly kind of makes me want to pick them up just cause i know i wouldnt see to many other people with them. But if i were going to play space marines it have to be BA

Actually given how long they have been around and how well they sell, I'd say there are a great number more people who like them than who dislike them. Its just much easier to voice your dislike on a community board.

Well it doesn't help that Wolves seem to usually be SM+++

The wolves were bread to destroy other space marine chapters. (Useful to have) Their loyalty to mankind - and to mankind alone - is legendary. (Even if their loyalty to the High Lords of Terra is a bit - questionable.) They honour their debts, they always respond when asked for help, they put in work and get the job done. Get it done with style. Plus, they handle their own problems.

They've been around since the dawn of the Imperium and are loved and feared by all. I'm sure the high lords of Terra are willing to overlook a few indiscretions based on 10,000 years of service and success.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, as a sisters player I do enjoy the wolves killing all the 'corrupt' inquisition and their henchmen and then giving the Sisters the option to leave or start a fight.

Sisters know a good thing when they see it.

 Omegus wrote:
Except it's established that anyone not of Fenris (I.e. Not related to original gene-tailored settlers) that receives the Canix mutates immediately.
It's just yet another stupid thing about Wolves. Despite being on a death world, they somehow maintain a fleet 8x that of the average chapter, and they are all mad skilled despite being superstitious savages, and routinely spank Segmentum battle groups.

Space Wolves are basically the rule of cool as decided by a horny 12-year-old who just took a hit of angel dust.

Thtat makes no sense at all seeing as the original spacewolves where recrtuited from Terra before finding Fenris and Russ during the Crusade.

And even after that there may have still been some recruitment from Terra i am basing this of Torguns comment in the scars miniseries.