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Now, before I get torn to pieces by the inevitable nerdrage let me explain.

In the fluff its stated that there are approx 1,000 chapters of marines. Each chapter operates basically the same way - i.e. they have 4x battle companies that are (or can be) deployed independently with support from elements of the veteran, reserve and scout companies together with support from the armoury, apothecarion, librarius etc. Given that some marines from each chapter will be serving as crew on the ships, others on their homeworld training new recruits, some will be recovering from injuries, etc, etc its fair to say that under most circumstances no chapter could ever support more than 4 deployments at once.

This means that there are a maximum of 4,000 SM deployments in the galaxy at any one time.

Now, compare this to the size of the galaxy. There are 200 billion stars in the milky way. Assume that the vast majority have no planets (or at least no planets that you could do anything to/with). The most conservative estimates would indicate that at least 1% of stars should have something in orbit, and lets say only 1% of those have viable real estate. That still leaves 20 million star systems.
Cut out the ones under alien/chaos/renegade control (say 75% worst case) and you've still got 5 million Imperial systems.

So even with the most conservative figures and ignoring Imperium propaganda about billions of worlds. Assuming pretty much a worst-case scenario that 3/4 of all worlds are outside imperial control and you still have only one marine deployment (of no more than a couple of hundred marines) for every 12,500 star systems.

Is it just me or is there no way that with only a thousand chapters you could ever get anything useful out of marines?

I think this is quite an interesting point however I believe that this is exactly right. A lot of fiction and other fluff suggests that most people in the galaxy have never seen a spacemarine however because they are GW posterboys then they are plyed a lot in the game. I think this is a classic instance of the game and the fluff not corresponding. If it did normal SM would have the same statlines as a Carnifex but with higher I and LD.

The Drake equation states that:


where:

N = the number of civilizations in our galaxy with which communication might be possible;
and

R* = the average rate of star formation per year in our galaxy
fp = the fraction of those stars that have planets
ne = the average number of planets that can potentially support life per star that has planets
fℓ = the fraction of the above that actually go on to develop life at some point
fi = the fraction of the above that actually go on to develop intelligent life
fc = the fraction of civilizations that develop a technology that releases detectable signs of their existence into space
L = the length of time such civilizations release detectable signals into space.[3]

Drake's values give N = 10 × 0.5 × 2 × 1 × 0.01 × 0.01 × 10,000 = 10.

That means that in the milky way they assume that only 10 planets in the whole gallaxy would have intellegent life advanced enough to make communication. Even less of a chance if they where more advanced that current humans.

This means nothing to us in warhammer but i thought it was something you may be looking for to help out.

Umm as far as i'm aware most of the companies in a chapter (battle or reserve) are on duty across the galaxy. Which means out of a possible deployment of 100000 marines normally there could be anything up to 80000 marines on active patrol through the galaxy.

That 's a lot of marines

Ed_Bodger wrote:I think this is quite an interesting point however I believe that this is exactly right. A lot of fiction and other fluff suggests that most people in the galaxy have never seen a spacemarine however because they are GW posterboys then they are plyed a lot in the game. I think this is a classic instance of the game and the fluff not corresponding. If it did normal SM would have the same statlines as a Carnifex but with higher I and LD.

I have got to agree with you, Ed. The game as is does not correspond to the more, historical fluff, especially where the Imperium is concerned.

GW in the Kirby era have no need of fluff and it seems GW is reluctant to accept anything written as canon especially if it interferes with a sale.

The usual estimate for worlds in the Imperium is about a million.

Yeah, it's pretty obvious that Space Marines are a tiny fraction of the Imperium's fighting force. They're still worth it for the Imperium to keep around because they are very good when they do show up and they tend to show up where they're most needed. Guard fight the vast majority of battles, but the battles that get books written about them involve marines and those marines will usually be seen as saving the day.

There's also some question about how many active war zones there are at any given time. Most of the Imperium is at peace most of the time.

Dysturbed wrote:The Drake equation states that:


where:

N = the number of civilizations in our galaxy with which communication might be possible;
and

R* = the average rate of star formation per year in our galaxy
fp = the fraction of those stars that have planets
ne = the average number of planets that can potentially support life per star that has planets
fℓ = the fraction of the above that actually go on to develop life at some point
fi = the fraction of the above that actually go on to develop intelligent life
fc = the fraction of civilizations that develop a technology that releases detectable signs of their existence into space
L = the length of time such civilizations release detectable signals into space.[3]

Drake's values give N = 10 × 0.5 × 2 × 1 × 0.01 × 0.01 × 10,000 = 10.

That means that in the milky way they assume that only 10 planets in the whole gallaxy would have intellegent life advanced enough to make communication. Even less of a chance if they where more advanced that current humans.

This means nothing to us in warhammer but i thought it was something you may be looking for to help out.

The weakness of the Drake equation is that it gives us the chances of discovering life on other planets, independent to us. One of the reasons why the imperium is the imperium is because a lot of those people we put there from Terra thousands of years prior to the game era. That increases the odds. Also, Drake did estimate some of those values without any real justification or evidence.

I'm familiar with the Drake equation (I studied Astrophysics at Uni) but I was aiming more for numbers based on the fluff. Thanks anyway

Comments like 'in an Empire of a billion worlds, what does one world matter in the cause of purity?' have cropped up occasionally in the fluff. This would give a ratio of 1 chapter per million worlds but even assuming that this is hyperbole, the basic point still remains that the Astartes are spread far too thin to have much meaningful effect (especially when you consider that warzones such as Armageddon, Cadia, etc can suck entire chapters into their defence).

They will always do well at a local level, but given the size of the Imperium, you'ld need 10 or 100 times as many to make a real difference overall

Ed_Bodger wrote:I think this is quite an interesting point however I believe that this is exactly right. A lot of fiction and other fluff suggests that most people in the galaxy have never seen a spacemarine however because they are GW posterboys then they are plyed a lot in the game.

That's one way of looking at it. I tend to see it more as the game is about the battles fought in the name of the Imperium, and obviously the Space marines are going to feature prominently in that context.

Chimera_Calvin wrote:
Comments like 'in an Empire of a billion worlds, what does one world matter in the cause of purity?' have cropped up occasionally in the fluff. This would give a ratio of 1 chapter per million worlds but even assuming that this is hyperbole, the basic point still remains that the Astartes are spread far too thin to have much meaningful effect (especially when you consider that warzones such as Armageddon, Cadia, etc can suck entire chapters into their defence).

They will always do well at a local level, but given the size of the Imperium, you'ld need 10 or 100 times as many to make a real difference overall

I think a lot of it is hyperbole.

If I recall my fluff reading correctly they are spread pretty thin, and it's always a pretty big deal when they show up. That's how they let you know that Cadia and Armageddon are so important, given the amount of Space Marines that are needed to keep them secure.

I think this is where the IG come in though, as they will be fighting in every warzone.

There is also the fact that for every world under attack, there must be tens if not hundreds sitting there at peace.

But that is not grimdark enough for the GW fluff, so they only focus on the worlds that are constantly under attack, or the worlds in the path of Tyranid invasions, or Tomb Worlds, etc

Thus, while there may only be one SM for every 1,000 worlds (or whatever), there are only 1 in 1000 worlds which are at war, and only 1 in 100 of them will require a force as strong as the SM to attend it, meaning they will be stretched, but not utterly overwhelmed.

SilverMK2 wrote:
Thus, while there may only be one SM for every 1,000 worlds (or whatever), there are only 1 in 1000 worlds which are at war, and only 1 in 100 of them will require a force as strong as the SM to attend it, meaning they will be stretched, but not utterly overwhelmed.

seconded

1.000.000 space marines

100.000.000 guardsmen

Imperial navy Fleets

Titan Legios
+skitarii

some SoB

Maybe the focus is on the IG and not at SM in the majority of wars, therfore the IG suck up the casualties and fight the prolonged wars to keep the marines free to do the decisive strikes?

If in doubt, refer to BL fluff, then Space marines will have the appropriate numbers....
Examples:
-Salamander : 1 company kills a waagh of millions of orks.
-Sons of Dorn: 3 squads of scouts beat 2000 traitor IG ( and a squad of noisemarines )
-Brothers of the snake: 1 space marine fends off a DE invasion singlehandedly

Its all about perspective.

That the other thing. Just because the are 4 deployable Battle Companies, doesn't mean that a chapter will deploy a entire company to deal with a situation. Often a squad or so will do. The Raven Guard especially are known to do this, deploying a few scouts in order assassinate/demolish critical enemy assets, in order to cripple the enemy.

I look at it something like this:

First of all, the Space Marines are not an army, they are a special forces unit. They obviously are not designed for open battles and defense.
It is usually stated that there are around 1 million worlds.

Now the vast majority of those worlds are barely worth fighting over. Feudal worlds, agri worlds, etc.

When fighting DOES happen, likely over 90% of the battles are in space. Whoever establishes space superiority is going to have a massive advantage, and once space superiority is established the guard can handle cleanup. If space superiority is not established, it is usually suicide to invade.

Now we have a small fraction of battles where ground operations are necessary, orbital bombardment is either undesirable or for some reason unavailable, and a black ops mission is desirable.

This is where space marines come in. Blast in like angels of death, complete a mission (disabling shields/infastructure, assassinating targets, creating havoc in a gunline, blowing up a damn, etc.) and get out. Their job isn't to fight, it is to complete an objective. And they are very, VERY good at that.

Saying that they can't be effective because there is less than 1 marine per world is like saying SEALS aren't effective because there is less that 1 SEAL per city. SEALs don't capture cities, they make it possible for others to do so, and the same is true of the marines. And despite what the fluff implies, not all 1 million+ worlds are at war at any given time. And even dispatching an entire company is likely rare. The 40k game just recreates a very small niche of battles, and since that is all we see, it is blown out of proportion.

riplikash is right. If you look at the Siege of Vraks trilogy, one of the best recounts of a prolonged battle as would be had on heavily contested worlds, there are millions of guardsmen and a handful of space marines. Going by memory here, but I think there were two or three deployments in the 10+ year campaign.

The Dark Angels sent a small strike force to destroy the space port that the defending rebels were using to get reinforcements. A straightforward special ops mission with a single objective. Granted, it didn't go quite as smoothly as hoped but they weren't exactly expecting an ambush by the Alpha Legion.

There was a small strike force several years later to help make and secure the breach in the curtain wall of the fortress long enough for the guard to establish a foothold. Several hours on the ground tops, and I think there were about 2 tactical squads, a handful of terminators and a dreadnought (or was it two?).

Not sure if it was the same time, but in the final days of the war there was a strike team led to wipe out the Alpha Legion coordinating the final defences and cut off leadership. Those sent were possibly overkill but they were one of the DA successor chapters out for revenge after the disastrous attack years before (they took heavy losses completing the mission) and to capture Arkos, leader of the AL force, because he had information about some Fallen. Arkos may have found attempting to finish yourself off after being defeated works better when the enemy's apothecary is working to keep you alive, just so you can be dragged off and tortured.


I'd need to reread the books to see how many SM were deployed and what they were doing, but it would be under 70 over at least a decade on a world that was incredibly heavily defended and reasonably important to the defence of the Cadian gate. As the Cadia is certainly in the top ten worlds that need defending at all costs, it shows how scantly SM are actually used.

Yes.

Now the impierium could definitly use more space marines, but a chapter is difficult to create and 1,000 chapters is about all that can be maintained at one time.

A new chapter requires about 100 marines from a previously existing chapter, a decent stock pile of weapons and armor(100 suits of PA, 10 suits of TDA, 10 rhinos, 1 LR, 2 Predators, 5 Thunderhawks, 2 Strike Cruisers, 100 bolters, 10 storm bolters, 5 flamers/heavy bolters/missile launchers, Beer, chips, and a really big plasma TV, well you get the idea)

Many chapter have small forges devoted to producing the equipment required by them. also 2ish feral worlds for recruiting from.

a new chapter could take 30 years to get to a size(about 300 marines) where it can begin helping in the eternal war.

The SMs are not limited by their numbers as much as by their specialist logistics.

SM equipment is different to the vast majority of Imperial forces, and requires support in terms of ammo, spares, medical care and so on. A single squad could not move too far away from its parent company which is the basic logistic unit, because of the problems of communication and supply. Just for a start, any squad which operated away from an apothecary would be potential for a serious loss of geneseed.

It seems unlikely a chapter could spread itself over more than a few solar systems, possibly one company per system, much like the way the Ultramarines are set up.

There are THOUSANDS of Black Templars (8-10 thousand from some sources). And they are all deployed. And the Space Wolves have 12 companies, all of which can be deployed so its more like 4010 Deployments, making them a much bigger impact on the Imperium at large.


Every little bit helps

I applaud your choice of a drink related avatar.

The solution to the problem is to take SM fluff as propaganda. There actually are zillions of them, and they are better than IG but not invincible supermen. This reflects their on table performance.

The general population do not realise it is propaganda because planet by planet they never see more than a fairly small number of SMs. If a whole chapter arrives on one planet, that's still only one chapter the locals get sight of. They don't communicate with other systems so they never find out that there are loads of chapters on other planets.

riplikash wrote:
Saying that they can't be effective because there is less than 1 marine per world is like saying SEALS aren't effective because there is less that 1 SEAL per city. SEALs don't capture cities, they make it possible for others to do so, and the same is true of the marines. And despite what the fluff implies, not all 1 million+ worlds are at war at any given time. And even dispatching an entire company is likely rare. The 40k game just recreates a very small niche of battles, and since that is all we see, it is blown out of proportion.

It's not helped by much of the artwork showing marines in company strength or greater. It would also be nice to see some artwork that showed them fighting in buildings, streets etc rather than the usual last stand shot with them surrounded on all sides with a flag in the middle.

Kilkrazy wrote:The solution to the problem is to take SM fluff as propaganda.

Equally, you could argue just as effectively that the game's pursuit of Game Balance has resulted in table top stats that bear no relation to the armies they depict so that anyone can use any army against any other army and expect both armies to be even in their chance of success thanks to their relative points values.

If the game represented the background perfectly then some armies would never get used, some wouldn't ever be usuable against certain enemies (due to their position within the galaxy and the fact that some armies or special characters simply didn't exist at the same point in time), tables would need to be ten times bigger, Imperial Guard, Tyranid and Ork armies would require thousands of models and one Space Marine would be as poweful as an entire tactical squad in the current game.

The current Space Marine Codex explains the role of Space Marines quite well, their battles are supposed to last only a few hours, drop podding directly on top of the most strategically important locations, butchering the enemy and moving on. If they get caught in a battle that lasts days or weeks the Space Marines withdraw and let other Imperial Forces sort out the meat-grinder.

For me there are two armies that are woefully under-represented in the game; PDF and Arbites, especially the Arbites. We know that the Arbites are the first line of defence on every single Imperial World, they have the mobile strike capabilities of the Astartes, they have huge armies of Arbitrators and excellent equipment and their stock in trade is the suppression of rebellions, the single most prevalent type of warfare within the Imperium. Is there an Arbites army? No. Is there a PDF army for the game? No. Are these armies on every Imperial world? Yes. Do they fight in every rebellion and invasion? Yes.

The problem isn't the Space Marine background, the real problem is that the vast array of other Imperial Forces that should be in almost every game of Warhammer 40,000 don't even exist as playable armies.

Gogsnik wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:The solution to the problem is to take SM fluff as propaganda.

Equally, you could argue just as effectively that the game's pursuit of Game Balance has resulted in table top stats that bear no relation to the armies they depict so that anyone can use any army against any other army and expect both armies to be even in their chance of success thanks to their relative points values.

If the game represented the background perfectly then some armies would never get used, some wouldn't ever be usuable against certain enemies (due to their position within the galaxy and the fact that some armies or special characters simply didn't exist at the same point in time), tables would need to be ten times bigger, Imperial Guard, Tyranid and Ork armies would require thousands of models and one Space Marine would be as poweful as an entire tactical squad in the current game.

The current Space Marine Codex explains the role of Space Marines quite well, their battles are supposed to last only a few hours, drop podding directly on top of the most strategically important locations, butchering the enemy and moving on. If they get caught in a battle that lasts days or weeks the Space Marines withdraw and let other Imperial Forces sort out the meat-grinder.

For me there are two armies that are woefully under-represented in the game; PDF and Arbites, especially the Arbites. We know that the Arbites are the first line of defence on every single Imperial World, they have the mobile strike capabilities of the Astartes, they have huge armies of Arbitrators and excellent equipment and their stock in trade is the suppression of rebellions, the single most prevalent type of warfare within the Imperium. Is there an Arbites army? No. Is there a PDF army for the game? No. Are these armies on every Imperial world? Yes. Do they fight in every rebellion and invasion? Yes.

The problem isn't the Space Marine background, the real problem is that the vast array of other Imperial Forces that should be in almost every game of Warhammer 40,000 don't even exist as playable armies.

There is truth in what you say.

My point was that you couldn't send a battle barge 200 light years with a single drop pod on board just because a single squad of marines is so awesome that it will tip the balance in a campaign.

Kilkrazy wrote:
My point was that you couldn't send a battle barge 200 light years with a single drop pod on board just because a single squad of marines is so awesome that it will tip the balance in a campaign.

Too bad those deathwatch killteams and grey knight squads doesn't consist of numerous forces, instead ARE often just a single squad..

I think youre missing the point of : Marines => missions / Guardsmen => campaigns

And you can't deny the awesomeness of the adeptus astartes

Kilkrazy wrote:
My point was that you couldn't send a battle barge 200 light years with a single drop pod on board just because a single squad of marines is so awesome that it will tip the balance in a campaign.

Kilkrazy wrote:

My point was that you couldn't send a battle barge 200 light years with a single drop pod on board just because a single squad of marines is so awesome that it will tip the balance in a campaign.

But battle barges are not space marines only, or even primary, transport. Just the biggest and most famous. They also have cruisers and frigates.

Additionally the fluff seems to indicate most of the chapter gets shipped around on other imperial ships. Imperial fleets and rogue traders are known to give passage, ad mech explorator fleets, and even run of the mill merchant fleets. Battle barges would be overkill for most situations.

Inquisitor Lord Bane wrote:There are THOUSANDS of Black Templars (8-10 thousand from some sources). And they are all deployed. And the Space Wolves have 12 companies, all of which can be deployed so its more like 4010 Deployments, making them a much bigger impact on the Imperium at large.


Every little bit helps

LOLWUT!? Black Templar have roughly 3,000 marines, period. About 300 of those, AT LEAST, are also stationed on planets they just conquered in order to watch over them. Your estimate is incredibly wrong by that assumption.

Kilkrazy wrote:My point was that you couldn't send a battle barge 200 light years with a single drop pod on board just because a single squad of marines is so awesome that it will tip the balance in a campaign.

If a single squad of Marines would tip the balance in a campaign then it follows that it would be essential to get those Marines to that campaign.

Anyway, the whole raison d'être of the Astartes is to act as a mobile strike force that can go anywhere, anytime. Obviously those closest to a call for assisstance will be the ones to respond but feasibly any Chapter could and would send Marines to any battle anywhere in the galaxy where the presence of Astartes was either requested or needed.

well it says to be a sm you have to be a hero on your own world and out of 100 planatary heros only 1 gets to be a scout and only one out of 50 scouts get to be and sm.

so an individual sm should have the same stat line as a ctan.

I think the point that Space Marines are special forces that focus on a specific missions has been well made. What you have to keep in mind though is that the majority of Black Library books aren't representative of your average Space Marine. They're stories about the greatest heroes of the greatest chapters of the greatest Imperial soldiers at their finest moments. The greatest of the greatest of the greatest at their best. That isn't representative.

If you're looking for cold, hard numbers we can repeatedly see '1 Space Marine = 10 regular soldiers' in the background. The current Space Marine codex and the 5ed Rulebook both have this exact numerical comparison I believe (it might've been the 4ed rulebook, I'm at work and can't check). The greatest-of-the-greatest-etc, 1 Space Marine > 1000 Dark Eldar stories are outliers (not to mention possibly Imperial propaganda!).

I'd say then that the tabletop is relatively representative of an average Space Marine's power. It's just that Black Library don't write stories about all the Space Marines who died on turn 1 because their plasmagun exploded or a grot got a lucky shot off. Play a thousand games, and some of those games will look like the cheesiest, Matt Wardiest fluff written, if due to nothing but statistical probability.

Lorgar's_Blessed wrote:
Black Templar have roughly 3,000 marines, period. About 300 of those, AT LEAST, are also stationed on planets they just conquered in order to watch over them. Your estimate is incredibly wrong by that assumption.

The 8-10k may be incorrect ( but still NOBODY except the BT themselves know their real numbers ),
but youre 3k are incorrect for sure cause codex black templars says something about estimated 6000 BT's.

SM can be the awesome sauce but it has been said, they are special forces. You don't need more than a combat squad for most distress calls.

I think I read somewhere that Lord Solaris took 1000 worlds in his crusade with only/majority guardsmen in something like 7 years...Space marines couldn't do that with so few numbers but when they hit you, you'll know you've been hit!