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Dark eldar DEFO outnumber the Craftoworlders and possibly including exodites in that figure. They only occasionally bother with realspace raids. You are forgetting that Dark Eldar are not Remotely Expansionist. Even the eldar move from system to system attempting to reclaim the odd maiden world. The Dark eldar are simply happy to remain in Commarragh, occasionally building more bits/slaving more stars.. I'd say orks are the highest by quite a number becuase of their reproduction cycle. Then humanity by perhaps a factor of 1:50.

Remember, the scale of this game is F**KING HUGE. A trillion DE makes sense, when compared to a quadrillion humans and a quintillion orcs.

1hadhq wrote:
Physical size of a settlement isn't so important, population density is.
DE as predatory race, would act territorial and I am sure the moment you put some DE unwatched into a room there may just 1 leave the room afterwards...
Examples of imperial hives:
BRB,p115 MineA ( creative as GW is, specialising on mining...)
- population : 154.000.000.000
- Garrison : 2.000.000
- recrutement per year: 1.250.000
- so not-so-well defended but lots of workers...

BRB, p117, Macragge:
- population: 400.000.000
- obviously no data for garrison/recrutement
- as raw-model of a well run world, doesn't the medium population density hint at some variety?

BRB, p138 Imperial Army;
- Coronis Agathon/ Hive world
- population: 120.000.000.000
- garrison: 10.000.000
- points at a low recrutement rate, again. But maybe the workforce of hiveworlds is too important to be lessened by recruting their most capable youth?
- otoh, a garrison just has to delay until the imperium answers in force...

Are you sure you've got those zeros right? So Magragge has only one hundred million more residents than the current US, a country that covers only 6% of the land on Earth?

Sir Pseudonymous wrote:
it's the entire, fragmented race. We're just talking about an extremely large scale here.

And I still think you've got the scale wrong.

We're talking about a setting spanning the greater part of the Milky Way, a galaxy with an estimated 100 billion stars, 50 billion planets, and 500 million potentially habitable/terraformable planets. The Imperium occupies .2% of those theoretically habitable planets, and has a population in the quadrillions (thousands of trillions). The Eldar are split into three (well, four, but the fourth (the Harlequins) are a bit stranger) populations: the Dark Eldar, with their massive webway city, comprised of all the surviving Old Eldar Empire port cities; the Craftworlders, with their dozen or so planet sized worldships; and the Exodites, scattered savages that live in a self-imposed stone age.

Sir Pseudonymous wrote:. Single Imperial worlds can break one trillion, and at least one is alleged to have a population in the tens of trillions (Terra). Shall the thriving, ever expanding webway cities, and more than half a dozen moon sized ships number less than what fits in a thin layer upon the surface of a single planet?

As much as I am willing to run with your american way to name it, numbers instead of names may sometimes help.
Terra itself, has sources claiming just 10.000.000.000 inhabitants, now that may not include pilgrims and the defense force.
But it isn't that much if you look at GW's datasheets for planets like the one of Minea.

Long strings of zeros are annoying and difficult to read.

Fact is, eldar are less numerous than humans. They live longer, some fo the DE till the Fall!, and breed slower.

Right, there are some 1000 humans to every Eldar. That still leaves you with trillions of them...

Did the DE lose their whole 'upper class' when the Salamanders attacked?
Seems they don't have the numbers to drown an attacker in DE bodies.

The noble houses that were on top then suffered heavy casualties when three chapters landed on top of them, who lost every ship but the one they came to rescue, and suffered heavy casualties, despite their magical Mary-Sue plot armor.

Did the DE fight for weeks when a waagh made it into commoragh?
Seems the DE don't have such numerous forces to deal with some orks.

The Orks weren't perceived as a threat, and so everyone spent more time trying to exploit the situation rather than focusing on the orks, who just sort of milled about burning things until the survivors were all rounded up and sold to the nearby arenas, who slaughtered them all over the course of two weeks.

IMO, the codex is clear how the realm of commoragh is to be seen.
But this isn't a teeming realm of trillions of DE.
There is nothing to draw halfway exact numbers from.
Fleets? Size of arenas? Size of cabals? How many Cabals are there?

Like I said, extrapolation based on the size descriptors of the city, and what they manage to accomplish.

Guessing from the Fluff of DE raids, they should be able to outsmart and outmaneuvre the unwary and claim their prize without suffering too many casualties.
But, since they have to keep casualties low, its safe to assume they don't have unlimited ressources and a nearly fully mobilised race like eldars should run a rate of more than 70% combatants.

Or they just don't like wasting their resources, considering raiding a planet and seizing every man, woman, and child from it is just a little entertainment for them, I can't imagine they'd want to take too much risk just for a laugh.

Sir Pseudonymous wrote:
Are you sure you've got those zeros right? So Magragge has only one hundred million more residents than the current US, a country that covers only 6% of the land on Earth?

He is right, check here: http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Macragge



Automatically Appended Next Post:

Sir Pseudonymous wrote:
We're talking about a setting spanning the greater part of the Milky Way, a galaxy with an estimated 100 billion stars, 50 billion planets, and 500 million potentially habitable/terraformable planets. The Imperium occupies .2% of those theoretically habitable planets, and has a population in the quadrillions (thousands of trillions). The Eldar are split into three (well, four, but the fourth (the Harlequins) are a bit stranger) populations: the Dark Eldar, with their massive webway city, comprised of all the surviving Old Eldar Empire port cities; the Craftworlders, with their dozen or so planet sized worldships; and the Exodites, scattered savages that live in a self-imposed stone age.

Actually newer studies shows that our galaxy has 400-500 billion stars and average of 10 planets per star. One in 20-30 planets can support life. And we don't know for sure how many planets Imperium has, we only know that is has over 1.000.000 planets and that is all.

Sir Pseudonymos wrote:
Right, there are some 1000 humans to every Eldar. That still leaves you with trillions of them...

Ahhh.... no. Codex and fluff say that the Eldar are dying race. And that makes them in millions maybe even few billions - not more. Let me compare: Eldar are like Humanity today, Humanity is like ants today.

Sir Pseudonymos wrote:
Or they just don't like wasting their resources, considering raiding a planet and seizing every man, woman, and child from it is just a little entertainment for them, I can't imagine they'd want to take too much risk just for a laugh.

And I may imagine for them raiding some out-world colony planet with few hundreds of thousands settlers. But raiding a Imperial planet with millions inhabitants is quite a challenge, especially if the planet have good organised PDF or Space Marine chapter buildings...

Brother Coa wrote:
Ahhh.... no. Codex and fluff say that the Eldar are dying race. And that makes them in millions maybe even few billions - not more. Let me compare: Eldar are like Humanity today, Humanity is like ants today.

What part of 'dying race' says they're in those numbers?

If they were numbered in only millions, the entire Craftworld population would be manning the BFG fleet.

A million or even a billion is a small number for one craftworld, considering the size of the things; they're populated through the volume, not surface and range from the size of the moon (small) to larger than the Earth.

Brother Coa wrote:

Sir Pseudonymous wrote:
Are you sure you've got those zeros right? So Magragge has only one hundred million more residents than the current US, a country that covers only 6% of the land on Earth?

He is right, check here: http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Macragge

Sci Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale.

Sir Pseudonymous wrote:
We're talking about a setting spanning the greater part of the Milky Way, a galaxy with an estimated 100 billion stars, 50 billion planets, and 500 million potentially habitable/terraformable planets. The Imperium occupies .2% of those theoretically habitable planets, and has a population in the quadrillions (thousands of trillions). The Eldar are split into three (well, four, but the fourth (the Harlequins) are a bit stranger) populations: the Dark Eldar, with their massive webway city, comprised of all the surviving Old Eldar Empire port cities; the Craftworlders, with their dozen or so planet sized worldships; and the Exodites, scattered savages that live in a self-imposed stone age.

Actually newer studies shows that our galaxy has 400-500 billion stars and average of 10 planets per star. One in 20-30 planets can support life. And we don't know for sure how many planets Imperium has, we only know that is has over 1.000.000 planets and that is all.

I'm just going off wikipedia, though that would make the scale even larger, just further proving my point...

Sir Pseudonymos wrote:
Right, there are some 1000 humans to every Eldar. That still leaves you with trillions of them...

Ahhh.... no. Codex and fluff say that the Eldar are dying race. And that makes them in millions maybe even few billions - not more. Let me compare: Eldar are like Humanity today, Humanity is like ants today.

The Craftworld codex says that, which fits well with their pasttime of angstily angsting angst all over the place, instead of trying to recover from the fall (and even there, have more than half a dozen planet sized worldships, populated throughout). I don't recall any mention of that from the DE codex.

Sir Pseudonymos wrote:
Or they just don't like wasting their resources, considering raiding a planet and seizing every man, woman, and child from it is just a little entertainment for them, I can't imagine they'd want to take too much risk just for a laugh.

And I may imagine for them raiding some out-world colony planet with few hundreds of thousands settlers. But raiding a Imperial planet with millions inhabitants is quite a challenge, especially if the planet have good organised PDF or Space Marine chapter buildings...

A far flung colony world would have millions, not hundreds of thousands. A Hiveworld would have hundreds of billions. Agriworlds probably somewhere in the hundreds of millions to low billions. Space Marine outsposts would have a few dozen to a few hundred soldiers, who would only emerge victorious against the thousands to one odds through virtue of their magical Mary-Sue plot armor of terrible writing...

Daba wrote:

Brother Coa wrote:
Ahhh.... no. Codex and fluff say that the Eldar are dying race. And that makes them in millions maybe even few billions - not more. Let me compare: Eldar are like Humanity today, Humanity is like ants today.

What part of 'dying race' says they're in those numbers?

If they were numbered in only millions, the entire Craftworld population would be manning the BFG fleet.

A million or even a billion is a small number for one craftworld, considering the size of the things; they're populated through the volume, not surface and range from the size of the moon (small) to larger than the Earth.

They how the hell can be a dying race? What, they stop having sex?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Sir Pseudonymous wrote:Sci Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale.

Very true

Sir Pseudonymos wrote:The Craftworld codex says that, which fits well with their pasttime of angstily angsting angst all over the place, instead of trying to recover from the fall (and even there, have more than half a dozen planet sized worldships, populated throughout). I don't recall any mention of that from the DE codex.

That is a very stupid for a race that much advanced not to try to survive after the fall.

Sir Pseudonymos wrote:
And I may imagine for them raiding some out-world colony planet with few hundreds of thousands settlers. But raiding a Imperial planet with millions inhabitants is quite a challenge, especially if the planet have good organised PDF or Space Marine chapter buildings...

A far flung colony world would have millions, not hundreds of thousands. A Hiveworld would have hundreds of billions. Agriworlds probably somewhere in the hundreds of millions to low billions. Space Marine outsposts would have a few dozen to a few hundred soldiers, who would only emerge victorious against the thousands to one odds through virtue of their magical Mary-Sue plot armor of terrible writing...

DiscoVader wrote:It depends on your definition of population. If you mean by how we define it normally (a single sentient being counts as one, has to be self aware, etc.) then I'd say it's close between humans and Orks, with Orks ahead by a decent margin. Even though Humanity has a more concentrated population, Orks are far more widespread, and critically can survive environments that would fry, freeze, melt, or otherwise suitably kill a human being, which opens up a LOT more worlds for them to rule/survive on. Not to mention that several sources in the 40k fluff have outright stated that the Orks are the most numerous species originating in the 40k galaxy (note the emphasis on originating, not currently in.)

If we're counting population as anything that's alive at all, then the Tyranids would outstrip every other race, including Orks, hands down. Even taking into account the idea that each basic Gaunt is basically a throwaway suicide soldier/meatshield, you have to remember that every single basic thing in the Tyranid hive fleet is alive. That alone skews the estimates in their favor heavily, especially when you look at maps showing the different tendrils reaching into the galaxy and how insanely huge they are.

There is, however, one race that I'm curious about, and that's Necrons. They're portrayed as rare (or deadly) enough that very few people even know of them, and there's limited amounts of knowledge surrounding them.... but if creatures that literally devour stars decided to create an army of mansized creatures to sweep the galaxy clean, then there must be a hell of a lot of them. But so few tomb worlds have awoken that hard estimates are basically impossible to come by, and the fact that they're basically robots removes any kind of limitation on what areas of the galaxy they can populate - being inorganic pretty much means that anything's fair game. Now, granted, they're not generally seen as the limitless hoard type, seeing as how they can survive nearly anything, but at the same time, it wouldn't surprise me if they happened to have an absolutely staggering amount of troops squirreled away in their hidey-holes, and the only reason no one knows is because they are all asleep.

As far as Necrons go, you have to realize that the only people turned into Necrons were the Necrontyr, and nobody else. The Necrontyr were a dying population when they discovered the C'tan, and were even more so when they were fighting the Old Ones around the time the change occured. There can't be that many Necrons in the universe...that's why they teleport away when enough of them are damaged, although those that are damaged are teleported back as well, and rebuilt, so a Necron also truly never dies...

Sir Pseudonymous wrote:

1hadhq wrote:
BRB,p115

BRB, p117

BRB, p138

Are you sure you've got those zeros right? So Magragge has only one hundred million more residents than the current US, a country that covers only 6% of the land on Earth?

I am sure. Plus these page numbers lead to a GW source, not fan fic.
Why don't you look them up? 5th ed rulebook should be common enough around participants of the 40kbackground forum.

Sir Pseudonymous wrote:
We're talking about a setting spanning the greater part of the Milky Way, a galaxy with an estimated 100 billion stars, 50 billion planets, and 500 million potentially habitable/terraformable planets. The Imperium occupies .2% of those theoretically habitable planets, and has a population in the quadrillions (thousands of trillions).

Again, BRB page 115, estimated number of Hive worlds of the IoM = 3238 x 10 4

hope it reads correctly. Any hint to type it correctly at a standard keyboard welcome

Sir Pseudonymous wrote:. Single Imperial worlds can break one trillion, and at least one is alleged to have a population in the tens of trillions (Terra). Shall the thriving, ever expanding webway cities, and more than half a dozen moon sized ships number less than what fits in a thin layer upon the surface of a single planet?

Proved incorrect in the examples.
There is no planet with a trillion humans upon.

Sir Pseudonymous wrote:
Long strings of zeros are annoying and difficult to read.

Nice excuse .

Sir Pseudonymous wrote:
Right, there are some 1000 humans to every Eldar. That still leaves you with trillions of them...

So without a valid source for the overall number of Humans and Eldar, youre going to put forth a 1:1000 rate?
If thats your mile, mine may vary and therfore counter: 1: 10.000.000

Sir Pseudonymous wrote:
The noble houses that were on top then suffered heavy casualties when three chapters landed on top of them, who lost every ship but the one they came to rescue, and suffered heavy casualties, despite their magical Mary-Sue plot armor.

Too bad codex DE tells us it were not even the whole chapter of Salamanders and those are known to be a rather small chapter.
2 chapters pulled out of thin air?

Sir Pseudonymous wrote:
The Orks weren't perceived as a threat, and so everyone spent more time trying to exploit the situation rather than focusing on the orks, who just sort of milled about burning things until the survivors were all rounded up and sold to the nearby arenas, who slaughtered them all over the course of two weeks.

These dark eldar aren't that bright then, cause everyone knows how orks regrow after beeing slain....
Somehow, great spaces of commoragh look like a dungeoun/ruin, now we know why. The DE don't care, but would such behaviour not point to a almost
uninhabited realm cause I don't think DE wouldn't start caring if their personal quarters are burned.

Sir Pseudonymous wrote:
Or they just don't like wasting their resources, considering raiding a planet and seizing every man, woman, and child from it is just a little entertainment for them, I can't imagine they'd want to take too much risk just for a laugh.

I doubt that. A little entertainment? DE NEED to feed upon the suffering of others, its not a side-effect of a "hobby".
There is too much risk, because they don't have trillions of DE...
See its a neccessity to raid as the next option would be to feed on DE. They prevent the worst with arena-shows, but its still impossible to supply
the workshops and arenas with slaves without collecting new ones regularly. So we get 2 motivations, a) to feed upon, b) to do the boring work.

I don't see why you're so adamant against Macragge having a pop. of 400,000,000.
This may ruin your day but Cadia only has a pop. of 250,000,000.

aren't tyranids a low population as they are only spawned when a hive ship makes contact with a world so the population is dramatically low then steeply rises?

Alphacerberus wrote:aren't tyranids a low population as they are only spawned when a hive ship makes contact with a world so the population is dramatically low then steeply rises?

Sounds about right. Tyranids are harder to judge. In a way, there's only 1 Tyranid.

oh and about the necrons i read somewhere i think it was in dawn of war cut scene actually the eldar mention for every eldar (at peak of their empire) there was about half as many necrons

KamikazeCanuck wrote:I don't see why you're so adamant against Macragge having a pop. of 400,000,000.
This may ruin your day but Cadia only has a pop. of 250,000,000.

Because it's a real wallbanger for an important planet to have a third the population of two separate, actual countries, both still extremely undeveloped as such things go. For Cadia, the planet barring the way out of the Eye of Terror, to have a population less than the modern US, a country that occupies a mere 6% of the land (itself less than a third of the total surface area) on Earth, is even more of one.

The Necron codex itself says that there are hundreds of Tombworlds, each filled with thousands upon thousands of warriors. And while the Necrontyr were losing the war with the Old Ones when the C'tan came, they did not immediately become the Necrons afterwords and instead it took awhile for the transition to become complete, and by that time their already large empire could have only become bigger.

1hadhq wrote:

Sir Pseudonymous wrote:

1hadhq wrote:
BRB,p115

BRB, p117

BRB, p138

Are you sure you've got those zeros right? So Magragge has only one hundred million more residents than the current US, a country that covers only 6% of the land on Earth?

I am sure. Plus these page numbers lead to a GW source, not fan fic.
Why don't you look them up? 5th ed rulebook should be common enough around participants of the 40kbackground forum.

My copy lacks the fluff.

Sir Pseudonymous wrote:
We're talking about a setting spanning the greater part of the Milky Way, a galaxy with an estimated 100 billion stars, 50 billion planets, and 500 million potentially habitable/terraformable planets. The Imperium occupies .2% of those theoretically habitable planets, and has a population in the quadrillions (thousands of trillions).

Again, BRB page 115, estimated number of Hive worlds of the IoM = 3238 x 10 4

hope it reads correctly. Any hint to type it correctly at a standard keyboard welcome

3238*10^4 would be 32 million...

Sir Pseudonymous wrote:
The noble houses that were on top then suffered heavy casualties when three chapters landed on top of them, who lost every ship but the one they came to rescue, and suffered heavy casualties, despite their magical Mary-Sue plot armor.

Too bad codex DE tells us it were not even the whole chapter of Salamanders and those are known to be a rather small chapter.
2 chapters pulled out of thin air?

The Salamanders, Howling Griffons, and the Silver Skulls, with a fleet of 24 cruisers and a battle barge. Not that the battle makes the slightest bit of sense, mostly because of the aforementioned magical mary sue plot armor of terrible writing that never fails to protect Space Marines. Thankfully, the cruisers they brought with them were all destroyed, making the whole thing hilarious (they sacrificed two dozen cruisers to recover one).

Sir Pseudonymous wrote:
The Orks weren't perceived as a threat, and so everyone spent more time trying to exploit the situation rather than focusing on the orks, who just sort of milled about burning things until the survivors were all rounded up and sold to the nearby arenas, who slaughtered them all over the course of two weeks.

These dark eldar aren't that bright then, cause everyone knows how orks regrow after beeing slain....
Somehow, great spaces of commoragh look like a dungeoun/ruin, now we know why. The DE don't care, but would such behaviour not point to a almost
uninhabited realm cause I don't think DE wouldn't start caring if their personal quarters are burned.

1) Orks don't regrow when killed. They shed spores throughout their lives that something or other in the dirt and out pops a new ork, squig, or what have you.
2) They'd care about their own territory, and laugh about their neighbors, while trying to find a way to loot/enslave their embattled neighbor.

Sir Pseudonymous wrote:
Or they just don't like wasting their resources, considering raiding a planet and seizing every man, woman, and child from it is just a little entertainment for them, I can't imagine they'd want to take too much risk just for a laugh.

I doubt that. A little entertainment? DE NEED to feed upon the suffering of others, its not a side-effect of a "hobby".
There is too much risk, because they don't have trillions of DE...
See its a neccessity to raid as the next option would be to feed on DE. They prevent the worst with arena-shows, but its still impossible to supply
the workshops and arenas with slaves without collecting new ones regularly. So we get 2 motivations, a) to feed upon, b) to do the boring work.

The individuals involved do it for entertainment, profit, and prestige. Why would they go and throw their lives away, when they sell their souls to haemonculi to be resurrected if they fall in battle?

KamikazeCanuck wrote:I don't see why you're so adamant against Macragge having a pop. of 400,000,000.
This may ruin your day but Cadia only has a pop. of 250,000,000.

Seconded.

Macragge is perfectly fine with 400.000.000. Because Macragge is still like Earth is now, inhabitable on its surface almost everywhere for basic humans.
Lots of the hive-worlds are barely inhabitable and the Hives are often the only place to live for Humans.

Cadia is believable with 250.000.000. Because its a fortress world. The population equals the Garrison+relatives. Consider the military of earth combined and
add the families. If 1 of ten persons is a soldier and 9 support the soldier, this still leaves Cadia at a active garrison of 25.000.000.

Sir Pseudonymous wrote:
My copy lacks the fluff.

"copy" ?

Somehow get the feeling it may be a good idea to suggest to acquire "original" publications of GW to you.

Sir Pseudonymous wrote:
3238*10^4 would be 32 million...

Would it matter if one of 32 million is lost? Not that much, but still codex DE shows the DE as cautious to not raise the IoM's attention.

Sir Pseudonymous wrote:
The Salamanders, Howling Griffons, and the Silver Skulls, with a fleet of 24 cruisers and a battle barge. Thankfully, the cruisers they brought with them were all destroyed, making the whole thing hilarious (they sacrificed two dozen cruisers to recover one).

Can we get a quote or is your DE source also a "copy without fluff". ?

Lets see....
Correctly A.Vect captured a strike cruiser.
A librarian released a psychic emergency call.
The DE were unable to disable the crew and were pushed back. A.Vect used this attractive target to get rid of those he distrusted.
16 days after the siege of the caught strike cruiser began, the owners of that ship came.
Plus they brought a few friends with.
About 500 SM deepstruck onto the surface of the "city". The DE had to throw hundreds of their specialists at them to drive them back.
When the caught cruiser was freed, the SM teleported away.

So yes, the SM lost half of their ground troops.
But no, there is nothing suggesting they lost a single ship.
Why should they not attack? Didn't it serve well to make a point of "don't steal our ships" ?
Plus the destruction wrought upon commargh's sectors is a bonus... and tons of dead xenos scum and a retrieved strike cruiser may be seen as worth the lives spent.

Now, the real winner was A.Vect obviously and the purpose of the story is to tell his rise to power. It is not a bad story IMO.
Works from a logical standpoint and follows the "Elfish traits" of manipulating others.

Seems you should not thank P.Kelly&co to soon as its rather believable than "hilarious"....

Sir Pseudonymous wrote:
The individuals involved do it for entertainment, profit, and prestige. Why would they go and throw their lives away, when they sell their souls to haemonculi to be resurrected if they fall in battle?

Why should they fear the oh-so inferior races when they can return from death so easily?

I doubt every soul of DE belonging to the haemonculi already.
Looking closely, the entry of the warriors agrees with me.....

The reference provided for Macragge's pop was Codex: Tyranid 3rd edition. Pretty sure that's why you guys are having trouble finding it.

@1hadhq
1/10 Cadians isn't a soldier. 72/100 are. Cadia's low population is from exporting massive amounts of its population.

KamikazeCanuck wrote:The reference provided for Macragge's pop was Codex: Tyranid 3rd edition. Pretty sure that's why you guys are having trouble finding it.

@1hadhq
1/10 Cadians isn't a soldier. 72/100 are. Cadia's low population is from exporting massive amounts of its population.

Tried keeping it as low as possible....but youre right. 75% could be imaginable if every person who is part of the military counts as soldier,
thus including mechanics, cooks, etc...

1hadhq wrote:

KamikazeCanuck wrote:The reference provided for Macragge's pop was Codex: Tyranid 3rd edition. Pretty sure that's why you guys are having trouble finding it.

@1hadhq
1/10 Cadians isn't a soldier. 72/100 are. Cadia's low population is from exporting massive amounts of its population.

Tried keeping it as low as possible....but youre right. 75% could be imaginable if every person who is part of the military counts as soldier,
thus including mechanics, cooks, etc...

It's much more extreme than that. 71.75% of Cadians are Lasgun carrying Guardsmen. 100% of the population is in the military. It's not an easy planet to live on.
Cadians are the kind of people were many, many more of them are off fighting in wars than actually living on the homeworld. That's why the pop. is so low.

Seeing as most Codices literally claim that their respective armies are invincible, I would assume that they are prone to additional exaggeration. You'll also notice that many broad statements about the 40k universe are incredibly ambiguous; I seem to remember a great many references to "manufactoria the size of countries/continents" that most likely refer to megalopoli containing a profusion of industrial complexes.

1hadhq wrote:

KamikazeCanuck wrote:I don't see why you're so adamant against Macragge having a pop. of 400,000,000.
This may ruin your day but Cadia only has a pop. of 250,000,000.

Seconded.

Macragge is perfectly fine with 400.000.000. Because Macragge is still like Earth is now, inhabitable on its surface almost everywhere for basic humans.
Lots of the hive-worlds are barely inhabitable and the Hives are often the only place to live for Humans.

So that's why it has about a third of the population of a country that occupies roughly 6% of the landmass on Earth, or about two fifths of the population of another country that occupies only 2% of the Earth's land?

Cadia is believable with 250.000.000. Because its a fortress world. The population equals the Garrison+relatives. Consider the military of earth combined and
add the families. If 1 of ten persons is a soldier and 9 support the soldier, this still leaves Cadia at a active garrison of 25.000.000.

It's still an entire planet with a population less than the US. That's just absurdly low, especially for a world that's supposed to be the main defense against anything coming out of the Eye of Terror.

Sir Pseudonymous wrote:
My copy lacks the fluff.

"copy" ?

Somehow get the feeling it may be a good idea to suggest to acquire "original" publications of GW to you.

Or I could just spend the $50 on models, instead of rules I know front and back, and fluff I couldn't care less about?

Sir Pseudonymous wrote:
3238*10^4 would be 32 million...

Would it matter if one of 32 million is lost? Not that much, but still codex DE shows the DE as cautious to not raise the IoM's attention.

The numbers elsewhere don't support 32 million hiveworlds...

Sir Pseudonymous wrote:
The Salamanders, Howling Griffons, and the Silver Skulls, with a fleet of 24 cruisers and a battle barge. Thankfully, the cruisers they brought with them were all destroyed, making the whole thing hilarious (they sacrificed two dozen cruisers to recover one).

Can we get a quote or is your DE source also a "copy without fluff". ?

Lets see....
Correctly A.Vect captured a strike cruiser.
A librarian released a psychic emergency call.
The DE were unable to disable the crew and were pushed back. A.Vect used this attractive target to get rid of those he distrusted.
16 days after the siege of the caught strike cruiser began, the owners of that ship came.
Plus they brought a few friends with.
About 500 SM deepstruck onto the surface of the "city". The DE had to throw hundreds of their specialists at them to drive them back.
When the caught cruiser was freed, the SM teleported away.

The 500 that landed were the first wave, they suffered greater than 50% casualties, and then an unknown portion of the survivors managed to escape. The only ships mentioned as leaving are the battle barge and the captured cruiser, so it's safe to assume the filthy mutants lost the two dozen other cruisers they brought, making it all a beautiful pyrrhic victory.

Sir Pseudonymous wrote:
The individuals involved do it for entertainment, profit, and prestige. Why would they go and throw their lives away, when they sell their souls to haemonculi to be resurrected if they fall in battle?

Why should they fear the oh-so inferior races when they can return from death so easily?

I doubt every soul of DE belonging to the haemonculi already.
Looking closely, the entry of the warriors agrees with me.....

When they're willing to go to such lengths as selling their souls to haemonculi to have their bodies repaired and resurrected if they fall in battle, why would they take unnecessary risks? Because of the webway, they can strike almost anywhere in a matter of hours with overwhelming force, seize tens of thousands or millions of people within hours or days, and be gone before anyone realizes what happened. They're not fighting for worlds, or to cripple their enemies, they're harvesting slaves and having a bit of fun on the side.

Sir Pseudonymous wrote:
It's still an entire planet with a population less than the US. That's just absurdly low, especially for a world that's supposed to be the main defense against anything coming out of the Eye of Terror.

As KC said, most of the cadians are able to fight.
Could the US contribute 25.000.000 or 200.000.000 soldiers to fight?
Think about the real numbers when mobilized.
A 40k world may throw more bodies into a fight than your real life US. No matter how hard you try, a sci-fantasy setting isn't limited.
But maybe youre telling me the US is a fortress and you americanos are all members o the imperial guard...

Sir Pseudonymous wrote:
My copy lacks the fluff.

Or I could just spend the $50 on models, instead of rules I know front and back, and fluff I couldn't care less about?

Isn't it pointless to post in the 40kbackground if you don't care for background?

Sir Pseudonymous wrote:

The numbers elsewhere don't support 32 million hiveworlds...

Which numbers? and where?

Sir Pseudonymous wrote:
The 500 that landed were the first wave, they suffered greater than 50% casualties, and then an unknown portion of the survivors managed to escape. The only ships mentioned as leaving are the battle barge and the captured cruiser, so it's safe to assume the filthy mutants lost the two dozen other cruisers they brought, making it all a beautiful pyrrhic victory.

OK so you don't care for "fluff as written" and just read into anything what you like to hear?
Seems there is only one option left:
either correct unaltered quotes , complete with source, or I do call your "interpretations" what they are: pulled out of your ass.

The appropriate paragraphs and lines would do.

But if youre going to keep this path of yours, rest assured the population in the OP has to be doubted as mixing real life and 40k doesn't work and any
extrapolation needs a stable source of data to go from and everything youve provided so far was based on your POV, not a citation of canon fluff.

1hadhq wrote:

Sir Pseudonymous wrote:

The numbers elsewhere don't support 32 million hiveworlds...

Which numbers? and where?

Probably all the fluff that argues that there are only 1 million worlds in the Imperium. Maybe you meant 32 million hives (though that would still be extraordinary).

Sir Pseudonymous wrote:
The 500 that landed were the first wave, they suffered greater than 50% casualties, and then an unknown portion of the survivors managed to escape. The only ships mentioned as leaving are the battle barge and the captured cruiser, so it's safe to assume the filthy mutants lost the two dozen other cruisers they brought, making it all a beautiful pyrrhic victory.

OK so you don't care for "fluff as written" and just read into anything what you like to hear?
Seems there is only one option left:
either correct unaltered quotes , complete with source, or I do call your "interpretations" what they are: pulled out of your ass.

The appropriate paragraphs and lines would do.

But if youre going to keep this path of yours, rest assured the population in the OP has to be doubted as mixing real life and 40k doesn't work and any
extrapolation needs a stable source of data to go from and everything youve provided so far was based on your POV, not a citation of canon fluff.

Regardless of what casualties were suffered, it's obvious that a Single Chapter laid the smack down on Commoragh and severely damaged every power faction except Asdrubael Vect's faction, which siezed control from the other weakened power bases.

Emperors Faithful wrote:

1hadhq wrote:

Sir Pseudonymous wrote:

The numbers elsewhere don't support 32 million hiveworlds...

Which numbers? and where?

Probably all the fluff that argues that there are only 1 million worlds in the Imperium. Maybe you meant 32 million hives (though that would still be extraordinary).

He meant hive worlds with 32 million population.

Klawz wrote:He meant hive worlds with 32 million population.

I'd expect that in a single hive.

I'd expect 32 billion in a single hive.

KamikazeCanuck wrote:I'd expect 32 billion in a single hive.

He's expecting low trillions.
The full quote was the point that Hive Worlds with 32 mil pop is unrealistic.

1hadhq wrote:

Sir Pseudonymous wrote:
It's still an entire planet with a population less than the US. That's just absurdly low, especially for a world that's supposed to be the main defense against anything coming out of the Eye of Terror.

As KC said, most of the cadians are able to fight.
Could the US contribute 25.000.000 or 200.000.000 soldiers to fight?
Think about the real numbers when mobilized.
A 40k world may throw more bodies into a fight than your real life US. No matter how hard you try, a sci-fantasy setting isn't limited.
But maybe youre telling me the US is a fortress and you americanos are all members o the imperial guard...

There's still no getting around the fact that it's an entire planet with a population smaller than an extremely low density country that occupies only 6% of the land on Earth. It's also a fifth of the population of another country that occupies only 2%, and something like a seventh the population of yet another country that occupies around 6%. Whether or not it's "enough" to defend the world or not still doesn't explain why it's so low in the first place. The only thing that explains that is bad writing...

Sir Pseudonymous wrote:

The numbers elsewhere don't support 32 million hiveworlds...

Which numbers? and where?

Reread the first post.

Sir Pseudonymous wrote:
The 500 that landed were the first wave, they suffered greater than 50% casualties, and then an unknown portion of the survivors managed to escape. The only ships mentioned as leaving are the battle barge and the captured cruiser, so it's safe to assume the filthy mutants lost the two dozen other cruisers they brought, making it all a beautiful pyrrhic victory.

OK so you don't care for "fluff as written" and just read into anything what you like to hear?
Seems there is only one option left:
either correct unaltered quotes , complete with source, or I do call your "interpretations" what they are: pulled out of your ass.

The appropriate paragraphs and lines would do.

Pretty much the whole of pages 13 through 15 of the DE codex.

But if youre going to keep this path of yours, rest assured the population in the OP has to be doubted as mixing real life and 40k doesn't work and any
extrapolation needs a stable source of data to go from and everything youve provided so far was based on your POV, not a citation of canon fluff.

Right in the OP I said it was all extrapolation and speculation, even though I'm confident in the numbers. Just like how, from the start, it's been about looking at the fluff using real life data and reason, and finding that the fluff frequently mimics what is reasonable to expect in the circumstances. The occasional wallbanger tries to throw a wrench in the works, but those can be brushed of as bad writing or involving circumstances beyond what's mentioned.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Klawz wrote:

Emperors Faithful wrote:

1hadhq wrote:

Sir Pseudonymous wrote:

The numbers elsewhere don't support 32 million hiveworlds...

Which numbers? and where?

Probably all the fluff that argues that there are only 1 million worlds in the Imperium. Maybe you meant 32 million hives (though that would still be extraordinary).

He meant hive worlds with 32 million population.

The 32 million thing was ostensibly from the BRB as the number of hiveworlds in the Imperium. "Again, BRB page 115, estimated number of Hive worlds of the IoM = 3238 x 10^4"

Which would give a population in the quintillions at the very least. Which would make every other number we have make exactly no sense. So either it's a misquote, or whoever wrote that bit in the BRB makes CS Goto's writing look sound...