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agnosto wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:They devote 100% of a sub-species to war, period. There is also no "allowing to leave only through death or politics". Where do you think the Tau get the Fire Caste instructors from? They're not magical drone Fire Caste.

Page 9 of the codex makes it sound like they just magically appear as adults on the front line, "a warrior starts life as a young line trooper". Vat babies? And they never mention training so genetic learning? Viable considering that some people say Eldar tampered with the Tau. Who knows, they might go with the Russian WW2 doctrine for training, "Here's your gun and some ammo, run out there and shoot at someone." If they make it 4 years on the line, they can become a team leader or suit pilot.

It'd be nice if GW wrote a bit more about them. I think part of what makes conversations about Tau so contentious (other than people who just hate the entire concept of the faction for some odd reason; I mean, it's just a game after all...) is that there simply isn't that much written about them so it's all opinion, hints and guesses.

Yeah. I don't hate the concept of the faction. I thought it was kind of neat, with them being hinted at as being 'The Last Creations of the Old Ones'.

Could we forgo your usual IoM chest-thumping as well?

It's not chest thumping to point out that the numbers of the Damocles Gulf Crusade don't add up.

And that killing a Scout Titan isn't really 'A Big Deal'.

As to force size, there's no telling.
The codex says up to 6 teams makes a cadre and 3-6 cadres makes a contingent but we have no idea how many contingents makes a battle or how many battles makes a command.

Like I said: "maddeningly vague".

Melissia wrote:Sure we do, most battles have had a few thousand fire warriors if I remember correctly.

Well there's battle, a fight, and there's battle as in the Tau force organization category which would probably be more than just a few thousand; I would think more along the lines of 10s of thousands...but who knows.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Kanluwen wrote:It's not chest thumping to point out that the numbers of the Damocles Gulf Crusade don't add up. And that killing a Scout Titan isn't really 'A Big Deal'.

Yeah GW books never add up.

We can't say noyhing for sure. Because:

- Tau have only a little over 100 worlds. 26 of those are major worlds ( with biggest population ).
- We don't know Tau estimate population per world.
- We don't even know the % of their people going into Fire Caste.
- We do know that Tau military force is not always large ( there where only around 9000 FW on Taros - correct me if I am wrong ).

We don't know exact number of Tau troops. But I can tell this for sure:

- As for military might, Tau is last in the list in the galaxy ( every other major race posses either large number of worlds or large number of spacecraft. Tau can never deploy as many troops as one of these sides deploy on some major galactic conflict).
-As for deploying military numbers Tau are third from the bottom, last are the Eldar and Dark Eldar ( Every race can deploy more forces than Tau on the battlefield, Imperium can deploy billions. Orks to, Chaos in Black Crusades to ).

Hope this will clear the things up.

Chaos also "deploys" billions of troops and not just in black crusades. You just don't hear about them outside of things which the heroes kill in novels because we don't have a LatD codex.

Kilkrazy wrote:
The same is true for most factions in the fluff. Even the numbers of SMs can only be estimated fairly roughly.

True, but we can for loyal SM, there are 1000 chapters x 1000 battle brother and you get up, down 1.000.000 Space Marines.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Melissia wrote:Chaos also "deploys" billions of troops and not just in black crusades. You just don't hear about them outside of things which the heroes kill in novels because we don't have a LatD codex.

Right, I forgotten about ordinary Human heretics and traitor PDF and Guardsman. Yeah, Chaos can have billions of solders with ease.

agnosto wrote:
It'd be nice if GW wrote a bit more about them. I think part of what makes conversations about Tau so contentious is that there simply isn't that much written about them so it's all opinion, hints and guesses.

Pretty much.

(other than people who just hate the entire concept of the faction for some odd reason; I mean, it's just a game after all...)

No one hates the Tau, it's just annoying when people try to suggest they're actually a relevant player in the larger setting, though it is naturally far worse when people try to insist the same with regards to Space Marines, either loyalist or traitor, whose total strength is easily dwarfed by even the Tau. The simple matter is there is no faction that is militarily relevant at this time beside the Imperial Guard and Navy.

Could we forgo your usual IoM chest-thumping as well?

The Imperium is simply the single largest faction aside from orks, and the single largest unified faction. For a brief overview of the other factions:

Tyranids in the better part of a millennium have managed to destroy only ~.02% of Imperial worlds, almost without exception those far from any proper military assets.
The Eldar either don't have the military might and willpower to go against the larger Imperium (Craftworlders), don't care about territory in the Materium (Dark Eldar), or even go so far as to ally with Imperial Inquisitors on occasion (Harlequins), to ignore the Space Amish (Exodites) entirely, for obvious reasons.
Orks, although overall much larger than the Imperium, are too fragmented to pose a coherent threat.
Chaos is primarily in another dimension entirely, led by beings too vast to concern themselves with any single dimension or Galaxy, with only some of their minor servants caring enough to try to enter the Materium. Chaos worshipers are rare and almost always pitifully weak, while even the strongest of them suffer from being terminally axe-crazy.
Necrons have yet to materialize as a widespread threat, and their overall numbers are completely unknown, without even any of the hints that other factions have.
Loyalist Space Marines are redundant, doing the job either of Stormtroopers or Main Battle Tanks, while not being nearly as numerous as either, nor being under the command of Imperial Military Authority.
Chaos Space Marines number in the tens of thousands, are primarily trapped in the Eye of Terror, and are led exclusively by Axe-crazy madmen.
The Tau have a total population that's dwarfed by any Imperial Hiveworld a dozen times over, and whose military would be crushed by the forces raised in a single one of the annual tithings of Armageddon (one hundred million Guardsmen, several million armored vehicles), in addition to be trapped in a tiny pocket of space, surrounded on all sides by Orks, Tyranids, and Imperial worlds.

As to force size, there's no telling.
The codex says up to 6 teams makes a cadre and 3-6 cadres makes a contingent but we have no idea how many contingents makes a battle or how many battles makes a command.

Major conflicts with hard numbers have forces in the low thousands. Presumably the Damocles crusade ran into higher numbers, seeing as how it was one hundred thousand strong and all, but they couldn't have been more than a few hundreds of thousands, on a sept world no less, or it wouldn't have dragged on nearly as long as it did after stalling.

Sir Pseudonymous wrote:The simple matter is there is no faction that is militarily relevant at this time beside the Imperial Guard and Navy.

... and Orks, and Tyranids, and Chaos (because Chaos != CSM)...


In fact, the Orks have a larger footprint on the galaxy than the Imperium does.

Skimmed IA:3 (page 146) so getting closer to an answer on population.

The Tau forces on Taros were at about 9000 firewarriors and it was a Coalition. This would be representative of an entire world's active-duty, non-PDF fire caste population.

Bear in mind we still won't know a close number because there are 20 something sept worlds of varing size and population. I don't know what world the Coalition was drawn from and this would be relevant as first and second sphere septs would probably be more developed and have higher populations thant 3rd sphere septs.

Based upon that, it's entirely foreseeable that Tau armed forces are the smallest in the galaxy.

Melissia wrote:

Sir Pseudonymous wrote:The simple matter is there is no faction that is militarily relevant at this time beside the Imperial Guard and Navy.

... and Orks, and Tyranids, and Chaos (because Chaos != CSM)...


In fact, the Orks have a larger footprint on the galaxy than the Imperium does.

Did you just skip the rest of that post? Orks fight each other more often than they fight the Imperium and Tyranids have faltered every step of the way, only managing to scratch the Imperium at its weakest points. Chaos is probably the largest threat, but it's still dwarfed by the Imperial military machine even by pure numbers, prior to taking into account the vastly greater skill levels and resources of the Imperial forces. I didn't say there's nothing for them to fight, only that there's nothing capable of threatening them.

Sir Pseudonymous wrote:

Melissia wrote:

Sir Pseudonymous wrote:The simple matter is there is no faction that is militarily relevant at this time beside the Imperial Guard and Navy.

... and Orks, and Tyranids, and Chaos (because Chaos != CSM)...


In fact, the Orks have a larger footprint on the galaxy than the Imperium does.

Did you just skip the rest of that post? Orks fight each other more often than they fight the Imperium

That's only because they hold more territory than the Imperium does. On any world where a non-Ork threat presents itself, Orks are united against it.

Ok everyone seems to have forgotten the point of this thread. This thread is not about the IG and their skill level, It's not about listing who can beat up who, and it's not about that titan they killed. Put it away. This thread is about guesstimating the number of fire warriors in service. Any talk about IG or anyone else dosen't help with that goal.

Ok back to my numbers. As you know, I am working from the bottom up here trying to figure out about how many fire warriors are battle ready and able to be deployed. The total number of fire warriors would be bigger I think, but they would be land bound and in reserve.

92 firewarriors in a manta
2 manta in a emissary class space ship (It has space for two and sense it is a diplomatic ship I figure the bombers are just kept on the escort ships. )
100 emissary class ships (I am actually low balling the number here. That is only one ship per world. Maybe I should make a distinction between ships used in diplomacy and ships on potrole)

18400

That gives us 18400 fire warriors in a diplomatic fleets and that makes sense. Their main gold is diplomacy and the 164 fire warriors are just trouble shooters.

92 firewarriors in a manta
8 manta fin in a custodian (I am filling all the spaces with manta, as the custodian comes with 3 escorts who each have 2 slots for the bombers, so the custodian can focus on carrying the troops.)
20 custodian spaceships (They are like aircraft carriers 20 actually seems a bit high)

14720

That gives us 14720 fire warriors on custodian ships. Seems a little low on a logical scale, but it matches up with the numbers that the tau send to battles.

33120 total. That number is way low maybe I missed something or maybe this is just a bad way to do the numbers.

There really isn't hard figures on the matter. We can roughly say that they would number in the several millions, due to the fact that the stated number for the third sphere of expansion was a million, and that the numbers of Fire Warriors deployed in war-zones that we know of right now are only in the thousands, as in, around 10,000.

Brother Coa wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:
The same is true for most factions in the fluff. Even the numbers of SMs can only be estimated fairly roughly.

True, but we can for loyal SM, there are 1000 chapters x 1000 battle brother and you get up, down 1.000.000 Space Marines.


.

Yes, the problem is there aren't exactly 1,000 chapters and each one doesn't contain exactly 1,000 SMs. In fact most contain fewer as they have taken losses and need to rebuild.

So really, between a few 'rebel' chapters like SW and BS A (?) who deploy several thousand troops, and chapters who have taken a beating and are still rebuilding -- some of them only have a few hundred troops -- we can only speculate as to the number of SMs. It's probably between 500,000 and possibly over 1,000,000.

And that is the most precisely defined and extensively written about force in the fluff.

nomotog wrote:You forgot the kroot, the vespin, the human worlds. Each on would have a different density and some are sept worlds. That should eat quite a few numbers.

Fire Caste only exists in the Tau race. And no, the caste system is not introduced to other races.

nomotog wrote:What if we go from the bottom up. Find out how many fire warriors fir in a manta, how many manta fit into a spaceship, how many spaceships in a fleet, and then how many fleets they have.

This is as logical as estimating the population of Africa by counting the cars on the continent and the capacity of each car.

It's well over 500,000, although I would doubt it would be over 1,000,000. There's roughly a thousand chapters. Over a thousand battle brothers each. Over a million if there are NO casualties, which there are. So, on average there would probably be about 50ish casualties per chapter, giving about 975ish on average. Now, there are more chapters that are under strength than there are chapters who field more than a thousand by standard, so say about 950 on average. So, I put the ROUGH number of Space Marines in the whole Imperium at about 950,000.

This is quite off-topic so lets leave the estimations of other forces out of this conversation unless it's relevant to the argument.

Your estimation is relevant in the sense that you've had to speculate about the figures per chapter, rather than rely on actual data.

I'm not saying you're wrong. I'm saying that there is more fluff about Space Marines in the SM codex than there is about Tau in all the GW publications put together.

We cannot do more than estimate the number of SMs with a fairly wide margin, so the number of Fire Warriors is pure guesswork.

Of course, there is a lot more data on Space Marine numbers, but there's nothing solid other than rough numbers like a thousand in a chapter, when we know that there are many who have far less (Crimson Fists), or far more (Black Templars).
It's completely true that my estimation was just an estimation. Fire warriors have nothing of the sort, except the stated numbers of the Third Sphere and specific engagements, which, whilst giving us a very basic idea through interpreting those on a generalized scale isn't accurate, is not hard evidence to give us any idea at all.

Yes, exactly.

Kilkrazy wrote:
So really, between a few 'rebel' chapters like SW and BS A (?) who deploy several thousand troops, and chapters who have taken a beating and are still rebuilding -- some of them only have a few hundred troops -- we can only speculate as to the number of SMs. It's probably between 500,000 and possibly over 1,000,000.

One guy actually count them once. We came to conclusion that there are around 1.300.000 Space Marines in the Imperium...

There are no references to every single Chapter, and certainly not to the VAST majority of even the known chapters. Basically, that guys answer is just wrong, as there are no sources for him to draw on other than blanket statements that are in no way definite.

iproxtaco wrote:It's well over 500,000, although I would doubt it would be over 1,000,000. There's roughly a thousand chapters. Over a thousand battle brothers each. Over a million if there are NO casualties, which there are. So, on average there would probably be about 50ish casualties per chapter, giving about 975ish on average. Now, there are more chapters that are under strength than there are chapters who field more than a thousand by standard, so say about 950 on average. So, I put the ROUGH number of Space Marines in the whole Imperium at about 950,000.

And before we go off topic and all.... finial word to this is that you forgotten that every captain of the company can form a chapter of his own. We counted the several new founding chapters. That BT actually umber now more than 6000 ( even they have divided into chapters ). And we count vehicle crews, they are also Space Marines.

Now back to Tau fire cast...

Brother Coa wrote:

iproxtaco wrote:It's well over 500,000, although I would doubt it would be over 1,000,000. There's roughly a thousand chapters. Over a thousand battle brothers each. Over a million if there are NO casualties, which there are. So, on average there would probably be about 50ish casualties per chapter, giving about 975ish on average. Now, there are more chapters that are under strength than there are chapters who field more than a thousand by standard, so say about 950 on average. So, I put the ROUGH number of Space Marines in the whole Imperium at about 950,000.

And before we go off topic and all.... finial word to this is that you forgotten that every captain of the company can form a chapter of his own. We counted the several new founding chapters. That BT actually umber now more than 6000 ( even they have divided into chapters ). And we count vehicle crews, they are also Space Marines.

Now back to Tau fire cast...

Where is your source for that?
Chapter founding don't work like that?
A captain cannot just up and leave to make a enw chapter when he feels like it.
PM me since it would be Off-topic to further discuss it here.

Brother Coa wrote:

iproxtaco wrote:It's well over 500,000, although I would doubt it would be over 1,000,000. There's roughly a thousand chapters. Over a thousand battle brothers each. Over a million if there are NO casualties, which there are. So, on average there would probably be about 50ish casualties per chapter, giving about 975ish on average. Now, there are more chapters that are under strength than there are chapters who field more than a thousand by standard, so say about 950 on average. So, I put the ROUGH number of Space Marines in the whole Imperium at about 950,000.

And before we go off topic and all.... finial word to this is that you forgotten that every captain of the company can form a chapter of his own. We counted the several new founding chapters. That BT actually umber now more than 6000 ( even they have divided into chapters ). And we count vehicle crews, they are also Space Marines.

Now back to Tau fire cast...

Every captain can form a chapter of his own? Where the feth is that from? New chapters are exceedingly rare, with many being destroyed and being pushed to the brink. I also said there were more than 1000 per standard chapter, but there are no exact figures to draw that from, other than the "theres roughly 1000 chapters" and "theres max a 1000 per [i]codex[i] chapter". Did this estimation take into account the casualties of the chapters and the fact that there are many chapters with far fewer than 1000? Or was is a massive generalization with no sense of realism? Even them I don't understand where the other 300,000 comes from.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
The discussion on numbers of Space Marines has it's own thread now, please don't continue in this thread. The most recent post has been copied over. Back to the Tau.

Brother Coa wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:
So really, between a few 'rebel' chapters like SW and BS A (?) who deploy several thousand troops, and chapters who have taken a beating and are still rebuilding -- some of them only have a few hundred troops -- we can only speculate as to the number of SMs. It's probably between 500,000 and possibly over 1,000,000.

One guy actually count them once. We came to conclusion that there are around 1.300.000 Space Marines in the Imperium...

Off Topic.

agnosto wrote:Skimmed IA:3 (page 146) so getting closer to an answer on population.

The Tau forces on Taros were at about 9000 firewarriors and it was a Coalition. This would be representative of an entire world's active-duty, non-PDF fire caste population.

Bear in mind we still won't know a close number because there are 20 something sept worlds of varing size and population. I don't know what world the Coalition was drawn from and this would be relevant as first and second sphere septs would probably be more developed and have higher populations thant 3rd sphere septs.

Based upon that, it's entirely foreseeable that Tau armed forces are the smallest in the galaxy.

As i understood it a "Command" means all the Firecast forces at a given location, irrespective of where the Firewarriors originaly came from.
So if three Septworlds send a dozen cadres each to a world which has to be conquered then that world's Command would be 36 cadres. If those three septworlds send only a single cadre then that world's command
would be three cadres. So while Taros's Command might have been 9000 Firewarriors strong it is quite likely that the Commands of the Septworlds from where those Firewarriors came from were much larger, otherwise your average Killkroozer would have a fieldday with almost the entire Tauempire
Still, there is no denying that the Tau Empire most likely has the smallest military of all the playable 40k species ( at least until we get some reliable informations on Craftworld populations ).

It's more than likely, although not definite. Command is also defined as the forces of a caste in an area, so those Fire Warriors would be in Command of their own, and not part of a larger one where the rest are not present.

KingDeath wrote:
As i understood it a "Command" means all the Firecast forces at a given location, irrespective of where the Firewarriors originaly came from.
So if three Septworlds send a dozen cadres each to a world which has to be conquered then that world's Command would be 36 cadres. If those three septworlds send only a single cadre then that world's command
would be three cadres. So while Taros's Command might have been 9000 Firewarriors strong it is quite likely that the Commands of the Septworlds from where those Firewarriors came from were much larger, otherwise your average Killkroozer would have a fieldday with almost the entire Tauempire
Still, there is no denying that the Tau Empire most likely has the smallest military of all the playable 40k species ( at least until we get some reliable informations on Craftworld populations ).

Yeah, the next sentence in that paragraph on p.23 also says that "in all likelihood the location will be a world, though it could be a planetary system." Later is says that all the Firewarriors on Nimbosa would be called "Fire Caste Command Nimbosa". This is why the septs have different colored uniforms I imagine so that they can easily identify which command they are a part of. Different Sept worlds will have different populations depending on what the planet will support and the age of the sept (what sphere) and we don't know what sept the Taros forces were from.

That's just they way I understood what was written; I can completely see your point of view as well.

Kilkrazy wrote:

Brother Coa wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:
So really, between a few 'rebel' chapters like SW and BS A (?) who deploy several thousand troops, and chapters who have taken a beating and are still rebuilding -- some of them only have a few hundred troops -- we can only speculate as to the number of SMs. It's probably between 500,000 and possibly over 1,000,000.

One guy actually count them once. We came to conclusion that there are around 1.300.000 Space Marines in the Imperium...

Off Topic.

One shouldn't have started that debate here: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/374210.page#2905112
So relocate it there: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/374501.page


Did we find valid numbers of fire warriors yet?
Maybe not. And fire caste are every Tau born into that caste, right? so non-fire warrior Tau would count too.
I'd put that debate on a hold until GW releases another Tau codex.

1hadhq wrote:
Did we find valid numbers of fire warriors yet?
Maybe not. And fire caste are every Tau born into that caste, right? so non-fire warrior Tau would count too.
I'd put that debate on a hold until GW releases another Tau codex.

We cannot say for sure. We lack data for that. All we know for sure is that they are the least numerous fighting force in the galaxy ( I count factions not army's ).

Everyone born into the fire caste is a firewarrior. They are born and bred for war.