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razor5647 wrote:It does make sense that chapters would be able to cover expected losses by calculating the average rate of losses and setting up recruitment as such. when you put it that way I suppose that levels of initiates would be at proper levels in the case of emergencies. it would however still take an average of 5 years to replace losses greater than expected due to the fact that neophytes would not receive genetic materiel until a place in the scout company was readily available, to preserve valuable gene seed of course.

so as long as a chapter maintains a healthy supply of initiates ready for genetic materiel and neophyte initiation, I suppose standard battlefield losses numbering anywhere from 25 - 100 a year could theoretically be replaced in batches every 5 - 7 of years (adjusted for scout training and support service as well as neophyte maturity) by planning ahead.

The logic seems sound.


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Obviously this would occur continuously so as to not make the fighting force ineffective in between batches of new scouts.

You forget...this is 40K..no matter what happens, you will not be missed....and logic has no place in this universe! (last line didn't make the final cut)

I think the Crimson fists, who were decimated by the events of Rynns World, are actually playing it safe at the moment. I think in the book it said the Pedro Kantor could have pushed out and sought revenge on the orks but at the highly likely risk of the extinction of the Chapter. So he swallowed his pride and spent the years after playing it defensively.

But yeah 1000 Marines = 1000 bolters. I do not think that many Bolters could suppress and contain a whole world. Yes they are super human but a whole world is, well massive!

Zanderchief wrote:But yeah 1000 Marines = 1000 bolters. I do not think that many Bolters could suppress and contain a whole world. Yes they are super human but a whole world is, well massive!

That's an overly simplistic way to look at it though.

I mean, what does it mean to suppress a world? Do you need to kill every last person dead? Do you need to put a soldier on every corner? Or do you just need the planetary government to do what you say?

razor5647 wrote: it would however still take an average of 5 years to replace losses greater than expected

Of course.

Its not that over simplistic is it? Number of people = effectiveness of suppression. Look at Afghanistan. There are more than 1000 soldiers still there!

Ok it doesn't directly correlate but without the Imperial guard to take over once "the wind has be knocked out of them" then a 100 SM's would not be able to bring a whole world under compliance... unless maybe they threatened orbital annihilation.

Fido198674 wrote:

razor5647 wrote:I understand that but that is the best 10% of an extremely limited number and the codex states "finally replaced losses incurred from the battle of mecragge" that implies the actual total number of marines not just the loss of the first company. yet during this period they fight as a unified chapter against the eldar at the battle of the sepulcher and it is stated that the eldar inflict a number of casualties over coarse of the battle (takes several days).

You do have a point with your post...however, with the fluff and where the IoM stands, its much safer to break them up in 1000 man chapters. That Horus caused quite a rukus with his troops......

Still, when Horus was around there were only 18 legions, the security provided now isn't by the fact that the chapters are smaller, but by the fact that they are more numerous and equal in numbers. Think of it like this, if all of the legions were equal in numbers (they weren't, but just pretend) then one legion revolting is about 5.5% of your fighting force gone. If that one legion managed to bring 3 other legions with it that is about 22% of your fighting force. Now if you have 1000 chapters, 1 revolting is only losing 0.1% of your fighting force, and 4 revolting is only 0.4% of your fighting force, still far easier to deal with.

Now, lets say that the Codex Astartes had a different maximum size, lets say 10,000 marines. Now, lets say the average Imperial world has a population of 1 billion, only 1% of males can become marines, and only 1% of those manage to become full fledged marines. If the world has about 4 generations of people living on it at any one time, than the youngest generation is probably about 250 million, of which half are males (125 million), of which 1% are compatible with the geneseed (1.25 million), of which 1% survive the implantation, and training to become a scout and eventually full fledged marine. That would leave about 0.0125 million of 12,500 marines per generation, more than enough to replace any losses that the legion incurs in battle and allowing it to maintain a force of 10,000 strong.

Granted GW is terrible with numbers, like the fact that there is only one regiment of storm troopers in the galaxy, and they only number 10,000 strong. Honestly that means marines outnumber storm troopers about 100 to 1, making their whole role as cheaper special forces redundant.

Zanderchief wrote:Its not that over simplistic is it? Number of people = effectiveness of suppression. Look at Afghanistan. There are more than 1000 soldiers still there!

Well, let's use Afghanistan as an example, since you brought it up.

If we exchange the terms 'muslim extremist' with 'chaos cultist' then how do you imagine the SM would deal with a situation like that?

Would they stand around in mud-brick villages looking for cultists?

Because I think after an initial assessment, they'd sit on their ships and pound the entire country into oblivion.

You've got to look at the bigger picture: what does 'suppression' mean, and how do you think that can be achieved?

Which is what i said. We all know that humanitarian concerns are not even considered in the fluff but resources are. Usually bombing the sh*t out of a planet is a last resort. Some crazies would still probably be around.

1000 man-at-arms (SM's or not) for a WHOLE world is not enough of a fighting force.

Maybe its more that the sight of them SM's is enough to take fight out of the heart of most populations.

Most conflicts aren't chaos or xenos.
They're rebellions from within the Imperium.
When that happens SM used as shock troops are easily enough to break the back of any rebellion and further break its spirit...

Zanderchief wrote:Which is what i said. We all know that humanitarian concerns are not even considered in the fluff but resources are. Usually bombing the sh*t out of a planet is a last resort. Some crazies would still probably be around.

1000 man-at-arms (SM's or not) for a WHOLE world is not enough of a fighting force.

Maybe its more that the sight of them SM's is enough to take fight out of the heart of most populations.

You're still not asking the right questions.

What is suppression? How can it be achieved? What do the Marines want? Why are they there? How can they get what they want?

On a side note, the space wolves only had one successor chapter. Where did the rest of the legion go?

paulyf wrote:On a side note, the space wolves only had one successor chapter. Where did the rest of the legion go?

Space Wolves weren't broken up, they can't be due to the mutation inherent in successor chapters due to the canis helix or whatever. Regardless they can't have successor chapters.

paulyf wrote:On a side note, the space wolves only had one successor chapter. Where did the rest of the legion go?

Their gene-seed is too unstable to make more chapters.
Most of the legion was dead by the end of the heresy, they were a small legion to start with and with the Burning of Prospero, Terra and the counter-attack they were whittled down to maybe 4k tops...
They spawned a chapter and the rest of the legion hung around as the space wolves.
The successors died off and the SW are now just twice the size of a regular chapter...
Maybe more...

purplefood wrote:

paulyf wrote:On a side note, the space wolves only had one successor chapter. Where did the rest of the legion go?

Their gene-seed is too unstable to make more chapters.
Most of the legion was dead by the end of the heresy, they were a small legion to start with and with the Burning of Prospero, Terra and the counter-attack they were whittled down to maybe 4k tops...
They spawned a chapter and the rest of the legion hung around as the space wolves.
The successors died off and the SW are now just twice the size of a regular chapter...
Maybe more...

Which again shows GW's knack for not thinking things out.

After Battle of the Fang, there were approximately 2k Space Wolves not including the the 12th Great Company in need of being completely rebuilt. Now this is after the razing of Prospero, after the HH, after the Scouring, and after the split to create the Wolf Brothers. So in the 8-9k years since the Battle of the Fang, the SW have not increased their numbers one bit? Their casualties and losses have been matched perfectly by recruitment? There is no problem with creating SW, just creating successors. We know that the SW were capable of being larger without Wolf Brothers like genetic instability as they were once a Legion. So how after so long are we supposed to belive that the SW have not grown as a chapter?

maybe , yes , the recuits mach perfecly.
remeber that THEY choose when recouit will open

Pada wrote:maybe , yes , the recuits mach perfecly.
remeber that THEY choose when recouit will open

Based upon the older SW novels, training camps are run year round all over the planet. The only wildcard mentioned in the SW codex is how lethal the SW geneseed happens to be to aspirants, even moreso then other chapters in terms of a successful implantation and progression to a full-fledges Blood Claw.

maybe they stop when they are full. like got open seats for the change and know that about 2 of 10 will make it ( nubers are for exaple)

Buttons wrote:

paulyf wrote:On a side note, the space wolves only had one successor chapter. Where did the rest of the legion go?

Space Wolves weren't broken up, they can't be due to the mutation inherent in successor chapters due to the canis helix or whatever. Regardless they can't have successor chapters.

They were broken up, that's where the Wolf Brothers came from. It's just that the Wolves were never a particularly large legion, and they took heavy losses during Prospero and, one assumes, in other actions during the Heresy. Add in the fact that the Wolves (and one assumes the Wolf Brothers) played fast and loose with the Codex limitations on chapter size, and it's pretty easy to account for the totality of the original legion.

There's quite a number of battles where Space Marines incur (comparatively) heavy losses...

"On the third night of fighting the Orks took the Great Bastion from us. Despair settled in our hearts, for all hope of rescue was now gone. Of all our company I counted but thirty seven living, and of these but twenty five unhurt."
- Ultramarine Chief Librarius Tigurius, 2E C:UM

... but then again, it should also be kept in mind that Marine Chapters operate relatively independent from the rest of the Imperium. With few exceptions, they are not really ordered to do anything but rather asked. This means that a Chapter Master can easily cite his Chapter being under-strength as a reason for not showing up for some campaign, or only committing a token force that will busy itself with less dangerous operations rather than risky assaults, so that they would still help out somehow, just not as much as they would if the Chapter were stronger. Within a few years, casualties should be replaced, so Chapters that do not feel so committed to duty that they consistently operate in low numbers should run no risk of being wiped out entirely - which has been known to happen.

And then we have this:
"Each Chapter was to number approximately a thousand fighting warriors divided into ten companies of a hundred. This was never intended to be an absolute rule but a guide which enabled the Adeptus Terra to monitor and control the size of each Chapter. In fact, Chapters have often exceeded this basic strength during times of prolonged war."
- 2E C:UM

"Chapters are often increaded beyond their standard strength if they are involved in a protracted or highly intensive war."
- 2E C:AoD

The fact that the Space Marine Chapters keep a company of potential reinforcements in the form of Scouts would also help a lot. As far as I remember, the duration of Scout training is not actually fixed but determined by the individual's performance - they are made full Space Marines once they "have proven they are ready". Thus, a Chapter hard-pressed for numbers could simply tap its Scout company for additional Marines, promoting fresh troops out of these ranks whilst simultaneously lowering the duration of training for those neophytes who would be recruited into the Scout company to fill up the now-vacant slots (whose number would be increased from "undefined" to "maximum"). Due to the Marines' pride, this is probably unlikely to result in an official order for "flash training" but would rather take the form of a perceived pressure in the minds of the mentors, who naturally identify with their Chapter and thus its needs. The Chapter needs new warriors, so new recruits are pressed harder to be quickly molded into shape.

Zanderchief wrote:But yeah 1000 Marines = 1000 bolters. I do not think that many Bolters could suppress and contain a whole world. Yes they are super human but a whole world is, well massive!

Suppression isn't the job of the Marines, so this shouldn't be a problem. What the Astartes as shock troops can do is strike at individual key targets to "make an example", or to eliminate some key leader feeling safe between thick palace walls, thus allowing Imperial loyalists to take over or at least create dissention in the enemy ranks. From then on, other Imperial forces will take over, whereas the Marines mount up and leave for wherever a highly efficient but numerically limited strike force is needed next.

Harriticus wrote:Then again the SoB should be more then ~50,000 or so Battle Sisters, GW is bad with size.

Why?
There really is no reason - other than some sort of aversion to there being any Imperial force that's even smaller than the Astartes.

But it is quite ironic that we know more about average casualties and recruitment numbers of the Sororitas than of the Astartes, considering how much more fluff exists for the Marines in general...

It's called the badab war, and the High lords did not like it when a rouge chapter master attempted to make a space marine legion on his own from previous expierences it would not end up well (horus). But yea another crusade would be cool like in the Blood Angels' books when Arkio thinks up the "Blood Crusade"

Lynata wrote:
But it is quite ironic that we know more about average casualties and recruitment numbers of the Sororitas than of the Astartes, considering how much more fluff exists for the Marines in general...

True, but the vagueness of the Space Marine numbers is probably necessary. With a soft cap of 1000 on size, and the stated fuff related to the difficulty of making new ones, actual hard numbers around recruiting and casualties would probably end up looking rather silly one way or another.

Guardsman76 wrote:so that's a win win situation surely?

Sure, until another guy with a few tens of thousands of Space Marines gets corrupted and goes on a rampage.

daveNYC wrote:True, but the vagueness of the Space Marine numbers is probably necessary. With a soft cap of 1000 on size, and the stated fuff related to the difficulty of making new ones, actual hard numbers around recruiting and casualties would probably end up looking rather silly one way or another.

I dunno, making new Marines seems to be fairly "everyday business" for the Chapters (not to be confused with making a new Chapter!). What is trickier is, I suppose, casualty numbers, as it'd "require" GW writers to keep this in mind when writing about battle after battle in the books, as otherwise it could get to a point where people ask themselves "how exactly are they still alive?".
Then again, a little more "self-discipline" when it comes to writing fluff doesn't have to be a bad thing. Some stuff we've read over the years was just plain silly.

yes , its actualy more easy that it seems
for ex. see BA and their death company. they loose more than other space marines , but its says that even in a increase of that ,they MAYBE cant be operation in next milenia.and they fight more batles that other chapters

Lynata wrote:

daveNYC wrote:True, but the vagueness of the Space Marine numbers is probably necessary. With a soft cap of 1000 on size, and the stated fuff related to the difficulty of making new ones, actual hard numbers around recruiting and casualties would probably end up looking rather silly one way or another.

I dunno, making new Marines seems to be fairly "everyday business" for the Chapters (not to be confused with making a new Chapter!). What is trickier is, I suppose, casualty numbers, as it'd "require" GW writers to keep this in mind when writing about battle after battle in the books, as otherwise it could get to a point where people ask themselves "how exactly are they still alive?".
Then again, a little more "self-discipline" when it comes to writing fluff doesn't have to be a bad thing. Some stuff we've read over the years was just plain silly.

I don't know, it's easy enough in the sense that the chapters have to do it regularly and it's not exactly rocket science, give them the geneseed, hope they don't die, then start stuffing in the giblets; but I don't think it's particularly easy as in the actual success rate of turning asprirants into scouts. The SW novels might have enough numbers to guestimate a success rate, but the SW are also outliers when it comes to the process. The only fluff I can remember that has numbers was a BA short story of some aspirants who had won the Baal olympics and were being offered the drink. I think there six of them and one died after drinking and one other got scared and backed out (wrong choice that). Small sample size and whatnot, but that works out to 66% success, and that's just from drinking the blood. Even without the guy who backed out, you're looking at an 83% success rate, at best. And that's not even considering that standard Space Marine doctrine involves using the new guys as scouts, basically sending the guys with the least actual battlefield experience out in front of the army in the lightest armor.

Guardsman76 wrote:Why only have chapters of 1000 astartes why not get as many as possible to totally conquer the universe in the name of the God -Emperor and also ensure the safety of all mankind?

Just asking.

Because Guilliman said so.

Congratulations to TheCaptain for being the first to state the obvious answer.

As for marine numbers and combat, they aren't an occupying force. They are a spear tip designed to cut out the heart of the enemy or secure specific objectives. If the entire planet is under chaos or xenos rule then either the planet gets exterminatus or a crusade is launched against it involving a lot more than a single chapter.
Marine chapters might be used to secure one important Hive or Shrine until the Guard and/or other forces can get there. They might also be used to decapitate the heads of government across a single planet or a whole sector - hit hard and fast and hopefully buy loyalist forces enough time to finish the job.

1,000 works because...the writers say it works. I feel like for the scale of battles marines see themselves in, and the foes they face(Tyranids come to mind), 10,000 would be more appropriate.

Tyr Grimtooth wrote:So how after so long are we supposed to belive that the SW have not grown as a chapter?

The Space Wolves and the Inquisition have a very uneasy past.

An ordinary chapter may exceed the 1,000 limit, and the Inquisition may turn a blind eye. Or they may just have a quiet word with them, and suggest they relax their recruitment rate.

But if the Space Wolves start getting too large, members of the Inquisition are going to take much more notice. They already have a grudge against them, and would be happy to have an excuse to pull them into line. They also know the Space Wolves are enough of a pain in the arse at the size they are, let alone with MORE astartes under their control.

The Space Wolves are aware of this, and despite their short-sightedness and arrogance are not too stupid to realise that if provoked, the Inquisition will destroy them. It may devolve into another Badab war, but the Inquisition will not back down if pushed to open conflict, and are unlikely to deliberately provoke that conflict by openly increasing their size too much.


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Vaerros wrote:1,000 works because...the writers say it works. I feel like for the scale of battles marines see themselves in, and the foes they face(Tyranids come to mind), 10,000 would be more appropriate.

Sorry to pick on you, but this is an example of what I've been talking about in this thread.

What battles do the Marines see themselves in? What casualties did they suffer, and how frequent are battles on that scale or scope?

Kaldor wrote:

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Vaerros wrote:1,000 works because...the writers say it works. I feel like for the scale of battles marines see themselves in, and the foes they face(Tyranids come to mind), 10,000 would be more appropriate.

Sorry to pick on you, but this is an example of what I've been talking about in this thread.

What battles do the Marines see themselves in? What casualties did they suffer, and how frequent are battles on that scale or scope?

The works of fiction have them suffering 'manageable' losses, where realistically I would expect force-destroying levels of losses. Of course there aren't [many] examples of well-known chapters suffering gargantuan losses because otherwise there wouldn't be chapters or special characters to write about anymore :p

Fall of Damnos(to some degree) and the final Salamander novel come to mind, as far as some examples of serious losses.

Vaerros wrote:The works of fiction have them suffering 'manageable' losses, where realistically I would expect force-destroying levels of losses.

Where? When? How often? What losses?

Fall of Damnos(to some degree) and the final Salamander novel come to mind, as far as some examples of serious losses.

I have to admit, I haven't read either novel. Could you give us a rundown?