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I would think that the current 40k SW are around 2,000-3,000 given that their numbers are generally described as "larger than normal chapters"

They are larger. 1500-1800 plus support elements. A normal chapter is 1000 plus support elements.

jareddm wrote:
They are larger. 1500-1800 plus support elements. A normal chapter is 1000 plus support elements.

Eh wrong.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/630916.page

A normal space marine with support elements is around 1500.

The Space Wolves being larger than most, would be double. So there are around 3000 space wolves.

Currently they have retconned it to not include numbers.

So all we have is

ompany of the Great Wolf (Champions of Fenris): Great Wolf Logan Grimnar - The Great Company of Logan Grimnar is fanatically loyal to their charismatic and cunning leader. Each warrior is extremely proud of his link to the supreme lord of the Chapter, and constantly vies with his peers for the Old Wolf's favour. Logan Grimnar firmly believes that a battle can be carried by a few heroes in the right place at the right time.
Priesthood: Wolf High Priest Ulrik the Slayer
Wolf Priests
Rune Priests
Iron Priests
Wolf Guard Packs
Long Fangs Packs
Grey Hunters Packs
Blood Claws Packs
Wolf Scouts
Chapter Dreadnoughts (including Bjorn the Fell-Handed)

There are no numbers to speak of compared to every chapter.

Way to completely misread my post. I said "1000 PLUS support elements", meaning the support elements number varies and is never what's being referred to when a source is discussing the size of a chapter.

Also, you might want to check the actual Champions of Fenris supplement, because Logan Grimnar's entire Great Company is laid out and totals to exactly 200, with Ragnar's Great Company totaling exactly to 188 thus putting a cap on the chapter at 2258, assuming every other Great Company is exactly one marine less than Ragnar's (which they're not).

 Asherian Command wrote:

jareddm wrote:


The Space Wolves being larger than most, would be double. So there are around 3000 space wolves.

larger then most meansd double since when?

BrianDavion wrote:

 Asherian Command wrote:

The Space Wolves being larger than most, would be double. So there are around 3000 space wolves.

larger then most meansd double since when?

Space wolves are not codex adherent. They also have a larger fleet than most chapters, and more serfs and larger headquarters staff still.

As the amount of Libarains in the chapter are probably just like the Ultramarines around 50-60

Techmarines would be around 60.

And we also have to include pilots for all vechiles in the chapter. so thats around 350.....

I have yet to see a Grand Company be understrength. As they do not include certain units in composition of armies.

Way to completely misread my post. I said "1000 PLUS support elements", meaning the support elements number varies and is never what's being referred to when a source is discussing the size of a chapter.

No I didn't, it would say, without support elements. If you say plus it is including that in the number that you are stating. If you say without including Support elements or additionally Support Elements increasing their numbers.

Space Wolves are a large chapter and with support elements they would be fairly large.

Also, you might want to check the actual Champions of Fenris supplement, because Logan Grimnar's entire Great Company is laid out and totals to exactly 200, with Ragnar's Great Company totaling exactly to 188 thus putting a cap on the chapter at 2258, assuming every other Great Company is exactly one marine less than Ragnar's (which they're not).

Wait how are you getting the idea that there are not larger groups of forces?

Even with 150 astartes. thats 1500, but with support elements thats over 2100 Astartes.

 Asherian Command wrote:

As the amount of Libarains in the chapter are probably just like the Ultramarines around 50-60

Ultramarines have 27, and that's if you include acolytes.

Techmarines would be around 60.

I take it you're just going to double everything? Ridiculous and completely unsupported.

And we also have to include pilots for all vechiles in the chapter. so thats around 350.....

Codex states the pilots are Grey Hunters, which are already accounted for.

Way to completely misread my post. I said "1000 PLUS support elements", meaning the support elements number varies and is never what's being referred to when a source is discussing the size of a chapter.

No I didn't, it would say, without support elements. If you say plus it is including that in the number that you are stating. If you say without including Support elements or additionally Support Elements increasing their numbers.

Wrong. If someone says the price is $49.95 PLUS tax, then you can be damn sure what you're paying is more than $49.95.

Also, you might want to check the actual Champions of Fenris supplement, because Logan Grimnar's entire Great Company is laid out and totals to exactly 200, with Ragnar's Great Company totaling exactly to 188 thus putting a cap on the chapter at 2258, assuming every other Great Company is exactly one marine less than Ragnar's (which they're not).

Wait how are you getting the idea that there are not larger groups of forces?

Even with 150 astartes. thats 1500, but with support elements thats over 2100 Astartes.

Because again, I never said I included support elements, because no numbers anywhere will include support elements because they're not actually part of a great company.

And besides, that's exactly what I said in the first place. 1500-1800 plus support elements.

jareddm wrote:

 Asherian Command wrote:

As the amount of Libarains in the chapter are probably just like the Ultramarines around 50-60

Ultramarines have 27, and that's if you include acolytes.

According to the codex they have 28. (Including Chief Liby)

Techmarines would be around 60.

I take it you're just going to double everything? Ridiculous and completely unsupported.

And we also have to include pilots for all vechiles in the chapter. so thats around 350.....

Codex states the pilots are Grey Hunters, which are already accounted for.

Thats from the Black Library, not from the official codex.

So no. It would be impossible for the chapter to have company members pilot them.

Wrong. If someone says the price is $49.95 PLUS tax, then you can be damn sure what you're paying is more than $49.95.

Then that must be a different in area. As people from my area do not say that that way. My bad

Because again, I never said I included support elements, because no numbers anywhere will include support elements because they're not actually part of a great company.

And besides, that's exactly what I said in the first place. 1500-1800 plus support elements.

AH okay Now I get it sorry for the confusion

Computron wrote:

jareddm wrote:
To be fair, it was stated that Blackmane's company was the second largest great company at approximately 200 marines back in the 5e codex, so we've been aware of the upper limit of great companies for awhile.

Yeah, but originally it was implied that these were pre-heresy sized great companies which would have been 1000 each.
They have no successors so that means that the Space Wolves after 10,000 years have been reduced to a single chapter, even if a rather large one. It seems that they'll eventually die out completely. Then again, as the Ultramarines are now 3/4 of all space marines, maybe one day an Ultramarine descended chapter will take over the fang and make a new Macragge out of it.

It seems unlikely to me that the Space Wolves will die out COMPLETELY; It is far more likely that they've found the amount of Space Marines that Fenris can support. It's been 10,000 years, and the Space Wolves would have (logically) suffered massive casualties during the Scouring due to their self-imposed role of Executioners. After about a thousand years, maybe 2, the Space Wolves were probably at the numbers they're at now. To quote a wise man "Space Wolves like to die"

jareddm wrote:

Computron wrote:
Yeah, but originally it was implied that these were pre-heresy sized great companies which would have been 1000 each.

Got a quote for that?

I'll have a look, but it is mentioned (without reference) on Lexicanum.

During the time of the legions, a great company was another name for chapter. The 13th Great Company dates to legion times so should be considered as being a legion sized great company, that is chapter sized.
It's confusing because the space wolf legion of 13 Great Companies has since been retconned to be a much larger size. 13 Great Companies would make a legion of less than 20,000 when the average legion size is 100,000. Assuming the wolves were a smaller legion then they still should have way more than 50 great companies, probably closer to 70 (if it hasn't been stated somewhere) instead of a measly 13.

Perhaps better fluff would have that only 13 Great Companies survived the heresy, that was when the great seal was created. Then the 13th went off to hunt down the traitor Thousand Sons or wherever they went. Over time the Great Companies were reduced to a few hundred each due to problems with the geneseed resulting in the current situation where each Great Company is an oversized company.

as for supporting elements, the current space wolf codex is singularity unhelpful in figuring out how many rune preists the space wolves have, still I suspect it's not THAT many. Space wolves aren't after all, known as a particularly psyker heavy chapter (just the oppisite if anything) I imagine their iron preists are eaither proportionally the same as tech marines everywhere else given the training is up to Mars, this of course assumes that the Mechanium doesn't have say a limited number they teach that they stick to like glue like "the mechanium will teach 30 marines from teach chapter the secrects of the machine god, no more"

What makes no sense in the current Codex is that the Wolves also man and use a Ramilies Class Starbase (!) and more than a hundred warships - including more capital ships than any other Chapter that's been listed including Ultramarines and Blood Angels-

Manning even a good proportion of these ships with just the bare minimum command staff and reasonable defence against boarders would take more than the listed strength of marines to do................as they seem to be saying a Great Company is about 150-200 marines......

I'd say the 2500 number sounds reasonable for the Space Wolves in 40k. If we look back:

- 13 companies of 1000 marines = 13,000
- Ahriman stated a 1,000 Thousand Sons were left, a tenth of the legion, after Prospero Burns. This puts there number to 10,000.
- Since the Sons were unaware of the attack until last minute (A Thousand Sons), and the Wolves were aided by the Custodes and Sisters of Silence, we'll say the Wolves suffer one marine causality for every two Sons (this is just rough but it'll have to do), meaning they lost 4,500 marines and bringing the number down to 8,500.
- The Heresy continues, more casualties, it lasted a decade so we're safe to take some numbers off it (2,500) an go back to 6,000. (this includes the 13th Company)
- The split of the Wolf Brothers which was half of the legion, thus resulting in 3,000.
- Ten thousand years of wars with three attacks on Fenris.

Of course this is mostly guess work. If someone knew where to find some more concrete numbers it would be great but I'd say having,1,800 - 2,000 serving marines + support would be fair for the Wolves.

Except that at the time of Prospero, both legions were at full strength and would have both been at least 70,000 marines strong. This is the new legion size. Smaller legions were around 70,000, average size was 100,000, Ultramarines had over 200,000. I think the word bearers were the next largest.

 Mr Morden wrote:
What makes no sense in the current Codex is that the Wolves also man and use a Ramilies Class Starbase (!) and more than a hundred warships - including more capital ships than any other Chapter that's been listed including Ultramarines and Blood Angels-

Manning even a good proportion of these ships with just the bare minimum command staff and reasonable defence against boarders would take more than the listed strength of marines to do................as they seem to be saying a Great Company is about 150-200 marines......

one thing to remember is the Space Wolves, like most other Astartes Chapters, aren't JUST the Marines themselves, they have a huge support structure in the form of chapter serfs and other "non space marines" whom answer to them. the space wolf fleet is likely, for the most part crewed entirely by non space Marines. with a single Marine as captain. Space Marines make a little more sense when you realize that in addition to the combat power of the astartes themselves each also basicly rules their own little "mini empire". commanding the military strength of their homeworld, and having a fair degree of influance beyond

BrianDavion wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:
What makes no sense in the current Codex is that the Wolves also man and use a Ramilies Class Starbase (!) and more than a hundred warships - including more capital ships than any other Chapter that's been listed including Ultramarines and Blood Angels-

Manning even a good proportion of these ships with just the bare minimum command staff and reasonable defence against boarders would take more than the listed strength of marines to do................as they seem to be saying a Great Company is about 150-200 marines......

one thing to remember is the Space Wolves, like most other Astartes Chapters, aren't JUST the Marines themselves, they have a huge support structure in the form of chapter serfs and other "non space marines" whom answer to them. the space wolf fleet is likely, for the most part crewed entirely by non space Marines. with a single Marine as captain. Space Marines make a little more sense when you realize that in addition to the combat power of the astartes themselves each also basicly rules their own little "mini empire". commanding the military strength of their homeworld, and having a fair degree of influance beyond

Beat me to the punch LOOL.

Also, going off of this, that means that there would probably be at LEAST a hundred Space Marines outside of the Great Companies commanding the ships, which brings the numbers of the Space Wolves up even more.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 tydrace wrote:
I'd say the 2500 number sounds reasonable for the Space Wolves in 40k. If we look back:

- 13 companies of 1000 marines = 13,000
- Ahriman stated a 1,000 Thousand Sons were left, a tenth of the legion, after Prospero Burns. This puts there number to 10,000.
- Since the Sons were unaware of the attack until last minute (A Thousand Sons), and the Wolves were aided by the Custodes and Sisters of Silence, we'll say the Wolves suffer one marine causality for every two Sons (this is just rough but it'll have to do), meaning they lost 4,500 marines and bringing the number down to 8,500.
- The Heresy continues, more casualties, it lasted a decade so we're safe to take some numbers off it (2,500) an go back to 6,000. (this includes the 13th Company)
- The split of the Wolf Brothers which was half of the legion, thus resulting in 3,000.
- Ten thousand years of wars with three attacks on Fenris.

Of course this is mostly guess work. If someone knew where to find some more concrete numbers it would be great but I'd say having,1,800 - 2,000 serving marines + support would be fair for the Wolves.

They retconned the numbers of Space Marine Legions to average 110k Astartes. It seems to me that Space Wolves would likely have had around 8k-10k Space Marines per Great Company. Which means that after the heresy, they were probably down to around 50k Astartes, then split, and you're down to 25k Astartes. After that, 10k years of attrition takes its toll, and within 2k years the Space Wolves' population would have leveled out and reached a sustainable population (basic ecology here).

well that depends, we dunno how they handle warship assignment, if it's something they pawn off to company members or something they have dedicated staff to. it's times like this I'd love to see BFG ressurected just on the off chance GW'll be forced to ya know... ANSWER these questions

BrianDavion wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:
What makes no sense in the current Codex is that the Wolves also man and use a Ramilies Class Starbase (!) and more than a hundred warships - including more capital ships than any other Chapter that's been listed including Ultramarines and Blood Angels-

Manning even a good proportion of these ships with just the bare minimum command staff and reasonable defence against boarders would take more than the listed strength of marines to do................as they seem to be saying a Great Company is about 150-200 marines......

one thing to remember is the Space Wolves, like most other Astartes Chapters, aren't JUST the Marines themselves, they have a huge support structure in the form of chapter serfs and other "non space marines" whom answer to them. the space wolf fleet is likely, for the most part crewed entirely by non space Marines. with a single Marine as captain. Space Marines make a little more sense when you realize that in addition to the combat power of the astartes themselves each also basicly rules their own little "mini empire". commanding the military strength of their homeworld, and having a fair degree of influance beyond

Whilst I would normally agree for most Chapters this is true- the new Wolf Codex seems to have gone out of its way to say that the Wolves don't do this in the same way - they don't recruit "Non Marines" (IIRC - I am away from my books) at all from Fenris and failed aspirants get to be Iron Thralls or die...........or maybe become actual wolves. Sadly both they and the Black Templars seem to have been reduced in size :(

re warships - now you might get away with a couple of Wolves commanding a ship but usual (again IRRC) from BFG is half a dozen, partly to deal with boarders and a capital ship or indeed a stonking great Star Fort is going to require considerably more.

Its not clear where In fact the personnel to man these ships come from unless the whole background about their recruitment is a bit of smoke and mirrors - not at all impossible with the Wolves. The fact that the Wolves seemingly has the largest fleet of any Chapter - certainly the largest I have ever seen recorded makes this all a little confusing IMO.

Personally I would ignore the Great Company numbers that the Codex gives and say that the Wolves are a very large Chapter, with each Great Company in the high hundreds or more as that makes more sense to me.

 Mr Morden wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:
What makes no sense in the current Codex is that the Wolves also man and use a Ramilies Class Starbase (!) and more than a hundred warships - including more capital ships than any other Chapter that's been listed including Ultramarines and Blood Angels-

Manning even a good proportion of these ships with just the bare minimum command staff and reasonable defence against boarders would take more than the listed strength of marines to do................as they seem to be saying a Great Company is about 150-200 marines......

one thing to remember is the Space Wolves, like most other Astartes Chapters, aren't JUST the Marines themselves, they have a huge support structure in the form of chapter serfs and other "non space marines" whom answer to them. the space wolf fleet is likely, for the most part crewed entirely by non space Marines. with a single Marine as captain. Space Marines make a little more sense when you realize that in addition to the combat power of the astartes themselves each also basicly rules their own little "mini empire". commanding the military strength of their homeworld, and having a fair degree of influance beyond

Whilst I would normally agree for most Chapters this is true- the new Wolf Codex seems to have gone out of its way to say that the Wolves don't do this in the same way - they don't recruit "Non Marines" (IIRC - I am away from my books) at all from Fenris and failed aspirants get to be Iron Thralls or die...........or maybe become actual wolves. Sadly both they and the Black Templars seem to have been reduced in size :(

re warships - now you might get away with a couple of Wolves commanding a ship but usual (again IRRC) from BFG is half a dozen, partly to deal with boarders and a capital ship or indeed a stonking great Star Fort is going to require considerably more.

Its not clear where In fact the personnel to man these ships come from unless the whole background about their recruitment is a bit of smoke and mirrors - not at all impossible with the Wolves. The fact that the Wolves seemingly has the largest fleet of any Chapter - certainly the largest I have ever seen recorded makes this all a little confusing IMO.

Personally I would ignore the Great Company numbers that the Codex gives and say that the Wolves are a very large Chapter, with each Great Company in the high hundreds or more as that makes more sense to me.

That's what I used to say, until I was given good evidence on the contrary. Now, you have converted me back. THANK YOU FOR YOUR AWESOME LOGIC. Now I can respect the Space Wovles again


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, one thing that is entirely possible is that the Space Wolves have Astartes OUTSIDE of the Great Companies that command the ships and repel any boarders. This would be similar to how Blood Claws are outside of the Great Companies before being assigned to one, or how the trainers of the Initiates are outside of the Great Companies.

Maybe, just maybe

The more I read about the Wolves, the more devious I think they are - I think they might well say one thing and be quick to demonstrate that they only take a few natives of Fenris as aspirants whilst actually they have a large population that they recruit their serfs from - which would be another good reason to have a huge great star fort - for a breeding population of humans? No one needs to know and they have an ace in the whole with a powerful fighting force and well manned navy.

But then been watching "Vikings" a lot and I like the juxtaposition of Barbaric Savagery and downright Deviousness and Politics that is often found in works about them...............

 dusara217 wrote:

They retconned the numbers of Space Marine Legions to average 110k Astartes. It seems to me that Space Wolves would likely have had around 8k-10k Space Marines per Great Company. Which means that after the heresy, they were probably down to around 50k Astartes, then split, and you're down to 25k Astartes. After that, 10k years of attrition takes its toll, and within 2k years the Space Wolves' population would have leveled out and reached a sustainable population (basic ecology here).

Well I'll have to disagree (on the post-heresy chapter size of Space Wolves) -- first of all, where Scar left off, it had a severally beaten (as a result of the thing that happened on Perspero) Space Wolves fleet facing off an unusually large Alpha Legion fleet alone, and many SW ships go blown up. Considering the VI legion never made it back to Terra in time, they would have to be very torn down.

Then there is the Wolf Brothers, since there was only one official founding for the Space Wolves -- the Wolf Brothers (Codex: Space Wolves. "Codex Astartes". Digital), and the Wolf Brothers were a second founding chapter, this would mean the total of the two chapters were the total number of Space Wolves before the split.

So by the "Word of God", as it were, that Guilliman ostensibly agreed on Space Wolves "retaining their twelve remaining Great Companies, each one still comprised many hundreds of Space Wolves" ("Codex Astartes"), it means the maximum number of all Space Wolves, excluding serfs and servitors, post-split would have been no more than 12 * 999 = 11988. Given a perfect 50/50 split, the pre-split VI legion would have just short of 24k Space Marines total. I would readdress the fact that I do not think "a few hundred" can stretch far into 999 space marines, at best one great companies may make it above 900 or even a thousand or so, but still the total number would have been far lower.

Where / when did they retcon the sizes? I've been basing my numbers on the Black Library books. I take it these numbers are from the Forgeworld books? Got some reading to do if so.

If it helps at all, I'm just going to throw in that on the Lexicanum under Chapter Serfs, the Space Wolves have a specialized Serf called the Helmsmaster, who serves as a Captain of each Great Company's flagship. I don't know the source, just passing it on.

 Mr Morden wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:
What makes no sense in the current Codex is that the Wolves also man and use a Ramilies Class Starbase (!) and more than a hundred warships - including more capital ships than any other Chapter that's been listed including Ultramarines and Blood Angels-

Manning even a good proportion of these ships with just the bare minimum command staff and reasonable defence against boarders would take more than the listed strength of marines to do................as they seem to be saying a Great Company is about 150-200 marines......

one thing to remember is the Space Wolves, like most other Astartes Chapters, aren't JUST the Marines themselves, they have a huge support structure in the form of chapter serfs and other "non space marines" whom answer to them. the space wolf fleet is likely, for the most part crewed entirely by non space Marines. with a single Marine as captain. Space Marines make a little more sense when you realize that in addition to the combat power of the astartes themselves each also basicly rules their own little "mini empire". commanding the military strength of their homeworld, and having a fair degree of influance beyond

Whilst I would normally agree for most Chapters this is true- the new Wolf Codex seems to have gone out of its way to say that the Wolves don't do this in the same way - they don't recruit "Non Marines" (IIRC - I am away from my books) at all from Fenris and failed aspirants get to be Iron Thralls or die...........or maybe become actual wolves. Sadly both they and the Black Templars seem to have been reduced in size :(

re warships - now you might get away with a couple of Wolves commanding a ship but usual (again IRRC) from BFG is half a dozen, partly to deal with boarders and a capital ship or indeed a stonking great Star Fort is going to require considerably more.

Its not clear where In fact the personnel to man these ships come from unless the whole background about their recruitment is a bit of smoke and mirrors - not at all impossible with the Wolves. The fact that the Wolves seemingly has the largest fleet of any Chapter - certainly the largest I have ever seen recorded makes this all a little confusing IMO.

Personally I would ignore the Great Company numbers that the Codex gives and say that the Wolves are a very large Chapter, with each Great Company in the high hundreds or more as that makes more sense to me.

they proably don't take their serfs from failed aspirants, given the curse of the Wulfen and all, but they do recruit serfs from Fenris. we see examples in books such as battle of the fang. it's proably a decent theory that the Inqusitor in the Emperor's gift was also a former chapter serf.
it makes more sense to me to assume the space wolves numbers aren't radically higher then any other the other chapters because of well.. politics. Gulliman and Dorn nearly went to WAR over the adoption of the Codex yet we hear nothing about conflict between Gulliman and Russ. furthermore the Space Wolves did eistablish a sucessor chapter in the second founding.

we need to step back and realize what the game plan of the Codex Astartes was intended to be. it was intended to divide the numbers of space marines so no one man, or primarch could ever again, command an army like the legions of old. Gulliman and Dorn nearly went to war over this, so presumably Gulliman was willing to force the issue if it came to it. my guess would be Russ refused to adopt his brothers orginizational scheme, but was content to keep his numbers lowish, (there was likely a tact agreement between Gulliman and Russ as to a threshhold that was acceptable) given the relitive lack of sucessors clearly the wolves took a beating I think it's worth asking how they where so hurt.

First of all the Wolves DID openly engage an entire legion in a battle "to the death" on prosperio. I don't think so far, outside Istavan V we've ever seen anyone else fight that kind of battle. secondly we know Russ was on terra during the Heresy, yet things are pretty quiet about the space wolves participation on terra so where was Russ?
My guess? Malcador gave him what he asked for. Russ was chomping at the bit to go out on the offensive and "go get Horus" Malcador proably let him race out and harry the arriving invaders. the Space Wolves didn't play a big role in the seige of terra because they where fighting the traitors in the rest of the solar system.

so when the seige ended, and following the scouring, the space wolves numbers had proably been drained pretty low. eneugh that Russ could form a single sucessor chapter, and keep the space wovles numbers at a figure he and Gulliman where both happy with

 lcmiracle wrote:

 dusara217 wrote:

They retconned the numbers of Space Marine Legions to average 110k Astartes. It seems to me that Space Wolves would likely have had around 8k-10k Space Marines per Great Company. Which means that after the heresy, they were probably down to around 50k Astartes, then split, and you're down to 25k Astartes. After that, 10k years of attrition takes its toll, and within 2k years the Space Wolves' population would have leveled out and reached a sustainable population (basic ecology here).

Well I'll have to disagree (on the post-heresy chapter size of Space Wolves) -- first of all, where Scar left off, it had a severally beaten (as a result of the thing that happened on Perspero) Space Wolves fleet facing off an unusually large Alpha Legion fleet alone, and many SW ships go blown up. Considering the VI legion never made it back to Terra in time, they would have to be very torn down.

Then there is the Wolf Brothers, since there was only one official founding for the Space Wolves -- the Wolf Brothers (Codex: Space Wolves. "Codex Astartes". Digital), and the Wolf Brothers were a second founding chapter, this would mean the total of the two chapters were the total number of Space Wolves before the split.

So by the "Word of God", as it were, that Guilliman ostensibly agreed on Space Wolves "retaining their twelve remaining Great Companies, each one still comprised many hundreds of Space Wolves" ("Codex Astartes"), it means the maximum number of all Space Wolves, excluding serfs and servitors, post-split would have been no more than 12 * 999 = 11988. Given a perfect 50/50 split, the pre-split VI legion would have just short of 24k Space Marines total. I would readdress the fact that I do not think "a few hundred" can stretch far into 999 space marines, at best one great companies may make it above 900 or even a thousand or so, but still the total number would have been far lower.

Was Scar written pre-or-post retcon? Also, many means 5. Therefore many hundreds means 5 hundreds. Of course, most people don't realize this and just use many to mean more than multiple, despite multiple being 6 being more than many. So, guessing that Guilliman had only a minimal grasp on grammar, it seems to me that "many hundreds" would mean between 400 and 900 Wolves. So, it seems most likely to me that they had around 8k Wolves, give or take a few thousand (this going off of Scars).

Please provide sources for your definitions of many and multiple.

 dusara217 wrote:

Was Scar written pre-or-post retcon? Also, many means 5. Therefore many hundreds means 5 hundreds. Of course, most people don't realize this and just use many to mean more than multiple, despite multiple being 6 being more than many. So, guessing that Guilliman had only a minimal grasp on grammar, it seems to me that "many hundreds" would mean between 400 and 900 Wolves. So, it seems most likely to me that they had around 8k Wolves, give or take a few thousand (this going off of Scars).

 tydrace wrote:
Where / when did they retcon the sizes? I've been basing my numbers on the Black Library books. I take it these numbers are from the Forgeworld books? Got some reading to do if so.

As for Scars, it's published, episodically, from August to October 2013. A "full version" was released February last year. It's certainly after Fear to Tread (2012), The Crimson FIst (2012), and certainly First Heretic (2010), and when Dan Abnett gave 250k for the Ultramarines (2011). Unless the recton happened after Horus Heresy Book II - Massacre, I think we are safe to say Scars has a valid date.

Also many is just the opposite of few. Few is done in comparison to the sample size of course, but is usually 2-3. This really just meant that the lower bound for the size of a Space Wolf Chapter Great Company to be greater than 200. I find it unlikely, especially considering how outnumbered the Space Wolves are against all of the Ultramarines (over half of all loyalists, Codex: Space Marines. 6E. P22) after the Heresy, Guilliman would allow Russ to keep a Chapter, by your account, with way more Space Marines than the Codex Astartes, which Guilliman wrote himself, would tolerate.

 lcmiracle wrote:

 dusara217 wrote:

Was Scar written pre-or-post retcon? Also, many means 5. Therefore many hundreds means 5 hundreds. Of course, most people don't realize this and just use many to mean more than multiple, despite multiple being 6 being more than many. So, guessing that Guilliman had only a minimal grasp on grammar, it seems to me that "many hundreds" would mean between 400 and 900 Wolves. So, it seems most likely to me that they had around 8k Wolves, give or take a few thousand (this going off of Scars).

 tydrace wrote:
Where / when did they retcon the sizes? I've been basing my numbers on the Black Library books. I take it these numbers are from the Forgeworld books? Got some reading to do if so.

As for Scars, it's published, episodically, from August to October 2013. A "full version" was released February last year. It's certainly after Fear to Tread (2012), The Crimson FIst (2012), and certainly First Heretic (2010), and when Dan Abnett gave 250k for the Ultramarines (2011). Unless the recton happened after Horus Heresy Book II - Massacre, I think we are safe to say Scars has a valid date.

Also many is just the opposite of few. Few is done in comparison to the sample size of course, but is usually 2-3. This really just meant that the lower bound for the size of a Space Wolf Chapter Great Company to be greater than 200. I find it unlikely, especially considering how outnumbered the Space Wolves are against all of the Ultramarines (over half of all loyalists, Codex: Space Marines. 6E. P22) after the Heresy, Guilliman would allow Russ to keep a Chapter, by your account, with way more Space Marines than the Codex Astartes, which Guilliman wrote himself, would tolerate.

I see. Thx for the knowledge, captain.

K... I'll do this again...

Current numbers for the Largest and Second Largest of the Great Companies is:

200 for Logan Grimnar's Great Company.
188 for Ragnar Blackmane's Great Company.

That leaves 10 Great Companies with at most 187 Space Wolves.

187 x 10 = 1870
1870 + 188 = 2058
2058 + 200 = 2258

You have, at the most 2258 Space Wolves in the Imperium at the current date, plus their support elements, which might bring the total strength to around 3500, assuming that the support element is ~50% of the Chapter's strength.

Yes, they're big for a modern-day Chapter. They're not a Legion-sized Chapter.

Wasn't that veteran warriors?