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Right the title seems to sum it all up. So far this is the size order I have come up with. Feel free to critisise it, infact that is why I started this thread, so it could be critisised. This is going from largest to smallest

1) Word bearers

2) Black legion

3) Iron warriors

4) World eaters

5) Death guard

6) Night lords

7) Alpha legion

8) Emporers children

9) Thousand sons

I think I read a post by someone who had read the Word Bearer novels which said that in one of those novels the Word Bearers mentioned that the Black Legion outnumbers the Word Bearers by far. Since I haven't read those novels myself, I can't confirm that, but it would certainly make sense since the Black Legion is often depicted as the dominant chaos legion and is known for aggressive recruitment.

Depending on how you count the 1K Sons they might be higher, while the animated suit is not a battle brother per se, I wold still include them and even upon their deaths, Sorcerers can reclaim the departed souls from the warp to place back into some armor to reanimate, so I think they would be around the middle of the group. Unable to gain, unable to permanently lose

Yeah but the ones who died before they turned were dead for good.
And, thanks to a certain legion a fair amount of them died.

What exactly are you basing the Alpha Legion's placement on? I would place them in the top 5, they are the Hydra and they are Legion!

I would put it like this:
1. The Black Legion: Stated Largest Chaos Legion
2. The Word Bearers: Largest Pre Heresy Legion that turned traitor so they are bound to still have more than the rest of the lot
3. The Iron Warriors: Storm of Iron shows the Iron Warriors still recruiting, and they stole a ton of pure gene seed
4. The Alpha Legion: Very little known, but it is said that they did not fracture into Warbands as every other legion did.
5. The Death Guard: It's incredibly hard to kill Nurgle's Finest. Pre heresy they only had seven great company's but each company contained far more men than those of the Ultra Marines
6. The Night Lords: They mostly remain untainted by Chaos and still operate close to their Primarch's teachings
7. The World Eaters: The Skalathrax indecent saw many of them dead, and the World Eaters are just far too prone to killing each other and even themselves for Khorne for there to be too many of them, comparatively
8. The Emperor's Children: It's stated that Warbands of Emperor's Children are rare, whether that's because the other legions kicked the piss out of them for starting crap in the Eye of Terror all the time or because they're too busy "slaaneshing" around to fight... either way the effect is the same
9. The Thousand Sons: The Space wolves, Custodes and Sisters of Silence killed most of them, those that are left are either soulless automatons or Sorcerers.

No world bearers is probably in 2nd-4th. Black legion is the 'main' CSM legion

crocodoom wrote:No world bearers is probably in 2nd-4th. Black legion is the 'main' CSM legion

Do you mean World Eaters or Word Bearers?

Azure wrote:Depending on how you count the 1K Sons they might be higher... Unable to gain, unable to permanently lose

I don't see why people say things like this. You don't think they're out recruiting more regular humans to change into csm? The amount of rubric marines may be stable and unchanging but Ahriman and the others are not just sitting on their hands.

NagothDaCleaver
I would put it like this:
1. The Black Legion: Stated Largest Chaos Legion
2. The Word Bearers: Largest Pre Heresy Legion that turned traitor so they are bound to still have more than the rest of the lot
3. The Iron Warriors: Storm of Iron shows the Iron Warriors still recruiting, and they stole a ton of pure gene seed
4. The Alpha Legion: Very little known, but it is said that they did not fracture into Warbands as every other legion did.
5. The Death Guard: It's incredibly hard to kill Nurgle's Finest. Pre heresy they only had seven great company's but each company contained far more men than those of the Ultra Marines
6. The Night Lords: They mostly remain untainted by Chaos and still operate close to their Primarch's teachings
7. The World Eaters: The Skalathrax indecent saw many of them dead, and the World Eaters are just far too prone to killing each other and even themselves for Khorne for there to be too many of them, comparatively
8. The Emperor's Children: It's stated that Warbands of Emperor's Children are rare, whether that's because the other legions kicked the piss out of them for starting crap in the Eye of Terror all the time or because they're too busy "slaaneshing" around to fight... either way the effect is the same
9. The Thousand Sons: The Space wolves, Custodes and Sisters of Silence killed most of them, those that are left are either soulless automatons or Sorcerers.

This is how I would put it also. Although if we're going by the books night lords are very poor off in numbers. The soul hunter series is about a ship that is well below half strength on space marines and they say the rest of the legion is not doing well either. Also , emperor's children did for a time have fabius bile making all kinds of clones and providing new space marines (albeit enhanced in crazy ways).

The Thousand Sons are about learning the secrets of the universe, they would not care to recruit just for the sake of getting larger numbers. They are on a quest for knowledge, not dominance so don't need large armies.