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Ok first off if you have not read the book or do not want to have any of it given away for you than do not read any further. Anyways As stated above I'm on my third book in the hours heresy and I'm at the climax of this particular novel where the serious fighting begins on isstvan 3 and i have a question. I won't put how it happens so I don't ruin anything for those of you who haven't read it yet but the book sort of has you believing loken and his troops are inside cover underground and there numbers are extremely thinned out. Then he comes out to the site of the sons of huros "traitors" approaching him and all of a sudden he is commanding 2000 loyalist astartes of his own... Id like to know where were they all hiding... Haha?

But the more serious question and reason for this quick thread is how many soldiers were in the sons of Horus..? How many men made up a legion and at this point in time were all chapters legions..? Were the ultramarines a legion.. blood angels etc? If Horus would so easily kill off 2000 of his own.. When he is preparing to embark on the "greatest war in history" when it seems to me he only has 4 legions allied with him at this point.. Plus maybe demons we don't know about yet. Against .. Lets see every other chapter of space marines plus the imperial guard. I understand that many will take his side in the upcoming books and this will spark the war in its own but how many men did they have to start and did all other legions command this many troops?

The sons of Horus were one of the bigger legions, I think only the Ultramarines were bigger.

I believe the Ultramarines had more than 100k marines in it b4 Calth.

Oh wow.. Ok so I guess I just haven't gotten to Calth yet. But I can imagine what happens.. And thanks bud I'm just curious because I thought chapters these days were only 1K strong..?

That is true, chapters are limited to 1k. Legions though were not limited and were much larger.

When did legions turn into chapters..? Or is that for me to find out later in the series?

[spoiler]

Legions became chapters during the second founding after the heresy concluded when the Codex Astartes was pushed by Robout Girlyman upon The Imperium and the legions where told to accept or be listed as heretics and hunted by the rest of The Imperium. Ultimately Dorn and the others who opposed the Codex where silenced due to this and all legions took over the codex to varying degrees. SW being the least accepted and used legion to adopt it. Since the Ultramarines where the single strongest legion left (seeing only the war in the Ultramar sector and the other one with the Alpha Legion) after the battle for Terra they had... an uncanny "We outnumber you so bow to us"mentality. The legions who fought in the Battle for Terra where decimated and the Dark Angels had lost over half their strength in Luthor's rebellion so no one could really say no without inciting another heresy and civil war the Imperium couldn't afford in any way shape or form. Especially between the High Lords of Terra and the Primarchs that had inherited The Imperium.

Also of note the Guard wasn't the guard back then. The Imperial Navy and Guard had started as the Imperial Army and where a single large body under the command of generals and an overall command and control group. However post heresy everyone was scared of massed rebellion as well as anyone who could control massive power on the scales seen in The Great Crusade and Heresy and thus they split the two creating the Imperial Navy and Imperial Guard. One focussed on aerial and spatial defence, the other land as we know and lover her today. Which was further reduced into regiments and battle fleets respectively to once again lessen the power and raise the chance of influence not being spread quickly. So instead of whole army groups and Crusade fleets under the command of one man we have them under command of many which lead to their own issues we can see in the Black Library books.


Hope this helps. I believe this is all accurate though I haven't exactly kept up on any new/changed fluff to this era.

SMMSjosh14 wrote:
When did legions turn into chapters..? Or is that for me to find out later in the series?

Post-heresy. It's actually a major point of contention between the loyalist primarchs but the argument that no single individual should have control of a force of space marines that large won out.

During the heresy, legion size, organization, and leadership were extremely variable between legions. A company during the Horus Heresy would've generally been 1000 marines.

Now there was actually a change to the legion sizes in the later books after ADB finally forced all Horus Heresy authors to come to a consensus on size. The hardcover and trade paperback re-releases will be updated will the new legion sizes. On average, a legion was 100,000 marines, with the Ultramarines being the largest at 250,000 and the Word Bearers at second largest at 200,000. Off the top of my head, in Horus Hersey: Betrayal, it explains that the Emperor's Children had around 110,000 in total, Death Guard had around 95,000, and the World Eaters had around 150,000.

Thanks a ton guys!! That's all super helpful

jareddm wrote:
Now there was actually a change to the legion sizes in the later books after ADB finally forced all Horus Heresy authors to come to a consensus on size. The hardcover and trade paperback re-releases will be updated will the new legion sizes. On average, a legion was 100,000 marines, with the Ultramarines being the largest at 250,000 and the Word Bearers at second largest at 200,000. Off the top of my head, in Horus Hersey: Betrayal, it explains that the Emperor's Children had around 110,000 in total, Death Guard had around 95,000, and the World Eaters had around 150,000.

Considering the Ultramarines had 23 2nd founding successor chapters, those seem like awfully high numbers to have settled on. I know they took a big hit at Calth, but the largest Legion being reduced to 24k marines, and everybody else less than that, seems like a lot.

@tgjensen

That 23 second founding chapters issue from the Apocrypha has two resolutions. The first, in universe, is that's just the 23 listed in that particular document, more are recorded elsewhere. The second, out of universe, is that that's fluff that dates from before the legions were set at the 100k mark. (Back when they were only 10,000 strong 23 successors seems reasonable post heresy and scouring casualties) i'd expect to see it retconned or otherwise addressed in the next Space Marine codex.