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I started a similar discussion in general, and now I'm hoping I can get a lorehound or two who can help me work out some specifics.

TLR version - I want to run a pre-heresy company of Luna Wolves in 40k from some time before Horus developed Daddy issues. The supporting fluff being that they hit some kind of terrible warp storm(/turbulence/hiccup/a wizard did it) when making a jump to wherever they were going. Instead of arriving comfortably at their destination, they pop out in the 41st millenium to a galaxy that is the antithesis of future they had been fighting for and are forced to survive by going renegade and playing space pirates for a while. See thread for further info.

So now I'm looking for any and all information on the structure of Astartes Legions during the Great Crusade, and the Luna Wolves in particular. of primary concern are how the legions were organized,

How many troops were in a legion? how many companies? How many men in a company? etc.

Which companies of Luna Wolves are already mentioned / documented in the fluff?

Do we know anything about how the fleets were organized? What ships they would have been using? What kind of armament? How many astartes would have been on a ship? Were the non-astartes soldiers aboard the same ships as astartes? or did they have their own ships? Most of this information is to figure out what kind of ship they are in possession of, or how many ships they have, etc etc..as whether or not there would be appreciable non-astartes with them (aside from the usual thralls, servitors, astropaths and tech-people). I may wind up using this as a justification for some IG style allies later. .. Speaking of..

What do we know about the actual imperial army at the time? what was it called? how were they organized? yadda yadda as above.

Anything anyone can tell me or link me will be handy. I'll be digging on my own until then.

Thanks!

There's a lot of information about the legions in the first HH book Betrayal including size and organisation.
When it comes to organisation it's all over the place, according to Betrayal each legion is split into chapters within which there are two battalions and in each of these there are companies of 100 marines. However it does say some don't follow this set out. However according to the BL books each legion is split up into companies. I go by the idea that in each legion they've got different titles for the same thing, but I go that a company is 1000 strong and it's split into cohorts of 100. But I'd defiantly have a look at Betrayal the Sons of Horus are one of the featured legion and I can't imagine they'd have changed their organisation in he change of name.
The Imperial Army was basically the IG and the Imperial Navy all bundled together. There were regiments from different worlds just like in 40K but each regiment tended to have it's own aircraft, artillery and ships.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Pic of the Organisation table from Betrayal

In Dan Abnett's book ''Know No Fear'' the 250,000 strong Ultramarine legion has a interesting hierarchy and organisation,

At the top is Roboute Guilliman, below him are the Tetrachs who each rule a fiefdom in Ultramar ( at this point a 500 world empire within the Emperors empire). The there are 25 Chapter masters who each command a 10,000 strong chapters which each contain ten 1000 strong companies each lead by captain. It gets a bit sketchy here but I took it as each 100 marines within the company had a Sergeant and each ten men had a squad leader.

Of course as usual their are separate powers such as scouts and the armoury.

Abnett's extrapolation of the Ultramarines organization in KNF was one of that book's weaker points, lol.

I'm also a Luna Wolves collector. The legion numbered at its height 130-170,000 marines. They were one of the most ferocious legions, especially in combat. They were commonly used in conjunction with other legions as they worked well and Horus new how to utilise their strengths efficiently. They often used a drop pod assault technique. Their fleet was comprised of many ships and a large capital ship called the Vengeful Spirit. The early Luna Wolves were bandits and gang members abducted from their home planet and given the space marine implants.

There were humans a boards their ships. I can't remember their name though, might have been the palatine guard. The also commonly fought with the main imperial army.

There is a good page here: http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Black_Legion#.UhpFG8u9KSM
Hope this helps!

seriously, read the first 3 Horus heresy novels.. All about the Luna Wolves! And there are a couple of other novels where info is spreaded... But seriously.. Horus Rising/Galaxy in flames and False gods will show how they work,live and what they respect and such!

Well in 'Galaxy in Flames' they aren't Luna Wolves any more...

 Waaghboss Grobnub wrote:
seriously, read the first 3 Horus heresy novels.. All about the Luna Wolves! And there are a couple of other novels where info is spreaded... But seriously.. Horus Rising/Galaxy in flames and False gods will show how they work,live and what they respect and such!

This is actually where they stroked my interest. I'm going to have to go back and re-read them again, this time mining for specific logistical details.

Actually, the Black Legion supplement has added a way for all of you people who constantly ask to play Luna Wolves armies in 40k to actually play them without having to constantly revert to the incredibly flimsy and trite idea of "warp storm shenanigans!"

When Abaddon first formed the Black Legion, there were a number of warbands/companies that refused to follow him and went off on their own. One of those warbands is known as the Wolves of Horus and is a group that craves to return to the days of the Luna Wolves, which would most likely involve a return to the Luna Wolves's color scheme, which I assume is something you planned on doing.

 gianlucafiorentini123 wrote:
There's a lot of information about the legions in the first HH book Betrayal including size and organisation.
When it comes to organisation it's all over the place, according to Betrayal each legion is split into chapters within which there are two battalions and in each of these there are companies of 100 marines. However it does say some don't follow this set out. However according to the BL books each legion is split up into companies. I go by the idea that in each legion they've got different titles for the same thing, but I go that a company is 1000 strong and it's split into cohorts of 100. But I'd defiantly have a look at Betrayal the Sons of Horus are one of the featured legion and I can't imagine they'd have changed their organisation in he change of name.

The chart given in Betrayal is specifically for pre-Primarch legions. It is the way the legions were organized when the Great Crusade first began. Every single legion organized itself either somewhat or very differently from that chart after their primarch was discovered.

jareddm wrote:
Actually, the Black Legion supplement has added a way for all of you people who constantly ask to play Luna Wolves armies in 40k to actually play them without having to constantly revert to the incredibly flimsy and trite idea of "warp storm shenanigans!"

When Abaddon first formed the Black Legion, there were a number of warbands/companies that refused to follow him and went off on their own. One of those warbands is known as the Wolves of Horus and is a group that craves to return to the days of the Luna Wolves, which would most likely involve a return to the Luna Wolves's color scheme, which I assume is something you planned on doing

I do like the white and black look. Hm. I'll take a look and see if I can't find some information on the Wolves of Horus. The only bothersome bit is that even if they didn't join the Black Legion, they would still have been chaos worshipers by that point. Part of the draw for me was having renegade marines that weren't spikey-bit nutters murmuring into the dark.

Primarch on top, each company was between a hundred and hundred strong, led by a Captain, split into squads of ten, each led by a sergeant, one of whom was promoted to the captains second in command.

Their ships were current day Imperial Navy ships, possibly multiple companies per ship. The Vengeful Spirit however, Horus flagship, now Abaddon's, had at least seven or eight, possibly even all the way up to twenty or more companies permanently on board and was a Battle Barge.

The guard weren't called the Imperial Guard as far as I remember, just the Army or Imperial Army. Less direct fighting, more occupational troops rather than the front line fighters. No less individualised than the modern day guard, the Luna Wolves' Imperial Army were called the Byzant Janizars, wore long jackets and were very disciplined and well equipped, possibly with some sort of halberd gun thing that I can't recall clearly.

 kazian wrote:

I do like the white and black look. Hm. I'll take a look and see if I can't find some information on the Wolves of Horus. The only bothersome bit is that even if they didn't join the Black Legion, they would still have been chaos worshipers by that point. Part of the draw for me was having renegade marines that weren't spikey-bit nutters murmuring into the dark.

I'd say that's a fairly limited take on the Black Legion. In fact if you take a look at some of the images of Sons of Horus armor in Betrayal, a bunch of them were already wearing spikes simply as a tradition of the legion. Not all of every chaos legion immedietely grew spikes and started praying to the Dark Gods. There was a huge amount of turmoil within the Black Legion post-heresy (as ADB's new series will show) and plenty of marines never bought into Abaddon's rule or their escape into the Eye of Terror. There were dozens of factions that felt they knewthe 'true' path for the Sons of Horus. I'm sure one of them could've involved shedding themselves of as much warp taint as possible and reclaiming Horus's glory as Warmaster.

My point is, there's far more interesting approaches than simply throwing Great Crusade-era marines into 40k.

 iproxtaco wrote:
Primarch on top, each company was between a hundred and hundred strong, led by a Captain, split into squads of ten, each led by a sergeant, one of whom was promoted to the captains second in command.

I may be wrong but I believe their may be several captains per company with one senior. The only thing that makes me believe this is that in Horus Rising Garviel Loken talks about being summoned to the strategum only twice before, once when promoted to captain and then again when promoted to captain of the tenth. With the heresy era companies being considerably larger it sort of makes sense to have a few junior captains between sergeant and captain of the company.

Or he got promoted from captain of the XX for example to the more prestigious X. Stuff like that happens alot.

Nope, Ugly Green Trog is correct. Again in Horus Rising, Loken is competing with a Captain Ekaddon to get to the top of a tower first. Ekaddon is a member of the first company and leads a single squad, but he is a captain.

 kazian wrote:
I started a similar discussion in general, and now I'm hoping I can get a lorehound or two who can help me work out some specifics.

TLR version - I want to run a pre-heresy company of Luna Wolves in 40k from some time before Horus developed Daddy issues. The supporting fluff being that they hit some kind of terrible warp storm(/turbulence/hiccup/a wizard did it) when making a jump to wherever they were going. Instead of arriving comfortably at their destination, they pop out in the 41st millenium to a galaxy that is the antithesis of future they had been fighting for and are forced to survive by going renegade and playing space pirates for a while. See thread for further info.

So now I'm looking for any and all information on the structure of Astartes Legions during the Great Crusade, and the Luna Wolves in particular. of primary concern are how the legions were organized,

How many troops were in a legion? how many companies? How many men in a company? etc.

Which companies of Luna Wolves are already mentioned / documented in the fluff?

What do we know about the actual imperial army at the time? what was it called? how were they organized? yadda yadda as above.

Read the first 3 Horus Heresy novels it will resolve most of these questions.

As for Legion organisation I always got the idea it was like this.

-10 Chapters in a Legion

-10 companies in a chapter

-100 men in a company

-First company always has terminator armor, sixth is assault marines if I'm correct.

But seriously read the books, they are essential for anyone doing a Luna Wolves army. Specifically because Horus was their Primarch so I'm not sure how your timeline works with the fluff.

 Orblivion wrote:
Nope, Ugly Green Trog is correct. Again in Horus Rising, Loken is competing with a Captain Ekaddon to get to the top of a tower first. Ekaddon is a member of the first company and leads a single squad, but he is a captain.

Really? Ok, I'll have to reread that bit.

 tundrafrog1124 wrote:

 kazian wrote:
I started a similar discussion in general, and now I'm hoping I can get a lorehound or two who can help me work out some specifics.

TLR version - I want to run a pre-heresy company of Luna Wolves in 40k from some time before Horus developed Daddy issues. The supporting fluff being that they hit some kind of terrible warp storm(/turbulence/hiccup/a wizard did it) when making a jump to wherever they were going. Instead of arriving comfortably at their destination, they pop out in the 41st millenium to a galaxy that is the antithesis of future they had been fighting for and are forced to survive by going renegade and playing space pirates for a while. See thread for further info.

So now I'm looking for any and all information on the structure of Astartes Legions during the Great Crusade, and the Luna Wolves in particular. of primary concern are how the legions were organized,

How many troops were in a legion? how many companies? How many men in a company? etc.

Which companies of Luna Wolves are already mentioned / documented in the fluff?

What do we know about the actual imperial army at the time? what was it called? how were they organized? yadda yadda as above.

Read the first 3 Horus Heresy novels it will resolve most of these questions.

As for Legion organisation I always got the idea it was like this.

-10 Chapters in a Legion

-10 companies in a chapter

-100 men in a company

-First company always has terminator armor, sixth is assault marines if I'm correct.

But seriously read the books, they are essential for anyone doing a Luna Wolves army. Specifically because Horus was their Primarch so I'm not sure how your timeline works with the fluff.

That would put the legions at 10,000 (?) strong each thought.

Ugly Green Trog wrote:

 iproxtaco wrote:
Primarch on top, each company was between a hundred and hundred strong, led by a Captain, split into squads of ten, each led by a sergeant, one of whom was promoted to the captains second in command.

I may be wrong but I believe their may be several captains per company with one senior. The only thing that makes me believe this is that in Horus Rising Garviel Loken talks about being summoned to the strategum only twice before, once when promoted to captain and then again when promoted to captain of the tenth. With the heresy era companies being considerably larger it sort of makes sense to have a few junior captains between sergeant and captain of the company.

Ah yes, I completely forgot about that. I also meant 'between a hundred and three hundred', because I vaguely remember something about the tenth being that large, so given that it would make more sense anyway for there to be multiple captains, and like someone has already said, there was another captain within in first company as well as Abaddon.

I don't remember if there's a formal rank of lieutenant, though, just sergeant above the regular rank and file.

 gianlucafiorentini123 wrote:


That would put the legions at 10,000 (?) strong each thought.

I don't think it was that rigid. Heading into Signus the Blood Angels numbered roughly 120,000 split into 300 companies and Raldoron was the sole chapter master in the legion. For them the title just meant that he was Sanguinius' second-in-command.

 iproxtaco wrote:

Ugly Green Trog wrote:

 iproxtaco wrote:
Primarch on top, each company was between a hundred and hundred strong, led by a Captain, split into squads of ten, each led by a sergeant, one of whom was promoted to the captains second in command.

I may be wrong but I believe their may be several captains per company with one senior. The only thing that makes me believe this is that in Horus Rising Garviel Loken talks about being summoned to the strategum only twice before, once when promoted to captain and then again when promoted to captain of the tenth. With the heresy era companies being considerably larger it sort of makes sense to have a few junior captains between sergeant and captain of the company.

Ah yes, I completely forgot about that. I also meant 'between a hundred and three hundred', because I vaguely remember something about the tenth being that large, so given that it would make more sense anyway for there to be multiple captains, and like someone has already said, there was another captain within in first company as well as Abaddon.

I don't remember if there's a formal rank of lieutenant, though, just sergeant above the regular rank and file.

I believe that a captain of a full company would probably be known as a praetor while normal captains are what we know as centurions.

Having further researched this, all of it is made only more complicated by the Luna Wolves tendency towards informal organization. I'm coming to the conclusion I may just need to make a significant amount of this up.

If you read my post and follow the link it will make your job considerably easier...