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DarknessEternal wrote:
160,000? Unfortunately your math is also deeply flawed.

that's second founding numbers plus traitors. How's it flawed? It is a rough estimate and I'm not saying it's 100% correct, but logically it's a sound number. Even at an estimated 10,000 full strength legions (which they were not at after the HH), the Chaos Legions would only number 80,000 which would only increase to 180,000 with the Word Bearers making it a total of 260,000 total marines. Still not far off of what I got originally compared to what there is now.

No doubt that my numbers were a very rough estimate, and I didn't forget about the larger legions, they were kinda thrown in with the (admitedly completely out of my ) 4/5 dead number. Even then that comes to a total of 800,000 with my figures given. That number was just to prove a point that it is actually very hard to get anywhere near 2 mil based on actually provided evidence and not "some say this."

I've never ever heard any theory about 100,000 per legion, but I do know about the 10,000 per legion.

Also there's nothing saying that the HLoT are limiting the number of marines total, only the number per single orginization. It doesn't matter if there are a billion SM as long as there's only 1000 per chapter they're not going to have the orignization that existed in the HH. The larger the numbers and more spread out, the harder to organize. On top of that, if one fatal mutation hits a chapter then that mutation is not going to spread to other chapters thus elimitating events similar to the 1ksons.

When "large" heresy takes place among the astartes, it's still usually not more that 4 chapters. Take the Badab War as an example.

GW likes to instill bigger than life numbers into our heads even though what they say 9/10 makes no logical sense. I'm sure giving small numbers for SM pre and just post-heresy can throw people off, but it's what's there.

Sothas wrote:Also there's nothing saying that the HLoT are limiting the number of marines total, only the number per single orginization. It doesn't matter if there are a billion SM as long as there's only 1000 per chapter they're not going to have the orignization that existed in the HH. The larger the numbers and more spread out, the harder to organize. On top of that, if one fatal mutation hits a chapter then that mutation is not going to spread to other chapters thus elimitating events similar to the 1ksons.

Sure they are limiting the number of marines total. If they wanted to start manufacturing SM, they could do so and have a virtually unlimited number of SM within a very short (for 40k at least) period of time. Grab a few particularly stable gene seeds (GK for example) and farm them for a thousand years and you'll have more SM than you would know what to do with.

Then again...if you don't have something for all of the SM to do, they might get antsy and wonder why they're letting the HLoT push them around.

This is why I've never understood the HH & Great Crusade. If the number of guardsmen was anywhere near the number at the end of the 41st millenium (which I'd guess to be around 10 trillion), then a million marines shouldn't have been any threat whatsoever if they turned traitor. It's a pathetically small number, and unless the IoM rolled down a red carpet and said "Come to Terra for the party y'all!", they should have been crushed by the Imperial Army. 1,000,000 guys-no matter how powerful-don't have the manpower to take over a few star systems, let alone march down to the most heavily fortified planet in the galaxy and almost take it.

In fact, that's a massive flaw in all GW fluff.

Unless the Imperial Army was tiny and Terra wasn't fortified at the time, or half the Guardsmen turned traitor as well. In which case ignore this post.

It wasn't just the Legions that went traitor, fully half the admech titan legions went traitor, as did countless guard regiments. It was the fact that the Legions had absolute space dominance as the fleet for a single legion was massive, so after the HH they fleet for the remaining loyalists was given over to the Imperial Navy, so that no individuals could hold that much power ever again.

winnertakesall wrote:It wasn't just the Legions that went traitor, fully half the admech titan legions went traitor, as did countless guard regiments. It was the fact that the Legions had absolute space dominance as the fleet for a single legion was massive, so after the HH they fleet for the remaining loyalists was given over to the Imperial Navy, so that no individuals could hold that much power ever again.

Ah, I see. Still, the traitor Astartes were easily the smallest threat here.

TrollPie wrote:
Ah, I see. Still, the traitor Astartes were easily the smallest threat here.

No, they were the greatest threat. They were in command.

TrollPie wrote:This is why I've never understood the HH & Great Crusade. If the number of guardsmen was anywhere near the number at the end of the 41st millenium (which I'd guess to be around 10 trillion), then a million marines shouldn't have been any threat whatsoever if they turned traitor. It's a pathetically small number, and unless the IoM rolled down a red carpet and said "Come to Terra for the party y'all!", they should have been crushed by the Imperial Army. 1,000,000 guys-no matter how powerful-don't have the manpower to take over a few star systems, let alone march down to the most heavily fortified planet in the galaxy and almost take it.

In fact, that's a massive flaw in all GW fluff.

Unless the Imperial Army was tiny and Terra wasn't fortified at the time, or half the Guardsmen turned traitor as well. In which case ignore this post.

Again, its the fleet. The bio apes shouting HURR! and waiving pointy sticks are irrelevant. Its all the big ships that come with them that matters.

IRC thats what the Raven Guard Primarch did. safe to say it didn't go well, made lots of mutants that had to be put down and he ended up killing himself



BTW sorry if this has been mentioned before i kinda had to say it before it left my head by reading all 3 pages

the post heresy chapter number isn't going to give you the exact number of marines as there were massive casualities taken.


the Salamanders were so decimated they didn't even create successor chapters at the 2nd founding.




and the 1 thousand space marines per chapter doesnt include support personel that arn't part of any Company. it doesn't include Techmarines, Librarians, Chaplains, Honor Guard, Armory staff(junior Techmarines and vehicle crew), or the Fleet(which will be Space Marine officers who will form a squad in the event of a boarding action)

It was estimated in another thread that a chapter could actually have anywhere between 1200 and 1500 marines including these support personell.



so there could actually be as many as 1.5 million space marines at any one time.

Grey Templar wrote:the post heresy chapter number isn't going to give you the exact number of marines as there were massive casualities taken.

Which he accounted for with the astronomical assumption that the Astartes took 80% losses, which they certainly didn't. His calculations were flawed by other means, which he's already responded to.

No need to be a captain-know-it-all when the thing you're objecting to was already covered.

Void__Dragon wrote:Because it is so much cheaper to field a million cannon fodder with more basic than it is to make one space marine while equipping him with really good equipment?

Space Marines = cannon
Imperial guard = cannon fodder...

having 500 fully trained soldiers is the same as 1000 half trained but I'd rather go with the 500 fully trained soldiers.

Nightfall wrote:

Void__Dragon wrote:Because it is so much cheaper to field a million cannon fodder with more basic than it is to make one space marine while equipping him with really good equipment?

Space Marines = cannon
Imperial guard = cannon fodder...

having 500 fully trained soldiers is the same as 1000 half trained but I'd rather go with the 500 fully trained soldiers.

Wait didn't the Russians prove its better to have the half trained guys in the great Lowenbrau Stolinchnoya World Domination Bowl?
After all, what if the half trained guys are driving tanks?


Quantity has a quality all its own...

Frazzled wrote:

Nightfall wrote:
having 500 fully trained soldiers is the same as 1000 half trained but I'd rather go with the 500 fully trained soldiers.

Wait didn't the Russians prove its better to have the half trained guys in the great Lowenbrau Stolinchnoya World Domination Bowl?

Well, since war usually comes down to logistics of supply, having fewer, better guys is usually the better idea. However, the Russians also showed you didn't really need to supply your human wave either.

Frazzled wrote:

TrollPie wrote:This is why I've never understood the HH & Great Crusade. If the number of guardsmen was anywhere near the number at the end of the 41st millenium (which I'd guess to be around 10 trillion), then a million marines shouldn't have been any threat whatsoever if they turned traitor. It's a pathetically small number, and unless the IoM rolled down a red carpet and said "Come to Terra for the party y'all!", they should have been crushed by the Imperial Army. 1,000,000 guys-no matter how powerful-don't have the manpower to take over a few star systems, let alone march down to the most heavily fortified planet in the galaxy and almost take it.

In fact, that's a massive flaw in all GW fluff.

Unless the Imperial Army was tiny and Terra wasn't fortified at the time, or half the Guardsmen turned traitor as well. In which case ignore this post.

Again, its the fleet. The bio apes shouting HURR! and waiving pointy sticks are irrelevant. Its all the big ships that come with them that matters.

No.
And no flaw, as half of the imperial military assets turned, thus fleet, ground forces, etc..

80% loss was an extreme number I through out to help people understand the amount of numbers required for it all. Never did I say that's how many were killed. If they had 2 mil astartes that means they would have to have taken 90%+ losses durring the HH. That is a crazy number. CRAZY!

scarletsquig wrote:

BeefCakeSoup wrote:The Sisters of Battle fulfill the role of sub-par mass produced Space Marines quite well. Their undying loyalty is also preferable to the bold independance common among Space Marine Chapters.

So yes, they could create a mass production of Space Marines, but it's easier to field Sisters wearing power armor and sporting bolters than it is to use tons of geneseed.

Only problem with that idea is the 5th edition warhammer 40,000 rulebook.

Yes, Matt Ward really did write a line in there that says "there are only 4000 sisters of battle in the entire galaxy".

Yet another piece of established background that the idiot has casually smashed into the dirt.

I think before whining about Ward, you need to actually read the piece in question.

Page 120:
"There are three major Orders of Adepta Sororitas, the fighting strength of each numbering several thousand warriors, as well as many lesser sisterhoods comprised of around a hundred or so Battle Sisters."

So depending on the numbers("several thousand each" means more than 1000, but could be anything from 2000 to 10,000 per the "three major Orders", and with "many lesser sisterhoods[remember, there's NO SET NUMBER of these, since the 'lesser sisterhoods' are meant to represent whatever order the playerbase wants to design] comprised of a hundred or so Battle Sisters") it could be 4000 or 48k.

Have you ever heard of the Horus Hersey?

All of you are hitting very good points, but lets wrap it together shall we?

To make a Space Marine, you need at the least, 8 years of training and implanting to fully produce an Angel of Death. This alone produces a problem for mass production. Such a long period of time to train a Marine leads to lots of problems like properly reinforcing mass produced ranks. Alternatives can be to skip the implants or substitute them. But then they wouldn't really be Space Marines would they?

The pre-heresy Legions were somewhat mass produced, but the biggest and most dangerous flaw with this was geneseed corruption, which left many in the ranks of Space Marines susceptible to Chaos. Not to mention a whole bunch of other reasons why so few Space Marines are produced for the next ten thousand years was because training grew more intensive, routing out even the weak ones that ARE strong enough to become Space Marines, taking only the best of the best and purest of the pure. This was probably written and intended by the Codex Astartes. Its the only reason I can think of why it's so hard to rebuild a Chapters numbers when ten thousand years ago, legions were reinforced daily.

Power Armour is mainly produced by the Adeptus Mechanicus and chapter artificers...who are probably from the Adeptus Mechanicus anyway. Judging from mixed suits of armour as well as low productivity of even their latest patterns, it can be gleaned that Space Marine power armour is extremely difficult and/or time consuming to produce. Alternatives can be to biuld power armour used by the Adepta Sororitas or fall back to the barest essentials when making Space Marine armour...which is an extremely dangerous option considering the missions assigned to an Adeptus Astartes.

And last of all, for cost efficiency, you can probably arm 10000 guardsmen for the price of training a Space Marine. For the cost of a "Half-Marine," you can probably arm 5000 guardsmen and biuld a bunch of chimeras.

To succeed at mass producing Space Marines, you'll have to find ways to overcome all these obstacles, which i judge would be no easy feat.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

biccat wrote:Regarding the risk of Chaos, the impression I get from the HH books is that the Marines who turned didn't do so due to a flaw in their gene-seed, but rather due to some sort of mental or social corruption by Chaos. The continued existence of marines going rogue seems to confirm that the purity of the geneseed isn't the controlling issue.

However, it might be true that there are certain personalities that are more susceptable to turning to Chaos. Perhaps as much as 50% (which would explain the heresy). Therefore, the selection process is probably more about determining those susceptable to the taint of Chaos than providing "the best" soldiers.

Finally, given that the IoM was able to produce and equip a number of marines at short notice (foundings, Legions), it seems that industrial capacity isn't that much of an issue (given a galaxy-wide empire, it shouldn't be hard to find spare production), and the threat of Chaos appears to be an overstated concern.

The Emperor created both the primarchs and space marines to be immune to disease, utterly and fanatically devoted to a cause they believe in and to be pure of corruption. Because of the flaws in primarch DNA when they were scattered by the warp, the marines using primarch geneseed inherited the flaws, that, and mass production also mutated some of the geneseeds. This flaw in geneseed DNA allowed chaos to take hold of them. Just wanted to inform you of this. All the other stuff you said is pretty much on par.

LumenPraebeo wrote:All of you are hitting very good points, but lets wrap it together shall we?

Your summary forgot to mention that Space Marines are already being produced as fast as the Imperium and Astartes themselves can manage. If they could make more faster, they'd be doing it.

DarknessEternal wrote: Your summary forgot to mention that Space Marines are already being produced as fast as the Imperium and Astartes themselves can manage. If they could make more faster, they'd be doing it.

Well, wouldn't that be implied? In a galactic empire being assailed by all sides and festering with mutation and corruption, 8 years is pretty darn long to create a Space Marine, any longer than 10 for every singe recruit they take and it would be danger bordering on extinction of a chapter should any major opponent decide the sector is ripe for conquest

LumenPraebeo wrote:the marines using primarch geneseed inherited the flaws, that, and mass production also mutated some of the geneseeds.

I didn't think that marines used geneseed from their primarch, but instead were simply "assigned" to their Primarch when he was found. The geneseed for new marines was simply pulled from the rank and file.

However, the "space magic" of 40k tends to confuse things. For example, Magnus was able to change the geneseed of his legion simply by making a deal with Tzeentch. And the legions tended to take on attributes of their Primarch only after he was found and reunited with them. This suggests that "geneseed" is more than simply genetics.

It's definitely the genetic material from their Primarch.
I don't know where the second part has come from. Is there anything to suggest this? As The Thousand Sons had many psykers within their ranks before reuniting with Magnus.

iproxtaco wrote:It's definitely the genetic material from their Primarch.

Their geneseed was obviously based on their Primarch, but was there really any difference between pre-Primarch geneseed and post-Primarch geneseed? I didn't think that was ever mentioned.

iproxtaco wrote:I don't know where the second part has come from. Is there anything to suggest this? As The Thousand Sons had many psykers within their ranks before reuniting with Magnus.

Legions like the World Eaters and Death Guard didn't take on their characteristic styles and appearance until after reunited with their Primarchs. The Alpha Legion is a particularly good example of this.

It's not, although I don't see why there should be too much confusion. When the Primarchs were scattered, The Emperor used their genetic blue-prints to mass-produce the Astartes, implying that there's no difference.

Genetic mutations are different from their style of warfare. The Legions were like they were because of the planet their Primarch grew up on, so obviously they wont display that aspect until they reunite with their progenitor. I thought you may have meant genetic characteristics like elongated canines for the Space Wolves or height for the Thousand Sons, which I haven't read anything to suggest they weren't modified like this before the Legions met the Primarchs.

iproxtaco wrote:It's not, although I don't see why there should be too much confusion. When the Primarchs were scattered, The Emperor used their genetic blue-prints to mass-produce the Astartes, implying that there's no difference.

Agreed. But if the warp changed the Primarch's geneseed, then marines created from sources before and after the Primarch was rediscovered should be different. However, nothing suggests that either:
1) the Emperor took a new "sample" from the Primarchs after they were reunited; or
2) there is any difference (in geneseed) between the pre- and post-Primarch marines in any legion.

So if the warp did modify the geneseed when the primarchs were scattered, the modification wasn't of the primarch's geneseed, but of the geneseed of the legion as a whole. Requiring space magic.

iproxtaco wrote:Genetic mutations are different from their style of warfare. The Legions were like they were because of the planet their Primarch grew up on, so obviously they wont display that aspect until they reunite with their progenitor. I thought you may have meant genetic characteristics like elongated canines for the Space Wolves or height for the Thousand Sons, which I haven't read anything to suggest they weren't modified like this before the Legions met the Primarchs.

Yes, but we're told that the World Eaters became more ferocious after meeting up with Angron. This is more than different actions, but a change to their geneseed-induced rage.

Anyway, I thought I remembered something in the HH books (probably Legion) explaining how some marines took on the appearance of their Primarch after being reunited with him. I could be misremembering, however.

biccat wrote:

iproxtaco wrote:It's definitely the genetic material from their Primarch.

Their geneseed was obviously based on their Primarch, but was there really any difference between pre-Primarch geneseed and post-Primarch geneseed? I didn't think that was ever mentioned.

Reading through the Horus Heresy, have you noticed that many if not all of the Adeptus Astartes who fought before reuniting with their primarchs did not turn traitor? And if you haven't read the books, you should. They're totally awesome.

The World Eaters became like that because Angron had them lobotomized in secret to induce their rage fits during battle.

LumenPraebeo wrote:

biccat wrote:

iproxtaco wrote:It's definitely the genetic material from their Primarch.

Their geneseed was obviously based on their Primarch, but was there really any difference between pre-Primarch geneseed and post-Primarch geneseed? I didn't think that was ever mentioned.

Reading through the Horus Heresy, have you noticed that many if not all of the Adeptus Astartes who fought before reuniting with their primarchs did not turn traitor? And if you haven't read the books, you should. They're totally awesome.

I didn't get that from the books at all. In fact, very few of marines from the traitor legions turned. One of the traitor legions (World Bearers or Luna wolves maybe?) had one side turn to chaos, but only because the legion had been split by their Primarch. The split had been based on when the marines joined, but it wasn't suggested that there were any differences in their geneseed.

No, I'm not referring to the Dark Angels.

scarletsquig wrote:

BeefCakeSoup wrote:The Sisters of Battle fulfill the role of sub-par mass produced Space Marines quite well. Their undying loyalty is also preferable to the bold independance common among Space Marine Chapters.

So yes, they could create a mass production of Space Marines, but it's easier to field Sisters wearing power armor and sporting bolters than it is to use tons of geneseed.

Only problem with that idea is the 5th edition warhammer 40,000 rulebook.

Yes, Matt Ward really did write a line in there that says "there are only 4000 sisters of battle in the entire galaxy".

Yet another piece of established background that the idiot has casually smashed into the dirt.

Wow, I can't believe they went that route! That doesn't even fit into their recruiting pools... So I guess the SoB are now almost as rare as GKs?

No, because that's not what it says in the passage, as Kanluwen has clarified.