Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Wolfsbane was also a pretty good story that did a solid job of filling in a lot of blanks to finally explain the wolves absence at Terra and gave Russ a great moment even if the ending was obvious cause of canon.

The mutts were sitting at about 1300 before Magnus.
War-zone Fenris boosted them by about a hundred Wulfen then dropped them by a about two hundred nameless marines due to casualties and the Wolf Lord of the Ironwolves.
Cadia dropped them by the entirety of the Firehowlers to a Suicide mission that turned out to be irrelevant, the second Wolf Lord of the Ironwolves in as many campaigns and about half of Ragnar Blackmane’s Great Company.
Wolves are sitting at about 1050.
Guilliman buffed most chapters by 2000 Primaris Marines but the Wolves only got 1000, Guilliman assigned 1000 SW Primaris as guardians of something on Terra and called them the Wolf Spear.
Wolves sitting at about 1150.
Njal Stormcaller visits Prospero and brings back the 13th company minus its Wulfen who are already on Fenris.
Wolves sitting at about 2050 marines and...um...variants.

The way that a 1000 strong Marine army conquers a planet is shown in the venerable Space Marine, by Iain Watson. It goes in with Guard support, who neutralise the PDF. Then the Marines go full tilt on the seat of planetary governance and annihilate it.

Install a new governor, job done - planet is back in the Imperium.

Remember, most Imperial actions are against other human worlds, and most human worlds are to an extent feudal. Take over at the top and tell the serfs that the tribute now goes offworld. The majority of citizens will never know the difference, and may in many cases not realise that they've ever left the Imperium during a rebellion.

In that situation where the scope of operation is limited, 1000 marines is a ferocious force.

Pacifying an entire planetary population of heretics or wiping out a whole Xenos world... yeah. A Marine chapter is useless for that.

locarno24 wrote:

Arcanis161 wrote:
I think a Battle Barge ought to have enough room to carry 10000 Marines, right? Engineers/Architects out there, am I correct in that?

With crews in the tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands for battleship class vessels, yes, in theory.

But there's a difference between carrying 10,000 dudes (which any old 1-hit pilgrim transport in BFG could do) and carrying 300 instantly battle-ready marines, plus their interface craft (drop pods + storm ravens + thunderhawks + thunderhawk transports/landing craft to bring the tanks down) plus a wide selection of tanks and APCs, plus prefabricated fortifications, plus supplies to fight several months of resource-hungry battles, plus training grounds to fight anything up to and including company-scale practice engagements en route, plus serfs and armoury assets to maintain everything.

And all without using up any of the ship's fighting capability so it's still got armour, shields and guns comparable to a navy warship of the same size...

It's a little like an aircraft carrier, and saying the fighting strength of an aircraft carrier is limited to the seal teams on board.

 Dakka Wolf wrote:
The mutts were sitting at about 1300 before Magnus.
War-zone Fenris boosted them by about a hundred Wulfen then dropped them by a about two hundred nameless marines due to casualties and the Wolf Lord of the Ironwolves.
Cadia dropped them by the entirety of the Firehowlers to a Suicide mission that turned out to be irrelevant, the second Wolf Lord of the Ironwolves in as many campaigns and about half of Ragnar Blackmane’s Great Company.
Wolves are sitting at about 1050.
Guilliman buffed most chapters by 2000 Primaris Marines but the Wolves only got 1000, Guilliman assigned 1000 SW Primaris as guardians of something on Terra and called them the Wolf Spear.
Wolves sitting at about 1150.
Njal Stormcaller visits Prospero and brings back the 13th company minus its Wulfen who are already on Fenris.
Wolves sitting at about 2050 marines and...um...variants.

I think more than 200 wolves died during Magnus's invasion. Not only did the wolves suffer heavy casualties but Magnus ravaged their recruitment stock. SW's would be about half strength at Cadia, After Cadia they should be near to ruin.
I know its hard to accept this, marines don't lose, amirite? Sorry for the snark.

Latest SW codex says they have recruited "significant" numbers of Primaris however which likely balances out their numbers again.

Table wrote:

 Dakka Wolf wrote:
The mutts were sitting at about 1300 before Magnus.
War-zone Fenris boosted them by about a hundred Wulfen then dropped them by a about two hundred nameless marines due to casualties and the Wolf Lord of the Ironwolves.
Cadia dropped them by the entirety of the Firehowlers to a Suicide mission that turned out to be irrelevant, the second Wolf Lord of the Ironwolves in as many campaigns and about half of Ragnar Blackmane’s Great Company.
Wolves are sitting at about 1050.
Guilliman buffed most chapters by 2000 Primaris Marines but the Wolves only got 1000, Guilliman assigned 1000 SW Primaris as guardians of something on Terra and called them the Wolf Spear.
Wolves sitting at about 1150.
Njal Stormcaller visits Prospero and brings back the 13th company minus its Wulfen who are already on Fenris.
Wolves sitting at about 2050 marines and...um...variants.

I think more than 200 wolves died during Magnus's invasion. Not only did the wolves suffer heavy casualties but Magnus ravaged their recruitment stock. SW's would be about half strength at Cadia, After Cadia they should be near to ruin.
I know its hard to accept this, marines don't lose, amirite? Sorry for the snark.

Meh, snark is my second language.
I know Fenris copped more abuse from the Grey Knights than the demons and Thousand Sons but I’m pretty sure the bigger issue for the Space Wolves was the number of them Wulfen out due to proximity to the Wulfen than actual casualties - if they came close to ruin it would have been on Cadia where they lost at least one and a half Great Companies, possibly more.

The mary sue role of the marines is overstated. GW writers know that the numbers of marines means that they are pitiful for anything that isn't a strike mission.

Last time 20.000 marines tried a defensive missions against xenos they didn't last more than a few days, even if they were barricated inside one of the most powerful fortress of the Imperium with the supplies of 25 chapters combined.

Also, marine voidcrafts are manned by one marine, sometimes 2. All the other marines on board are there for boarding missions.

 Ratius wrote:
Latest SW codex says they have recruited "significant" numbers of Primaris however which likely balances out their numbers again.

How? Fenris is in tatters, I know the Primaris Marines are far more stable but the Wolves only got half the amount the other first founding chapters got and their only recruitment planet is low on population.

 Dakka Wolf wrote:

 Ratius wrote:
Latest SW codex says they have recruited "significant" numbers of Primaris however which likely balances out their numbers again.

How? Fenris is in tatters, I know the Primaris Marines are far more stable but the Wolves only got half the amount the other first founding chapters got and their only recruitment planet is low on population.

SW are essentially a dead legion now. They won't be able to recruit enough to replace their higher than average losses (due to the Blood Claw > Grey Hunter pathway) and their only planet probably won't make it back to population growth naturally. Yes, they have Primaris, but they aren't Fenrisians and never will be.

 BaconCatBug wrote:

 Dakka Wolf wrote:

 Ratius wrote:
Latest SW codex says they have recruited "significant" numbers of Primaris however which likely balances out their numbers again.

How? Fenris is in tatters, I know the Primaris Marines are far more stable but the Wolves only got half the amount the other first founding chapters got and their only recruitment planet is low on population.

SW are essentially a dead legion now. They won't be able to recruit enough to replace their higher than average losses (due to the Blood Claw > Grey Hunter pathway) and their only planet probably won't make it back to population growth naturally. Yes, they have Primaris, but they aren't Fenrisians and never will be.

So you've got the origins of the Death Guard brewing in a loyalist chapter once again? Excellent.

 BaconCatBug wrote:

 Dakka Wolf wrote:

 Ratius wrote:
Latest SW codex says they have recruited "significant" numbers of Primaris however which likely balances out their numbers again.

How? Fenris is in tatters, I know the Primaris Marines are far more stable but the Wolves only got half the amount the other first founding chapters got and their only recruitment planet is low on population.

SW are essentially a dead legion now. They won't be able to recruit enough to replace their higher than average losses (due to the Blood Claw > Grey Hunter pathway) and their only planet probably won't make it back to population growth naturally. Yes, they have Primaris, but they aren't Fenrisians and never will be.

keep in mind a population can rebound fairly quickly after a century or two.

BrianDavion wrote:
keep in mind a population can rebound fairly quickly after a century or two.

The Inquisition wiped out almost ALL of the Fenrisian population. I wouldn't be surprised if there were more Fenrisian menials surviving on Void Ships than survived on the planet.

If you want to have literally 1000 marines per chapter whilst still have them being able to do significant stuff then I figure that 1000 should not count scouts. Secondly, assume that scouts actually are the main fighting force whilst the marines are just the elite who the best scouts graduate to. So a chapter might be 10,000 scouts and a 1,000 marines. Of course, most 'scouts' would not actually be involved in scouting. Rather, most scouts deploy as conventional military forces meanwhile a small number of scouts act as traditionally understood scouts for the marines. This way, you have a divisions worth of front line troops backed up by 1,000 of galaxy's best special ops forces.

 BaconCatBug wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:
keep in mind a population can rebound fairly quickly after a century or two.

The Inquisition wiped out almost ALL of the Fenrisian population. I wouldn't be surprised if there were more Fenrisian menials surviving on Void Ships than survived on the planet.

There is so much potential for the Wolves to ‘escape’ Fenris with the Primaris Marines and fluff wise with the return of the 13th company given that they’re Heresy era which means some of them might be Terran with no ties between their Space Wolf geneseed and Fenrisian bloodlines.

 Dakka Wolf wrote:

 BaconCatBug wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:
keep in mind a population can rebound fairly quickly after a century or two.

The Inquisition wiped out almost ALL of the Fenrisian population. I wouldn't be surprised if there were more Fenrisian menials surviving on Void Ships than survived on the planet.

There is so much potential for the Wolves to ‘escape’ Fenris with the Primaris Marines and fluff wise with the return of the 13th company given that they’re Heresy era which means some of them might be Terran with no ties between their Space Wolf geneseed and Fenrisian bloodlines.

At that point are they still even Space Wolves?

for whats it's worth codex space wolves pretty much ignores the purge of fenris, so.... apparently it's not hurting them?

 BaconCatBug wrote:

 Dakka Wolf wrote:

 BaconCatBug wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:
keep in mind a population can rebound fairly quickly after a century or two.

The Inquisition wiped out almost ALL of the Fenrisian population. I wouldn't be surprised if there were more Fenrisian menials surviving on Void Ships than survived on the planet.

There is so much potential for the Wolves to ‘escape’ Fenris with the Primaris Marines and fluff wise with the return of the 13th company given that they’re Heresy era which means some of them might be Terran with no ties between their Space Wolf geneseed and Fenrisian bloodlines.

At that point are they still even Space Wolves?

Depends on how they choose to write it, If they turn the Terrans into something of a feeder chapter then just a rocky relationship like any other successor chapter. If they choose to depart Fenris entirely...well, “There are no wolves on Fenris”.

Of note - Russ actually wanted successor chapters, if the Wolf Brothers came before him shooting down the rest of the Codex Astartes it actually gives Guiliman legit reason for leaving him alone where he attacked Dorn for rejecting it, the Wolves would have numbered in the hundreds at that point anyway.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

BrianDavion wrote:
for whats it's worth codex space wolves pretty much ignores the purge of fenris, so.... apparently it's not hurting them?

Never liked Codex fluff for the Wolves, why start for Codex fluff that was more than half a year out of date before it was even released?

and truthfully I suspect the IoM was, on a whole, more concerned with the legions being split, then the codex itself. the codex was more a "... and here's how you can orginize.." then anything

We need primaris wulfen. That would solve everything. Just dab some sister blood on them first.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
We need primaris wulfen. That would solve everything. Just dab some sister blood on them first.

What they need is a unit of Bloodskulls carrying the dreaded Grimdark Deathblooder. However, that would probably push the Aeaeaeaeaeaeaeaeldar release back a touch...

I always assumed that the '1000 Marines' was the number of combat ready bodies readily fielded. And that there would be a significant number of others, for vehicle crews, auxiliaries and minor characters, and such alongside that. 1000 Battle Brothers, plus all their accompanying support - which are also space marines.

Just play some regular games of warhammer over some form of campain. By the numbers alone by the end of the campain you have effectivly wiped out the chapter. And that is only counting the games you actually play. Supposebly a lot more is happening in the backround of the campain. Scouting, smalling skirmishes, etc.

1000 SM are indeed very small. And then look to armies that do not have several companies etc. Lamenters, Space wolves. These should have been wiped out a long time ago if you follow the backround information.

 Niiai wrote:
Just play some regular games of warhammer over some form of campain. By the numbers alone by the end of the campain you have effectivly wiped out the chapter. And that is only counting the games you actually play. Supposebly a lot more is happening in the backround of the campain. Scouting, smalling skirmishes, etc.

1000 SM are indeed very small. And then look to armies that do not have several companies etc. Lamenters, Space wolves. These should have been wiped out a long time ago if you follow the backround information.

Most of those killed in a standard 40k game probably survived the battle though- removed models just count as combat ineffective. SO in the case of Marines, that could mean Marines that have gone into the protective comas or had 4 limbs blown off or whatever, or tanks that have been disabled but are still repairable if recovered.

Further to this, most battle would not be "equal points". Space Marines in particular generally dictate the terms of the battle, so you would be more likely to see 3000pts of Space Marines crushing 1000 points of heretic cultists, or 1500pts destroying a 500pt picket. That reduces the casualties massively. Any battle where the sides are equal is a gamble, and therefore either desperate or a mistake for one or both sides.

 Niiai wrote:
Just play some regular games of warhammer over some form of campain. By the numbers alone by the end of the campain you have effectivly wiped out the chapter. And that is only counting the games you actually play. Supposebly a lot more is happening in the backround of the campain. Scouting, smalling skirmishes, etc.

1000 SM are indeed very small. And then look to armies that do not have several companies etc. Lamenters, Space wolves. These should have been wiped out a long time ago if you follow the backround information.

Except if you were to play an accurate campaign, all Space Marines would be toughness 6 while Custodes would be toughness 7 or even 8 and a single squad of space marines with a lascannon would mop up guardsmen or orks without much trouble. The tabletop is a horrible example to use for anything given that it kneecaps numerous factions so guard, ork, and nid players don't need to buy an absolutely obscene amount of models/people buy so little eldar and space marines that GW's sales are hurt.

 Wyzilla wrote:

 Niiai wrote:
Just play some regular games of warhammer over some form of campain. By the numbers alone by the end of the campain you have effectivly wiped out the chapter. And that is only counting the games you actually play. Supposebly a lot more is happening in the backround of the campain. Scouting, smalling skirmishes, etc.

1000 SM are indeed very small. And then look to armies that do not have several companies etc. Lamenters, Space wolves. These should have been wiped out a long time ago if you follow the backround information.

Except if you were to play an accurate campaign, all Space Marines would be toughness 6 while Custodes would be toughness 7 or even 8 and a single squad of space marines with a lascannon would mop up guardsmen or orks without much trouble. The tabletop is a horrible example to use for anything given that it kneecaps numerous factions so guard, ork, and nid players don't need to buy an absolutely obscene amount of models/people buy so little eldar and space marines that GW's sales are hurt.

space Marines are definatly hurt by insufficant granularity. with guardsmen at 3s and marines at 4s. there's simply no place on the table top for the legions of things that rightly should be "tougher/stronger then a guard, but weaker then a space marine" hence you get bizzare stuff like well catachans.

 Haighus wrote:

Further to this, most battle would not be "equal points". Space Marines in particular generally dictate the terms of the battle, so you would be more likely to see 3000pts of Space Marines crushing 1000 points of heretic cultists, or 1500pts destroying a 500pt picket. That reduces the casualties massively. Any battle where the sides are equal is a gamble, and therefore either desperate or a mistake for one or both sides.

Indeed, few (if any) modern armies would even contemplate an attack on an enemy force of equal strength to theirs; unless they had some other massively significant advantage (or bad intel and didn't know the enemy had similar strength). The game has to have equal armies (for the most part), otherwise it would not be much fun for at least one player - and really doesn't represent how most armies would actually function. (except Orks, who would clearly attack anything, regardless of the relative strengths, as the fight is more important than winning)

I remember a similar discussion years ago:

"tyranids replace any casualty on a 2+ every turn, dark eldar require you to set up facing the wrong way, and eldar allows you to play the game three times and decide which result to accept..."

One thing I do like about Battlefleet Gothic is the way Necrons work in that it is, deliberately, an 'unfair' game and yet remains balanced - 1500 points of necrons will kick the ass of 1500 points of Imperial Navy in 'ships destroyed'. However they will give a fair fight in victory points because every necron ship shot down gives 2x or even 3x its points cost in victory points.

 Wyzilla wrote:

 Niiai wrote:
Just play some regular games of warhammer over some form of campain. By the numbers alone by the end of the campain you have effectivly wiped out the chapter. And that is only counting the games you actually play. Supposebly a lot more is happening in the backround of the campain. Scouting, smalling skirmishes, etc.

1000 SM are indeed very small. And then look to armies that do not have several companies etc. Lamenters, Space wolves. These should have been wiped out a long time ago if you follow the backround information.

Except if you were to play an accurate campaign, all Space Marines would be toughness 6 while Custodes would be toughness 7 or even 8 and a single squad of space marines with a lascannon would mop up guardsmen or orks without much trouble. The tabletop is a horrible example to use for anything given that it kneecaps numerous factions so guard, ork, and nid players don't need to buy an absolutely obscene amount of models/people buy so little eldar and space marines that GW's sales are hurt.

Not to mention how big the table would need to be to represent even a small skirmish accurately, let alone a large scale battle or indeed an entire campaign!

 Wyzilla wrote:

 Niiai wrote:
Just play some regular games of warhammer over some form of campain. By the numbers alone by the end of the campain you have effectivly wiped out the chapter. And that is only counting the games you actually play. Supposebly a lot more is happening in the backround of the campain. Scouting, smalling skirmishes, etc.

1000 SM are indeed very small. And then look to armies that do not have several companies etc. Lamenters, Space wolves. These should have been wiped out a long time ago if you follow the backround information.

Except if you were to play an accurate campaign, all Space Marines would be toughness 6 while Custodes would be toughness 7 or even 8 and a single squad of space marines with a lascannon would mop up guardsmen or orks without much trouble. The tabletop is a horrible example to use for anything given that it kneecaps numerous factions so guard, ork, and nid players don't need to buy an absolutely obscene amount of models/people buy so little eldar and space marines that GW's sales are hurt.

I'm not even sure that's true. Most of the battles I've read in Black Library have involved asymmetric fighting or situations in which tabletop statistics can bear out to some degree or another. Marines can mop up tons of Guardsmen if the Guardsmen can't bring their numbers to bear. Especially with character support (which is usually the case in BL, afaik). I haven't read that much BL though, so I'd be interested to know if others can bring up examples.