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I was wondering how many or an estimation of how many successor chapters there really are. Any help would be great!

Well the rule of thumb is that there is supposed to be roughly 1000 chapters. So that would mean that 991 of them are successor chapters.

One million chapters, wasn't it?

No. One million Space Marines across 1000 Chapters.

 Orblivion wrote:
Well the rule of thumb is that there is supposed to be roughly 1000 chapters. So that would mean that 991 of them are successor chapters.

Pretty much.

Further broken down with the following info you can glean from the fluff.

At least 667 of the are Ultramarines successors ("at least two thirds")
None of them are Space Wolves successors. (Wolf Brothers were the only one, and they were unstable and destroyed)
At least 24 are Imperial Fists
At least 9 are Dark Angels
At least 20 are Blood Angels
At least 9 are White Scars
At least 5 are Iron Hands
No known Salamanders successors but 2 rumored
About 13 are Raven Guard

That leaves roughly 244 others (some of the above might be potentially destroyed, I didn't go through the list chapter by chapter).

Now you take a few of the following ideas into effect based on fluff postulations from various books. I've sourced the ones I know of:

Fluff has claimed the Dark Angels rarely, if ever get used for new chapters because the Admech worries they are Legion-building (CA6E).
The Blood Angels very rarely get used, because the Admech knows their geneseed is heavily flawed. The Lamenters were specifically an attempt to "fix" it, and may well be the "last" Blood Angel successor ever made (21st Founding)

So you figure that the successors from other Legions are probably "older" (earlier Foundings). More recent Foundings are probably almost all Ultramarines. AdMech is a "ain't broke, don't fix it" sort of operation it seems. Hence why the Ultramarines are "more than two thirds" of all chapters. The breakdown of those last 244 will probably favor larger distributions of Imperial Fists/Raven Guard/White Scars/Iron Hands, and smaller distributions of Dark Angels, Blood Angels and (for whatever reason) Salamanders.

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:
and (for whatever reason) Salamanders.

Since the dropsite massacre they havent had the numbers to create a successor, theres only around 700 of them in the chapter as it stands, including scouts. They may also have the same problem as the wolves, albeit to a lower degree. Their planets radiation has altered their geneseed, perhaps only inhabitants of the planet can stand the altered seed.

Thatguyhsagun wrote:

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:
and (for whatever reason) Salamanders.

Since the dropsite massacre they havent had the numbers to create a successor, theres only around 700 of them in the chapter as it stands, including scouts. They may also have the same problem as the wolves, albeit to a lower degree. Their planets radiation has altered their geneseed, perhaps only inhabitants of the planet can stand the altered seed.

Right on the first part, but I am unfamiliar with any deficiencies, perceived or otherwise with the Salamanders' genetic material. It is my understanding that their melanochrome implant is simply put into overdrive from Nocturne 's ambient radiation, thus darkening their skin to protect them from the environment. More seasoned dakka-ites may have additional input or correct my statements if they prove inaccurate.

Good thread so far. Also @veteran sergeant, great research post.

FM Argos

I'm still not entirely sure how Chapters like the Iron Hands and the Salamanders are still rebuilding after ten thousand years, while the Crimson Fists got back on their feet to roughly 3/4 strength in a matter of decades.

 Arcsquad12 wrote:
I'm still not entirely sure how Chapters like the Iron Hands and the Salamanders are still rebuilding after ten thousand years, while the Crimson Fists got back on their feet to roughly 3/4 strength in a matter of decades.

GW failed elementary math.

 Arcsquad12 wrote:
I'm still not entirely sure how Chapters like the Iron Hands and the Salamanders are still rebuilding after ten thousand years, while the Crimson Fists got back on their feet to roughly 3/4 strength in a matter of decades.

It's not that they haven't rebuilt, it's that at the time they were so badly smashed that there was little or no extra marines to found a Successor Chapter.

Which brings me to the next point... Isn't Successor usually used to signify those 2nd Founding Chapters that were split off from the original Legions? Anyone from a later founding isn't necessarily told what stock of geneseed they were made of, and even if told they might not care one bit. So for the Salamnders it means that whatever geneseed tithe they've sent in after that might have been used to found numerous Chapters who might not even know they're of Salamander stock. Their skin would only darken in similar conditions as Nocturne, and they wouldn't automaticall be protective of ordinary humans. So identifying then on any outer factors would be much harder than identifying a Blood Angels or Imperial Fist descendant, for example. People would just chalk them up as another "probably UM geneseed" Chapter.

Spetulhu wrote:

 Arcsquad12 wrote:
I'm still not entirely sure how Chapters like the Iron Hands and the Salamanders are still rebuilding after ten thousand years, while the Crimson Fists got back on their feet to roughly 3/4 strength in a matter of decades.

It's not that they haven't rebuilt, it's that at the time they were so badly smashed that there was little or no extra marines to found a Successor Chapter.

Which brings me to the next point... Isn't Successor usually used to signify those 2nd Founding Chapters that were split off from the original Legions? Anyone from a later founding isn't necessarily told what stock of geneseed they were made of, and even if told they might not care one bit. So for the Salamnders it means that whatever geneseed tithe they've sent in after that might have been used to found numerous Chapters who might not even know they're of Salamander stock. Their skin would only darken in similar conditions as Nocturne, and they wouldn't automaticall be protective of ordinary humans. So identifying then on any outer factors would be much harder than identifying a Blood Angels or Imperial Fist descendant, for example. People would just chalk them up as another "probably UM geneseed" Chapter.

Except there is no reason why they can't found new chapters, one of our members calc'd the geneseed rate of Space Marines and well, the limit on chapters is entirely artificial and bureacratic in nature. Otherwise there should easily be millions of space marines running around, if not more. Not just a million.

GW failed their math class collectively, and I state that seriously. They never seem to get any numbers right and have absolutely no sense of scale.

Space Wolves need no successors. That's because we feel no need to follow the Codex Astartes so stringently. As Rowboat Girlyman said himself, it's more of a guideling that may need wiser minds to improvise.

Our Wolves stand ready with the numbers to destroy any chapter should they prove bent to chaos.

Forgemaster Argos wrote:
Right on the first part, but I am unfamiliar with any deficiencies, perceived or otherwise with the Salamanders' genetic material. It is my understanding that their melanochrome implant is simply put into overdrive from Nocturne 's ambient radiation, thus darkening their skin to protect them from the environment. More seasoned dakka-ites may have additional input or correct my statements if they prove inaccurate.

It's been mentioned in the Horus Heresy series that there was some sort of 'issue' with the geneseed... I think in Vulcan Lives!. Not gone into in any detail, though.

 Arcsquad12 wrote:
I'm still not entirely sure how Chapters like the Iron Hands and the Salamanders are still rebuilding after ten thousand years, while the Crimson Fists got back on their feet to roughly 3/4 strength in a matter of decades.

The conflation of new fluff with old fluff, and well, let's be honest, poor writing, lol.

There's no reason for a First Founding chapter to be hurting for numbers. In ten thousand years, barring repeated catastrophe, a Marine chapter is going to accumulate thousands of unused sets of progenoids. And that's after tithing to the AdMech, and assuming a greater than 50% loss rate (failed neophytes, irrecoverable combat losses) of the second set of progenoids (the first would be recovered early into their Scout career, if not before). The only thing potentially holding them back would be a lack of suitable recruits.


So chapters just got written to be awesome, and some got written to be Grimdark +1. Sallies and Iron Hands seem to be in the latter category.

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:

 Arcsquad12 wrote:
I'm still not entirely sure how Chapters like the Iron Hands and the Salamanders are still rebuilding after ten thousand years, while the Crimson Fists got back on their feet to roughly 3/4 strength in a matter of decades.

The conflation of new fluff with old fluff, and well, let's be honest, poor writing, lol.

There's no reason for a First Founding chapter to be hurting for numbers. In ten thousand years, barring repeated catastrophe, a Marine chapter is going to accumulate thousands of unused sets of progenoids. And that's after tithing to the AdMech, and assuming a greater than 50% loss rate (failed neophytes, irrecoverable combat losses) of the second set of progenoids (the first would be recovered early into their Scout career, if not before). The only thing potentially holding them back would be a lack of suitable recruits.


So chapters just got written to be awesome, and some got written to be Grimdark +1. Sallies and Iron Hands seem to be in the latter category.

While Sallies are hurting, they also are pretty epic. One of their Librarians ate the geneseed of a hundred horus heresy veterans, activated his final form and then flew through space and cut a chaos tainted battle barge IN HALF.. And that was BEFORE he then flew back down to Nocturne and entered a DBZ style fight with a kaiju-sized daemon before hurling it into a volcano while flying.

 Wyzilla wrote:


While Sallies are hurting, they also are pretty epic. One of their Librarians ate the geneseed of a hundred horus heresy veterans, activated his final form and then flew through space and cut a chaos tainted battle barge IN HALF.. And that was BEFORE he then flew back down to Nocturne and entered a DBZ style fight with a kaiju-sized daemon before hurling it into a volcano while flying.

Er wut

Really?

Whilst I would like to think this is an overactive imagination, it's 40k ... and sadly, anything is possible.

Is this how Nick Kymes first Salamanders series ended?

I can't decide wether that is awesome of stupid.

 Pilau Rice wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:


While Sallies are hurting, they also are pretty epic. One of their Librarians ate the geneseed of a hundred horus heresy veterans, activated his final form and then flew through space and cut a chaos tainted battle barge IN HALF.. And that was BEFORE he then flew back down to Nocturne and entered a DBZ style fight with a kaiju-sized daemon before hurling it into a volcano while flying.

Er wut

Really?

Whilst I would like to think this is an overactive imagination, it's 40k ... and sadly, anything is possible.

Is this how Nick Kymes first Salamanders series ended?

Sadly it is. Here i was hoping for a new relic but all we get is some dude going super-sayin, then getting cut to pieces by a rogue salamander.

I know that DA have the second most successor chapters behind UM.
They have one of the stable geneseeds and they were the second largest legion after the HH due to not actually being at most of the fights.

Our Wolves stand ready with the numbers to destroy any chapter should they prove bent to chaos.

There's... not that many Space Wolves. Like... 2, *maybe* 3 Chapters worth, tops, and that's being *very* generous with their numbers.

 Pilau Rice wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:


While Sallies are hurting, they also are pretty epic. One of their Librarians ate the geneseed of a hundred horus heresy veterans, activated his final form and then flew through space and cut a chaos tainted battle barge IN HALF.. And that was BEFORE he then flew back down to Nocturne and entered a DBZ style fight with a kaiju-sized daemon before hurling it into a volcano while flying.

Er wut

Really?

Whilst I would like to think this is an overactive imagination, it's 40k ... and sadly, anything is possible.

Is this how Nick Kymes first Salamanders series ended?

Yeah, it's how the series ended. Was actually fairly nice, it finally made Dak'ir an interesting character for about ten minutes of his life. I just wish Kyme would focus on the good characters. Need moar Elysius and Fugis.

Oh, and to boot he was on fire the entire time.

The way I see the SM Chapter breakdown is simply to allow players creative freedom for their own Chapters. Existing Chapters, like Blood Ravens or Carcharodons, are there to act as inspiration for Chapters like the Angry Marines.

If you think the Angry Marines are an 'inspired' chapter then you are truly lost. Besides, /tg/'s made some other pretty impressive chapters since then.

As for the number of successors, I'd actually put both Imperial Fists and Blood Angels above Dark Angels. The Fists have a substantial number of named successors and the Blood Angels, while no longer a preferred source, at once time must'be been quite favored given their successor count.

I personally believe that while the Salamanders had no 2nd founding chapters, their later founding chapters are simply seen as not very noteworthy in Imperial history and have been pushed to the sidelines as footnotes or removed entirely. Or maybe they were simply wiped out. The Imperium has a tendency of removing a chapter from having ever existed rather than have them be remembered as being defeated.

 insaniak wrote:

Forgemaster Argos wrote:
Right on the first part, but I am unfamiliar with any deficiencies, perceived or otherwise with the Salamanders' genetic material. It is my understanding that their melanochrome implant is simply put into overdrive from Nocturne 's ambient radiation, thus darkening their skin to protect them from the environment. More seasoned dakka-ites may have additional input or correct my statements if they prove inaccurate.

It's been mentioned in the Horus Heresy series that there was some sort of 'issue' with the geneseed... I think in Vulcan Lives!. Not gone into in any detail, though.

Aha! I knew I put that caveat in there for a good reason. Apologies, I haven't gotten to Vulkan Lives unfortunately my last update of lore was http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Salamanders#.VBpDKoEo6BY. The gene seed section states no problems but it could be outdated.

Thank you, Insaniak for the correction.

FM Argos

Partially right in that regard. Their coal-black skin and red eyes are due to the specific reaction of the Salamander's geneseed to the environment of Nocturne. Prior to the discovery of Vulkan, the Terran Salamanders had somewhat darkened skin or red eyes, but rarely both and never at the intensity that is now very common among the Salamanders (source, HH:Massacre). I imagine the risk is if the geneseed were exposed to a different world's population, the mutation that arose from it could be almost anything. A possibility of why it's not used very often. At least with Nocturne, you know what you're getting.

Interesting. But I'm not sure the mutations would be any worse than a bunch of blood drinking psychos living in the land of the lost (lookin at YOU Flesh Tearers).

It will be interesting to see where this goes down the line as the HH series progresses.

FM Argos

Edit: up yours, auto correct!

Very true, though part of that may be the bias the Imperium has in favor of first and second founding chapters, of which the Flesh Tearers were a part of. As seen in chapters like the Tiger Claws and the Celestial Lions compared to ,say, the Space Wolves. Chapters that step too far out of line and don't have the protection of pedigree on their side are likely to not be given the benefit of the doubt, an issue any later founding Salamander successors would face.

Would not the Salamanders successors benefit as well?

There may not be any 2nd or 3rd founding chapters like the Blood Angels created, but surely their pedigree is just as quantifiable as the sons of Sanguinius. Even if they didn't choose to create a second found chapter ( probably a wise move ) the only organizational differences they have from a codex compliant chapter is their company strength.

Would not an 8th founding chapter be just as worthy if there were resources for it? Heck they tried to fix the BA all the way up through the 21st founding ( the poor Lamenters) knowing about those two crazy deficiencies.

Good discussion so far.

FM Argos

Forgemaster Argos wrote:
Would not the Salamanders successors benefit as well?

There may not be any 2nd or 3rd founding chapters like the Blood Angels created, but surely their pedigree is just as quantifiable as the sons of Sanguinius. Even if they didn't choose to create a second found chapter ( probably a wise move ) the only organizational differences they have from a codex compliant chapter is their company strength.

Would not an 8th founding chapter be just as worthy if there were resources for it? Heck they tried to fix the BA all the way up through the 21st founding ( the poor Lamenters) knowing about those two crazy deficiencies.

Good discussion so far.

FM Argos

Like i said before, their planet produces very high amounts of radiation. Perhaps this has messed with the gene-seed in a way that makes it unsuitable (i.e kills, poisons, cripples, or does not graft properly to) people not of nocturne. Pure speculation on my part, but after 10,000 years there must be a reason why there are no known successors, with no real explanation as to why the Salamanders have yet to become a full-strength chapter. They boast only 7 companies, including the scout company.

Actually the seven companies is symbolic of the seven great settlements of Nocturne and even when they were at legion strength, they still organized themselves around this principle. Each of the seven companies (which does not include the scout company) is larger to account for this as well.