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Think about this:

Space marine chapters are only 1000 marines strong. Now I understand that they are highly elite super solders, but when you consider that they are fighting major battles all over the galaxy, they must have high casualties. Lets say the Ultra marines lost 200 marines in a battle, how would they go about replacing them? from my understanding finding people worthy enough to become space marines is a long hard process. Your thoughts?

There is constant training and recruitment. The process to become a Space Marine takes a very long time, so they don't recruit to fill gaps, they have the replacements already in 'production' so to speak.

Answer: They dont. 1000 marines is an 'ideal number' (and in reality the actual number of marines in a full strength chapter is higher as it doesn't fully take into account support and command personnel), one which most chapters seem to struggle to maintain. In reality, the average chapter can probably only consistently maintain a strength of about 60-80% that number.

Also, as currant12 indicated, most chapters are constantly recruiting and can call up newbies from the scout companies to become full on marines to fill losses

... and then, some cheat.

Back in the day, there were 10,000 Black Templars across the galaxy.

There are 12 Companies of Space Wolves.

No one knows how many Carcharodons there may be.

The latter, of course, has the best answer to how to keep recruitment up, Codex-compliant or not.

Whats that?

Also....they don't tend to lose that sort of numbers.

A battle where the astartes lose a dozen battle-brothers at once is considered a black day.

It's relatively rare that they end up involved in a battle which necessitates sending more than a full battle company, anyway.


But yeah. If the Veteran Companies take casualties, replacements are drawn from the Battle/Reserve companies.

If the Battle/Reserve companies take casualties, then neophytes from the scout company (if they're ready) are elevated to full battle brothers.

If the scouts take casualties, then new neophytes may be elevated from the aspirant cadre. Note that aspirants haven't had much if any of their implants yet, and aren't counted towards the 'number' of marines - their recruitment and training continues regardless, so there are always battle-brothers ready.

For that matter, the scout company has been known to swell beyond its normal 'book' size from time to time.

Finally, remember that it's not actually 1000 marines - there are quite a few more hidden in the woodwork:

1000 marines in squads in the companies
10 Captains each with a command squad
A similar number of Chaplains, & Librarians
The Chapter Master and Honour Guard
Techmarines
Marines assigned to the Armoury as tank crews (50 in the case of the ultramarines)
Marines assigned to the Fleet as commanders (One or two up to half a dozen per ship)

As long as an apothecary can swing by some point after a death, they can collect two geneseed from a fallen brother, thereby having the resource to make 2 more marines from the single death.

After running for a long time, a successful chapter could have a substantial reserve of gene seed not even counting the 1000ish marines in the field.

Then they just keep training men. They're not "supposed" to go over 1000 battle brothers, not counting the trainees, but desperate times and all that. And then of course they could make an offspring chapter with 1000 gene seed.

So while some chapters may get space hulked every once in a while, others do well and have more gene seed than they need.

And really, you could theoretically rebuild your chapter from one guy in 40ish years if everyone just bit it right after getting out of training, and you got all the seed.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh, and has already been said, marines only die in droves on the tabletop game. So there's that.

chaos0xomega wrote:
Whats that?

They forced the entire male population of a captured planet to fight to the death in gladiatorial combat and kept the survivors for new recruits.

 Nicky86 wrote:
Think about this:

Space marine chapters are only 1000 marines strong. Now I understand that they are highly elite super solders, but when you consider that they are fighting major battles all over the galaxy, they must have high casualties. Lets say the Ultra marines lost 200 marines in a battle, how would they go about replacing them? from my understanding finding people worthy enough to become space marines is a long hard process. Your thoughts?

They wouldn't, losing 200 Marines in one battle is a disaster that takes time to repair. In most of their fights (which usually involve a task force the size of a few squads) they lose no Marines at all.

Except that the fluff is full of battles where the Space Marines suffer enormous casualties. It's a fair question.

1000 is, as stated, an ideal number, not an absolute one. Most chapters will have more or fewer, depending on recruitment rates or casualties. Their large size makes it unlikely for them to dwindle so low that the possibility of chapter extinction will arise, like with the Crimson Fists.

If i recall, the Ultramarines took fifty years to a century to fill up the 1st company after the Battle for Macragge. That was but a 100 marines, imagine what it would be to replace twice that.

My question is: how do they ONLY keep 1000 marines?
It took 40,000 men and women to occupy Iraq and over a million to defeat Nazi Germany.
I get it that Marines are super human, but so are their foes.

 MWHistorian wrote:
My question is: how do they ONLY keep 1000 marines?
It took 40,000 men and women to occupy Iraq and over a million to defeat Nazi Germany.
I get it that Marines are super human, but so are their foes.

Marines dont occupy. They find the head of the enemy force, drop in, slaughter everything for a few hours, then get in thunderhawks and head back to their ships. Occupations is for the million guardsmen on the planet, not the marines. Theyre here to drop in, kick the enemy in the face, then leave.

Exactly. Astartes Chapters would 'beat' a Nazi Germany equivalent by simultaneous company-strength drop pod assaults on the Reichstag and Bertesgarden, not by fighting their way across half of europe.

 Jimsolo wrote:
Except that the fluff is full of battles where the Space Marines suffer enormous casualties. It's a fair question.

Those events make up a tiny fraction of the battles marines fight. If their losses really were that high, they'd simply return to the homeworld and spend time recovering. There's just as many instances of chapters disappearing for a century before returning to battle.

Thatguyhsagun wrote:
If i recall, the Ultramarines took fifty years to a century to fill up the 1st company after the Battle for Macragge. That was but a 100 marines, imagine what it would be to replace twice that.

That was a veteran company. Meaning you actually have to have marines worthy of veteran status to fill it. I have no doubt losses to a battle company are far easier to replace.

 MWHistorian wrote:
My question is: how do they ONLY keep 1000 marines?
It took 40,000 men and women to occupy Iraq and over a million to defeat Nazi Germany.
I get it that Marines are super human, but so are their foes.

1,000 super humans is akin to basically a 1,000 highly effective soldiers that could pacify entire platoons by themselves with little problem.

Space Marines have way more than 1,000.

As that number doesn't account for recurits, in training, neophytes, those undergoing implantation, dreadnoughts, chapter staff, artificers, techmarines, command staffs (Each company has one), pilots (very few are from the reserved companies).

locarno24 wrote:
Exactly. Astartes Chapters would 'beat' a Nazi Germany equivalent by simultaneous company-strength drop pod assaults on the Reichstag and Bertesgarden, not by fighting their way across half of europe.

Now that is a wonderful image.

niv-mizzet wrote:
As long as an apothecary can swing by some point after a death, they can collect two geneseed from a fallen brother, thereby having the resource to make 2 more marines from the single death.

Marines don't have to die for that. You can collect geneseed from healthy battle brother every so often. Chapters also got to pay a tithe of gene seed to Terra.

niv-mizzet wrote:

Oh, and has already been said, marines only die in droves on the tabletop game. So there's that.

Not true. The little in-fighting between Space Wolves and Flesh Tearers, for example, known as Honour's End, is noted to have costs the lives of "hundreds" on both sides, and the Flesh Tearers have been noted to be a particularly small chapter of only around 400 or so to start with.

Fully manned Drop Pods, Boarding Torpedos or Thunderhawks get shot down in every other Space Marines Battles novel, often before the proper fighting even begins. Etc.., etc..

 Jape wrote:

locarno24 wrote:
Exactly. Astartes Chapters would 'beat' a Nazi Germany equivalent by simultaneous company-strength drop pod assaults on the Reichstag and Bertesgarden, not by fighting their way across half of europe.

Now that is a wonderful image.

Space Marines are basically the knife to the throat of any army. They are only ever deployed to defeat the enemy by ripping out the throat, meaning logistics, ammunition and leaders. Once that is dealt with the space marines retreat, and the guard come in to finish the job. Space Marines are not meant to fight wars like their prehersey brethren.

It is played up to a romantic idea that space marines actually do all the fighting. Most of the fighting is done in trenches and in space. As the guard are usually the ones sent in. Very rarely does a space marine group face an army alone. If they do it is basically a death sentence.

Thatguyhsagun wrote:
If i recall, the Ultramarines took fifty years to a century to fill up the 1st company after the Battle for Macragge. That was but a 100 marines, imagine what it would be to replace twice that.

The Ultramarines lost not just 100 veterans in that epic clash against Tyranids. They lost some dozens of marines in "cold steel ridge" battle if I don't make it wrong, even the big Papa Calgar is severely wounded in this battle. they then lost the entire 1st company in defending the north polar fortress, which are not only the 100 Terminators, Sternguard / Vanguard veteran marines, but also their Landraiders, Vindicators, Stormravens (which maybe glanced out of the sky by the devourers of the flyrants ), which are assigned to this company for support.

Furthermore, after destroying the main hive fleet in space, the 3rd and 7th company are tasked for rescue mission, and purged the bugs on the ground. During this process, the two company also suffered devastating losses. We should also account the lost in space battle above Macragge, which the Ultramarines lost at least one Battle Barge (according to the 5th Nids codex) and surely serval escort vessels.

Imho, it is reasonable to assume that the Ultramarines lost around 50% of its original whole chapter strength in the Battle of Macragge. The Astartes personnel KIA in this battle may estimated to be no less than 300. Which is why the next time when the whole chapter went to battle, it is a century later,

The first time the Lamenters were reduced to 300 surviving brothers, they needed well over a century to return to "fighting strength." Many chapters never have an issue with overpopulation.

Space Marines die a lot in the fluff because BL etc. Only portrays the most difficult and exciting battles. Rapid roflstomp #7019571 doesn't make for as good a novel.

wow! thanks for all the feedback guys.

Another thing to consider is that SMs are really hard to outright kill. Survivability is their primary superpower, with most of their implants being designed to improve that, more than to make them better killing machines. So even in conflicts that go poorly for a SM chapter, they are unlikely to have significant actual losses (lots of injuries perhaps, but few will actually die).

IIRC the Dark Angels lost 200 in the Siege of Vraks gonna go check that.

They have roughly 1000 marines, but most sources indicate scouts aren't counted in that number and chapters often have a couple hundred of them. Strangely, the normal 10 company codex chapter includes 100 scouts as the tenth company, which makes that claim sort of weird.

Suffice it to say, the 1000 number isn't real. At any given moment a chapter can be a few dozen marines above or below that number and still be within the limits set by Terra.

 Pendix wrote:
Another thing to consider is that SMs are really hard to outright kill. Survivability is their primary superpower, with most of their implants being designed to improve that, more than to make them better killing machines. So even in conflicts that go poorly for a SM chapter, they are unlikely to have significant actual losses (lots of injuries perhaps, but few will actually die).

This is important to remember. Marines absorb damage even better than they dish it out (and that is saying something). 'Tank' footsoldiers can't really exist in our present day warfare, but with PA and Marine implants, they certainly exist in 40k.

Wonderwolf wrote:

niv-mizzet wrote:
As long as an apothecary can swing by some point after a death, they can collect two geneseed from a fallen brother, thereby having the resource to make 2 more marines from the single death.

Marines don't have to die for that. You can collect geneseed from healthy battle brother every so often. Chapters also got to pay a tithe of gene seed to Terra.

niv-mizzet wrote:

Oh, and has already been said, marines only die in droves on the tabletop game. So there's that.

Not true. The little in-fighting between Space Wolves and Flesh Tearers, for example, known as Honour's End, is noted to have costs the lives of "hundreds" on both sides, and the Flesh Tearers have been noted to be a particularly small chapter of only around 400 or so to start with.

Fully manned Drop Pods, Boarding Torpedos or Thunderhawks get shot down in every other Space Marines Battles novel, often before the proper fighting even begins. Etc.., etc..

Yes, there are some technicalities. They also lose geneseed to mutation sometimes. I was trying to be somewhat concise and not include every detail.

Yes, there are several highlight moments of marines dying in droves that are only highlights because they never die in droves. Whereas there are billions of new IG recruited and billions that die in combat every day, it's likely that there are individual days where there are zero marine casualties.

niv-mizzet wrote:
Yes, there are some technicalities. They also lose geneseed to mutation sometimes.

Not to mention geneseed wasted on recruits that don't survive the implantation processes or whatever insane trials the Chapter makes them take to prove worthy.

The first set of geneseed is usually extracted after it's matured (five years) so every marine that manages to live that long has at least brought back the stuff that went into creating him. The second set takes longer to mature (ten years) and is usually extracted only when the marine dies because they think it will soak up his experience and produce better marines. Some of these will inevitably be lost, either because the body can't be recovered or it was vaporized. So depending on the failure rate in creating marines and the rate at which the Chapter manages to recover the geneseed of fallen marines they could have trouble breaking even.

One thing to remember is that casualty in table top also doesn't nesscarily represent a DEATH. it just means "can no longer effectivly fight" in many armies, but ESPECIALLY space Marines they'll be able to return to the field at a later date.