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So I am in the process of brewing my own space marine chapter and am having trouble with figuring out how big a chapters fleet would be. I know some chapters like the Ultramarines would have crazy amounts of flag ships or more ships but whats a typical run of the mill chapter outfitted with? One battleship and a few cruisers? Any help would be awesome

Righteousrob wrote:
So I am in the process of brewing my own space marine chapter and am having trouble with figuring out how big a chapters fleet would be. I know some chapters like the Ultramarines would have crazy amounts of flag ships or more ships but whats a typical run of the mill chapter outfitted with? One battleship and a few cruisers? Any help would be awesome

Well I think a typical SM chapter fleet would have a few battlebarges (their only battleship-class vessels), a few dozen of cruisers, and a good amount of frigates. They will also have numerous atmospheric fighters such as stormtalons, exoatmospheric vessels such as boarding torpedos, and all-purpose shuttles like thunderhwaks. Of course, such things come and go as they get shot down or replaced. A particular unlucky chapter can have nothing but a few frigates left and a handful of smaller vessels.

Don't quote me on this but I think each company gets a strike cruiser

It depends on the chapter, The Wolves are known for falling out with the navy over prize captures.

Various Space Wolves company ships are not astartes in origin but are imperial navy vessels recaptured from the archenemy. The navy often think that the SW should give these vessels back to them, however the wolves often ignore this seeing as how they went to the effort of taking it.

Battlefleet Gothic Armada explicitly stated that most chapters get 2-3 Battle Barges but didn't contain any fluff on the number of Strike Cruisers (though the army list was 0-10 IIRC).

The 5th edition Codices list the actual fleets for the Ultramarines and Blood Angels however and the had only 8 and 7 Strike Cruisers (with 3 & 2 Battle Barge) respectively, plus 12 and 16 Rapid Strike vessels. Based on those two it would seem about 10 big ships total - which would allow each company to be dispatched to different systems - including 2-3 Battle Barges, plus a half dozen squadrons of Escorts.

At a minimum, a Chapter would probably ensure to have a strike cruiser for at least every combat company.
The number of battle barges should be really low. Even First Founding Chapters have very few of them.

Of course there can be fluff reasons for having a larger fleet (such as the SW).

There is a bit of an issue with Codex chapters and fleet capacity: that a Strike Cruiser is built to deploy a single company is a good soundbite, it makes it easy to say 1 Strike Cruiser per company and any Battle Barges are a useful extra. But that's not really compatible with Codex chapter doctrine, wherein a company will almost never be deployed AS a company: 6 of the 10 companies exist primarily to be broken up and attached peacemeal to the 4 Battle Companies.

The way I figure it the Battle Barges rather than being a rare prized possession are in fact the necessary core of an Astartes fleet just as the Battle Companies are the core of it's ground combat strength: A chapters primary means of power projection would be its 2-3 Battle Barges (the standard number according to BFG) each carrying 1-2 Battle Companies and 1-2 companies worth of attachements from the reserves, with only a handful of Strike Cruisers needed to ferry the rest of the chapter around. This would explain the low numbers of Strike Cruisers possessed by the Ultramarines and Blood Angels, who you'd imagine would have more if they actually needed them.

 Gashrog wrote:
There is a bit of an issue with Codex chapters and fleet capacity: that a Strike Cruiser is built to deploy a single company is a good soundbite, it makes it easy to say 1 Strike Cruiser per company and any Battle Barges are a useful extra. But that's not really compatible with Codex chapter doctrine, wherein a company will almost never be deployed AS a company: 6 of the 10 companies exist primarily to be broken up and attached peacemeal to the 4 Battle Companies.

The way I figure it the Battle Barges rather than being a rare prized possession are in fact the necessary core of an Astartes fleet just as the Battle Companies are the core of it's ground combat strength: A chapters primary means of power projection would be its 2-3 Battle Barges (the standard number according to BFG) each carrying 1-2 Battle Companies and 1-2 companies worth of attachements from the reserves, with only a handful of Strike Cruisers needed to ferry the rest of the chapter around. This would explain the low numbers of Strike Cruisers possessed by the Ultramarines and Blood Angels, who you'd imagine would have more if they actually needed them.

Except you are always assuming a company is sent at full battle strength to a crisis, it could be a half company or demi company, and then still supported by reserves to bring it to full battle company, enemy dependent if required. This is why it is more 'usual' for a strike cruiser and a few supporting escorts to be sent to a war zone, rather than a battle barge. Battle Barges are very very rare, and are hardly ever seen in a war zone with astartes operating within, unless a vast portion of the chapter is present, in which case strike cruisers will also be present so the astartes can operate on multiple planets simultaneously.

Based on the fluff, it's rare to deploy more than a couple squads of Space Marines. That's usually more than sufficient to deal with all but the most-dire of threats.

According to BFG, a space marine chapter fleet usually consists of something like the following.

1-3 Battle Barges. These can be purpose built battle barges, or other retrofitted capital ships that have been altered to suit the chapter's needs.

There will be roughly 1 Strike Cruiser per company, more or less depending on circumstances. These are what most marine forces will be carried on.

Then the chapter will have a couple dozen escort vessels to provide some extra security or as transportation for smaller forces that don't warrant a Strike Cruiser.


Battle Barges can, per the fluff, deploy up to 3 companies via rapid insertion(drop pods and/or Thunderhawks), a Strike Cruiser can deploy up to 1. And thats instantaneous deployment, the ships can carry many more.