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How many Space Marines are supposed to be in each Chapter? 1000?

 deviantduck wrote:
How many Space Marines are supposed to be in each Chapter? 1000?

1000, plus or minus a few in the motor pool and the HQ staff (Librarians, Chaplains, that dude that orders all of the cake for birthday parties...)

Yeah, the 1000 is the line infantry (100 per company, generally, across the ten companies), but it doesn't factor in the Command squads and Honour Guards, Librarius, Chaplains, Captains, Chapter Masters, Apothecaries, Techmarines, drivers, gunners and pilots and the fleet staff.

I think the updated interpretation of an entire Chapter was something like 1200-1500?

That said, that only applies for Codex Adherant chapters, and Chapters are rarely at full strength.

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:
Yeah, the 1000 is the line infantry (100 per company, generally, across the ten companies), but it doesn't factor in the Command squads and Honour Guards, Librarius, Chaplains, Captains, Chapter Masters, Apothecaries, Techmarines, drivers, gunners and pilots and the fleet staff.

I think the updated interpretation of an entire Chapter was something like 1200-1500?

That said, that only applies for Codex Adherant chapters, and Chapters are rarely at full strength.

^This. 1000 is just the line companies. Going by the figures given in the codex a chapter has around 1200-1500 marines. Assuming full strength of course.

the 1000 space marines account for the Veterans (including terminators), Tacticals, Assault marines (which includes bikers), Devastators and (ideally) 100 scouts.

The tank crews (part of the Chapter Armory and techmarines-in-training), Apothecarion, Chaplains, Librarius, Dreadnoughts, and Chapter Command, as well as the chapter serfs and such, are not counted in this.

Also note that this is the "ideal" number. Generally each company would be suffering casualties during campaigns and the Scout Company is rarely, if ever, at full strength. Generally even the most codex-compliant chapters "eyeball" it while codex-deviant ones give it gork's rightous finger.

Yeah, as some have pointed out, you've got various Chapters who are closer to the original legion strength then Codex Astartes strength. Space Wolves, and Black Templar's are notable examples.

 djones520 wrote:
Yeah, as some have pointed out, you've got various Chapters who are closer to the original legion strength then Codex Astartes strength. Space Wolves, and Black Templar's are notable examples.

Neither of them are remotely close to Legion strength. Black Templars are around 1,500 and the Space Wolves are just over 2,000.

 Wyzilla wrote:

 djones520 wrote:
Yeah, as some have pointed out, you've got various Chapters who are closer to the original legion strength then Codex Astartes strength. Space Wolves, and Black Templar's are notable examples.

Neither of them are remotely close to Legion strength. Black Templars are around 1,500 and the Space Wolves are just over 2,000.

 MechaEmperor7000 wrote:
the 1000 space marines account for the Veterans (including terminators), Tacticals, Assault marines (which includes bikers), Devastators and (ideally) 100 scouts.

Odd, I had the idea that Company Veterans (except for 1st company) didn't really fall into the 100 per company mark and were outside of that number, since they aren't usually over a couple of combat squads in number.

 Wyzilla wrote:

 djones520 wrote:
Yeah, as some have pointed out, you've got various Chapters who are closer to the original legion strength then Codex Astartes strength. Space Wolves, and Black Templar's are notable examples.

Neither of them are remotely close to Legion strength. Black Templars are around 1,500 and the Space Wolves are just over 2,000.

Templars are way more than that. No one knows how big they are as they are scattered across the galaxy in different fleet crusades (which have conveniently never been all in one place at the same time). They could number the size of a small Legion for all we know.

At their largest, there were an estimated 6K BT.

Space Wolves, at the absolute most, barely clear 2K, and that is because we are provided numbers for the entirety of the two largest Great Companies, which don't have "auxiliary Marines", Space Wolves belong to their Great Company entirely.

The answer is not enough.

1,000 marines per Chapter is the stupidest idea in 40k. How do a million Astartes protect a trillion worlds? They don't, of course.

SJ

 jeffersonian000 wrote:
1,000 marines per Chapter is the stupidest idea in 40k. How do a million Astartes protect a trillion worlds? They don't, of course.

SJ

The sad part is that it's far, far from the stupidest. But it's up there for sure.

 jeffersonian000 wrote:
1,000 marines per Chapter is the stupidest idea in 40k. How do a million Astartes protect a trillion worlds? They don't, of course.

SJ

I dont think its the 1000 marines per chapter that's the stupid part, its instead the cap of 1000 chapters. If it was something more like an endless number of chapters, then maybe it might be more plausible. Also don't forget that fluff marines are the equivalent of like 100 tabletop marines, and they merrily go murdering for centuries, each one getting kills in the hundreds of thousands apiece, so ideally this means that an entire company has with the help of throwaway guardsman defeated an entire tyranid invasion (Tarsis Ultra), defeating an entire Waaaggh (Blackreach) or Tau Invasions (Pavonis) and thats just Ultramarines!

 Lithlandis Stormcrow wrote:

 MechaEmperor7000 wrote:
the 1000 space marines account for the Veterans (including terminators), Tacticals, Assault marines (which includes bikers), Devastators and (ideally) 100 scouts.

Odd, I had the idea that Company Veterans (except for 1st company) didn't really fall into the 100 per company mark and were outside of that number, since they aren't usually over a couple of combat squads in number.

Only Dark Angels have Company Veterans. This is because their 1st Company is made up of Deathwing, which require them to have been inducted into the Inner Circle to be part of. Company Veterans in the Dark Angels are instead distinguished members of their own company, but have not yet been inducted into Ravenwing or Deathwing yet (at least that's how it was in 4th edition, dunno about now).

Other chapters instead "loan" 1st company veterans to other companies on an as-need basis. Individual Companies other than the first are instead made up of either a mix of Tacticals, Assault and Devastator Marines, or marines of a single type (i.e: 100 Devastator Marines in the 9th company if I remember, or it may be 100 assault marines).

Space marines are not, at least not since the Heresy, an invasion and occupation force. They are a force multiplier. They fight by launching a lighting raid of only fifty marines, kill the orc warboss, take out the key necron monolith, form the armoured spear tip rolling through a tau barricade. All of this they do with the assumption there are 10 imperial guard regiments following them to mop up the mess they leave.

Theoretically the breakdown of chapters and companies works, but the limit of a thousand chapters is still dodgy. A few thousand chapters would be good, but the way they are supposed to fight means they shouldn't need to be moving around together above company strength.

They don't usually commit more than one Company to a conflict, most of the fluff just makes it seem like they always commit their entire fighting force to show how serious a conflict is. For every one that nearly caused the chapter to become extinct, they fight a hundred more with maybe just a handful of squads. In fact the 6th-9th companies are Reserve Companies for this specific reason; only the 2nd-5th are suppose to fight in active combat (with the 1st company being loaned out and rarely commited to a single conflict) with any losses restored from the Reserve Companies after a conflict. It's very rare for more than 1 company (especially the entire 1st company) to be committed, and rarer still for an entire chapter to be committed to a conflict.

So there are 100 per company (excluding the tenth), plus 7 (command squad plus chaplain and captain) and say 1 Dread and 6 Rhinos (Or Land Speeders) per company. That's 114 per company x 8=912. Let's assume the Scout company has about 75 scouts at all times, and the first has 100 Marines, the 7 commanders, and 3 Dreads. That is 1029. Meh.

You are not including the command staff, Librarians, Chaplains, Techmarines, and all the marines assigned to the fleet.

 MechaEmperor7000 wrote:

 Lithlandis Stormcrow wrote:

 MechaEmperor7000 wrote:
the 1000 space marines account for the Veterans (including terminators), Tacticals, Assault marines (which includes bikers), Devastators and (ideally) 100 scouts.

Odd, I had the idea that Company Veterans (except for 1st company) didn't really fall into the 100 per company mark and were outside of that number, since they aren't usually over a couple of combat squads in number.

Only Dark Angels have Company Veterans. This is because their 1st Company is made up of Deathwing, which require them to have been inducted into the Inner Circle to be part of. Company Veterans in the Dark Angels are instead distinguished members of their own company, but have not yet been inducted into Ravenwing or Deathwing yet (at least that's how it was in 4th edition, dunno about now).

Other chapters instead "loan" 1st company veterans to other companies on an as-need basis. Individual Companies other than the first are instead made up of either a mix of Tacticals, Assault and Devastator Marines, or marines of a single type (i.e: 100 Devastator Marines in the 9th company if I remember, or it may be 100 assault marines).

I do know about the DA company vets (and it's still like that) - I just thought non-DA chapters also had company vets. Thanks for that bit of info

9th is Devs, yes. The assault only comp is the 8th. 6th and 7th are full tacticals iirc.

The problem with any calculations is that the Chapter Armory, Chaplains, Librarium and Apothecarion are effectively different "companies" in their own right, but do not have stated sizes. The Armory is implied to be well over the 100 number, as it includes not only the apprentice Techmarines and senior Techmarines, but also the marine pilots for every vehicle in the chapter's inventory. Considering Rhinos and Razorbacks have a minimum of 2 pilots each (a driver and a gunner at bare minimum), this means that pilots alone would be over 200 (20 drivers per company operating their rhinos, and this doesn't even include the company command's rhino/razorback, land raiders, vindicators, predators and whirlwinds).

EDIT: Said drivers instead of pilots.

Ships also have not insubstantial crew numbers.

Each vessel will at minimum have its Captain and then a squad or two of marines to repel boarders/take part in boarding actions.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Ships also have not insubstantial crew numbers.

Each vessel will at minimum have its Captain and then a squad or two of marines to repel boarders/take part in boarding actions.

I remember reading that usually the Astartes ships will be captained by a Serf when an Astartes captain isn't on board, just dunno where.

As for the boarding/defense marines - aren't those part of whatever squad/company is being deployed/transported by the ship? Or are the permanently there?

It appears they are more or less on permanent assignment, though there might also be a rotation where the squad gets swapped out with a line company squad for some time.

 Grey Templar wrote:
It appears they are more or less on permanent assignment, though there might also be a rotation where the squad gets swapped out with a line company squad for some time.

Sounds like the most reasonable option - rotate the 6th and 7th company squads to give them something to do.

 casvalremdeikun wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:

 djones520 wrote:
Yeah, as some have pointed out, you've got various Chapters who are closer to the original legion strength then Codex Astartes strength. Space Wolves, and Black Templar's are notable examples.

Neither of them are remotely close to Legion strength. Black Templars are around 1,500 and the Space Wolves are just over 2,000.

Black Templar maintain several crusade forces no one numbering more than 1500, but in maintaining multiple crusades across the galaxy maintain close to 4 times that. Still not Legion sized, but certainly a formation with Legion era origins.

Each company numbers at around 100 Marines when they're at full strength. This doesn't; however, take into account the command squads for each company, or the dreadnoughts. There's also all the apothecaries, chaplains, and all the Marines in the armory, or even the honour guard. A full strength chapter is now somewhere from 1200-1500 Marines, with some having more than that (Space Wolves, Black Templars, DA depending on who you ask...)

 jeffersonian000 wrote:
1,000 marines per Chapter is the stupidest idea in 40k. How do a million Astartes protect a trillion worlds? They don't, of course.

SJ

Yeah, no they don't because Imperium doesn't have trillion worlds, it has a million worlds.

 Crimson wrote:

 jeffersonian000 wrote:
1,000 marines per Chapter is the stupidest idea in 40k. How do a million Astartes protect a trillion worlds? They don't, of course.

SJ

Yeah, no they don't because Imperium doesn't have trillion worlds, it has a million worlds.

The Imperium has over a trillion worlds, each with billions of citizens. Of those trillions of billions, maybe one per world survives recruitment to the Astartes, one in a thousand of those survives to become an Astartes, leaving a million Astartes in service. Which is astoundingly ridiculous in concept, let alone any thinking that that is a useful statistic.

I like the original RT set up for Marines, where a world would fund the creation of a Space Marine Chapter to defend their system and neighbors. The Chapter would recruit from the local population, receive munitions and supplies from the worlds they defend, and in general acted as the elite shock troops they were billed to be. The current incarnation is just unworkable.

SJ