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.

Obviously the Ultramarines having the most, I'd imagine it to be Blood Angels or Imperial Fists but aren't sure

I'd say Imperial Fists, they've got the most stable gene-seed, the best attitude about the Codex Astartes, and their Primarch stuck around the longest after the Heresy. The Salamanders and Space Wolves explicitly have few or no Successors, the Raven Guard and Blood Angels have gene-seed problems, and the White Scars, Iron Hands, and Dark Angels aren't as cooperative or easily controlled.

(Also the Imperial Fists are the only Legion who has had a Successor with their own Codex. Just saying.)

Imperial Fists are probably the 2nd most, as BA have the red thrist/Black rage and DA have their secrecy.

http://djnnayt.deviantart.com/art/All-Loyalists-Space-Marine-Chapters-425805126

Here you go. Imperial Fists do look like the second most abundant.

bogalubov wrote:
http://djnnayt.deviantart.com/art/All-Loyalists-Space-Marine-Chapters-425805126

Here you go. Imperial Fists do look like the second most abundant.

I think that list is not complete.... IDK it looks small and there is another Imperial Fists successor chapter that is not listed that I remember hearing from the Beast Arises Series.... I forgot the name of them though....

usmcmidn wrote:

bogalubov wrote:
http://djnnayt.deviantart.com/art/All-Loyalists-Space-Marine-Chapters-425805126

Here you go. Imperial Fists do look like the second most abundant.

I think that list is not complete.... IDK it looks small and there is another Imperial Fists successor chapter that is not listed that I remember hearing from the Beast Arises Series.... I forgot the name of them though....

Fists Exemplar?

They:

Dark angels are not small though. If you adf there successors.

Id not fully discount them as 4th most.

bogalubov wrote:http://djnnayt.deviantart.com/art/All-Loyalists-Space-Marine-Chapters-425805126

Here you go. Imperial Fists do look like the second most abundant.

I'm afraid that list is quite incomplete and out of date. Many of those chapters on the bottom have been assigned a progenitor. A good chunk of them are Imperial Fists.

jhe90 wrote:Dark angels are not small though. If you adf there successors.

Id not fully discount them as 4th most.

We're adding everyone's successors. And I'd put the Dark Angels in fourth as well, tied with the Raven Guard, both behind the Blood Angels.

jareddm wrote:

bogalubov wrote:http://djnnayt.deviantart.com/art/All-Loyalists-Space-Marine-Chapters-425805126

Here you go. Imperial Fists do look like the second most abundant.

I'm afraid that list is quite incomplete and out of date. Many of those chapters on the bottom have been assigned a progenitor. A good chunk of them are Imperial Fists.

jhe90 wrote:Dark angels are not small though. If you adf there successors.

Id not fully discount them as 4th most.

We're adding everyone's successors. And I'd put the Dark Angels in fourth as well, tied with the Raven Guard, both behind the Blood Angels.

For flaws. Alot of blood angels...

But dark angels. If not say 3rd. But big ernough to be a serious power if ever unitied by the grand master.

4th id say is about right.

Space wolves last.

The 6e codex Space Marines says;

In the millennia since the Horus Heresy, dozens of Space Marine Chapters have been founded from the gene-seed of the Imperial Fists, perhaps more than from any other Chapter other than the Ultramarines.

I'd be interested in seeing how the gene-seed is distributed amongst Chapters.

Obviously Ultramarines are said to account for more than two thirds of Marine gene-seed, so a conservative estimate would put them at 667 chapters.

Add to that the one offs with no know successors like the Grey Knights, Space Wolves and Salamanders, we get a nice round 670.

This leaves 330 chapters to be divided amongst Blood Angels, Dark Angels, Imperial Fists, Raven Guard, Iron Hands and White Scars.

The Dark Angels are said to be frequently passed over in favour of other gene-seed so I'd rate them low.

Of the Blood Angels it is said:

Though they have never been so prolific as the
Ultramarines or Imperial Fists, the Blood Angels are not
without their Successor Chapters. Most were founded in
the days following the Horus Heresy, before the grim
truth concerning their flawed gene-seed came to light.

...

successors founded in later centuries, at times when
the Blood Angels Chapter Council had thought the Flaw
eradicated from the gene-stocks.

So I'd say that while once fairly numerous the Blood Angels have fallen to the wayside.

The Raven Guard have pretty messed up gene-seed - if I recall correctly to the point where they cannot even sustain themselves without Mars making gene-seed for them - so they likely have even fewer successors.

The Iron Hands and White Scars seem to have perfectly healthy gene-seed as far as I can tell, but since the Iron Hands got massacred I'll rate them lower than the Scars purely on the basis of small second founding.

So I'd rank it:

Ultramarines >> Imperial Fists > White Scars > Iron Hands > Dark Angels > Blood Angels > Raven Guard > Salamanders > Grey Knights > Space Wolves.

It's most definitely the Imperial Fists, who have a very stable gene seed (it only fails to create the acid-spitting gland and the gland that allows them to go into suspended animation). Though they only formed four successor chapters following the Heresy they seem to have a fair amount in the fluff otherwise. It's actually kind of interesting that this is the case, considering that the Imperial Fists and their Successors have a tendency to fight to the last man. They do have one of the largest(if not THE largest) pools of to draw their recruits from (including being the only Legion/Chapter that can draw recruits from Terra itself), so they replenish their fallen easily enough.

I remember reading somewhere that about 20% of Space Marine Chapters are Dark Angel progenitors.

Don't ask me where, because I don't remember where... just that I saw it somewhere.

Animus wrote:

The Dark Angels are said to be frequently passed over in favour of other gene-seed so I'd rate them low.

Yep, in addition to this comment from the IA article on the DA

There are no known aberrations in the Dark Angels' gene-seed which makes the reluctance of the High Lords of Terra to utilise it in the founding of new Chapters perplexing. No doubt there are other successor Chapters of the Dark Angels, but their names and when they were founded are unrecorded.

And Relictors

The source of the Relictors' geneseed is largely based on gene stock taken from the laboratorium on Mars and is thought to be composed of that grown from the Ultramarine and Dark Angels. If this is the case, then it would appear that the High Lords of Terra's reluctance to sanction the use of Dark Angel's geneseed in the creation of new Chapters has relaxed somewhat

I just checked lexicanum and wh40k (nowhere near reliable sources, but I'll take what I can get lol. They list the loyalist legion successors as follows:

Ultramarines: 35 successor chapters with 3 having been destroyed.
Blood Angels: 24 Successors Chapters. 1 of these chapters are only suspected to be of Blood Angel stock and unconfirmed.
Imperial Fists: 26 Successor Chapters, however 2 of them have been declared traitors. 2 of them are only suspected successors and not confirmed.
Dark Angels: 13 Successor Chapters. 1 of them have been destroyed and 2 of them are unconfirmed as Dark Angel geneseed.
Salamanders: 2 Successor Chapters. Both unconfirmed.
Space Wolves: 3 Successor Chapters. 1 of these is unconfirmed and one of them have been declared renegades.
Raven Guard. 15 Successor Chapters, 6 of them are unconfirmed.
Iron Hands: 6 Successor Chapters.
White Scars: 10 Successor Chapters.

Blood Angels actually have the second most chapters still standing. This makes sense to me, because at the Height of the Great Crusade the Blood Angels had 120,000 Space Marines to the Imperial Fists 100,000. Then the Imperial Fists lost 20,000 men at Phall, which put them on 80,000 pretty much straight away. So unless the Blood Angels lost 40,000 men at Signus Prime, they had more Men at the Battle of Terra then the Imperial Fists. Stands to reason that by the end of the battle they would have more Astartes than the Fists, and so be able to create more second founding chapters. Funnily enough, the Blood Angels actually had the 3rd largest loyalist legion after the Ultramarines and the Dark Angels according to 1d4chan

Cassor the Damned wrote:
I just checked lexicanum and wh40k (nowhere near reliable sources, but I'll take what I can get lol. They list the loyalist legion successors as follows:

Ultramarines: 35 successor chapters with 3 having been destroyed.
Blood Angels: 24 Successors Chapters. 1 of these chapters are only suspected to be of Blood Angel stock and unconfirmed.
Imperial Fists: 26 Successor Chapters, however 2 of them have been declared traitors. 2 of them are only suspected successors and not confirmed.
Dark Angels: 13 Successor Chapters. 1 of them have been destroyed and 2 of them are unconfirmed as Dark Angel geneseed.
Salamanders: 2 Successor Chapters. Both unconfirmed.
Space Wolves: 3 Successor Chapters. 1 of these is unconfirmed and one of them have been declared renegades.
Raven Guard. 15 Successor Chapters, 6 of them are unconfirmed.
Iron Hands: 6 Successor Chapters.
White Scars: 10 Successor Chapters.

Blood Angels actually have the second most chapters still standing. This makes sense to me, because at the Height of the Great Crusade the Blood Angels had 120,000 Space Marines to the Imperial Fists 100,000. Then the Imperial Fists lost 20,000 men at Phall, which put them on 80,000 pretty much straight away. So unless the Blood Angels lost 40,000 men at Signus Prime, they had more Men at the Battle of Terra then the Imperial Fists. Stands to reason that by the end of the battle they would have more Astartes than the Fists, and so be able to create more second founding chapters. Funnily enough, the Blood Angels actually had the 3rd largest loyalist legion after the Ultramarines and the Dark Angels according to 1d4chan

This entirely hinges on the few Space Marine Chapters Lexicanum has shown.

What's to say that the Iron Hands don't have thirty other Chapters who haven't been listed? That every other Chapter has other, more obscure Chapters hidden away, except the Blood Angels? Because there's no definitive list of all SM Chapters, we can't use this method.

Cassor the Damned wrote:

Blood Angels actually have the second most chapters still standing. This makes sense to me, because at the Height of the Great Crusade the Blood Angels had 120,000 Space Marines to the Imperial Fists 100,000. Then the Imperial Fists lost 20,000 men at Phall, which put them on 80,000 pretty much straight away. So unless the Blood Angels lost 40,000 men at Signus Prime, they had more Men at the Battle of Terra then the Imperial Fists. Stands to reason that by the end of the battle they would have more Astartes than the Fists, and so be able to create more second founding chapters. Funnily enough, the Blood Angels actually had the 3rd largest loyalist legion after the Ultramarines and the Dark Angels according to 1d4chan

While there is some correlation between total number of successors and number of 2nd founding successors, I strongly disagree that it is sufficient evidence. There have been 24 foundings since the 2nd founding, none of which had any relation to the size of the progenitor legion. Of the chapters on the two lists provided, how many of them are 2nd founding chapters? Outside of the Ultramarines, not a whole lot of them.

I wouldn't be surprised if the distribution of geneseeds per founding had changed drastically over the millennia. In the early foundings, the Imperium was going through The Forging, a three thousand year period of growth and expansion for the Imperium. In such an age, I could see the glory and majesty of Blood Angel geneseed being seen as a better candidate, and so more Blood Angel chapters would be featured. Around M36, a lot of experimentation with all sorts of strange chapters, possibly related to Nova Terra. Post-Age of Apostasy, the need for protection and the holding of territory would be needed, and so Imperial Fist geneseed would come to the fore, not to mention the Red Thirst has probably become a not-so-secret secret of the AdMech, reducing the likelihood of Age of Waning Blood Angel successors further.

Dark Angels actually have the most successor Chapters...it's just that 40 of them are kept secret

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

Cassor the Damned wrote:
I just checked lexicanum and wh40k (nowhere near reliable sources, but I'll take what I can get lol. They list the loyalist legion successors as follows:

Ultramarines: 35 successor chapters with 3 having been destroyed.
Blood Angels: 24 Successors Chapters. 1 of these chapters are only suspected to be of Blood Angel stock and unconfirmed.
Imperial Fists: 26 Successor Chapters, however 2 of them have been declared traitors. 2 of them are only suspected successors and not confirmed.
Dark Angels: 13 Successor Chapters. 1 of them have been destroyed and 2 of them are unconfirmed as Dark Angel geneseed.
Salamanders: 2 Successor Chapters. Both unconfirmed.
Space Wolves: 3 Successor Chapters. 1 of these is unconfirmed and one of them have been declared renegades.
Raven Guard. 15 Successor Chapters, 6 of them are unconfirmed.
Iron Hands: 6 Successor Chapters.
White Scars: 10 Successor Chapters.

Blood Angels actually have the second most chapters still standing. This makes sense to me, because at the Height of the Great Crusade the Blood Angels had 120,000 Space Marines to the Imperial Fists 100,000. Then the Imperial Fists lost 20,000 men at Phall, which put them on 80,000 pretty much straight away. So unless the Blood Angels lost 40,000 men at Signus Prime, they had more Men at the Battle of Terra then the Imperial Fists. Stands to reason that by the end of the battle they would have more Astartes than the Fists, and so be able to create more second founding chapters. Funnily enough, the Blood Angels actually had the 3rd largest loyalist legion after the Ultramarines and the Dark Angels according to 1d4chan

This entirely hinges on the few Space Marine Chapters Lexicanum has shown.

What's to say that the Iron Hands don't have thirty other Chapters who haven't been listed? That every other Chapter has other, more obscure Chapters hidden away, except the Blood Angels? Because there's no definitive list of all SM Chapters, we can't use this method.

While I completely agree that without a definitive list this is difficult, I'd point to the fact that there is lots of evidence for the BA to be "up there" when it comes to successors. After all, Dark Angels are said to have relatively few successor chapters because they work so closely with their successors when hunting the fallen that the Inquisition thinks they are legion building. Space Wolves have their gene-seed Wulfven curse. All who were at Istaavan lost a lot of their men and geneseed, making it more difficult to create successors. Raven Guard got especially messed up by Alpha Legion. This in addition to the Blood Angels already being a large legion, means them having more successors than other legions should come as no surprise. However, the list above only accounts for around 130 chapters, and (using lexicanum as a source here unfortunately) lexicanums list of chapters is way over 350 (got bored counting after 250 and starting guessing) so it is definitely possible for the Blood Angels to end up being the chapter with the least successors. I'd just say that the Intel we have atm suggests the Blood Angels have many successor chapters. IIRC they called on loads when they needed to borrow their initiates in the BA omnibus.

 EmpNortonII wrote:
I remember reading somewhere that about 20% of Space Marine Chapters are Dark Angel progenitors.

Don't ask me where, because I don't remember where... just that I saw it somewhere.

I've seen this too. Let me try digging up the source. I think it was from the RPG or Rogue Trader.

It was like 60% Ultra, 15-20% DA, and I don't recall the rest.

arvendragon wrote:

 EmpNortonII wrote:
I remember reading somewhere that about 20% of Space Marine Chapters are Dark Angel progenitors.

Don't ask me where, because I don't remember where... just that I saw it somewhere.

I've seen this too. Let me try digging up the source. I think it was from the RPG or Rogue Trader.

It was like 60% Ultra, 15-20% DA, and I don't recall the rest.

I know the table you're thinking of and it is NOT lore. It is a game mechanic and should not be considered as the actual proportion anymore than an armor save means that 33% of bullets fired at a suit of power armor will break through it.