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Basically Lexicanum states they have eight Battle Barges, over 20 strike cruisers and then add escorts to the mix. That's humongous. Nearly the size of Space Wolves fleet who themselves have only had to split up once to form a successor chapter...

And considering Ultramarines are Guilliman's baby, and Guilliman was the one who made Codex Astartes and spoke of dangers of too strong Astartes forces, it seems kind of weird that his own Legion's direct successor Chapter has such a huge naval power in its disposal. Especially when a Chapter can normally call itself lucky and well supplied with three Battle Barges and up to ten Strike Cruisers with a lot of Chapters having to be satisfied with less than that.

So how do Ultramarines not raise suspicions from other factions with their immense amount of naval power, or is the Lexicanum list wrong?

I have heard people say Ultramarines Fleet is only five Battle Barges strong as well.

Rules and laws are never for your people. They are always for others.

I think it stems from inconsistent lore. They might list every ship mentioned, but they might not all be in active service, or authors might just make up their own ships, rather than check a cannon list. Which probably doesn’t exist.

Per the 3rd ed codex, the Ultras have 3 battle barges, 8 strike cruisers, and 12 rapid strike vessels. Has there been a more recent fleet listing?

Does the codex Astartes says how many ships you can have ? I don't think I came across something implying it. So there is that

The Lexicanum article lists Macragge's Honour as being in active service, but didn't Guilliman loose that to Huron and the Red Corsairs in Rise of the Primarch? (I know that Battlefleet Gothic Armada 2 brought it back, but that game's storyline is clearly non-canon).

 godardc wrote:
Does the codex Astartes says how many ships you can have ? I don't think I came across something implying it. So there is that

Not directly, but having excess transport capacity well beyond the 1000 Marines will make it a lot easier for a Chapter to go rogue and start legion building as all they have to do is to recruit more into their Chapter and not have to build any new ships to transport them with.

Some Chapters like Black Templars have renovated their ships to have double the Marine capacity of other Chapters' ships.

So let's assume my OP's numbers

Over 20 Strike cruisers with 200 Marines each totals over 4000 Marines.

8 Battle Barges with 600 Marines each totals 4800 Marines

Numerous escorts with their own Marines as well.

This means Ultramarine fleet could be made to transport 10000 Astartes which was the size at which Space Marine Legions started at during Unification Wars on Terra.

So it's awfully ironic if the Chapter whose Primarch broke up the Legions to Chapter and wrote a book about how Legions were too powerful entities, has the capacity to turns itself into a mini-legion.

Again, do you have any sources besides Lex for those numbers?

I don’t think any official sources list the UM fleet strength at anywhere close to that. I could be wrong, but the last cite of an official source I found is a fraction of that.

(which frankly is more space-lift capacity then a chapter needs, but they are often divvied up into smaller bands to cover more ground.)

It may well have been retconed by now due to the changes in fluff over the years and not being up to date with my Horus Heresy reading. But the Ultramarines as a by product of having been the largest legion at the end of the heresy etc etc did end up having a large number of massive crusade era ships that were left in a technically operational but not active force that was held around their homeworld. As they were simply too large to be viable for any individual chapter to use/the requirements for the large number of captial ships ue battle barges etc deminished with the transition from legion to chapters.

Also I'm sure this has been discussed in dakka before but those capacity for the ships make no sence in many ways as a way of deploying a chapter. We have fluff with strike crusers with 3-5 squads of marines and gear thats between 20 to 60 marines not even close to 200.

While a strike cruiser may be able to hold 200 marines ie two complete companies worth that would make zero sence to use as a basis for fleet size limitations as you would have no ability to support more than 3 active warzones at any given time, realistically you need a 2 to 1 or even 3 to 1 capacity in logistics for a sustainable enduring deployment warfare of the type marines are often described as undertaking.

I would suspect they have 4 states for craft with only 1 and 2 being actually relevant

1 Craft directly supprting deployments & active warzones

2 Craft providing rotational forces and troop supplies and reinforcements to warzones

3 Craft in training, repair and ceremonial use

4 Historical fleet
Macragges Honour was listed if I recall correctly (may have been retconed now) as esentially being kept in permentent station above the tempel of Hera, it was seen as Guillimans ship not the chapter's.

 Nevelon wrote:
I think it stems from inconsistent lore. They might list every ship mentioned, but they might not all be in active service, or authors might just make up their own ships, rather than check a cannon list. Which probably doesn’t exist.

Per the 3rd ed codex, the Ultras have 3 battle barges, 8 strike cruisers, and 12 rapid strike vessels. Has there been a more recent fleet listing?

the 6th or 7th edition codex confirms those numbers, 3 Battlebarges, 8 strike cruisers and 12 rapid strike vessels.

Lex just lists all the Battle barges ever named, it's most likely the Ultramarines have more but only have that many active at one time. cycling them in and out of drydock and maintance depot. (battle barges and strike cruisers are often moving at high speed to drop stuff in, even ignoring battle damage that kind of activity would be hard on their engines they'd need a LOT of maintiance)

BTW I think it's worth noting the space wolves only had eneugh TROOPS to divide twice. they took a BEATING in the battle of Triosolan

 Lord Damocles wrote:
The Lexicanum article lists Macragge's Honour as being in active service, but didn't Guilliman loose that to Huron and the Red Corsairs in Rise of the Primarch? (I know that Battlefleet Gothic Armada 2 brought it back, but that game's storyline is clearly non-canon).

Macragge's Honour is back to being Guilliman's flagship in Dark Imperium and Plague Wars so they obviously got it back somehow. Now we might have assumed it was a new vessel renamed in honour of the old one but Guilliman reflects on memories of commanding the vessel during the Great Crusade so it is definitely the original.

I assume it was recovered during the indomatus crusade.

Huron obviously just didn't have room in his space garage for a Gloriana and a Blackstone.

BrianDavion wrote:

 Nevelon wrote:
I think it stems from inconsistent lore. They might list every ship mentioned, but they might not all be in active service, or authors might just make up their own ships, rather than check a cannon list. Which probably doesn’t exist.

Per the 3rd ed codex, the Ultras have 3 battle barges, 8 strike cruisers, and 12 rapid strike vessels. Has there been a more recent fleet listing?

the 6th or 7th edition codex confirms those numbers, 3 Battlebarges, 8 strike cruisers and 12 rapid strike vessels.

Lex just lists all the Battle barges ever named, it's most likely the Ultramarines have more but only have that many active at one time. cycling them in and out of drydock and maintance depot. (battle barges and strike cruisers are often moving at high speed to drop stuff in, even ignoring battle damage that kind of activity would be hard on their engines they'd need a LOT of maintiance)

BTW I think it's worth noting the space wolves only had eneugh TROOPS to divide twice. they took a BEATING in the battle of Triosolan

Does the eighth edition make any changes to those numbers?

BrianDavion wrote:


BTW I think it's worth noting the space wolves only had eneugh TROOPS to divide twice. they took a BEATING in the battle of Triosolan

The battle of what ?

 Tyzarion_Kronius wrote:
Does the eighth edition make any changes to those numbers?

Unlike older editions, the two 8th edition codexes are not particularly Ultramarine-centric. It does not have any breakdowns of specific chapters or companies. Even the new Ultramarine supplement does not list fleets anymore. Only that they exist. Looks like GW learned their lesson the same way they learned it with Land Raider armor. There is as much as there needs to be.

 godardc wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:


BTW I think it's worth noting the space wolves only had eneugh TROOPS to divide twice. they took a BEATING in the battle of Triosolan

The battle of what ?

Triosolian, the battle detailed in the novel Wolfsbane. TLDR Russ basicly staged a YOLO attack on Horus. he fought Horus and managed to injure him, although Horus won, the space wolves where.. I'd say decimated but that would actually make the space wolf casualties seem less then they where. in some companies of the space wolves casualties where as high as 90%.

BrianDavion wrote:

 godardc wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:


BTW I think it's worth noting the space wolves only had eneugh TROOPS to divide twice. they took a BEATING in the battle of Triosolan

The battle of what ?

Triosolian, the battle detailed in the novel Wolfsbane. TLDR Russ basicly staged a YOLO attack on Horus. he fought Horus and managed to injure him, although Horus won, the space wolves where.. I'd say decimated but that would actually make the space wolf casualties seem less then they where. in some companies of the space wolves casualties where as high as 90%.

Oh! Trisolian! Funny how a little typo can make a word look totally different in your head. But yep, between that and later Yarant, the Space Wolves legion was basically crushed down to post-Isstvan Salamanders size

 Karhedron wrote:

 Lord Damocles wrote:
The Lexicanum article lists Macragge's Honour as being in active service, but didn't Guilliman loose that to Huron and the Red Corsairs in Rise of the Primarch? (I know that Battlefleet Gothic Armada 2 brought it back, but that game's storyline is clearly non-canon).

Macragge's Honour is back to being Guilliman's flagship in Dark Imperium and Plague Wars so they obviously got it back somehow. Now we might have assumed it was a new vessel renamed in honour of the old one but Guilliman reflects on memories of commanding the vessel during the Great Crusade so it is definitely the original.

Although since he's now Lord high space Jesus of the entire Imperium, there's a question about whether thats an ultramarines chapter ship per se. We know Dorn explicitly left Phalanx to the Imperial Fists chapter.....I'm not sure of Macragges Honour's history between being stranded in the warp post calth and Gulliman waking up.

Ice_can wrote:
Also I'm sure this has been discussed in dakka before but those capacity for the ships make no sence in many ways as a way of deploying a chapter. We have fluff with strike crusers with 3-5 squads of marines and gear thats between 20 to 60 marines not even close to 200.

While a strike cruiser may be able to hold 200 marines ie two complete companies worth that would make zero sence to use as a basis for fleet size limitations as you would have no ability to support more than 3 active warzones at any given time, realistically you need a 2 to 1 or even 3 to 1 capacity in logistics for a sustainable enduring deployment warfare of the type marines are often described as undertaking.

Isn't it common knowledge that a standard Strike Cruiser usually holds an Astartes company? And Battle Barges three companies.

And Black Templars have modified their ships like their flagship battle barge to double capacity in terms of Astartes carried. So assuming each Chapter made those BT modifications to ships, current fleets could allow for two million Astartes across the galaxy.

 Tyzarion_Kronius wrote:
Basically Lexicanum states they have eight Battle Barges, over 20 strike cruisers and then add escorts to the mix. That's humongous. Nearly the size of Space Wolves fleet who themselves have only had to split up once to form a successor chapter...

And considering Ultramarines are Guilliman's baby, and Guilliman was the one who made Codex Astartes and spoke of dangers of too strong Astartes forces, it seems kind of weird that his own Legion's direct successor Chapter has such a huge naval power in its disposal. Especially when a Chapter can normally call itself lucky and well supplied with three Battle Barges and up to ten Strike Cruisers with a lot of Chapters having to be satisfied with less than that.

So how do Ultramarines not raise suspicions from other factions with their immense amount of naval power, or is the Lexicanum list wrong?

I have heard people say Ultramarines Fleet is only five Battle Barges strong as well.

Nah the Space Wolves fleet is stupidly big - given that they were confirmed as being only slightly over normal Chapter strength they were then stated to have several hundred ships and huge fortresses not that they could man them even if it was one squad per ship....as is normal Marine practice. Especially given they don't take their people from the planet.

The Ultramarines, unlike the Wolves have an excellent industrial base, a well organised and eductaed population to recruit not just grnunts but skilled crew for their fleet.

 Mr Morden wrote:

 Tyzarion_Kronius wrote:
Basically Lexicanum states they have eight Battle Barges, over 20 strike cruisers and then add escorts to the mix. That's humongous. Nearly the size of Space Wolves fleet who themselves have only had to split up once to form a successor chapter...

And considering Ultramarines are Guilliman's baby, and Guilliman was the one who made Codex Astartes and spoke of dangers of too strong Astartes forces, it seems kind of weird that his own Legion's direct successor Chapter has such a huge naval power in its disposal. Especially when a Chapter can normally call itself lucky and well supplied with three Battle Barges and up to ten Strike Cruisers with a lot of Chapters having to be satisfied with less than that.

So how do Ultramarines not raise suspicions from other factions with their immense amount of naval power, or is the Lexicanum list wrong?

I have heard people say Ultramarines Fleet is only five Battle Barges strong as well.

Nah the Space Wolves fleet is stupidly big - given that they were confirmed as being only slightly over normal Chapter strength they were then stated to have several hundred ships and huge fortresses not that they could man them even if it was one squad per ship....as is normal Marine practice. Especially given they don't take their people from the planet.

The Ultramarines, unlike the Wolves have an excellent industrial base, a well organised and eductaed population to recruit not just grnunts but skilled crew for their fleet.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. It makes sense that Wolves have a bigger than standard fleet and it would be much weirder if they didn't.

pm713 wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:

 Tyzarion_Kronius wrote:
Basically Lexicanum states they have eight Battle Barges, over 20 strike cruisers and then add escorts to the mix. That's humongous. Nearly the size of Space Wolves fleet who themselves have only had to split up once to form a successor chapter...

And considering Ultramarines are Guilliman's baby, and Guilliman was the one who made Codex Astartes and spoke of dangers of too strong Astartes forces, it seems kind of weird that his own Legion's direct successor Chapter has such a huge naval power in its disposal. Especially when a Chapter can normally call itself lucky and well supplied with three Battle Barges and up to ten Strike Cruisers with a lot of Chapters having to be satisfied with less than that.

So how do Ultramarines not raise suspicions from other factions with their immense amount of naval power, or is the Lexicanum list wrong?

I have heard people say Ultramarines Fleet is only five Battle Barges strong as well.

Nah the Space Wolves fleet is stupidly big - given that they were confirmed as being only slightly over normal Chapter strength they were then stated to have several hundred ships and huge fortresses not that they could man them even if it was one squad per ship....as is normal Marine practice. Especially given they don't take their people from the planet.

The Ultramarines, unlike the Wolves have an excellent industrial base, a well organised and eductaed population to recruit not just grnunts but skilled crew for their fleet.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. It makes sense that Wolves have a bigger than standard fleet and it would be much weirder if they didn't.

ok I'll bite... why?

BrianDavion wrote:

pm713 wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:

 Tyzarion_Kronius wrote:
Basically Lexicanum states they have eight Battle Barges, over 20 strike cruisers and then add escorts to the mix. That's humongous. Nearly the size of Space Wolves fleet who themselves have only had to split up once to form a successor chapter...

And considering Ultramarines are Guilliman's baby, and Guilliman was the one who made Codex Astartes and spoke of dangers of too strong Astartes forces, it seems kind of weird that his own Legion's direct successor Chapter has such a huge naval power in its disposal. Especially when a Chapter can normally call itself lucky and well supplied with three Battle Barges and up to ten Strike Cruisers with a lot of Chapters having to be satisfied with less than that.

So how do Ultramarines not raise suspicions from other factions with their immense amount of naval power, or is the Lexicanum list wrong?

I have heard people say Ultramarines Fleet is only five Battle Barges strong as well.

Nah the Space Wolves fleet is stupidly big - given that they were confirmed as being only slightly over normal Chapter strength they were then stated to have several hundred ships and huge fortresses not that they could man them even if it was one squad per ship....as is normal Marine practice. Especially given they don't take their people from the planet.

The Ultramarines, unlike the Wolves have an excellent industrial base, a well organised and eductaed population to recruit not just grnunts but skilled crew for their fleet.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. It makes sense that Wolves have a bigger than standard fleet and it would be much weirder if they didn't.

ok I'll bite... why?

The Space Wolves Legion never split into Chapters like other First Foundings. All their spaceships stayed where they started so why would they vanish? If you had a bunch of spare space ships you wouldn't go "I'll just chuck these in a sun".

Looking at the Ultramarines they had their massive fleet and had to split it between the Ultramarines and every chapter they made in the first foundings. So based on lexicanum that's all their ships split between 18 Chapters while the Space Wolf fleet isn't split at all. Even accounting for their big losses in the Heresy they should still have above average naval strength.

BrianDavion wrote:
If you had a bunch of spare space ships you wouldn't go "I'll just chuck these in a sun".

Admiral Adama and Colonials obviously never abided by this logic.

 Tyzarion_Kronius wrote:

Ice_can wrote:
Also I'm sure this has been discussed in dakka before but those capacity for the ships make no sence in many ways as a way of deploying a chapter. We have fluff with strike crusers with 3-5 squads of marines and gear thats between 20 to 60 marines not even close to 200.

While a strike cruiser may be able to hold 200 marines ie two complete companies worth that would make zero sence to use as a basis for fleet size limitations as you would have no ability to support more than 3 active warzones at any given time, realistically you need a 2 to 1 or even 3 to 1 capacity in logistics for a sustainable enduring deployment warfare of the type marines are often described as undertaking.

Isn't it common knowledge that a standard Strike Cruiser usually holds an Astartes company? And Battle Barges three companies.

And Black Templars have modified their ships like their flagship battle barge to double capacity in terms of Astartes carried. So assuming each Chapter made those BT modifications to ships, current fleets could allow for two million Astartes across the galaxy.

Once again your assuming everyship is combat ready at all times that's nonsence.

The modern millitart works on a 3 to 1 for hight end or 5 to 1 interms of fleet size to deployable capacity.

Assuming the 3 to 1 number you have just taken two thirds of your fleet out of deployable status, but marines deploy from warzone to warzone, they need a deployable flet on that logic that would have to be capable of supporting tripple their actual numbers to keep up their continues deployments.

Also gicen how horribly bureaucratic the imperium is and the limitations of the adeptus mechanicum to repair things in a timely manner or make replacement craft in a suitable time frame as a chapter master your probably going to be looking for 4 to 1 or 5 to 1 interms of fleet capacity to number of marines. Just so that you can keep all of your genetically modified super killers doing just that in the correct warzones.


You mixing can hold with does contain on a representative deployment. Marine fluff is horrifically inconsistent on how many marines are likely to be deployed to each operational war, yet everyone gets a strike crusier and chapter masters never travel in less than a battle barge even if accompanied by less than an entire company of battleline marines.

I'm not talking about capacity I'm taking about how you deploy forces which are from their very core supposed to be an overwelming mismatch of force capable of altering strategic conditions with high tempo direct action. They are the imperiums version of oh this is going wrong we need special forces.

All morden special forces have tactical and strategic mobility fleets far out of proportion to the amount of deployable personnel.
Marines would be the same.

Also I'm sure I've seen fluff at some point that indicated a battle barge was used for a less than company sized force due to the mission at hand requiring mass teleportation and battle barges having more teleportatiums than strike crusiers where used instead.

So in a way your right technically they were way over capacity ships to just transport the 6 or 7 squads to the mission, however they couldn't have done the mass teleport assualt from a single strike crusier.

Numbers you can carry and numbers you can deploy via the required method in the time available don't always match.
You just need spare capacity in your fleet to keep the marines in the fight.

 Tyzarion_Kronius wrote:

Ice_can wrote:
Also I'm sure this has been discussed in dakka before but those capacity for the ships make no sence in many ways as a way of deploying a chapter. We have fluff with strike crusers with 3-5 squads of marines and gear thats between 20 to 60 marines not even close to 200.

While a strike cruiser may be able to hold 200 marines ie two complete companies worth that would make zero sence to use as a basis for fleet size limitations as you would have no ability to support more than 3 active warzones at any given time, realistically you need a 2 to 1 or even 3 to 1 capacity in logistics for a sustainable enduring deployment warfare of the type marines are often described as undertaking.

Isn't it common knowledge that a standard Strike Cruiser usually holds an Astartes company? And Battle Barges three companies.

And Black Templars have modified their ships like their flagship battle barge to double capacity in terms of Astartes carried. So assuming each Chapter made those BT modifications to ships, current fleets could allow for two million Astartes across the galaxy.

That's the numbers of marines they can deploy in one go. A strike cruiser can support a chapter easily, it's a tiny number of people compared to it's crew - however it only has enough drop pod launchers to deploy 100 marines at once.

Exactly right. If you just need to transport marines from one place to another, an entire chapter could fit in the cargo hold of a frigate. But if you need to actually support them with ammo manufacturing, vehicle repair, training facilities, medical care, landing/drop ships, and spiritual needs, that's where the limits come from.

Though with that in mind, if you can dramatically remove a company of marines from your ship in an instant. You're probably able to house a larger number on board fairly comfortably.

Even a Strike Cruiser can launch one company planetward via drop pods, and follow it up with a second wave that would cover a second company and support vehicles coming down in Thunderhawks after them.

Add another reserve company still on board waiting to reinforce after the first landings, or move to another wazone (perhaps even in system), and two Strike cruisers and a handful of escorts could provide for a whole marine chapter.

And newly founded probably needs to, without a particularly influential founder or generous patron. Make use of what you've got and show that you can play well with others, and you'll get some dry-dock space allocated to you, maybe even a mothballed old Invasion Barge, a ship that's too expensive for the Navy to run and doesn't lend itself to fleet actions. It's going to be a rare time when a shipyard chooses to make a Marine vessel rather than a Navy one without the former having built up some cred to cash in.

Piss too many people off though, and there's few friendly ports to repair your starships (Astartes recruiting worlds tend towards producing tween psychopaths rather than reliable dry docks), no one trusts you enough to do you a favour unless you can capture a prize. Capture an ancient starship, and the AdMech will happily strip it for you and might even reconfigure it for modern ops, for a future favour.

pm713 wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:

 Tyzarion_Kronius wrote:
Basically Lexicanum states they have eight Battle Barges, over 20 strike cruisers and then add escorts to the mix. That's humongous. Nearly the size of Space Wolves fleet who themselves have only had to split up once to form a successor chapter...

And considering Ultramarines are Guilliman's baby, and Guilliman was the one who made Codex Astartes and spoke of dangers of too strong Astartes forces, it seems kind of weird that his own Legion's direct successor Chapter has such a huge naval power in its disposal. Especially when a Chapter can normally call itself lucky and well supplied with three Battle Barges and up to ten Strike Cruisers with a lot of Chapters having to be satisfied with less than that.

So how do Ultramarines not raise suspicions from other factions with their immense amount of naval power, or is the Lexicanum list wrong?

I have heard people say Ultramarines Fleet is only five Battle Barges strong as well.

Nah the Space Wolves fleet is stupidly big - given that they were confirmed as being only slightly over normal Chapter strength they were then stated to have several hundred ships and huge fortresses not that they could man them even if it was one squad per ship....as is normal Marine practice. Especially given they don't take their people from the planet.

The Ultramarines, unlike the Wolves have an excellent industrial base, a well organised and eductaed population to recruit not just grnunts but skilled crew for their fleet.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. It makes sense that Wolves have a bigger than standard fleet and it would be much weirder if they didn't.

There is bigger than normal then there is the fanw that the SW codexes have become.

So how do they operate all these ships - 1 Marine each and the rest thralls from another star system?

Yeah the space Wolves fleet (8 Battlebarges, 30+ strike cruisers and a ton of escorts) is absurd. you could literally split those numbers in half and they'd still have a huge fleet.