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Was there ever a reference? Thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions?

Also is there any lore on New Cadia? I read somewhere that the Cadians colonized another planet?

No, because there have never been hard numbers on how many Cadian Regiments are out there.

We know it's loads, and that Cadian equipment has been adopted as the basic standard for many other Regiments.

We also know that Cadians have been given the Right of Settlement on planets elsewhere in the galaxy and they are now starting to recruit more Cadian Regiments now that Cadia (the planet) is gone.

Yeah, GW doesn't typically give out such hard numbers. Although there is a Cadian 4002nd regiment, so there have been at least that many regiments in service at the same time. That is a lot of regiments.

Lexicanum quotesGathering Storm: Fall of Cadia saying 3m survivors from 850m pre destruction population quoted in the 3rd Ed chaos codex.

usmcmidn wrote:
Was there ever a reference? Thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions?

Also is there any lore on New Cadia? I read somewhere that the Cadians colonized another planet?

Read Justin Hill's Minka Lesk series. That's where the New Cadia thing showed up.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Flinty wrote:
Lexicanum quotesGathering Storm: Fall of Cadia saying 3m survivors from 850m pre destruction population quoted in the 3rd Ed chaos codex.

Important to remember that Cadia is a planet, system, and sector.

Cadians tended to refer to the system & planet. That 3m survivors is from the number of military survivors evacuated from the surface in the final days.

Enough to write at least one more book where the central plot point is how needlessly slaughtered they all were by the end of the book. At least one more book where we can show a sadistic commissar driving literal children with rifles into combat under threat of death, as a metaphor of heroism. I hate Cadian lore. Say what you want about dumb jock Catachans, at least they don't circle jerk around sacrificing kids in war like jihadists.

So I'm guessing you don't know how they get those red bandanas, eh?

I think the answer is more than enough to keep Cadians in the narrative for a very long time.

 Flinty wrote:
Lexicanum quotesGathering Storm: Fall of Cadia saying 3m survivors from 850m pre destruction population quoted in the 3rd Ed chaos codex.

Plus moons, other planets in the system, regiments stationed off world...

So as many as the plot requires. Significantly more than say the Tanith.

Millions for sure. The 3m rescued from the planet directly, plus the thousands of regiments scattered across the galaxy. Along with probably a few planets settled by retired regiments in the past.

I find the idea that Cadian denotes simply a person from Cadia to obscure the reality of the lore. 'Cadian' is, in truth, not an ethnicity or planetary-national identity so much as it is a pattern or paradigm of Regiment like the Solar Auxilia before them. How many times have we seen recolored Cadian kit used to represent those who emulate them, such as the Truskan Snowhounds from the 8E codex?



From Eye of Terror:

Even on the distant worlds of the Eastern Fringe, there are colonies formed around the veterans of mustered-out Cadian regiments.

From the 4E codex that gave us Cadian regiments as we know them:

In the Imperium, a successful uniform design may also be found amongst the forces of other worlds.

In addition, there is always demand of the soldiers of the 8th [...] to assist in training newly-founded regiments

How Long until we get lore about the fall of the "Coronan Grenadiers" to nurgle?

I see a few potential categories:
- Are they from Cadia
- do they use Cadian pattern equipment
- does the world/regiment follow Cadian organizational doctrine.

In my view, only the first category answers the OP question.

GW made the Cadian equipment a baseline standard, but using the euqipment doesn't make a regiment Cadian. Similarly as soon as a regiment is raised from a different planet, then it isn't Cadian.

Lexicanum also makes a point that about half of each recruitment cycle ends up shipping out as Shock Troop regiments. The real world birth rate is about 136m babies a year. Taking a wild stab that this is something like what Cadia enjoyed, then 68m Cadians were shipping out every year into the wild blackness. Attrition then occurs, but it leaves an awful lot of Cadian bloodline out there.

So minimum is the 3m recued from Cadia, plus whatever troops were in the sector in general, and then the tens of millions more further out.

when they muster out and found new worlds, do they model them on Cadia, is one question.

Indeed they do, that was brought up in the 8th Ed Guard Codex regarding the remains of the Cadian people.
Regiments that had settled other worlds went back to active status and started recalling or recruiting Guardsmen to rebuild their old Regiments or create new ones.

 RaptorusRex wrote:
'Cadian' is, in truth, not an ethnicity or planetary-national identity so much as it is a pattern or paradigm of Regiment like the Solar Auxilia before them. How many times have we seen recolored Cadian kit used to represent those who emulate them, such as the Truskan Snowhounds from the 8E codex?

Except it is? Cadians in fluff have purple eyes, having distinct look and society/background/culture that unique pretty much makes them 100% ethnicity, more distinct that vast majority we have on Earth in fact

Also, kit? Seriously? Do you have any idea how many armies uses US, Russian, and German equipment? It's like stating Algerians, Indians, and Vietnamese are Russians because all these armies use T-90 tanks and Russian tanker gear, with only cloth color/epaulets being local addition...

 Haighus wrote:
Although there is a Cadian 4002nd regiment, so there have been at least that many regiments in service at the same time. That is a lot of regiments.

Erm, no. Cain created 597th Valhallan regiment by combining two regiments in the 200s. Numbers alone mean nothing.

Although, if we assume regiment to be ~5000 soldiers, then 850 mln troops stationed on Cadia before Fall should in theory give regiment numbers up to 170,000s. Another example of GW having no sense of scale/math

 Irbis wrote:

 RaptorusRex wrote:
'Cadian' is, in truth, not an ethnicity or planetary-national identity so much as it is a pattern or paradigm of Regiment like the Solar Auxilia before them. How many times have we seen recolored Cadian kit used to represent those who emulate them, such as the Truskan Snowhounds from the 8E codex?

Except it is? Cadians in fluff have purple eyes, having distinct look and society/background/culture that unique pretty much makes them 100% ethnicity, more distinct that vast majority we have on Earth in fact

Also, kit? Seriously? Do you have any idea how many armies uses US, Russian, and German equipment? It's like stating Algerians, Indians, and Vietnamese are Russians because all these armies use T-90 tanks and Russian tanker gear, with only cloth color/epaulets being local addition...

 Haighus wrote:
Although there is a Cadian 4002nd regiment, so there have been at least that many regiments in service at the same time. That is a lot of regiments.

Erm, no. Cain created 597th Valhallan regiment by combining two regiments in the 200s. Numbers alone mean nothing.

Although, if we assume regiment to be ~5000 soldiers, then 850 mln troops stationed on Cadia before Fall should in theory give regiment numbers up to 170,000s. Another example of GW having no sense of scale/math

Cadian infantry regiments have a muster strength of ~8000 soldiers. That is at least 32 million accounted for. Remember, 4002 is just the highest number mentioned, lower numbers are more prestigious and more likely to be mentioned in stories. It also doesn't include armour, super heavy armour, recon, artillery etc companies, which have their own numbering.

Also, a good chunk of that 850 million is going to be pre-Whiteshield children who are going to be of limited military use.

The highest known Valhallan regiment number is 1212, much higher than 597. 597 would have simply been an available number for a currently disbanded/destroyed regiment. Valhallan infantry regiments seem to be ~120000 at founding, so 1212 regiments is 145 million Guardsmen raised for war.

 Irbis wrote:

 RaptorusRex wrote:
'Cadian' is, in truth, not an ethnicity or planetary-national identity so much as it is a pattern or paradigm of Regiment like the Solar Auxilia before them. How many times have we seen recolored Cadian kit used to represent those who emulate them, such as the Truskan Snowhounds from the 8E codex?

Except it is? Cadians in fluff have purple eyes, having distinct look and society/background/culture that unique pretty much makes them 100% ethnicity, more distinct that vast majority we have on Earth in fact

Also, kit? Seriously? Do you have any idea how many armies uses US, Russian, and German equipment? It's like stating Algerians, Indians, and Vietnamese are Russians because all these armies use T-90 tanks and Russian tanker gear, with only cloth color/epaulets being local addition...

 Haighus wrote:
Although there is a Cadian 4002nd regiment, so there have been at least that many regiments in service at the same time. That is a lot of regiments.

Erm, no. Cain created 597th Valhallan regiment by combining two regiments in the 200s. Numbers alone mean nothing.

Although, if we assume regiment to be ~5000 soldiers, then 850 mln troops stationed on Cadia before Fall should in theory give regiment numbers up to 170,000s. Another example of GW having no sense of scale/math

Good thing there were more arguments in the post, that you cut out.

Found this in White Dwarf in the run up to the global Eye of Terror campaign:



71% of 250,000,000 are soldiers (likely reservists who work part time in the manufactorums etc.). Given that 90% of every Cadian generation is shipped off-world, the other 19% are probably children.

So, after doing some reading today:

Kill team Shadowvaults "Kasrkin" section seems to be the most up to date, numbers-wise. It's "billions" of Cadians, with "millions" of Kasrkin being around as of the most recent events with Gallowfall.