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Why is it that any of the other space marine chapters stick to this one thousand, why are they not doing a black templar and sending ships off that are able to recruit on their own. The space wolves arnt sticking to it.

Why don't the Imperil Fists just fill up their flagship with hundreds, if not thousands, more astartes....

Who is really even enforcing this rule any more and how are they enforcing it?! Seems to me chapters can get away with having more but very few choose to do so (obviously not including ultramarine descendent so who see the codex astartes as gospel) but there are plenty chapters out there descended from the other loyal primarchs!

No One expects the Inquisition! They would be branded a heretic and be hunted down, Lufgt Huron tried it and see how that went down.

The Anathema wrote:
Why is it that any of the other space marine chapters stick to this one thousand, why are they not doing a black templar and sending ships off that are able to recruit on their own. The space wolves arnt sticking to it.

Why don't the Imperil Fists just fill up their flagship with hundreds, if not thousands, more astartes....

Who is really even enforcing this rule any more and how are they enforcing it?! Seems to me chapters can get away with having more but very few choose to do so (obviously not including ultramarine descendent so who see the codex astartes as gospel) but there are plenty chapters out there descended from the other loyal primarchs!

This came about specifically because of the Horus Heresy, where one chapter had thousands of marines to command. When Guilliman enforced the Codex Astartes on the Imperirum all Marines had to break up into chapters of 1000. So that if any one chapter went rebel it would be much more difficult to cause the strife that happened during the heresy. Basically he limited the chapters to 1000 to limit the damage any one chapter could do if it went rogue.

Other primarchs like Russ and Dorn refused the Codex for a long time and kept their space marines at full pre-heresy strength, but eventually started abiding by the basic tenants of the Codex, namely the 1000 man limit which then started all the 2nd, 3rd, etc... foundings.

I think that there may be some leniancy on the amount of space marines in a chapter, but it depends on which founding chapter is involved. Because the space wolves and templar are unorthodox in chapter organization (roving space fleets that operate independently from each other for large periods of time) it is more acceptable for them to have larger company sizes. Also, it would take too long to get an accurate census of their chapter, and since they are loyalist space marines of good renown, there would be no cause for a census to be taken.
It is also chapter preferance: the Dark Angels really don't want any more attention, and the Imperial Fists/Ultrasmurfs are chapters too attentive to the rules to do otherwise.

The Black Templar are the crazies of the original Fists, and they are basicallyon a permanent penitence crusade, so usual rules don't apply.

Wolves are different just because and they get away with flaunting the Codex because they kill any Imperial that questions them, and they get away with that also just because.

Because the other loyal primarchs - besides Russ - eventually decided the Codex was a good idea, and so their Legions split into chapters.

Well, the Space Wolves don't follow it because they pulled a fast one on old Guilliman, they "divided" into 13 Great Companies which were already semi-autonomous, so in that way, while there is only 1 Space Wolves chapter, they aren't quite as united as other chapters are. Part of this also has to do with the fact that the Space Wolves geneseed is somehow unstable as a result of the Canis Helix, meaning that actually dividng the legion wasn't really possible (apparently).

In the case of the Black Templars, as I understood it, Dorn took all of the most loyal and zealous Imperial Fists who he knew wouldn't accept the Codex Astartes and lumped them together in the Black Templars and sent them on their way in a crusade, both to get them the hell away from the rest of the Imperium (so as to avoid them causing another civil war) and because he figured they would eventually crusade their way into non-existence via attrition.

I think the 1000 is pretty flexible even amongst the most strict of Codex Chapters. The reason I say this is that when you count the headquarters staff of each company, along with it's marines, you come up with 939 (100 marines + Captain, Chaplain, Apothecary, and Standard Bearer=104, x9 Companies=936, +3 for the 10th company which has no Standard), so it becomes a question of do they really have less than 61 between Scouts, all of the Librarians, and Techmarines, the Chapter Master and his command staff (which are listed separately in Codex Organisation charts, so it leads me to believe they aren't just part of the 1st company). 1000 just seems like it was a nice round number GW chose and not some hard rule. If I had to guess even the Ultramarines probably have somewhere in the 1100 or so area.

derek wrote:If I had to guess even the Ultramarines probably have somewhere in the 1100 or so area.

Good guess.

Going from the 5th edition Codex, which featured a neat chart with numbers, I arrived at:

Chapter Command and Honour Guards: 29
Armoury: 28
Apothecarion: 13
Librarius: 25
Battle Companies: 505
Reserves: 404
Scouts: 101? (estimate, exact number of Scouts not provided)
----
Total: ca. 1105 Astartes (not counting Dreadnoughts)

It's probably a little bit higher as for some reason that chart forgot about all the Chaplains save Cassius.
I wasn't quite sure where to count the Captains as they are technically both Chapter Command as well as firmly attached to a Battle Company, but ultimately decided for the latter as this is how they show up on the chart as well.

Headquarters Staff (sometimes also called Supernumaries) such as Apothecaries, Techmarines, etc is not counted against the 1k limit - that number really applies only to the 10x10x10 company organisation. This has been in the Codices since 2nd edition, but very often it gets overlooked.

So, here's the thing, I doubt there's a single chapter in the galaxy that actually has even 1000 marines. You have to remember that every Chapter is constantly deployed and suffering casualties, which brings there operational strength below their organizational strength.

Sure, the 1k is the Codex version of "nice to have".

That being said, operational strength usually just tends to apply to the Battle Companies, anyways - with the Reserve being tapped to replace any casualties. Supposedly, it would take a staggering amount of losses until they'd actually affect your average Codex Marines task force.

Then again, given that at least in the case of some Chapters we are talking about millennia of travelling from one warzone and to another, and that they supposedly do not recruit that often ... it makes you wonder how they can keep up.

The usual suspense of disbelief applies, I guess - or a matter of setting interpretation.

 Lynata wrote:

derek wrote:If I had to guess even the Ultramarines probably have somewhere in the 1100 or so area.

Good guess.

Going from the 5th edition Codex, which featured a neat chart with numbers, I arrived at:

Oh neat, I haven't owned a 5th ed SM codex in a while. The one thing that always makes me wonder, who drives the vehicles? We know they're marines, but what part of the chapter are they from? Techmarines? Same with the company Rhinos, etc.

derek wrote:The one thing that always makes me wonder, who drives the vehicles? We know they're marines, but what part of the chapter are they from? Techmarines? Same with the company Rhinos, etc.

Depends on the source - but the 2E Codex mentioned that vehicle crews are drawn from Tactical Squads (except for Landspeeders, which are crewed by Assault Marines), that exchange their squad markings for an Armoury badge for the duration of their assignment. WD #300 expanded on this by mentioning that this is one of the primary tasks of the Reserve Companies - they are not intended to deploy in full size like a Battle Company, but rather send support elements attached to said Battle Companies. This includes fire support teams as well as crews for the supporting vehicles.
I would assume that Rhinos are generally crewed by Tactical Marines from their own Company since the vehicles are permanently attached to the unit, but that's really just a guess.

The Space Marines generally train their warriors to fit almost any role on the battlefield, which is why they're starting as Scouts, then work their way through Devastator and Assault careers until finally ending up as Tacticals. And along the way, they also serve as drivers. This adaptability allows a Chapter to make full use of its ~1.000 warriors, and a Marine Commander to make full use of the manpower at their disposal, essentially giving him the ability to customise a Task Force's deployment to fit mission parameters, environmental conditions and expected resistance as best as possible - rather than, say, having a pool of precious Space Marines as dedicated drivers who must remain home and have nothing to do just because there'll be no tanks in some battle.

It's like a super-customisable army kit with the Battle Company as a base, reinforced by a "drag & drop" system where you just pull useful elements out of the Reserves to add to what you want to fight with. Infantry, mechanized infantry, armoured fist - a Codex Marine Chapter is like the Transformer of military formations.

[edit] According to the Index Astartes, Techmarines are part of Land Raider crews, though - 1 Techmarine per team, at least in the example provided.

 Omegus wrote:
The Black Templar are the crazies of the original Fists, and they are basicallyon a permanent penitence crusade, so usual rules don't apply.

Wolves are different just because and they get away with flaunting the Codex because they kill any Imperial that questions them, and they get away with that also just because.

Cause SWs are boring Mary Sues?

Plus yeah, it's been covered that the codex astartes and what it is the reason

There is another camp on the driver topic, who say that, since some artwork and the vehicle boxes (which use the land raider sprue) include techmarine stuff, there must be some set of extra drivers, b

Also, digression, marines do not "[end] up as Tacticals," they end up in battle companies, where they can do anything.

So the actual OP is not whether Chapters are 1000 marines or not, it is why they do not exceed whatever constraint on numbers they do have.

Uh, a big part is that the purpose of a modern marine force is to be small. That is, if you need to do anything with Guard, you need millions of them in one place, dozens of transports, escorts and support ships just to get the number of troops in one place, vast numbers of tanks and ammo caissons for the tanks. They need way more drop ships and stuff, more operational bases, more troops to guard the operational bases, more troops to relieve the troops who get tired.

The point of space marines is that you only need to bring a ship full of them to get something done.

Then ok, they are fraternities now in a way they weren't when they were legions. Humans have a maximum social group of a little under 120 people. Historically, that is the number of people you've been able to maintain a relationship with and consider part of your clan or macroband. The marines in a company can live alongside each other and develop good relations with. If they love each other and their company, they can look at other companies, which are mostly about equivalent to theirs, and project the feelings they have about their own company to the other companies, but they cannot extend that effect infinitely. Ten companies are a fine limit for that.

Then a third and related point is that they can use the kind of brotherhood to replace the warrior lodges that corrupted the traitor legions. The lodges were networks that allowed transmission of ideas and vetting of relationships for purposes of conspiracy. If you were in a lodge with someone, you could learn about his character, and influence it a bit, so it was easier to force an institutional shift to traitorous behavior by choosing who got assigned where and what they thought, outside of the formal hierarchy. In a chapter sized formation, the formal hierarchy and the lodge/chapter cult are about the same thing, so ideological drift is transparent and on the record.

Then, why would a space marine chapter want to get bigger? It has a job that it does fairly well, and if it needs more manpower for a specific project, it can just ask for cooperation from another chapter.