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I've recently started rereading the HH books and just finished Fulgim when I realized there's an inconsistency with Saul Tarvitz's rank.

You see in the Flight of the Eisenstein when Saul meets Garro before planet fall to face the warsinger, he corrects the battle-captain on his rank, "First Captain I'll have you know". Now this conflicts with the next book, Fulgrim where Saul is new to to the rank of captain and (according to the Dramatis Personae) is in command of the 10th company. This on top of Julius Kaesoron is said to be First Captain both before Istvaan III and at the time of Istvaan V...

So is this a plot hole? Was Tarvitz never First Captain?

Cheers in advance,
BP

I have checked numerous websites and wiki's

His rank and even company is very inconsistent I think GW just dropped the ball on consistency AGAIN !! :p

I figured as much

Shame really because next to garro he's my favourite character

The fact that every time he's with Eidolon the company present is the first (eg. Murder, Istvaan III) would point towards him being First Captain, but it's pretty darn hard to argue with Julius Kaeroson's rank in Fulgrim...

Maybe he got demoted ?? But didn't tell us, who knows. He wasn't much of an emperors child to be captain of the 1st IMO

The Emperor's children seemed to have a strange ranking sytem anyway. Most Legion's First Captain was the highest rank, but ECs have Lord Commanders which I assume are higher. I'm also not sure how many Lord Commanders there were at any one time (at least two; Eidolon and Vespasian) or how many companies a LC commands. I believe Aaron Dembski Bowden (or was it Gav Thorpe? DOn't have a book on hand to confirm) clarified that the HH writers themselves agreed to a retcon regarding numbers in a Legion, I believe in Fulgrim it is hinted at being around 5000 for the EC and somewhere around 20,000 as a standard Legion size but from Deliverance Lost onwards the standard size is said to be around 100,000 with the Ultramarines being nearly double that. This makes far more sense as after the purge of Istvaan 3, the losses at the Dropsite Massacre, the attrition of 7 years of brutal war and the seige of Terra, there is almost no way that there would be any ECs left if there had only been five thousand, let alone enough to be a threat by 40k after the splintering of the Legion.

I think while it was most likely them dropping the ball, the ECs also seem to have a different structure regarding captains. I say this because in Galaxy in Flames and Fulgrim, Tarvitz is contemptuously referred to as "just a line officer" despite being a captain. Also with Lucius also being a captain and them fighting side by side almost all the time, it seems like there may be different ranks of Captain within the legion. Perhaps he was promoted to "first" captain of Eidlon's command group, with Vespasian having his own "first" captain and Julius Kaeroson being the actual captain of the First Company, fighting directly alongside Fulgrim. Mostly just my own speculation to explain inconsistent writing. To be honest given the small size of the Legion, it appears that Fulgrim's inner circle is actually quite large, especially when you compare it to the Word Bearers who are the second largest Legion but Lorgar's inner circle are only Erebus, Kor Phaeron and Argel Tal. It is worth remembering as well that pre-codex astartes, Legion organisation was all over the place with little standardisation in regard to what we now recognise as the norm.

So did some searching on Legion command structure (in specific the chart in HH: Betrayal). Can't find anything legion specific, but it would appear that each legion has approximately 10 Chapters (it vary of course, I'm pretty sure the Emperors Children has less) each led by Lord Commanders. In turn each Chapter has two Battalions consisting of around 6 Companies (again it varies). So yes it is possible that there were two First Captains, however given the fact that the discrepancy of rank happened simultaneously (chronologically) I think BL just stuffed it up.

Also note: there are far more than two Lord Commanders. Yes there's Eidolon and Vespasian, but then there's also Anteus, Cyrius (the guy who eventually killed Lucius), Iddinam, Illois, Teliosa and Fayle (commander of the EC's attack Imperial Army regiment, the Archite Paletines)

Thanks for the research input. I assumed there were more than 2 LCs (even though in the first 3 books it seemed to be just Eidolon) I just didn't have names for them. To be honest I think ADB's Word Bearers and Abnet's Ultramarines are the only ones which have enough detail to make sense of their organisation without having to look at outside sources of information like Forgeworld supplements. All the others just use the characters they want you to see and forget about the rest. With the mid series ret-con, it now seems stupid that the big bad Luna Wolves, seem to roam around constantly at full Legion strenth with all of their main commanders in one fleet and no mention of Chapter Masters.

Pretty much. I think it's safe to assume that the "captain" rank in the HH novels either refers to the company rank within the first chapter (although how Tybalt Marr can be captain of the 18th SoH company I do not know) or it doesn't relate at all to the chart in HH: Betray and is yet another oversight by GW and the Black Library...


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Unless the rank refers to the companies as a whole within each chapter... Eg. 18th captain is actually 8th captain of the second battalion. That would make more sense


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Thus potentially making Saul 1st captain of the second battalion and 10 captain of the chapter - it's a long shot but possible no? Thoughts?

Yeah after reading First herectic where I'm pretty sure there are Captain's of the 35th or some similar number. I assumed the numbers carried across chapters, so 1-8 in the first chapter, 9-16 in the second ect.


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Sorry it's not 1st Heretic, it's the short story which includes the Word Bearers from the Dark Apostle trilogy. Sor Talgron is captain of the 34th.

Maybe since there is more than 1 captain on the Einstein, he is the First Captain of the specific expedition?

I've seen the legion organisation from FW, and as far as i am concerned it only applies to the UMs and the Word Bearers.

Other legions have different structures; lots of companies of varying size (Luna Wolves), a fixed number of Grand/Great companies (Death Guard, Space Wolves).

kronk wrote:Maybe since there is more than 1 captain on the Einstein, he is the First Captain of the specific expedition?

His rank as first captain

machineuk wrote:I've seen the legion organisation from FW, and as far as i am concerned it only applies to the UMs and the Word Bearers.

Other legions have different structures; lots of companies of varying size (Luna Wolves), a fixed number of Grand/Great companies (Death Guard, Space Wolves).

That would explain a lot. Does it say that it's only for Ultra and WE outright?

GW has a bad character plot consistency

this is from the Lexicanum

Ultramarines - 250,000[8]
Sons of Horus - Between 130,000 and 170,000[7c][Note 3]
World Eaters - 150,000[7d]
Word Bearers - 100,000 to 150,000[6][10]
Blood Angels - 120,000[10]
Night Lords - 90,000 to 120,000[15a]
Iron Hands - 113,000[15b]
Imperial Fists - 100,000[11][Note 1]
Death Guard - 95,000[7e]
Salamanders - 89,000[15c]
Raven Guard - 80,000[9]
Emperor's Children - 50,000[7f] Although this number is clearly stated to be a result of the loss sustained during the Istvaan III war. During the later Great Crusade, the size of the legion was closer to 110,000[7f]
Thousand Sons - 10,000
Alpha Legion ?


and this is a link to the generic legion structure

http://static3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20131001033405/warhammer40k/images/thumb/3/38/Space_Marine_Legion_Structure_1.jpg/250px-Space_Marine_Legion_Structure_1.jpg

Pretty sure tarvitz was just a captain. he was always told by Eidolon how he wouldnt be anything more than a line officer and so on but he somehow outranked Lucius who was also a captain. i assume it goes into veteran captains and so on.

As for the Lord commanders the RG have 4 commanders Branne agapito solaro and one other who i cant recall so i assume they are similar ranks to the LC's. when you look at various legions you se they have things like chapter masters and first captains working alongside each other but one might outrank the other. there isnt anything that agrees when you look at different legions which personally i think it is good as the legions had no standard organisation after the primarchs were found.

 MrBlackledge wrote:
this is from the Lexicanum

Ultramarines - 250,000[8]
Sons of Horus - Between 130,000 and 170,000[7c][Note 3]
World Eaters - 150,000[7d]
Word Bearers - 100,000 to 150,000[6][10]
Blood Angels - 120,000[10]
Night Lords - 90,000 to 120,000[15a]
Iron Hands - 113,000[15b]
Imperial Fists - 100,000[11][Note 1]
Death Guard - 95,000[7e]
Salamanders - 89,000[15c]
Raven Guard - 80,000[9]
Emperor's Children - 50,000[7f] Although this number is clearly stated to be a result of the loss sustained during the Istvaan III war. During the later Great Crusade, the size of the legion was closer to 110,000[7f]
Thousand Sons - 10,000
Alpha Legion ?


and this is a link to the generic legion structure

http://static3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20131001033405/warhammer40k/images/thumb/3/38/Space_Marine_Legion_Structure_1.jpg/250px-Space_Marine_Legion_Structure_1.jpg

Pretty sure tarvitz was just a captain. he was always told by Eidolon how he wouldnt be anything more than a line officer and so on but he somehow outranked Lucius who was also a captain. i assume it goes into veteran captains and so on.

As for the Lord commanders the RG have 4 commanders Branne agapito solaro and one other who i cant recall so i assume they are similar ranks to the LC's. when you look at various legions you se they have things like chapter masters and first captains working alongside each other but one might outrank the other. there isnt anything that agrees when you look at different legions which personally i think it is good as the legions had no standard organisation after the primarchs were found.

Relevance?

I thought the EC's were supposed to be smaller than that? Also they sustained horrendous rates of attrition during Fulgrim's rushed war against the Laer. So even before Istvaan 3 their numbers would have been low. Where is the source for the 1k sons from out of curiosity? 10,000 seems ridiculously low compared to the others, especially because i'm sure the EC's were the smallest, in Fulgrim they were only recently at a high enough strength to fight indepentantly from the Luna Wolves. I know the Thousand Sons were crippled by the flesh change, but that was Pre-Magnus. They had nearly 200 years to replenish their numbers to at least a decent size. The "tragic event" that caused the loss of a lot of EC's happened when Fulgrim was already reunited with them so it was more recent IIRC.

Each legion had its own command structure, some of them used chapters while some didn't. For example the Space Wolves have Great Companies, while the Sons of Horus just have normal ones. Same goes for the command structure; Emperor's Children have Lord Commanders, Ultramarines have Tetrarchs and Chapter Masters, Iron Warriors have Warmiths, Iron Hands have Iron Fathers etc...

Really I think Tarvitz' rank is captain of whichever company is mentioned in Fulgrim (odd that we never see Lucius with his)

 Skimask Mohawk wrote:
Each legion had its own command structure, some of them used chapters while some didn't. For example the Space Wolves have Great Companies, while the Sons of Horus just have normal ones. Same goes for the command structure; Emperor's Children have Lord Commanders, Ultramarines have Tetrarchs and Chapter Masters, Iron Warriors have Warmiths, Iron Hands have Iron Fathers etc...

Really I think Tarvitz' rank is captain of whichever company is mentioned in Fulgrim (odd that we never see Lucius with his)

That's what I'm thinking too.
It is a bit odd that we never see Lucius with the 13th, but then again we rarely see Saul w the 10th... He's nearly always with Eidolon and the 1st