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Black Templars Combat numbers and what would happen iif a mrine chapter gree to 10K marines?  [RSS] Share on facebook Share on Twitter Submit to Reddit
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Made in de
Dakka Veteran






I know its larger than a standard chapter, but is their anywhere which gives you a more accurate if not till vague number?

Also if a marine chapter was thought to have risen to more than 9k marines what would the inquisiton's reactiong be would this lead to some serious confrontation?

The Imperium of Man is able to traverse the Warp with difficulty when their Emperor concentrates from his golden life support machine and lights the way. Unfortunately, because the Emperor has the attention span of the average 5-year-old Pokemon fanboy, this means that many an unfortunate Imperial ship has had the WTF WHERE'D THE LIGHTS GO experience, which in the Warp is invariably fatal.  
   
Made in gb
Dakka Veteran




Deepest Darkest Essex!!! UK

theres is nowhere that even hints at a figure, there are numerous crusades, these can be anything from 12 marines (think the BT novels) up to 3 or 4 companies! in addition fleets, chapter houses, recuiting missions, ships, on secondment to the =I=. so the numbers are just best guesses at most.


on to your second point, as most chapters are codex chapters then at most if you take in support staff, hq, fleet staff etc, your looking at 2000-3000 marines at a push (remember the 1000 marines is just the fighting companies not all the ancillary staff) so if i chapter was approaching 9k marines and wasnt one of the exceptions to the codex such as iron hands, templars and space wolves just to mention three, then yes i think the =I= would take note but i think rather then face an all out chapter war and forcing the marines to go rebel they would just pursuade the high lords and similar figures of power to request the marines presence on the most hazardous missions possible to thin their numbers out naturally (or not but you get my drift) instead of sanctioning them.

hope those two random answers help you with your question
millest

   
Made in gb
Dakka Veteran






See that was my understanding, however if the cpater also had some other issues surely the inquisiton would use such things as an excuse?

also the inquisiton has taken ligheting strikes agains tmarine chappters in the past i mean look at the flame falcons

The Imperium of Man is able to traverse the Warp with difficulty when their Emperor concentrates from his golden life support machine and lights the way. Unfortunately, because the Emperor has the attention span of the average 5-year-old Pokemon fanboy, this means that many an unfortunate Imperial ship has had the WTF WHERE'D THE LIGHTS GO experience, which in the Warp is invariably fatal.  
   
Made in gb
Longtime Dakkanaut




United States of England

Posted By millest on 03/02/2007 9:52 AM
theres is nowhere that even hints at a figure, there are numerous crusades, these can be anything from 12 marines (think the BT novels) up to 3 or 4 companies! in addition fleets, chapter houses, recuiting missions, ships, on secondment to the =I=. so the numbers are just best guesses at most.


on to your second point, as most chapters are codex chapters then at most if you take in support staff, hq, fleet staff etc, your looking at 2000-3000 marines at a push (remember the 1000 marines is just the fighting companies not all the ancillary staff) so if i chapter was approaching 9k marines and wasnt one of the exceptions to the codex such as iron hands, templars and space wolves just to mention three, then yes i think the =I= would take note but i think rather then face an all out chapter war and forcing the marines to go rebel they would just pursuade the high lords and similar figures of power to request the marines presence on the most hazardous missions possible to thin their numbers out naturally (or not but you get my drift) instead of sanctioning them.

hope those two random answers help you with your question
millest


Hmmm......for a codex chapter 1000 is your lot! Support staff etc will be inducted humans, or thralls and no sentient lifeforms like servitors etc! The Space Wolves avoid this rule by having each "company" act as though it were a seperate chapter or founding! The Black Templars simply don't reveal the number of Marines in its Chapter....the only other Astartes forces that do not comply to the 1000 man rule are the Grey Knights ( who are aligned with the Inquisition anyway ) and the Adeptus Custodes who answer to no one but the Emperor himself!

The High Lords of Terra can not order a Chapter to respond to any mission, they may only request ( those marines are a law unto themselves ) that request can be easily rejected if the Chapter master feels its appropriate. The most the Inquisition could do is declare a Chapter excommunicate or Tratoris Extremus...etc, this may then cause other Chapters to hunt or attack the offending Chapter...but thats only a maybe! The Inquisition would need to find good grounds to declare this, perhaps a taint in the Chapters geneseed or something to do with dealing with Chaos ( theres no reason the Inquisition would need to be 100% truthful ).

In the end, the Chapter would need to have good grounds to be larger than a standard Chapter! Why would any Chapter need more than 1000 battle brothers? why do the Black Templars and Space Wolves build their forces up in such a manner, contrary to the Codex Astartes? On this rare occassion, the Inquisition would be justified in questioning the Chapter that practises this type of ramp up!


Man down, Man down.... 
   
Made in gb
Dakka Veteran






well actually the sace qolves have more cause they have more companies..

also rmember that the Custodes ARE NOT space Marines...

their are other chapters with non codex numbers, i mean the salamanders are meat to be on 800 or somthing?

but it was just in thinking about somthign one of the guys was talking on the DOW b&B forum i furquent

The Imperium of Man is able to traverse the Warp with difficulty when their Emperor concentrates from his golden life support machine and lights the way. Unfortunately, because the Emperor has the attention span of the average 5-year-old Pokemon fanboy, this means that many an unfortunate Imperial ship has had the WTF WHERE'D THE LIGHTS GO experience, which in the Warp is invariably fatal.  
   
Made in gb
Highlord with a Blackstone Fortress






Adrift within the vortex of my imagination.

It appears that a chapter will have slightly more thaan 1000 marines. 10 companies of 100 marines plus HQ plus Chaptrer HQ. Librarians and techmarines are counted seperately, as are staff, but those numbers wont be high. You could add vehicle crews but

Pete Haines even went as far as to say the sixth and seventh companies priovided vehicle crews, which cut the numbers further and doesn't really maker sense. Ho hum this is what you get when you hire idiots to write the fluff.

A chapter ought to be 2-3k strong, but that is not how it is written up. As it is you dont have enough marines in a chapter to crew the Thunderhawk gunships a Marine fleet requires.

The only two chapters that cheat on the numbers significantly are Space Wolves and Black Templars. The Black Templar codex notes that the chapter is at least 300% overstrength and probably more. Space Wolf Great Companies vary in size, IIRC some are the size of understrength chapters, but the Leman Russ flatly refused to obey the Codex Astartes.

n'oublie jamais - It appears I now have to highlight this again.

It is by tea alone I set my mind in motion. By the juice of the brew my thoughts aquire speed, my mind becomes strained, the strain becomes a warning. It is by tea alone I set my mind in motion. 
   
Made in gb
Dakka Veteran




Deepest Darkest Essex!!! UK

to justify my figures and negate the point of 1000 warriors been the limit for a chapter, i would like to apologise in advance if this seems to be teaching people to suck eggs or seems an overly harsh response it isnt meant to be but i would like to clarify how many marines are in a chapter as the 1000 and no more argument just doesnt add up when you look at the actual figures in print in GW books themselves.

so if possible to draw your attention to index astartes vol 1 p14 & 15. this page shows a graphical example of an average marine chapter and gives us a rough basis on which to garner our numbers.

to start with this lists the following as extrenuous to the fighting companies:
HQ staff - this covers a multitude of ranks but according to the image and notes this does not include company commanders, company chaplains and company apothacarys
Armoury - techmarines
Librarius - librarians of all ranks
this doesnt show how many marines are in each aspect of these hq staff but i can guarentee that each chapter has more then 10 of each role, ie libbys and techs, as there are those out fighting with the battle companies and those who remain maintaining either the armouries of the librarius and training new inductees in to these areas. i personally would suggest a conservative figure of 50 marines per section (thats 150 straight off) but ill come back to that later.


then numbers start mounting up as we start looking at the battle companies, admittedly this representation in the book works on a chapter been at full strength so we will work with those figures as a rough guide.
as an example it shows the 2nd company of been made up as follows:
1 captain
1 chaplain
1 apothecary
1 standard bearer
6 tact squads (10 men per squad)
2 assualt squads (10 men)
2 devestators (10 men)
then it has a load of bikes, dreads, rhinos etc.

if we take this company at face value then this company stands at 104 marines without all the trimmings!

then for this company factor in a command squad (something not mentioned on the chart but they seem to exsist in fluff and rules so we'll work with that) as an easy number we shall say there are 8 in the squad to make it a 10 man squad (the other 2 members to make a 10man squad are the standard bearer and apoth and they are already counted in the initial count). that makes 112 marines in a company so far
.
then there are drivers for rhinos - the book says each company maintains enough rhinos for its squads and commanders so as an estimate we say 12 (10 squads and a rhino a piece for the capt and chap) , we assume that the drivers are extra only because if you take a 10man squad who is going to drive the rhino around once the disembark, also in the imperial armour 2 book it shows the rhino as having 10 transport places and a driver (hope that explains why ive included these marines)these drivers are probably from the armoury as the most likely source, that then makes 12 more marines (dont get me started on gunners! lol)

that gives a very rough and ready total of 124 marines in a company.


the book suggests comapnies 2-9 are like this, gives us a total of 992,
then the 1st company is registered as similar but with landraiders and TDA so thats another 124,
we then factor the scouts of the 10th in as just 100 (including officers) because their numbers are too fluid.
this then gives us a total of 1216 in the chapter thus far,


this doesnt include HQ staff as mentioned, if we go on the rough figures i mentioned right at the begining thats an additional 150 marines as a guess, making 1366 marines


in addition to this page 14 also mentions a number of marines who are of advanced years who are there to train and process new recruits so we can assume this includes chaplains and apothacaries, if we take a stab at a figure of say 50 marines (old ones, chaplains and apoths) that then gives us 1416

then consider that as a rough figure it also doenst count fleet based marines, to justify that comment when was the last time you read a bit of fluff on marine fleets where the ships captain and key bridge officers werent marines, then you have the thunderhawk pilots who are usually though not always marines.
then........... on top of that consider dreadnoughts and members on secondment to the Deathwatch! lol

i personally think i went a bit anal over explaining this, but i like justifying things (especailly after this week at work so i apologise if this seems mental in anyway) but if we go on those figures a marine chapter has roughly 1416 marines

obviously with the other staff mentioned or a larger libraiaus (like the blood ravens) these numbers can swell and i think a rough guestimate of 2000 marines in a chapter isnt too far fetched, yes many jobs are looked after by serfs etc but there are still marines to over see them in their day to day tasks.

i hope that justifies the numbers i mentioned earlier and goes someway towards helping someone understand how a chapter is made up
thanks and sorry for going a bit OCD on you all there
cheers
millest

   
Made in us
Regular Dakkanaut




Several sources I've read on the Templars suggest that they have been as large as 5-6 thousand marines, though it waxes and wanes.
   
Made in gb
Dangerous Skeleton Captain






It is entirely probable that the figure 1000 is merely the number of bodies a particular chapter is expected to be able to deploy if completely mobilised. As in, actual infantry strength discounting all the supports.

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Made in gb
Stern Iron Priest with Thrall Bodyguard




The drinking halls of Fenris or South London as its sometimes called

But they still would not be as big as the wolves


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Made in gb
Longtime Dakkanaut




United States of England

What are the Wolves? 13K?

Man down, Man down.... 
   
Made in gb
Stern Iron Priest with Thrall Bodyguard




The drinking halls of Fenris or South London as its sometimes called

Nobody knows but they have 12 great companies that vary greatly in size compared to each other so some could be as large as a chapter while others as small as a company, add the 13th company to that figure and who knows how many of those crazies are running around the eye of terror?

R.I.P Amy Winehouse


 
   
Made in ca
Been Around the Block





Follow up question to the idea of what might happen were a chapter to exceed it's troop limits...

Wouldn't the chapter simply store the extra gene-seed, or even growing extra while they have the opportunity, in preparation for potentially devastating losses?
Or couldn't they use this extra gene-seed to produce a new chapter at the request of the Lords of Terra?
   
 
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