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I'm planning on doing a painting project of the loyalist forces on Istvaan (the idea being that I'll get to paint elements of each legion).

So, has anyone a clue as to what the loyalists were equipped with/ had at their disposal? I know it wouldn't be much and that it'll mostly (if not entirely) be composed of infantry, but if anyone could share some specifics or similar I would greatly appreciate it.

Upon being deployed to the planet the invasion force successfully took Choral City rather than standing around saying 'where are all our support units?' so presumably there was a fairly standard mix of infantry types/equipment. Betrayal says the number of loyalists to survive the bombardment and virus bombing was possibly as high as 60,000, so chances are there would have been a little bit of everything left, at least initially.

Betrayal notes that the Death Guard were the only legion to land 'any significant armoured vehicle contingent' which I take to mean that the other legions landed *insignificant* armoured vehicle contingents, which given the invasion force numbered almost 100,000 marines could easily mean a dozen or more of every armoured vehicle type per legion..

The only specific mentions of armour I recall *after* the virus bombing was that the loyalist Death Guard had salvaged Malcador tanks from the Isstvanian armouries whilst some of the 'traitor' Death Guard 'heavy siege units' had mutinied and joined them.

I would expect 'basic' things like Rhino's, Predators, Dreadnaughts (ie ones that weren't expected to take up rebellion against the Emperor) and so on would have been fairly common. Remember, Horus was in charge of the Great Crusade so supply lines leading up to the Heresy weren't a problem for him - he could easily afford to lose squadrons of common tanks and infantry carriers in a purge if it meant getting fully loyal legions at his command.

What I wouldn't expect though would be things like Super Heavies or Sicarans or Spartans or anything else described as 'rare' or 'advanced' in the fluff.

About 100,000 total astartes is the total given in Galaxy in Flames IIRC

Vehicle amounts isn't clear, they had every kind of tech the Astartes at the time had available to them

Also don't forget the Reductor force under Calleb Decima that crash-landed, and was able to salvage wrecks and repair damaged vehicles after the extermination.

Decima's Istavaan survivor force even allows you to take an SM tank that he salvaged from the wreckage in the army list, as an example.