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When they killed off the loyalist at the drop site massacre (and other events??) didn’t some of the legion kill nearly half their guys?

Regardless, there was a loss of soldiers and then losses in the conflicts after turning non the imperium. So did they recruit neophytes to fill their ranks? Did they have time to grow new astartes?

Its hinted that the recruiting process during the Crusade/Heresy was much better and less focused on ritual than it is in modern 40k. Having the concentrated resources and expertise of groups like the Selenar gene-cults meant that the Emperor could easily and effectively recruit masses of Astartes and make demi-Astartes if needed (Luthor and Kor Phaeron are such examples).
Keep in mind that even the smallest Legions are about 100k strong and that the recruiting methods of both sides got extremely experimental and brutal once the Heresy had kicked off (see the World Eaters recruitment world of Bodt and the Raven Guard Raptors for more).

mrFickle wrote:
When they killed off the loyalist at the drop site massacre (and other events??) didn’t some of the legion kill nearly half their guys?

Regardless, there was a loss of soldiers and then losses in the conflicts after turning non the imperium. So did they recruit neophytes to fill their ranks? Did they have time to grow new astartes?

the recruiting process in the great crusade and heresy was different. they used some trick that required access to the fully grown Primarch* to mass produce gene seed and then funky mental conditioning to flash-train the recruits form "human" to "battle ready astartes" in about a year. its never fully explained how this worked, just that it did, and it required access to the adult primarch to work. the attrition of the great crusade was very high, and these methods were the only way to keep the numbers up. thiers a few hints that it might have contributed to the Heresy in that their was a higher rate of mental instability form these methods, as they prepared the body but didn't prepare the mind enough, and their was much greater emphasis on indoctrination and properly "shaping" the mind of a recruit post heresy.



*we dont know what it was, but something in the adult primarch was used to "stablise" the geneseeds. this meant that a legions size was partly linked to how early its primarch was found, with the Luna Wolves/Sons of Horus being so large party becuase of their long access to Horus, and the Thousand Sons and the Alpha legion being among the smallest because of the late discoverey of thier primarchs.

In Saturnine it is mentioned that the Sons of Horus had been recruiting and converting on a massive scale for the final push, hothousing new recruits in their thousands and sending them into combat, IIRC, pretty much fresh aside from the usual brainwashing and mental prepping.

I'm not fully up to date with the HH novels, but I believe one of the reasons Lion El'Johnson wasn't at Terra was to deal with the problem of recruiting. He was planning to purge the various home worlds of the traitor legions. Mostly a symbolic gesture, but I have to imagine these worlds would also feed a steady stream of recruits to their respective legions.

Luthor was sent (basically exiled) to Caliban to sort out Dark Angels recruitment after the Rangdan Xenocides. The Lion wasn't at Terra because of a bunch of reasons which include the Warp being messy and potentially also the Fallen manipulating events.
He did purge a few Traitor homeworlds before returning to Caliban during the Scouring. I think he burned Barbarus.
The Ultramarines burned Colchis and helped the Fists at Olympia.
AFAIK those are the only confirmed ones.

 Gert wrote:
Luthor was sent (basically exiled) to Caliban to sort out Dark Angels recruitment after the Rangdan Xenocides. The Lion wasn't at Terra because of a bunch of reasons which include the Warp being messy and potentially also the Fallen manipulating events.
He did purge a few Traitor homeworlds before returning to Caliban during the Scouring. I think he burned Barbarus.
The Ultramarines burned Colchis and helped the Fists at Olympia.
AFAIK those are the only confirmed ones.

I want to say Olympia was AFTER the Siege

The razing of Olympia was after the Siege yes. Perturabo enslaving the entire planet was just before Issvtan.

Something that leaves me wondering about legion size is World Eaters with their large size of 150000. Considering Agron was found late, they didn't have much in terms of territory, they used cadualtuy heavy tactics and strategies, so by all logic they should have been one of the smallest like Salamanders and Raven Guard. Yet they defy logic with their large size.

When you have high attrition rates, you make sure you have high recruitment rates to replace the losses.
The World Eaters also didn't really care about where their recruits came from so while the Dark Angels might mostly take from Caliban and the Raven Guard from Khiovar, the World Eaters would just pick a planet, take what they needed and leave.

 Tyzarion_Kronius wrote:
Something that leaves me wondering about legion size is World Eaters with their large size of 150000. Considering Agron was found late, they didn't have much in terms of territory, they used cadualtuy heavy tactics and strategies, so by all logic they should have been one of the smallest like Salamanders and Raven Guard. Yet they defy logic with their large size.

One old bit of fluff that isn't really repeated now is high attrition legions removing the first prognoid as soon as its mature so any recovered after death are a bonus.

 Tyzarion_Kronius wrote:
Something that leaves me wondering about legion size is World Eaters with their large size of 150000. Considering Agron was found late, they didn't have much in terms of territory, they used cadualtuy heavy tactics and strategies, so by all logic they should have been one of the smallest like Salamanders and Raven Guard. Yet they defy logic with their large size.

I assume that ramming the butchers nails into their brains makes training new recruits quick and easy.

It's also said that the different legions had different failure rates in the recruitment process. Iron Warriors and Death Guard were said to have low failure rates, so they could keep up their numbers despite heavy attrition rates. I'd assume the same for World Eaters.

Some Legions were known to "cut corners" in the Astartes creation process to speed up production even before the Heresy. The Night Lords were notorious for using the minimal amount, or sometimes none, of psycho-conditioning. That's why they went in as psychotic criminals, and came out as psychotic criminals, just with superhuman abilities and power armour.

Ah, Night Lords. Never change.