# The Great Legion Debate



## Brother Emund (Apr 17, 2009)

Now forgive me if this has been covered before, but I did a search and could not find any reference to it.

Just started to read 'Age of Darkness', Ultras verses Death Guard and World Bearer's.

There is a reference to the Ultramarines 4th Company _"The Troublesome Forth"_ being 3000 strong. Later on, 

during the battle when the World Bearer's are caught in a trap,
 the 43rd Company is mentioned as one of the units involved. Not all the Ultramarine forces were actually present during the battle, so we do not know just how many were there.
But just how many Companies did the Ultramarines actually have in their Legion. 43 Companies means at least 129,000 marines.

Is there a definative number?


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## Doelago (Nov 29, 2009)

I have heard that they would have been just bellow 300,000 strong. Sounds like a lot to me, but "most" legions were around the 100,000 mark, and the Ultras were the biggest, right?


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## BlackGuard (Sep 10, 2010)

To my understanding the Ultramarines, at their peek, were 250,000 Astartes strong. Most believe the Word Bearers were a "close" second with 100,000. Now I have heard the belief that all the Legions (bar some) were around 100,000 -- which would probably put the Word Bearers more so around 150,000 - 200,000.

I know in First Heretic they give 100,000 as the Legion's number -- but most of these authors are simply inventing the numbers as they go.


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## Child-of-the-Emperor (Feb 22, 2009)

The Ultramarines are noted as being the largest Crusade-era Legion at around the 250,000 mark.


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## Brother Emund (Apr 17, 2009)

Child-of-the-Emperor said:


> The Ultramarines are noted as being the largest Crusade-era Legion at around the 250,000 mark.


So, here is another conundrum. When the legions were broken down to Chapters after the Heresy, the Ultramarines would have been technically split down into 250 Chapters(?), baring casualties suffered during the battles. There are only supposed to be 1000 post-Heresy Chapters........ So, the Ultra's make up a quarter of them. The other 750 Chapters coming from the other loyal Legions. Does the math add up?


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## JAMOB (Dec 30, 2010)

Yes. 8 chapters of about 100,000 astartes are slightly above 750 chapters. If you take into account some being higher, some lower and casualties throughout all chapters (remember smurfs had 250k at theire peak) it is probably 1,000 chapters. And no one said they all had to have full strength.


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## Marcoos (Sep 26, 2010)

The 1,000 chapters were not all created at the same time. The 2nd Founding, which happened very soon after the end of the Heresy, broke the Legions down into Chapters. There are definitive numbers for the number of Chapters each Legion splits into, for example IIRC the Imperial Fists only split into 3 Chapters (IF, Black Templars and Crimson Fists). The Ultramarines number is not defined but (again IIRC) believed to be in the mid-20s (I think there is an exact number given but I don't have it to hand, and even then I think it's phrased as 'at least 2x known chapters' or words to that effect).

The remaining chapters were created over subsequent foundings. There is probably a lot of information on these here boards if you search for '2nd founding' or 'successor' chapters.


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## Angel of Blood (Aug 18, 2010)

The Ultramarines lost ALOT of their numbers during the scouring trying to hold the Imperium together, somewhere in the region of 90%


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## Phoebus (Apr 17, 2010)

Just as a reminder, the number of Chapters for the Second Founding is the _known_ number. There is every possibility that each Loyal Legion split off into a greater number of Chapters than that known. That's not to say that they didn't suffer incredible casualties during the Scouring; just that there might have been more whose names and origins were lost during that time of instability and collapsing society.


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## Child-of-the-Emperor (Feb 22, 2009)

Brother Emund said:


> So, here is another conundrum. When the legions were broken down to Chapters after the Heresy, the Ultramarines would have been technically split down into 250 Chapters(?), baring casualties suffered during the battles. There are only supposed to be 1000 post-Heresy Chapters........ So, the Ultra's make up a quarter of them. The other 750 Chapters coming from the other loyal Legions. Does the math add up?


There are essentially two interpretations. Firstly as _AoB_ said, either the Ultramarines suffered *massive* casualties during the Heresy/Scouring (primarily during the Scouring) - roughly around 90% based on the _Baron_'s maths. Or as _Phoebus_ said, the list of Chapters we have for the Second Founding is incomplete. Or quite possibly a mix of the two.


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## Phoebus (Apr 17, 2010)

I would posit it's definitely a mixture of the two.


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## Giant Fossil Penguin (Apr 11, 2009)

The _Apocrypha of Skaros_ is one of the few (in 'verse) documents that lists the UM's Successors, listing 23; however, it is also noted as being incomplete.
I have memories of a second _Apocrypha_, possibly _of Davos_, another incomplete list of 2nd Founding Chapters, although I think this one is a more generalised list encompassing other Legions. Could be wrong on the second one.

GFP


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## Words_of_Truth (Sep 20, 2007)

Angel of Blood said:


> The Ultramarines lost ALOT of their numbers during the scouring trying to hold the Imperium together, somewhere in the region of 90%


I somehow doubt they only had 10% of their original numbers left, especially when you consider how many successors they had. Then again if they had massive numbers originally then 10% of what they had may still of been enough to break them down to over 10 chapters possibly.


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## hailene (Aug 28, 2009)

Words_of_Truth said:


> I somehow doubt they only had 10% of their original numbers left, especially when you consider how many successors they had. Then again if they had massive numbers originally then 10% of what they had may still of been enough to break them down to over 10 chapters possibly.


If they lost 90% of their men that'd leave them with 25,000 marines (out of a total of 250,000).

That's enough for 25 Chapters.

As said earlier, the Apocrypha of Skaros lists 23 second founding successors. 

Combined with the First Founding chapter, that'd give us somewhere in the ballpark of 24,000 marines surviving. 



Giant Fossil Penguin said:


> The _Apocrypha of Skaros_ is one of the few (in 'verse) documents that lists the UM's Successors, listing 23; however, it is also noted as being incomplete.
> I have memories of a second _Apocrypha_, possibly _of Davos_, another incomplete list of 2nd Founding Chapters, although I think this one is a more generalised list encompassing other Legions. Could be wrong on the second one.
> 
> GFP


In the SM codex it doesn't say the Skaros list is incomplete. It only states that the successors are not named, simply given a total of 23.

The Apocrypha of Davos explicitly names 8 successor chapters.

Without knowing the date the Apocrypha of Skaros was compiled, it's really difficult for us to nail how accurate it is. If it was created after M36, the number of successor chapters is probably higher. Possibly considerably higher. 

The closer it gets to m31 the better we'd be. As it stands now, all it can do is give us a bottom end figure of 24 chapters as of the Second Founding.

Edit: The Apocrypha of Davio was penned in m33. With so few chapters named then, I doubt most of the second founding chapters made it very far. Probably lost during the turmoil after the Scouring. 24 is probably a solid figure, I believe.


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## Maidel (Jun 28, 2009)

Brother Emund said:


> 43 Companies means at least 129,000 marines.
> 
> Is there a definative number?


Im trying to work this out - company = 100 men (+ a few hangers on - say 110)

so 110 *43 = 4730 men.

The way you are working it out means there are 3000 men per company - what have I missed?


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## hailene (Aug 28, 2009)

Maidel said:


> Im trying to work this out - company = 100 men (+ a few hangers on - say 110)
> 
> so 110 *43 = 4730 men.
> 
> The way you are working it out means there are 3000 men per company - what have I missed?


Pre-heresy, companies didn't have to equal one hundred men. To give a couple of example off the top of my head, in "Horus Rising" five companies are sent to deal with the "Emperor". Yet there were, "...thousands of gleaming white figures bobbing and running forward across the skirt platforms..."

So each of the companies had to number at least 400 men (5 companies*400 men=2000)

Later on we get more support as the, "First Company, was crossing the bulwarks into the far flank of the palace. Loken magnified his view, resolving hundreds of white-armoured figures pouring through the smoke and chop-fire."

The first company numbers at least 200. Probably more.

As a counter point, when they're talking about the Emperor's Children companies it's pretty explicit that their companies consist of 100 men.

Perhaps as a smaller Legion, the EC stuck to 100 man companies?


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## Maidel (Jun 28, 2009)

Im glad I hadnt missed something as clear cut as a company = 3000 men.

I do remember reading that a 'grand' company was about 400-500 men - and each one had numerous 'under-captains' below the senior captain.

I was under the impression that pre-hersey companies were in that region, but Ive never heard of a company being in excess of 1000 marines.


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## Phoebus (Apr 17, 2010)

I actually always assumed each Company/Grand Company/Chapter had to be a thousand Astartes-strong or more--with the exception of the Emperor's Children, for reasons already mentioned.

Cheers,
P.


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## Maidel (Jun 28, 2009)

Phoebus said:


> I actually always assumed each Company/Grand Company/Chapter had to be a thousand Astartes-strong or more--with the exception of the Emperor's Children, for reasons already mentioned.
> 
> Cheers,
> P.


This is the problem with assumptions though. Ive read no where that says a grand company is the same as a chapter.

Its really hard when you read things set in a different time frame which use the same words to mean different things.


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## Dead.Blue.Clown (Nov 27, 2009)

Ah, the weekly numbers question.



BlackGuard said:


> I know in First Heretic they give 100,000 as the Legion's number -- but most of these authors are simply inventing the numbers as they go.


Actually, no, we're not. 

Apologies for the cut and paste:

The average Legion size was 100,000. All of them, with the exception of the Ultramarines, had around 100,000 warriors. The smaller ones - such as the Raven Guard - had around 80,000. But 100,000 was the "average" size of them. They were all huge. Huuuuuuuuuge, I tells ya.

The earlier books (before and including A Thousand Sons) were operating from older canon sources. While writing _The First Heretic_, I asked at a Horus Heresy meeting if we could nail the proper Legion sizes down. It was agreed by Games Workshop's IP Manager, Alan Merret (responsible for a lot of the HH lore over the years) that they were 100,000 strong, as noted in Horus Heresy: The Collected Visions.


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## Maidel (Jun 28, 2009)

Who said that?

Just out of interrest.


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## Dead.Blue.Clown (Nov 27, 2009)

Maidel said:


> Who said that?
> 
> Just out of interrest.


Batman.

Also, me.


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## Maidel (Jun 28, 2009)

Dead.Blue.Clown said:


> Batman.
> 
> Also, me.


erm.

Sorry, this may be common knowledge - but who are you?


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## normtheunsavoury (Mar 20, 2008)

He's the author of The First Heretic, ADB.


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## Dead.Blue.Clown (Nov 27, 2009)

Maidel said:


> erm.
> 
> Sorry, this may be common knowledge - but who are you?


It's probably not common knowledge, but my signature and a Google check should give it away.


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## Maidel (Jun 28, 2009)

Dead.Blue.Clown said:


> It's probably not common knowledge, but my signature and a Google check should give it away.


heh - Ive turned off signatures and avatars so it loads faster on my iphone.

But, thats fair enough - I will accept you as a reliable source :grin:


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## Brother Emund (Apr 17, 2009)

I cannot believe it: Aaron Dembski-Bowden answered one of my posts... now that IS the definitive answer!!!

100,000 Marines per Legion, except of course, the Ultra’s and (coughs, then spits icknose the ‘Emperor’s Children’


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## TheNightHawk (Mar 12, 2009)

*The Thousand Sons*

And of course the Thousand Sons, who at the telling of their book in the HH series only numbered 1000. But thats not to say they weren't 100,000 strong like their brother legions to begin with. Just that they were under 1k by the Heresy itself, and the burning of Prospero, still gave a full strength legion a battering.


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## hailene (Aug 28, 2009)

TheNightHawk said:


> And of course the Thousand Sons, who at the telling of their book in the HH series only numbered 1000. But thats not to say they weren't 100,000 strong like their brother legions to begin with. Just that they were under 1k by the Heresy itself, and the burning of Prospero, still gave a full strength legion a battering.


Wait, what? 

They had at least thousands of Space Marines during the battle of Prospero. From "Thousand Sons"

"Most of the survivors of the aetheric burst and the Titan's fall poured into Occullum Square, and Ahriman estimated _at least three thousand warriors_ of his Legion. Compared to the strength that had been fighting at the start of the battle it was _pitifully few_, but it was more than he had expected. How many, he wondered, hw fallen to the enemy, and how many to the flesh change running rampant through their ranks?"

That's three thousand survivors that he could see. That's AFTER fighting the Space Wolves and AFTER the flesh change where "Dozens were falling prey to its malign influence every second..."

There would have been at least 10,000 Thousand Sons at the start of the battle.

On further reading they do say that there was about ten thousand Thousand Sons at the start:

"At a conserative estimate, Ahriman guessed that just over a thousand warriors had escaped the attack of the Wulfen.
'A tenth of the Legion,' he said."

So, yeah...no way they were at a thousand Space Marines when the Wolves came.


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## Angel of Blood (Aug 18, 2010)

Indeed, the Thousand Sons were always a smaller legion than the others. After the mutations that tore through the XV Legion after their creation were stopped by Magnus(well halted by Tzeentch untill a more appropriate time as it transpires) only a thousand astartes from the legion remained, hence The Thousand Sons. From the novel _A Thousand Sons_ and the quote above, we can assume they numbered around 10,000 battle-brothers by the time of the Heresy. After the Burning of Prospero however only a little over a thousand remained once again, something that does not go unnoticed by Ahriman.


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## hailene (Aug 28, 2009)

Angel of Blood said:


> After the mutations that tore through the XV Legion after their creation were stopped by Magnus(well halted by Tzeentch untill a more appropriate time as it transpires) only a thousand astartes from the legion remained, hence The Thousand Sons.


Not quite. A conservation between Ahriman and Lemuel from "Thousand Sons" about Magnus saving the Thousand Sons from the flesh change the first time around:

"None of us could recall anything of how this miracle came to pass, but we were alive, though barely a thousand of us were left."
'The Legion name,' said Lemuel.
'Literally,' agreed Ahriman. 'Now we truly were the Thousand Sons.'
Lemuel frowned and said, 'Wait, that doesn't make sense. You were known as the Thousand Sons before you reached Prospero, yes?"
"Yes."


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## Angel of Blood (Aug 18, 2010)

Wrong way round then, knew Ahriman noted that only a thousand of them remained after either the first or second batch of mutations.


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## hailene (Aug 28, 2009)

Angel of Blood said:


> Wrong way round then, knew Ahriman noted that only a thousand of them remained after either the first or second batch of mutations.


Again, close, but not quite.

They were ~1000 _both_ times.


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## Angel of Blood (Aug 18, 2010)

hailene said:


> Again, close, but not quite.
> 
> They were ~1000 _both_ times.


Indeed, I said as much in the first post, but what I meant was it's in the first instance that Ahriman makes a more detailed note of the number and a little of it's meaning. In the second instance he merely states how many are left, without referencing the legion name.


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## Phoebus (Apr 17, 2010)

And, in case anyone here wasn't tracking an earlier thread on the same topic, Codex: Grey Knights indicates the Apocrypha of Skaros does NOT give the total number of Chapters created during the Second Founding. It states that almost 400 Chapters were formed during that time from the remnant of the Legions.


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## docgeo (Jan 8, 2010)

We also know after Deliverance Lost that the Raven Guard stood at just over 4k battle brothers following Istavan. That was likely to drop even with new recruits during the fighting of the Heresy. We could estimate that they likely split int 3-4 legions.


Doc


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## hailene (Aug 28, 2009)

docgeo said:


> We also know after Deliverance Lost that the Raven Guard stood at just over 4k battle brothers following Istavan. That was likely to drop even with new recruits during the fighting of the Heresy. We could estimate that they likely split int 3-4 legions.
> 
> 
> Doc


I'm going to go out on a limb and say that each Chapter was probably not at the proscribed 1000 man limit; I don't think there was 400,000 loyalist marines left after the Scouring. A list of the Legions and high end number, post Scouring:

The Dark Angels has their own schism. On top of years of fighting the Night Lords. The fighting with the Night Lords don't seem that wide spread (it was more cat and mouse), but the schism probably hurt a lot. I'd hazzard the Dark Angels probably got off better than most of the other Legions. ~35,000 out of 80,000.

White Scars, Imperial Fists, and Blood Angels probably were thinned out considerably in the defense of Terra. The White Scars and Blood Angels probably took heavier loses than the Imperial Fists due to their style of warfare (aggressive hit and run for the WS and I'm pretty sure the BA favored CC even during the Heresy). ~25,000 for the WS and BA and maybe 40,000 for the IF.

Space Wolves, not a particularly large Legion from the get-go, took heavy loses on Prospero. And they only split into 2 Chapters afterwards, anyway. I'd guess ~5000 out of 40,000 survived.

Iron Hands, Salamanders, and Raven Guard were reduced to a few thousand each. We don't really know how many Salamanders and IH made it out, but if the Raven Guard are a fair guess, they'd number under 5,000. And that's WITH 3,000 Raven Guard making it off world. We're not sure if either of the two Legions were fortunate enough to do something similar. ~5000 each, for a total of 15000 is probably a fair guess.

The only Legion that had the numbers for many Foundings would be the Ultramarines. Still, according to the Space Marine codex they took one hell of a beating during the Scouring. I'd guess no more than 100,000 out of 250,000 made it out.

My highball puts ~245,000 Legionaries at the end. Maybe you can put in an extra 35,000 novitiates/scouts that were raised to Brother during the ~15 years of war. Still, well short of the 400,000 number, and one could easily argue for half the numbers I gave. A third, maybe.

And that's why I believe that the Second Founding Chapters were probably undermanned at the start. So the Raven Guard with 4-5 thousands marines may have had more than 4-5 Second Foundings.

Edit: In my haste I forgot to put my high end numbers. I think it clutters the post a bit, but it should still illustrate that there was no way that the Loyalist Legions could have numbered 400,000+ men at the end.


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