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Torcano
08-18-2010, 02:00 PM
My question is this:

In the aftermath of the Horus Heresy, do we know how many marines roughly were left? I have heard estimates in the millions thrown around, but does anyone have a figure?

Reason being that at the time of the 2nd Founding, we *know* there was less than 40,000 loyal marines. Based on the Codex Astartes, the roughly 33 Chapters formed at this time had roughly 1k marines each.

I don't know about you guys, but i sure get the impression there was a lot more than 40,000 marines still alive prior to this, how about everyone else?

gwensdad
08-18-2010, 02:55 PM
My question is this:

In the aftermath of the Horus Heresy, do we know how many marines roughly were left? I have heard estimates in the millions thrown around, but does anyone have a figure?

Reason being that at the time of the 2nd Founding, we *know* there was less than 40,000 loyal marines. Based on the Codex Astartes, the roughly 33 Chapters formed at this time had roughly 1k marines each.

I don't know about you guys, but i sure get the impression there was a lot more than 40,000 marines still alive prior to this, how about everyone else?

Well, if I remember "The Raven's Flight" correctly, Corax lost 75,000(ish) marines on Istavan V and that was most of the legion. Make of that number what you will...

AirHorse
08-18-2010, 03:24 PM
Well prior to the codex and the second founding there were 18 active legions and legion strength seems to vary massively, from as low as around ten thousand marines up to huge sizes which seem to indicate something closer to one hundred thousand marines from what little info ive seen. The legions werent very standard at least.

During the build up to the heresy(or the opening of it i guess) at istvaan a few of the loyalist legions got their strength massively depleted, hence the lack of second founding chapters from these three(ironhand, salamanders and raven guard? not sure about the last one :P).

At the end of the heresy, and the huge amount of fighting that went on, alot of legions wouldve been drastically under their full strength. As far as I know the ultramarines and the dark angels suffered the least of the loyalist due to either being stranded from the main fighting due to schemes of the enemy or dodgey excuses from the primarch, and both of them had a decent few successor chapters. The blood angels did quite well too come to think about it.

The traitor legions mostly scattered into the eye of terror, no idea on the remaining strength of the ones who fled directly. The thousand sons suffered pretty badly at the hands of the space wolves I think, sure i read something like there was around 1000 of them left ironically.

Alpha legion seemed to bugger off into normal space and do their thing, but due to the nature of the legion i doubt there is much info on their relative strengths.

The Iron warriors went and built a million(exageration here :P) fortresses I think and defended them pretty solidly, indicating they had reasonable strength left. But I also think the imperial fists had a big campaign dealing with alot of these bases so dont know that much really.

Based on the information in my head(and please dont hesitate to correct this pile of flotsam that floated to the surface :P) I would estimate there was around 150-200 thousand marines, traitor and loyalist combined, at the time the codex popped up.

I would guess there was around 70-80 thousand or so loyalists since not all the legions split up properly like the codex asked. The ultramarines were supposed to be one of the biggest legions and if you take the number of second founding chapters they made x1000 as almost their legion strength it makes sense id say(since they mostly missed out on the huge battles).

Javin
08-19-2010, 03:55 AM
The Black Library published the illustrated version of the Horus Heresy many years ago. That was a series of 3-4 books and it published numbers of marines in various founding chapters. The artwork is a must if you want to try out a pre-heresy army.

At the time of the heresy the Ultramarines numbered over 250,000 and were numbered the largest chapter due to the Ultramarines willingness to retreat and try again. They also took the least losses (even with the Word Bearers ambush) during the intial heresy battles. This is why over half the second founding chapters came from the Ultramarines.

The Alpha legion was the smallest legion at the start of the heresy but I do not remember their numbers.

If you can get your hands on these books, you may be able to find out numbers.

MarneusCalgar
08-19-2010, 10:00 AM
Well, on most places Iīve read several times, in Lexicanum i.e., that the old Loyalist Chapters that remained after the Emperorīs death were reorganised just as Guilliman demanded on his Codex Astartes, and most marines that were alive became new members of smaller chapters...

So you can count that they were on that new chapters until their death...

Old_Paladin
08-21-2010, 04:28 PM
There are a number of things to consider when trying to figure out the number of post-heresy loyalist marines.

First: there's the original legions; which would become the 9 first founding chapters.
Second: there's the second founding chapters. Of which there are 35 known chapters. There are indications that there were probably more then this, but many would have been completely lost in the last 10,000 years of war and left no written record that anyone can currently find (if it even exists anymore).
Third: there's also the Grey Knights, they were also founded during this time; but kept a secret.
Fourth: not all chapter actually except the guidelines of the Codex Astartes. The Space Wolf's, at the time, had 14 battle companies. The Iron hands use War Clans (and are known for going over 10 Clans).

Then you have to consider the whole Iron Hands refusal to 'de-legion' (?!?), when they finally split-up a large amount joined the Black Templars; and they were well over Chapter strength. In fact, their Chapter Barge holds 8 battle-companies alone and it was just one ship.

It would be easy for there to have been 60,000-100,000 loyalist battle-brothers (not counting the command and specialty staff that don't seem to count towards the chapter limits) after the Heresy.

Vaddok Sek
08-22-2010, 01:13 AM
It is true that 33 is a rough estimate of the chapters that were created when the legions were disbanded, there may have been more that would later be destroyed or turn renegade (Soul Drinkers are not listed in the SM codex despite having practically become cannon). But you have to remember that the Heresy and its aftermath had to be very depleting for the legions as they fought to take back the galaxy from traitor strongholds (I'm betting that Mars was no mean feat). At Istvaan V the Iron Hands legion lost its 1st company and was forced to undergo some serious reorganization following the metaphorical and literal decapitation of thier legion, they split simply into 5 known successor chapters (including themselves). The Raven Guard was reduced to less than 3000, and produced only 3 known sucessors despite Corax's cloning efforts. The Salamanders were all wiped out save for the skeleton crew left on Nocturne and a few that survived with Vulkan, they produced no successor chapters. The Blood angels likely took on heavy casualties defending Terra but still produced 5 successor chapters at the 2nd founding. The White Scars also defended Terra and went on to produce 4 successor chapters apart from themselves. As was stated before the Ultramarines produced the most as they were farther from the fighting, thier tactics, and an entire star system to thier name with strong warrior and martial traditions from which they could draw recruits. The Imperial Fists took losses defending the Imperial Palace and resisted the split but eventually gave in creating the Imperial Fists, the Crimson Fists, the Soul Drinkers and the Black Templars, Dorns most fanatical supportors went into the Black Templars, which itself is not a unified chapter as it is divided into crusades, each containing varying numbers that may put thier actual #s at over 5000, Dorn also purged the Imperial Fists of Weakness during the Iron Cage campaign. The Space Wolves never acknowledged the 1k cap and probably only created the Wolf Brothers out of lip service. They have huge numbers to thier chapter and can probably keep it a secret by deploying the great companies across the galaxy and the fact that only a select few are allowed to make planetfall on Fenris allows them to keep their real numbers a secret. The Dark Angels returned to Caliban to find that they were now fighting around half thier legion, this could have been costly as the orbital arays opened up on the fleet when it returned as the Codex said. They seemed to split without any complaint after this incident in a move that was probably geared towards avoiding scrutiny, they split into 5 chapters including themselves.

WereWolf_nr
08-24-2010, 01:06 AM
My question is this:

In the aftermath of the Horus Heresy, do we know how many marines roughly were left? I have heard estimates in the millions thrown around, but does anyone have a figure?

Reason being that at the time of the 2nd Founding, we *know* there was less than 40,000 loyal marines. Based on the Codex Astartes, the roughly 33 Chapters formed at this time had roughly 1k marines each.

I don't know about you guys, but i sure get the impression there was a lot more than 40,000 marines still alive prior to this, how about everyone else?

Don't forget, Space Wolves only broke off ~1k worth in their failed attempt at a 2nd founding; otherwise they are intact.

Imperial Fists dumped more than 1k into the Black Templar (IIRC). So you have your ~30k in the "normal chapters" and quite a few more in others.

Nabterayl
08-24-2010, 02:24 AM
Don't forget, Space Wolves only broke off ~1k worth in their failed attempt at a 2nd founding; otherwise they are intact.
Well, they were intact, whatever "intact" meant immediately after the Heresy. At present we know they have somewhere less than 2,400 marines, so either the legion was essentially annihilated during the Heresy or else their numbers have dwindled substantially over the millennia.

AirHorse
08-24-2010, 06:37 AM
I would assume that they took pretty horrific losses invading prospero. Given the space wolves style matched against the thousand sons powers I would expect that heavy losses were an accepted part of the plan.