Imperial elites

[Sitnam]

So it is fairly common thoguht that there are ~1000 chapters with ~1000 marines each on average, coming out to about 1 million amrines. Does anyone have guesses as to how many Sisters of Battle, Stormtroopers (Including planetary equivalents such as Cadian Kasrkin and Krieg Grenadiers.), and Titan Legion s are potentially out there?

I know from Lexicanum that the Sisters have 6 major Orders Militiant, and that a preceptory of one of these orders is about 1000 sisters, But how many preceptorys exist per order?

I reckon that there has to be more Soritas then Astartes, as the very least. The Eccleciarchy maintatians temples and shrines across the Imperium. Th enumber of shrine worlds alone must be countless, and I bet there would have to be atleast a few sisters per shrine world.

[DarkLink]

I don't think there's a good number for Sisters. As I recall, there's even some contradictory stuff claiming there's only, what, 3 major orders rather than 6.

[Melissia]

Each major order has, to quote C:WH, "a couple thousand to many thousands". There are six of them. Depending on how you define "many thousands", there could be hundreds of thousands per Order. The minor orders have never been given a number, but would likely be anywhere from a single squad to a few thousand.


DarkLink: Codex overrides rulebook AFAIK. The rulebook barely mentions anything about the Sisters anyway . According to the rulebook, the Sisters barley even exist, and they mentioned the Age of Apostasy without mentioning Alicia Dominica and the Sisters. Which is stupid, but stupidity from GW's writers is something I'm used to from reading samples of marinewank BL books.

[gwensdad]

So it is fairly common thoguht that there are ~1000 chapters with ~1000 marines each on average, coming out to about 1 million amrines. Does anyone have guesses as to how many Sisters of Battle, Stormtroopers (Including planetary equivalents such as Cadian Kasrkin and Krieg Grenadiers.), and Titan Legion s are potentially out there?

I'll just look at the Stormtroopers and Titan Legions...

Stormtroopers-if you assume less than 1% of guardsmen are chosen for stormtrooper training, the Imperium could have millions of these. In a group of 100,000 guardsmen if one assumes 1/2% being chosen you still get 500 selected for stormtrooper training. Multiply that by the thousands of worlds continually suppling troops and the Guard and the =I= get a nice, steady stream of elite troops.

Titan Legions-AFAIK, GW has never said how many legions there are, but there is the "fluff" of the novel "Titanicus" to start (~40 titans being a rearguard for a forgeworld) and Forge World's "Seige of Vraks" (a 10 Reaver "detachment" with 20 warhounds being sent as a "backup" to the main Guard drive.) It's very probable that the Titan Legions hide their true strength from everyone.

[Melissia]

Stormtroopers-if you assume less than 1% of guardsmen are chosen for stormtrooper training

Doesn't work like that. The overwhelming majority of Stormtroopers are trained at the Schola Progenium-- IE, from childhood-- to be Stormtroopers. Maybe a fraction of a percent are forwarded from the Inquisition to the Schola for training and are proven worthy of said training.

Most females in the Schola Progenium-- that is, almost half of the Schola students-- become members of the Adepta Sororitas. Some become Stormtroopers, some become Commissars, some give their loyalty to some other Imperial group (some become priestesses, for example), but because of the influence of the Ecclesiarchy as well as the built-in prejudices of the Schola, most of the end up going to the Sisterhood. There are more Sisters than Stormtroopers, at any rate-- but remember that "Sisters" in this case refers to both the Militant Orders and the Non-Militant Orders. I'm fairly certain there's more Sisters Hospitalier than there are Sisters of Battle, for example.

[Gotthammer]

Titan Legions have never really been established numerically, and most of their background is early Rogue Trader era stuff anyways so subject to change, but what is concretely said is:

There are four Divisions of the Adeptus Mechanicus Collegia Titanica:

Divisio Militaris - the fighting arm, sub divided into Military Orders. Each order is an independant fighting force, numbering from a dozen to many dozens of Titans (ie Fire Wasps, Warp Runners). Adeptus Titanicus states an Order must have at least 8 titans, but that is also a game mechanic so is not concrete. Forge Worlds will often have several Orders based on them. Orders are classed by size as Legions, Demi-Legions and so forth, though the distinction is often unclear.

During the height of the Dark Age of Technology every human world had at least one Titan Legion protecting it, often several (due to the wonders of STC). However later sources mention Titans being Martian creations during the Age of Strife, but that doesn't really explain how the Legions survived on other worlds far away from Mars.

Each Forge world should have at least one military Order protecting it, and many have more than one. Fluff writers make legions a lot bigger than they should be, simply by factor of only using two or three in the background (the Fire Wasps are everywhere). Adeptus Titanicus states there are over a hundred Orders stationed around the Eye of Terror.


Divisio Investigatus - The research Orders, based on Mars, only leaving to field test new equiment. The smallesl in number or the Divisios.


Diviso Mandati - The Executive Orders are made up entirely of Emperor class titans, and travels around to spread the pax Imperia across the galaxy. Each Order has many titans (two to five per tempe-ship), and they deploy laden with Ecclesiarchical preachers and Arbites to re-enforce the Emperor's will. Some (the Missionary Orders) go outside Imperial space in support of Rogue Traders to bring the Emperor's word to recalcitrant or newly discovered worlds.

This is why Imperators have cathedrals on their backs. This is also from before the Omnisiah was writen about, so the Mechanicus worshiped the Emperor as the smartest guy in the galaxy - thus the conflict of beliefs between the Legions in Titanicus as due to the Rogue Trader era background for them Titan crews are written as all worshiping and following the Emperor, not the Machine god.

This group is fairly numerous for the resources it commands, but there are no concrete numbers.


Divisio Telepathica - Smaller than the Military and Executive Orders, the Telepath Orders operate Psi-Titans and work from a single, secret Forge World at the heart of the Imperium.



Sooooo... no real answer. The number of Legions would be roughly equal to the number of Forge Worlds, probably a bit less.

[Nabterayl]

Doesn't work like that. The overwhelming majority of Stormtroopers are trained at the Schola Progenium-- IE, from childhood-- to be Stormtroopers. Maybe a fraction of a percent are forwarded from the Inquisition to the Schola for training and are proven worthy of said training.

Most females in the Schola Progenium-- that is, almost half of the Schola students-- become members of the Adepta Sororitas. Some become Stormtroopers, some become Commissars, some give their loyalty to some other Imperial group (some become priestesses, for example), but because of the influence of the Ecclesiarchy as well as the built-in prejudices of the Schola, most of the end up going to the Sisterhood.

Do you have a quote for this? If it's an assumption, I challenge it. We know that there are female commissars, and there's no physiological reason a woman could become a battle sister but not a storm trooper.

There are more Sisters than Stormtroopers, at any rate-- but remember that "Sisters" in this case refers to both the Militant Orders and the Non-Militant Orders. I'm fairly certain there's more Sisters Hospitalier than there are Sisters of Battle, for example.

I am also pretty sure that there are more sisters hospitaller (stupid GW deliberate misspellings) than sisters militant. I'm not sure there are more sisters than stormtroopers.

It's hard to tell, because most of our information comes from the military side of the 40K universe, and three out of four of the major types of Sororitas are primarily nonmilitary in nature (although we have good evidence that even non-militant sisters sometimes accompany Imperial Guard forces into warzones). But we have some pretty high-numbered storm trooper companies, and records of storm trooper platoons being attached to regular infantry regiments. Even if we assume a very conservative estimate of two platoons per company (I've never seen a storm trooper table of organization), and assume that roughly 10% of all storm trooper companies ever formed have been retired, never to be raised again (this doesn't seem particularly Imperial to me, but let's assume), there's at least 230,000 storm troopers in service (the 2378th storm trooper company served in the 4621st Imperial Guard Army at Taros). And both of those seem like conservative estimates to me.

[Melissia]

Do you have a quote for this? If it's an assumption, I challenge it. We know that there are female commissars, and there's no physiological reason a woman could become a battle sister but not a storm trooper.

From Cain's Last Stand, in describing Ciaphas Cain's female comisssar-cadet. It was described as a sociological construct rather than something based on physiology-- females as a whole tend to be pushed towards the Sisterhood, and the Stormtroopers and Commissariat were male-dominated because of this. Not EXCLUSIVELY male or female mind you.

[Nabterayl]

Ah, fair enough, Mel. Thanks! I'm still getting around to the Cain series in my search for useful background information.

[Javin]

Remember that there are many Storm trooper equivalents - aka Kasrkins. These Stormtrooper type soldiers receive the same training and equipment as inquisitorial Stormtroopers. Perhaps even better because they have been forged in combat before they can even earn the elite Stormtrooper status. Since they have been included in the IG codex, I would also think they are more common than many would estimate.

If we go from US Army figures - 570,000 with 4,000 being special ops that would be slightly under 1% would be Storm troopers. I am thinking the US Army Rangers as being veterans. In the BRB under the IG description there is a statement saying there are several million guardsman for every SM. Assuming that is 5,000,000 well, 5,000,000* 1,000,000 = 5,000,000,000,000. Do the 1% thing and you have 50,000,000,000 Stormtroopers... just in the IG.

Thats right, 50 TRILLION Stormtroopers.

Truely, the Hammer of the Emperor.