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Question about Space Wolves


Jamafore

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In the fluff, it says that the Space Wolves have only ever had 1 successor chapter, the Wolf Brothers.

 

My question is, even before the new stuff saying that the legions had hundreds of thousands of marines, and taking into account massive losses at Prospero and against the Alpha Legion, split right down the middle, wouldn't both chapters be vastly oversize for chapters?

 

What did the High Lords do? Tell the Wolves they couldn't recruit till they got their numbers down to more chapter-like sizes?

 

P.S. Sorry if this has been asked before, I didn't find it in the search. Didn't think to check Librarium.

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The Wolves didn't embrace the Codex Russ was massively agaisnt it so much so, when it was made law he still kept 12 companies so 200 astartes over the original number and are still not a codex chapter (along with DA, BA & BT).

 

I think you mean 2nd founding chapters as the SW have had chapters founded in other foundings. They may have had other successor chapters in the 2nd but they may have been expunged like the Soul Drinkers.

when it was made law he still kept 12 companies so 200 astartes over the original number

 

12 Great Companies, exactly how large the Space Wolf chapter is/was is a hotly debated topic as GW has never actually stated how big each Great Company is (although Space Marine 2nd edition did have a Space Wolf Great Company card which out the base size as 160 marines I believe)

I think you mean 2nd founding chapters as the SW have had chapters founded in other foundings. They may have had other successor chapters in the 2nd but they may have been expunged like the Soul Drinkers.

 

 

 

I thought that it was ONLY the Wolf Brothers and since they were disbanded/cleansed there have been no other successors.

 

Did I read something wrong?

IIRC there was never another attempt to use Space Wolves geneseed for a successor chapter after the failed Wolf Brothers.

 

And while Leman Russ and the Space Wolves did not "embrace" the doctrine suggestions of the Codex Astartes, they complied with the decrees for controlled recruiting and Marine creation and the limitation of forces just like every other Legion did. The Space Wolves are indeed a bit bigger than a Codex Chapter, but not by a huge margin. We are told that Russ agreed to split into Chapters just like everybody else, and we are not told that they are significantly larger than any other Chapter now.

Who knows how big we are? Maybe the fluff in the new 'dex will say, but there's not much fluff to support either side.

 

I'd say its safe to assume we have at least 1500, at least.

 

Bear in mind our Scouts, Priests, and select other units have anonymity from the Great Companies themselves.

The way I see it Russ took a LARGE chunk of the Legion with him when he left(nobody said how large the 13th company was). So he could always protect the Imperium if he needed to while giving the impression that his legion was within the size limits.
There is a chaos wolf group in the chaos space marine codex.

 

There is also the Emperor's Wolves, but no fluff has been written about them in years.

The Emperor's Wolves, like the Red Wolves are not of SW geneseed. As to the 'chapters' current size it is unknown, much like the size of the Black Templar chapter (though estimates of thier numbers are high).

The Space Wolves Legion was always suggested to be one of the smallest pre-Heresy - possibly less than 10K - possibly a lot less.

 

When the Legions were split after the Scouring, there were 2 successors; Wolf Brothers and Space wolves themselves. Neither are Codex Chapters.

 

Current SW numbers are mostly suggested at something between 1500-2000, spread across the 12 Great Companies and the HQ. Actual numbers of Space Wolves space marines are larger than this as a number of Great Companies have "left" the Chapter over the millenia (usually because of some disagreement over beer!) and been replaced by whoever the Great Wolf of the time was. Some are true renegades, but most just fight under their Wolf Lord for the Imperium but without recourse to their mother chapter.

 

As to the 13th Company, they went after the 1K Sons into the Eye of Terror 10,000 years ago. As they were a Heresy Great Company, its a good guess that they were at least twice the size of a 40K Great Company.

Index Astartes does state that Space Wolves do suffer high losses due to thier love of CC. Add to this the Alpha Legion and the Thousand Sons giving them a hammering, I doubt they had many marines left by the end of the heresy. If anything they may have had to rebuild to chapter strength, rather than break down. Although that doesn't explain the Wolf Brothers. Regardless, I doubt they had very high numbers by the end of the heresy.
  • 3 weeks later...

Ok to correct all this misinformations. Try an back everything up with relevant fluff not hearsay.

 

The SW were not the smallest legion during the Heresy, that goes to either the Sallies or the Raven gaurd with 30,000, Check the HH series artbooks for ref.

 

The largest were the Ultras with 200,000+ the SW were someplace in between.

 

As for agreeing with Guilaman, Yes Russ split his legion into the ill fated Wolf brothers who were expunged/disbanded etc. This is conveniant as There is now no proof of this so called chapter unless you read the 3rd Urial Ventris book which mentions one Lone Wolf brother but even he does not give any answers. This chapter of Wolf Brothers could have been way of getting rid of failed/defect or uncontrolabble mutated SW and at the same time on Russ's behalf showing him as being supportive of Guillaman.

 

As for the SW being the size of a pre heresy legion I think that is to much as even the smallest pre heresy legion was 30,000 marines strong. It has been mentions in 2nd/3rd edition codex that each great comany acts like a chapter. even still I would not assume that the SW now have more than 10,000 warriors. Still it would not be wrong to thing at the smallest a great company would number 120 SW with some of the larger Great companies with anything upwards of 300+ SW, BUT since there is no actual figures to back this its just an educated guess from a SW fan that has poured over every SW fluff I can get my hands on.

 

Its not that much when you take into account that DA can muster similar numbers if need be as they keep in close links with all thier second founding chapters.

 

As fro the Heresy the SW did not lose that many warriors. They routed the 1000 sons without to much loss to them as they had Custodes and sisters of Silence with them. As for the Alpha legion they just managed to delay rather than destroy the SW. If you want to talk about legions that lost alot of men it was the Sallies and Raven gaurd.

 

There is no evidence for what current SW numbers stand at. It could be anything Just like the BT.

 

The Chaos Wolf group in the Chaos codex is Skyrar Dark Wolves. They hand around near Fenris and could possibly be Exiled or traiter SW, But then agains they might not be.

 

As for Russ leaving with the 13th company depending on what you read,Some Fluff states he only left with his personnal body gaurd and Left the youngest Bjorn behind (so thants not a company) Also the 13th was not Russ's personal comany. He sent them after the 1000 sons on prospero but he did not accompabny them.

 

Sw never had any other founding apart from the second (with the Wolf Brothers) and nor was thier geneseed used to make new chapters.

Ok to correct all this misinformations. Try an back everything up with relevant fluff not hearsay.

 

The SW were not the smallest legion during the Heresy, that goes to either the Sallies or the Raven gaurd with 30,000, Check the HH series artbooks for ref.

That would make the Iron Warriors the smallest Legion with their estimated 12,000 Marines, for which I would cite the Index Astartes Iron Warriors. So if you go with Black Library numbers, the Space Wolves were one of the smaller Legions somewhere around 50-60K Marines, but if you go with older GW numbers, they could have been around 5-6K.

Ok to correct all this misinformations. Try an back everything up with relevant fluff not hearsay.

 

The SW were not the smallest legion during the Heresy, that goes to either the Sallies or the Raven gaurd with 30,000, Check the HH series artbooks for ref.

That would make the Iron Warriors the smallest Legion with their estimated 12,000 Marines, for which I would cite the Index Astartes Iron Warriors. So if you go with Black Library numbers, the Space Wolves were one of the smaller Legions somewhere around 50-60K Marines, but if you go with older GW numbers, they could have been around 5-6K.

The Older GW numbers I saw had them at between 11-17k during the heresy, and as one of the smaller, but not smallest chapters. But Beefs right on for the HH artbooks.

One thing that is actually written throughout our modern fluff that people tend not to keep in mind is that since Russ left for wherever, the leadership of the Wolves has fallen to successive Great Wolves (Logan being the most current). Not everyone in the chapter always agrees with the promotion of a great wolf. Because of this, occasionally there have been wolf lords who take their great companies and leave the fang, becoming an independent entity.

 

There are other reasons for these entities to form as well, such as going on a quest to find Russ, to compensate for some failed mission or other source of shame (in an effort to regain thier honor) and so on and so forth.

 

Either way, there always seems to be more than enough geneseed to replentish whatever great company left. So I think it's safe to say that there are MANY great companies in existence, more than the 12 that operate soley out of the fang. And also, from a logical standpoint, the wolves may be operating in numbers far below what they CAN field, and instead have a stockpile of geneseed.

 

Makes for some awfully hazy figures when you try to determine the true number of Wolves in the galaxy.

Ok to correct all this misinformations. Try an back everything up with relevant fluff not hearsay.

 

The SW were not the smallest legion during the Heresy, that goes to either the Sallies or the Raven gaurd with 30,000, Check the HH series artbooks for ref.

That would make the Iron Warriors the smallest Legion with their estimated 12,000 Marines, for which I would cite the Index Astartes Iron Warriors. So if you go with Black Library numbers, the Space Wolves were one of the smaller Legions somewhere around 50-60K Marines, but if you go with older GW numbers, they could have been around 5-6K.

 

 

Yes But GW is doing everything bigger and better now. So since they have actually put some serious thought into the HH series (novel/artbooks etc) we have new figures to mach the larger size.

 

No w you cant compare something that was written 4-5 years ago with something that was written last year. If that the case thanLeman Russ would still be a gaurd captain and Zoets would be walking around the universe stealing baby squats to eat.

As has been stated many times tho: GW actually is saying that the HH series in particular, tho they have pretty much said all BL books on a whole, are official fluff.

 

So if the HH is saying there's more smurfs than you can shake a stick at, there really were that many. As Beef said, typically a bit more thought goes into writing a book than writing something in a studio. If numbers get adjusted, it's just cuz it makes more sense.

As has been stated many times tho: GW actually is saying that the HH series in particular, tho they have pretty much said all BL books on a whole, are official fluff.

I ave never heard anything like that. All I know is that Dan Abnett has stated as much about the Horus Heresy books at one convention. On the other hand George Mann has stated at another (IIRC later) convention that Black Library Material is not canon. So you have the word fo a BL Author against the word of a BL Editor.

Believe whichever you want. I personnaly take the HH series as canon over older core material. Some may not take this view. Either way the argument is mute as GW cant agree on what is official canon amongst themselves. Maybe I will write to JJ and ask him to sort it out :lol:

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