Formations of the Legions

[Brother Scythe]

We all know that Legions were all different size and there doesn't seem to be a specific way they were organized. That said with reading the Horus Heresy series and older articles we know a few Legions ways. I am hoping with your hope we can get a list of as many as possible.

 

For mine I am just going to put a rough system like;

 

Chapter Name - Name of Organization - Size in each section - Known number of sections

 

Dark Angels - Chapters - Roughly 1000 - Unknown

-This comes from Call of the Lion where Astelan tells Belaten(I hope I am close on their names)that they are in command of a 1000 of the Astartes each. This would indicate that as they are both random Chapter Masters that their Chapters are made up of 1000 or so marines.

 

Word Bearers - Chapters - Varies - Unknown

-In Battle for the Abyss, each Chapter seems to have a unique name and it is mentioned that some are smaller than others giving the idea that each is recruited personally and it is up to the Leader of the Chapter to the size of the Chapter.

 

Iron Warriors - Grand Companies - Unknown - Unknown

-Nothing I have read yet confirms this in the HH series. However from all the older articles of the Iron Warriors it is said they always operated in Grand Companies.

 

Luna Wolves/Sons of Hours - Companies - Unknown - Unknown

-In the first 3 books of the series we know that each Luna Wolf Captain is a Company Captain. Loken for example led the 10th before future events of the book. This alone with nothing else ever mentioned seems to indicate that they make use of a number of companies and no other form.

 

Emperors Children - Companies - Unknown - Unknown

- We know that the "Line Officers" were Company Commanders given control over roughly 100 - 200 Marines from the various novels and that these were their companies. However the Lord Commanders had control of larger formations made up of various Companies. As such I am not 100% sure that they used only Companies, perhaps it was the smaller of 2 formations.

 

White Scares - Brotherhoods - Varied - Unknown

-Although the only story of the Brotherhoods is from the IA article of the White Scars is just after the Heresy it is safe to assume I think that such a division would be used before. However Brotherhoods post heresy were 100 Marines, we have no knowledge of the size of them before.

[Leonaides]

Well, you dont seem to have noted that a chapter was noted as a pre-existing division of the legions. I suspect that the names may vary, but that there will be something of equivalent size in each legion.

[Legatus]

As Leonaides has pointed out, the "Chapter" formation had already been used in the Legions, so we can safely assume that a Legion that used those formations was divided into approximately 1000 strong Chapters, and each Chapter was sub divided into 100 strong companies.

 

Since the Ultramarines came up with the idea to reform all Legions into smaller Chapters they probably were using Chapters as a Legion already. If the Dark Angels used Chapters, and the Luna Wolves used companies, they both had a similar organisation. I guess it can be seen as the "basic" Legion organisation which the more straight forward Marine Legions adopted.

 

The Word Bearers are organised into "Hosts", according to their Index Astartes article. each Host is led by a mighty Captain-Chaplain, and the Hosts can varry greatly in size. Some hosts are compareable to a battle company, while others can be as big as Chapters.

 

The Iron Warriors are organised into Grand Companies, each led by a Warsmith, which during the crusade and heresy were all very similarly organised, and eachabout a thousand men strong. It is unknown how many Grand COmpanies they have had at any given time, but during the heresy they had at least twelve, perhaps more, which could not be clearly determined due to their widespread deployment. Now the Grand COpanies varry greatly in size and organisation.

[blackoption]

Since the Ultramarines came up with the idea to reform all Legions into smaller Chapters they probably were using Chapters as a Legion already. If the Dark Angels used Chapters, and the Luna Wolves used companies, they both had a similar organisation. I guess it can be seen as the "basic" Legion organisation which the more straight forward Marine Legions adopted.

 

While i see your logic, I'm not sure if I completely agree. I tend to the that the Ultra's were probably similiar to the Roman Legions and fielded units in Cohorts as opposed to chapters. But that is just my own thought, as cohorts (along with battalion, brigade, division, and all manner of other military unit designations) have never been mentioned. But again, your logic is sound.

[Jonas Stromclaw]

Space wolves operated in Great companies, numbers and sub organisation depending on the Wolf Lord's whim.

[c-wrex]

Several sources in the HH novels seem to indicate that companies were also several hundred warriors, not just a mere hundred. For example, in Horus Rising, when Loken sets the tenth back into action in the Whisperheads, it makes mention of his company numbering three hundred warriors, including veterans and terminators. This always made sense to me that companies would be larger and more strategically diverse. In keeping with the theme of the thread, the Salamanders have always been organised around 7 large companies, similar to the Death Guard, though loyal, and more awesome...and burny.