Fluff question - How many of us?

[melabi]

In the fluff it is said that the Wolves were only devided once.

 

And sources tell that a single great company may range from 150 - 1000 battle brothers...

 

Than I was reading the codex, and came by this sentence - A HUNDRED thunderhawk GUNSHIPS were sent to aid iron isle... (in the Arjak description)

 

So I was wondering does anyone (vaguly)know how many battle brothers are there in the entire chapter.

 

I throughly read the codex but no detailed information could be found.

 

Thanks.

[Requiem of the Wolf]

In the fluff it is said that the Wolves were only devided once.

 

And sources tell that a single great company may range from 150 - 1000 battle brothers...

 

Than I was reading the codex, and came by this sentence - A HUNDRED thunderhawk GUNSHIPS were sent to aid iron isle... (in the Arjak description)

 

So I was wondering does anyone (vaguly)know how many battle brothers are there in the entire chapter.

 

I throughly read the codex but no detailed information could be found.

 

Thanks.

around 15,000 or so i believe is the current count.

[JamesI]

I thought Wolves were assumed to have about 3-5000. But the Wolves seem to be one of the largest chapters, after Black Templars.

[Brother Caleb]

And sources tell that a single great company may range from 150 - 1000 battle brothers...

For some perspective, the codex describes Ragnar's GC as having ~200 brothers and as second only in size to the Great Wolf.

[spjaco]

Mine is certainly approaching 200 for Ragnar.

[Adarul Greystalker]

This question has been asked many times, and I'm afraid that there isn't really a definitive answer to my knowledge. Suffice to say that there are more of us than a codex chapter and fewer of us than the Black Templars. Unfortunately, specific numbers are really just conjecture.

[old git]

The answer is obvious. GW don't tell us how many wolves there are so that we can have discussions like this. Not wishing to start calculations and demographics etc but it must depend to a large extent on the population of Fenris. Even if there are several million fenrisians, wolf priests can only be in so many places at once and even then only choose the absolute best the tribes have to offer (note - not just the warriors who crush all before them but those who will not give up despite greivous and potentially fatal wounds). I don't know if there's a quota of sorts for the wolf priests to follow and not just in the numbers they recruit but in the numbers they're allowed to recruit in order to maintain a dynamic planetary population. Numbers quoting a few thousand wolves I think are a little exaggerated, personally I see around 1500-2000 marines of all levels being about right (after ten thousand years and with the best will in the world I don't think it's possible to maintain legion strength numbers).

[PKAwolf]

maybe this can be reconciled with a couple of points

its canon that the Legion was only split one (into the 'ill-fated' Wolf Brothers)

its canon that the Chapter uses the Codex Astartes as ale coasters (well not as coasters but they dont follows the rules)

its claimed that they are one of the largest chapters (maybe due to the fact they operate with more companies and call them 'Great Companies' thus implying a Great Company is larger than a codex company)

100 T-Hawks could carry about 3000 (dont quote me) Marines plus the flight crew, however some of those could have been transporter Hawks carring tanks instead of squads.

Its feasible that the fact only one chapter split off is misleading to the actual size of the chapter.

I speculate that the Legion may have been one largest, but only spawned one chapter as a compromise with Roboute Guilliman who wrote the Codex Astartes.

 

I personally believe there to be 2~2.5K

[Quillen]

No Ragnar has 200 battle harden vetrens. Meaning the Grey hunter and Long Fang count is 200. Probly a few Blood Claw packs for fresh meat. So he has 200 battle hard vets and some Blood Claws.

 

 

It's been kicked around now for so long.

 

Most agree it's probly 2-5k in there somewhere. I believe around 3k myself. Because one great company returned to the fang with it's fleet of battle barges. A fleet of Battle Barges. But I put that in context like a Carrier fleet in WWII. So probly 2 or 3 Battle barges with escorts and a few heavy crusiers.

 

 

Trueth is we will never know. As they will not piss off the players. So they contridict every where so each side has ammo.

[Shieldwall]

The answer is quite simple.

 

"How many Space Wolves are there?" - "Enough."

[Brother Caleb]

The answer is quite simple.

 

"How many Space Wolves are there?" - "Enough."

Well said.

[Jarl Kjaran Coldheart]

This is truely unanswerable...here are a few instances of why:

 

---Fenris was able to supply enough Wolves for the Legion to stay battle ready during the Great Crusade, but now can only supply a single Chapter...makes no sense.

 

---Have heard it stated that we were both one of the smallest and biggest Legions.

 

---We were only split once, after the Scouring. This means we had suffered losses from both the Invasion of Prospero and the Scouring itself, still had the numbers to split atleast once.

 

---We have numerous lost companies and some traitor marines, but have always been able to replace their losses in the Chapter.

 

---GW is lazy and cant gets its own story right.

 

WLK

[Hfran Morkai]

The only real numbers we have to work with are Ragnar's company.

 

We know we have over 100 Dreads, however that doesn't indicate how many battle-brothers there are considering the Chapter pretty much has Legion level stockpiles from the Heresy (One Successor means lots of toys for the Wolves) which is one of the reasons I still call it a Legion (plus Heresy era army, my right, :))

[Blarmb]

However many makes the story most dramatic at the time.

[Jonas Stromclaw]

However many makes the story most dramatic at the time.

That is the best answer I have heard so far. Somebody get this man an ale!

[Requiem of the Wolf]

Well...Lets look at it like this..Our home Fenris is without a doubt the meanest nastiest place to live all on its own. Figure into that the fact that every tribe that lives in Fenris has to go to War to find a New island to settle on at the very least every other year if not every year. And we spend our time Raiding and Fighting even when it isnt 100% neccessary for survival. And that knowledge is impressed on you the moment you are born...they take you into the world naked,screaming and covered in blood with the sure knowledge that from then on you will regard that as the normal state of affairs. They put an Axe within your reach,and any newborns that don't grab for it are chucked out onto the ice as not strong-willed enough to live.

 

Thankfully...Fenrisians breed like drunken rabbits...Because lets face it...When you live in a frozen hellhole...there isn't that much else to do at night. So even with the fact that we spend our entire lives kicking ass of man,beast and the planet itself,and have a mortality rate that would make most planets have heart attacks....we survive...hell we prosper in that environment. And every Fenrisian knows one truth from the time that they are old enough to remember the stories told. That there is only one way on the entire planet to spend an entire day without your balls being frozen at least once that day...and that is to be lifted up by the Choosers of the Slain.Now..When a Wolf Priest is described in the stories...they take at most 2 guys from a battle field...So 2 out of however many died,get chosen. But chances are good that at every fight that happens there will be at least one person that impressed the priests, Because every Fenrisian knows that the only way to get to Valhalla is to bust your ass fighting and make yourself the biggest baddest mofo on the block. Not only that...but you gotta beat out every other stubborn bugger thats trying to do the same thing to you.

 

Now....Even If you do manage to get chosen and get implanted...You gotta hike naked cross country If I remember the Fluff its like 100 miles And you spend most of it Fighting between letting yourself get hairy enough to not freeze to death and keeping yourself from getting so hairy you forget what its like to be a man. And if that isn't enough,You get to march that 100 miles across some of the nastiest icebergs and meanest creatures in the entirety of a world That would be classified as uninhabitable if we weren't born with a stubborn streak a mile wide.

 

Now...if that weren't enough to make it clear why we are the way we are. Unlike other chapters who stuff their new recruits into Scout platoons and teach them to stay back and lay low till they know enough to not get their head blown off...We say Screw that....We stuff a gun in their hands,tell them which end is the dangerous one and Point a direction,and we are more then enthusiastic to go screaming off like a banshee and cut down anything that tries to stop us. They treat the first couple deaths in a blood claw pack as a neccessary thing to show that we are actually serious because up to this point,everything in that new recruits life was children playing with sticks by comparison.

 

Now..When you consider the facts about our viewpoint of war,the fact that unlike other chapters...our recruits dont do training in battlerooms and crap like that. They cut their new teeth on the throats of the Chapter's enemies and those that don't bite hard enough don't live to get a second chance. The fact that every Wolf believes that throwing himself into battle with every ounce of his being,and finding the nastiest ugliest threat out there and jamming your fist down its throat till it chokes or you tear out its heart is the truest way to live. The fact that Space Wolves really all should have the Fearless rule,for one simple reason. We are taught from the moment we get back to the Fang,that the highest honor is to fight at the side of the Wolf Lord. That the Idea of jumping on the back of a Carnifex and trying to burrow through one side to the other with a chainsword is a win/win situation. Either you will live and succeed,and your tales will reach the ears of the Wolf Lord,or you will die and spend the rest of Eternity fighting beside Russ. All of these things should say we would be the smallest chapter...Or just as likely have fought ourselves into extinction centuries ago. But we haven't...not only have we not,but we are the most populous chapter. my theory why is because of two simple reasons...The first reason is that all these things combine to make every Space Wolf out there one of the meanest.most stubborn bastiges that the Imperium has ever seen. From the day we are born,we pretty much view fighting as most people would view breathing. Its something we do every day of our lives. Not only that...But we view being able to fight as our version of paradise. To fight alongside the greatest warriors and heros that our World has ever produced.

 

The second reason is not actually stated in any piece of Fluff like almost everything else here is...but if you look between the lines you can pretty much get it,given all the things that we have to endure. Because pretty much the Entire stock of our entire world that has a pair swingin would qualify to be a Space Marine of any other chapter with flying colors,And if the Geneseed would take,our women would probably outdo most chapters male recruits as well.. And of those...we pick the very best and baddest. But this means is that there will allways be a steady supply of warriors fit to become Space Wolves. And because we view the Codex Astartes as...well...Lavatory reading material most times...we will keep constantly refreshing our numbers with those new warriors.

[Decoy]

Aside from seconding (fifthing?) the statement "Enough", I personally think we're pretty much legion-sized. While some people may say otherwise, I have no doubt that a great many Great Companies have wandered off on their own, or into the warp, or where have you. Wolves disagree commonly, and I've no doubt that pride would dictate a splintering of quite a few GCs over the course of the millenia. Moreover, Wolves, being resourceful as we are, would probably find a way to continue creating more Wolves from various planets, meaning the true numbers could conceivably be monstrous; into the hundreds of thousands.

 

"More than enough" will suffice.

[Korraz]

2000 is WAY too much, if Ragnar has the second biggest company. It depends if you count the Blood Claws as full members. If you take the Blood Claws into account, maybe something between 2 and 2,5k, but imo BCs don't count as real Space Marines.

 

I'd say something around 1,5k

[calgar101]

Requiem of the Wolf that post was what we Wolves are about and was a master piece! Personally from reading the dex and inbetween the lines I'd say 3-5k, however some of that is made up of 'renegade' Wolf Lords who have decided that they and the Great Wolf don't see eye to eye.

[Bulweih]

What Decoy said: More than enough! :P

 

As I built my Ragnar's GC, I read the dex like that...

 

200 battle hardened vets-meaning Wolfguard, GH and Long Fangs making 200.

 

Those follow the Blood Claws 3 full packs + Lukas, because where would he feel at home?! And they ARE Space Marines, just no vets, except Lukas of course.

The Swift and Skyclaws, the TWC, the GH driving the vehicles and flying the LS and Thunderhawks adding their numbers, not to mention the scouts, dreads and priests assigned to my GC by the Great Wolf.

That makes my GC count close to 400 Fenrisian Warriors ready to kick some ass. For Russ!

[Azza007]

Not to forget those Woves not on battle duty, such as those too old or crippled to fight, those that run the training camps on Fenris and the Wolfblade to name some more. Also remember 13th Company is still part of the Chapter and that is still at Legion Company size, more or less.

[Vlk]

Are there really any Space Wolves TOO OLD to fight? And those who are crippled, don't they just get a bionic limb?

 

By the way, 13th Company will be really depleted in numbers after 10K years of fighting in the Eye of Terror.

[Azza007]

In the second of the Ragnar series I believe the Archivist is a SW now too old to fight. There are some Marines that get too badly crippled to be allowed to be kept on the active roster, yet not injured enough to be interred in a Dreadnought. Not just simple case of popping on some bionics. Granted there would be losses in the 13th Co, but there would still be sizable number, remember the extent of the size of Companies in the Legion, still possible to have a large number present.

[Quillen]

The 13th company was the 13th chapter or what ever the unit size it was when the legion sent them out. They had a large number of members. Now they are way fewer.

 

Remeber they also now hit and run. And camp where they can till the enemy figures out where they are. Then they move on.

[Beef]

And sources tell that a single great company may range from 150 - 1000 battle brothers...

For some perspective, the codex describes Ragnar's GC as having ~200 brothers and as second only in size to the Great Wolf.

 

I quote "the Great Company Of Ragnar Blackmane is second only to Logan Grimnars, boasting two hundred battle hardened warriors and perhaps led by the most talented Wolf Lord of all"

 

Its does not say Grimnars size, all it says is its second only to Grimnars. I read this as being second in skill or renown to Grimnars