Great Company size

[Grimtooth]

Their is a reference to at least 4500 attackers on Prospero.

 

Now from what I have researched so far, that only includes Russ' Great Company, Skarl's 5th Great Company, and the 13th Great Company. The Null Maidens were limited and so were the Custodes.

 

So even I dropped 1k from that total for the Sisters of Silence and Custodes, that leaves me at 3500 for 3 Great Companys which fits along Legion strength numbers that have been in various fluff articles.

 

However, we have nothing after Prospero that signified a mass culling of Space Wolves.

[whitewolfmxc]

- Space Marines have a life expectancy of a few hundred years

 

- the technology for recruitment is not trivial

 

- neither is replacement for lost armour, weapons and vehicles

 

- A rogue Great Company could not reruit from Fenris, so would have to recruit from "weaker" initiates

 

All of that makes it very unlikely that a rogue Great Company would survive for more than a single millenium. So you really only realistically can count on the Great Companies that have left the Chapter less than 1,000 years ago. Based on that I would find more than an additional 150 - 300 warriors very unlikely. But then I would not count Great Companies that have "recanted their oaths of fealty" to the forces at the disposal of the Space Wolves Chapetr anyway.

 

All sound possible and sound except NOWHERE in any edition of the SW codex says these companies are Banned to come back (nor in fact say they cant swear an new oath when theres a new great wolf etc) nor lose the right to recruit on Fenris NOR losing the title to call themselves Space Wolves, just because you dont follow direct orders from the great wolf doesnt mean your banned from Fenris nor treated as a enemy of the imperial , that is very clear . Unless you did that and turned to chaos etc other wise your still Space Wolves , just not on the regular "pay role" list .

 

And people keep forgetting , a Great company works as if its a individual army , it has its own source of production / recruit / training / ships / weapon sources , they can take care of themselves very well thank you very much even if they arent coming back to Fenris for every Xmas parties

 

And for people who say 13th and companies that dont follow the great wolf dont count as SW forces , thier simply saying orks have low numbers cause they all form separate warbands so they shouldnt count as one group ,,,,,,,seriously take your head out of you XXX.....

[Wysten]

13th Company is not part of our fighting strength however, hence we can't include them. They have fought independantly for way over 12,000 years. We welcome them when we see them like brothers, but we are unable to exbit any control over them. They are their own fighting strength altogether.

 

Just curious though, where does it say that Space Wolf companys are allowed to go wandering off whenever they like? I don't believe I read anything on it in my codex. For the sake of arguement they should not be included as we have little information on the numbers and that they have disengaged from our chapter strength and are no longer part of the overall chapter (They do not repersent or follow the actions of the great wolf nor chapter) till they come back. Unless there is extra information I am not aware of? Only got the 5th codex so I may be wrong on all counts.

[Legatus]

Their is a reference to at least 4500 attackers on Prospero.

 

Now from what I have researched so far, that only includes Russ' Great Company, Skarl's 5th Great Company, and the 13th Great Company. The Null Maidens were limited and so were the Custodes.

 

So even I dropped 1k from that total for the Sisters of Silence and Custodes, that leaves me at 3500 for 3 Great Companys which fits along Legion strength numbers that have been in various fluff articles.

1,000 per great company would not really fit any of the given Legion sizes. That would put the entire Legion at about 14,000 warriors, which would be larger than an average 10k Legion (and they are suzpposed to be smaller), or it would be significantly smaller, so far as to it having been near impossible for the Space Wolves to make any impact in the Great Crusade at all.

And I personally had allways assumed that the entire Legion had attacked Prospero, but I have not read the novel. Only sending three Companies to attack another Legion seems kind of odd.

 

 

However, we have nothing after Prospero that signified a mass culling of Space Wolves.

I can think of three incidents of the top of my head. The Space Wolves were involved in a massive battle on Tallarn, IIRC. Then in some source (probably the Alpha Legion Index Astartes?) the Alpha Legion is said to have achieved stinging defeats against the White Scars and (IIRC) the Space Wolves. Then there is the whole issue of following the traitor Legions into the Eye of Terror. I could see where that would take a 6-8K strong Legion down to 2-3K. And that would still be less casualties than most other Legions had suffered. The Space Wolves only started out with fewer. And the reason why some of the almost wiped out Legions could still produce successor Chapters is because they spent the years of the scouring with rebuilding, while the Space Wolves focused heavily on hunting traitors.

 

 

All sound possible and sound except NOWHERE in any edition of the SW codex says these companies are Banned to come back (nor in fact say they cant swear an new oath when theres a new great wolf etc) nor lose the right to recruit on Fenris NOR losing the title to call themselves Space Wolves, just because you dont follow direct orders from the great wolf doesnt mean your banned from Fenris nor treated as a enemy of the imperial , that is very clear . Unless you did that and turned to chaos etc other wise your still Space Wolves , just not on the regular "pay role" list .

Not buying it at all. Nope. Sorry. You cannot just go to your Chapter Master and say "I am not following you any more" but at the same time also go "but I am still technically a member of this Chapter. So, we cool? I will still drop by to reinforce form time to time."

 

 

And people keep forgetting , a Great company works as if its a individual army , it has its own source of production / recruit / training / ships / weapon sources , they can take care of themselves very well thank you very much even if they arent coming back to Fenris for every Xmas parties

I thought recruiting and turning into Space Wolves was all done on Fenris.

 

 

And for people who say 13th and companies that dont follow the great wolf dont count as SW forces , thier simply saying orks have low numbers cause they all form separate warbands so they shouldnt count as one group ,,,,,,,seriously take your head out of you XXX.....

Er...

 

3,000 Goffs and 2,000 Evil Sunz are 5,000 Orks. It is still only 3,000 Goffs, not 5,000.

 

2,000 Space Wolves and 1,000 Imperial Fists are 3,000 Space Marines. It is still only 2,000 Space Wolves. There are more Space Marines with Space Wolves gene-seed roaming the galaxy, but they are not all members of the Space Wolves Chapter. Or is the Ultramarines Chapter considered to be over 600,000 members strong? Those Marines are all based on the gene-seed of the Ultramarines Legion, after all, so if they so wanted, maybe they can just come back to the progenitor Chapter?

[whitewolfmxc]

Yes i also agree on most of your points but

 

 

SW follow Russ and the Big M , the Great wolf has no real "divine authority" when it comes to loyalty attachments , so yes its totally possible that your not taking orders from the great wolf but still has access to other fellow SW goodies on Fenris , (Like i said there is no real written context saying they lose any privilege when they are in disagreement position with the great wolf , so yes your right on it that may not be the case , but you cant prove anything as much as you can say you dont buy it) rivalry is very common even among current wolf lords in the 12th company roaster (as written in novels) , and that doesnt stop them from working together on harsh terms

 

Fenris isnt "ruled" by the Great wolf unlike ultramarine wheres there a government the people dont even know where exactly is the Fang , recruits are easy to get even without entering the fang , you only need a ship and a priest to do it on other continents of Fenris and as my previous post has stated a great company has all the facilities of its own to sustain itself , the only hard part is getting Fenrisian recruits and that has been mentioned above just then as not much of a problem

 

and your example of Goffs and evil sunz are off , cause in therms of the 13th , its like Goffs from another warboss to another , thier still Goffs, its not like they dont come from the same place , unless your seriously going to Argue that 13th company marines ARENT SW that the same guys Russ commanded and ordered and are thousand sons / alpha legions composers ? XD

[Wysten]

Yes, but 13th company and exiled groups of space wolves don't have a given value, nor belong to the direct structure of the chapter itself. When we are determining the size of the chapter, we must only include the space wolves in the chapter, and not the exiled companys and 13th company as they are not at present members of the chapter.

 

When we are talking about great company and chapter size, we must include only the great companys that have residence in the Fang. The other groups we either lack information on, or are entirely independent/in exile from Ferius hence do not meet the considtions to be included in the space wolves chapter structure as they are not offically in our structure as a company. (though we all know once a Son of Russ is always a son of Russ.)

[stinkenheim]

To include 13th company and lost companies (an idea which was only developed in this codex afaik) in the fighting strength of our chapter is ludicrous.

The 13th company have little to no contact with the Space Wolves as a whole. Fine so some representatives met Logan afer the 13th Black Crusade and were offered the chance to abandon their task (a task set down by Russ I might add) and return to the Fang. But outside of that and a few rare battlefield meetings they are beyond the Space Wolves ability to control. logan cannot control them in the same manner as another great company, they will not respond to his orders unless they played into their own missions.

There are also no mention of any numbers of marines that are left. Its hard enough trying to estimte the strength of our chapter (we only have 1 piece of fluff that tells us the rough size of one company after all), without adding in a force thats starting strength, let alone its current strength is unkown.

 

As for the Lost Companies, there is also no mention of how many have left the Fang. It could be 1 great company many many years ago or a thousand great companies. No one knows.

They would also have no recruitig rights to aspirants from Fenris, nor would they be considered part of the Space Wolves force.

They recanted their oathes of fealty to the Great Wolf. Regardless of the fact that Space Wolves follow Russ above all others they still hold the Great Wolf in high regard. It was a rank betowed by Russ when he left on his mission and as such it is the highest rank a Space Wolf can hold and shows that they are th mightiest of their peers.

Fine the Wolf Lord of a certain company may decide that they cannot follow the Great Wolf, or that they dislike the direction he is taking. If they choose to leave the Fang they will not be welcomed back unless they then swear oathes to the Great Wolf.

Imagine you owned a restaurant, and one of your head chefs decided he didn't like the new menu and so quit. You wouldn't allow him back in to cook what he wanted for his friends would you? Same difference with a Lost Company, they wouldn't be allowed to access to the Fang, the smiths or the aspirants because it would severely undermine the authority of the Great Wolf. If they had the same access to te chapters resources as a company that diligently followed the great wolf then you would see many more companies refusing to follow his orders.

 

To me, the Chapter would be 2500 marines at most. Its a fair assumption that the majority of companies are about the 150 mark. With Ragnars being closer to 200 and the Great Wolfs being around 250. Throw in probably 75 priests of assorted flavours and about 20 Dreadnaughts and that would tip the numbers just over the 2000 mark.

Obviously this number would fluctuate depending on recent battles, or the rate of recruitment. But I could not see it ever breaching the 3000 mark in my opinion.

[Grimtooth]

Legatus,

 

Your numbers only take into account the fluff given for the SM Legions that the fluff says the Emperor created. It does not take into account at all the recruitment once the Primarchs were discovered.

 

The SW would easily be considered one of the smaller Legions at 15000 from recruiting only from Fenris when compared to the Ultramarines Legion being able to recruit from an entire system.

 

Also, your numbers propose a complete recruiting freeze while continuing to suffer outrageous casualties over 10000yrs since the Heresy.

 

To maintain the 2-3k size you propose, they would have to maintain recruitment right at casualty rates. And how many foundings have there been? So every other chapter has note only been able to keep recruitment above casualty rates but then create 1000 strong successors with those successors to then also able to create 1000 strong successors?

 

Seriously, our SW are a lot bigger the just the few some of you want to put them above Codex Astartes numbers. There is no explanation for where they all go.

[stinkenheim]

The thing is that Chapters are not split when creating a new Space Marine Chapter. Only the Legions were split up during the second founding.

When new Chapters are created the High Lords of Terra and theMechanicus start almost entirely from scratch. The vast maority of the new Chapters marines are not taken from their parent Chapter(s). Instead they may only take 10 or so marines to crete a core group of experienced individuals who can then train and instruct the new recruits.

It is a long and drawn out process to create a brand new chapter thats why it is not an often done thing.

 

The numbers of1000 marines per Chapter are guidlines, most chapters are above or below that number. I highly doubt there will be any that are exactly at the 1000 marines mark. This is because recruitment rates and casualties fluctuate. Some years there may be very few potential recruits that meet the high standards, other years there may be an influx of promising youngsters. Likewise some campaigns may decimate a company where as in others they receive extremely light casualties.

Thats why the 1000 marines is simply a guidline. There is obviously a point at which the High Lords/other chapters may step in if they feel that that the chapter is growing too fast or goes the other way and cannot recruit enough bodies to replace their losses.

 

To say that Space Wolves are a massive Chapter because they only had one successor chapter is a mistake.

The numbers people are voicing are obviously not exact numbers, and no one claims that the Space Wolves are always at X amount of marines. Instead the majority of people are saying that the Space Wolves as a Chapter are likely double the size of most due in part to the fact with have more companies than other Chapters.

No one can say with any clarity how large the Chapter is because there has only been two mentions of numbers.

1) The Space Wolves were always considered to be a small legion.

2) Ragnar's company has 200ish Marines and is the second largest in the Chapter (behind Grimnar's).

 

As such, even if the other 10 companies had 180 marines, and the Great Wolf's had 250 that would still mean that the average strength of the Wolves is around the 2250 mark.

This is far less than you seem to think, but that would be the fighting strength of the Chapter and it is still a large force, just not quite the huge number of Wolves that you hope for.

[Kassill]

I too have had this discussion before. I believe our numbers are always changing and would be hard to actually nail down, but if I had to guess, it would be a few thousand give or take, like many have stated before.

[Legatus]

Legatus,

 

Your numbers only take into account the fluff given for the SM Legions that the fluff says the Emperor created. It does not take into account at all the recruitment once the Primarchs were discovered.

I am not sure what you mean. I have no idea how big the Space Wolves Legion has been upon it's creation, or whether it grew or shrunk once Leman Russ had been found. All I am operating with is that they apparently had about 2,500ish warriors at the end of the Scouring.

 

 

Also, your numbers propose a complete recruiting freeze while continuing to suffer outrageous casualties over 10000yrs since the Heresy.

I propose that the Space Wolves have more or less have held the size they had after the Second Founding. Perhaps the Chapter even was founded with 1,000 warriors and has since increased it's numbers? The Great Wolves over the years may not have been particularly bothered to maintain a formal Chapter size, but since Leman Russ himself has apparently agreed to split the Legion and adhere to the limitation in power they may feel bound by their Primarch's word to not increase their size too much.

[The_Betrayed_Spacewolf]

yeaaah uh no, the split was done to avoid another civil war much as Rogal Dorn sent his warriors that opposed the split as well into the Iron Cage.

[Grimtooth]

Even if we go with what the current fluff the your numbers do not fit.

 

Currently, 1000 Chapters, 600 of them from the Ultramarines. That would leave 400 Chapters divided among the remaining 8 loyalist chapters. Now we know that some are more capable of creating chapters then others, but on just the average, each of the remaining 8 loyalist chapters, (excluding the Ultramarines) was capable of creating 50 successors.

 

We do know that the Space Wolves only ever created 1 successor in the 2nd Founding, but that does not take away from how many they were capable of creating over the years.

[Karack Blackstone]

Last I checked, Gene-Seed is a rare thing and difficult if not impossible to make for the Imperium. I know this seems off-topic but it goes to the recruiting rate.

 

To be simple about it, any gene-seed that isn't harvested from a slain/dying Space Marine is another SM that isn't going to be made. As far as the numbers that go into recruitment, this process is reserved for those that make it that far.

 

I still stand by my roughly 3K (at best) estimate, although I can see it getting a little higher at times, but not by much. Each Chapter over time was able to form from the creation of more gene-seed for the Space Marine Chapters they were based off of. There is a limited supply over time available, and this clearly limits the growth rate of a Space Marine Chapter, versus the loss rate and any unrecovered gene-seed.

[stinkenheim]

geneseed canbe made by the Mechanicus.

Storm of Iron, a BL novel was centred around an Imperial fortress that was assaulted by Iron Warriors. It turned out later on in the book that the fortress was essentially a large warehouse for geneseed.

Its just that it is hard to make, and any new chapters etc must be sanctioned by the high lords.

[Legatus]

yeaaah uh no, the split was done to avoid another civil war much as Rogal Dorn sent his warriors that opposed the split as well into the Iron Cage.

Why Leman Russ agreed to do it is not really important. He did it. Which Wolf Lord would go back on his word?

 

 

Even if we go with what the current fluff the your numbers do not fit.

 

Currently, 1000 Chapters, 600 of them from the Ultramarines. That would leave 400 Chapters divided among the remaining 8 loyalist chapters. Now we know that some are more capable of creating chapters then others, but on just the average, each of the remaining 8 loyalist chapters, (excluding the Ultramarines) was capable of creating 50 successors.

I am not sure what you are trying to say. Perhaps you are suggesting that the Space Wolves would keep recruiting at maximum capacity and thus would keep growing and growing. But perhaps they aren't doing that? Perhaps they only recruit to replace their casualties. That's what 998 of the other Chapters do.

 

 

Edit:

geneseed canbe made by the Mechanicus.

Storm of Iron, a BL novel was centred around an Imperial fortress that was assaulted by Iron Warriors. It turned out later on in the book that the fortress was essentially a large warehouse for geneseed.

Every Chapter is required to donate 5% of their gene-seed to the Adeptus Mechanicus for testing and to create new Chapters. The gene-seed obtained by teh Iron Warriors was probably just some of that collected stock.

[Grimtooth]

I am not sure what you are trying to say. Perhaps you are suggesting that the Space Wolves would keep recruiting at maximum capacity and thus would keep growing and growing. But perhaps they aren't doing that? Perhaps they only recruit to replace their casualties. That's what 998 of the other Chapters do.

 

How is that maximum capacity? That is just the normal rate of recruitment and creation. After the Horus Heresy, the Adepts of Terra put stringent new rules on the creation of Space Marines, such as recruitment and the implantation process slowing it all down. All the founding of successor chapters was done under this ruling to prevent the genetic weakness from accelerated genetic growth.

 

What I am trying to say, is that you have no counterargument for the growth capability of the Space Wolves in comparison with the other loyal Legions. You cannot explain away where are the rest of the Space Wolves have gone nor do your proposed numbers for the Chapter mesh with the Space Wolves capability to produce Space Wolves and their obvious lack of successor chapters.

[Marshal Rohr]

Legatus, you are starting to sound like Octavulg ;) . Your posts are the right mix of sassy, informative, and funny -_- .

[Beef]

All these arguments are redundent due to the fluff inconsisitancies.

In some places it list legion strentgh at 10,000 whilst others (vision artbooks) it list sallies at 30,000 (being the smallest) ultras being 250,000 and average being 100,000.

Whilst in the index astartes it lists each chapter in a legion as 1000 with most legions having atleast 10 chapters (total 10,000)

 

So you can have your current SW chapter at 2000 marines or 20,000. What ever makes you happy. There is no right or wrong answer. Therefore lets just agree to disagree and all go and get some ale.

 

Also wolf lords that recant their oaths to the current great wolf cannot go back to Fenris to recruit. Whilst Fenris is not ruled like ultramar the current great wolf still has control over it. Once a wolf lord leaves the fang and his company is replaced by another the old wolf lord cannot come and take recruits. In essence he could just start his own chapter of SW that way. He would not have acces to a wolf priest or rune Priest. They are part of the Great Wolfs houshold.

 

Also the recruits would not have the Sw training or the facilities (medical/psycological, gate or morkai etc) along with whatever else is needed to implant and activate the geneseed.

 

Therefore the wolf lord who has left the Fang cannot recruit from Fenris.

[Tsavong Lah]

So you can have your current SW chapter at 2000 marines or 20,000. What ever makes you happy. There is no right or wrong answer. Therefore lets just agree to disagree and all go and get some ale.

 

This.

[Marshal Wilhelm]

All these arguments are redundent due to the fluff inconsisitancies.

In some places it list legion strentgh at 10,000 whilst others (vision artbooks) it list sallies at 30,000 (being the smallest) ultras being 250,000 and average being 100,000.

Whilst in the index astartes it lists each chapter in a legion as 1000 with most legions having atleast 10 chapters (total 10,000)

So you can have your current SW chapter at 2000 marines or 20,000. What ever makes you happy. There is no right or wrong answer. Therefore lets just agree to disagree and all go and get some ale.

 

:P Amen! :D This is what I had tried to draw attention to also. The conflicting fluff means you cannot come to any conclusion without relegating the ones you don't like into falsehood.

 

People are going to get offended when what they hold onto as the real deal is dismissed. So unless people meet somewhere in the middle and try to get something plausible to all fluff, we'll nowhere.

 

As for me, I am going somewhere. Dear Beef, lead on to the bar.

Do you guys serve Martinis? B) They are all the rage on Baal :)

[Tsavong Lah]

Do you guys serve Martinis? cool.gif They are all the rage on Baal

 

Nice try. Here, have a stout. It's good for you! :)

[Quillen]

Um, stinkenheim you made a few mistakes.

 

The Lost companies is an old White Dwarf Mag. It's been around for some time. And it states alot of great companies have left. Alot. Not 1 but alot. So there is probly a good number that left. Some would have come back and others been lost over time.

 

The artical was to help SpaceWolf players make something like a successer chapter for themselves. I have the WD somewhere.

 

The second point.

The Iron warriors were after a Warehouse. Not a place that makes Geneseed. I know, I read the book about 3 months ago. It was a place where tithed geneseed from other chapters were stored. Not where it's created. As that can not be done now. It was done on Earth by the Emperor's servants using left over metrials from the Primarchs. And never done again.

 

Only the chaos guy tinkers with it now, and he needs Geneseed to do it himself. Thou he can make troops buffed up, it's not stable and not geneseed.

 

You need the Geneseed to make more marines. But every legion has to tithe a certain amount to the imperium to be tested and to be saved for when a new legion needs to be formed you have the geneseed all ready to go.

[Wysten]

All these arguments are redundent due to the fluff inconsisitancies.

In some places it list legion strentgh at 10,000 whilst others (vision artbooks) it list sallies at 30,000 (being the smallest) ultras being 250,000 and average being 100,000.

Whilst in the index astartes it lists each chapter in a legion as 1000 with most legions having atleast 10 chapters (total 10,000)

So you can have your current SW chapter at 2000 marines or 20,000. What ever makes you happy. There is no right or wrong answer. Therefore lets just agree to disagree and all go and get some ale.

 

;) Amen! :D This is what I had tried to draw attention to also. The conflicting fluff means you cannot come to any conclusion without relegating the ones you don't like into falsehood.

 

People are going to get offended when what they hold onto as the real deal is dismissed. So unless people meet somewhere in the middle and try to get something plausible to all fluff, we'll nowhere.

 

As for me, I am going somewhere. Dear Beef, lead on to the bar.

Do you guys serve Martinis? B) They are all the rage on Baal :)

 

Aye, I can just see it now, if Blackmane is indeed able to read:

 

*Puts down his space wolves codex* My brothers, it appears giving out the number of wolf guard has had all the codexs reader's heads spinning like a lone hunt for a pack of thunderwolf while plastered!

 

*Roar comes from his 200 Wolf Guard and 2,000 grey hunters in a very overcrowded drinking hall.*

 

 

I agree, drawing any conclusion to numbers is going to end badly, so "enough for the job" tends to be a satisfying enough answer.

[Chodjinn]

When will people realise that there is little continuity in GW fluff and therefore this whole discussion is a moot point.

 

Until GW actually state that the Space Wolves chapter is xxxx strong, we won't know. And personally, I don't care; does it really matter? Not one bit.

 

I'm more entertained by how wound up some of the people in this thread are getting about a GAME, seriously, the way some of you talk to each other, outsiders would see it and think you think it's bloody real! :)