True Legion Sizes

[Grandmaster Anaziel]

We know for a fact that The Rout outnumbered the the Thousand Sons at Prospero.

We also know that they kept funneling their forces into the battle as it was ongoing.

 

In A Thousand Sons, immediately after the bombardment ended, when only Tizca was left standing, the Rout(I love calling them that XD) launched their assault.

Graham McNeill described the assault waves as appearing like "particles of ash-blown grit, so small and numerous were they." He stated that almost immediately after Leman Russ impaled the port with his stormbird, hundreds of Thunderhawks and Stormbirds also deployed their warriors. And this is just the very first wave of the battle. A single Stormbird carries 100 or so marines. And the first wave contained apparently thousands of gunships, heavy landers, thunderhawks and stormbirds.

 

As we know from Prospero Burns, other Great Companies landed else where in Tizca and were not part of the first wave approaching the ports from the sea. 600 Thunderhawks alone would carry over 10,000 marines.

If we take the description of "Hot on the heels of the bombardment, the invaders came in their thousands. At first the people thought them to be particles of ash-blown grit" to be fact, than we are looking at several thousand Thunderhawks and Stormbirds. Each Stormbird carrying 100 marines, each Thunderhawk carrying 30. Just the first wave must have been around 80,000 minimum. If this is true it would appear the Legions were a great deal larger than 100,000.

[calgar101]

Just a good use of hyperbole really.Most legions were around the 60k-80k mark I'd say with some notable exceptions. Word Bearers and the Ultramarines were the two largest; 100k and 250k respectively. The Thousand Sons, Emperor's Children and Space Wolves have always been stated as small legions. I would put both the Thousand Sons and Emperor's Children at the 10k mark but the Space Wolves anywhere between 20-40k, still being a small legion compared to the others but quite numerous to enact such large assaults.

[Brother Rathul]

Indeed, that is true. We don't know how many of those were stormbirds though. Some could have been thunderhawks or Imperail Guard Drop ships.

[Khestra the Unbeheld]

Indeed, that is true. We don't know how many of those were stormbirds though. Some could have been thunderhawks or Imperail Guard Drop ships.

 

Imperial Guard weren't present at the destruction of Prospero, so their dropships = 0.

[Brother Rathul]

Indeed, that is true. We don't know how many of those were stormbirds though. Some could have been thunderhawks or Imperail Guard Drop ships.

 

Imperial Guard weren't present at the destruction of Prospero, so their dropships = 0.

My bad, other "support craft"

[Khestra the Unbeheld]

Actually, I just doublechecked. You might be onto something here. I had a brainflake. ;)

[Liquidice]

In the final battle in A Thousand Sons, the survivors of the Wulfen Assault number just over 1000. Ahriman then stated that it was just a tenth of the legion. It also stated that during defense of the pyramid (before the wulfen attack and the Duel between ahriman and the Space Wolf Priest), that the Wolves numbered 6000.

 

So most probably a legion of around 10,000 for the Thousand Sons. If the Space Wolves used the entire legion to attack Prospero, it couldn't have number over 15,000 members.

 

These two legions did have problems with there gene seed so the low numbers would be expected. I believe that during Istvann massacre that the Iron Hands, Raven Guard, and Salamanders numbered around 20,000 each.

[Khestra the Unbeheld]

These two legions did have problems with there gene seed so the low numbers would be expected. I believe that during Istvann massacre that the Iron Hands, Raven Guard, and Salamanders numbered around 20,000 each.

 

Corax is quoted in Raven's Flight as having gone to Istvaan with almost 80,000 Raven Guard and leaving with less than 3000.

[Liquidice]

Corax is quoted in Raven's Flight as having gone to Istvaan with almost 80,000 Raven Guard and leaving with less than 3000.

 

I'll have to dig into Fulgrim and see where I got the 20,000 from, my bad.

[Xisor]

Liquidice: I think you could be inferring from Fulgrim. If memory serves, there's a figure given which allows inference of roughly ~20,000 per loyalist legion present, something like 60,000 landing. Something like that. The trouble, at the time, was that the Salamanders and Wolves were noted as being both small and the Wolves being amongst the smallest, so a sensible guess at the time might've been 10,000 Wolves, 20,000 Salamanders and 30,000 Ravens.

 

Anyway, if memory serves Gav Thorpe and Aaron D-B have both mentioned that they went over the figures in a more up-to-date manner to effectively retcon/standardise references within the HH.

 

The figure of 60-80k per Legion was given, IIRC, but I can't point to where. Thus the 'vaguely small' could be about 50k and very small at 20k. With the Ultras & WB being 'big' at 100k+.

 

Interesting though. Very much a case of 'not all Legions and Primarchs were equal', which I rather enjoy.

[Grandmaster Anaziel]

As I recall, Hawser in Prospero Burns did not believe the the 5th Great Company needed strengthening to destroy the Thousand Sons. He seemed fairly certain that the 5th Great Company outnumbered the Thousand Sons already.

As we know, the Thousand Sons had roughly 10,000 marines on Prospero. Hawser was know to exaggerate, but I doubt that he would exaggerate numbers to that degree. There were 13 Great Companies.

The first wave of the Rout's offensive was described in the thousands. "Wave after wave of drop-ships, assault boats and gunships."

It Explicitly described "hundreds of craft" skimming across the ocean. Just 300 Thunderhawks would carry 9,000 Astartes. And we know for a fact that "dozens" of Stormbirds were there in the first minutes of the battle. Just 50 Stormbirds would carry 5,000 Astartes. And these were just in the first minutes of the battle.

The battle for Prospero lasted from dawn until dusk.

[A D-B]

As I recall, Hawser in Prospero Burns did not believe the the 5th Great Company needed strengthening to destroy the Thousand Sons. He seemed fairly certain that the 5th Great Company outnumbered the Thousand Sons already.

As we know, the Thousand Sons had roughly 10,000 marines on Prospero. Hawser was know to exaggerate, but I doubt that he would exaggerate numbers to that degree. There were 13 Great Companies.

The first wave of the Rout's offensive was described in the thousands. "Wave after wave of drop-ships, assault boats and gunships."

It Explicitly described "hundreds of craft" skimming across the ocean. Just 300 Thunderhawks would carry 9,000 Astartes. And we know for a fact that "dozens" of Stormbirds were there in the first minutes of the battle. Just 50 Stormbirds would carry 5,000 Astartes. And these were just in the first minutes of the battle.

The battle for Prospero lasted from dawn until dusk.

 

For the record, the official Legion sizes have been settled, post-publication of A Thousand Sons. The figures in the most recent Codex: Chaos Space Marines and Horus Heresy: Collected Visions are correct. Roughly, Legions were "about 100,000" strong.

[Xavier Targhost]

:D

Hehe.. Love that you are here A-D-B :P so awesome and fun! :) and a realy nice way to get fackts too :)

 

Big bow and salute mate!! Your books Rock! Awesome and very nice and smoth to read with all that well written fluf and joy to read!

Its and honour to have you here interacting with us mortals ;)

[The Son of Russ]

i really hate everyone saying legions were small and some large, where the emperor created 20 legions, using 2million astartes, 100000 per legion. Obviously casualites and mutations would happen, but to the extent of losing 90000 men?

If that happened i would go on a suicide run. If im going down everything is!

everything was built to be fair. Legions expanded, increasing their numbers.

I can understand legions being at less than 10000 now, but during the heresy? it is absolute bullsh*t!!!

[DarKHaZZ13]

emperor created 20 legions, using 2million astartes

 

While it is stated the big E did establish 20 legions I have never seen anything to suggest there were 2 million astartes to begin with.

Who ever said the legions were equal in number to begin with? After all in "a thousands sons" it is quite clear that different legions had different purpouses....and indeed it is suggested that some legions forged their own.

Take 'the first heretic' for example. It is made quite clear that the word bearers expanded their numbers after Lorgar was chastised. As previously stated best estimates say that the WB's had 100K+ right? But clearly not originally. Thier numbers grew during the greatd crusade...who's to say this hasn't happned to other legions...starting off smaller and exapnding

Or indeed the reverse.

[The Son of Russ]

But i dont want the space wolves to have 10000

waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

[Grandmaster Anaziel]

i really hate everyone saying legions were small and some large, where the emperor created 20 legions, using 2million astartes, 100000 per legion. Obviously casualites and mutations would happen, but to the extent of losing 90000 men?

If that happened i would go on a suicide run. If im going down everything is!

everything was built to be fair. Legions expanded, increasing their numbers.

I can understand legions being at less than 10000 now, but during the heresy? it is absolute bullsh*t!!!

 

I agree with you completely. The Legions were massive. Since "around 100,000" has been set as official, that leaves room for the total number of marines in a Legion to be even higher than 100k.

[Legatus]

I wonder if BL will ever adress how a pre-heresy Space Wolves Grand Company was supposedly 5,000+ strong, while a pre-heresy Salamanders Grand Company was approximately 10,000 strong. That would certainly explain the reputation of the Salamanders of being more ponderous. Perhaps once the Horus Heresy novels come to an end we will also learn how almost every loyalist Legion had been reduced to 3-5% of their strength at the end, or how the Ultramarines Legion got from growing during the time of the Scouring until they accounted for more than half of the active Marines to being reduced to 10% of their original strength.

[Aqatone]

The reason The Thousand Sons were actually called A Thousand Sons was because that's how many they had at their inception. That's some serious recruiting to get them to bigger numbers.

[Kitchen Knife]

Maybe BL can also explain, what size the World Eaters had.

 

After Istvaan III the WE had lost nearly half of their legion (think it is mentioned in Galaxy in Flames). Then the crazy bunch fought in the first line at the palace of Terra, loosing again a lot of marines.

 

But Angron manages somehow to gather 50.000 zerkers in th 38th millenium to butcher some imperial worlds. I know, that not all berzerkers are, or were, WE but regarding the number involved at Angrons small trip, the original Eaters-legion must have been huge. Maybe similar size like the UM...

[Captain Juan Juarez]

Maybe similar size like the UM...

 

I doubt it, the Ultramarines were something of an anomaly in terms of size.

[tiberium40k]

But Angron manages somehow to gather 50.000 zerkers in th 38th millenium to butcher some imperial worlds. I know, that not all berzerkers are, or were, WE but regarding the number involved at Angrons small trip, the original Eaters-legion must have been huge. Maybe similar size like the UM...

 

That was 7.000 years later, so its very possible that the World Eaters were down to less then 10% after the Heresy and then somehow managed to recruit enough Berzerkers in the subseuqent millenia. After all, most 40k CSM are post-heresy recruits; the "thousands of years of battle" Chaos fans like to quote only really applies to a very small ammount of Chaos Marines that managed to survive both the Heresy and the 10.000 years after.

 

As for Legion sizes, we know Word Bearers had 100.000 Marines and that they were the second largest Legion, so that would mean most other Legions number less then 100.000, but not by much.

[Kitchen Knife]

But Angron manages somehow to gather 50.000 zerkers in th 38th millenium to butcher some imperial worlds. I know, that not all berzerkers are, or were, WE but regarding the number involved at Angrons small trip, the original Eaters-legion must have been huge. Maybe similar size like the UM...

 

That was 7.000 years later, so its very possible that the World Eaters were down to less then 10% after the Heresy and then somehow managed to recruit enough Berzerkers in the subseuqent millenia. After all, most 40k CSM are post-heresy recruits; the "thousands of years of battle" Chaos fans like to quote only really applies to a very small ammount of Chaos Marines that managed to survive both the Heresy and the 10.000 years after.

 

As for Legion sizes, we know Word Bearers had 100.000 Marines and that they were the second largest Legion, so that would mean most other Legions number less then 100.000, but not by much.

 

Might be true.

 

So far, I think only 50 chapters succumbed to chaos after the heresy (don't know where I read the number, so please take it with salt :) ) and not always with their full strenght. Even if all those renegades would become berzerkers, 50.000 is a hard match.

OR, the World Eaters are one of the traitor legions, who can actually recruit und gene-forge new astartes. But there is absolutely no information regarding the recruiting of the WE. Plus, I can't really think of a WE-Apothecary, that would work with other instruments than his beloved chain-axe... :)

[Grandmaster Anaziel]

There is Fabrikus. Chief Apothecary of the World Eaters. He was in a short story in Let The Galaxy Burn.

[Kitchen Knife]

Well, I should have been more precise:

 

I can't really think of a post-heresy WE-Apothecary, that would work with other instruments than his beloved chain-axe. You know, the marine from the time when all started with the blood for the blood god thing and Khârn got a little bit touchy after his first death :lol: