Legion Military strengths after the siege of Terra

[Badhaggis]

It's intresting to think about the comparitive numbers of space marines in the aftermath of the heresy, some legions (ultramarines + Space wolves) are fairly close to full strength and others are all but destroyed, raven guard, salamanders. What do you think that the estimated strength of legions is just after the siege of terra?

[lokkorex]

i believe the traitor legions had suffered a lot of losses when they retreated from terra.

 

i'm not sure if it has been confirmed exactly why Horus lowered the shields on his ship, so that the emperor could teleport aboard and they could have their epic duel, but one of the reasons it has been stated was that the dark angels and space wolves where getting closer to terra.

 

considering that horus had at least five legions engaged in a brutal siege on the ground against three loyalist legions, the siege must have really taken its toll on the besiegers, if he was prepared to gamble on a personal duel to avoid having two additional legions joining the fight. plus the traitors were heavily engaged on the ground and would have some trouble disengaging without the defenders pushing forward their defences to encompass ground the attackers had taken by a high cost.

[Jareddm]

Not to go too off-topic, but there's a theory going around that the lowering of shields on Horus's ship was the Alpha Legion showing their true allegiance. That everything up to that point was just so they could get on his bridge and shut down his shields at the height of battle.

[Veteran Sergeant]

I figure only the Ultramarines were in good shape after the Heresy. That's always been the implication of the fluff in the past as the Ultramarines have been described as being the driving force in the Scouring. They may not have been at "full strength" given the newer fluff about Calth, but because they were so much larger than the other legions, it didn't matter. The Space Wolves would have taken heavy casualties fighting the Thousand Sons, and they were only split once so their numbers must have been severely depleted as well. The Salamanders, Raven Guard, and Iron Hands are obviously decimated. Imperial Fists, Blood Angels, and White Scars would have taken heavy losses defending Terra, and the Dark Angels had just spent the Heresy fighting themselves.

 

On the traitor side, you have to assume all of the legions which assaulted Terra took heavy losses too. Frontal assaults on defended objectives are never going to be pretty. The World Eaters probably would have suffered the most just because of their attack philosophies, followed by the Word Bearers who were pounded twice: first at Calth, and then at Terra. There's never really been a lot about the Heresy actions and strengths of the traitor legions, at least as far as I can remember. At least enough to give you an idea about who would have taken the most damage. The Night Lords definitely suffered the least, as they packed up their things and went their own way after Istvaan V.

[Badhaggis]

IMHO I would say that in order of Numbers of the top 5, it would be something close to this

 

1. Ultramarines

2. Word Bearers ( increased their numbers quite substansialy after Cadia)

3. Space Wolves

4. Iron Warriors ( Mixture of Garrisioned Troops, Skilled at siege so unlikley to take vast loses and they had enought men and resources to build the Iron Cage.)

5. Alpha Legion or Night Lords or Emperors Children ( didn't attack the palace, and EC attacked civilian targets instead)

 

The Bottom 5 would be the Salamanders, Raven Guard, Iron Hands, thousand sons and either Dark angels or Imperial Fists ( defending terra and attacking the Iron Cage.)

[Jarl Kjaran Coldheart]

i question where you placed the Alpha Legion, because they actually have the ability now to outnumber any other legion in a matter of months due to the tech they stole from the RG in "Deliverance Lost", or its proper title, "The Alpha Legion troll everybody and are super kewl!!"

 

WLK

[Badhaggis]

i question where you placed the Alpha Legion, because they actually have the ability now to outnumber any other legion in a matter of months due to the tech they stole from the RG in "Deliverance Lost", or its proper title, "The Alpha Legion troll everybody and are super kewl!!"

 

WLK

 

Ha, Personaly i think that Alpharius has come to terms with the reality

that humanity needs to die in order for the galaxy to live, so there is no reason for him to create a vast horde of space marines if they all have to die.

 

[Jarl Kjaran Coldheart]

i question where you placed the Alpha Legion, because they actually have the ability now to outnumber any other legion in a matter of months due to the tech they stole from the RG in "Deliverance Lost", or its proper title, "The Alpha Legion troll everybody and are super kewl!!"

 

WLK

 

Ha, Personaly i think that Alpharius has come to terms with the reality

that humanity needs to die in order for the galaxy to live, so there is no reason for him to create a vast horde of space marines if they all have to die.

 

 

 

and his brother? While i havent read the new Primarchs book yet, apparently there seems to be a difference of opinion growing between them.

 

and i wonder what secrets they hold from each other?

 

WLK

[Badhaggis]

True that, although that won't be a problem for too much longer....

[Jarl Kjaran Coldheart]

True that, although that won't be a problem for too much longer....

 

why's that? did i miss something? other than the audio books and the limited release crap (i cant justify spending 50 bucks on a book...) i try to read everything HH related i can buy, beg, borrow or steal.

 

WLK

[Apothecary Vaddon]

I think he's referring to either how Guilliman kills off one of them or Horus losing.

[Jarl Kjaran Coldheart]

I think he's referring to either how Guilliman kills off one of them or Horus losing.

 

Thats what i thought, but wasnt sure.

 

and i remember here on B&C somebody (probably legs) raging how the events of that battle are questionable at best, and may infact be pure lies created by the AL.

 

WLK

[Kol Saresk]

Well, I'm not sure we can say "The Traitors got their butts handed to them at Terra." If they did, there would have been no need for the Scouring as that was very similar to the Great Crusade in that its purpose was to unite Humanity under the banner of the Imperium. Again. But the Night Lords were obviously large enough to warrant the use of the entire, rebuilt Ultramarines Legion after it had been split into its Second Founding successors.(Void Stalker) I think it would not be biased to say that the Iron Warriors and Word Bearers are perhaps two of the larger Legions left in the Eye of Terror since their Grand Companies and Hosts always seem to have an average of a thousand Traitors and it isn't considered a "massive undertaking" unless there are six of these military bodies, with one being beyond average in size.(Sources are Iron Warriors and Word Bearers series respectively.)

 

However, the Emperor's Children warband seems to be the smallest Legion because of its Pre-Heresy numbers combined with the fact that the other Legions ripped them a new one once they got back to the Eye.(I can't remember the source for this one so please feel free to correct) The World Eaters and EC also had their own private war, after which both Legions were sundered into warbands, all of varying size although WE warbands always seem to be very large ones. The smallest I ever heard of was numbering 400 and that was after it had taken a mauling.(Conquest of Armageddon)

 

Night Lords are the strangest because they vary in size from warband to warband. In the Night Lord series by A-D-B, we see a warband numbering from roughly sixty warriors to another warband that was made up of the remnants of two companies and was able to add quite a bit to the first. In Lord of the Night, we see another NL warband. No specific numbers are given. Just that it numbered enough ships to be considered a size-able fleet and was large enough of a threat for a Craftworld to subvert its course to a nearby planet so they could escape unscathed. Also, it was believed the planet's population was completely wiped out in a couple of days.

 

The Black Legion was also mauled not just by the Loyalists, but also by the other Traitors as they tried to scrap out for realty in the Eye.(Codex: Chaos Space Marines 4th Edition) I would hazard that they became the smallest of the Traitors simply because one man(who was not a Primarch) was able to control them. Even the Word Bearers who are known(publicly) at least as the most cohesive of Legions. Even now, he only has Four Chosen spread through his remade Legion which is made up of other Traitors and Renegades as well as the Lost and the Damned.

 

Well that sums up what I know as well as my theories on the matter. Please feel free to correct me on any mistakes.

[Legatus]

and i remember here on B&C somebody (probably legs) raging how the events of that battle are questionable at best, and may infact be pure lies created by the AL.

Yeah, that was probably me. To be fair, the Index Astartes article of the Alpha Legion outright states* that the authenticity of the discovered account of the Battle on Eskrador (where Guilliman is said to have killed Alpharius) is questioned by many Imperial scholars, including representatives of the Ultramarines Chapter. My personal complains were more about all the implausible elements within that account, which I pointed out to argue that it was very likely meant to be a fake. However, that doesn't really mean anything for how GW is going to proceed with that story. They may decide that it is all true after all. Or maybe they will ignore it and take the entire Alpha Legion background into an entirely different direction.

 

*It is perhaps interesting to point out that in the Deathwatch RPG sourcebook 'First Founding', in the Alpha Legion chapter it mentions the Battle on Eskrador including Alpharius' death without any such caveats. It describes the Ultramarines in a much more favourable light than the Index Astartes article had, though. It still contains some of the implausible elements, though.

[Veteran Sergeant]

Well, I'm not sure we can say "The Traitors got their butts handed to them at Terra." If they did, there would have been no need for the Scouring as that was very similar to the Great Crusade in that its purpose was to unite Humanity under the banner of the Imperium.

The traitor forces couldn't have been too strong after the Heresy as it only took less than ten years to reclaim the Imperium whereas it took 200 to claim it, lol. It's fairly reasonable to assume that the traitor legions were pretty badly mauled, since they fled all the way to the Eye of Terror instead of consolidating their positions and continuing to fight. After all, a militarily viable traitor force could have carried on a civil war for years given the fact that the loyalist forces were also mauled and the Emperor was mortally wounded. The implication has to be that the traitors were mauled worse.

 

Remember, Horus knew he had to delay the Ultramarines, and harass the Space Wolves. Even though he had nine legions and the loyalists only had five (Iron Hands, Salamanders and Raven Guard having been effectively destroyed and the Dark Angels were off doing who knows what), Horus still knew the key to winning at Terra was ensuring the Ultramarines were not there. He even went so far as to sacrifice the bulk of an entire legion just to do it. That means that Horus assumed his only way to win the war was to defeat the Emperor, and then consolidate his power to meet the Ultramarines afterwards. He certainly didn't seem to expect the Word Bearers to actually win. And the reason he had to do that was the Imperial Palace would only be taken with brute force and brute force was going to mean a lot of deaths. While casualty numbers to the Legions themselves have never been explicitly stated, it seems a bit silly to suggest that the traitor forces wouldn't have suffered extreme casualties in the process.

[Hellios]

No the problem was that Horus was the glue that held all the traitor factions together... When he died they panicked and never got their stuff back together. Not all the traitors even tried to hold their domains and those that did would have both time and numbers against them.

 

The smallest legion was the 1Ksons... That is all I can say.

[Badhaggis]

The IW were split up into garrision forces in all of the fortress worlds they had built, so had their main legion and a multitude of these defence forces, i remember reading somewhere that they formed the logistical line for the Rebel Forces to attack terra. The scouring was fairly quick because about 5 out of 8 legged it back to the eye of terror immediatly after the death of horus.

 

Re. Black Legion that pisses me off about GW, they are the second smallest legion and still get all the attention ( although they are kind of trying to rectify this now).

[MordentHex]

This is rather subjective to who's version of the legions you believe. Some sources said the legions where only around 10+ strong others put them at a quarter of a million+ depending on the legion. Ravens Flight suggested the Raven Guard where roughly at about 8)k+ marines and where one of the smaller legions. Go ing with this you could start judging on the losses from beginning to end. World eaters where mentioned to be at a little over 50% legion strength after III. I would imagine they took more casualties on IV maybe even enough to dip them below 50% The question is how many new marines could they recruit into the ranks by the time of the battle for Terra. Back then it was not so well regulated so the process could have been much faster than current practice. In my estimations I doubt any Traitor Legion was above 50% original strength and some like SOH, DG,WE,IW where probably closer to 25% just from battlefield attrition after the Scouring. They are space marines but Civil war is almost always excessively bloody and from everything we can read this one was on a scale that even marines would drop like flies in battle. Of all the traitor legions after I would put the Alpha Legion as probably having the lowest casualty count just because of there nature and methods of warfare. Who knows tho, some author may write something and turn that whole assumption tits up in the next few years for me. :(

[Badhaggis]

The only problem with that is that the Loyalist forces would almost certianly have been able to take the Eye of terror if their numbers were so low.

[Haranin]

Except two things-

 

1. The Imperium didn't take the eye during the great crusade;

2. Demons would be much stronger in the eye... and essentially endless. Say some primarch tries to convince the remainder of the imperial military into the eye; the others would stop at a large attack. You don't piss away the last of your strength against endless hordes when you also have a duty to protect the entire galaxy.

[Kol Saresk]

Well, I'm not sure we can say "The Traitors got their butts handed to them at Terra." If they did, there would have been no need for the Scouring as that was very similar to the Great Crusade in that its purpose was to unite Humanity under the banner of the Imperium.

The traitor forces couldn't have been too strong after the Heresy as it only took less than ten years to reclaim the Imperium whereas it took 200 to claim it, lol. It's fairly reasonable to assume that the traitor legions were pretty badly mauled, since they fled all the way to the Eye of Terror instead of consolidating their positions and continuing to fight. After all, a militarily viable traitor force could have carried on a civil war for years given the fact that the loyalist forces were also mauled and the Emperor was mortally wounded. The implication has to be that the traitors were mauled worse.

 

Remember, Horus knew he had to delay the Ultramarines, and harass the Space Wolves. Even though he had nine legions and the loyalists only had five (Iron Hands, Salamanders and Raven Guard having been effectively destroyed and the Dark Angels were off doing who knows what), Horus still knew the key to winning at Terra was ensuring the Ultramarines were not there. He even went so far as to sacrifice the bulk of an entire legion just to do it. That means that Horus assumed his only way to win the war was to defeat the Emperor, and then consolidate his power to meet the Ultramarines afterwards. He certainly didn't seem to expect the Word Bearers to actually win. And the reason he had to do that was the Imperial Palace would only be taken with brute force and brute force was going to mean a lot of deaths. While casualty numbers to the Legions themselves have never been explicitly stated, it seems a bit silly to suggest that the traitor forces wouldn't have suffered extreme casualties in the process.

Here's the thing, following the logic of being badly mauled, they should not have been much a fight to claim, what was it, six Primarchs since I know of at least three who just disappeared. The Traitors were also able to launch a Black Crusade within the same millennium and were still considered just as large a threat as the Heresy itself. In fact, that First Black Crusade is the Crusade that killed Rogal Dorn. And it took place after the Scouring IIRC.

 

As Hellios pointed out, once Horus died, the Siege became a free-for-all, a "Last one to the Eye is a loser" sort of thing. And yet at least fourteen(seventeen if you want to include M'Kar's siege of Ultramar, the Word Bearers action at the Boros Gate, and the Cholercaust Blood Crusade from Legion of the Damned, which are all Black Library events) times in the history of the Imperium, the Legions have not only themselves been considered high-level threats, but the Traitor Guardsmen and countless Renegade Marines they bring in their wake make the threat even higher. And depending on which version you follow, the first twelve crusades(some of which were not led by Abaddon I must point out, at least not openly) were precursors to the thirteenth or all thirteen crusades were pin point attacks that time and time again went against the best defense the Imperium could muster. And the thirteenth time, they broke open the Cadian Gate. There was also the Dominion of Fire(the fourteenth action), which was solely a World Eaters action as far as I know, and ended at Armageddon at the cost of how many Grey Knights dying just to banish Angron to the warp? And his banishment is what ended the crusade, not a decisive show of military strength, as like the Siege before, when the leader left, the individual warbands split back into self-survival mode.

 

And we only know of the recruiting policies of one Legion and that is the Black Legion. Very few of them are still original Sons of Horus. Most of them are either from the other eight Legions or are made up of the hundreds and thousands of Renegades as well as Traitor Guardsmen and mutants with numbers beyond imagining.

 

And yes, twelve times they were beaten back. Yet they still had the strength to come back twelve more times. I count the Thirteenth as a draw because Chaos was only just beaten back. Many planets are either still contested or controlled by Chaos. One planet was even turned into a daemon planet of Nurgle by Typhus. The orbit of Cadia is still in Imperial control, and the surface is contested. The rest of the system is even in worse shape. But Abaddon still has one Black Fortress and a (highly damaged)Planet Killer. And I also feel the need to point out that this Planet Killer is the second such ship ever constructed as the first one was destroyed in the Gothic War.

 

So even "mauled" the Nine Legions have posed more of a threat than just about anyone else other than the Tyranids and the Waking Necrons.

[Smirnov]

As far as Traitors go.

Thousand Sons are all but annihilated and non-present during the Siege of Terra and earlier days of Scourging. They were pre-occupied with their mutations, which coninued to take its toll on the Legion even after massacre by Space Wolves.

 

Sons of Horus, Emperor's Children, World Eaters and Death Guard eliminated a quarter of their legions during Istvaan III (if I remember correctly), through Emperor's Children may have killed more, as Vespasian and his forces remained loyal, and as there were only two Commanders in the legion, this may suggest there was about half the legion remained loyal. Then these legions took the bulk of damage during the Massacre. I think no more that all legions were at half-strength tops after Istavaan V. Deathguard took even more casaulties during their fall to Nurgle.

 

Word Bearers, Night Lords, Iron Warriors and Alpha Legion took minor losses during Istvaan, but besides that the numbers are elusive. How many of these legions stayed loyal? We can suggest that Word Bearers had almost 100% fall rate, but a number of Iron Warriors remained true to Emperor (as Iron Within shows). Alpha Legion probably also all went whatever side they went with no need for purge.

 

But as far as I know, Night Lords, Iron Warriors and Alpha Legion were not present at the Siege of Terra. The casaulties there had to be severe, but Traitors had army regiments, Dark Mechanicum forces and summoned daemons on their side to soak up the damage. So it was not just five Traitor Legions versus three loyal legions, it was a much granded battle.

 

At the end there were Night Lords, Iron Warrioirs and Alpha Legion close to full strength, Sons of Horus, Emperor's Childrern, World Eaters, Death Guard and Word Bearers severely bleeded.

 

 

On the Loyalist side, we have almost destroyed Salamanders, Iron Hands and Raven Guard. Depleted Blood Angels, Imperial Fists and White Scars (they still had enough bodies to sire Second Founding chapters). Ultramarines suffered heavy losses on Calth - there were 4/5 of the legion there, and I believe they lost at least two thirds of the number during the initial assault and underground war afterwards. Space Wolves suffered casaulties only against Thousand Sons (Alpha Legion wasn't set on destroying them, only preventing them from coming to Terra). Dark Angels suffered whaever casaulties they suffered against Night Lords and their infighting after the Heresy.

[MordentHex]

Do not forget Post Heresy Recruitment into the legions. Loses are high among them but they still have the capacity to make marines, although sometimes made with equal parts science and warp tech. Some legions would have bleed dry by now if not for that. Also time runs weird/stops/ reverses in the Eye. The black legion does actively recruit members of other Astartes into its fold but at the time of the heresy they did not. Ultimately this entire thread is up to conjecture depending on who and what you want to believe from the past 25 years of game lore.

[Badhaggis]

^^ This

 

Edit; By the time of the heresy the Iron warriors had 12 Grand Companies of around 1,000 legionaries each plus the garrision troops such as in Iron Within.

[Kol Saresk]

But here's what we know about the Word Bearers on the other hand, they were the Ultramarines of the Traitors when it came to size and numbers. They were also able to scrap out territory in not one warp storm(Sicarus in the Eye), but two(Ghalmek in the Maelstrom). To me, it would seem like there had to be some major strength left in the Legion to leave it with the numbers to do that. So "bleeded" ends up becoming a relative turn. The Sons of Horus took the largest beating yes, because they were the ones left as a rearguard from Terra. They were also the ones who were beaten to bloody pulp after bloody pulp by their fellow Traitors and then had to lose some more numbers attacking Bile and the EC to destroy Horus's body and the clones being made from it. And then he had to due whatever it took to make the other eight Legions join forces and launch the First Crusade. Which was before Cadia and cost the life of at least one Primarch.

 

Also, if I remember Galaxy in Flames[/i[ correctly, only about a tenth of the four Legions at Istvaan III was purged. The one-tenth was just smart enough to find a way to hold out until Dies Irae and the eventual orbital bombardment was brought to bear. Major losses at Istvaan V were prevented by the betrayal of four other Legions. Now, in the time that the Iron Hands, Raven Guard and Salamanders were running loose, there was a great deal of bloodshed. But they weren't just fighting the Traitors. They were fighting the Mechanicum and Traitor Titan Legios as well as the battle groups that fought alongside the Traitors. I know the Heresy seems to be portrayed as strictly Space Marine vs. Space Marine, but there were planets, Imperial Army Battle groups and a great majority of the Mechanicum from the lowest Tech-Guard to the greatest Imperator Titan were rising up against the Imperium. And Horus would be the person to use the Army soldiers and the Titans as cannon fodder while laying siege.