On the full organization of my Chapter

[OutlawSixActual]

So, here goes kind of another long rant based on my late night insomnia and random musings...

We often chat about the "total" size of Chapters - after all, it's not just your 10 companies, but you have your command group, special staff, logistics, navy, and tank crews all to think about. So the full size of a chapter can balloon quite easily. I figured it was time to figure out just who all has been shamming in the dark corners of my Chapter's registry (the Tormentors) since they realized they weren't really being accounted for...

A couple of disclaimers:

This is not an attempt to codify ANYTHING! One of the perks of being an autonomous chapter is that your chapter master (you) get to run your staff however you darn well please. This is merely a representation of how ONE chapter has decided to man and staff its organization, and I'm just sharing this to maybe spark some interest and thought into how other Chapters are run.

My chapter is not a codex chapter! This is going to cause the greatest deviation for everybody else. My Chapter is organized such that it can conduct three separate crusades (or, more normally, two crusades, with a third of the Chapter near the home system 'just in case.' Therefore, rather than having 1 Veteran Company, 4 Battle Companies, 4 Reserve Companies, and a Scout company, my Chapter is organized into three-Company 'Crusades' (called Brotherhoods) - each one consisting of 2 Battle Companies and 1 Reserve Company, with a small section of scouts assigned to the Brotherhood commander. Also, my Veteran company is not the 1st Company - it is X Company. Some of the other Chapters can snicker all they want until they take a facefull of chainfist

So, my organization is actually 1 Veteran Company, 6 Battle Companies, and 3 Reserve Companies (1 extra company of full Battle Brothers). In addition, each Battle/Reserve company consists of 11 squads (1 extra Assault Squad per), and the Veteran company consists of 9 squads.

So, when compared to a Codex chapter, my Chapter contains 18 extra standard squads (118 vs 90). HOWEVER, those squads are also drawn upon to crew virtually all of the Chapter's tanks, land speeders, etc. As in, techmarines are not the basic crew of your Rhino or your Predator. A 10 man squad that gets into a Rhino will be driven around by a driver from another Squad (or sometimes the Reserve company). This is important because it will tend to equalize the number of marines in the Chapter, based on how you view your "additional equipment" manning that the fluff usually tends to ignore, unless you decide that your Chapter has 500 techmarines acting as crew!

With that out of the way, let's get to it:

THE BOTTOM LINE UP FRONT:

My Chapter comes to a total of 2057 power-armored Space Marines and Scouts, and the chapter is divided as follows:

http://i774.photobucket.com/albums/yy25/outlawsixactual/bolterandchainsword/chapter%20organization/sectionchart_zps4e29f6de.png

And the organization chart:

http://i774.photobucket.com/albums/yy25/outlawsixactual/bolterandchainsword/chapter%20organization/orgchart_zpse596201b.png

A couple of notes on this real quick - first, you can see that Battle Brothers only make up 65% of the Chapter, and that might surprise you. But, consider that, in Afghanistan and Iraq, roughly 1.6 million US Army Soldiers deployed, and roughly 150,000 received either a Combat Action Badge or Combat Infantryman Badge - you can obviously do the math there, but 65% for the Chapter is actually not bad when you consider how much logistical support goes into the operations of the Astartes. Note that my 2057 figure ONLY includes actual Astartes, but none of the auxilia or mortal support staff that go into them - not even Servitors. Trying to come up with ship crew numbers and stuff would simply be too mind boggling. So, let's go into each of the sections and figure out just why there are so many "non-traditional" brothers taking up space in the Chapter...

CHAPTER COMMAND

So the Chapter Command obviously contains the Chapter Master (known among the Tormentors as the High Marshal) and his subordinate Masters, and contains various organs to run its affairs: The command Section (led by the High Marshal and operated by his Champion), the Chapter Cult (led by the Master of Sanctity), the Librarium (led by the Master Librarian), the Armory (led by the Master of the Forge), the Keep (led by the Master.... of the Keep), and the Apothecarium, led by the Master Surgeon. The Master of the Fleet rounds up the Chapter high command.

Now, most Chapters assign these "Master" roles to the company captains themselves. However, i find this to be a little unwieldy. If a chapter sends x company to and y company fro, those captains will be unable to fulfill their Chapter duties for the rest of the chapter. For example, if the Ultramarines' Captain Sicarius is the Master of the Fleet, and his company is deployed off into the nether regions fighting Nurgle's butthole army, and the 7th Company runs into some transportation issue and can't get itself out of Macragge... well, what is the Master of the Fleet going to do about it? Absolutely nothing, that's what. So it must mean that most Chapters treat those titles more as symbolic titles, while other Marines or human staff get to do all the work and remain nameless.

My Chapter is all about practicality and so does away with the superfluous titles. These are the universe's finest killers and destroyers, and a Battle Captain should be left to focus on killing the enemy and coordinating the efforts of his crusade, and not have to worry about whether or not 7 Scouts, 17 thousand light years away at home have enough food for tomorrow's dinner.

But, doesn't the mortal auxiliary handle most of these administrative duties? You betcha. And the bulk of my staff sections are made up of nameless, faceless, mortals who run things and are quite simply happy to have a job that allows their families some sort of elevated protection near the Chapter Monastery. Yet, some positions simply require a Space Marine to provide oversight. Ship captains and the like come to mind. And when the Chapter Master wants to know how things are running in the forge, or in the transport of supplies, he probably wants to hear it from a fellow Astartes who knows the importance and intracacies first-hand, of whatever topic he wants to know. Therefore, the various organs of the Chapter staff functions are supervised by dedicated Space Marines, and run/worked by their mortal staffs.

===== COMMAND SECTION =====

The Command Section is comprised of the Honor Guard (1 Champion + 8 guards), the command group (the 6 Masters mentioned above), a Control cell (9 Marines who oversee, track, and coordinate the Chapter's operations, including liaisons to other Imperial ground and naval units), and a Logistics Cell, consisting of 5 Marines who oversee the state of supply and and deliveries to units and outposts. Again, these Marines oversee these operations and provide guidance and direction, while mortal staffs work to provide the data and situational awareness for the Marines to make decisions on.

===== CULT =====

The Master of Sanctity is a given and most Chapters have one. In addition, there are a number of Shrines that the Chapter maintains for worship by the battle brothers. The Chapter shrine is located in the Fortress Monastery proper, and houses the holiest of relics, and the Chaplain's apprentices who have been identified to serve as future Chaplains and are currently undergoing rites and training to get there. In addition, each of the three Battle Barges maintains a shrine (used by the Brotherhoods during Crusades), and are staffed by a Reclusiarch and a custodian. Each company then has its own Battle Chaplains.

===== LIBRARIUM =====

The Librarium contains all the Chapter's history and knowledge. The Chapter Library contains the largest repository of data, and a certain number of Epistolary Librarians maintain records and gather information on enemy forces almost continuously. each Brotherhood also maintains an Epistolary to act as the head Librarian for the Crusade. These librarian's have an assistant that acts as the interrogator, and two Lexicanums who receive and compile reports on operations as they happen. This leaves the Company LIbrarians free to provide battlefield and psychic support to their companies. After battles, they provide the information needed to the Lexicanums to prepare reports for analysis and inclusion into the Chapter rolls.

===== FORGE =====

The Techmarines make up a significant portion of the Chapter - about 7 percent.

The Armory is the portion of the Forge containing all the Chapter's battle tanks and specialty vehicles. While each Company maintains its own dedicated fleet of Rhinos, Razorbacks, Land Speeders, bikes, etc., all of the Chapter's Predators, Whirwinds, Land Raiders, and so on are stored int he Armory, and assigned to companies prior to their departure on a Crusade. The Chapter maintains a ready fleet - all the prepared vehicles that are ready for assignment and combat, and the Reserve fleet - a fairly significant stockpile of extra vehicles that are waiting to be called into service to hastily replace battlefield losses. This is so that, in the heat of battle, when a Predator is destroyed or goes down, the Chapter can backfill it with another tank to avoid stalling operations. Once the battle is over, if the original Predator can be recovered and repaired, then the replacement can go back into the Reserve fleet as necessary (note that the real limitation on Chapters is their manpower - not their manufacturing capability - so it makes sense for a limited number of crews to have a wide choice of vehicles to jump in based on mission requirements - it's the so-called arms room concept in action). In addition, the Armory maintains a small force of 16 techmarines known as the Forgeguard - these are dedicated, elite tank crews that distinguished themselves and provides the Chapters with crack tank crews where they are really needed - while the majority of the time the companies will receive their tanks and then get to figure out how to crew them, themselves. (For example, a company might receive 6x Predators with 2x Forgeguard, and then has to provide 10x Marines to man the rest of the tanks).

The Arsenal contains all the Chapter's weaponry and ammunition. Techmarines here conduct the maintenance and inspection of the Chapter's weapons before issuing them to Battle Brothers (who then become responsible for maintaining their own equipment), and conduct repairs for damaged equipment. New techmarines (apprenta) also work here as they wait for an opportunity to receive formal training on Mars. These techmarines also supervise the mortals that build standard and specialized ammunition (power cells, bolts, etc), and inspect them to keep quality control.

The Inner Forge is where the master artificers produce improved armors and weapons for the Chapter's heroes. They employ very skilled mortal artisans and produce their own equipment as well. This is where you artificer armor and master-crafted weapons originate.

The Temple is the home of the Chapter's most prized equipment - ancient tanks or weapons, for example. My Chapter has one Fellblade that was captured from a rogue Chapter many years ago, and it sits in the temple all oiled and shiny while techno-weirdos pray over it and keep it ready, just in case it ever has to be brought out to defend the Chapter in some seriously bad situation in the future. The Temple also houses the Templeguard, a five-man honored crew that can operate the arcane machinery in the temple.

Finally, the Detachment consists of all those Techmarines that have been assigned elsewhere in the Chapter. This includes Techmarines assigned tot he Companies, and to the Naval ships. 42 Techmarines are assigned permanently to the Brotherhoods and Companies,and another 65 serve aboard the ships of the Chapter Navy.

===== KEEP =====

The Chapter Keep runs my Chapter's more administrative and mundane affairs. This includes the Watch, the Household, the Sustainment, and the Auxiliary functions. The Watch consists of all the Chapter's security requirements - There are Marines that supervise security teams for the Fortress Monastery and for the orbital platforms. In the novels, you see Space Marines that are in charge of defense lasers and guns and stuff. They fall into my Keep. The Keep is made up of those Brothers who have given almost everything to their Chapter on the field of battle, but, for one reason or another (severe nerve damage, injuries, etc) are no longer fit to fight on the front lines. Instead, they serve the Chapter in these rear roles.

The Household serves the recruiting and educational functions. A team of 4 Marines conducts the initial trials for those young men that aspire to join the Chapter, and the other section provides the permanent educational teams (the professors, if you will), who provide their training at the Academy. They provide the mentorship and oversight, while highly-trained mortals run the mundane tasks of setting up training exercises, producing visual aids and evaluation materials, and so on. In addition, Battle/Reserve companies that are stationed back at the Monastery before/during a Crusade will usually provide squads to act as additional mentors and teachers in the Academies.

The sustainment section provides for all the brother's needs at home, from food and shelter to ensure supplies and ammunition are delivered for training exercises.

Finally, the Auxiliary directly interfaces with all the mortal support personnel for the chapter - making sure their needs are met and that they are dutifully serving as required. They handle the training, recruitment, and guidance of the mortal forces that operated in the vicinity of the Monastery and ensure they are providing for mutual defenses as necessary.

===== APOTHECARIUM =====

The Apothecarium, headed by the Master Surgeon, provides some important functions for the Chapter.

The Cultivation section handles the growth of implants for insertion into new recruits, checks for the integrity and progress of implant growth, and ensure that new Initiates are growing as desired following implantation.

The Maintenance section monitors implant and progenoid gland purity for all Battle Brothers. While Apothecaries within the companies conduct regular checkups for their assigned Brothers, those who might exhibit serious complications or issues later on in their careers can be referred to the Chapter Apothecarium for additional screening. Newly-minted Apothecaries also end up here to learn and master their trade on the job.

The Vault is one of the most precious areas of all, and stores all the Chapter's gene seed. When a Brotherhood deploys, it collects the glands from fallen brothers and stores them aboard their battle barges. Then, upon their return, all the glands and gene-seed is transferred into the Chapter vaults, where dedicated Apothecaries check them for purity and integrity, prior to separating them out for further storage, implantation, or the submission of tithes.

Each Brotherhood and company maintains their own dedicated Apothecaries for battlefield support and emergency triage aboard ships. Mortal medical staff can sometimes assist but primarily provide support for mortal patients.

===== NAVY =====

The Navy. Next to the Battle Brothers, they make up the largest portion of the Chapter. It's also the area where it's easiest to get carried away, because some of us like to imagine whole starships crewed by power armored Space Marines. In reality, they tend to be the ones supervising the functions of the ship, while the actual crew and workers are mortals and Servitors.

My Chapter maintains three distinct fleets (big surprise), each consisting of a Battle Barge, two Strike Cruisers, and a squadron of Frigates. Other support craft are exclusively mortal-manned.

Why is the fleet split as such? Because each Company must be able to transport itself as required. When a Brotherhood embarks on a crusade, it's battle barge serves as the flagship and center of operations. The strike cruisers allow single companies to depart and conduct operations along a wider front. But my Chapter Master will never be willing to send the entire fleet out when another Company is at home on guard. Can you imagine the shame and embarassment if the Chapter Master had to deny support to a fellow Chapter, because the two companies he has available don't have a ride? Preposterous! So the Chapter maintains a significant fleet to ensure it will always have the flexibility and mobility to answer calls as long as it has the manpower.

Each frigate, strike cruiser, and battle barge is captained by a Naval Space Marine, and has one (frigate), two (strike cruiser) or four (barge) additional marines as chiefs of staff, or to manage orbital bombardment (When the commander on the ground is calling for a strike, he wants to talk to an expert Space Marine, not some bumbling, weak-minded mortal trying to figure out what to do)

The vast majority of the navy is made up of Space Marine pilots. These are the guys who fly the Thunderhawks, Assault Rams, and Stormravens/eagles in space and in the air. They are dedicated pilots who can do just about everything. They exclusively man these craft because it would be too much of a hassle to have to assign someone from a Company to do it, then bounce them around as they're needed on the ground, etc etc.

Each Strike cruiser has 22 pilots - enough to pilot 4 Thunderhawk gunships and 3x Thunderhawk Transporters at the same time. However, my strike cruisers carry a total of 6 Thunderhawk gunships, 3x Storm Eagles, 4x Storm Talons, 12 Caustus Assault Rams, and 6x Thunderhawk Transporters. So, the existing crew can shift around and man a variety of ships to support any mission - it just takes some thought into what they're going to fly.

As an example, A Strike Cruiser may wish to deploy a company to the surface. Half the company deploys via drop pod, and half will go by Thunderhawk. The pilots will crew 3x Thunderhawk gunships, 3x Thunderhawk transporters (to deliver tanks), and 4x Storm Talons to provide escort for the landing. After the landing is complete, the pilots return to the cruiser, and refit - the Thunderhawk crews transition to Storm Eagles and Storm Talons to support rapid movement of troops from place ot place on the planet surface. At the end of the mission, the pilots jump into the Thunderhawks to bring troops and equipment back up to the surface, then crew the Thunderhawk transporters to recovery drop pods and tanks, while the remainder fly in Storm Eagles or Talons to provide escort security.

Or, during a boarding, they all pilot the Caustus rams and allow the company to conduct boarding actions. The point is that it's a limited crew, with some serious flexibility in what they fly/can do. They just can't fly everything all at once.

So that's where I'm at. I'm not 100% up to date on all the fluff, but I think it mostly fits. What critical mistakes have I made? I actually went through the trouble of creating a Marine-by-Marine roster for every position I mentioned in the Chapter. But that's something like 35 or so slides in Powerpoint and would cause some serious over-information issues to post here right now. Thanks for reading!

[Captain Denaro]

Well written and thought out. I tried working something like this out for my own DIY a few years ago - you've given me the inspiration to take another look.

[rickybob]

It's great to see someone go into the detail of Chapter organisation, especially regarding fleet manning. As a marine technician, the naval manning and "machine god" aspects of space marines has ALWAYS bothered me. GW's writers have trouble writing believeable background for 40k (ridiculous, because it's science fiction, I know, I get it...) so write what you want, as far as I'm concerned. Personaaly there are parts of the official fluff that make no sense to me so I flat out ignore it.

 

Good stuff, keep it up!

[MadGreek]

I like this.  I have been struggling for a while with how I want to structure my chapter.  Youve given me some good ideas here, and I will be keeping an eye out for any updates.

[ninjasuperspy]

I like it. Well grounded & thought out. Good stuff.

[Veteran Sergeant]

The "machine spirit" is just 40K

 

It's great to see someone go into the detail of Chapter organisation, especially regarding fleet manning. As a marine technician, the naval manning and "machine god" aspects of space marines has ALWAYS bothered me. GW's writers have trouble writing believeable background for 40k (ridiculous, because it's science fiction, I know, I get it...) so write what you want, as far as I'm concerned. Personaaly there are parts of the official fluff that make no sense to me so I flat out ignore it.

 

Good stuff, keep it up!

The "machine spirit" is just 40K talk for "really advanced computer". You can see in the old diagrams that the machine spirit is an object that's built into a Land Raider, lol.

 

That hasn't stopped some authors from treating it like an actual "spirit", but that's their misunderstanding. People pray to the machine spirirt because they don't have any concept of how the thing works, and 40K's universe is full of superstitions.

It's an interesting breakdown the TS has. I've always been a proponent of the "Impossible to only have ~1000 Marines" idea, but never broken down the numbers.

However, this breakdown doesn't really make much sense to me. There are a lot of Marines doing more or less redundant jobs, while not filling important roles. As a bit of background, I was an actual US Marine, with experience in ground control of close air support, calls for fire, etc.

The most important mission for Space Marines, as I see it, is ground combat. In the real Marines, we continually stress that everyone else exists solely to support the ground mission (infantry, armor, etc). If we're flying airplanes, it's to support the ground troops. If we're driving supplies around, it's to support the ground troops. If we're fixing broken down trucks, it's to support the ground troops. The Space Marines would function the same way.

 

So I can easily see a lot of the missions you have assigned to Navy Marines being actually suitable for capably trained Chapter Serfs. Why would you assign Marines to the fleet, and by doing that take Marines away from the ground commander to drive transports? It makes far more sense to assign Marines to the Armory. Which we know exists due to Chronus's fluff about having 50 Marines in his charge. And he's "only" a Sergeant, which means he's not the senior commander in the Armory, so there's likely a Captain (or senior Techmarine?) and other Sergeants who aren't as awesome as Chronus. If you're forcing a Marine company commander to crew his own Rhino's you've literally depleted 10% of his combat power before he's even started. If you're filling those spots with the Reserves, you're still depleting the overall power the ground commander can employ because you've taken away his Reserves.

So you have the Chapter's dedicated pilots (who may not be solely pilots, but that's their assigned sole duty at the time), and then you have the Armory's dedicated vehicle crews who are assigned out to the fighting forces as needed on a temporary, or semi-permanent basis. In the Marines, HMMWVs would be intergral to an Infantry company. If they are riding in heavier transports, they are coming from LAV or Amtracs which are in their own units (LAR has its own infantry Marines, but that's not analogous to Space Marines). So the Landspeeders and Bikes could be crewed by Marines from the ground units since it's an organic asset and only relevant to certain mission profiles. But Rhinos and Razorbacks would be crewed by Marines dedicated to crewing those transports.

The Fleet really only needs a Space Marine to serve as "Admiral" since the Fleet's entire mission is to support the Marines. Maybe that means one per ship, maybe just the flagship, or maybe not even that. The overall commander should be able to coordinate the ground mission with the air/space mission, even if that means leaving the Navy thing to Navy guys, In the USMC, pilots all serve tours on the ground as controllers so they learn how the guys on the ground use them, and so the Marines in the aircraft can talk to somebody who knows how airplanes work. It's slowly changing because you don't need that (but it's nice). However it's not an issue since that's already exactly how Space Marine chapters operate. Marines on the ground, Marines in the skies.


If I were to granulate the way a Space Marine Chapter works, you'd have:

Infantry Element (the Battle Companies, Reserves, Scouts, Chapter Command, Reclusiam, Apothecarion, Librarius): <1400

Armory Element (Tanks, Transports, Air/Spacecraft, Techmarines): ~500
Support Element (non-field Training/Recruitment, Fleet, any other supernumeraries) <50

The IE is primarily assigned with combat operations. Marines from the Reclusiam, Apothecarion, Librarius, etc, are tasked out for other things, especially the screening of recruits and training of initiates, as well as carrying out or overseeing the implantation process for developing initiates. But these Marines have one primary mission. The execution of combat operations.

The AE, on the other hand, has a split focus. These Marines are the crew and support for the Chapter's vehicles. There will be a sizable chunk of techmarines here to both crew and maintain vehicles. Also, metric crap-tons of Servitors and serfs.

 

The SE covers everything left over. Most likely these are Marines who were too badly injured to continue as part of one of The Companies. They are supernumeraries. Their duties involve training the Marines in the "pipeline", as in the large number of recruits who aren't old/complete enough to be a Scout yet. Any kind of other principally administrative or typically "garrison" duties. Only in death does duty end. But it doesn't help to have a guy out there with three bionic limbs, a bionic eye, and plastic tubing for lower intestines. Flesh may be weak, but Imperial mechanics are slow, lol. Put his experience and brain to work, and promote another Scout.

[Vor]

Looks pretty cool. I enjoyed reading it.

 

I like that you are not a proponent of the "there can only be 1000 marines!!" nonsense, but also that you've not gone overboard by making them ridiculously huge. That said, the Navy component seems a little top heavy. I'd have thought the naval marine positions would have been filled by standard marines from the battle companies while not on campaign, with humans manning most of the critical positions? But, then again, this is your chapter and you're more than entitled to have it however you like. Also, you are clearly correct about marine pilots flying the support craft, which I didn't consider when I first made this reply, so maybe it's not as top heavy as I first thought!

 

Once more, very cool. Enjoyed it.

[AlabasterKnight]

I too enjoyed the read; I love charts and explanation, logistics and planning, so this was a nice escape from batreps...

[ninjasuperspy]

The "machine spirit" is just 40K

 

Let me tell you I was both praying & cursing at a SQL server earlier. Seriously considered lighting some incense...

[Dolchiate Remembrancer]

Well written coldfyre!

Being the commander of a DIY Chapter myself I have tried organizing the Chapter in an original way but never to this extent. This takes some guts and gusto, I hope you enjoyed the experience and the final product!

 

Actually, looking over your chart again I see that you even specified the entire Chapter Fleet. That is something I have very little knowledge in. Could you provide your ressources for that?(or could anyone help with Fleet design?)

[AlabasterKnight]

There is one thing I notice on further read. You term your congregation "Cult". I think the word you might find more appropriate in a Space Marine chapter is "Chapel".

[Conn Eremon]

The Chapter "cult" is an acceptable and often used description for their spiritual practices.

[OutlawSixActual]

Gentlemen, I appreciate all the responses and feedback!  To be honest this is something I've wanted to do for a long time but have been putting off time and time again.  So it felt good to finally put everything down and push it out for review.

 

So I can easily see a lot of the missions you have assigned to Navy Marines being actually suitable for capably trained Chapter Serfs. Why would you assign Marines to the fleet, and by doing that take Marines away from the ground commander to drive transports? It makes far more sense to assign Marines to the Armory. Which we know exists due to Chronus's fluff about having 50 Marines in his charge. And he's "only" a Sergeant, which means he's not the senior commander in the Armory, so there's likely a Captain (or senior Techmarine?) and other Sergeants who aren't as awesome as Chronus. If you're forcing a Marine company commander to crew his own Rhino's you've literally depleted 10% of his combat power before he's even started. If you're filling those spots with the Reserves, you're still depleting the overall power the ground commander can employ because you've taken away his Reserves.

[...]  But Rhinos and Razorbacks would be crewed by Marines dedicated to crewing those transports.

[...] The Fleet really only needs a Space Marine to serve as "Admiral" since the Fleet's entire mission is to support the Marines. Maybe that means one per ship, maybe just the flagship, or maybe not even that. The overall commander should be able to coordinate the ground mission with the air/space mission, even if that means leaving the Navy thing to Navy guys, In the USMC, pilots all serve tours on the ground as controllers so they learn how the guys on the ground use them, and so the Marines in the aircraft can talk to somebody who knows how airplanes work. It's slowly changing because you don't need that (but it's nice). However it's not an issue since that's already exactly how Space Marine chapters operate. Marines on the ground, Marines in the skies.

Infantry Element (the Battle Companies, Reserves, Scouts, Chapter Command, Reclusiam, Apothecarion, Librarius): <1400

Armory Element (Tanks, Transports, Air/Spacecraft, Techmarines): ~500
Support Element (non-field Training/Recruitment, Fleet, any other supernumeraries) <50

The IE is primarily assigned with combat operations. Marines from the Reclusiam, Apothecarion, Librarius, etc, are tasked out for other things, especially the screening of recruits and training of initiates, as well as carrying out or overseeing the implantation process for developing initiates. But these Marines have one primary mission. The execution of combat operations.  The AE, on the other hand, has a split focus. These Marines are the crew and support for the Chapter's vehicles. There will be a sizable chunk of techmarines here to both crew and maintain vehicles. Also, metric crap-tons of Servitors and serfs.

 

The SE covers everything left over. Most likely these are Marines who were too badly injured to continue as part of one of The Companies. They are supernumeraries. Their duties involve training the Marines in the "pipeline", as in the large number of recruits who aren't old/complete enough to be a Scout yet. Any kind of other principally administrative or typically "garrison" duties. Only in death does duty end. But it doesn't help to have a guy out there with three bionic limbs, a bionic eye, and plastic tubing for lower intestines. Flesh may be weak, but Imperial mechanics are slow, lol. Put his experience and brain to work, and promote another Scout.

 

First, just wanted to I appreciate your response!  Your "leave no model unconverted" inspired me a couple weeks ago to build my very first true-scale Marine (a Captain).  Now to go and actually buy some paints.....

 

Back on topic, you might actually be surprised how close SOME of your thoughts fit with mine.  However, I put you at a disadvantage because I only posted my final, "presentation-ready" product - the overall composition of the Chapter.  before coming up with that, I built a roughly 30-35 slide powerpoint that details EVERY SINGLE position within the Chapter - every full-blooded Astartes that ever had an implant has a slot, and it's listed (with rank) on a slide in there.  It shows a little bit better just how those numbers came up to be what they are.  However, I haven't posted that because I simply don't know any good media by which to post a powerpoint presentation like that.  So, that means that I haven't left you in the best position by which to understand the "why" of my numbers as I simply didn't spell it out - and, unfortunately, that means most of my responses are then going to be "nuh uh, it's actually this."  Which I know isn't fair to a discussion like this.  So here goes!

 

So the fleet covers my Chapter's space-capable vessels - that means Battle Barges, Strike Cruisers, Frigates, Thunderhawks, Storm Talons, Storm Eagles, Caustus Assault Rams, and Fire Raptors.  While Land Speeders can be crewed by any ol' Marine (as they are not terrible difficult to pilot compared to regular land vehicles), true air and void flight similar to flying a jet fighter or the like, requires a certain amount of concentration and focus that would better be operated by dedicated pilots.  (it's kind of like how a modern infantryman can be trained to fly unmanned vehicles likes RAVENs pretty easily, but you're going to school for at least 2 years to fly a helicopter as a dedicated pilot)

 

The way that I have my Chapter''s advancement scheme, all Astartes start as Scouts, go to the Reserve Companies, and are assigned to a Battle Company.  From there, brothers identified to serve in special roles are selected based on their skill, and their reliability in battle as demonstrated by their service so far.  So a Chaplain has invariably been a line-fighter in a company, until one day Chaplain Whatshisfacius saw that he had a certain knack for riling up his brothers before battle.  Same for pilots - they have to demonstrate both a proficiency in ground combat, combined with an excellence in flying skill in the Land Speeders in training and on the battlefield.  They then go through specialized schooling and then go on to serve as crew on a Thunderhawk or other flyer in the Navy.

 

The vast majority of my Navy is actually filled with pilots, not naval staff.  Pilots make up the bulk, and as they progress, they end up being ship captains and the like (I actually have this laid out in detail but won't bore you with the details).

 

But first, before discussing the number of pilots, let's first talk capability.  I have every Strike Cruiser and Battle Barge with its own assigned pilots and Thunderhawks, etc.  This invariably leads to "extra" populations, because if, say, a Chapter deploys 6 companies and 2/3 of the Navy, that means that 1/3 of the Navy is sitting around in the rear, waiting for something else.  One could make the argument that you can cut that redundancy by cutting the fleet down to be able to support only 2/3 of the Chapter, thereby maximizing efficiency and eliminating redundancy.  However, Emperor forbid the Chapter has to commit the remainder of the Company and there aren't enough pilots to move 1/3 of the Chapter to the ground in a different theater of battle!  Therefore, I made the conscious decision that each group of three companies has it's own dedicated ships, each with their own organic crew.  That way, no matter where int he universe they are sent, a single company can move to the battle, has the pilots/drop pods to deploy to the battle, and the pilots to provide the air support for the battle.

 

That being said, you might agree that my ships have a skeleton crew, Marine-wise.

 

The Chapter has a total of 36 frigates, split into three escort squadrons (remember Battle Barges are ancient and huge, and deserve ~some~ escort force).  Each frigate has a total of two Marines - 1 ship commander (they aren't Captains - that title is reserved for my company commanders!), and 1 pilot.  The pilot crews the frigate's lone Storm Eagle as its transport/shuttle/escape craft when needed, and at all other times he helps with running the ship, runs security, etc.  But the ship will always need a commander and a pilot on call, just in case.  So that's 36 frigates, 2 crew each - 72 total Marines already!

 

The Chapter has seven Strike Cruisers (two assigned to each Battle Barge, plus one independent one for the Veteran Company).  Each Strike Cruiser has a total ship complement of 6x Thunderhawk gunships, 6x Thunderhawk Transporters, 3x Storm Eagles, 4x Storm Talons, and 12x Caustus Rams.  Fully crewed, that would require 55 pilots!  However, my ships only have 22 pilots - enough to simultaneously man 4x Thunderhawks and 3x Thunderhawk Transporters - reasonable if you consider that would be enough to drop most of the company and an initial batch of vehicles to the ground for an initial assault.  That crew has the flexibility to pilot different ships in different combinations to support any task, but the limit is in the number of men.  These pilots do all manner of tasks, from ship to ship operations, boarding, void combat, ground transport, ground combat support, and escorting.  So they are certainly not flush with time.

 

In addition, each Strike Cruiser is a small contingent of Space Marine staff.  The commander, the first officer (who controls the staff functions and orbital bombardments), and the flight controller, who controls all of the support ship operations and ensures they integrate with the ground combat plan.  So, each Strike Cruiser has 3 Marine staff and 22 Marine pilots - a total of 25, times 7 Strike Cruisers = 175 Navy.  See why the numbers rise so quickly?

 

Finally, the Battle Barge.  My Battle Barges have double the number of aircraft/pilots, but service thrice the number of ground Marines.  So 22*2=44, + 6 additional pilots who specialize solely in ground support, using Storm Talons and Fire Raptors = 50 pilots in a battle barge that is several km long.  The Battle Barge has a slightly larger Marine staff - 5 Marines instead of 3 (commander, first officer, flight controller, strategic officer (monitors and directs support to all ground Marine forces), and void officer (who manages ship to ship fight and coordinates with Imperial Navy ships)-.

 

So Frigates have crews of 1+1, Strike Cruisers have crews of 3+22, Battle Barges have crews of 5+50.  That's not counting techmarines, of course - 1 each per frigate, 2 each per Strike Cruiser, and 5 each per Battle Barge.  Remember the scale of these ships, however, and then you realize that it's not actually that high a number.  So, from the ships you have a total of 65 Techmarines and 412 Naval Astartes.  Then, the naval command is another 7 Marines, who handle matters for the entire Chapter fleet.  One Marine each is responsible for:  Naval Astropaths and operations; Maintenance; Battles; Logistics; Imperial Coordination; Navigation and Warpcharts; and the Planner.  So that's 412 + 7 + the Master of the Fleet = 420.  Of those, 350 are pilots (83%) and 70 are stationed in ship positions (17%).  Those are good numbers.  Each of those ship-bound Naval Marines runs staffs of unnumbered mortal crews, and I'm not a Navy guy so had no interest in figuring out the total crew size of a Battle Barge.  I'm a Space Marine Chapter Master, right?  I have little use for the knowledge of the nameless mortals on one of my ships.  Now, you may ask "why do you need a Space Marine to be in charge of the Navy's supplies?"  Because Marines take orders from their peers, no less.  There is a Marine who informs his Brother Marine that he won't be getting orbital bombardment support, or that his Strike Cruiser won't be resupplied for another two months.  And that Marine on the ground rests easier knowing that it is a brother Marine up on the ship watching closely to provide expert bombardment, or to send aircraft, or to make the call to push down another three drop pods in support.  It's a status thing.

 

So, hopefully that explains why I have dedicated crew and Marines on the ships.  You mentioned the possibility of having dedicated vehicle crew for every Rhino/Razorback, etc.  Well, let's assume that a Chapter has 10 Rhinos per company.  Lets say it just has 90 Rhinos.  That's 90 extra Space Marines!  And they are doing nothing except waiting around, hoping that you, the commander, decide you need Rhinos for the upcoming mission.  And, if you decide that the crew can get out and make up extra squads, that's totally fine, but you just have to be cognizant that you are adding more ground troops now to your companies (which you are free to do in your own chapter).  For me, to minimize that redundancy where possible, I have existing battle brother regularly acting as vehicle crew.  That way, I don't have to waste a Marine as a dedicated driver (which is the job for the newest greenest tankers and vehicle crews in the modern military... because it's the easiest).  Instead, I can take four squads:  1 Devastator and 3 Tactical.  Well, I want everybody in Rhinos.  So, one Tactical Squad will serve as crew - 3 become Rhino drivers for the other squads, and then I can have 1 be a Razorback driver, and the remaining 6 sit in the back of that.  Or, I can have 3 Rhino drivers and 3 Predators, leaving one to.. uh... guard the rucks.  See how that works?  That's why I prefer to use Reserve Company troopers - it allows the Battle Companies to maximize their infantry, and also allows the Reserves to participate and get experience for their greener Marines.

 

Of course, if we weren't mandated by the High Lords to keep our total populations to a minimum (remember, specified chapter sizes are an imposed restriction, so it forces us to be creative about using manpower), then every crew and aircraft would have a dedicated crew and the chapter would be 3 or 4 thousand strong and happy.  And look what happened to the Astral Claws for doing what they wanted.  But we must do the best we can within our limits.

 

Finally, my Chapter actually does generally fall into your categories:  The ground forces + combat support staff + chapter HQ numbers 1449, the techmarines + navy number 573, and the Keep (all the supernumeraries, instructors, recruiters, etc) number 35.  I think I just needed to explain my organization a little better for it all to make sense.

 

Semper Fi!  I'm not a Marine, but I'm an active infantry officer - I was a platoon leader and company XO in Germany/Afghanistan for a light infantry company, and i just finished as the sole battalion planner for a combined arms infantry battalion.  Now i'm the brigade deputy chief of ops, waiting to get out and go be a fancy civilian business man of some sort (fingers crossed).

 

Looks pretty cool. I enjoyed reading it.

 

I like that you are not a proponent of the "there can only be 1000 marines!!" nonsense, but also that you've not gone overboard by making them ridiculously huge. That said, the Navy component seems a little top heavy. I'd have thought the naval marine positions would have been filled by standard marines from the battle companies while not on campaign, with humans manning most of the critical positions? But, then again, this is your chapter and you're more than entitled to have it however you like. Also, you are clearly correct about marine pilots flying the support craft, which I didn't consider when I first made this reply, so maybe it's not as top heavy as I first thought!

 

Once more, very cool. Enjoyed it.

 

As I mentioned above, I failed in not providing the detailed breakdown of my chapter.  The majority of the navy is pilots, and only 1-5 Marines are in each space marine vessel (1 commander for frigates, 3 Marines in Strike Cruisers, 5 Marines in Battle Barges).  It's not top heavy at all, but it's my fault for not showing that.

 

Well written coldfyre!

Being the commander of a DIY Chapter myself I have tried organizing the Chapter in an original way but never to this extent. This takes some guts and gusto, I hope you enjoyed the experience and the final product!

 

Actually, looking over your chart again I see that you even specified the entire Chapter Fleet. That is something I have very little knowledge in. Could you provide your ressources for that?(or could anyone help with Fleet design?)

 

I also have very little knowledge about the 'canon' fleet structures, because it's usually pretty vague (I've only read a few of the novels though so maybe it goes more into depth elsewhere?)  However, we know that an average Chapter has 2-3 battle barges, more Strike Cruisers, and a set of support craft, escort, ships, etc.  So I started from there.  I like to have things in threes, so I split my Chapter into three battlegroups, each with one battlebarge, two strike cruisers, and a small section of escort ships.  Each ship has a very small contingent of Space Marines (2-5), while the ship is actually manned by serfs (mortals).  However, how you have your fleet organized is totally up to you and bounded only by the limits of good taste.  My way is just the way that made the most sense to me.

[OutlawSixActual]

There is one thing I notice on further read. You term your congregation "Cult". I think the word you might find more appropriate in a Space Marine chapter is "Chapel".

 

My chapter's use the term "Chapter cult" to refer to its spiritual practices, but they worship in chapels.  I may have misworded that somewhere.  However, I prefer to conjure images of a strict adherence to somber spiritual beliefs and rituals, and not necessarily a bunch of easily-swayed women being seduced to sleep with the ringleader before drinking the magic kool aid and dying :)

[Veteran Sergeant]

Cheers. I figured you were military of some sort. I only prefaced my experience so it would be clear I wasn't just making stuff up as I went along, or reading it out of some book, lol. I mean, ultimately your structure "make sense". Heck, the amount of thought and effort into it is fairly impressive. It mirrors the structure I'd laid out for my own Chapter (which I've never granulated), but with a mix of Imperial vessels interspersed because my guys are hypocritical space jerks and I figure across the thousands of years they've broken some of their toys.

 

The only real reason why I came up with a different arrangement was because I've tried to keep the idea of the 1,000 Battle Brothers actually having some meaning, even if it isn't literally "Only 1,000 guys". With 110 per company (x9), ultimately it's the same thing as having ten Marines assigned from the Armory as crew, because I can't really see a situation where a company-sized force is deployed without any supporting vehicles at all. Aside from a company-sized drop pod formation, chances are there will be additional supporting elements. I never envision the Armory as a single element. It's more of a "pool", where its assets are assigned out to the companies on a semi-permanent basis (because, let's be realistic, a Chapter rarely hangs out as a whole, and once you load a Predator onto a space ship, it's pretty much part of what whatever company(s) that it is with). Doing the 10x100 structure plus an armory gives you your extra manpower, while leaving the Chapter "codex adherent" in Obi Wan Kenobi logic ("What I told you was true, from a certain point of view" No Obi Wan, you're just a liar and George Lucas was just making stuff up as he went along). A line strength of  approximately 1,000 infantry. We already know there's an allowance for the chapter command, Reclusiam, Apothecarion, Librarius, and Techmarines. We're just stretching the allowance since GW has kept adding toys for twenty-five years, lol.

 

It's difficult to tell where pilots come from since the Stormturkeys seem to have an actual techmarine piloting them, whereas the crew supplied with the Thunderhawk and the vehicle sprue are not so distinctive. I don't think there's a wrong way to interpret that. I personally figure "pilot" is a rotating duty, where perhaps the aces stick around, but every other Marine spends some time so that you always have someone qualified to fly the Thunderhawk (the Machine Spirit can handle all the complicated duties like micro-adjustments for atmospheric entry and docking/spacefraft landing). After all, if you've got hundreds of years to serve and no hobbies for your down time, flight school seems like a pretty meager time investment. But dedicated career pilots make just as much sense. My opinion should be taken with that grain of salt, since I've argued we should be streamlining the Marine Corps and handing as much stuff off to the Navy as possible. (Admin? Being in Admin isn't being a Marine. It's dressing up like one, playing Air Force, but getting treated like crap (a Marine), and stuff still not getting done right. Why are we sending Marines through nearly 20 weeks of combat training for them to never use a rifle again? If the Navy insists on supplying vital missions like our freaking medics, they can do our paperwork and supplies too). So maybe I'm a little biased against the idea of "wasting" Space Marines too, heh.

 

Maybe one of these days I'll get bored at work and work out a more granulated structure that's "strictly" Codex. If you decide to post your slide show, I'd suggest converting it to images, then posting it as an album here. Or you could convert it to PDF, upload it to Dropbox and link it since everyone has a PDF reader (but might not have a powerpoint client) on their device.

 

Oh, and cheers as well to being a fancy businessman. These days I work in marketing and sit in a chair. It's nice. Kinda like I imagine the Air Force to be, except for two bad knees, some small scars and nerve damage, and a bad back. In my early thirties. ;)