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Legion structure


recon0321

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So we know it went

Legion command

Chapter

Battalion

Company

Squad

So my question was it only 2 battalions per chapter? Or did it vary like everything else within a legion

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Horus Heresy Volume I: Betrayal provides a great example of a standard layout for a space marine legion. It explains how as the legions grew in size this format began to vary substantially by Legion. In practice many larger legions regularly exceeded the standard.

According to Betrayal, a legion is comprised of tens of thousands of space marine legionaries. These numbers are further organized into chapters of roughly a thousand space marines each. Each chapter is subdivided into two battalions of five 100-marine companies. As the legions increased in strength, some legions maintained battalions of seven or ten companies.

Nothing specific is stated about the number of battalions, so it is probably up to the legion as they grew.

That picture that Archangel posted pretty much sums it up. I like to imagine that Battalions vary in number throughout a legion, so that some chapters end up larger than others. It is also worth noting that not all legions called them chapters, battalions, or companies. For example the IW call their chapters Grand Battalions, WS Brotherhoods, TS fellowships and so on. Hope this helps!

That table, though awesome in ways I can't put into words, was the standard Legion TO&E based of the Thunder Warriors Force Organization when they first left Terra. By the time their fathers had rejoined the Legions, those Org. Charts were altered. Some heavily, some not so much.

 

Which is, again, cool as it gives us the freedom to do.... whatever we damn well please.

 

While Khans are shown as being equivalent to Lord Commanders, the Brotherhoods they lead are Companies, not Chapters. Bit of an error, I think, but Scars may have rectified this by creating a Noyan-Khan rank over the Khans.

That's already in Scars. You have the Brotherhoods, and then above that you have the Hordes.

 

“Hasik Noyan-Khan, Lord commander

Jemulan Noyan-Khan, Lord commander”

 

Excerpt From: Wraight, Chris. “Scars: Collector's Edition.” Black Library, 2013-12. iBooks.

This material may be protected by copyright.

And I don't know about the Thunder Warriors bit(although it does sound reasonable), but the last bit of page 29 and the first bit of page 32 of Betrayal say where this organization of the Legions would see changes after the finding of respective Primarchs and even the introduction of recruiting worlds as fiefs, some minor and some dramatic.

 

 

 

While Khans are shown as being equivalent to Lord Commanders, the Brotherhoods they lead are Companies, not Chapters. Bit of an error, I think, but Scars may have rectified this by creating a Noyan-Khan rank over the Khans.

That's already in Scars. You have the Brotherhoods, and then above that you have the Hordes.

That's why I said Scars may have rectified it.

 

I say "may" only because it never outright states equivalency in the book.

 

 

 

Thanks Heathens, I will look it up. Must have missed it on my read through.

Yes and no. More like you are saying the sky is blue and I'm pointing out the clouds and stars while it is nighttime.

 

Betrayal says Khan. We automatically assume "Khan". In Scars we see three different ranks of "Khan": Khan, Noyan-Khan and I forget the third, but it is Jaghathai Khan's Khan which supposedly means "Khan of Khans".

 

Going by Scars, with the Brotherhood of the Storm being 500 in number, its equivalent would be "Battalion", not Company. The other thing is that since we only see mention of two Hordes, but with multiple Brotherhoods answering to each Horde, then it would seem the Horde either is an overbloated Chapter-equivalent, or is higher than Chapter but still below Legion.

 

To me, that would mean someone looking in from the outside just saw "Khan, Khan and then Khan and assumed something and wrote down accordingly rather than studying the nuances of Chogorian culture to learn something as specific as "Noyan-Khan", "Horde" and "Brotherhood".

 

Or they saw a Brotherhood with 1,000 marines and assumed that was the standard.

Just wondering if this is the layout, why all the leader figures in the HH novels are ranked as company captains with only a few senior figures over them such as "first captains", "lord commanders" and "tetrarchs" ? (for example Temeter, Tarvitz, Garro, Horus Aximand, Loken, Khârn, Pollux etc.). Surely they should have held the rank of chapter master or battalion commander or something similar ?.  

Well Garro being a "captain", "battle captain" per tradtion, of the DeathGaurd is actually more or less equal to a chapter master.

 

I also suspect that most Battalion commander were just senior captions to whom less experianced captains answered. Like the captain of the 6th company would also be second battalion commander.

Well Garro being a "captain", "battle captain" per tradtion, of the DeathGaurd is actually more or less equal to a chapter master.

Greater, actually. Garro was Battle-Captain over a Death Guard Great Company, which has whole Chapters subordinated within it.

 

This is shown in Betrayal, one of the Contemptor Dreads fluff. Something like 19th Chapter, 4th Great Company. Can't remember specific wording or page.

 

Edit: It might be important to note that the Sons of Horus Legion does not have Chapters or Battalions. It is entirely made up of Companies and their Captains, though they fluctuate in size and those in charge of Squads are lesser Captains themselves. This was how the Legion that opened the series was organized, and I think that it was borrowed a little too heavily by other authors for other Legions.

Just wondering if this is the layout, why all the leader figures in the HH novels are ranked as company captains with only a few senior figures over them such as "first captains", "lord commanders" and "tetrarchs" ? (for example Temeter, Tarvitz, Garro, Horus Aximand, Loken, Khârn, Pollux etc.). Surely they should have held the rank of chapter master or battalion commander or something similar ?.

Remember, this layout is the layout of the Legions before the Primarchs took command of their Legions.

 

So when we get to certain Legions like the Death Guard, World Eaters and Sons of Horus, the Chapters don't exist. Although in the case of the Death Guard, each company is (ideally) one-seventh of the Legion.

 

And in others like the White Scars, Salamanders, Iron Hands and Emperor's Children, we do see Chapters, but they have different tiles, such as Horde, Realm, Clan or Millennial.

 

Then we get weirdos like the Night Lords where a Chapter only exists when there is an individual grouping of companies and that Chapter only exists as long as they are grouped together. So the only time you see a rank like "Chapter Master", or "Regent", is only when the ranking captain of such a Legion decides to give himself such a title.

 

Well Garro being a "captain", "battle captain" per tradtion, of the DeathGaurd is actually more or less equal to a chapter master.

Greater, actually. Garro was Battle-Captain over a Death Guard Great Company, which has whole Chapters subordinated within it.

 

This is shown in Betrayal, one of the Contemptor Dreads fluff. Something like 19th Chapter, 4th Great Company. Can't remember specific wording or page.

 

Edit: It might be important to note that the Sons of Horus Legion does not have Chapters or Battalions. It is entirely made up of Companies and their Captains, though they fluctuate in size and those in charge of Squads are lesser Captains themselves. This was how the Legion that opened the series was organized, and I think that it was borrowed a little too heavily by other authors for other Legions.

Sons of Horus have ad hoc battalions with commanders being picked to lead the whole thing from one of the companies. 

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