Dark Angels have 150 chapters?

[HaSY]

For those who have Flight Fantasy Game Deathwatch, can you cite which page for the size of Dark Angels Chapters (150 chapters according to FFG Deathwatch in Dark Angels 1d4chan)?

Cheers!

[Interrogator Stobz]

I'd be supprised if it does, on page 13 it says "the Ultramarines, being by far the largest of the Legions, were divided many times. The exact number of new Chapters created from the Ultramarines is uncertain: the number listed in the oldest known copy of the Codex Astartes (the so called Apocrypha of Skaros) gives the total as 23,but does not name them."

I had a bit of a relook through the DA fluff in it too, nothing jumped out at me regarding 150 in the Second Founding fluff.

 

Disclamer, I have had my book for a few years and there might be a new version ;)

 

Stobz

[Teetengee]

It may be referring to total dark angels chapters not just second foundings or direct foundings. Although that should still only be around 10% (100 chapters at a given time) according to founding numbers. Although attrition over time could mean that there have been 150 founded chapters who claim Lion El'Jonson as their primarch. That would seem reasonable.

[Interrogator Stobz]

I agree the number of current DA successors is vastly higher than 23, but what I quoted was the only info I could find in the FF DW book regarding numbers of Chapters.

[Teetengee]

those 23 were just from the second founding, not the total for all of the few dozen foundings since then

[Grand Master Belial]

I don't have the books in front of me but the 150 is total known chapters. But FFG cannot be declared as canon though it stays as true as possible.

[Harlan Skorus]

I just browsed the books (albeit reasonably briefly) and I can find no mention of even a ballpark figure. Not sure where 150 has been pulled from; maybe it's some assumption someone wrongly drawn from the Legion's pre-heresy numbers?

[Teetengee]

The percentages (10% rough) of all chapters created from each geneseed are stated. This means that it is quite likely they simply extrapolated from the 1000 (rough) chapters in existence at a given time by using whatever their estimated rate of extinctions/refoundings/mergers for da chapters was.

[Cactus]

HaSY, I suspect that whoever it is on 1d4chan is pulling numbers out their backside.

 

There is one (1) chapter of Dark Angels. They have an unspecified number of successor chapters but 150 feels rather high. Remember that the Dark Angels' genetic lineage is one that the High Lords of Terra are strangely reluctant to use despite its stability.

[Interrogator Stobz]

those 23 were just from the second founding, not the total for all of the few dozen foundings since then

Isn't that what I said?

[Bryan Blaire]

Of the total Chapters (1000), I would find it extremely hard to swallow the Dark Angels gene line having contributed even 100 total Chapters. 50-75 seems like it would be a much more likely number, and the upper end of that scale to me even feels off. 25-50 Chapters would make the DA about 2.5-5% of all total Marines in existence, which seems in line with a gene line that the High Lords are reluctant to use.

[JeffJedi]

Even then not all would be known and not all would be Unforgiven.

[HaSY]

Ironically now I found out how 1d4chan arrived at that figure... 

From post *17 in this thread

http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/233264-30-40-chapters-not-ultramarines/
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The Deathwatch sourcebook Rites of Battle gives tables and rules for creating a random custom chapter. Here's the breakdown of the "progenitor" table:

50% chance of Ultramarine successor;
15% chance of Blood Angels successor;
15% chance of Dark Angels successor;
5% chance of Imperial Fists successor;
5% chance of White Scars successor;
4% chance of Raven Guard successor;
4% chance of Iron Hands successor;
1% chance of Space Wolf successor;
1% chance of Salamanders successor.

Looking here, it's interesting to note the changes from established fluff-- Imperial Fists have only a 5%, while BA and DA are at 15%. All the usual canonicity debate aside, it's also worth noting that this sort of table is there as a play aid rather than an actual breakdown of statistics- hence all the nice, even increments- and that with their own playable codexes drawing in players, it's no surprise they bumped up the percentage of the rather popular Blood Angels and Dark Angels.

Personally, I'd probably change it to "18% Imperial fists, 8% Blood Angels, 9% Dark Angels" or other such zany ratios, but that's a mixture of personal taste as putting things closer to canon. 

Edited by sofacoin, 01 July 2011 - 08:17 PM.
 

[Candleshoes]

I could have sworn the Blood Angel numbers for character tables showed 3%, which makes sense, considering the degenerative nature.

 

It is not unlikely the DA have a very, very high successor rate regarding geneseed useage, what would be interesting to know, is how many of them actually were told that they are descended from the blood of the Lion. The purity is beyond scrutiny, the intent however...

[MadMek83]

We, the Unforgiven have no chapters. We are the legion. We are the righteous unforgiving vengeance of the Emperor.  We are the Unforgiven.

[HaSY]

Because of that fact alone, other Chapters and Chaos warbands should fear us of what we are capable of 

[Teetengee]

I always feared you due to the ap3 power mauls...

The fact that Dark Angels still very much operate as a legion prompts an interesting question.

Are they more (to look for fallen) or less(secretive paranoia) likely to second brothers to the deathwatch as their percentages might suggest?

[Bryan Blaire]

I think it is probably more likely a higher rate of seconding than normal with the Deathwing/Inner Circle members, since they actually know what to look for.

 

I don't think the DA/Unforgiven are going to pass up an opportunity to reinforce the "Hey, we work with people" idea and the intelligence resource at the same time. They may even have some hypnotherapy that immediately reacts if they happen to be scanned by a non-Unforgiven librarian (if that's possible), or resistance training.

 

The battle company or reserve company DA/Unforgiven would probably be seconded at a normal rate, because they don't really know anything anyway (so there's really nothing for them to hide), even if they have their suspicions.

 

So overall, I think it would be slightly higher than normal compared to other Chapters.

[Chronotonic]

we have to remember there were a lot ...and it seems that a lot is an understatement of how many Legionaries were killed during the heresy...

 

so them being 150 chapters agains the Night Lords 150 chapters during their 3 year war against each other then getting home at the end of the heresy only to be fired upon by their own homeworld and losing so many ships in space and then the marines lost when the planet blew up

 

that would drop the 150 chapters to even less...

 

 

however

 

It says 2nd Foundings then goes on to the 3rd Foundings...

 

why not a 2.1 

 

example

 

Ok Captain Titus you and your company as well as these other 22 Companies are already at full strenght or close enough to it...follow the Codex see you when I see you...

 

Now for you Captain Titas...You have half a Chapter of men by the way I want this done for every legion company...so next year when you are back up to strenght you and those other 50 Chapters left over from the Heresy will go forth just like these guys did and so on and so forth...

[Phoebus]

EDITED: added citations from Extermination and expanded my thoughts a little more.

 

A couple of things:

The Apocrypha of Skaros dates back to the earlier editions of the game, when the Legiones Astartes were less than one tenth the size they have been since the revisionisms introduced by the Horus Heresy series and the accompanying Forge World books.  Thus, you have to take references to "twenty three Ultramarine Successor Chapters from the Second Founding" with a grain of salt.  Once the size of the legions increased tenfold, logic follows that the number of Successor Chapters will have increased as well.

 

What do we know about the Dark Angels?  At the "Ask the Author" forum section of the Black Library Bolthole forums, Gav Thorpe offered that the Dark Angels are "one of the normal-to-larger-sized legions, with warriors in excess of 100,000 at the outbreak of hostilities." Note that this post dates back to July of 2012 - shortly after Betrayal was first released.

 

With that in mind, "records ... place" the Sons of Horus' fighting strength at 130,000-170,000 warriors; the World Eaters were "estimated" to number 150,000; there were "likely" 110,000 Emperor's Children; and the "most accurate" reports place the Death Guard at 95,000 Space Marines. A year later, in Massacre, the Iron Hands were "estimated" to number in excess of 113,000 Legiones Astartes; some put the Night Lords numbers "at a little over 90,000", others at "closer to 120,000"; "commonly held estimates" place the Salamanders at 89,000 Legiones Astartes; and the Word Bearers were "thought to be" 140,000 warriors, but that figure was discovered to be a lie, and it was later considered they rivaled the Ultramarines in numbers. A year after that, the Imperial Fists "tally of warriors rarely rose" above 100,000; "exact figures" for the Alpa Legion are "impossible to obtain", but "most contemporaneous accounts" place them at between 120,000-130,000 warriors (though some argued they numbered as few as 90,000 and others said there were as many as 180,000 of them); the Iron Warriors were "estimated" to have between 150,000 and 180,000 Legiones Astartes; and the Raven Guard are described as sending a little under 80,000 to Isstvan V and a force of 1,000 to accompany the Therion Cohort to Deliverance. 

 

The most important reference, however, is in Extermination:  it describes as the theorized manpower of the Alpha Legion (specifically, the 120,000-130,000 range) as being within the middle tier of Legion strengths.   So now, in my humble opinion, we have a fairly helpful picture where Legiones Astartes manpower is concerned.  Legions with less than 90,000 warriors are at the extreme low end, and are either among the newest or have suffered catastrophic events (such as the Salamanders).  90,000-110,000 is still within the lower end of the spectrum, and accounts for a focus attritional warfare, gene-seed disasters, etc.

 

What does that tell us about the Dark Angels?  Where Gav says "one of the normal-to-larger-sized legions", we should probably read "in excess of 120,000, but less than 150,000."

 

We also know that, near the conclusion of the Thramas Crusade, the Dark Angels were at "full strength" - per Lion El'Jonson ("Savage Weapons").  That makes sense. The Dark Angels were considered one of the most successful legions, and thus they shouldn't have been lacking manpower at the onset of the Horus Heresy.  They committed a very small force to stymie Horus during the events of Fallen Angels, before committing to the Thramas Crusade.  The Night Lords are infamous for avoiding fair fights to begin with, and the superior odds that the Dark Angels probably had on them also likely discouraged them from committing to the sort of protracted battles that would cost the I Legion.  The Lion's use of Tuchulcha ensured him absolute tactical superiority against the Night Lords (prior to the events of Prince of Crows) probably also meant his losses at that penultimate battle were minimal.

 

What does this tell us?  The Dark Angels had somewhere between 110,000-140,000 Space Marines following the end of the Thramas Crusade.  Counting the events of "Savage Weapons", The Lion, and Prince of Crows, that leaves us with roughly four more years of Heresy.  We also have to account for the Scouring, and for the destruction of Caliban, as well.

 

How many Dark Angels were there prior to the Second Founding?   We can't know.  I think the greatest challenge that they faced following the Thramas Crusade was the lack of any reinforcements and materiel from Caliban (since by this point Luther's rebellion had taken place).  Obviously, that's all based on conjecture.  Even so, I struggle to see how the Dark Angels would have returned to Caliban with anything less than three quarters of their original strength - or around 90,000-105,000 Space Marines. The language used by the Codex indicates that Luther and the Fallen inflicted grievous damage on the loyal Dark Angels.  They are described as "battered" after the destruction of Caliban and "much-depleted" after waging several campaigns for the Imperium (during which a portion of their strength was devoted to the refitting of the remaining chunk of Caliban into the Rock).  It may be fair to argue that the Dark Angels had only half their manpower left by the time of the Second Founding, or perhaps even fewer warriors.  That's just a place-holder, though:  I don't think there's any way of knowing how many Dark Angels actually did survive to that date.

 

Still, that would have allowed for the creation of a significant number of Chapters.  More importantly, the Hunt for the Fallen had already begun by this time, and the Imperium already kept a watchful eye on the Dark Angels due to their strange behavior even before the Second Founding.  This would not have been lost on the Inner Circle.  The need to maximize their efforts against the Fallen, coupled with the known distrust of the only authority that could call for the creation of new Chapters, would have steered the Inner Circle to try to create as many Successors as possible.

 

Let's say, then, that the Dark Angels made it to the Second Founding with only half of their peak, pre-Heresy manpower.  They would not have created, e.g., just 60 Chapters out of 60,000 Space Marines. Rather, they would have created as many combat-effective Chapters as possible.  Consider modern military doctrinal definitions of combat effectiveness: a fighting force with 70-84% manpower is considered combat effective, with minor deficiencies; one with 50-69% is considered combat ineffective, with major losses and deficiencies.  If, for example, the Dark Angels decided to field their Chapters at 70% fighting strength, they could have created 80-85 Successors out of those 60,000 warriors.

 

That number, and one perhaps as high as 100, matches up nicely with the 400 Chapters that were supposedly created during the Second Founding (see Codex: Grey Knights).  The Ultramarines would undoubtedly have accounted for most of those (even with all the damage done by the Shadow Crusade, Ultramar would have been a tremendous base from which to reconstitute their legion), but the Raven Guard and the Salamanders were annihilated.  The Space Wolves, for one reason or another, only contributed a single Chapter to the Second Founding.  The Blood Angels suffered terribly not just at Signus and Terra, but from the constant attrition of the Red Thirst, as well.  The Imperial Fists suffered the loss of the majority of their Retribution Fleet and were undoubtedly mauled (outnumbered as they were) on Terra.  The White Scars must have fared better thanks to their hit-and-run tactics, but almost certainly suffered tremendous losses at Terra.  The Iron Hands did not suffer as badly at Isstvan V (losing "only" their Primarch and their veterans), but following that battle they appear to have been divided, and their willingness to use technological necromancy might imply that they suffered significant losses later in the Heresy.

 

Given that context, it makes sense that the Dark Angels would make up the balance of that 400 Chapter figure.

 

Bottom line, even accounting for several Chapters being destroyed in the last ten thousand years, and for the High Lords (understandably) not wanting to create anymore forces from the geneseed of Lion El'Jonson, the Unforgiven would be one of the most powerful organizations in the Imperium of Man.  They might not have one hundred and fifty Chapters... but they still have about as many Chapters as were sent to quell the third biggest emergency of the 41st Millennium (the Macharian Heresy).

[aura_enchanted]

You all seem to miss the mark on how dark angels and our successors operate. You need to stop looking at it as a pile of chapters but as a carefully crafted abuse of the chapters system to maintain a legion of marines.

[Phoebus]

I don't think anyone is missing that... I just think people are curious about just how big that "secret legion" actually is.  :)

[Gillyfish]

I think Phoebus' reasoning is impeccable, given the new information we have about the Heresy now. Unless, of course, there are conflicts to come which have a much higher attrition rate (such as the Siege of Terra and possibly the consequent scouring). But those would have to be massive in nature. The other unknown factor to bear in mind is pressure form xenos forces which regained ground against humanity and might have tied up Astartes forces and resources. The xenos might also have required Astartes forces to be spread more thinly (assuming they tried to defend against them at all) and the attritional losses might have been heavier than in the Great Crusade as Astartes forces transitioned from mass assault to special forces style deployment.

 

Still not convinced that would have made a huge dent in the numbers mentioned though!

[twopounder]

It would be extremely difficult to remain covert when wielding 150 chapters. Beyond that, meetings of the inner circles would result in several battle companies worth of HQ units. That's basically 200 - 300 chapter masters together at once. That's insane.

 

Though on the 1000 chapter limit, it's mentioned a few times that the exact numbers are unknown. 1000 is supposed to be the maintained amount, but there could be well over that. In fact, there probably is, considering several chapters that were thought destroyed resurfaced, so just in those replacements there would be more than exactly 1000 chapters. I've never heard of an entire chapter being wiped out because they hit 1001.

[Chronotonic]

but it depends on how the chapter counts their numbers

 

do they count leaders, techmarines, librarians and others as part of the 1k or just the bolter, jump pack and heavy weapon guys for the 1k...which means some first companies would not even be counted in some chapter...