[Fluff] How many Thousand Sons ?

[MillionsSons]

Heyo -

I don't know if someone else tried to do the math from the New Codex, page 18-19 "Legion Organisation", to see how strong is the legion in number.

 

But here is what I've got,

1 thrallband is roughly 80 space marines (6x10 SOT/rubricae squads, 4 sorcerers, + hellbrutes/tank crew)

 

Assuming 9 thrallbands per sect, 9 sects per cults, and 9 cults, and adding the Rehati and the Sekhmet, we should have around 60,000 thousand sons.

 

Which is huge considered barely 1,000 made it originally to the sorcerer planet. Of course the fleet came back later but it hardly justify such a large number.

Do you have an idea of where all these rubrics would come from ?

[Raven1]

Well Thousand Sons sorcerers use trickery to gain Helbrutes to use in battle perhaps it isn't passed those same sorcerers to use trickery to "dust" some ignoble traitors.

[Panzer]

Imagine if Ahriman finally succeeds in reversing the Rubric just to find out that most of his Legion isn't actually his Legion anymore. :D

[Quixus]

Imagine if Ahriman finally succeeds in reversing the Rubric just to find out that most of his Legion isn't actually his Legion anymore.

Well that has't stopped Honsou from being an Iron Warrior either.

[MillionsSons]

Yeah or I was wondering if they can actually go to Prospero and cast the rubric spell on all the corpse they found there?

Maybe all new aspiring sorcerers had to go through some sort of probation journey and go there to find their own rubrics, in order to be endorsed as an aspiring sorcerer?

[Sorceress]

So after a bit of research it looks like only 1000 thousand sons survived the battle of prospero, which would seem very limiting.But this doesn't include any that where sent away with the half the fleet that magnus sent Away or any that where not on there home world when it was attacked,  most of whom where drawn to the planet of sorcerers after the battle. 

 

Aside from the battle of prospero, the only other real engagement the thousand sons are known to have fought in was the siege of terra. Ten years passed between the two battles during which the sons of Magnus regrouped and likely spent that time attempting to restore there numbers. In addition to this the time between the battle for terra and the casting of the rubric is very fuzzy, the next time the thousand sons went to war the rubric had been cast but it could have been centuries before that.

 

unlike most of the traitor legions aide from arhiman and his cabal the thousand sons stayed together and under the guidance of magnus until the 32 millennia and the battle of the fang.

 

no clue how many where effected by the rubric, but there was potential time for the legion to restore its numbers before and after the end of the heracy, and before the rubric

[A D-B]

Always worth remembering that A Thousand Sons and Prospero Burns were using the old, much smaller Legion numbers that Tales of Heresy, the 5th Edition Chaos Codex, and later HH novels avoided. (And some earlier HH novels, too.) So they're not reliable sources for Legion numbers.

Edited February 27, 2018 by A D-B

[Khannis]

Always worth remembering that A Thousand Sons and Prospero Burns were using the old, much smaller Legion numbers that Tales of Heresy, the 5th Edition Chaos Codex, and later HH novels avoided. (And some earlier HH novels, too.) So they're not reliable sources for Legion numbers.

I wonder, was there a deliberate move to change these numbers? Perhaps to allow for the Legions to suffer enormous losses and still be credible threats 10,000 years later? Also, is there any reliable source for Legion numbers?

[A D-B]

 

Always worth remembering that A Thousand Sons and Prospero Burns were using the old, much smaller Legion numbers that Tales of Heresy, the 5th Edition Chaos Codex, and later HH novels avoided. (And some earlier HH novels, too.) So they're not reliable sources for Legion numbers.

I wonder, was there a deliberate move to change these numbers? Perhaps to allow for the Legions to suffer enormous losses and still be credible threats 10,000 years later? Also, is there any reliable source for Legion numbers?

 

 

Forge World is a reliable source, as are all of the novels from The First Heretic onward, excluding Prospero Burns (which was written pre-TFH, but delayed). It's also worth considering that it's in no way a new change. The 2007 Chaos Codex... The ancient HH art books and the old Sabretooth card game, etc... So the figures were rolled out well over a decade over now, in multiple sources, but the early HH novels had very little continuity oversight. In one of the planning meetings for TFH, I asked about getting consistent Legion numbers, which is part of why the HH series suddenly starts adhering to the canonical figures around that time.

[Skerr]

I need to read our fluff section again, in a few places they mention rubric marines being awoken. The one battle where the dust is thick in the air before the battle, the power armor drops like meteorites and rises into rubrics when around the dust... really hard to say.

[Khannis]

Thanks for the info ADB! Edited February 27, 2018 by Khannis

[The Yncarne]

As long as we’re talking background, is there an explicit timeframe as to when the ‘Sons’ armor went from red to blue?

[Sonoftherubric21]

So after a bit of research it looks like only 1000 thousand sons survived the battle of prospero, which would seem very limiting.But this doesn't include any that where sent away with the half the fleet that magnus sent Away or any that where not on there home world when it was attacked,  most of whom where drawn to the planet of sorcerers after the battle. 

 

Aside from the battle of prospero, the only other real engagement the thousand sons are known to have fought in was the siege of terra. Ten years passed between the two battles during which the sons of Magnus regrouped and likely spent that time attempting to restore there numbers. In addition to this the time between the battle for terra and the casting of the rubric is very fuzzy, the next time the thousand sons went to war the rubric had been cast but it could have been centuries before that.

 

unlike most of the traitor legions aide from arhiman and his cabal the thousand sons stayed together and under the guidance of magnus until the 32 millennia and the battle of the fang.

 

no clue how many where effected by the rubric, but there was potential time for the legion to restore its numbers before and after the end of the heracy, and before the rubric

 

According to Inferno; 10 THOUSAND sons (10,000) were at Terra for the Siege. 

 

About 1200 got to Sortiarius at the survival of Prospero, another 4000 or so arrived at Sortiarius some time later before the siege, and then the remaining 4800 were probably at various stages of the heresy with various chaos legions (translation: not brutally murdered on site like with loyalists....evidently even the *noble* ultramarine's murder others in their sleep....)

[Lord_Caerolion]

Could also be that many groups within the Legion started trying frantically to recruit on Sortiarius after the loss of Prospero, to try to rebuild the Legion after the damage done by the Wolves.

[Galloway]

As long as we’re talking background, is there an explicit timeframe as to when the ‘Sons’ armor went from red to blue?

Also curious when the head crests appear- not sure I've ever seen it, wondered if its more associated with burning of prospero specifically, turning on Imperium, the rubric, or something else

[Kite Senet]

My understanding from the Ahriman Omnibus is that it happened before the exiles made the color change; it seems unlikely that they made the armor shape change while refusing to make the armor color change with the Magnus loyalists (which I assumed happened after the Rubric), so I'd suspect the baroque armor probably was instituted before the Rubric itself was cast and Ahriman's cabal was exiled; it seems likely to me that it happened as part of the preparations for the Siege on Terra, or was perhaps just a side effect of the warp on the Planet of the Sorcerers distorting the armor around the highly structured, baroque minds of the Thousand Sons legionnaires, turning psychology into physical reality.

[MillionsSons]

 

 

Always worth remembering that A Thousand Sons and Prospero Burns were using the old, much smaller Legion numbers that Tales of Heresy, the 5th Edition Chaos Codex, and later HH novels avoided. (And some earlier HH novels, too.) So they're not reliable sources for Legion numbers.

I wonder, was there a deliberate move to change these numbers? Perhaps to allow for the Legions to suffer enormous losses and still be credible threats 10,000 years later? Also, is there any reliable source for Legion numbers?

 

 

Forge World is a reliable source, as are all of the novels from The First Heretic onward, excluding Prospero Burns (which was written pre-TFH, but delayed). It's also worth considering that it's in no way a new change. The 2007 Chaos Codex... The ancient HH art books and the old Sabretooth card game, etc... So the figures were rolled out well over a decade over now, in multiple sources, but the early HH novels had very little continuity oversight. In one of the planning meetings for TFH, I asked about getting consistent Legion numbers, which is part of why the HH series suddenly starts adhering to the canonical figures around that time.

 

 

Wow... I just realized that you are my fav author from the HH... thanks for stoping by   !!

If I remember correctly in TFH the figure of 100,000 space marines is mentioned for the World Bearers who are described as the second largest legion after the Ultramarines 

So most of the legion are probably around this number too (I remember Corax saying he lost 80,000 sons on Istvaan) except:

- the  Salamanders probably much less as they were decimated before the HH starts in some campaign). 

- and The Thousand Sons were probably one of the smaller legion as well as so many died from the mutations before Magnus makes a pact with Tzeentch.

[MillionsSons]

Always worth remembering that A Thousand Sons and Prospero Burns were using the old, much smaller Legion numbers that Tales of Heresy, the 5th Edition Chaos Codex, and later HH novels avoided. (And some earlier HH novels, too.) So they're not reliable sources for Legion numbers.

 

Ah ok so what you are saying is that the figure of 1,000 TS that made it to the Sorcerer Planer after Prospero should probably be revised. Which is cool, the more TS the better :)

[Xenith]

 

Imagine if Ahriman finally succeeds in reversing the Rubric just to find out that most of his Legion isn't actually his Legion anymore.

Well that has't stopped Honsou from being an Iron Warrior either.

 

 

Actually...

in Angel Exterminatus it was revealed that Honsou was an Iron Warrior the whole time.

 

Onto the OP:

 

This is an interesting question, and one still wrapped in mystery. I think The HH books, or perhaps the Ahriman trilogy, suggests that only one Thousand Son  actually made it to Soratarius...