Legion Fleets - A Brief Reference Guide

[Marshal Rohr]

Ships Classes

Capital Ships
Battleships:

-The largest vessels in the Expeditionary Fleets.

-Commonly between 8 km and 12 km long, though the largest vessels in the Imperial Fleet can exceed this by a significant amount.

-Battle Barges were a type of battleship developed during the Great Crusade to primarily act as planetary assault craft for Legion Deployments and ship-to-ship combat. Battle Barges were not purpose built for this role until the late Great Crusade. It is also a catch all term for any ship used exclusively to transport and deploy Legion forces.

Grand Cruisers and Galleas of War:

-Grand Cruisers are heavy vessels intended to operate without support if needed. They can also be purpose built or tasked for specialized weaponry or roles. They frequently act as flagships for small fleets of cruisers and escorts.

-The Galleas of War is primarily a support vessel/transport that has formidable defensive capabilities and armaments. Used for deep-range exploration.

Cruisers

-Mainstay of the Legion Fleets

-Commonly between 4 km and 6 km log, though can be larger.

-Cruisers are role oriented, instead of generalized. Battle Cruisers, Assault Cruisers, Lance Cruisers, Strike Cruisers, et al fall under this classification.

-Strike Cruisers, like Battle Barges, are modified designs meant for deploying legionaries in planetary assaults and boarding actions.

Non-Capital Ships

-Strike Vessels and Escorts: The catch all for the smallest grade of naval vessels during the Great Crusade and Horus Heresy.

-These can be anything from reconnaissance craft, to frigates (the most common type), destroyers, etc.

Legion Fleets

The Dark Angels:

-Noted as one of the most numerically superior fleets

The Iron Warriors:

-Over 100 Capital Class Vessels

-Noted as having increased ship building greatly, and indicates lower estimates would be inaccurate during the Horus Heresy

-Noted multiple times as possessing heavy classes of capital ships and outfitting ships for extremely heavy void combat and planetary assault

The Space Wolves:

-60 Capital Class Vessels

-Approximately 240 Strike Craft and Escorts

The Imperial Fists:

-1,500 Ships of Various Classes including some of the largest in the Imperial Navy

-Noted to be the largest known Fleet

The Blood Angels

-300 Capital Class Vessels, many of which were Heavy Cruisers or Battleships

-Less than 600 Escorts and Strike Craft

-Noted as outfitted ships for high intensity planetary assaults and combat

-Noted as one of the premier fleets of all the Legions

The Iron Hands:

-Approximately 100 Capital Class Vessels

The World Eaters:

-60 Capital Class Vessels

The Ultramarines:

-30-35 Capital Class Vessels

-Noted as possessing mostly mid-tier Cruisers, smaller Battle Barges, strike craft, and escorts in its Fleet

-Reliant on the Imperial Navy for most of its staying power in combat and transportation

-Ship classes the Legion did have in abundance were easy to produce in the 500 Worlds

The Death Guard:

-70 Capital Class Vessels

-Approximately 210 Escort and Strike Craft

-Noted as possessing a high proportion of heavier capital classes

The Thousand Sons:

-40 Capital Class Vessels

-Approximately 120 Strike Craft and Escorts

The Sons of Horus:

-Noted to be one of the most numerically superior fleets.

The Word Bearers:

-Lorgar secretly increased the number of vessels possessed by his legion

-Potentially, the Word Bearers fleet outnumbered the Imperial Fists

-Over 100 Capital Class Vessels including 9 Gloriana-class Battleships, and the 3 Abyss-class Kingships

The Alpha Legion:

-Very extensive and very diverse in class

-Lacking in large numbers of Capital Classes

-Later revealed in Book 8 to be a lie, the Alpha Legion had 600 Capital Ships and approximately 1000 strike craft and escorts with which to confront the White Scars with at Chondax

-Noted without specifics the Alpha Legion was able to confront and outnumber legions in many engagements across the galaxy simultaneously, though it doesn't mention if the Chondax fleet is exceptionally large or common

Editor's Note:
I will keep updating the list. If you find something I missed drop it in the comments with the page number from the Black Books for me to verify it and add it. This was a quick and dirty job after Karden00 pointed out many people don't have access to all of the Books without piracy, so I figured in an old BnC tradition we would post the meat of the information* (and eventually the full quotes when I have a moment). Any help is appreciated!




*All information is taken from the Black Books, and not any Black Library novels. This is done for consistency and continuity, not any kind of disparagement of BL. Please keep any new references or mentions to the Black Book content only to maintain that consistency.

[Marshal Loss]

Word Bearers fleet (HH: Tempest, P18)

- Over a hundred capitol class ships, including 9 Gloriana-class battleships, and the 3 Abyss-class kingships

[Marshal Rohr]

Word Bearers fleet (HH: Tempest, P18)

- Over a hundred capitol class ships, including 9 Gloriana-class battleships, and the 3 Abyss-class kingships

Holy Christ, that’s a big miss :D. I’ll add it in.

[Noctus Cornix]

Don't the Legions only have one Gloriana a piece?...

[depthcharge12]

No mention of the dark angels having a large proportion of star forts and gun/engine encrusted asteroids? Or was that a BL thing?

[Marshal Loss]

Don't the Legions only have one Gloriana a piece?...

 

Nope. A common misconception. Some did (the flagships made specifically for the Primarchs). Some, e.g. the Word Bearers, clearly had far more.

[Darkwrath121]

To add to the above, Tempest also notes that the Ultramarines (for example) had two Glorianas, and are specified as having quite few capital ships by legion standards.

 

So I imagine most Legions had a bunch, if even the regular Imperial fleets had access to them (such as the Amphion).

[Petitioner's City]

Also perhaps more glorianas were given to key lord commanders across the expeditionary fleets or mechanicum fleets; it is a shame that we don't have more on the non-astartes fleets, but i guess they aren't the focus of the setting.

[bluntblade]

 

Don't the Legions only have one Gloriana a piece?...

 

Nope. A common misconception. Some did (the flagships made specifically for the Primarchs). Some, e.g. the Word Bearers, clearly had far more.

Some of these were taken over Isstvan V.

 

The Death Guard are also noted for having a number of unique and very powerful capital ships, the Terminus Est being the most prominent of these.

 

Regarding the DA, I expect we won't here until they emerge in a Black Book, but their one appearance so far involves a unique relic-ship called the Dark Sovereign.

[Marshal Loss]

 

 

Don't the Legions only have one Gloriana a piece?...

Nope. A common misconception. Some did (the flagships made specifically for the Primarchs). Some, e.g. the Word Bearers, clearly had far more.

Some of these were taken over Isstvan V.

 

"Several". Corax's Shadow of the Emperor was destroyed by the Terminus Est, Ferrus' Fist of Iron never made it to Isstvan V, and Vulkan's Flamewrought is presumed missing with no further appearances, making it a prime candidate for capture. If the Word Bearers took more than a single Gloriana at Isstvan V, it was because there were other ships there that we are not currently aware of.

 

In any case, even if they took 3 this still leaves them with far more than the singular vessel people tend to attribute to the Legions, as I clearly stated.

[bluntblade]

Sorry Marshal, I hadn't meant to contradict you there.

 

People often seem to think that BL canonises the 19 ships - does anyone actually have a quote where that's said?

[MegaVolt87]

I can understand IW, IF and AL having large fleets but how on earth would WB get more of a fleet? Those Abyss class ships, I think were in production for WB's a long time, even before Horus fell to corruption? Only thing I can think of is WB building up their fleet longer than anyone else as technically Lorgar was the first to fall to chaos. 

[Marshal Rohr]

I can understand IW, IF and AL having large fleets but how on earth would WB get more of a fleet? Those Abyss class ships, I think were in production for WB's a long time, even before Horus fell to corruption? Only thing I can think of is WB building up their fleet longer than anyone else as technically Lorgar was the first to fall to chaos.

That’s pretty much exactly what they say in Book 2. There was no way to know how many ships the Legion had because they’d been building in size and strength using their breakneck pace of conquest as a cover.

[Leif Bearclaw]

I can understand IW, IF and AL having large fleets but how on earth would WB get more of a fleet? Those Abyss class ships, I think were in production for WB's a long time, even before Horus fell to corruption? Only thing I can think of is WB building up their fleet longer than anyone else as technically Lorgar was the first to fall to chaos. 

Because, when Lorgar turned to Chaos, he got access to the 'Bad Guy Army Printer^TM', so he could have all the dudes and ships he needed to be villainous anywhere and everywhere the script demanded, regardless of plausibility or previous losses. No need for logical logistics etc. with the Bad Guy Army Printer^TM!

[SkimaskMohawk]

Or you know, he had an extra 50 years to prepare, with already a large legion and many planets worth of infrastructure, who's loyalty was to lorgar and the word bearers.

 

Their large push in conquests post-monarchia raised their status considerably, so large requisitions for ships and material would probably be approved as well.

[rendingon1+]

Not that it helped him in the longer run because: Word Bearers. They just can't do good.

 

I'm more concerned with AL bcgr at the moment, memes come true that's what it is.

[SkimaskMohawk]

Yea, the AL are a little obnoxious if you go solely by this list. It's important to note that rhor is doing solely black books; in Scars jaghatai points out that a ton of the ships are just mockups or troop ships posing as capital ships. It's classic misdirection.

[rendingon1+]

Or a case of good fluff vs bad

Anyway...Hydra Dominatus.

[Sandlemad]

Yea, the AL are a little obnoxious if you go solely by this list. It's important to note that rhor is doing solely black books; in Scars jaghatai points out that a ton of the ships are just mockups or troop ships posing as capital ships. It's classic misdirection.

 

Malevolence picks up on this, specifically for Chondax. It doesn't go so far as to say 'actually they had a reasonable amount of ships, really' but does offer it as something of an unquantifiable mitigating factor for how they deployed fully 600 ships at Chondax. We're not going to have any idea of how many of their ships were ruses like this but if the AL were doing it there, they were probably doing it elsewhere.

 

Malevolence also notes (p82) that a number of the AL ships at Chondax were later identified as ships from other legions that had been presumed lost years before the heresy. Same situation as the Word Bearers, they'd had decades to work on building their assets up. Part of that was clearly through theft rather than manufacture.

 

I don't have it to hand but I think Extermination mentioned something about the AL using captured and retrofitted xenos ships throughout the great crusade as well?

[Tymell]

Great stuff Marshal! There's one further bit of detail on the Sons of Horus fleet from FW Book I:

 

"in excess of a hundred capital ships, and perhaps three times that figure in smaller cruisers and escorts".

[Sandlemad]

Yeah, seconded, this is a good idea for a thread.

 

Would need to check the page number later but Betrayal mentions the Death Guard fleet being notable for its unique DAoT relic ships. That's not to say that they necessarily had more of them than than other fleets but that they were prominent in this regard.

[Marshal Rohr]

Great stuff Marshal! There's one further bit of detail on the Sons of Horus fleet from FW Book I:

 

"in excess of a hundred capital ships, and perhaps three times that figure in smaller cruisers and escorts".

Hell yeah, do you have the page number so I can add it to the list? This weekend I’m gonna try to do the exact quotes from each book.

[Tymell]

 

Great stuff Marshal! There's one further bit of detail on the Sons of Horus fleet from FW Book I:

 

"in excess of a hundred capital ships, and perhaps three times that figure in smaller cruisers and escorts".

Hell yeah, do you have the page number so I can add it to the list? This weekend I’m gonna try to do the exact quotes from each book.

 

 

Page 79, top right corner.

 

I also wondered if it might be worth mentioning the unique use of Reflex Shields among the Raven Guard's fleet, but I can't find an actual reference for that in the FW books, so maybe not.

[Marshal Rohr]

 

 

Great stuff Marshal! There's one further bit of detail on the Sons of Horus fleet from FW Book I:

 

"in excess of a hundred capital ships, and perhaps three times that figure in smaller cruisers and escorts".

Hell yeah, do you have the page number so I can add it to the list? This weekend I’m gonna try to do the exact quotes from each book.

 

 

Page 79, top right corner.

 

I also wondered if it might be worth mentioning the unique use of Reflex Shields among the Raven Guard's fleet, but I can't find an actual reference for that in the FW books, so maybe not.

 

 

Thanks, man. After I get the numbers down and formatted with page references, I will probably go back and add in other flavor blurb like the reflex shields and ship configuration preferences. For instance, there tons of flavor text in Extermination about how two ships of the same class, size, and crew complement could be entirely different depending on how they are configured that could be informative to new Heresy players or people who don't have access to all the books. 

[corvus.calvariam]

You're doing the Emperor's work Marshal. Would you be up to including individual vessel names under each legion? I remember a few Raven Guard vessels were pretty notable, if you think think its a worthy inclusion I'll look them up and see what they were and where they appeared.