Traitor Legions My estimates on Traitor Legion numbers

[Moonreaper666]

Here is my idea on how many Astartes are in each Traitor group and other facts about them

 

Emperor's Children - 360k

 

-More blessed CSM than the Word Bearers

 

Iron Warriors - 220k

 

-2nd best at 'recruiting' new Marines and 2nd 'best' at losing them via attrition warfare, right behind the World Eaters

 

Night Lords - 130k

 

-2nd Legion with the most Marines with their Primarch's geneseed, behind the Alpha Legion

 

World Eaters - 160k

 

-The Traitor Legion with the easiest means to recruit new members as shown in Guymer's Angron novel. Logistics be damned

 

-The Legion with the fewest Marines that have their Primarch's geneseed

 

Death Guard - 470k

 

-Aggressive recruiting allows their number to swell past their heights during the Heresy

 

Thousand Sons - 18k Sorcerers and 90k Rubrics

 

-Able to raise dead Marines, from their own and enemy Astartes, into Rubrics though quality will differ

 

Black Legion - 2 Million

 

-Right behind the World Eaters

 

Word Bearers - 200k

 

Alpha Legion - 1-5 Million

 

Chaos Non-Affiliated Fallen - 17k

 

Red Corsairs -10k

 

-Does not include the many warbands that have pledged themselves to him, whether tempirarily or permanently. The vassals are Tens of thousands

 

-Vast majority of Corsairs are former Loyalists

 

Even with all those numbers, military experience, weapons and blessings the fractured nature of Chaos usually prevents the Traitors from utilizing it all before the Great Rift

 

Even then, the Millions of Primaris Cannon Fodder Cawl unleashed is another reason why the Imperium managed to slow down their advance. Though most of the inexperienced Primaris died like flies early on they did held the line

 

There are always near-endless Trillions of Guardsmen, Penal Conscripts, PDF and Frateris Zealots to throw at Chaos even with the Great Rift

 

EDIT:

 

-The Death Guard invaded Ultramar while the Iron Warriors invaded several of the most heavily defended subsectors WHILE fighting and killing each other during the War of Rust and Ruin! (Attrition warfare at its finest with many Traitor Titans dying)

 

-Honsou came into the YEARLY Skull Harvest with 300 Marines. He came out with 5k Marines, 12k soldiers and a few ships. He kills 350 ULTRAMARINES, kills BILLIONS of Ultramar citizens and destroyed many Smurf ships!!!

 

-ADB stated the Black Legion had TWO-HUNDRED-THOUSAND ASTARTES at the START of the 1st Black Crusade (BEFORE they assimilated some of the Legion Host which did have COMPARABLE NUMBERS!!!)

Edited May 12, 2023 by Moonreaper666
Less contentious title.

[Xenith]

I'm not seeing the facts you say you have, this all seems like speculation 

[Doctor Perils]

The entirety of the adeptus astartes was around the 1 million mark pre-rift (1000 chapters of 1000 marines of the line), no way the Black Legion on its own would be double that number.

 

What are you basing your numbers on?

 

You also seem to discount how decentralised and disorganised most of the Chaos "legions" become during the scouring and after (with notable exceptions like the Black Legion, Emperor's children and IIRC Word Bearers) - most of these "legions" will gladly go into battle against their own brothers of the same geneline, let alone the rest of chaos. As such, even if you numbers were realistic (which I don't believe), they would mostly be meaningless, as they couldn't be cohesive enough forces to be really counted as such.

 

Chaos forces should really be seen more as a variety of different warbands with interwoven allegiances, as opposed to cohesive military regiments on the most part. It isn't meant to be sensible, they are canonically senseless for the most part

[Karhedron]

The HH series has consistently provided a value of about 100K for Legion sizes at the start of the Heresy with a few outliers like UMs and WBs (larger) and 1KSons (smaller).

 

If you think differently please quote your sources. You have not provided any facts or even speculation. These are just imaginary numbers.

[Verbal Underbelly]

If you look at the 8th edition Death Guard codex you can extrapolate about 49,000 line troopers from the page with all the plague companies on. This is around the time of the cicatrix maledictum. My copy is in the attic currently so I can't totally confirm this without mucking about but this at least shows a way of using proper source material to demonstrate fictional facts.

[Xenith]

4 hours ago, Moonreaper666 said:

Thousand Sons - 18k Sorcerers and 90k Rubrics

 

Clues in the name also, as I recall, in A Thousand Sons (McNeill), only 1000marines were brought through the warp to Soratarius, and then even fewer remained to be victimised by the Rubric. Sorcerers are few and far between - aspiring sorcerers are maybe 1 in 10, and actual sorcerers 1 in 30-100 (captain level). Assuming you multiply the decade old figures by 10x, that's still only maybe 40 - 50 sorcerers and 950 - 1000 rubrics. 

Edited May 10, 2023 by Xenith

[Special Officer Doofy]

Horus heresy book one betrayal has the Death Guard at around 95,000 at the start of the heresy. They then nuked roughly 1/3 of them because they were still loyal to the emperor (same book). So maybe around 60-70k after team killing.

 

Later books (as in 40k) mention that DG are one of the most unified traitor Legions along with Iron Warriors and Word Bearers. Death Guard still have their Apothecaries (plague surgeons) and actively raid loyalist chapters for their geneseeds to replenish their numbers. I could have sworn I read somewhere that DG in 40k were only about 70k marines (could be making it up, I can't remember or source it). 

 

Emperors Children, World Eaters and Night Lords are so fractured I doubt their numbers are even close to the Death Guard's numbers. Black legion when adding all of their warbands together is the largest, but like others have said your numbers seem to be completely made up. I would take the word facts out of the thread name haha.

Edited May 10, 2023 by Special Officer Doofy
Spelling

[Gederas]

On 5/10/2023 at 6:40 AM, Xenith said:

I'm not seeing the facts you say you have, this all seems like speculation 

On 5/10/2023 at 8:14 AM, Doctor Perils said:

The entirety of the adeptus astartes was around the 1 million mark pre-rift (1000 chapters of 1000 marines of the line), no way the Black Legion on its own would be double that number.

 

What are you basing your numbers on?

See, there's a gif of Senator Armstrong from Metal Gear Rising: Revengance that sums up Moonreaper's threads and "sources", but uhhhh.... B&C has rules about swearing

[MegaVolt87]

Stepping up for WB and disputing the entire theory- in the WB 40k trilogy, 3rd book 13,000 WB CSM invade a system they block off from the warp. So, at most they could plausibly have up to 130,000 but more than 13,000 CSM because this was only part of the legion that showed up. In the same book, its said the black legion outnumber the WB 10:1, so they could have a minimum of 1 million space marines, maybe 1.3 mill marines. Everyone else would have less than 130k marines if BL and WB are the large forces of 40k. Now wait a minute, this also was during a time before HH legion numbers had an extra zero stuck on the end. Dark Creed released in 2009, Horus Rising in 2012, so we know WB had 13k minimum and not everyone showed up. So, if they had 20k CSM and BL had 10x more, to scale with the old legions numbers, that would make BL have 100k which does fit the established setting at the time 

 

Now even with the CSM no longer in the warp and in realspace because of the rift, even then numbers won't over bloat due to attrition, geneseed stability/ recruit quality. All the CSM in real space again means is that where most were not recruiting, they can now. But what makes this a dangerous thing is that if you let each warband dig into real space long enough, warbands grow into company strength, larger warbands into legion chapter strength (so Praetor, Warsmith etc is not a paper title anymore, the numbers will justify the title again). This is also balance with warbands being destroyed, because they are switching to more conventional battles to secure supply, territory etc and they get caught out by the Imperial millstone. GW has basically made scouring era 2.0 by putting CSM into real space, dangerous but the Imperium is protected by plot armour, so its just a different universe meta that just changed the flavour at most. The more things change, the more they stay the same really for 40k. 

[SanguinaryGuardsman]

On 5/10/2023 at 4:33 AM, Moonreaper666 said:

Here is my idea on how many Astartes are in each Traitor group and other facts about them

 

Emperor's Children - 360k

 

-More blessed CSM than the Word Bearers

 

Iron Warriors - 220k

 

-2nd best at 'recruiting' new Marines and 2nd 'best' at losing them via attrition warfare, right behind the World Eaters

 

Night Lords - 130k

 

-2nd Legion with the most Marines with their Primarch's geneseed, behind the Alpha Legion

 

World Eaters - 160k

 

-The Traitor Legion with the easiest means to recruit new members as shown in Guymer's Angron novel. Logistics be damned

 

-The Legion with the fewest Marines that have their Primarch's geneseed

 

Death Guard - 470k

 

-Aggressive recruiting allows their number to swell past their heights during the Heresy

 

Thousand Sons - 18k Sorcerers and 90k Rubrics

 

-Able to raise dead Marines, from their own and enemy Astartes, into Rubrics though quality will differ

 

Black Legion - 2 Million

 

-Right behind the World Eaters

 

Word Bearers - 200k

 

Alpha Legion - 1-5 Million

 

Chaos Non-Affiliated Fallen - 17k

 

Red Corsairs -10k

 

-Does not include the many warbands that have pledged themselves to him, whether tempirarily or permanently. The vassals are Tens of thousands

 

-Vast majority of Corsairs are former Loyalists

 

Even with all those numbers, military experience, weapons and blessings the fractured nature of Chaos usually prevents the Traitors from utilizing it all before the Great Rift

 

Even then, the Millions of Primaris Cannon Fodder Cawl unleashed is another reason why the Imperium managed to slow down their advance. Though most of the inexperienced Primaris died like flies early on they did held the line

 

There are always near-endless Trillions of Guardsmen, Penal Conscripts, PDF and Frateris Zealots to throw at Chaos even with the Great Rift

 

EDIT:

 

-The Death Guard invaded Ultramar while the Iron Warriors invaded several of the most heavily defended subsectors WHILE fighting and killing each other during the War of Rust and Ruin! (Attrition warfare at its finest with many Traitor Titans dying)

 

-Honsou came into the YEARLY Skull Harvest with 300 Marines. He came out with 5k Marines, 12k soldiers and a few ships. He kills 350 ULTRAMARINES, kills BILLIONS of Ultramar citizens and destroyed many Smurf ships!!!

 

-ADB stated the Black Legion had TWO-HUNDRED-THOUSAND ASTARTES at the START of the 1st Black Crusade (BEFORE they assimilated some of the Legion Host which did have COMPARABLE NUMBERS!!!)

Could you cite some sources for these numbers?  

[techsoldaten]

On 5/10/2023 at 8:14 AM, Doctor Perils said:

The entirety of the adeptus astartes was around the 1 million mark pre-rift (1000 chapters of 1000 marines of the line), no way the Black Legion on its own would be double that number.

 

What are you basing your numbers on?

 

That question cannot be answered as there is no quantitative source for estimating current 40k Legion size. It's never been specified.

 

The Black Legion numbers seem light based on the Inverse Protagonist principle. In order for a protagonist to seem heroic, he must be able to achieve high kill counts against antagonists. There must also be an explanation for how the antagonist can sustain such losses.

 

Of all the Traitor Legions, Black Legion die the most in literature, video games, fan fiction, etc. By this right, true logic, they must have the largest reserve pool in order to continue functioning as a Legion. Based on Dawn of War and Inquisitor alone: Black Legion's IP score must be at least 1000x the size of their opponent.

 

Based on that number, it can be established that facing an opponent like the entire Ultramarines chapter, the Black Legion would require at least 1mil marines, plus another 1 mil to take their place when they die.

 

So 2 mil is the minimum number that satisfies the Inverse Protagonist principle.

[MegaVolt87]

1 hour ago, techsoldaten said:

 

That question cannot be answered as there is no quantitative source for estimating current 40k Legion size. It's never been specified.

 

The Black Legion numbers seem light based on the Inverse Protagonist principle. In order for a protagonist to seem heroic, he must be able to achieve high kill counts against antagonists. There must also be an explanation for how the antagonist can sustain such losses.

 

Of all the Traitor Legions, Black Legion die the most in literature, video games, fan fiction, etc. By this right, true logic, they must have the largest reserve pool in order to continue functioning as a Legion. Based on Dawn of War and Inquisitor alone: Black Legion's IP score must be at least 1000x the size of their opponent.

 

Based on that number, it can be established that facing an opponent like the entire Ultramarines chapter, the Black Legion would require at least 1mil marines, plus another 1 mil to take their place when they die.

 

So 2 mil is the minimum number that satisfies the Inverse Protagonist principle.

 

Didn't Abaddon send just 10k BL to stop RG's revival? UM were losing until RG woke up and started 1v1 each chaos lord, then they ran away because of that. 

[tychobi]

Seems fine n dandy and as accurate as any 40k lore. I accept it as headcannon. Thank your for your service Moonreaper666