It says in the Black Legion supplement that Abaddon commands around 400 thousand Black Legionarries.
There are said to be over 100 thousand Word Bearers and around 100 thousand Iron Warriors, the two Legions other than the Black Legion that more or less kept their coherency after the Heresy. That gives us aroun 600 thousand Chaos Marines.
Huron is said to command the second greatest force of traitor Astartes. Let's assume that is a "low" 200 thousand. Upps the numbers to 800 thousand total.
That is three Traitor Legions and plus the greatest renegade force. 800 thousand.
Add to that all the warbands from the other six Legions and all the renegade warbands that don't give a fuck about Codex Astartes obiously and gather as many men as they can. All the renegade chapter and Legion Warbands. Even the fragmented World Eaeters ware amassed in 500000 strenght during the Dominion of fire. That means we could easily assume there's much, much more than two million of Chaos Marines.
Now, the Imperium is said to have around a thousand marine chapters. Given the fact that some don't give a single fuck the Codex rule of a thousand men per chapters, but most operate at at least slightly lower numbers due to KIAs, we could assume the Imperium has around 1200000-150000 marines. At best.
How in the fuck ware they not steamrolled yet.
David Fisher
>500000
a typo, one 0 too much
Gavin Collins
living in the warp tends to make you far away from imperial space.
you big fucking goober.
Matthew Ramirez
Stop trying to make some kind of sense out of the 40k lore. Everything is mostly made up on the fly and only there to sound kinda cool.
Joseph Campbell
Imperial marines are more operator than Chaos Marines. It is known.
Carter Jones
#1: When the light of the astronomicon reaches the eye of terror, it creates demon-like creatures that are not sentient and will attack ships.
#2: Imperial guard regiments are still there and make up for it in terms of numbers
#3: The codex says no more than 2,000 in a company. They bypass this rule by having different companies. Many more loyalists than what you calculated.
#4: Chaos is chaos. They don't care to go and take cadia until they have proper motivation, and even then they know Abbadon will probably leave them to die there.
Parker King
Chaos numbers wary, I assume they often simply summon their fallen brothers back into some kind of armoured "shells" so they can keep fighting, until they die again for some reason, and eventually are given rebirth with some daemonic chaos rituals. Their recruitment seems quite low, and chances for proper mobilization seem quite low in the Eye.
There may be as few as a million Chaos Marines, or as many as 3-5 million, depending on what the story in question requires. The setting is so large, we have no idea how crowded the Eye is, or how many numerous warbands of CSMs roam the rest of the galaxy.
Numbers are not supposed to make sense when it comes to chaos and chaos mathematics.
As for loyalists, once again, there exist as many chapters as the story requires. Some of them are understrength, others larger. Nothing like shady chapters hiding their real strength by splitting themselves into various smaller fleets.
The Imperium has an unknown gigantic amount of planets, almost infinite amount of soldiers, massive amount of conflicts raging in every direction and untold amount of Spesch Mehriins fighting heresy in unknown numbers.
Any number is possible, if the story so requires.
(just look at Druchi in WHFB; almost no pop growth, always dying, but there will always be enough Druchi to die in wars if the story so requires)
Jace Anderson
Well Op you see the answer is easy EMPRA
Gavin Murphy
Chaos, as the name suggests, struggles to operate as a unified entity. Just because there's two million Chaos Marines in the galaxy doesn't mean they're all working towards the same ends and the same time. They also don't necessarily have access to the same width of allies as the Imperium does - Daemons can be difficult to summon and direct, Cults are useless as anything other than cannon fodder, and rogue IG regiments tend to be busted by the Imperium before they can meet up with the wider Chaos fraternity. While on the flipside, the Imperium obviously has the Guard, Sisters, Mechanicus, Inquisitorial private armies, assassins, and others to even the odds.
But a lot of it is due to bad writing and the magic of protagonist power. You'll routinely see jaded, ten thousand year old Chaos veterans being scythed down by Loyalists because they're the Baddies and in the end Baddies need to lose.
Sebastian Kelly
Because the Imperium is much more than just marines, in fact marines are the smallest part of its forces.
Kayden Nguyen
>and chances for proper mobilization seem quite low in the Eye.
There a thousands of worlds in or close to the Eye of Terror. Many of those are filled to the brim with human cultists and the like. Recruitment still happens and these deadly worlds make for great aspirants.
Adrian Clark
And Abaddon only has marines, no traitor regiments, no titans, no fleets, no cultists and mutants. Yeah...
Anthony Gutierrez
Chaos Marines a whole lot of the time fight like retards, and their equipment is vastly inferior, if not for Chaos fuckery and heretek inventions.
Logan Murphy
you vastly exaggerate their numbers.
20 Space Marine Chapters are set to watch on the eye of terror at all times, that's around 20k Space Marines keeping Abbadong and his thousands of thousands chaos loonies in check.
Chaos BTFO
Carter Carter
True battles are fought and won in space, orbital strikes don't care how many marines are on the ground, if there are no Emperor-tier psyker to keep the fleet away with his force of will.
Caleb Perry
You got actual sources with page numbers for any of those numbers because otherwise everything you said is bullshit.
Aiden Baker
That is exactly what I am talking about. twenty chapter. 20k Marines. Black Legion alone is 400k. How the fuck do they keep them in check.
Gabriel Robinson
and yet, unlike the Loyalists, the Traitors know fear.
All these countless Legions of Cultists, Chaos Space Marines, Titan Legions, they all have the parasitic flaw that is fear, and they would turn tail and run before dying for their cause.
and because of that the Traitors will never overcome the loyalists, not even if they had a million years to do it.
Logan Anderson
And its Failddon he could have the chaosgods them self with him and he maybe would be able to destroy a bastion on cadia before retrating the the eye of therror for another 30 minuts or so before he starts his next crusade
Camden Hernandez
There is no count of 400,000 in any capacity in the Black Legion supplement. OP is a faggot.
Mason Johnson
He got titans and good fleet ships tho
Lucas Kelly
Abbadon does not have the fleet to safely transport his 400k anywhere in force.
He has no trusted leutenants, when he ships his 400k out of the eyes protection, the Imperial Navy and Marine Fleets would have taken a heavy toll on his forces before he could get them anywhere.
1000k CSMs on Cadia are useless if Abbadon can't control the orbit to protect them from Bombardment.
Camden Fisher
Bullshit. Several sources point out that his non-Astartes fleet of human soldiers/cultists dwarfs anything Horus ever commanded and that was half the Galaxy...and this doesn't even mention the impossible size of his Daemonic servants. He also commands the Dark Mechanicus with all of their Daemon Machines and Daemon Titans.
Nicholas Roberts
The numbers of space marines are one of my main gripes with WH40k, any notion of scale goes out the window when you talk about the Space Marines. A Chapter should be compromised of a hundred thousand marines at minimum, not just a thousand to cover a planet, and the Legions should have millions of Marines at their disposal. Even if they were armoured superhumans, I don't really see how a hundred or a thousand soldiers could threaten a whole damn planet. /rant
Asher Martin
that post was sarcastic user
Daniel Flores
Because they A. Fight each other as well B. Are poorly organized at best C. Constantly are loosing more of their number to mutations and warp fuckery D. The Chaos Gods have already essentially won the galaxy, destroying the Imperium would leave them with no unifying force and would kill too much life to support the gods themselves.
William Rivera
>Daemons being made when the lighjt of the astronomican hits the eye of terror
I've never heard of this before, what's that from?
Nicholas Cox
Really quick- could anyone Photoshop Trump's head on Abaddon's body?
Thanks.
Leo Perez
>Trump's head >Not Hillary's head >Not seeing Trump as the glorious Emperor of mankind
Caleb Long
>>Not seeing Trump as the glorious Emperor of mankind But he isn't. Trump hates Iran and Saudi Arabia.
Andrew Myers
Have you seen a single arab in Wh40k?
Kevin Peterson
BTFO by
Ryan Taylor
curiously enough "Egypt" made it all the way to the unification wars, but racist Emprah never recruited spesch mehrines from there?
maybe they got BLAMmed?
David Cooper
Neither a single murrican. Persia and arabia are around. See that orange blob in the middle.
Andrew Ward
Yes, Arab characters appear a lot in 30K,
Aaron Martinez
Talon of Horus novel.
The Firetide chapter.
Robert Brown
What is a few hundred thousand space marines compared to the billion trillion citizens of the imperium?
Colton Cox
>Have you seen a single arab in Wh40k? Iran was Emperor's closest ally since the beggining of Unification wars, Pale Nomads legion was formed from bedouins nobility.
Sebastian Gomez
>Neither a single murrican
False. Merika is mentioned several times in the HH books. The IW recruit heavily from there and it is mentioned as the cultural capital of Earth
Andrew Wilson
>Merika is mentioned several times in the HH books Yeah as the last enemy of Emperor.
Jack Williams
>America defying tyrants 28000 years in the future
FUCK YEAH
James Martinez
Chaos is like Orks they spend 90% of there time fighting eachother until someone strong enough comes along smacks some heads together and points them at the imperium
Angel Wright
>defeated by Arik Taranis Also, Merika was ruled my Tyrant.
Charles Cox
so that is why no one else seems to like IW and why they also feels superior to all the rest despite being just more grumpy about everything
also the superior firepower from distance trope seems to be fitting if they have Murican connections, IW seem to favour bombarding in favour of melee.
Dylan Powell
>Also, Merika was ruled by Tyrant.
Joshua Young
Tallaran Desert Raiders Very likley became Thousand Sons
Elijah Green
>favour of melee.
yeah no shit. no army has favored melee since the Aztecs got wiped out. Also IW were mainly British so lol
Lincoln Jenkins
>sandpeople >become dusty sandmarines
it's pottery
Jacob Thomas
Donno they look pretty withe to me
also i dont think they became the thousend sons, Its pretty unlikely i think desu
Jayden Peterson
Tallaran's are ripped from Lawrence of Arabia, they have both whites and Arabs.
And if the Mongolian themed legion is Made up of Mongols, The Viking marines out of Nordics, etc.. It isnt that big a leap to think the Egyptian themed Marines have Egyptians amoung their ranks.
Ethan Wood
Ahriman was middle eastern
Aaron Anderson
also where all the African/Latino marines at? Indians, Indonesians? it's like the Big E is some kind of Aryan supremacist, or just has a fetish for Latin names in general
Levi Carter
>Its pretty unlikely i think desu In Thousand Sons novel Ahriman mentioned Achaemenid Empire as his homeland and one of the first Emperor allies in Unification wars. Terran Raven Guard was formed from arabs slavers (that's why Corax hate them).
James Morgan
>Thinking the empire of mankind isn't a fascist nazi circle jerk The whole SpaceMarine Codex >Kill all XENOS
Benjamin Jones
Fists are Latino and I think and IIRC the Luna Wolves and Raven Guard recruited heavily from India and Indonesia.
Though it should be noted the Pan Pacific region was very against the Emperor so it should be assumed their populations were ravaged by war and therefore not heavily recruited (though this could mean they were perfect candidates for the Imperial Heralds)
Hudson Foster
They're likley in the Legions without a strong ''X Culture in Space'' theme, like the Death Guard or Salamanders.
Jace Fisher
>>Kill all XENOS Not humans
Jaxon Myers
>There are said to be over 100 thousand Word Bearers Word Bearer trilogy mentions that the Black Legion outnumber the Word Bearers 10 to 1, so that's probably a bit optimistic.
Elijah Campbell
Well the Black Legion isn't all true Sons of Horus, it's anyone from any other legion who falls under Abaddon's command
Landon Wright
>Word Bearer trilogy Old fluff.
Noah Hernandez
Death Guard are confirmed to be Albanians and Salamanders secret along with the Alpha Legion and Space Wolves
Leo Johnson
It's never been super ceded.
Carter Wright
you're mums vag has been super seeded
Jackson Moore
Well in that case tallarn counts. Iron Warriors will always be my favorite chaos legion.
Samuel Fisher
>Iron Warriors >Chaos
Chase Clark
The Emperor probably made Latin itself. It's unknown what the connection between the big E and the roman empire was, but he clearly loved the hell out of it. >also where all the African/Latino marines at? Indians, Indonesians? If I wouldn't say that three of those had civilizations, I'm sure the Emperor would just call them all savages. He wouldn't be wrong, either. I don't know much about Indonesia, so I'm reserving judgement.
Also, consider that some space marine legions are based on civilizations and cultures that have yet to even be born in the second millenium. The Alpha Legion could very well be based on a planet of 20th millenium 21chan shitposters.
John Stewart
Iron Warriors are Choas Do you think of Iron Hands user?
Matthew Brown
Traitor, whatever. If you put that eight pointed star on your shoulder, I think it's fair to say you've joined chaos.
Nolan Watson
This. Why the fuck do any ground forces (including marines) matter?
Logically speaking, given the size and power of ships and the importance of interstellar travel for keeping the imperium together and not starving, void warfare should absolutely dominate all strategic considerations in 40k.
Brody Richardson
Cadia is a hell of a chokepoint.
Andrew Young
Don't you mean plotpoint?
Leo Johnson
I can honestly see why they were disliked. They were elite superhuman special forces focused almost entirely on warfare by attrition. As a result, even rank and file Space Marines were expendable, and there was constant intriguing to rise in the ranks so that they could be the ones feeding their fellow marines into the meat grinder rather than vice versa.
And given even Iron Warriors were considered expendable, their associated Imperial Army assets were basically eaten alive.
At the very least, Rogal Dorn would not have enacted ritual decimation on something as priceless as a Legion of Space Marines. Perturabo's tactics always seemed to rely on throwing men and materials at a problem until it stopped being a problem, and the Iron Cage was brilliant because it involved a lot more subterfuge and turning what first seemed to be a siege into a vicious guerilla war.
Carson James
Not anymore.
Josiah Allen
it's extra retarded when you consider that most enemies probably could easily be killed by orbital strikes. the amount of worlds where you absolutely need boots on ground should be close to zero.
even if the enemy just digs in, make their fortress into a buried graveyard, let them rot in their tunnels like rats.
Bentley Lopez
Eh, it's 40k. Fuck logic.
Jose Bennett
Don't forget cultists and traitor guardsmen.
Christopher Bell
The goal of war is not to defeat the enemy; it is to take their shit.
If you blow up all the infrastructure on the planet you just captured, why bother capturing it at all? For the same expense as repairing it, you could just go colonize somewhere else.
Alexander Hernandez
because brutal grimdark imperium, all enemies die if they don't comply
Great Crusade was not always about conquering planets intact, often they just blasted hostile xenos planets because "fhuuuuhck xenos "
blasting away certain enemy cites or forts hardly kills the entire planet
Matthew Bell
Yes but it wouldnt be as bad ass like hand to hand combat with fucking chainswords and axes even tho you got a fucking full auto grenade launcher that is power full enough to one hit everthing.
To quote Hourus McDaddyIssues: Some vermin you have to kill personally to ensure they are dead (Or something along those lines its been a while since i read the first books of the HH)
Jason Mitchell
Persians =/= Arabs, you retarted nigger
Austin Foster
Boarding actions, taking out planetary defence weapons that can wreck large ships, capturing high value things you dont want to glass from orbit, ect.
You know, the small scale battles 40k used to represent.
Adrian Cruz
>Persians =/= Arabs, Most of words in Iranian language are arabic.
Jackson Ross
Imperium should just develop proper orbital weapons system, but they're retarded
But no, they insist on using classic WW2 human wave attack formations which even the Soviets had to abandon in the end, because they were running low on manpower reserves
I would honestly wish to see Legions perform better, launching attacks with combined air, orbital and ground firepower. you know, waste ammo instead of expensive Astartes?
Jack Diaz
Alpha Legion and to a lesser extent the Raven Guard are the only sane Astartes in 40k
Levi Wright
>What are ultramarines
Ethan Johnson
no one likes Ultramarines they tend to win, regardless of force parities, or tactics, or terrain or anything else because fucking azure blue plotarmour
goddammit the mere thought of Ultramarines is enough to push a normal WH40k fan to Chaos worship
Aaron Scott
>ultramarines >sane
Nathan Williams
The Ultramarine hate is just a meme, superfam.
Thomas Scott
maybe it's just because I'm a loser in real life and hate "perfect" guys IV and XVII get more love from me, fuck loyalists
Camden Ramirez
Only the insane have strength enough to prosper. Only those that prosper truly judge what is sane.