Space Marines aren't technically allowed to train and outfit their own army right?

As said, their heightened senses mean they can detect you before you detect them. As such, they can better hide themselves from you.

Furthermore, their significantly greater problem-solving abilities and decades if not centuries of training mean that they can plan out the best routes and options from the very beginning, knowing exactly when to be where and what to do there.

It's also not that hard to walk silent. You just gotta be mindful what you're stepping on and foot placement (anything loose = bad).

No. Someone has to empty the SM's poop containers in their power armor.

...

There is one chapter (War Hawks or something they're called, IIRC) that fights alongside their Chapter serfs on a regular basis, though it's due to the Chapter getting fucked up somewhere along the way

Any space marine chapter with a homeworld is going to have a PDF.

Some chapters have homeworlds that are feral worlds or are worlds that don't otherwise have a PDF.

Flesh Tearers having a PDF made of cavemen and dinosaurs would be pretty cool though.

How many space marines are there? Are chapters really capped at 1000? I don't care how badass you are, 1000 dudes and a handful of vehicles can't do much.

>How many space marines are there?
A lot

>Capped at 1000?
Only nerds follow the codex

Sectors have stopped fighting wars simply from hearing that a single space marine ship entered the sector to come stop them.

Every world has a PDF, pretty much, even if that PDF is riding xenoponies and fighting with lances and chainmail.

FOR THE LOVE OF EMPEROR
ITS ABOUT LOGISTIC YOU DIMWIT

t. Departmento Munitorum

Logistics are for nancies

Don't be such a show off Logan, we all know that YOU can life off the land because you are such good puppy, aren't you? Who is a good doggy? WHO?

That's stupid.

GW fluff is stupid.

amen

You do know Marines are basically an extension of the Emperah hisself in the eyes of the normies?

>people in the Bible stop bickering and fighting when an angel descends from the heavens
>THAT'S STUPID

Please send all paperwork to Clare then, Goodnight everyone. Goodnight Bill.

*SHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSH*

Fuk you Bob
Where's the rations

ATTENTION CITIZEN!

Oh God Emperor not again

Sure. But they're not stopping the fight because they're scared of the space marines' capabilities. At best, they might be stopping the fight because they're scared of the capabilities they (wildly inaccurately) think the space marines have. At worst, they aren't even thinking about what the space marines will do and are instead stopping the fight just because of the status the space marines hold in Imperium theology, and how disturbed it would be to oppose them.

The original point - that a thousand people is a spectacularly low number for a unit in a planetary battle - still stands. Any planetary force who doesn't stop fighting just because the space marines say so doesn't have any reason to really care that they showed up. There's fluff all the time about space marines successfully occupying a hostile planet with just one chapter, but, like, how? How can they occupy anything? That's like one space marine per two hundred thousand square miles of any Earth-like planet's land area, and even worse for planets that have less water or make more use of their oceans. Even if they were just exterminating the planet's filthy xeno population, that's millions of kills per space marine. That would require three months of continuous slaughter if each space marine killed one alien per second with no breaks for food or sleep, and in order to maintain that pace all the xenos would have to just line up in one spot. Otherwise they have to spend time in transit.

The 1,000 cap on marines really is a huge hole in a prominent part of the setting that is only ever resolved with "the Imperium is like 90% hysterical morons whose belief in the space marines abilities is so far ahead of their historical track record and so completely fucking critical that something catastrophic happens if the space marines lose, even though the amount of ground they can actually take and hold is paltry." It's kind of hard to care what happens to a planet if it's full of people that stupid.

>Sure. But they're not stopping the fight because they're scared of the space marines' capabilities.
>the guys who can teleport anywhere on the planet and murder your leader with terminators
>the ships that Inquisitors use to glass planets with cyclonic torpedos in exterminatus
>not scared

Maybe you should read some fluff.

>d in robes doing stuff like piloting and repair
they defend the chapters fortress monasteries as well.

From what I understand, marines just go in and knock out key infrastructure and murder the leaders of the rebellion/army. Marines are too killy to be wasted in long term occupation and pacification, that should be handled by the Guard. That said, 1000 supersoldiers with space magic and a battle barge seems like it'd be enough to assasinate the command bunker of any regular army, knock out communication hubs, transportation hubs, or key factories/shipyards. But you're right, they'd be kind of shit at occupying an entire planet by their lonesome.

>the guys who can teleport anywhere on the planet and murder your leader with terminators

Are you claiming that space marines are actually just really big groups of assassins who never fight land wars?

>the ships that Inquisitors use to glass planets with cyclonic torpedos in exterminatus

Are you claiming that marine chapters are actually naval units, and the actual marines are only used as part of boarding actions?

If that's the case, they can never fight an effective battle without the Guard backing them up. That's not how the fluff plays out, though. Space marines totally do successfully capture or defend planets with just themselves. So, how?

>they might be stopping the fight because they're scared of the capabilities they (wildly inaccurately)
>(wildly inaccurately)
Holy shit, You've only played the videogames and read zero fluff haven't you

Short answer to most of your questions: the imperium is not winning because of the number problems, destruction of geneseed and multiple other things, They occupy things by orbital bombardments from ships the size of small countries and teleportation fuckery from their terminators/psykers

and very few chapters actually abide by the 1,000 rule, It's not a hole, It's a literary device to show the cracks in the imperium when chapters are hiding their numbers from the bulk of the other offices or starting "Penance crusades" and being edgy to bolster their numbers to the thousands

>They occupy things by orbital bombardments from ships the size of small countries and teleportation fuckery from their terminators/psykers

Gonna redirect you to this post:

Are you claiming that space marines are actually assassins who do not fight land battles? Are you claiming they are naval units who are completely interchangeable with anyone else crewing the same ships? Are you claiming that land battles don't come up frequently in codices?

>very few chapters actually abide by the 1,000 rule,

Like 95% of chapters actually mentioned in fluff as abiding or not are chapter compliant, and over half of the chapters are Ultramarines descendants. Do you have a fucking citation for your bullshit?

Okay, Picture this, You have an army of 1million greenskins vs a full chapter of space marines

>They begin orbital bombardment, glassing anything that has zero value.
>They teleport a squad of terminators which are basically indestructable death machines that can blink in and out of existence, directly ontop of the warboss, killing him instantly.
>The main force of battlebrothers take up tactical positions on whatever (and I mean WHATEVER due to droppods) environment best serves best for defence and basically lay down fire with weapons that can kill 20-30 things a bullet before stopping since they hurl slugs of metal the size of a mans head.
>Chaptermaster and veterens or whatever special unit this particular space marine chapter has enters the battle on the front line with power weapons that can rent the fabric of reality into two and suck huge groups of enemies into the warp
>Anything left over gets rolled over by violent sentient indestructable landraiders that are basically disco-lights of war
>if things get tough, say the ork horde has a gargant or something crazy, The space marines can call in their chief librarian cast a world destroying warpstorm that will completely cleanse the battlefield.
>All of this is if they haven't been lent a titan or have a imperial knight attachment accompanying them

Every single space marine is the living embodiment of the emperor, they are actual living breathing angels of death that have complete and utter plot armor

So how many space marines do they usually have? Say Iron Hands. If they are going to stop an ork waaagh that has control of an earth size planet, how do they wage this war? In the fluff it would mention them valiantly fighting tooth and nail, but I just don't see logistically how you wage a planetary ground war with less than a few million soldiers.

When you guys say they break the 1000 person rule, by how much? 5000? 10,000? 50,000,000?

In the fluff I find it usually doesn't go like that. Instead it's a chapter master or whoever leading a bunch of marines through a burned out city against hordes of Xenos. Battle brothers and space marine vehicles are dying left and right.

I always think to myself, "well Gav, if those two predators just blew up to a deff rolla, how many more do they really have?"

Black templars which to my knowledge are the most dickish with their numbers have an estimate for 5000 to 15000

This really comes down to the writer, It's generally that way with orkz because It's only the MASSIVE MAAAAASSSSIIIVE waarghs where the orkz will stop fighting each other to actually focus on the real enemy or they're just plain to stupid to coordinate themselves compared to the decades of training the space marines have

With tyranids, It's normally a strike team to kill a hive tyrant, wipe out a genestealer cult or something like that, and the other races are pretty akin to space marine numbers

>Are you claiming that space marines are actually just really big groups of assassins who never fight land wars?

They're elite shock troopers. They don't fight "land wars" that's what IG do.

>Are you claiming that marine chapters are actually naval units, and the actual marines are only used as part of boarding actions?

Yes, space marines have fleets, and space marines do indeed perform boarding and landing actions. None of this is prohibited by the Codex Astartes.

Not only do you need to read some fluff, you might need to grow a brain.

Op, you're looking for the alpha legion basically.

During the Horus Heresy there were 20 legions of 50,000 to 250,000 space marines each. 2 disappeared/were destroyed early on, 9 went traitor, and 9 went on to split into chapters during the Second Founding (after being reduced to anything between several hundred to 23,000 each).

The primarch of the Ultramarines had already been using chapters as an independent unit equivalent to a brigade, and thought they were sufficient to accomplish anything that required the use of marines (as opposed to normal human troops). Between that and the Imperium's fear of space marines after the Heresy, he made the call to split the legions into chapters.

1,000 really is too little, but it's too late, they wrote themselves into a corner. Of course, even the Forge World guys, despite being big fans of history, sometimes write about an invasion force of 20,000 men as if it were large…

When written well, chapters (usually half of one, or less) help a larger army out at a particularly tough spot, like taking and holding the breach in the fortress at Vraks.

Holy fuck, are you dense? are "marines" a naval unit ? "Marines"? J

>very few chapters avide by the 1,00 marine things
That's false and a plot point as to why the Badab War started. The High Lords and Inquisition will mess you up if you try to go against Big Papa Smurf.

The BT thing was retconned into them now being a Codex Compliant chapter with some differences, such as Crusader Squads instead of Tacticals.

Well they can fight land wars more or less and they are pretty good. But it is a waste of talent. Like 1st Recon in generation kill.

But- but that's stupid!

Stupid!

STUPID!

:(

>How can they occupy anything?

You don't have to be "physically" here, to occupy a place. The fact you could be there at any moment is enough and spaces marines are masters of airborne attacks / teleportation, etc.

Also you don't have to kill every single ennemy by hand to remove it, control the ressources and you might starve the most out.

Best exemple is during a war in Africa when 600 paratroopers from Rwanda, I think, sneaked into Congo and seized the major airport of the country, thus almost putting a country of 60 millions to it's knees

Doesn't the 1000 marines thing not count 'support staff' marines like librarians or techpriests?

user, people have been commonly snuck up by tanks in warfare, and not tiny scout tanks, modern MBT's.

Anything can be sneaky with the right application and enough skill.

1000 means ten companies of 100 men. When you look at an organization of a codex company, it is splitted into 10 squads of 10 men. The first for veterans and the 10th for scouts, with tacticals and assault and devastators in between.

This doesn't include command squad personnel (banner bearer, company champion) apothecaries, lexicanums, epistolaries, chaplains, techmarines, the honour guard and the captain himself. Also the chapter master.

A thousand is a round number made for the squad organization into multiples of ten. Support roles for marines comes apart, roughly some dozens.

No, there's 9 Companies with 900 Marines in them. The Scout Company doesn't count and aren't full space marines yet. The officers, drivers, etc make up the last 100.

(cont) Forgot to consider the driver crew for vehicles, supposedly marines as well instead of serfs of servitors.

Reminder, almost all battle serfs are failed Space Marines that survived their failed surgery into Space Marines.
They're heavily cybernetically enhanced to keep their fucked up bodies alive (with them having been partially implanted with geneseed).
How would you go about stat them? I imagine them being sort of at the crossroads between Imperial Guard, Skiitari and Space Marines themselves.

Also, I vaguely remember something that chapter serfs are between 10 to 20 times as numerous as Space Marines, so you're looking at like between 5000 to 20000 chapter serfs going from small dying chapters to chapters like the Ultramarines and Space Wolves.
Chapter serfs don't fight in wars as in - on the battlefield, because chapter serfs are needed to fly the spaceships, drive the tanks, etc. But they do fight when push comes to shove. Fighting on board a spacemarine cruiser must be hell, because you walk past some skinny guy in robes and ignore him as a servitor, and suddenly he jumps up, rips your head off and smashes your commanding officer's head in with your head while screaming "For the Blood Angels!".

>(cont) Forgot to consider the driver crew for vehicles, supposedly marines as well instead of serfs of servitors.
Wait what? I am pretty sure vehicles are piloted by chapter serfs, but I'm a 1998 3rd ed. guy, so maybe I'm just outdated?

>The Scout Company doesn't count
yes it does

>The officers, drivers, etc make up the last 100.
no they don't

Never is it stated that Scouts count as Space Marines, and instead they are neophytes, not Initiates. Meanwhile if you do the math, the Ultramarines have 998 guys if you don't count the scouts but do count all the officers and specialists. Additionally, Chapter's use reserve companies to pilot vehicles.

Generally speaking, Space Marines are not meant to be deployed en masse, and situations where this happens are meant to be the exception and not the norm (chapters that operate differently like the Minotaurs are singled out because of this).

Space Marines are elite linebreaker units designed to pierce defences with a concentrated, small force. This allows supporting forces to pour through the cracks and also to reinforce behind them.

Good examples of Space Marines used well:

>Red Scorpions piercing through the siege on Vraaks and allowing the Death Korps to break the last line.
>Space Wolves charging through the orks during the Red Waaagh! and allowing the Cadians to reinforce behind them and kill off splintered units as they went.

Also, in terms of the 1000 rule, if I recall (and I'm not sure what the current fluff on this is), but support staff (Librarians, Tech-Marines, Chaplains) don't count towards it... and by my memory, the guys piloting/driving vehicles are all tech-adepts, technically NOT part of the 1000 limit.

Or just that bit of fluff in the 3rd edition 40k codex.

Space Marines teleport inside a planetary defense satellite, kill everyone inside, trigger a nuclear war and wait for the planet's own nukes to vaporize their own army, drop down on the planet, and drag the planetary governor out of his nuclear bunker, execute them and leave the planet.

Space Marines are such an absurd concept in 40k and it's a shame they always got translated too conservative in each successive edition. Their armour could've been radically altered so it doesn't appear so primitive, their fluff could've been expanded so that we can beleive that such forces could achieve relevant objectives. They don't have the excuse of the Imperial guard that masses are fielded as cheap as possible.

A metal tank being snuck up on by Joe slow is one thing

A 700-pound machine of death incarnate in 500-pound armor is another

That's where my suspension of disbelief gets all wacky tacky man

It's not some idiot. It's war, it's loud, and it's busy. It's horrifyingly easy for a several hundred tonne object to sneak up on you and drop a point blank 120mm canister shell in your face. It'll be even easier for a space marine, with silenced armor and suppressed thermal signatures.

>Alphic Hydras
I refuse to believe this isn't Alpha Legion.

>Also, in terms of the 1000 rule, if I recall (and I'm not sure what the current fluff on this is), but support staff (Librarians, Tech-Marines, Chaplains) don't count towards it... and by my memory, the guys piloting/driving vehicles are all tech-adepts, technically NOT part of the 1000 limit.
Pretty sure if you count up all the "doesn't technically count" groups, you'll end up with closer to 1400-1500 than 1000.

You do realise that stummers or however you spell them exist in 40k?

Anti-sound generators.

Put them on power armour, and the strummer will generate the exact opposite sound of the power armour moving, nullifying the sound waves, making the power armour completely silent.

The smallest legion was 10000 strong, not 50000.

In my head canon they were all in the millions. How else are they conquering millions of worlds?

VARIES FROM CHAPTER TO CHAPTER. SOME CHAPTERS EXPLICITLY MAKE UP THEIR NUMBER FROM FAILED ASPIRANTS

>trigger a nuclear war and wait for the planet's own nukes to vaporize their own army
no, they just went to the surface and killed everyone

because that's what space marines do

Other way around, he meant tanks have snuck up ON people, not the other way around user.

The Space Wolves laugh in the face of Big Papa Blue

What would be a good model range to use for Chapter Serfs? Preferably something other than Scions, even if they do kind of fit the aesthetic, e.g.combining tacticool operator shit like berets and giggles and shit with fantasy-medieval breastplates and etc.

Are there any WHFB Empire or Bretonnian models that would work well with some purity seals and 40k tech-y shit?

I thought only MkVI armour got dedicated stealth components.

Not really from the empire

Unless you want some bearded one eyed serfs

Ships are, but most references have full marines driving tanks and flying Thunderhawks.

There's some debate over whether the drivers/pilots are from reserve companies or separate from the 1000 battle brothers. I'm fairly certain techmarines, apothecaries, librarians, etc. don't count. Odds are every chapter counts it differently, and if you take it to extremes you can argue that a codex-compliant chapter could have an extra two or three hundred marines (including scouts). Or the number could be just above 1,000.

The numbers were increased after Forge World started releasing its black books for the Horus Heresy. Black Library actually went back and increased some of its legion numbers in later print runs of pre-FW HH novels. However, FW is still a month away from releasing its book featuring the Thousand Sons, which are likely to have been the smallest legion. They could stick with the old 15,000 number, but a lot of people are expecting a big increase. We'll see.

The Imperial Army (predecessor of the Imperial Guard) did most of the work. The Astartes either helped them out or took the more difficult worlds.

Strummers can be put on anything. Armour, vehicles, guns. Sound systems... if you're a cheeky fucker wanting to piss off techpriests.

>Violating the edict of an inquisitor
>no commupance
new fluff would be like
>bitch niggas these are the people you kill, do not get dragged down in to a protracted battle
>you fuckin clowns you killed too many people and now the planet is fucked
>where the fuck are you going?
and then assassins are deployed to kill the chapter master and other assorted marine top brass, Minotaurs chapter comes in to do clean up detail, killing or capturing everything else.

Except, they totally do. The Iron Snakes took the world of Fornax Aleph from Chaos forces single-handedly. By the time they arrived, IG forces had already been wiped. And this was with only three companies.

>What is the Invasion of Rynn's World
>What is every Battle of Armageddon
>What is the Battle of Baal

Do you not know what a "marine" is? Really seems like you don't know what a marine is.

Situations where a single location is the lifeline of an entire country are rare and indicative of nations with limited resources and terrible logistics. Most countries have other airports. This is doubly the case when we're talking about an entire planet. Generally speaking when a single chapter of space marines is sent to deal with a planet, it's usually treated like the enemy is a big fucking deal and not a ragtag militia.

nigger just because they can take part in naval combat doesn't exclude them from taking part in land combat

In the case of a planetary rebellion, you need to consider how valuable an individual marine is. In that airport example, scaling it up so there's maybe a dozen spaceports planet wide, a tactical and devastating team could easily do the job that those 60 normal guys did. Amy rebels will need RPGs or heavy guns to have any hope of killing them, and marines have expert marksmanship with grenade bullets that will ignore normal body armor entirely.

If the rebels proceed on a fortified position 40k masse with tanks and troops, they'll quickly find themselves surrounded by assault squads from drop pods and tanks dropped in via Thunderhawk. This is in addition to terminators warping in to cleave the commander of the force in half, sending the forces into a scattered panic as they're surrounded by tanks and dudes with armor as durable as a tank.

To cover all the space ports in such a manner would be entirely doable with 3 companies, though a bit difficult if one only had one. However, they do also have their spaceship to attempt a blockade and fire shells from orbit.

Of course, that mainly applies when the rebellion is reliant on those space ports for supplies. However, if they're rather self-sustaining, then it's just a matter of drop pod teams cutting off their access to large farms or fuel refineries.

Marines, at least fluff wise, are all but immune to small arms fire, and haw the tactical know-how to laugh such surgical strikes and hold those positions with incredible efficiency.

Attempting to hold an entire planet is harder, especially if they also have to police the populace, but they can often use similar tactics to the spaceport plan above, stationing small teams in key points and readying to reinforce them as needed.

Don't serfs already serve in combat roles as vehicle crew? At a minimum, they make up most of the crew of the marine's space assets, which is a huge amount of a chapter's combat strength.

I mean not every Inqy thinks killing space marines is a fun past time.

Plus they did what they were called to do anyway lil nigga needed help and he got it

I mean more in an active manner so to say

I stupidly look at vehicle handling as support

Say like sending them into a hive world to infiltrate and pinpoint a heretical cabal getting ready for demon shit, pressing a beacon and then come the big daddies with bolter fire

By being the spear tip with the Imperial Army and Mechanicum at their back.
Or in case of AL and TS: Wrecking the enemy by unconventional means.

TS being the smallest is a fact in the lore. Otherwise they'd have to pull a Tau level asspull to justify it.

Chapter Serfs are predominately used to defend stuff like battle barges and what not. They'd be more of a hindrance in the majority of the war zones space marines go into because space marines are, first and foremost, shock and awe/strike troops.

The scenario you describe is done by the Inquisition.

Only if for whatever reason the Marine homeworld is a hive world and they have jurisdiction over it could that happen.

The Imperium keeps an eye on the actions of Marine chapters after the HH and Badab.

Chapter serfs usually take up non-combat roles: maintaining equipment, assisting in repairs, preparing food, and staffing non-critical installations.

Let's look at a fictional landing zone, that a chapter of Marines have made into their temporary HQ on the ground.
You'll see serfs unloading supplies from thunderhawks, digging a ditch that a techmarine wants to place a pair of tarantula turrets in, being the Vox Operators and reporting to the Captain overseeing the base with tactical updates, fueling predators, or clearing trees for a second landing pad, and all of them will likely be armed.
In space, they're the hands that handle everything more complex than a servitor can take, like turret gunners, meal prep, and minor maintenance.

Some chapters treat them nearly like brothers in arms, equal to a neophyte or even a standard marine if they've got a lot of years under them.
Some treat them like guardsmen; useful, but not worthy of devoting full attention to when they've got other things that need doing.
Some pay them no more thought than a servitor.
And the Marines Malevolent use theirs for target practice, with non-explosive bolt rounds.

Just remember, that a lot of them are failed marines. They didn't pass a rite or didn't take well to an implant, and will never be a full marine. They're still faster, stronger, tougher, and usually better trained than an Imperial Guardsmen. That's why Battle barges aren't too worried if they're boarded by traitor guardsmen. They ship might only have 100 marines, but the crew kick ass like an army of Scions.

>How many space marines are there?

Their total numbers are estimated at a million.

>Are chapters really capped at 1000?

According to the Codex Astartes, yes. Some non-codex-compliant chapters are larger, but they avoid concentrating their forces so as not to alarm Imperial authorities. It may have been retconned, but at one point the Black Templars were estimated number almost 6,000, but you'd never see more than a few hundred of them in a single crusade, and their command structure didn't put all 6,000 under any one person's control.

>I don't care how badass you are, 1000 dudes and a handful of vehicles can't do much.

Depends on how you use them. Remember: Astartes are shock troops, not garrison forces. They don't go in to hold territory. They hit command and control systems, wreck logistical infrastructure, sevre supply lines, capture high value targets, etc.

Here's how an invasion of present day earth would go:

Day 1: The Strike Cruiser Lament of Korrath arrives in orbit carrying the III company of the Ice Wraiths Chapter of the Adeptus Astartes. The 3rd is supplemented by one squad of veterans in Terminator armor, one squad of Red Wendigos (Death Company), two squads of scouts, and one dreadnought. They demand the immediate and unconditional surrender of the planet in the name of the Emperor. This demand is unwisely refused.

1d4chan.org/wiki/Ice_Wraiths
1d4chan.org/wiki/Ice_Wraiths_Writefaggotry

Day 2 - 10: Orbital bombardment is used to reduce local political centers and military bases. Washington DC, Moscow, Beijing, London, Brussels, Paris, Berlin, and Tokyo are all wrecked. Civilian leaders of most major nations are dead or in hiding. Military command and control survives in US and Russia due to old cold war infrastructure and protocols, but their forces are scattered and dare not assemble en masse without inviting more strikes.

cont.

Day 11 - 13:

3rd company invades New York city. Routes into and out of the city are hit first, trapping much of the population. From there it's mostly just a straight slaughter. Thousands die per day, most to chainswords as the Battle Brothers have no reason to waste ammunition on soft targets. NYPD tries to put up a fight but doesn't have weapons capable of taking out a fully armored marine. The Riding Yetis take some minor wounds from small arms fire, but there are no real casualties on the Wraith's side.

Images of the assault are broadcast all over the world, various nations announce their surrender.

Day 14: A scout squad has infiltrated the Cheyenne Mountain Complex, whose personnel have been trying to coordinate US defense/relief efforts. After completing an Auspex sweep they are able to provide targeting data for the Teleporters aboard the cruiser. The termies teleport in and spend the next few hours killing everyone.

Day 14 - 20: After four days, the 3rd extracts from NY via Thunder Hawks and moves operations to Saint Petersburg with similar results. Shanghai is next. They will continue this until the mayors of major cities start preemptively announcing their surrender. The Red Wendigos were released in Saint Petersburg, so the slaughter there never really ends. Russian forces attempting to hunt them down are never seen again.

In less than a month most major population centers have surrendered, as have most remaining national governments. There are holdouts in the US and Russia, of course, but it's really all over except for mopping-up. The planet's military infrastructure is smashed, but most of it's industry and population are intact. Rebuilding won't take too long after a proper Imperial governor is appointed.