CSM vs. SM: Numbers

[Sam]

Ok, so a while back I read a comment that someone had posted, I don't remember who. They stated that loyalist Space Marines outnumber Chaos Marines by quite a bit.

I've never seen anything that actually gives a number to the Chaos Marines. It seems more likely to me that Chaos Marines outnumber loyal Marines, since both sides were approximately equal and Chaos Marines get recruits from two sources (gene-seeding and being joined by new traitor Marines) while Space Marines only get recruits from one.

Anyone have any insight they would like to share on the matter?

[Lerra]

It's true that Loyalist Marines outnumber those who have gone traitor. Very few loyalist marines actually fall - most CSMs were recruited. I'm not sure how the total numbers for CSM vs. SM look, though. Both are heavily outnumbered by other Imperial/Chaos forces, though.

[Sam]

It's true that Loyalist Marines outnumber those who have gone traitor. Very few loyalist marines actually fall - most CSMs were recruited. I'm not sure how the total numbers for CSM vs. SM look, though. Both are heavily outnumbered by other Imperial/Chaos forces, though.

True, if more Space Marines were turning traitor than loyalist, it would seem like a good idea to stop making them. But in the overall scheme of things, it would seem that since both sides are actively making new Marines, the fact that a traitor Marine will be welcomed into at least some aspect of chaos with open arms, while a traitor marine trying to return to the Imperium would simply be shot, would start to tip the scales in favor of Chaos Marines after a while.

Bearing in mind, of course that this is strictly a number of troops line of thought, not an assessment of actually combat capability (where Space Marines most likely have the edge, being far more unified than Chaos Marines are).

[Lerra]

Keep in mind that Chaos marines have a whole 'nother set of ways to die, too - like being turned into a chaos spawn for displeasing their fickle masters.

I'd actually call CSM and SM equal in combat ability. SM are more organized and generally have better access to tech, but CSM have those lovely chaos "gifts" and mutations, not to mention daemon princes and such.

[Sam]

True, being Chaos Marine does come with all kinds of nasty side effects. It should be noted, though, that the spawn that are not torn apart by their own mutations can still be useful to the Chaos Marines.

[Mike X]

I'd actually call CSM and SM equal in combat ability. SM are more organized and generally have better access to tech, but CSM have those lovely chaos "gifts" and mutations, not to mention daemon princes and such.

That's the reason why, right there.

Space Marines have numbers but Chaos Space Marines are "enhanced" by Chaos to balance the fight.

[bad moon on afull moon]

i reckon CSM do outnumber SM because they are still mostly at legion strength and more legions turned traitor than stayed loyal and all the loyalist legions split into chapters many of which have either been "lost", turned traitor, further increasing CSM numbers, or have been destroyed. leaving at most about 8 surviving chapters for each original loyalist legion.

i cant remember if it was 100 or 1000 marines in each chapter but even then that still leaves at most 8000 marines for each loyal legion, while the CSM have at most 100,000 marines for each traitor legion plus other traitor chapters. even if most of them are constantly at war with each other and/or have split into hundreds of warbands they still majorly outnumber the loyalists

[Cryl]

All but one of the traitor legions now operate as completely seperate warbands and even the Word Bearers, who are the exception, are a loosely unified group of hosts with the Dark Apostles reporting to Erebus and Lorgar. I very much doubt that 10,000 years later these legions are still at full strength, marines or not attrition and 13 black crusades will take their toll on numbers, the question is can the CSMs have maintained their numbers through gene-seed and defection. I suspect that death, spawndom and ascension to daemon prince hood will mean that the former legions are no longer at full strength and something like 50 to 75% original strength seems likely given defections of chapters in the years since the heresy.

Imperial Marine numbers are reduced by death and the occasional defection to chaos (the actual numbers of chapters that have traitored is pretty low given the number of serving marines) they also benefit from safer (although not necessarily less harsh) training environments with superior equipment and supporting infrastructure. Dark Mechanicus numbers are almost certainly less than those of the mechanicus for example and I don't think chaos techmarines exist in quite the same way they do for the Imperials.

This all leads me to say there are probably more Imperial Marines than Chaos Marines alive and well. The "advantages" of the daemonic probably balance the Imperials superior (and I say superior loosely!) technology though.

[Dosadi]

I would say that the exact number is hard to determine. We do know that there are approximately 1000 Loyalist Chapters each with approximately 1000 Marines. So that makes one million Loyalist Marines give or take. However, the Administratum doesn’t know how accurate this number is; it’s an educated guess at best. Some Chapters will be much larger (Black Templars, Space Wolves) and some will be very small (Crimson Fists) for some reason. Add into that the number of Chapters that have been destroyed, amalgamated, disappeared, and gone renegade and the numbers become even harder to estimate.
The chaos marines are even harder to pin down. We know that the average size of a Heresy era Legion was 100,000. Perhaps that’s at the high end, rather than an average. Some Legions like the Ultramarines were certainly that big and perhaps even larger. The Ultras were also one of the only legions to come out of the Heresy relatively intact. The Legions who took part in the Heresy certainly didn’t maintain their numbers as attrition was high with tremendous losses on both sides. The nature of the warp has to be considered as well. It’s possible that the same traitor marine could be fighting in two places at the same time or has been killed and resurrected by their patron god many, many times over. Also remember that many of the traitor marines never exit the Eye of Terror, instead fighting endless wars among the Daemon worlds. The galaxy is a huge place and it’s doubtful that all the renegade marines would ever gather in one place to let a census to be taken. Same goes for their loyalist counterparts.


Dosadi

[mathhammer]

really if you look at the fluff there are a few legions of CSM still recruiting and producing new marines.

Those that may still be creating new marines-

Alpha Legion
Word Bearers
Black Legion -
Iron Warriors - still maintain a planet in normal space.
Night Lords -

Those who can't

World Eaters - eat their young - kharn shattered this legion into warbands
Emperor's Children - to busy with pleasure
Deathguard - too much plaque
Thousand Sons - No geneseed left.

Personally given the size of territory maintained and the supply lines I would say the Imperial SM outnumber the CSM now by at least 10 to 1.

[DarkLink]

There are roughly 1 million loyalist Marines scattered throughout the galaxy.

On the other hand, our local Chaos players in my group put traitor numbers at around 250,000, based on the Black Library books they've read. So Loyalists outnumber traitors 4 to 1, roughly.



Something to point out, is that very, very few of the original traitor marines are still around, for one reason or another. Those that still are a Lords or Daemon Princes, or similar high-ranking leaders.

The vast majority of troops in the traitor forces are made up of relatively new recruits, just like loyalist Marines are.

[Old_Paladin]

Yeah, the loyalists clearly outnumber the fallen.
As stated before, there's are roughly 1000 chapters with roughly 1000 battle-brothers each; so about a million marines.

Of the fallen Legionnares; there is likely to be no more then about 1/4 million [9 legions of ~30,000 warriors, and some more fallen dark angels]. That leaves a lot of gap to fill between the two forces.

There's plenty of fluff to establish that Chaos Marines are very hard to reproduce.
Bile (an ex-Emperor's Children Apothicary), sells his skill making clones; as most gene-seed is too damaged and mutated. And we all no how well his clones and enhancments work.
There is also a short story "Apothicary's Honor" that talks about the problems that the Chaos Marines are having growing gene-seeds, or have the seeds work.

Like Mel has said in other threads; the leg work of Chaos is not the fallen marines, but traitors, mutants and rebels.; led or guided by a handfull of the Fallen. Maines are simply too few in numbers to seen in large numbers on a huge galaxy wide battle [with some exceptions, like the black crusades; with still probably only number several tens of thousands of Chaos Marines].

[Morgrim]

I also don't think that chaos marines can recruit as heavily and produce a new marine nearly as quickly as loyalists. Some of them seem to be missing some of the needed tech since they have very odd methods of making marines, which generally fail more often than they succeed. They also raid loyalist geneseed when they can and do use it mixed with their own, which suggests that their geneseed may be more degraded or that they can't harvest as much from their own troops.

Many if not most of the chaos marines are those left over from the legions, not new recruits. And few loyalist marines go over to chaos singularly, they'd get shot; it seems to be mostly significant chunks of chapters following a high ranking member (often the chapter master) such as when the Astral Claws fled into the Maelstrom and became the Red Corsairs.

[Cryl]

Supporting what Old Paladin says is the book Storm of Iron which is all about Iron Warrior CSMs commiting massive forces to attack a geneseed store so they can increase numbers

[Lord Anubis]

Something to point out, is that very, very few of the original traitor marines are still around, for one reason or another. Those that still are a Lords or Daemon Princes, or similar high-ranking leaders.

Ummmmm...

"However, within the Eye of Terror time flows differently, and the same traitors who howled their praises to the Chaos Gods before the Imperial Palace are still alive today... For these warriors, the Horus Heresy is not some distant half-forgotten age, but a glorious war still in living memory."

Chaos Space Marine Codex

[Abuzorg]

really if you look at the fluff there are a few legions of CSM still recruiting and producing new marines.

Those that may still be creating new marines-

Alpha Legion
Word Bearers
Black Legion -
Iron Warriors - still maintain a planet in normal space.
Night Lords -

Those who can't

World Eaters - eat their young - kharn shattered this legion into warbands
Emperor's Children - to busy with pleasure
Deathguard - too much plaque
Thousand Sons - No geneseed left.

Personally given the size of territory maintained and the supply lines I would say the Imperial SM outnumber the CSM now by at least 10 to 1.

Thousand Sons Sorcerer can replenish their numbers of Rubric Marines through some kind of ritual. They just put back together a suit of destroyed armor and call back the spirit of a Rubric Marine, thus "resurrecting" it.

And the sorcerers still have their own geneseed, and occasionally, a thrall wizard is upgraded into a space marine.

[Melissia]

Either way, both of them have such low numbers that they're both relatively insignifigant in the grand scheme of things in comparison to such armies as Orks, Tyranids, and the Imperial Guard :P

[DarkLink]

Ummmmm...

"However, within the Eye of Terror time flows differently, and the same traitors who howled their praises to the Chaos Gods before the Imperial Palace are still alive today... For these warriors, the Horus Heresy is not some distant half-forgotten age, but a glorious war still in living memory."

Chaos Space Marine Codex

I'll admit that I overstate the rarity of the old, but not yet ascended to Daemonhood types. They make up the bulk of Cult troops, as well as the Chaos Chosen and Terminators, as well as Lords, Sorcerers and Daemon Princes.

It's just that I occasionally hear someone go off about how every single CSM in the entire Eye of Terror should be able to beat a loyalist Chapter Master in hand to hand combat because they're all so old, or something to that effect.

[DarkLink]

Either way, both of them have such low numbers that they're both relatively insignifigant in the grand scheme of things in comparison to such armies as Orks, Tyranids, and the Imperial Guard :P

Heh, and at least loyalist Marines can be anywhere in the Imperium. Traitor Marines can't even fight their way out of the Eye of Terror :p.

[Melissia]

Technically there ARE chaos marines that exist outside the eye of terror most notably the corsairs and word bearers if I remember correctly. But they're a minority AFAIK.

[DarkLink]

And who knows where the Alpha Legion is...

[Nabterayl]

The Shadow knows.

[Just_Me]

The Shadow knows.

Mwahahahaha!


But seriously, I think that the number of the cult legions is drastically underestimated, consider the Dominion of Fire, Angron's campaign at the head of 50,000 Berzerkers. In addition, never forget that other chapters have fallen since then. Granted I have no doubt that the there are fewer traitor marines than loyalist, but I am inclined to believe that the ratio is closer than 1/4, maybe on the order of 1/3. The bulk of the forces of Chaos would, as others have mentioned, be normal human cultists.

The issue is the same here as everywhere else, the forces of chaos don't have to worry about occupying most of the Galaxy as the Imperium. In my opinion if the Imperium were ever able to bring it's entire war machine to bear on any one of the other powers they would win (well, maybe not Orks, and the Tyranids would certainly still give them a hard time). It is the need to combat any and every threat across the galaxy that spreads the Imperium's power thin.

[Sam]

I don't think it is really a "maybe not" situation with the Imperial warmachine taking on the orks. It is openly stated in the ork codex that: "Should the Orks ever truly unify, they would crush all opposition and drown the civilized races in a tide of gore." So if the Imperium were able to pull all of it armies into a war against the orks (which it cannot do, because of all the other threats) and all the orks had unified against the Imperium (which they WON'T do, because its too much fun to fight with each other) the Imperium would get face stomped.

And for everyone who keeps pointing out that the CSMs are not the standard troops of Chaos: I know. Everyone knows. And the Space Marines are not the standard troops of the Imperium either, that's the Imperial Guard.

[Fellend]

There's plenty of evidence that suggest that CSM have hard time to reproduce plus the fact that they seem to lack apothecaries (or simply the will) which lets them salvage lost geneseed.

And as far as I know there's never been an explanation to how to geneseed is multiplied but I think it's safe to assume that the Imperial production capacity is far greater than that of the CSM.

It should also be said that all major invasions have been defeated by the Imperium. Even at a high cost very few chapters of space marines are mentioned as outright defeated. (I assume because they never commit at full strenght) Which leads me to believe that the casualties sustained by the CSM are far greater than that of the Adeptus Astartes. Also new chapters are created by the Imperium where as the only real recruiting that's going on in the CSM are traitors.

So unless the Imperium suffers catastrophic damage from another source, (say the Tyranids, Necrons or the Orks)and the CSM avoids this conflict it seems likely that the Imperium would eventually outnumber the CSM more and more.

[Sam]

The Imperium outnumber CSM, theres no question there. Space Marines I'm not so sure about. While Space Marines can theoretically make new chapters, GW keeps their number constant: there are roughly 1,000,000 Space Marines and always will be.

The Legions, if nothing else, still maitain Apothecaries or something similar to them, they still harvest gene-seed, and they still make new Marines by implanting said gene-seed into children. I see no reason to expect the chapters that have fallen to Chaos since the Heresy to abandon the techniques either. And by my count there are at least 53 chapters that have turned traitor since the Heresy, and most of them have turned to Chaos. Thats a whole lot of Marines switching sides there.

Also, although the Chaos Marines' methods are less likely to succeed when implanting gene-seed, they are also much faster. I think this would more or less even things out.

[Old_Paladin]

And as far as I know there's never been an explanation to how to geneseed is multiplied but I think it's safe to assume that the Imperial production capacity is far greater than that of the CSM.
The geneseed is reproduced by the Progenoid Gland; of which all space marines have two. One gland is in the base of the neck (just above the sternum), the other is deep in the chest. The neck one is removed after a couple years and the chest one's removed shortly before or just after death. The gland itself is the geneseed. The gland absorbs all the genetic info of the other organs; then when harvested and grown it splits off into every transpant organ needed to make a marine (including the extra Progenoid glands to continue the cycle.
So, in the body it's a gland; take it out, it's the geneseed; make it grow and it becomes a bunch of organs (including two new potential geneseeds).



And by my count there are at least 53 chapters that have turned traitor since the Heresy, and most of them have turned to Chaos. Thats a whole lot of Marines switching sides there.

Thats still only an extra 53,000 troops (tops; plus some chapter surfs and servitors). Which would take the quarter million legionnires, to about 300,000 (give or take). That only changes the ratio from around 4:1, to 3:1 (loyalists : fallen).
Like someone said before, if the rate at which loyalists turned traitor was anywhere near where it would have to be to make the ratio equal; then there would be no loyalist marines because the program would be halted.

[AdamHarry]

Chaos Marines are limitless because of one thing: The Warp.

Ships get lost in the Warp all the time. And the Eye of Terror is even worse. The warp can create copies of the same ship and have it shoot off in two separate directions. CSM who are "a drift in the warp" might seem like they are only gone for a few days to them, when it's been 1000 years. Or the same ship could be stuck is some sort of warp storm or time sink or whatever and every 1000 years they get spewed out to reign terror on a system only to get sucked back into the warp and be trapped in the cycle until the end of eternity. Just think of any bad Sci-fi cliche' as to why something could keep coming back "from the warp" over and over again...that's what is going on with CSM.

Point is, you can't put a number on how many CSM there are...the records are incomplete as to how many turned traitor during the heresy, how many are left from that orginal amout, how many more have turned since then, etc.

It's fun to think about though :)

[Sam]

Thats still only an extra 53,000 troops (tops; plus some chapter surfs and servitors). Which would take the quarter million legionnires, to about 300,000 (give or take). That only changes the ratio from around 4:1, to 3:1 (loyalists : fallen).
Like someone said before, if the rate at which loyalists turned traitor was anywhere near where it would have to be to make the ratio equal; then there would be no loyalist marines because the program would be halted.

Where exactly did this quarter million number come from? From what I've read on here it was simply a consensus between a group of Chaos players, which doesn't really prove anything.

[Just_Me]

I don't think it is really a "maybe not" situation with the Imperial warmachine taking on the orks. It is openly stated in the ork codex that: "Should the Orks ever truly unify, they would crush all opposition and drown the civilized races in a tide of gore."

Every codex says something along similar lines, any major claims about the "invincibility" of a given army in it's own codex book should be taken with a grain of salt. I am more inclined to put stock in the Ork claim simply because it seems logical enough given all we know about them and their origins.

There is reason to believe that the CSMs can reproduce, but they seem to do so by stealing geneseed from loyalists (consider the account of Huron's raid on the Marines Errant in the rulebook or the events of Dead Sky Black Sun). If they have any self-sufficiency then it must be minimal at the very best.

[Sam]

Every codex says something along similar lines, any major claims about the "invincibility" of a given army in it's own codex book should be taken with a grain of salt. I am more inclined to put stock in the Ork claim simply because it seems logical enough given all we know about them and their origins.

There is reason to believe that the CSMs can reproduce, but they seem to do so by stealing geneseed from loyalists (consider the account of Huron's raid on the Marines Errant in the rulebook or the events of Dead Sky Black Sun). If they have any self-sufficiency then it must be minimal at the very best.

The fact that they stole gene-seed does not mean they have to do it to reproduce Marines. They could also be doing to allow them to reproduce Marines faster. And as an added bonus, Huron's raid on the Marines Errant more or less destroyed the chapter, unless I'm mistaken. I see no reason to believe that stealing gene-seed means they cannot use their own. They just want more, so that they can produce more Marines at a higher rate.

As for Dead Sky Black Sun, I've never read so I can't really say anything about it.

Also: I'm aware that every codex claims invincibility, but I think that the Orks have the numbers to back up their claim.