This has been discussed quite a number of times before, in many different forums, but I thought I'd go over it again for myself. The most well known provision of the Codex Astartes is of course the decree that the Astartes would be broken down into Chapters of 1,000 men, to prevent any one man from wielding the kind of terrible power that made the Horus Heresy possible. However, even a very cursory examination makes it very obvious that the average Chapter will go over the 1,000 man limit by quite a lot.
I prefer to interpret the rule as "1,000 men of the line," not counting additional specialists and support staff. It's really not possible to have only 1,000 men.
On a related note, the only way I think "1,000 men of the line" could realistically work is if every single Astartes was a raging fuckall kill machine that could slaughter hundreds of bad guys by himself in the course of a single deployment. One thing that really irritates me is that Astartes are supposed to be the lords of battle, but in the Black Library books they die by the dozens like punks. If a Chapter loses 10-12 men in every campaign, they would become extinct in maybe a century or two. It's simply not possible, with a turnover rate of about 18-20 years, to keep taking massive casualties and then keep going back to work like it's all hunky dory. At most a Chapter should be losing only a couple Astartes every few years. If a Chapter loses a 100 men that's 10% casualties, which would be horrible for a real army. Then the Chapter would have to retire for at least 20 or so years assuming they can find enough recruits, enough survive the gene-forging process and then are pressed into the reserve Companies.
1/16/12 Derp derp. I misspoke. Since a child is probably going to be recruited at age ten at the latest, this would mean a turnover rate of about 8-10 years, assuming that the aspirant, as soon as he receives the Black Carapace at age 16-18, is considered a full brother and advances to the reserve companies. Still not great though.
Enough of my ranting. Let's get on with it:
First, we start with the 'base' Chapter. 10 Companies of 100 men each. Chapters are often under strength or sometimes over strength, so this is mainly hypothetical and in a vacuum. Also, the number of Astartes aspirants in 10th Company could vary quite a lot. Each Company is lead by a command squad which could be anywhere from 5-10 guys. At most, that's an extra 100 guys.
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Next, let's look upstairs at Chapter Command, the Chapter's senior leadership. I looked through my copies of Codex Space Marines (5th) and Blood Angels (5th) at the force organization charts to get an idea of numbers. Obviously, there's Calgar, Chapter Master. Then, Cassius, Master of Sanctity, and 27 Honour Guard. For the bloody boys, there's Dante, 29 Sanguinary Guard, and Astorath the Grim. I assume the leader of the guard is counted separately from his subordinates, so that may actually be 30 Sang. Guard in all. Interestingly, the Blood Angels count their Reclusiam separately from the Companies. It may that there are still Chaplains in the Companies and extra Chaplains in the Reclusiam.
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Basically, the Dark Swords will have their Chapter Master (Praetor? Lord Commander?), a small number of honor guard, the High Chaplain, and an unknown number of senior officers. These would be old Astartes that are too injured to fight and serve more in a leadership capacity (the concept of these older senior officers has popped up in a number of official sources). There may be a separate Reclusiam with more Chaplains; having only 11 guys in the black brotherhood is kind of low I think.
The Ultras have about 26 Librarians, the Blood Angels have 31, not counting the Librarian Dreadnoughts. I think that's about right, since Librarians will be rare, even if Chapters are actively looking to recruit them.
The Ultras have 27 Techmarines, the Blood Angels have 35. I think this is laughably low. I need way more Techmarines to take care of my fleet of Landspeeders, Rhinos/Razorbacks (if the Chapter ever uses them), tanks (again, if they use them), Thunderhawks (and I need way more than just 30), etc. etc. I need more guys to take care of everyone's gear, and I think I need a LOT of guys to keep my fleet of starships in tiptop shape. I would be more comfortable with over a hundred Techmarines, even then they still need an army of servitors for grunt labor and at least hundreds or thousands of tech-adepts of all kinds: weaponsmiths, people who can build vehicles and armor, all kinds of things.
The Ultras have 13 Apothecaries and the Blood Angels have 22 (counting their leaders too). This is not counting the Apothecaries attached to the Companies, I guess. Realistically, I may need far more; these guys are not just the healers, they are scientists taking care of all the nonmetal, organic sciences in the Chapter.
Who pilots the Thunderhawks and drives the Rhinos and tanks? If we take them from the Reserve Companies, there won't be any reserves left to reinforce the Battle Companies. Landspeeder pilots and bikers seem to come from the Tactical reserves, so they aren't extra. There must be extra Astartes not part of the Companies who serve as vehicle crews.
The Dark Swords are a fleet-based Chapter. So who's commanding the starships, who's staying behind and operating every Strike Cruiser, every escort, every rapid strike craft? Can everything really be automated? Can the serfs be trusted to do all the ship stuff without Astartes supervision?
So, how many Astartes do I really have? A lot. It's clear to me that there's at least hundreds of extra Astartes running things behind the scenes while the 10 Companies go to war. The real number of Astartes in a Chapter may be closer to 2,000 or more.
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