Space Marine Legion organization

[Bonzai]

I am wondering if there has been anything firmly established on how a Legion was actually structured? I know that the Legion was divided into chapters. Each Chapter had up to 10 Companies. Each Company was roughly 1000 marines strong. But how were these companies broken down? Did each basically function as a modern Chapter, complete with veterans, scouts, and so forth? Were they further broken down into smaller command structures? The books kind jump between 10 man squads or whole chapter sized engagements. There was talk about doing a Horus Heresy campaign, and this kind of knowledge could be helpful.

[Stonerhino]

The Tempus Fugitives, have a HH rules exansion. They are well made. With the exception of the Space Wolves, the Legions are all simular in organization with some having slightly different makeups to give each Legion some character.

I would start there.

[Casper Hawser]

I think only the Word Bearers and Ultramarines had chapter masters because there so big all the others seem just to have Captains.

[shadowhawk2008]

The Dark Angels had Chapter Masters as well.

The Word Bearers and Ultramarines had both Chapter Masters and Company Captains. The sizes of the WB companies were however non standard and varied a lot. The UM I believe were uniform across the board.

The Luna Wolves companies were dfferent sizes. The First Company also had two captains. Abaddon was the Company Captain while its Terminator contingent, the Justaerin, had a Terminator Captain as well.

The Space Wolves had Wolf Lords, and if the post heresy organisation is anything to go by, the thematic differences between the companies existed the as well. I have not read much beyond Hawser's first arc in Prospero Burns so I can't confirm that.

[Bonzai]

The Tempus Fugitives, have a HH rules exansion. They are well made. With the exception of the Space Wolves, the Legions are all simular in organization with some having slightly different makeups to give each Legion some character.

I would start there.

Inded... I've read it, it's a great resource, and it's obvious that a lot of love went into it. However its not an official source, and it doesn't go into how companies were really organized. If squad sizes were 20 strong, then were there 50 squads per Company? I seem to recall something like that for the Ultra marines in "Know no Fear", but I may have to check.

[Soldado]

An attempt I made time ago.

http://world-eaters.blogspot.com.es/...anization.html

Hope it helps.

[Nazguire]

Each Legion would have had some organisational differences, but still remained overtly similar (ie. Chapter Masters, Captains, [with different names depending on Legion]) The overly divergent Legions like the Space Wolves, Thousand Sons, White Scars, Night Lords and World Eaters would be more distinctly different. I can see the World Eaters for example having an almost random make up of their companies and Legion organisations, just as I can see the Thousand Sons perjed Companies make up being changing and shifting in organisation, according to the Captain's sorcerous foresight.

[Mob]

The thing is, every legion given any detail so far appears to have been given quite dissimilar organisations. Similarly named units do not have the same numbers across Legions. Or even across time. 30K Chapters aren't set at 1,000 men in every Legion that uses them, for example.

At this stage, it's safer just figuring there is no Legion standard and they are all (re)organised according to the designs of their Primarch. Then Roboute comes along and standardises everything later.

As an aside, Luna Wolves 1st Company had at least 3 Captains: Abaddon, Kibre and Ekaddon. Sons of Horus 5th Company had at least 2: Aximand and Durso.

No reasons given as to why, there's a few obvious possibilities though.

[Freak Ona Leash]

The thing is, every legion given any detail so far appears to have been given quite dissimilar organisations. Similarly named units do not have the same numbers across Legions. Or even across time. 30K Chapters aren't set at 1,000 men in every Legion that uses them, for example.

At this stage, it's safer just figuring there is no Legion standard and they are all (re)organised according to the designs of their Primarch. Then Roboute comes along and standardises everything later.

As an aside, Luna Wolves 1st Company had at least 3 Captains: Abaddon, Kibre and Ekaddon. Sons of Horus 5th Company had at least 2: Aximand and Durso.

No reasons given as to why, there's a few obvious possibilities though.

It seemed that the multiple captains per company were along the lines of a "company captain" whom was a senior military officer, with the "line captains" functioning more like junior lieutenants or commanders of specialized units, such as Falkus Kibre and his Terminators, or Kalus Ekaddon and his Catulan Reavers.

[Nazguire]

It seemed that the multiple captains per company were along the lines of a "company captain" whom was a senior military officer, with the "line captains" functioning more like junior lieutenants or commanders of specialized units, such as Falkus Kibre and his Terminators, or Kalus Ekaddon and his Catulan Reavers.

That's how I understood it, with the Company Captain being Abaddon, whilst Kibre and Kalus were simply 'captains' in rank and authority. The companies of 1000 men are too large for one officer to run effectively.

[Mob]

Totes, but to relate back to the Op's question, even that isn't universally applied. At least if you take the 'company size' route. Vipus stayed a Sgt even after Loken appointed him his company second specifically to command when he couldn't, due to the likelihood of being called off to Mournival it up. Again, there's a couple of reasons why that could be. But it's all just more speculation.

Not that that is a bad thing, of course.

What I'd be interested in hearing more about is Death Guard organisation. Them only having 7 Companies in total as their largest organisational body seemed daft even when the concept of 10,000 strong legions was the presented concept. When you relate it to the 100,000 strong concept...ugh. Well, at least it makes Garro taking a command squad of 90-odd guys onto the Eisenstein more understandable...

[Nazguire]

Well...I wouldn't expect the Death Guard to be a terribly large Legion, due to their tactics of 'Take more bullets than the enemy', so lets say they were 70,000 strong...

That's 10,000 a company...or Chapter. Just like the Ultramarines. Just with less officers and organisational divisions.

[shadowhawk2008]

Loken's 10th was also a smaller company than the 1st IIRC. 600 Astartes only. Plus he didn't have a lot of specialists like the First either. In fact, I don't even recall a mention of any Assault Marines in the 10th.

The way the 1st appears to be organized kinda makes sense. Abaddon is the First Captain of the legion and leads the highly elite First Company. Within the 1st, the Justaerin are the "epitome" of all Terminators in the legion and are present in quite significant numbers since Abbadon himself uses Terminator armour. So Falkus is a Terminator Captain. Kalus leads the Catulan Reavers, the "epitome" of the legion's assault marines and presumably leads a significant contingent of them overall, so he is also given the rank of Captain, but he is say, Assault Captain. Other companies may or may not have specialists like that in significant numbers to warrant their officers being also called Captains. Besides, Veteran-Sergeant or Senior-Sergeant or First-Sergeant or some other distinction would most probably cover that.

[Stonerhino]

Inded... I've read it, it's a great resource, and it's obvious that a lot of love went into it. However its not an official source, and it doesn't go into how companies were really organized. If squad sizes were 20 strong, then were there 50 squads per Company? I seem to recall something like that for the Ultra marines in "Know no Fear", but I may have to check.

True but I was going more for a "If one Legion calls a unit of 1,000 Marines a 'Company' and another calls it a 'Chapter'. It really does not matter because it's still 1,000 Marines".

The only time I could see it becoming an issue is if you try and flesh out and entire Legion. And even then it only matters if you are going to right up orders in detail. Like Cpt Jake of 3rd Co Chapter move your Co to this location and engage those other guys.

Just assume that for every 100-200 marines there is a commander unit. Then for every 1,000 Marines there is a higher ranking commander unit. Ect, untill you reach the numbers you want. What those commander units are call does not really matter.

[Soldado]

@Nazguire,

About what you stated in post #7, I heavily disagree. Each Legion had a 'organization variant' of course, but the statement about "Space Wolves, Thousand Sons, White Scars, Night Lords and World Eaters would be more distinctly different" is pretty doubtful:

The legion size issue is contentious, with several types of numbers mentioned in separate sources meant to reflect a general or nominally-sized legion. As well as numbers directly given in sources themselves, several authors have commented on the issue. Pressed with questions about pre-Heresy organisation - although declaring there is not any real information about it - Andy Chambers answered that "Space Marines started out in Legions of approximately 10,000 strong (or more, depending on the specific legion), which were broken down into Chapter-sized Great Companies rather like the Space Wolves (who are renowned for not adopting the Codex Astartes alterations made by Guilliman post-heresy and who thus follow pre-heresy organisation more closely"

Source: http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Spac...n#.T34eDdW72rA

Bolds are mine. The quoted paragraph, means basically that the Speace Wolves were pretty standard and they are divergent now just because the still follow the pre Heresy organization. We know that some Legiones had a name for the Great Company combat structure, like Host, Chapter, Great Company, Clan (Iron Hands, unsure, no have source for that bit) and so on.

I don't know if you have any source to make an statement like the "I can see the World Eaters for example having an almost random make up of their companies and Legion organisations". They were Shock troops, like Blood Angels and Night Lords, not orks. Being the WE a heavily martial and honourable Legion (at least in its begining) I can't disagree more with you in this point. Besides personal preferences or views, I don't see how a martial and honorable Legion can be just like "send some random grunts and let's the killing begin" before Istvaan.

Also, in post #12 I think the number of 70k you say is very random and by no manner a "small type Legion". Collected Visions stated that most Legions were around 100,000 men, being the Ultramarines 250,000 strong. Call of the Lion relate 20,000 Space MArines being recruited to the Dark Angels between 4-5 years. A Thousand Sons states the Thousand Sons' Legion numbers were about 14,000 Space Marines.

Aaron Dembsk-Bowden states:

For the record, the official Legion sizes have been settled, post-publication of A Thousand Sons. The figures in the most recent Codex: Chaos Space Marines and Horus Heresy: Collected Visions are correct. Roughly, Legions were "about 100,000" strong.

Source: http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/i...5&qpid=2650524

I'd like to see whatever sources you have because checking all of them (your's and mine, and all much we can get) is the only way to picture an accurate pre Heresy background and Legion Organization.

@shadowhawk2008,

Agreed. Loken's Company was 600 in Horus Rising, but IIRC, A D-B stated somwhere that Great Companies where divided in Companies or Charpter about 100-300 men. But can't find the source for that. Any help on this would be very appreciated.

@Stonerhino,

I can agree more or less with you, but we need to note the difference between Great Company (which can be very huge) and a 'simple' Company, which can also vary in strength between Legiones. Say Loken's Company of 600 Astartes, to the standard 100-300 (need to be "sourced"). That point also leads me in the Roman Empire Legion style, in what the 1st Century was double the size of the standard ones.

Anyway, that's my thoughts about that. I really love to see more sources (even contradictory ones, hello GW!) to dig deeply in the pre Heresy Legion Organization.

Cheers!

[Leftenant Gashrog]

Back when GW started fleshing out the Heresy with Space Marine 1st edition they fell into the 'BIGGA IS BETTA' camp with passing references to massive companies (I don't think the size was specifically stated - but the first battle fluff in the rulebook 200 Sons of Horus facing certain death against an entire company of Ultramarines) - but when they got round to actually taking a detailed look at it (complete list in WD126) they took a more sensible approach of:
Legion = up to 20 Regiments
Regiments = 3 Battalions
Battalions = 3 Companies (plus the transport pool and an extra companies worth of detachments)
Companies = 3 platoon/squadrons/batteries - meaning at little as two dozen men for an armoured or artillery company, or at most 120 men for a pure tactical company.

Then a decade later the Index Astartes series heats up where, since it was all ancient history that nobody really cares about the authors had no problem falling once again into BIGGA IS BETTA, with a nice helping of YOONEEK IS KEWL.

The Horus Heresy artbooks tried to once again settle on something manageable:
Legions of 100+ 'Regiments' (often renamed to Chapters, Wings, Great/Grand Companies)
Regiment = 2 Battalions (1000 men) commanded by an Imperial Commander
Battalion = 5 Companies (500 men) commanded by a Lieutenant-Commander
Company = 10 squads (100 men) commanded by a Captain
Squad = 10 men commanded by a Sergeant

Black Libraries authors then of course decided to ignore such nonsense as sensible manageable military organisation in favour of BIGGA IS BETTA.

Take your pick.

[Bonzai]

Back when GW started fleshing out the Heresy with Space Marine 1st edition they fell into the 'BIGGA IS BETTA' camp with passing references to massive companies (I don't think the size was specifically stated - but the first battle fluff in the rulebook 200 Sons of Horus facing certain death against an entire company of Ultramarines) - but when they got round to actually taking a detailed look at it (complete list in WD126) they took a more sensible approach of:
Legion = up to 20 Regiments
Regiments = 3 Battalions
Battalions = 3 Companies (plus the transport pool and an extra companies worth of detachments)
Companies = 3 platoon/squadrons/batteries - meaning at little as two dozen men for an armoured or artillery company, or at most 120 men for a pure tactical company.

Then a decade later the Index Astartes series heats up where, since it was all ancient history that nobody really cares about the authors had no problem falling once again into BIGGA IS BETTA, with a nice helping of YOONEEK IS KEWL.

The Horus Heresy artbooks tried to once again settle on something manageable:
Legions of 100+ 'Regiments' (often renamed to Chapters, Wings, Great/Grand Companies)
Regiment = 2 Battalions (1000 men) commanded by an Imperial Commander
Battalion = 5 Companies (500 men) commanded by a Lieutenant-Commander
Company = 10 squads (100 men) commanded by a Captain
Squad = 10 men commanded by a Sergeant

Black Libraries authors then of course decided to ignore such nonsense as sensible manageable military organisation in favour of BIGGA IS BETTA.

Take your pick.

I saw something about that when I did my initial google search. My problem is that the fluf doesn't mention any regiments or battalions.

For example, the Word Bearers have some had some fleshing out of their Legion.

Legion size: 100,000+, divided into 10 Chapters. Each Chapter has 10 Companies. Each Company is 1,000 strong. Unfortunatly no further break down on organization below the company level.

Actually... that may be a nice question to ask Aaron Dembski-Bowden the next time I catch him on the forums.

[Stonerhino]

@Stonerhino,

I can agree more or less with you, but we need to note the difference between Great Company (which can be very huge) and a 'simple' Company, which can also vary in strength between Legiones. Say Loken's Company of 600 Astartes, to the standard 100-300 (need to be "sourced"). That point also leads me in the Roman Empire Legion style, in what the 1st Century was double the size of the standard ones.

I see what you're saying but does it matter???

For example in codex Space Marines a Chapter Master has the identical stats to a Captain. So if you give one marine in every 100-200 those stats and call it what every you want. It all works out in the end.

Lets say you have:

Squads 10-20 Marines w/ Squad Leaders/Sgts

5-10 squads w/ Space Marine Battle Leaders (Same options/stats as a Captain)

5-10 "Battle Groups" w/ Legion Captain

5-10 "Companies" w/ Chapter Master

5-10 "Chapter" w/ Force Commander/Primarch

18 "Legions" w/ The Emperor

The names "Battle Group", "Company", "Chapter", really don't matter. You can apply any name you choose to it. But that basic ranking structure can be applied to any Legion and will give you about the proper level of "Command" units. Because even if your Companies are 10,000 marines strong. They will still need lower ranks to divide that group of Marines into proper fighting units.

Edit:
You can even apply this to Space Wolves and it still works. If anything the Space Wolves show this style of ranking more then the Codex Chapters. Each Great Company is lead by a Wolf Lord who is in turn aided by Wolf Guard Battle Leaders.

[Soldado]

Yeah, does it matter, for me at least. We are disscusing here about pre Heresy Legion organization and (to me) every bit of accurate information is worth something :P

Also I found that:

The XIII Legion, largest of all the Legiones Astartes, is divided into Chapters, a throwback to the old regimental structures of the Thunder Warriors. Each chapter is formed of ten companies, The basic unit currency is the company, a thousand legionaires, plus their support retinue, led by a senior Captain.................................. A company is more than sufficent for most purposes.
There is an old aphorism, popular in the XIII. It is perhaps, boastful and arrogant, and there arecertain opponents such as the Eldar and Greenskins to which it does not apply, but it contains a basic estimation of truth:
To take a town, send a legionary; to take a city, send a squad; to take a world, send a company; to take a culture, send a chapter.

Today, at Calth, twenty of the XIII's twenty-five chapters will conjunct for deployment. Two hundred companies. Two hundred thousand Legionairies.

From DakkaDakka quoting Know No Fear.

So we have:

Legion- ????
Great Company/Chapter- about 10,000 marines (10 Companies)
Company-1000 marines (10 ???)
Squad-10-20 marines

But we have nothing between Company and Squad, like we have Companies in a Chapter in the modern Codex Astartes. So the smartest Guilliman just divided by 10 and said "Hey, that shiny new book is now mandatory". Anyways I'm sure there will be a subdivision of Company. Is what Lieutenants are (guessing) commanding.

Known marine ranks so far (to me at least) are: Sargent (squad), Lieutenant (???), Captain (Company), Lieutenan Commander (Great Company), Commander (Legion (Primarch)). Note that the charges in parenthesis are a guessing by me, but fairly accurate IMHO.

What we need to know is what remains in between Company and Squad, or at least, that's what I need to know.

Cheers!

[Bonzai]

That is exactly my point in creating this post. I am going to have to look again at "know no Fear". I believe that there is mention of a Company being composed of 50 squads of 20. The squad sizes being 20 seems to be in line with the CSM squad sizes. I am also imagine that Battle Companies have different composition from other types of of Companies. Most Legions seem to have veteran Companies, and possibly Chapters even. But what about Scouts? They are almost unmentioned in the books.

I second the idea that a Codex: Great Crusade that gives all the legion info/organization would be well received.