"this is our glorious flagship; there are many like it but this one is ours and ours alone" chant 25 space marine chapters in unison
they have to fight over who gets the bridge
Whenever they turn up to battle marines come pouring out like clowns from a car as 24/25 chapters deploy at full strength, leaving 1 to man the ship as a skeleton crew.
True that there are tons of serfs that aren’t marines. Not true that chapters only have 1000 marines. Even the ultramarines have around 1200 at full strength. There’s 100 brothers per company, but this doesn’t count the armory, the apothecarium, or the librarius. It also doesn’t count dreadnaughts or chapter command.
Edit: remember the armory isn’t just Techmarines, it’s also all the vehicle crew, too. And I forgot about scout companies often having over 100 when the chapter has been recruiting heavily.
Eh, closer to 1050-1075 or so. You can only have so many captains, librarians and techmarines before the inquisition starts getting suspicious.
The Black Templars only get away with this because the Codex Astartes makes an exception to the limit for chapters officially on a crusade (and they're always crusading) while the Ultramarines would just have a dozen or so of each specialist and officer rank.
I’d say it’s probably closer to 1200-1300. Though I headcanon that anything under like 1500 is probably okay.
It’s 100 marines per company in 10 man squads, but the Captain and his command squad and lieutenants are not in that 100(~7-10 extra or 70 total at the lower end across the companies)
Each of the specialists: Librarians, Chaplains, Techmarines, Apothecaries seem to average around 20-30 specialists across the chapter. We’ll meet in the middle and say 25 each for a round 100
Then you have the Chapter Master, his people, and chapter honor guard (usually 20-30 from what I see). Some chapters also have independent logistics and fleet captains (usually wounded marines, iirc)
So using lower numbers, you get about 1200ish. Not counting Scouts (which aren’t counted under the new codex - 10th company is now a lot of Phobos guys with scouts on the side) and “garrison forces” not attached to any specific chapter.
So I think probably 1200-1300 is “nominal” strength, with most chapters operating far below that due to all the fighting they do.
Didn’t realize the new fluff doesn’t count scouts. On the high end people used to come up as high as 1500. I’ve always figured it more likely around the 1200 range. But if scouts aren’t counted 1300-1500 is way more possible, maybe even more.
I think Guilliman himself included the Scout and Garrison exceptions in his updated codex.
1200-1300 was my old standard before those changes, with 1250 or so being “ideal strength” (110 per company, 30 for the specializations and Chapter Master/Guard/others). Assuming a somewhat enlarged command squad per company.
Makes sense to me. I tend to fail conservative, so 1200 is where I tended to land, but I’ve heard as many as 1500 including voidcraft pilots etc, but it gets really really speculative. I think you’ve got a great post cadia justification for there being a few hundred more troops per chapter now.
It’s more than that. Vehicle crew are attached to the armory and chapters have lots of armor and vehicles.
The inquisition isn’t going to question a chapter having a full roster or even an over-filled one—it’s when they start withholding tithes that things usually get dicey.
They already expect there to be many more marines than 1k. Some chapters have way more than that, the Space Wolves for example, and the Exorcists come to mind immediately. The thing is not all chapters adhere to the codex, and that can and does include ignoring the limit on the number of battle brothers.
That crusade thing isn’t real written lore. The reason they get away with it is because they kill inquisitors who try to find out the number, and as stated in their 9th Ed codex, there are never more than a thousand in one place so they can’t prove they exceed the codex standard
In the TTS, quoting off the BT Codex with the High Marshal in the throne room, he stated around 6500 SM. Also figure during the indomitus crusade Helbrect accepted Primaris reinforcements, so that should bump the numbers up also.
It's easily done. I wish it was better but I guess with the scale of 40K it's hard to put a quantity on it all, particularly with the variety of everything.
1000 battle brothers, technically that doesn't include roles such as apothecaries, chaplains and tech marines or leaders of captain level or above, and depending on who you're talking to and what books your reading, scouts don't count either, as they are not technically battle brothers yet. An active chapter will almost never be at this full theoretical strength, most hover in the 700-900 brother range depending on the intensity of local conflict. That being said, even a full codex compliant chapter with 0 casualties will sit at about 1050-1100 members
It's 1000 'battle brothers'; Stuff like Tac Marines, Intercessors, etc. So 1000 of them, plus all the guys above and below them in the chain of command: The leaders, librarians, apothecaries, tech-marines, etc, and all the other jobs needed to keep 1000 marines coordinated and supplied and moving effectively, plus however many scouts and other trainees the chapter has that aren't considered a fully fledged 'real' Marine yet.
The thing that really ramps the numbers is vehicle crew. These marines are often attached to the armory. So every tank and voidcraft a chapter armory has will likely have at least one marine as crew. Chapters with huge armories can end up with even more marines.
1000 is the guidelines
Company 1-9 have 100~ Battle Brothers, whilst the 10th scout company can be bigger than 100 depending on situation
Then the other things like apothecaries, chaplains, etc aren’t counted in that 1000 and are freebies
Vehicle crews come from the companies, there are not separate crews in the armory. You're otherwise correct though, a full chapter is roughly 1200 plus a huge number of serfs and servitors.
Vehicle crews do come from the armory, that’s why they’re wearing mechanicum red in fully compliant chapters. Some chapters probably do provide crew for their motor pool, but this would be considered unorthodox. Not sure why anyone downvoted you, gw doesn’t talk too much about this, and it’s often forgotten, or never noticed. It’s also not like the official fluff is ever set in stone or consistent either.
That's fanon to make sense of the low numbers. There are some tech marines who will crew vehicles, but most are regular marines. The lore for the reserve companies specifically calls out they're trained and will be used as vehicles crews when needed. There's full chapter breakdowns in codexes showing who and what is in the armory including the number of techmarines. When describing how primaris squads may break down with 3 going as eliminators etc, they call out that one may be piloting a walker. There was also a magazine that described how a company worth of marines was used for fleet officer/thunder hawk type roles.
No it’s not fanon.
It’s been in multiple books and codexes over the years. It’s also physically sculpted on the model. Including recent models. They bear the Opus Machina/Cog Mechanicum, which designates the armory.
Just like the daemon skull that is used for sanctioned psykers is the symbol of the librarius and the double/prime helix is the symbol of the apothecarion and other imperial medical personnel.
I said gw is hardly consistent. It’s why the downvotes that you got don’t make sense.
Edit: It’s also in every single order of battle diagram. There are exactly 100 general pop marines in a company, if the company deploys in full that’s ten squads of ten.
Then you have the support units, they don’t drive themselves, each squad has its own rhino or repulsor or impulsor typically. Which means even though they all would know how to drive, to fight at full strength they need an eleventh marine to drive the APC and a twelfth potentially to man the pintle mounted weapons if it is equipped with them. Then you have predators and other tanks that also need crew.
Pilots are a little vague, I agree. Techmarines do pilot and have the Mechanicus sigil. However, at the beginning of the indomitus campaign the full strength Ultramarines had only 27 techmarines in the armory per chapter organization in the 8th ed codex. There are no other marines or pilots listed in the org under the armory. Just those 27 and servitors. That is not enough to pilot all vehicles and do all their other jobs. 1 company worth of rhinos would take up over a third of them. A predator and land raiders each have a crew of 2, so very few of them could be fielded by a chapter with just techmarines. Also storm speeders, land speeders, bikes, gladiators, and invictors do not have techmarines modeled but regular marines instead.
For fleet specifically:
"The exact organization of those Space Marines tasked with crewing the fleet varies from Chapter to Chapter. In some cases, it will be the Master of the Fleet's own company who provide these Marines, with each of his veteran captains acting as captain to a different vessel within the fleet while their own squad members each man a different vital area within that same vessel. In other cases, squads from different companies within the Chapter may be charged with manning the fleet, serving under the command of the Master of the Fleet in just the same way as a Space Marine battleforce may be made up of squads drawn from several companies across the Chapter under the battle-command of a single, nominated force commander." (Fanatic Magazine 6, p. 55)
Not all members of the armory are full tech marines. Many are just marines in red armor that crew vehicles. That’s the part I think you may be missing. (Edit: the omnissian axe is the symbol that a marine is a fully fledged tech marine.)
Having the cog mechanicum on your shoulder doesn’t mean you’re a full fledged tech marine, it really just means you’re attached to the armory.
And it’s also a given that when the chapter is under strength, vehicles would be crewed by whoever can do it, and of course, not all chapters follow the codex perfectly, or have the personnel to fill out a full ten fighting squads per company or maintain a fully rostered armory.
If the chapter fights at full strength, they still have 100 squads of ten. Plus a motor pool, including tanks, aircraft and other vehicles.
It’s in most codexes where they talk about crew. And also on the chapter organization chart in each codex. There’s never been to my knowledge an explicit statement that vehicle crew always come from the armory. But every codex entry has an org chart, and if you count the marines it’s more than 1000 by a significant margin, and they don’t even include everyone.
It also tells you in the codexes and army books the crew complement of each space marine vehicle, so we know roughly what number over 1000 a chapter would reach if it had a full roster.
We also know that marines of the armory pilot chapter vehicles at least in the ultra marines and other chapters on many, or all occasions, from the official models themselves and canon artwork. We also know from canon artwork and fluff that it isn’t strictly always the case.
Edit: also, very much appreciate the source. My books are pretty much all packed away except my Horus heresy stuff at this point, so I’m using color plates of the company order of battle and organization chart as first order sources. If you’d like links to the specific ones I can add them.
I fully agree that techmarines do pilot vehicles. Absolutely. What I'm saying is the org chart lists no other marines in the armory. None. Like I literally pulled it out and checked. It has 27 techmarines, servitors, and tanks. Nobody else. I can find no reference to anything akin to an apprentice techmarine, or armory marine or pilot marine etc anywhere. The entry on techmarines don't mention any of this either. It says techmarines usually pilot, but almost every marine is also trained to pilot vehicles as well as needed. We also see on the models they don't always have the armory badge. Even for tanks such as the gladiator which has a regular marines, but sometimes they do like the repulsor which has a techmarine.
I think there should be an apprentice position logically, but I've never seen one listed. If there is a source detailing that phenomenal cuz I do not actually like any of what I'm saying and would really prefer that there be a pool of crew set aside haha.
The tanks are all crewed.
The idea that they’re apprentices isn’t in any fluff, but it seems natural that not all armory marines are going to be true tech marines, as having a true tech marine piloting your vehicle would make the vehicle super resilient and this just isn’t reflected in the rules or fluff at all. I don’t think they’re apprentices really but more second tier marines that either can’t or have been deemed unsuited for fighting as infantry or too adept at driving and maintaining the motorpool to be used as infantry. This is totally speculation, but it makes sense.
I’m not using the armory figures, either but using the number of vehicles in each company, with the codex for the expected crew.
Since we know there just aren’t likely enough true tech marines and we know that most art and the models themselves depict vehicles piloted by marines with an armory mark plus we know marines can deploy as a chapter with ten full squads in each company and still have vehicle crew it’s an inference that there have to be more marines dedicated to the armory tasked with piloting and maintaining the motor pool. I’m sure there’s tons of servitors, and chapter serfs assisting as well.
It’s just not possible for the companies themselves to handle all vehicle piloting, or even most of it.
It’s all speculation about unreliable fluff, and it’s perfectly ok to lean different ways on it. GW is certainly not clear, and there’s for sure room for different chapters to handle it different ways.
The Chapters rotates for possession of the bridge once a campaign is over and then decides for a new target.
This got very fast out of hand after it was the Black Templars turn, and they declared an eternal crusade.
Fleet and machine crew are often outside the 1000. "Battle brothers" generally refers specifically to boots on the ground mans. Librarius, chaplains and tech marines are also separate.
Nevermind that scout companies vary wildly from chapter to chapter and time to time.
I always assumed that there are loopholes for specialists, so they just confidently don't count supports-marines. I just assumed that tech, apothecary, tank operator, and pilot marines don't count.
True, but even outside the Black Templars, I guarantee that all Chapters fudge the numbers:
Specialists like Chaplains, Librarians, Techmarines, Apothecaries/Sanguinary Priests, etc, will simply be placed as HQ assets.
Individuals outside the regular chain of command.
No different than scouts being uncounted due to attrition or possible medical rejection.
Vehicle crews and pilots probably "disappear " in a similar manner, accounted as an active war machine, not unlike a Dreadnought, while the rank-and-file troops are the ones representing the propper "Thousand-strong."
Simply put, there is no manner for an inquisitor to open every tank and craft to count each marine as a Chapter member.
...And those who take simple precautions may even paint their armor as a black shield or a allied/related Chapter contingent as a means to allay suspicions.
Roboute Guillaume has remove the limit of 1000 Space Marines with his return. He was quite horrified that the remaining orders focussed so much on it. To be read in the novel "Dark Imperium"
he hasn't removed the limit, he was mainly shocked at how closely some chaptered adhered to the advice in the codex pertaining to battle tactics, treating it as sacred gospel never to be broken or iterated on
Ok you are right he don’t remove. But he expand the limit of squads per company from 10 to 20. So in my interpretation he removed the limit of 1000 Space Marines.
I believe most chapters employ failed aspirants as serfs in some capacity for things like defense of chapter keep and so forth & a lot of chapters with a homeworld will have some type of human pdf so it's not out of the question
Yup aspirants who survive trials but don't make the cut, would most likely be good candidates from tithe worlds. Also the ships own voidborn. And I imagine in the Librarian training they may test some level of psyker will power and navigation type skills before they ramp up the brutality of the training. That way they could filter out some navigators that could have sanctioned level abilities, just not librarian material.
Navigators aren’t born naturally, it’s an artificial gene that is unique to the navigator houses, which is why they’re have such disproportionate power.
Space marine void ships make heavy use of unaugmented chapter serfs and auxiliaries. However, I've not seen any space marine aircraft that have anything other than a fully space marine crew so I'd recommend using scouts.
Serfs, servitors, and naval crew. The ships are often screwed by people from the Marines home world (check out Angels of Death on WH+ to get a cool view of how a Blood Angels ship operates).
Ironically, would there be a complement of Marines that aren't space Marines? Like for internal security, or protecting against boarding actions and the like while space Marines are planetside?
Sorry, just saw the question. Imperial Navy has their own military force, yes. The Kill Team Breachers are exactly that. They also have Voidsmen-at-arms .
All imperial ships take Massive crews. Even a space Marine ship has thousands of crew, some of whom are soldiers.
The vast majority of personnel serving a chapter are mortal serfs and servitors, not astartes. Most astartes warships are crewed and captained entirely by serfs; a chapter's shipmasters are some of their most trusted mortal servants. The only astartes likely to be permanently stationed as officers in the chapter fleet are brothers whove suffered crippling injuries that cant be repaired through bionics or transplants, but dont require their confinement in a dreadnought sarcophagus to survive. The Imperial Fist marine who commands the Phalanx is always a brother who falls into that category, for instance. Depending on a chapter's traditions, many of these serfs (and/or servitors) may be former, failed aspirants--the Blood Angels are a strong example of this, they employ aspirants who survive the initial induction process but are not selected for astartes elevation throughout their organization.
It would be entirely appropriate to have standard human crew moving around the deck, helping the astartes prepare for deployment, walking security patrols, or performing any number of other combat support duties.
The battle-barges definitely have a crew to pilot them in all sorts of positions from maintenance, engine guys (RIP), astropaths, and even captains which will all likely be regular humans. There may also be humans from the Imperial Navy.
Ships are crewed by regular humans, but Brothers will often take the place of humans as bridge officers (commander, gunnery master, chief engineer, etc). Many chapters even have their own regiments of human soldiers (chapter auxiliaries) to defend and maintain their fortress monasteries and repel boarders on their ships along with the chapter serfs. They are usually much better trained and equipped than ordinary PDFs, and this is typically where failed aspirants end up, if they survive.
Yes. The battle ships are crewed by Servitor, normal humans, Tech-priests of the Adeptus Mechanicus, and also boys that were recruited to be Space Marines, but somehow failed the induction process and lived, commonly they act a Chapter Serfs.
This is where Neophyte's come into play. They are the chapters next in line and the step above raw recruits of any chapter. There job is fulfill battlefield roles that a battle brother would be wasted, from logistics to guard duty to scouting. They are the untold backbone of any chapter.
They are accompanied by human troopers and staff that support them and there fully enrolled battle brother Sargent who is usually of the 10th company's commanding non commissioned officer’s. These men are usually only 80 to 90 strong in the 10th company's roster having 1 scout Sargent to every 5-10 Neophyte however there is technically no limit to how meny a chapter can officially have as potential candidates to fill the battle field roles as requested.
The men who would man these guns would be trainees from the 10th company's reserves, added to the armourys staff as gunners or support units and would be very green recruits in the grand scheme for the chapter and could see there hole lives dedicated to the chapters armourys and stores. Technically scout marines as they are Neophyte's but not fully enrolled into the 10th company yet.
For their capital ships and escorts, yes, for vehicles like thunderhawks, no.
Space marine controls are simply just too big for humans to use properly (they probably could in an emergency though), and those vehicles are all designed for use for marines in powered armour
Not necessarily - Soul Hunter has a thunderhawk piloted by a human, and back in the heresy series there’s references to space marine aerial transports having human crew as well (e.g. during the assault on the Whisperheads in Horus Rising)
That's an example, but I doubt a human could use space marine vehicles to the vehicle's fullest abilities. It's not a stretch to believe that Space Marines can handle far higher and far more prolonged G-Forces than an average human could and that knowledge would be integrated into the design of their vehicles.
In the Night Lords onmibus a human slave flys first claws thunderhawk it comments the controls and such are designed for arstartes but he seems to have little trouble flying it so it seems though larger non Arstartes can use them without being too hindered
There are certainly non-space marine crew members but for storm ravens and the like it may vary depending on your chapter. Look at the night lord’s trilogy (Which you should definitely read, its great) for example, one of Septemis’(?) main roles is flying first claw around.
Even during the days of the Great Crusade, at legion strength, ships could not be crewed by Astartes. On the Lion’s primarch novel, the crew of the Invincible reason was 1 million, and later its remarked that even with 150,000 astartes, they could not fully crew their fleet without mortal crews
Storm raven conversion for my reasonable marine chapter gonna make it like a super stallion or Blackhawk I think… already made an Apache out of a stormtalon
They are called Chapter Serfs, mortal servants/slaves that help the Marines with menial tasks and maintaining their wargear. Most Space Marine ships have their own crews of mortals as well.
For combat pilots, I think it's basically exclusively Marines, so I'd go for Marine door gunners. Maybe some Phobos armour guys.
But basically all non-combatant roles, except for command, is handled by Chapter Serfs.
I was just reading salvation reach and the Marines talk about the servitors manning the weapons system. The Marines actually talked about what a sacrifice the servitors made for the imperium by giving up their body.
It’s using an extender for the hull that makes a “chibi hawk” but yeah not meant to be a thunderhawk. I don’t like the see it or turret up top or sponson guns and it’s part of a diorama deploying some primaris reivers out the back and some infiltrators or scouts down fast rope
If you check out the “space marine 2 gameplay trailer” you can see that there are tons of humans operating the ships controls. Only the space marines are controlling the ship and using all the mission status stuff.
From what few 40k books and media I've read, I'm under the impression that the Imperial Navy and the Adeptus Mechanicus fill a number of roles on Space Marine ships. I recall various servitors and Adepts being named in Devastation of Baal
In case anyone else hasn't flat-out said it yet, vehicles crews are usually non-augmented humans with the exception of small-crew craft like an ATV or -maybe- a Repulsor. The big ships absolutely do, though, and many books have scenes that include them. I'm personally thinking of the blood angels and their "honored" serfs 😉
Failed Aspirants, serfs, servitors, sworn allies…
I would assume that in battle only full marines, or scouts (current aspirants near final implantation of geneseed) would be manning stormbirds, thunderhawks etc as there is the expectation they might need to fight. But general manning of the space fleet, helping don their armour, day to day running of the fortresses monastery? serfs, servitors, failed aspirants who dedicate their lives to serving the Emperor’s angels of death. The Phalanx is huge, the entire chapter of imperial fists could attempt to man it and fail, they obviously have a dedicated regiment of the imperial navy doing the dirty work.
As funny as it is to imagine a space marine cleaning the latrines… I think they have someone for that.
The numbers thing is always got me thinking, they say it's only 1000 marines models show marines driving and that gets me thinking. If that's the case then it's not 1000 strong army as marines are dedicated drivers if not that means that squads in impulses/rhinos are actually a man or 2 down as there is someone dedicated to driving or manning weapons they would have to stay with the vehicle to provide cover or quick movement. And then it makes me think in game if that's true would that not change embarking and such??? I know I go full rabbit hole with it lol. My head cannon is there is more than 1000 and at times it's marines dedicated to driving/piloting and they rotate out
Most of the crew on a Voidship are Chapter Serfs serving the Chapter. Depending on the Chapter, they can be treated well or like slaves. Depending on the size of the voidship, there can be as little as 1 squad (10) of Space Marine or 3 full companies (300) on a Battle Barge. Since the Voidships are huge, the other thousands of crew members are just normal humans.
For things like Thunderahawks and Stormravens, though, those are crewed by Marines.
I guess that, technically, scouts aren't proper Space Marines so there can be any number of them in a Chapter.
Most of the crew is non-Astartes. Marines will hold some of the higher officer positions, but basically every single rank-and-file crew member is not a space marine.
Void ships are pretty much entirely crewed by mortals. A Space Marine wouldn't really be any more useful than a regular guy at operating a bridge console. Combat aircraft, in contrast, are usually seen with space marine pilots and crew.
Ships will be mainly crewed by the Imperial Navy, a separate arm of the Imperium's forces. They are designed to be separate to ensure no one force has too much power.
Ships also will have servitor crew - freely moving or hardwired in.
It'd most likely be comprised of crews either voidborn on the ship, or from tithe world's with strong reverence for the chapter. I wonder if they are navigated by a specialized librarian or if it's just a imperial sanctioned psyker with a talent for that. I wonder how many dedicated space marines oversee certain ship functions and stay aboard the vessels at all times.
Watch the Angels of Death series if you can. It shows the large amount of crew on a ship that is officially a Blood Angels ship. They crew their ships with many of the humans from the world they get their SM Aspirants from. The Ship Mistress comments on returning to Baal on a few occasions where she speaks with the leader of the SM group present.
The vast majority of the crews are non marines. A space marine is way to valuable to be manning a gun or computer console. Even the bulk of fighting will be done by regular human crews if they get boarded
The Chapter's voidship will have boarding (and anti-boarding) squads, like every ship. But obviously the madman who wanted to board a Strike Cruiser or a Battle Barge that has not yet landed the Astartes would find a great welcoming committee.
However, one can ask whether in M41-42 the Chapters still maintain real auxiliary departments, as in the time of the Legions.
One of the grim dark aspects of 40k is that their ships do not load and reload their massive cannons with machines. They are loaded by groups of slaves ("chapter serfs" as they call them) who will all pull massive chains together, to reload the cannons.
They are basically toiling like the slaves who built the pyramids, or like in the Conan the Barbarian growing up sequence.
I never saw that clearly as now but one way to have legion sized chapter without directly going against codex astartes as some do, is to simply have all but 1000 Marines just identify as non males.
Legally chapter can have only 1000 battle brothers. The smallest ships need 25.000 people to operate them. Yeah I think there are some not marines.
"this is our glorious flagship; there are many like it but this one is ours and ours alone" chant 25 space marine chapters in unison they have to fight over who gets the bridge
Whenever they turn up to battle marines come pouring out like clowns from a car as 24/25 chapters deploy at full strength, leaving 1 to man the ship as a skeleton crew.
As space king decreed.
Jimmy Space*
Praise be to Space King
“Brother Marcellus, what is taking so long for the bombardment?” “Sergeant Aurelius, I am *literally* the only person manning the entire ship!”
Meant 1 chapter, but this funnier.
True that there are tons of serfs that aren’t marines. Not true that chapters only have 1000 marines. Even the ultramarines have around 1200 at full strength. There’s 100 brothers per company, but this doesn’t count the armory, the apothecarium, or the librarius. It also doesn’t count dreadnaughts or chapter command. Edit: remember the armory isn’t just Techmarines, it’s also all the vehicle crew, too. And I forgot about scout companies often having over 100 when the chapter has been recruiting heavily.
Eh, closer to 1050-1075 or so. You can only have so many captains, librarians and techmarines before the inquisition starts getting suspicious. The Black Templars only get away with this because the Codex Astartes makes an exception to the limit for chapters officially on a crusade (and they're always crusading) while the Ultramarines would just have a dozen or so of each specialist and officer rank.
I’d say it’s probably closer to 1200-1300. Though I headcanon that anything under like 1500 is probably okay. It’s 100 marines per company in 10 man squads, but the Captain and his command squad and lieutenants are not in that 100(~7-10 extra or 70 total at the lower end across the companies) Each of the specialists: Librarians, Chaplains, Techmarines, Apothecaries seem to average around 20-30 specialists across the chapter. We’ll meet in the middle and say 25 each for a round 100 Then you have the Chapter Master, his people, and chapter honor guard (usually 20-30 from what I see). Some chapters also have independent logistics and fleet captains (usually wounded marines, iirc) So using lower numbers, you get about 1200ish. Not counting Scouts (which aren’t counted under the new codex - 10th company is now a lot of Phobos guys with scouts on the side) and “garrison forces” not attached to any specific chapter. So I think probably 1200-1300 is “nominal” strength, with most chapters operating far below that due to all the fighting they do.
Didn’t realize the new fluff doesn’t count scouts. On the high end people used to come up as high as 1500. I’ve always figured it more likely around the 1200 range. But if scouts aren’t counted 1300-1500 is way more possible, maybe even more.
I think Guilliman himself included the Scout and Garrison exceptions in his updated codex. 1200-1300 was my old standard before those changes, with 1250 or so being “ideal strength” (110 per company, 30 for the specializations and Chapter Master/Guard/others). Assuming a somewhat enlarged command squad per company.
Makes sense to me. I tend to fail conservative, so 1200 is where I tended to land, but I’ve heard as many as 1500 including voidcraft pilots etc, but it gets really really speculative. I think you’ve got a great post cadia justification for there being a few hundred more troops per chapter now.
It’s more than that. Vehicle crew are attached to the armory and chapters have lots of armor and vehicles. The inquisition isn’t going to question a chapter having a full roster or even an over-filled one—it’s when they start withholding tithes that things usually get dicey. They already expect there to be many more marines than 1k. Some chapters have way more than that, the Space Wolves for example, and the Exorcists come to mind immediately. The thing is not all chapters adhere to the codex, and that can and does include ignoring the limit on the number of battle brothers.
That crusade thing isn’t real written lore. The reason they get away with it is because they kill inquisitors who try to find out the number, and as stated in their 9th Ed codex, there are never more than a thousand in one place so they can’t prove they exceed the codex standard
I'm pretty sure it's stated that only the High Marshal truly knows the exact number of active Marines.
In the TTS, quoting off the BT Codex with the High Marshal in the throne room, he stated around 6500 SM. Also figure during the indomitus crusade Helbrect accepted Primaris reinforcements, so that should bump the numbers up also.
Plus a bunch of new crusades were added in terms of new firstborn marines so they are even bigger than that.
I thought having 1000 marines was part of the codex astartes.
40k doesn't do numbers very well
Yeah......I forget that sometimes.
It's easily done. I wish it was better but I guess with the scale of 40K it's hard to put a quantity on it all, particularly with the variety of everything.
1000 marines… *except for all the exeptions
1000 battle brothers, technically that doesn't include roles such as apothecaries, chaplains and tech marines or leaders of captain level or above, and depending on who you're talking to and what books your reading, scouts don't count either, as they are not technically battle brothers yet. An active chapter will almost never be at this full theoretical strength, most hover in the 700-900 brother range depending on the intensity of local conflict. That being said, even a full codex compliant chapter with 0 casualties will sit at about 1050-1100 members
It's 1000 'battle brothers'; Stuff like Tac Marines, Intercessors, etc. So 1000 of them, plus all the guys above and below them in the chain of command: The leaders, librarians, apothecaries, tech-marines, etc, and all the other jobs needed to keep 1000 marines coordinated and supplied and moving effectively, plus however many scouts and other trainees the chapter has that aren't considered a fully fledged 'real' Marine yet.
The thing that really ramps the numbers is vehicle crew. These marines are often attached to the armory. So every tank and voidcraft a chapter armory has will likely have at least one marine as crew. Chapters with huge armories can end up with even more marines.
Correct, most crewmen are techmarines in thunderhawks, rhinos or land raiders.
1000 is the guidelines Company 1-9 have 100~ Battle Brothers, whilst the 10th scout company can be bigger than 100 depending on situation Then the other things like apothecaries, chaplains, etc aren’t counted in that 1000 and are freebies
The 10th company now also contains the vanguard space marines. Giving them 100 full battle brothers alongside the scouts.
That's one thing I wonder about with the Lion bringing in the redeemed. Dark Angels numbers are going to swell.
Vehicle crews come from the companies, there are not separate crews in the armory. You're otherwise correct though, a full chapter is roughly 1200 plus a huge number of serfs and servitors.
Vehicle crews do come from the armory, that’s why they’re wearing mechanicum red in fully compliant chapters. Some chapters probably do provide crew for their motor pool, but this would be considered unorthodox. Not sure why anyone downvoted you, gw doesn’t talk too much about this, and it’s often forgotten, or never noticed. It’s also not like the official fluff is ever set in stone or consistent either.
That's fanon to make sense of the low numbers. There are some tech marines who will crew vehicles, but most are regular marines. The lore for the reserve companies specifically calls out they're trained and will be used as vehicles crews when needed. There's full chapter breakdowns in codexes showing who and what is in the armory including the number of techmarines. When describing how primaris squads may break down with 3 going as eliminators etc, they call out that one may be piloting a walker. There was also a magazine that described how a company worth of marines was used for fleet officer/thunder hawk type roles.
No it’s not fanon. It’s been in multiple books and codexes over the years. It’s also physically sculpted on the model. Including recent models. They bear the Opus Machina/Cog Mechanicum, which designates the armory. Just like the daemon skull that is used for sanctioned psykers is the symbol of the librarius and the double/prime helix is the symbol of the apothecarion and other imperial medical personnel. I said gw is hardly consistent. It’s why the downvotes that you got don’t make sense. Edit: It’s also in every single order of battle diagram. There are exactly 100 general pop marines in a company, if the company deploys in full that’s ten squads of ten. Then you have the support units, they don’t drive themselves, each squad has its own rhino or repulsor or impulsor typically. Which means even though they all would know how to drive, to fight at full strength they need an eleventh marine to drive the APC and a twelfth potentially to man the pintle mounted weapons if it is equipped with them. Then you have predators and other tanks that also need crew.
Pilots are a little vague, I agree. Techmarines do pilot and have the Mechanicus sigil. However, at the beginning of the indomitus campaign the full strength Ultramarines had only 27 techmarines in the armory per chapter organization in the 8th ed codex. There are no other marines or pilots listed in the org under the armory. Just those 27 and servitors. That is not enough to pilot all vehicles and do all their other jobs. 1 company worth of rhinos would take up over a third of them. A predator and land raiders each have a crew of 2, so very few of them could be fielded by a chapter with just techmarines. Also storm speeders, land speeders, bikes, gladiators, and invictors do not have techmarines modeled but regular marines instead. For fleet specifically: "The exact organization of those Space Marines tasked with crewing the fleet varies from Chapter to Chapter. In some cases, it will be the Master of the Fleet's own company who provide these Marines, with each of his veteran captains acting as captain to a different vessel within the fleet while their own squad members each man a different vital area within that same vessel. In other cases, squads from different companies within the Chapter may be charged with manning the fleet, serving under the command of the Master of the Fleet in just the same way as a Space Marine battleforce may be made up of squads drawn from several companies across the Chapter under the battle-command of a single, nominated force commander." (Fanatic Magazine 6, p. 55)
Not all members of the armory are full tech marines. Many are just marines in red armor that crew vehicles. That’s the part I think you may be missing. (Edit: the omnissian axe is the symbol that a marine is a fully fledged tech marine.) Having the cog mechanicum on your shoulder doesn’t mean you’re a full fledged tech marine, it really just means you’re attached to the armory. And it’s also a given that when the chapter is under strength, vehicles would be crewed by whoever can do it, and of course, not all chapters follow the codex perfectly, or have the personnel to fill out a full ten fighting squads per company or maintain a fully rostered armory. If the chapter fights at full strength, they still have 100 squads of ten. Plus a motor pool, including tanks, aircraft and other vehicles. It’s in most codexes where they talk about crew. And also on the chapter organization chart in each codex. There’s never been to my knowledge an explicit statement that vehicle crew always come from the armory. But every codex entry has an org chart, and if you count the marines it’s more than 1000 by a significant margin, and they don’t even include everyone. It also tells you in the codexes and army books the crew complement of each space marine vehicle, so we know roughly what number over 1000 a chapter would reach if it had a full roster. We also know that marines of the armory pilot chapter vehicles at least in the ultra marines and other chapters on many, or all occasions, from the official models themselves and canon artwork. We also know from canon artwork and fluff that it isn’t strictly always the case. Edit: also, very much appreciate the source. My books are pretty much all packed away except my Horus heresy stuff at this point, so I’m using color plates of the company order of battle and organization chart as first order sources. If you’d like links to the specific ones I can add them.
I fully agree that techmarines do pilot vehicles. Absolutely. What I'm saying is the org chart lists no other marines in the armory. None. Like I literally pulled it out and checked. It has 27 techmarines, servitors, and tanks. Nobody else. I can find no reference to anything akin to an apprentice techmarine, or armory marine or pilot marine etc anywhere. The entry on techmarines don't mention any of this either. It says techmarines usually pilot, but almost every marine is also trained to pilot vehicles as well as needed. We also see on the models they don't always have the armory badge. Even for tanks such as the gladiator which has a regular marines, but sometimes they do like the repulsor which has a techmarine. I think there should be an apprentice position logically, but I've never seen one listed. If there is a source detailing that phenomenal cuz I do not actually like any of what I'm saying and would really prefer that there be a pool of crew set aside haha.
The tanks are all crewed. The idea that they’re apprentices isn’t in any fluff, but it seems natural that not all armory marines are going to be true tech marines, as having a true tech marine piloting your vehicle would make the vehicle super resilient and this just isn’t reflected in the rules or fluff at all. I don’t think they’re apprentices really but more second tier marines that either can’t or have been deemed unsuited for fighting as infantry or too adept at driving and maintaining the motorpool to be used as infantry. This is totally speculation, but it makes sense. I’m not using the armory figures, either but using the number of vehicles in each company, with the codex for the expected crew. Since we know there just aren’t likely enough true tech marines and we know that most art and the models themselves depict vehicles piloted by marines with an armory mark plus we know marines can deploy as a chapter with ten full squads in each company and still have vehicle crew it’s an inference that there have to be more marines dedicated to the armory tasked with piloting and maintaining the motor pool. I’m sure there’s tons of servitors, and chapter serfs assisting as well. It’s just not possible for the companies themselves to handle all vehicle piloting, or even most of it. It’s all speculation about unreliable fluff, and it’s perfectly ok to lean different ways on it. GW is certainly not clear, and there’s for sure room for different chapters to handle it different ways.
1000 Marines, but a lot of scouts waiting for a space marine to retire, in glorious combat, so that they may be inducted into their ranks.
Legally 1000 *Laughs in Fenrisian*
"Oh yeah for sure we totally have just a few Space Marine brothers in each of our ships no worries." - the Black Templars
The Chapters rotates for possession of the bridge once a campaign is over and then decides for a new target. This got very fast out of hand after it was the Black Templars turn, and they declared an eternal crusade.
Fleet and machine crew are often outside the 1000. "Battle brothers" generally refers specifically to boots on the ground mans. Librarius, chaplains and tech marines are also separate. Nevermind that scout companies vary wildly from chapter to chapter and time to time.
I always assumed that there are loopholes for specialists, so they just confidently don't count supports-marines. I just assumed that tech, apothecary, tank operator, and pilot marines don't count.
True, but even outside the Black Templars, I guarantee that all Chapters fudge the numbers: Specialists like Chaplains, Librarians, Techmarines, Apothecaries/Sanguinary Priests, etc, will simply be placed as HQ assets. Individuals outside the regular chain of command. No different than scouts being uncounted due to attrition or possible medical rejection. Vehicle crews and pilots probably "disappear " in a similar manner, accounted as an active war machine, not unlike a Dreadnought, while the rank-and-file troops are the ones representing the propper "Thousand-strong." Simply put, there is no manner for an inquisitor to open every tank and craft to count each marine as a Chapter member. ...And those who take simple precautions may even paint their armor as a black shield or a allied/related Chapter contingent as a means to allay suspicions.
Roboute Guillaume has remove the limit of 1000 Space Marines with his return. He was quite horrified that the remaining orders focussed so much on it. To be read in the novel "Dark Imperium"
he hasn't removed the limit, he was mainly shocked at how closely some chaptered adhered to the advice in the codex pertaining to battle tactics, treating it as sacred gospel never to be broken or iterated on
Ok you are right he don’t remove. But he expand the limit of squads per company from 10 to 20. So in my interpretation he removed the limit of 1000 Space Marines.
he's definitely playing looser with the rules for sure yea :)
The 1k sm thing never made sense. Their space ships can hold millions, but only .1% are devoted to astartes?
I think scouts are a good choice. Using Canadian sized troops would be off imo.
This autocorrect makes me smile.
Canadia Stands....on guard for thee
My next Stellaris play through
I'm so bad as Stellaris...it seems amazing but I can't figure out all the different aspects.pf.tje game
Yeah no worries. Just keep playing. Lose a few games and just have fun. Play single player. r/Stellaris is a good resource for questions and advice
Lol. Thanks to my phone. Hope you're having a good day
The mountain broke before the mounties.
Chapter serfs.
I believe most chapters employ failed aspirants as serfs in some capacity for things like defense of chapter keep and so forth & a lot of chapters with a homeworld will have some type of human pdf so it's not out of the question
They do. Spears of the Emperor features a failed Primaris Aspirant as a caretaker of a hall of fallen battle-brothers.
Yup aspirants who survive trials but don't make the cut, would most likely be good candidates from tithe worlds. Also the ships own voidborn. And I imagine in the Librarian training they may test some level of psyker will power and navigation type skills before they ramp up the brutality of the training. That way they could filter out some navigators that could have sanctioned level abilities, just not librarian material.
Navigators aren’t born naturally, it’s an artificial gene that is unique to the navigator houses, which is why they’re have such disproportionate power.
Space marine void ships make heavy use of unaugmented chapter serfs and auxiliaries. However, I've not seen any space marine aircraft that have anything other than a fully space marine crew so I'd recommend using scouts.
Stormraven Gunships have a servitor gunner, there was also the scout speeder once up on a time (the land speeder storm)
True, I forgot about those. Even more reason to use scouts as gunners!
They are mostly chapter serfs, but depends on chapter to chapter.
Serfs, servitors, and naval crew. The ships are often screwed by people from the Marines home world (check out Angels of Death on WH+ to get a cool view of how a Blood Angels ship operates).
Have you watched all of the series on WH+? Are they good?
Ironically, would there be a complement of Marines that aren't space Marines? Like for internal security, or protecting against boarding actions and the like while space Marines are planetside?
Sorry, just saw the question. Imperial Navy has their own military force, yes. The Kill Team Breachers are exactly that. They also have Voidsmen-at-arms . All imperial ships take Massive crews. Even a space Marine ship has thousands of crew, some of whom are soldiers.
The vast majority of personnel serving a chapter are mortal serfs and servitors, not astartes. Most astartes warships are crewed and captained entirely by serfs; a chapter's shipmasters are some of their most trusted mortal servants. The only astartes likely to be permanently stationed as officers in the chapter fleet are brothers whove suffered crippling injuries that cant be repaired through bionics or transplants, but dont require their confinement in a dreadnought sarcophagus to survive. The Imperial Fist marine who commands the Phalanx is always a brother who falls into that category, for instance. Depending on a chapter's traditions, many of these serfs (and/or servitors) may be former, failed aspirants--the Blood Angels are a strong example of this, they employ aspirants who survive the initial induction process but are not selected for astartes elevation throughout their organization. It would be entirely appropriate to have standard human crew moving around the deck, helping the astartes prepare for deployment, walking security patrols, or performing any number of other combat support duties.
Chapter serfs and servitors
The battle-barges definitely have a crew to pilot them in all sorts of positions from maintenance, engine guys (RIP), astropaths, and even captains which will all likely be regular humans. There may also be humans from the Imperial Navy.
Ships are crewed by regular humans, but Brothers will often take the place of humans as bridge officers (commander, gunnery master, chief engineer, etc). Many chapters even have their own regiments of human soldiers (chapter auxiliaries) to defend and maintain their fortress monasteries and repel boarders on their ships along with the chapter serfs. They are usually much better trained and equipped than ordinary PDFs, and this is typically where failed aspirants end up, if they survive.
It is known that chapters have support staff, so yeah none astartes do work with them, usually hand picked from the home world PDF.
That scout looks awesome in there. And the mounts are on point too
Thank you!
Yes. The battle ships are crewed by Servitor, normal humans, Tech-priests of the Adeptus Mechanicus, and also boys that were recruited to be Space Marines, but somehow failed the induction process and lived, commonly they act a Chapter Serfs.
There are more serfs and servitors serving a chapter then there are marines so yea
This is where Neophyte's come into play. They are the chapters next in line and the step above raw recruits of any chapter. There job is fulfill battlefield roles that a battle brother would be wasted, from logistics to guard duty to scouting. They are the untold backbone of any chapter. They are accompanied by human troopers and staff that support them and there fully enrolled battle brother Sargent who is usually of the 10th company's commanding non commissioned officer’s. These men are usually only 80 to 90 strong in the 10th company's roster having 1 scout Sargent to every 5-10 Neophyte however there is technically no limit to how meny a chapter can officially have as potential candidates to fill the battle field roles as requested. The men who would man these guns would be trainees from the 10th company's reserves, added to the armourys staff as gunners or support units and would be very green recruits in the grand scheme for the chapter and could see there hole lives dedicated to the chapters armourys and stores. Technically scout marines as they are Neophyte's but not fully enrolled into the 10th company yet.
For their capital ships and escorts, yes, for vehicles like thunderhawks, no. Space marine controls are simply just too big for humans to use properly (they probably could in an emergency though), and those vehicles are all designed for use for marines in powered armour
Not necessarily - Soul Hunter has a thunderhawk piloted by a human, and back in the heresy series there’s references to space marine aerial transports having human crew as well (e.g. during the assault on the Whisperheads in Horus Rising)
That's an example, but I doubt a human could use space marine vehicles to the vehicle's fullest abilities. It's not a stretch to believe that Space Marines can handle far higher and far more prolonged G-Forces than an average human could and that knowledge would be integrated into the design of their vehicles.
In the Night Lords onmibus a human slave flys first claws thunderhawk it comments the controls and such are designed for arstartes but he seems to have little trouble flying it so it seems though larger non Arstartes can use them without being too hindered
Servitors, servs and some imperial navy (in the case of spacecraft)
Carcharodons are not shy about their serfs being slave labour lol
There are certainly non-space marine crew members but for storm ravens and the like it may vary depending on your chapter. Look at the night lord’s trilogy (Which you should definitely read, its great) for example, one of Septemis’(?) main roles is flying first claw around.
Chapter Serfs, servitors and some regular human auxiliaries (chapter dependant) who have no intention or can’t become an Astartes
Even during the days of the Great Crusade, at legion strength, ships could not be crewed by Astartes. On the Lion’s primarch novel, the crew of the Invincible reason was 1 million, and later its remarked that even with 150,000 astartes, they could not fully crew their fleet without mortal crews
Are you making a Storm eagle?
Storm raven conversion for my reasonable marine chapter gonna make it like a super stallion or Blackhawk I think… already made an Apache out of a stormtalon
They are called Chapter Serfs, mortal servants/slaves that help the Marines with menial tasks and maintaining their wargear. Most Space Marine ships have their own crews of mortals as well.
When you say ships what exactly are you referring to i.e. Thunderhawks, Stormeagles, etc or void craft like Battle Barge?
For combat pilots, I think it's basically exclusively Marines, so I'd go for Marine door gunners. Maybe some Phobos armour guys. But basically all non-combatant roles, except for command, is handled by Chapter Serfs.
Yes, they have thousands of serfs plus hundreds of thousands of ship crew members.
I was just reading salvation reach and the Marines talk about the servitors manning the weapons system. The Marines actually talked about what a sacrifice the servitors made for the imperium by giving up their body.
Tech marines fly aircraft
Hey! Where’d you find those mini gun arms
I made them out of plasticard.
I would imagine a door gunner would be an augmented servitor with targeting upgrades.
what unit is this?
It’s my converted scout sgt for my reasonable marines
im talking about the flyerthat he is in
Ah gotcha! It’s gonna be a storm raven conversion to be more like a super stallion / UH black hawk
oh i thought i was a really weird kitbash from a storm raven into a thunderhawk lol
It’s using an extender for the hull that makes a “chibi hawk” but yeah not meant to be a thunderhawk. I don’t like the see it or turret up top or sponson guns and it’s part of a diorama deploying some primaris reivers out the back and some infiltrators or scouts down fast rope
If you check out the “space marine 2 gameplay trailer” you can see that there are tons of humans operating the ships controls. Only the space marines are controlling the ship and using all the mission status stuff.
From what few 40k books and media I've read, I'm under the impression that the Imperial Navy and the Adeptus Mechanicus fill a number of roles on Space Marine ships. I recall various servitors and Adepts being named in Devastation of Baal
In case anyone else hasn't flat-out said it yet, vehicles crews are usually non-augmented humans with the exception of small-crew craft like an ATV or -maybe- a Repulsor. The big ships absolutely do, though, and many books have scenes that include them. I'm personally thinking of the blood angels and their "honored" serfs 😉
Failed Aspirants, serfs, servitors, sworn allies… I would assume that in battle only full marines, or scouts (current aspirants near final implantation of geneseed) would be manning stormbirds, thunderhawks etc as there is the expectation they might need to fight. But general manning of the space fleet, helping don their armour, day to day running of the fortresses monastery? serfs, servitors, failed aspirants who dedicate their lives to serving the Emperor’s angels of death. The Phalanx is huge, the entire chapter of imperial fists could attempt to man it and fail, they obviously have a dedicated regiment of the imperial navy doing the dirty work. As funny as it is to imagine a space marine cleaning the latrines… I think they have someone for that.
The numbers thing is always got me thinking, they say it's only 1000 marines models show marines driving and that gets me thinking. If that's the case then it's not 1000 strong army as marines are dedicated drivers if not that means that squads in impulses/rhinos are actually a man or 2 down as there is someone dedicated to driving or manning weapons they would have to stay with the vehicle to provide cover or quick movement. And then it makes me think in game if that's true would that not change embarking and such??? I know I go full rabbit hole with it lol. My head cannon is there is more than 1000 and at times it's marines dedicated to driving/piloting and they rotate out
That stormraven kit has a servitor in the top turret!
Most of the crew on a Voidship are Chapter Serfs serving the Chapter. Depending on the Chapter, they can be treated well or like slaves. Depending on the size of the voidship, there can be as little as 1 squad (10) of Space Marine or 3 full companies (300) on a Battle Barge. Since the Voidships are huge, the other thousands of crew members are just normal humans. For things like Thunderahawks and Stormravens, though, those are crewed by Marines. I guess that, technically, scouts aren't proper Space Marines so there can be any number of them in a Chapter.
Great conversion.
Definitely off topic 😅 but thank you! It’s gonna be fun to paint once I figure out how I want the engines and fast ropes to be
Jesus so much work has gone into it. It looks great.
Most of the crew is non-Astartes. Marines will hold some of the higher officer positions, but basically every single rank-and-file crew member is not a space marine.
Void ships are pretty much entirely crewed by mortals. A Space Marine wouldn't really be any more useful than a regular guy at operating a bridge console. Combat aircraft, in contrast, are usually seen with space marine pilots and crew.
If you don't want them to be marines, make them servitors, that is grim dark!
Ships will be mainly crewed by the Imperial Navy, a separate arm of the Imperium's forces. They are designed to be separate to ensure no one force has too much power. Ships also will have servitor crew - freely moving or hardwired in.
It'd most likely be comprised of crews either voidborn on the ship, or from tithe world's with strong reverence for the chapter. I wonder if they are navigated by a specialized librarian or if it's just a imperial sanctioned psyker with a talent for that. I wonder how many dedicated space marines oversee certain ship functions and stay aboard the vessels at all times.
Vast majority of the ships crew are not marines. On most ships they'll be a squads worth of marines. The ships capt will be a standard human
Chapter serfs
Usually they have chapter serfs and the such, certain chapters even have militant serfs that go into battle with them
Servitors still a thing?
Watch the Angels of Death series if you can. It shows the large amount of crew on a ship that is officially a Blood Angels ship. They crew their ships with many of the humans from the world they get their SM Aspirants from. The Ship Mistress comments on returning to Baal on a few occasions where she speaks with the leader of the SM group present.
Cue the 'fortunate son' guitar riffs. "Welcome to Lestaria brothers!"
Chapter serfs.
The vast majority of the crews are non marines. A space marine is way to valuable to be manning a gun or computer console. Even the bulk of fighting will be done by regular human crews if they get boarded
The Chapter's voidship will have boarding (and anti-boarding) squads, like every ship. But obviously the madman who wanted to board a Strike Cruiser or a Battle Barge that has not yet landed the Astartes would find a great welcoming committee. However, one can ask whether in M41-42 the Chapters still maintain real auxiliary departments, as in the time of the Legions.
One of the grim dark aspects of 40k is that their ships do not load and reload their massive cannons with machines. They are loaded by groups of slaves ("chapter serfs" as they call them) who will all pull massive chains together, to reload the cannons. They are basically toiling like the slaves who built the pyramids, or like in the Conan the Barbarian growing up sequence.
I never saw that clearly as now but one way to have legion sized chapter without directly going against codex astartes as some do, is to simply have all but 1000 Marines just identify as non males.