How many soldiers does the imperium of man have?

[Over 25 and Owns a Computer]

Hey. This is just a nerd question. Just wanted to know how much men the imperium has to spend. I'm not that into the lore of warhammer really but it'd be cool to know stuff like this. I read online somewhere that the space marines have 1000 chapters with 1000 marines in each so thats 1 million. I'm wanting to know how much the imperial guard and all the others in the imperium have. I'm mostly interested in how much infantry they have but if someone could answer how much artillery, navy, vehicles etc, that would be cool.

[konrad_son]

Well, not idea about the number, but... they are too many, but not enough. You've talked about Space Marines. No idea how many chapters are loyal to the Empire, and how many men are serving in them. If they are strictly rigourous, they should be 1000 men serving. But does this number include Dreadnoughts? they are men inside an armour... do they count the vehicel pilots (tanks, flyers)...

Then we have the Imperial Guard (Military Tempestus+Astra Militarum)+Adeptus Titanicus+Imperial Knights+the navy+Tecnomagus+Inquisition+Adepta Sororitas+Adepta Assesinorum...

So, maybe, they are more guys than the whole population of Earth today.

[Over 25 and Owns a Computer]

Originally posted by konrad_son:

Well, not idea about the number, but... they are too many, but not enough. You've talked about Space Marines. No idea how many chapters are loyal to the Empire, and how many men are serving in them. If they are strictly rigourous, they should be 1000 men serving. But does this number include Dreadnoughts? they are men inside an armour... do they count the vehicel pilots (tanks, flyers)...

Then we have the Imperial Guard (Military Tempestus+Astra Militarum)+Adeptus Titanicus+Imperial Knights+the navy+Tecnomagus+Inquisition+Adepta Sororitas+Adepta Assesinorum...

So, maybe, they are more guys than the whole population of Earth today.

Oh damn wish itd tell us tho.

[Ashardalon]

the imperium definetly has more troops then people on earth today
but those are spread all acros the galaxy as the imperium is treatened from all sides
just imperial guard will probably be in the billions of billions
also dont forget about the penal legions

on space marines those thousand chapters is a rough estimate, there could be much more, people didnt really keep count over the millenia
but the thousand marines per chapter is also kinda optimistic
for excample the bloodangles are down to about 150 and considered non operational currently
the same is true for many chapters
only the space smurfs have more then 1000
so those numbers kinda even out, still probably more then a million if you count them all, but close enough

[Khoran Gutsplitter]

I'm going to keep it simple. Most of the people that i have talked to agree that the Imperial Guard alone numbers in the hundreds or thousands of trillions. Their vehicles are probably in the billions.

The Space marines can vary from chapter to chapter. Most of the first founding chapters tend to have at least 800-1000 marines as the codex astartes dicates. But chapters who don't follow their sacred rulebook like the black templars are said to have around 7000 to almost ten thousand marines, that is huge.

There is also the Dark Angels who can call upon their successor chapters to provide support or bolster their numbers in a dire campaign or when hunting the fallen.

The Imperial Navy (along with the aircraft) probably around a billion or so, just a rough estimate.

[Over 25 and Owns a Computer]

Ok cool. I was asking this to see how warhammer might match up against star wars. Since there is so many troops and vehicles, I think itd only be fair for every massive army from starwars went up against every warhammer army. Id like to know how many soldiers are in the entire warhammer universe. Actually I would like to keep it at the 9 armys in this game. And also we cant count armys with infinite soldiers if there are any. I will post what ive gotten out of star wars soon.

[Ashardalon]

so no chaos... what about necrons?
they arnt technically infinite, they just get teleported back repaired and sent back out
and what about nids, are they allowed to eat while fighting because that would make them infinite (oops to used to UA nids arnt in this game)
and orks, how long is this fight going to go for, give them a few months and they get a new generation
quick guess numbers
-imperial guard: a billion billion billion...
-marines: about a million
-chaos cultists: a billion billion billion...
-chaos marines: about half a million but the numbers are vague since time is weird where they are
-dark eldar: only the actual armys not the hobby raiders so... about 50million or so
-eldar: all craftworlds, not sure but something like 5million but they can draft in times of need so take 50mil just to be sure
-necrons: a bilion billion billion undieing foreverregenerating machines of death and more waking up every year, and they are building more scarabs and wraiths
-tau: not sure something like 50million provbably more
-kroot: something like a thousand billion, do you count things like krootoxes and kroothouds or are they cavalry? they are kroot so double that
-bolter ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥: about 100million or so
-orks: i dont know the name for numbers that high, probably more then the total population of the starwars universe

warning just rough estimates

[Khoran Gutsplitter]

Tyranids are likely to be even more numerous than the orks. Hell, all the nids that is in the Milky way right now may very well equal that of the orks and it's rumored that these tyranid fleets/forces are only the "scouts" or "Vanguard" for the main fleets. So yeah, an invasion of Orks or Tyranids would crush the Star Wars universe.

If there is something that the Hivemind finds hard to defeat or penetrate it will develop new bioforms or even weapons to counter it. While the orks can just literally loot anything, even big organic monsters such as the carnifex or anti-grav vehicles. No matter how primitive or advanced, they have the capabiility.

There is also the whole ork logic thing in if enough orks believe they can cut through power armor with ease they can. This is somewhat demonstrated in the first DoW trailer where you can see that the orks can cut through the space marine's advanced armor like it's made of paper. So technically all orks actually have psychic abilities/weapons without realizing it since they're fortunately so dumb or busy with fighting all the time.

[76561198200638999]

"The Imperium! How mighty its aspect! How far-reaching its boundaries! As one world dies ten more are brought into the fold. Fear us, for we count the lives of planets, not men!"

The IG itself has practicly infinite manpower. The Imperium of Man is not actually a "Empire", the planets within the IoM mostly govern themselvs, the only thing that the greater Imperial administration cares about is that you pay your tithe and worship the Emprah. The Imperial tithe includes payments in goods and services, offloading all local psykers into the Black Ships, and providing some regiments to serve in the Astra Militarum. The planets are free to govern themselves as they please, unless they start running around summoning Daemons or breaking off from the Imperium, in which case they will get analy probed. So, in that regard the IoM is much more liberal than people generally think, and the Guard regiments are as diverse as the human worlds and cultures of the galaxy.
Hive worlders who enrolled in order to escape eeking out a miserable existence as factory workers, "elite" regiments who only take men or women (matriarchal worlds exist and serve in the Imperium just as any other,most of the female commissars end up in command in such regiments for obvious reasons) from a certain caste or title (Vostroyan Firstborn are just what the name implies).
More millitaristic cultures have large chunks of their entire population serving in the IG during their lives. IIRC, in Cadia, every "civilian" was actually a veteran guardsman with at least 4 years of service in the Cadian regiments. Add that on top of the fact that Cadia was the most fortified and well armed planet in the Imperium other than Terra itself and that most of the local industry was manufacturing arms and you can see how Cadia lasted so long, even if it was right at the gates of the Eye of Terror and Chaos corruption was common, tough the Inquisition tried their hardest to keep that in check as well.
The Death Korps of Krieg just clone their dudes. Feral/death world regiments just recruit some of the local populace, as anyone who is badass enough to survive in a enviorment where humans are at the bottom of the food chain is probably more than capable of ripping apart some Orks. "Rough rider" regiments most commonly come from worlds with nomadic, horse-riding cultures and serve in the regiments accordigly, acting as harrasment units with their steeds and melta charges. Those regiments who have a taste for close combat either modify their lasguns or carry axes/swords/spears/scimitars with them. Drop troop regiments exist as well.

If IG is hard pressed to find some cannon fodder (Guardsmen still cost some resources in order to have them properly equiped and trained) and they have run out of Penal legions, they are known to force the local human population into serving as conscripts. They will take as many men/women/children as they need for the task, even forcing entire continents into service if needed. This isn't done often, but it can be if the need for it arises. Conscripts only require lasguns and basic training, and there is always plenty of lasguns being made.

[Ashardalon]

one mistake (maybe might be retconned), krieg does not clone their dudes
they have a kind of "breeding program" (its worse then it sounds)
it is described pretty well in "dead man walking" which is an awesome book

the mechanicus does try cloning sometimes but technically its not allowed since clones dont have souls and are thus really suseptible to possesion

[76561198200638999]

Originally posted by Ashardalon:

one mistake (maybe might be retconned), krieg does not clone their dudes
they have a kind of "breeding program" (its worse then it sounds)
it is described pretty well in "dead man walking" which is an awesome book

the mechanicus does try cloning sometimes but technically its not allowed since clones dont have souls and are thus really suseptible to possesion

That makes sense. Thanks for the info.

[Khoran Gutsplitter]

Originally posted by Ashardalon:

one mistake (maybe might be retconned), krieg does not clone their dudes
they have a kind of "breeding program" (its worse then it sounds)
it is described pretty well in "dead man walking" which is an awesome book

the mechanicus does try cloning sometimes but technically its not allowed since clones dont have souls and are thus really suseptible to possesion

I thought it was the other way around? Beings with souls and emotions is what powers chaos. There has been a ton of cases where humans have been possessed, even non-psykers.

Take the Necrons for example, they don't have any souls and are thus immune to possession and the influence of the warp in general.

[Ashardalon]

necrons actually do have souls
most of it was eaten by the C'tan but not all
its also mostly because of the C'tan that they are so hard to corrupt
a better excample is the metal men, who did get corrupted

clones are basically empty meatbags with no defences
while a soul can be corrupted and makes a nice opening snack for a possesing deamon
they are still a defence that needs to be overcome before possesion can begin
clones have no such defense, but they are also harder to detect by deamons then regular humans sinse its the souls deamons go after
but get one little bit of corruption in a cloning facility and you have an army of hosts

[Over 25 and Owns a Computer]

Clones: 691,200,000

Droids: 1 quintillion

Rebels: around 100 million

Empire: 925 million on starships alone probably a few billion occupied on planets

First order: 12 million

This is only the most well known armies not counting others such as the geonosian army, old republic, old droid army (sith army), etc. Not that numbers matter too much. The empire with the deathstar and over 25000 star destroyers should be a big enough navy for all 5 of these armies yet it isn't.

Not to mention the thousands of highly trained sith, jedi, and bounty hunters there are if we were to include these types of things.

[Ashardalon]

x) yet another star wars vs 40k calculation
no just no
just to put into perspective
the star destroyer was something special in starwars, in 40k almost everything bigger than a battlecruiser carries cyclonic torpedos capable of destroing planets

[Over 25 and Owns a Computer]

Originally posted by Ashardalon:

x) yet another star wars vs 40k calculation
no just no
just to put into perspective
the star destroyer was something special in starwars, in 40k almost everything bigger than a battlecruiser carries cyclonic torpedos capable of destroing planets

Death star