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.

[Over 25 and Owns a Computer]

Ohcwow they censor it

[Jcraft153]

Originally posted by Ashardalon:

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

you are kinda right. but also wrong. the '1000 marines per chapter' comes from rowboat girlyman's codex astartes and as you may know, not all chapters follow it. for example, the black templars almost certainly have over 1000 marines but get away with it because they are impossible to count as their all on crusade, all the time....

[76109108007942031]

I don't think there's ever been an offical number, but "a lot" would be an understatement.

I heard a saying about the Imperium, it goes something like "one resource the Imperium never runs low on is humans".

[76109108007942031]

Originally posted by jADEd:

Originally posted by Ashardalon:

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

you are kinda right. but also wrong. the '1000 marines per chapter' comes from rowboat girlyman's codex astartes and as you may know, not all chapters follow it. for example, the black templars almost certainly have over 1000 marines but get away with it because they are impossible to count as their all on crusade, all the time....

Most do follow it though, and the Templars only get around it by claiming to be on a crusade (a 10,000 year old crusade). However even if there were many chapters who went over 1000, the ones who have suffered casualites would balance it out.

Also I think the 1000 marines only counts Tacticals, Devestators, Assault, Terminators and scouts, if you included things like Chaplains and vehicle crews you'd go over the 1000.

[Baldwick]

They have no exact office number, just: "In the uncountable billions..." It's exacly that, uncountable since the Imperium is so vast.

[Petr[CZ]]

Originally posted by Boozlityar:

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.

Go ♥♥♥♥ yourself with starwars ♥♥♥♥ for kids. Only one powerful psyker would destroy all jedies,shi ties, yetties and whatever.

[Petr[CZ]]

And you should know that one ordinary "Space marine" actually Adeptus Astartes has value of 100 men. Important word is ordinary, because Terminators, Librarians, Chapter Masters.......are even more powerful.

[Over 25 and Owns a Computer]

Originally posted by PetrCZ:

And you should know that one ordinary "Space marine" actually Adeptus Astartes has value of 100 men. Important word is ordinary, because Terminators, Librarians, Chapter Masters.......are even more powerful.

Ok. Have fun reading your comic books son.

[Wyvern]

Honestly, as much as I love both universes, star wars does not compare to WH40k. Imperial Guard, who are in fact professional soldiers(the Imperium throws them into the grinder, but they are fully trained and equipped, and capable of good tactics/strategy, though it does vary planet by planet, becomes very apparent in any of the books) are available in untold numbers. Probably the Trillions, maybe more. PDF, which basically any semi-civilized planet has, increases that even further, and they are on a militia level at least, many are in fact fully equipped with Guard level weaponry. Tanks and armored vehicles are in the millions, maybe even more and all are very capable, sturdy and reliable. And this is ignoring all the BS level powerful Titans, Space Marines, Skitarii, Stormtroopers, specialist marines, Esoteric Ordinatus weapons etc.

In Star Wars, armies number in the millions, which is quite frankly a joke. It doesn't even make sense on a galactic scale of things, considering some armies on Earth number in the millions right now. Simple fact of the matter is that the Imperium probably has more Leman Russ' than the SW Empire has soldiers. The Imperium might even have more Baneblades than the Empire have soldiers. That's how ridiculous the disparity is. And that's ignoring the fact that most if not all of the Imperiums combat tech, is far superior to the Empires, Confederacy's, etc. Really the only "generic" SW soldier that might be better than the average guardsman is the clone trooper, since theyre from a super high end genetic stock and have years of training, though then again, they lack numbers, and they don't really have much of a technological or equipment edge, their heavy weapons being inferior and their standard small arms+armor probably being comparable to guardsmen's.

Once again, I love both universes, but the two simply do not compare in a military contest, theyre simply geared toward very different directions.

[Over 25 and Owns a Computer]

Originally posted by Wyvern2:

Honestly, as much as I love both universes, star wars does not compare to WH40k. Imperial Guard, who are in fact professional soldiers(the Imperium throws them into the grinder, but they are fully trained and equipped, and capable of good tactics/strategy, though it does vary planet by planet, becomes very apparent in any of the books) are available in untold numbers. Probably the Trillions, maybe more. PDF, which basically any semi-civilized planet has, increases that even further, and they are on a militia level at least, many are in fact fully equipped with Guard level weaponry. Tanks and armored vehicles are in the millions, maybe even more and all are very capable, sturdy and reliable. And this is ignoring all the BS level powerful Titans, Space Marines, Skitarii, Stormtroopers, specialist marines, Esoteric Ordinatus weapons etc.

In Star Wars, armies number in the millions, which is quite frankly a joke. It doesn't even make sense on a galactic scale of things, considering some armies on Earth number in the millions right now. Simple fact of the matter is that the Imperium probably has more Leman Russ' than the SW Empire has soldiers. The Imperium might even have more Baneblades than the Empire have soldiers. That's how ridiculous the disparity is. And that's ignoring the fact that most if not all of the Imperiums combat tech, is far superior to the Empires, Confederacy's, etc. Really the only "generic" SW soldier that might be better than the average guardsman is the clone trooper, since theyre from a super high end genetic stock and have years of training, though then again, they lack numbers, and they don't really have much of a technological or equipment edge, their heavy weapons being inferior and their standard small arms+armor probably being comparable to guardsmen's.

Once again, I love both universes, but the two simply do not compare in a military contest, theyre simply geared toward very different directions.

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.

[Wyvern]

Originally posted by Boozlityar:

Originally posted by Wyvern2:

Honestly, as much as I love both universes, star wars does not compare to WH40k. Imperial Guard, who are in fact professional soldiers(the Imperium throws them into the grinder, but they are fully trained and equipped, and capable of good tactics/strategy, though it does vary planet by planet, becomes very apparent in any of the books) are available in untold numbers. Probably the Trillions, maybe more. PDF, which basically any semi-civilized planet has, increases that even further, and they are on a militia level at least, many are in fact fully equipped with Guard level weaponry. Tanks and armored vehicles are in the millions, maybe even more and all are very capable, sturdy and reliable. And this is ignoring all the BS level powerful Titans, Space Marines, Skitarii, Stormtroopers, specialist marines, Esoteric Ordinatus weapons etc.

In Star Wars, armies number in the millions, which is quite frankly a joke. It doesn't even make sense on a galactic scale of things, considering some armies on Earth number in the millions right now. Simple fact of the matter is that the Imperium probably has more Leman Russ' than the SW Empire has soldiers. The Imperium might even have more Baneblades than the Empire have soldiers. That's how ridiculous the disparity is. And that's ignoring the fact that most if not all of the Imperiums combat tech, is far superior to the Empires, Confederacy's, etc. Really the only "generic" SW soldier that might be better than the average guardsman is the clone trooper, since theyre from a super high end genetic stock and have years of training, though then again, they lack numbers, and they don't really have much of a technological or equipment edge, their heavy weapons being inferior and their standard small arms+armor probably being comparable to guardsmen's.

Once again, I love both universes, but the two simply do not compare in a military contest, theyre simply geared toward very different directions.

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.

I had no idea where you got some of those numbers and looked it up. It seems that there are a lot of disagreements about size. The Clone Army according to the canon is something like 6 million if we assume that "units" mean 1 clone=1 unit, which is the number i was running off of. Your numbers assumes that 1 unit = 1 battalion of clones, which it could be, and it makes sense from the galactic scale of things, but by that reasoning 1 unit could equal 1 platoon, company, squad etc, all of which would be smaller.
It's a similar case for droids, which are going by the 100-1 numbers at 120ish million initially in canon, with only some legends claiming 1 quintillion, which some youtubers have pointed out would mean there's 10 times more droids than sentient creatures in the galaxy, aka highly unlikely. Plus legends wars over bodycount all the time and is incredibly unreliable. If we go 100-1 with the 700ish million count for clones, we'd get 70 billion.
Regardless, even going by these specific higher numbers, with the exception of the very suspect droid count, Star Wars militaries are joke sized compared to WH40k IoM, though at least they would be slightly more appropriate for the amount of space being fought over(hundreds of millions, even a few billion is a pretty paltry sum for a whole galaxy)

The simple fact is that the SW galaxy is not geared towards eternal war, its military technology is lackluster, and even with some of the highest suggested body counts they are weak and lack the clout of many of WH40ks smaller factions, let alone the IoM, which is by far the largest and most powerful faction in the WH40k universe(as of now, could change with more nids, waking up necrons, ork waagh's, etc)

[Khoran Gutsplitter]

Originally posted by Boozlityar:

Originally posted by Wyvern2:

Honestly, as much as I love both universes, star wars does not compare to WH40k. Imperial Guard, who are in fact professional soldiers(the Imperium throws them into the grinder, but they are fully trained and equipped, and capable of good tactics/strategy, though it does vary planet by planet, becomes very apparent in any of the books) are available in untold numbers. Probably the Trillions, maybe more. PDF, which basically any semi-civilized planet has, increases that even further, and they are on a militia level at least, many are in fact fully equipped with Guard level weaponry. Tanks and armored vehicles are in the millions, maybe even more and all are very capable, sturdy and reliable. And this is ignoring all the BS level powerful Titans, Space Marines, Skitarii, Stormtroopers, specialist marines, Esoteric Ordinatus weapons etc.

In Star Wars, armies number in the millions, which is quite frankly a joke. It doesn't even make sense on a galactic scale of things, considering some armies on Earth number in the millions right now. Simple fact of the matter is that the Imperium probably has more Leman Russ' than the SW Empire has soldiers. The Imperium might even have more Baneblades than the Empire have soldiers. That's how ridiculous the disparity is. And that's ignoring the fact that most if not all of the Imperiums combat tech, is far superior to the Empires, Confederacy's, etc. Really the only "generic" SW soldier that might be better than the average guardsman is the clone trooper, since theyre from a super high end genetic stock and have years of training, though then again, they lack numbers, and they don't really have much of a technological or equipment edge, their heavy weapons being inferior and their standard small arms+armor probably being comparable to guardsmen's.

Once again, I love both universes, but the two simply do not compare in a military contest, theyre simply geared toward very different directions.

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.

Overall it's pretty safe to say that the Imperium would decimate the Republican army and the Rebels in a matter of days. Space battles would be closer, but the fact that most of the standard ships and even basic escorts of the imperial navy is much bigger and even hold more firepower/dakka than your average imperial star destroyer, i think they will ultimately take it. Although not without a ton of losses since star wars tends to have more advanced weapons akin to the Tau like Ion cannons and heavy rail weapon armaments (doesn't necessarily mean they're more powerful, just that they have some extra range).

Imperial Guard: Loyal and brave men and women serving the Imperium and as of the 41st millennium seen as the main fighting force in the Emperor's service. While they may seem weak at first, their strength does not rely on quality or superior technology to defeat their foes, but rather with sheer numbers that they can throw at the enemy. Regarded and sometimes joked as the "gigantic meatshield of the Imperium". The number of tanks and aircraft they can call upon is matched only by the orks. Their numbers reaches into the untold trillions. Such is the quantity of the Imperial Guard that a loss of hundreds or thousands of million troops is only regarded as a minor loss.

The standard-issue gun that most guardsmen is going to have is the good old flexible and reliable lasgun. While being seen as a weak and pathetic weapon compared to most other infantry weapons, it can actually blow a whole creature's limb off in a single shot. The reason why they are so weak, is because of their weak armor penetration abilities. Against unarmored foes or very lightly armored foes they are utterly devastating. If all the guardsman lasgun's were upgraded to have some form of armor penetration they would conquer the galaxy in no time, but since this must stay as a grimdark universe that will probably not happen. A ton of different lasgun patterns exist, but i won't go into detail just yet.

Their flak armor is seen as even more low-quality than the lasgun, but that doesn't mean it can't protect against something. It is reliable enough to protect you from a couple of bullets or energy-based weapons such as lasers or other las-guns. Pretty decent for a military force that
gigantic.

Space Marines: Genetically engineered super soldiers of unmatched training and experience. Armed to the teeth with one of the biggest available weapons in the Imperium at large. Astartes can take wounds that would normally rip apart or disintegrate a human entirely.

Their numbers are estimated to be close to one million. This can vary massively from source to source, from millennium to millennium. But at the end of the day every marine is much stronger and superior to any common or elite form of infantry in Star Wars.

Won't go into detail that much, since everyone knows what Astartes are capable of. But feel free to tell me if you want to know some more about them.

Grey Knights: Basically power armored jedi marines immune to any form of corruption. They are unique and only exists as a single chapter. But are in many ways better than your average marine because of their psychic abilities, more advanced equipment and like i mentioned earlier immune to the warp. Grey Knights are the millitant arm of the Ordo malleus (the branch of the Inquisition that deals with Chaos and the warp in general).

Sisters of battle: fanatically extreme fearless women in sturdy power armor and armed with a
ton of meltas and flamers that would vaporize anyone in close-ranged firefights. They are the millitant arm of the Ordo Hereticus (the branch of the Inquisition that deals with heretics and traitors).

Really unsure about their numbers since i don't know a lot about them. But probably something similar to the astartes.

Adeptus Custodes: These are the elite of the elite, the mightiest warriors the Imperium has to offer right under primarchs and the Emperor himself. The custodes are the guardians of the Emperor and only an estimated 10,000 of these warriors exists. Most of them are armed with what is rumored to be golden master-crafted power armor of much higher quality than that of the space marines and huge combi-bolter attached power spears or broadswords. From what i've recently heard they also have some form of psyhic abilities, don't know much about it though.

All of their vehicles utilize Anti-grav devices to ignore any form of rough terrain or obstacles with the addition of also making them more mobile. Their dreadnoughts are also much more powerful and elegant.

They are in every way shape or form superior to even an astartes in terms of equipment, strength, size and experience. Only a handful of custodes died in the cataclysmic event known as the Horus Heresy. They would definitely annihilate anything short of a jedi master or sith lord.

[Over 25 and Owns a Computer]

Originally posted by Wyvern2:

Originally posted by Boozlityar:

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.

I had no idea where you got some of those numbers and looked it up. It seems that there are a lot of disagreements about size. The Clone Army according to the canon is something like 6 million if we assume that "units" mean 1 clone=1 unit, which is the number i was running off of. Your numbers assumes that 1 unit = 1 battalion of clones, which it could be, and it makes sense from the galactic scale of things, but by that reasoning 1 unit could equal 1 platoon, company, squad etc, all of which would be smaller.
It's a similar case for droids, which are going by the 100-1 numbers at 120ish million initially in canon, with only some legends claiming 1 quintillion, which some youtubers have pointed out would mean there's 10 times more droids than sentient creatures in the galaxy, aka highly unlikely. Plus legends wars over bodycount all the time and is incredibly unreliable. If we go 100-1 with the 700ish million count for clones, we'd get 70 billion.
Regardless, even going by these specific higher numbers, with the exception of the very suspect droid count, Star Wars militaries are joke sized compared to WH40k IoM, though at least they would be slightly more appropriate for the amount of space being fought over(hundreds of millions, even a few billion is a pretty paltry sum for a whole galaxy)

The simple fact is that the SW galaxy is not geared towards eternal war, its military technology is lackluster, and even with some of the highest suggested body counts they are weak and lack the clout of many of WH40ks smaller factions, let alone the IoM, which is by far the largest and most powerful faction in the WH40k universe(as of now, could change with more nids, waking up necrons, ork waagh's, etc)

ok i can see why you are confused. I am going by the star wars legends numbers. Star wars legends is pretty new. Basically it was made by disney which I hate, but I do like some of the changes they have made.

[Wyvern]

Originally posted by Boozlityar:

Originally posted by Wyvern2:

I had no idea where you got some of those numbers and looked it up. It seems that there are a lot of disagreements about size. The Clone Army according to the canon is something like 6 million if we assume that "units" mean 1 clone=1 unit, which is the number i was running off of. Your numbers assumes that 1 unit = 1 battalion of clones, which it could be, and it makes sense from the galactic scale of things, but by that reasoning 1 unit could equal 1 platoon, company, squad etc, all of which would be smaller.
It's a similar case for droids, which are going by the 100-1 numbers at 120ish million initially in canon, with only some legends claiming 1 quintillion, which some youtubers have pointed out would mean there's 10 times more droids than sentient creatures in the galaxy, aka highly unlikely. Plus legends wars over bodycount all the time and is incredibly unreliable. If we go 100-1 with the 700ish million count for clones, we'd get 70 billion.
Regardless, even going by these specific higher numbers, with the exception of the very suspect droid count, Star Wars militaries are joke sized compared to WH40k IoM, though at least they would be slightly more appropriate for the amount of space being fought over(hundreds of millions, even a few billion is a pretty paltry sum for a whole galaxy)

The simple fact is that the SW galaxy is not geared towards eternal war, its military technology is lackluster, and even with some of the highest suggested body counts they are weak and lack the clout of many of WH40ks smaller factions, let alone the IoM, which is by far the largest and most powerful faction in the WH40k universe(as of now, could change with more nids, waking up necrons, ork waagh's, etc)

ok i can see why you are confused. I am going by the star wars legends numbers. Star wars legends is pretty new. Basically it was made by disney which I hate, but I do like some of the changes they have made.

Well, legends is everything in the SW EU from a few decades worth of writing. The whole EU became null and void when Disney bought Lucas Arts and began giving us new stuff like Rebels, Rogue One, Ep VII etc. Some Legends characters did get brought into canon, like Thrawn, albeit perhaps not in the same form as they were in the EU. Personally, except for the Quintillion number which is beyond suspect, I like those numbers much better and think they suit the scale much better(though still more than a bit small)

[Over 25 and Owns a Computer]

Originally posted by Wyvern2:

Originally posted by Boozlityar:

ok i can see why you are confused. I am going by the star wars legends numbers. Star wars legends is pretty new. Basically it was made by disney which I hate, but I do like some of the changes they have made.

Well, legends is everything in the SW EU from a few decades worth of writing. The whole EU became null and void when Disney bought Lucas Arts and began giving us new stuff like Rebels, Rogue One, Ep VII etc. Some Legends characters did get brought into canon, like Thrawn, albeit perhaps not in the same form as they were in the EU. Personally, except for the Quintillion number which is beyond suspect, I like those numbers much better and think they suit the scale much better(though still more than a bit small)

I don't think you underatand. Canon is not canon anymore. It is all legends. I believe you can watch some vids like these for someninfo on how big the armies are.

https://youtu.be/_Kh__wr5dUQ