Okay we know that there are one million Spacemarines in imperium total (with chapters having good stocks of spare parts et cetera, and get some stuff as tithe from forgeworlds and Mars).

Now how much of logistics strain Sisters of battle represent to ad mech forges, actually has anyone idea how many there are Sororitas, marching on the whims of ecclesiarchy.

Other powerarmor users?

-Inquisition (greyknights of ordo malleus, and deathwing of ordo xenos)

-Navy? (they would not be called marines, propably)

-Arbites?

-IG? (unlikely...)

And finally how many powerarmor realistically you think are produced in say a year (of course this does not take into account how long it takes arrive in place where is/was needed).

./At0miclich

Pretty much anything but Space Marines depends on the author writing the book you're reading. Details such as these are conflicting between the sources , so it's up to an individual reader's personal preference to pick what they think makes the most sense / is the coolest according to their own interpretation of the setting.

My two cents:

Of course you have the approx. 1 million of Space Marines you already mentioned, a number that, as far as I know, has been consistent over the decades and appears in every 2nd book published by both GW themselves as well as various licensees.

The second-largest group of PA users is probably the Sisters of Battle. An exact number for how many there are has never been provided, but from codex background we know that the six Major Orders, who are responsible for the majority of military actions, have a total of ~45.000 warriors. Added to this comes an unknown number of locally limited Minor Orders with an average of a hundred Sisters per convent, but given the expansion rate provided in the Sisterhood's codex history, their casualty rates, and the fact that every single Sister is taking her vows in the Ecclesiarchal Palace on Terra, my personal estimate would be something between 100.000 and 200.000 - certainly more than 50.000, but less than the million Space Marines (which also serves as a nifty explanation for why you rarely if ever hear about what the Minor Orders are doing).

An old source featured a passing mention that all the armour and weaponry were to be produced in a single vast forge on Ophelia VII, which Sebastian Thor managed to acquire in the form of a permanent lease from the AdMech, although this was referring to the aforementioned expansion era and it is possible that additional sources of equipment had to be procured in order to equip the newly founded Orders that came into being in the following millennia.

In theory, there could be more smaller groups that utilise a uniform pattern of semi-mass produced power armour, if their lord has the resources and political pull to both fund such a massive investment as well as retaining them, rather than to risk conscription by the Administratum for service in the Imperial Guard. This is a tricky topic, as most nobles would surely be aware of what kind of gamble they'd undertake, but it's always possible that someone, somewhere thinks they can get away with this kind of mobilisation without attracting the attention of Munitorum clerks. Ruthless nobles may even resort to hiding these soldiers in order to keep them rather than to have them taken away.

Last but not least, there's the individually crafted suits of armour as worn by various Inquisitors, Rogue Traders, Planetary Governors and others. I actually believe that this "collection" may form the largest number of power armour in the Imperium, simply because (a) there's a lot of people who want this stuff and actually have the means to acquire it, and (b) said people also won't see as much war as the Marines or the Sisters, so these suits of armour could actually be passed on as hereditary items. Indeed, some suits of power armour may not see a single battle, worn purely for ornamental reason .. or out of paranoia. Still, there will be much variety between these suits, as each was custom-made for a client, and as such they will differ in style as well as quality, reflecting both the culture of its owner and/or creator, as well as the resources that went into acquiring it, or possibly even its age (-> archaeotech heirlooms).

My take is that a single suit of power armour can be made by a skilled artificer in a matter of weeks or months (depending on skill, workshop quality and the complexity of the intended product), but industrial production is possible. I'd refer to real life medieval platemail for further inspiration.

Personally, I would go with the "several month" instead of "several weeks". A suit of servo armour seems to incorporate a lot of mechatronic. This adds a lot of work for a single craftsman that needs to design&build one of those one their own... even without all the pseudo-religious mojo any non-heretek might need to go through besides the effort of "simply" building the PA. There are a lot of fine mechanical parts that need to be assembled. Even if some of the components can be acquired "pre-fabricated" (i.e. single servo motors) the stuff will for sure need calibration to work in tandem as a suit. Same is true for all sort of cables runnings through the suit.

I could imagine that the forging and application of the matchinig armour plates & fitting them into "the suit" (which made up the majority of the work time of the qouted medivial pre-decessor) could actually be the easier of the steps that need to be finished.

But in general I advise against going to much into the details when it comes to the 40K universe. It will fall apart right in front of your eyes

[EDIT: some post-correction of my bad gramma]

A suit of servo armour seems to incorporate a lot of mechatronic.

Just as an addendum - I understand power armour to be based on an elastic "suit" of fibre bundles that contract or expand based on electric stimulation, imitating natural muscles (somewhat similar to the "Boomer" robots from the Bubblegum Crisis anime .. or, for the real life tech, see here ). The actual armour plating is just slapped on top of this base, which would explain why no PA model has any mechanical joints, or why some patterns of power armour have significant gaps between their plating.

This is just what I've read out of how GW explained it, mind you - it is quite possible that it is described in a different way elsewhere. Just wanted to add this as an alternate take on things.

How much this influences construction time is a good question, but it would probably depend mostly on what parts you already have lying around. If you've got the fibre bundles and the machinery to articulate them, then it's really just a matter of arranging said fibres in a manner that fits the intended wearer, but if you also need to build all the other gizmos from scratch, then yeah, it'd take considerably longer!

Thanks, the numbers were lot smaller than i thought (for sisters that is). But this was some food for the thought.

Thanks, the numbers were lot smaller than i thought (for sisters that is). But this was some food for the thought.

It is of note that those numbers fluctuate heavily depending on the source! Even within Dark Heresy, the numbers got centuplicated from 50 (a single mission whose presence was deemed unusual, and a source of worry for the local nobility) to about 5.000 (multiple convents all from the Major Orders, thus representing about 10% of their galaxywide presence, if one were to go by codex background) within the Calixis sector when the writing team switched from Black Industries to FFG and you compare the Inquisitor's Handbook with Blood of Martyrs.

Everyone has their own ideas on these things. Just like back when Dark Heresy was new, the only reference to Space Marines in the region was a lone Dreadnought guarding some old shrine, and a vacated Black Templars stronghold. Now, with new writers, the region suddenly has its very own active Chapter.

What I was referring to with the previous post was solely GW's own material, but like all details of this sort, this is bound to be contradicted somewhere . In the end, it's up to you.

Thanks, the numbers were lot smaller than i thought (for sisters that is). But this was some food for the thought.

Agreed - those Sororitas numbers are a lot lower than I'd've guessed offhand. It makes them a whole lot rarer than Space Marines, for one, and for another ... the Sororitas, in drawing directly from all the Schola Progena in the Imperium, should have way more potential candidates. And, okay, all of them taking their final vows on Terra is a bottleneck (assuming that they all really do before they can be called full Sisters, instead of taking their vows once, and then being rotated to Terra to retake them as transportation becomes available), but then again, thousands of psykers are sacrificed to the Golden Throne every single day, in addition to all the psykers who don't get sacrificed ... so it shouldn't be impossible to arrange that kind of transportation.

At a guess, all Sororitas would have to get some degree of rejuvenat/life extension treatments fairly early on.

Spoiler'd as it's somewhat OT, yet a topic I love discussing.

It's not entirely OT. Merely ... relevant thread drift.

As far as Sororitas recruiting goes ... I expect that there's probably going to be an average of at least a couple of Schola per sector, though it's probably more than that.

Also, I'd say that if the Astartes can manage to sustain themselves while drawing on a restricted selection of candidates from a relative handful of worlds, I'd say that the Sororitas, who can draw from the entire Imperium, and don't have the same kind of inane restrictions, shouldn't be an entire order of magnitude rarer, even with competition from the Assassinorum, Commisariat, and other entities - Sororitas probably have higher priority than most of the would-be competition, anyways, and since the competition that would have similarly high priority can take both boys and girls, the girl-children probably get biased towards the Sororitas, as the Sisterhood is gender-exclusive. And, while Astartes are certainly more durable ... they're also a whole lot more likely to get tossed into bad situations, so I'd say it's probably a wash.

Although, the bulk of the Sororitas are probably in the officially non-militant orders.

The quotes about Stern and Anastasia suggest about 500 new Battle Sisters per year. plus however many non-Militant Order novices there are each year. That's about 1 per 2000 "worlds" in the Imperium per year.

As far as rejuvenat treatments go ... I think that true/full rejuvenat treatments would be limited to proven veterans and higher ranks, but lesser treatments might very well be given to most of the rest. These lesser treatments would essentially slow down the effects of aging, and thus extend the lifespan, but not as much as a full rejuve treatment would.

Between their equipment and basic training, I suspect that a basic life extension treatment wouldn't add all that much more.

It's not entirely OT. Merely ... relevant thread drift.

Hmm, good point.

As far as Sororitas recruiting goes ... I expect that there's probably going to be an average of at least a couple of Schola per sector, though it's probably more than that.

Really? Hmm, I always considered these institutions to be not very common, but then again I don't think there is a lot of material to go by on this detail, anyways, making it a matter of assumptions. The biggest source of contradicting opinions may be that some books claim that the scholae only accept the children of Imperial nobility and ranking Adeptus officials, whereas others describe them more like standard orphanages open to almost anyone including the offspring of the lowest Guardsman grunt.

It could be interesting to calculate an estimate of how many potential pupils may be produced each year, but I wonder if this is possible given the wide range of possible planets that may be part of a sector, even if we were to use an official system like the one GW created for Battlefleet Gothic...

Also, I'd say that if the Astartes can manage to sustain themselves while drawing on a restricted selection of candidates from a relative handful of worlds, I'd say that the Sororitas, who can draw from the entire Imperium, and don't have the same kind of inane restrictions, shouldn't be an entire order of magnitude rarer, even with competition from the Assassinorum, Commisariat, and other entities - Sororitas probably have higher priority than most of the would-be competition, anyways, and since the competition that would have similarly high priority can take both boys and girls, the girl-children probably get biased towards the Sororitas, as the Sisterhood is gender-exclusive.

Well, I'd say the "from infancy" bit is quite the inane restriction. Consider that it's not just enough to grow up in a Schola from birth, but in addition to that you also have to be top of your class.

It's less about competition with the other adepta (indeed I'd agree that the Sisterhood may receive preferential treatment when it comes to assignments, both based on the scholae being run by the Ecclesiarchy, but also due to suitable candidates being so rare that the case warrants special dispensation just to ensure the Sororitas get enough recruits at all), but more about the crazy requirements demanded from the progena.

I've just mentioned the other organisations because a lot of people commonly assume that the Schola Progenium produces only Sisters, Storm Troopers and Commissars - probably as a result of Sandy Mitchell's Cain novels - whereas GW's own background material suggests these are actually just a minority of what these institutions churn out.

And, while Astartes are certainly more durable ... they're also a whole lot more likely to get tossed into bad situations, so I'd say it's probably a wash.

That depends on whether we're talking about the Major or the Minor Orders. The latter usually don't see much action, as they lack their own ships and thus usually have their operations area restricted to the planet their convent is located on. It has been said that this as well as their high dispersion makes them ideal for Inquisitors seeking to enlist reinforcements.

The six Major Orders on the other hand are pretty much always at war, and engage in much the same kinds of missions as the Space Marines - from putting down rebel insurgencies to defending holy sites against Chaos incursions to assaulting alien forces. Even hunting down rogue Astartes Chapters or invading a daemon world. This explains both the high fluctuations in manpower (see the codex quote), as well as readers almost always only hearing about the Major Orders compared to the Minor ones.

For example, on Armageddon, the Order of the Martyred Lady got mauled so badly by the Orks that they lost all but two companies of Sisters - a bloody campaign that even caused them to switch their uniforms, from wearing black robes (referencing the mourning of Saint Dominica's martyrdom) to red ones (referencing the blood of their Sisters spilled on Armageddon).

The 6E TT rulebook actually re-printed two Force Disposition Charts from old issues of White Dwarf discussing both the Third War of Armageddon as well as the Thirteenth Black Crusade, and ... well, if you compare the numbers, there are ten Space Marines for every single Sister.

Of course, these are but two incidents, but given that they are critically important campaigns (or at least important enough to send all those Space Marines there), I consider it an interesting "rough" peek into Imperial armed forces ratios, and one that lines up with the other stuff I've read in codices and White Dwarf.

The quotes about Stern and Anastasia suggest about 500 new Battle Sisters per year. plus however many non-Militant Order novices there are each year. That's about 1 per 2000 "worlds" in the Imperium per year.

Hmm, sounds accurate, given the limitations placed on recruitment policies - and that a lot of those worlds aren't very viable but instead Feral and Feudal societies, or planets where the Ecclesiarchy is not allowed to recruit (Space Marine fiefs, Mechanicus holdings).

You know, I never noticed that the source about Anastasia specifically called out the Orders Militant. It does not necessarily exclude the Non-Militant Orders, but it would be a strange emphasis if that wouldn't be the case now. I wonder if that means that there's an extra ceremony for the other Sisters?

As for numerical comparisons - the Orders Militant are actually the largest part of the Sisterhood if we go by specialisation. However, the grand total of the Non-Militant Orders (meaning if you combine the Hospitaller, Dialogous, Famulous, Sabine, Pronatus, etc) is about 1.5x as big as the collective Orders Militant.

The 8 Major Orders Hospitaller, Famulous and Dialogous alone account for roughly ~28.000 Sisters, compared to the ~21.000 of the 6 Major Orders Militant, and that is before we add the other, smaller Non-Militant Orders. Although I lack any sources to "prove" this, I assume that this membership ratio is also reflected in the Minor Orders of the respective wings (seeing as they operate on the same principles).

As far as rejuvenat treatments go ... I think that true/full rejuvenat treatments would be limited to proven veterans and higher ranks, but lesser treatments might very well be given to most of the rest. These lesser treatments would essentially slow down the effects of aging, and thus extend the lifespan, but not as much as a full rejuve treatment would.

Between their equipment and basic training, I suspect that a basic life extension treatment wouldn't add all that much more.

Hmm, interesting - I never considered "rejuvenat lite", but I could see it being a part of the setting. Given how it's never been described very extensively, it's probably a catchall term for a dozen different techniques of varying efficiency, anyways..