ak-73 said:

What you can do with the existing DH books is a far cry from what is possible in DW - yes, who knows what new rules Only War will introduce, but I doubt it will massively change the gameplay. And I'm referring to common lasguns because they're the standard issue armament for the Guard and we know what effect it is supposed to have as per the fluff (and everything else).

ak-73 said:

They're not meant to be that invincible and rival the AP of their own armour, just as they're not meant to one-shot everything just because it uses Horde rules. Following the 20 years of fluff prior to this RPG they're not even meant to have their own grade of bolt ammunition (aside from all those specialized non-standard rounds, I believe). The current mechanics heavily distort the perception of their "true level of awesomeness", and it apparently causes people to take the demigod status they have thanks to Imperial propaganda as being real.

There are many ways to stand out that do not require circumventing the realism of the setting - or breaking the compatibility between the games. There have been countless novels and comics where we had Marines and non-Marines fighting side by side or against each other not on equal but comparable levels. As it stands, most combat-based characters from DH or RT would be more of a hindrance to a Deathwatch game rather than an asset, and that's a situation that could have been avoided if the game would stick more to the actual fluff and avoid setting the Marines apart on every level, even areas where they have never been described as being better in before.

Naturally, I can understand most fans of this army enjoying this disparity, but try to see both sides of the argument - or at least the larger picture.

Not sure if this idea came up in the conversation, but here is my take on it:

What if it isn't the general design of the bolt ammunition used by the Space Marines that is different, but rather the composition of the explosive charge? Who's to say that the Astartes don't use a higher grade explosive in their bolt shells that is unique to them?

I realize that this is merely idle speculation on my part, but it could explain the disparity without it just being a completely arbitrary change.

Yeah, in a way that was "sort-of" touched upon in the previous with the idea of decreed quality or explosive yield limits imposed on non-Astartes. It would have to be some sort of law, for we already know that the shells indeed can be produced in "normal" manufactoriums. It still is the one and only theory that can not be discounted like all those other ideas about technical or physical limitations, and thus probably the best to go with for the time being.

It's just that in 20 years of 40k, this RPG was the first that touched upon this idea when before they have always been treated as identical. I feel a bit "handicapped in status" due to this change, especially as 2-11 additional points of damage and a double chance to trigger RF are not exactly a small difference. It can easily be negated or played down by using the idea that, in DW, everything is beefed up just for the sake of a more epic combat experience, and/or that better "military-grade" ammunition can be made available for other characters as well (perhaps when moving up in Ascension).

There are some other weapons where this weird discrepancy applies as well, but I suppose it would be better to decide on a case-by-case basis on whether it would result out of a different ammunition type or the actual weapon pattern. Or if you'd simply claim the respective weapons and ammunition are the same and just apply the difference in damage as a "narrative buff" to bridge the gap between the systems (which would also allow one to keep DH's Angelus with its current stats instead of "DW'ifying it").

Or, of course, one could simply go with how it's currently written in the books and take the creation of two "castes" of weapons as one of the retcons this RPG has imposed on the setting. It depends a lot on one's individual perception of the setting, one's personal preferences, and how closely one wants to follow what had been established directly by GW throughout the previous years/decades.

Lynata said:

As noted in the 'other' thread, you can solve this with horde traits and willpower, or with narrative. You need to look across all the things hordes can do and get. Then your elite/tough troops don't have to worry about breaking. TT and Codexes have lots of units that are immune to psycology.

Lynata said:

Yes, I do mean in addition to. The officers and NCOs, as you can see in Final Sanction, are the Elites you add to the encounter, and drawing inspiration from table top they'll probably have something better than a lasgun. Rank and file guardsman ARE meatshields. If you have a special guardsman inside the horde of guardsman, feel free to make him an elite as well to spice things up.

Lynata said:

It's an interesting take on things for certain, and might make a good rule, but considering it as a 'flaw' I think is a misnomer. It's only creating a scene or theme that you have decided you're not interested in. By the time someone gets PA and a high toughness in DH, you're getting up there in levels. In an RPG, you need to advance and feel more powerful with each level. That's why you get XP, that's why you have levels, that's why you buy skills to improve.

If you want to increase the lethality go for it, but you should also consider upping damage etc. on called shots, reducing the number of max wounds people can get, etc. all at the same time.

Lynata said:

I appreciate your vote of confidence, thank you

Lynata said:

The bump was to reflect fluff more, because given the system parameters increased accuracy doesn't give you the ability to clear a room faster. Called shots don't do extra damage until you get to criticals or your enemy has weaker peripherial armor, and regular folk can make those exact same shots with regularity. You also need a way to make a game focused on combat to run quick and smooth rather than bog down every single encounter. How do you make the veteran (not 1st company veteran mind you, but vets nonetheless) marine able to not worry about these bad guys? You up their damage resistance and damage output.

The 'civilian grade' and 'astartes grade' is a fluffy way of explaining this bump with some level of reason. They discuss in DH that you have civilian grade with the likely intent of explaining away why the guns in DH do incrementally more damage than their lower tech counterparts (like comparing the HB with the Heavy Stubber). But logic only serves a limited purpose in 40k anyhow.

Take your character and ascend, buy the new gear you get at ascension, and see if you still feel quite as handicapped. Have your GM run Final Sanction as a one off (which takes 20-40 hours, mind you) and try the rules out on the table. Again, I felt much the same way you did when first introduced to the concepts, and would get hung up on that extra d10 and the like, but in practice it's been a much more fluid and rewarding experience.

And FWIW, your RF chance is 19% with a standard boltgun and 27% with the DW bolter, so you're only getting an 8% bump, or 70% of the initial value, which is not technically double the RF chance .

I thought that giving increased damage for called head and torso shots might be a good idea to up the lethality of combat a bit and encourage PCs to keep their heads down (I like gritty combat where the players feel a genuine sense of danger). I am toying with the idea of making head shots cause double wounds (after armout and toughness bonus have been taken into account) and body hits do 1.5 time the wound damage (rounding up). Regarding the badassness of space marines in Deathwatch, I think FFG got this about right. They are supposed to be the most lethal warriors a galaxy-spanning empires can field afterall, so it stands to reason that they have the best possible equipment. They're hardly indestructable if played using rules as written; they are just very hard to kill - which they should be. I imagine they work best as a rapid reactionary force, that hit their enemies hard and steal the initiative while blowing up things behind the lines that are vital to a war effort. If the enemy has time to dig in and prepare then they will likely take losses, particularly if this enemy has access to things like las cannons and melta bombs.

Charmander said:

Well, yes - in the end I just want the RPG to be a comparatively close representation of the fluff.

Charmander said:

It only reflects fluff more in that the gun is deadlier, but it reflects the fluff less in that there are now weapons that are unrightfully exempt from this buff. If you just want the combat to be quicker there are several other options for it - you could employ Horde rules, or you let adversaries simply have less hitpoints. You could also use the Sudden Death rule that is advertised for exactly such situations.

Or to specifically address the situation you raised: Marines don't clear a room faster because for some reason their Promethium burns better than everyone elses (which is actually a direct violation of fluff as well) but because they gain a surprise round by punching through the walls instead of coming through the door, then by rolling a much higher initiative than their opponents, then managing to gain a hit quota of ~100% and finally suffering zero casualties from the few enemies that survived the initial onslaught before finishing them off. Everything else is something that a non-Marine should be able to achieve just as well.

Apply the changes to Toughness and Unnatural Toughness, and let Marines use weapons that fit to DH. Nothing more is required. They'll still be awesome due to their unique TB, many implants, special equipment/ammo, generally higher stats and special talents. Naturally some posters will scream out in rage at this proposal, but I doubt that the gameplay would have felt notably less epic would these mechanics have been applied from the start. From what I understand, most of the epicness comes from the Horde rules, anyways.

Charmander said:

That's not quite what I meant - I worry for the portrayal of one of my favorite factions, one that is supposed to be able to stand up to the Astartes and one which has historically been issued the same gear. The basic equipment has always been the one and only thing that kept the Sisters somewhat comparable to the Marines; for ~20 years the fluff has been about equal armour and equal weapons, with the Marines gaining their edge due to genetic enhancement and centuries of experience which should be reflected by better stats and talents/skills. Now comes this game and basically says their guns are crap and Marines are even better than before because ... well, their guns say "Astartes" on the tin. Surely you understand that this creates a certain amount of scepticism, if not frustration, given that this hits a faction that already suffered a lot of drastic story "nerfs" in the past? How would fans of the Astartes react if a new book would have them use lasguns instead of bolters?

And Ascension doesn't really make it better, in the case of the Sisters offering next to no signature equipment that could be of any use to "gear up" as the vast majority of stuff was made available "prematurely" and thus likely in reduced capacity. Anyways, I don't even want my character to become more powerful (in fact, the current career seems already quite overpowered in the early ranks) - I'd rather prefer Marines to stay realistic and, together with their opponents, more compatible. Astartes stuff in this RPG has been buffed time and time again since it was first introduced, from weapon damage to armour protection to gear traits, seemingly only to set it apart even more from anything available to other characters. I can understand Unnatural traits forcing the designers to re-balance enemies and equipment to make it fit in the scope of at least one game, but that doesn't make me feel better about DW's compatibility to the other games, and it certainly did not require rubbing our characters' inferiority in our faces with certain choices of wording. For myself I have decided to simply see Deathwatch as a different style of narration that cannot be directly related to the other systems - at least this will preserve the appearance of the setting for me, and fits better to what had been established in the fluff. At least I do not believe that this is another retcon just yet.

We should have a game that has Marines, Sisters, Inquisitors and Assassins working side by side and complementing each other with their unique martial prowess - just like in the novels - but instead the "only" thing DH or RT characters can add are their brains, which may be fine for those characters who focus on non-combat stuff but would make for a poor game for everyone else. Meh. So much for this vision.

Charmander said:

And FWIW, your RF chance is 19% with a standard boltgun and 27% with the DW bolter, so you're only getting an 8% bump, or 70% of the initial value, which is not technically double the RF chance .

Hmm, how do you get to these numbers? I mean, RF is triggered when rolling a "10". You have 2 rolls on a normal bolter (1d10, Tearing) and 4 rolls on a Marine bolter (2d10, Tearing) - that's twice the amount of chances, isn't it? Granted, it's been almost 10 years since I last looked at stochastics, but 4 rolls instead of 2 seems pretty much double to me. Unlike me, you appear to be quite math-savvy, so I won't just go and say this is wrong, but ...

Lynata said:

3 dice on the 2d10 tearing, not 4. Tearing simply gives you 1 additinal dice to roll and you drop the lowest dice ;-) Sorry to interrupt this interesting debate.

Lynata said:

How? I'm pretty sure that Promethium refers to a range of common pseudo-petrochemicals rather than a single, specific chemical. The Imperial Armour books actually list different burn temperatures for different weapons in use by the Astartes (the difference between a flamer and a heavy flamer, for example), so a different grade of Promethium is far from out of the bounds of realism.

Graver said:

Duh, this was errataed, too...

Thanks for pointing this out. I need a new book.

N0-1_H3r3 said:

Aside from all the weapons being comparable in the TT anyways, Holy Promethium has an even stronger effect than its Marine equivalent. Which kind of suggests that the Sisters have access to something better than the Astartes here.

I've never heard of Marines employing special Promethium yet, but I admit that it kind of makes sense. That said I am still hard pressed to see why the Ministorum is supposed to lack the capability to acquire such variants as well. Or the Guard, for that matter, though in this case it might simply be a case of cost/benefit hesitations.

You know why Marines have to be better? Because everything else keeps getting better.

As mentioned before, Space Marines used to be T3 and Power armour gave a 4+ save. Then due to game evolution, they weren't good enough. So they got better, T4 and 3+ save. Then the game evolved again, so they gained "And they shall know no fear" and became one of the few units that had a basic weapon a pistol and CCW. Then the game evolved again (Mostly due to Eldar IMO) and the rules changed were the term "MEQ" came from. Around this time the actual "Sister of Battle" arrived. I'm sure you can see where this is going.

Space Marines are the IP of GW, they are the bench mark, they have to be "X" better than everyone, because they are the "Icon" of GW. So when everyone else gets better, they have to get better. Probably where "codex creep" comes from.

So, my point. Marines ARE the be all. Not the guard, the Traitors, the TAU, Eldar, Orks or the Sisters. They will be better, their armour will be better and their guns will be better.

There is only one raging fanboi here. And they don't support Marines (Or in the case of myself TAU)

You have a point, of course, but isn't it enough that Marines will always be better? Do they really have to be over-the-top better even in areas where it is neither necessary nor supported by established fluff? And do we really need a "codex creep" in this RPG as well?

Although this may be a very optimistic assertion, it always felt to me as if, whilst the rules may have changed and some new stuff was added, the basics of the fluff after 2nd Ed. were pretty stable and established. I just see what looks like a step away from this balance to me, and I don't particularly like it - even moreso as it also affects the intercompatibility between the different RPG books of this franchise that could have otherwise profited a lot more from each other.

Now I've been looking through the old BL books, and I have a question about the hate on unnatural abilities. Now people have been saying that normal people in powered armor are as strong as Astartes. It seems to me that normal guardsmen will end up about at strong as a marine (Str in the 40s) The same goes for toughness. What does everyone think that FFG should have done to display the effects of the implanted organs if not unnatural Str/Tou? I think there will always be artifacts of strangeness when you start putting anything into numbers.

Everyone who plays these games is a fanboi/gurl of SOMETHING. if Marines don't have better gear than battle sisters, and don't have unnatural toughness, they are laughable, depending on a mere +10 to their stats. and yes, +10 is nothing. You can start with a +10 to your important stat for 300xp in DH. (e.g. Int for Tech-priests) Space Marines need something to put them apart from humanity, because they ARE apart from humanity. Marines are never supposed to be chumps, and things like The Fang are technological relics from the Great Crusade. It makes sense that they be able to hold off an Imperial Navy assault. If Marines were schlomos like Smurfhaters want, then they would be a dumb thing to expend the resources in making, both in decades of training, and a fortune equipping.

If Bolters/shells can be created in any old forge, why not outfit the Guard with them and carapace armor.

I love the guard, I love assassins and sisters, hell I love Tau and Eldar. But if Marines aren't a cut above the rest, they just don't deserve to exist and the Emperor was an idiot for making them. If he hadn't, Horus would have died of old age before he could betray him.

The fluff makes far more sense if Marines are superheros.

I don't mean marginally better, like Deathwatches rather anemic efforts, I mean full on pick up a tank and throw it at someone superheros.

AluminiumWolf said:

Wow, and I worried that I came off as insane. Thank you for making me sound more rational.

Neh. Probably the number one question ask about 40k fluff is why they get all the press when there are so few of them.

I suggest demonstrating to all involved, with no room for ambiguity, why Space Marines deserve their reputation as the defenders of humanity.

I also feel it would be pretty popular. I am, as ever, willing to put it to the Marine fen.

Fenrisnorth said:

Would the difference between Primitive and Full "Armour" Protection (referring to the earlier suggestion to turn normal TB into Primitive and Unnatural into Full TB) not be enough to show the stronger resilience of Marine bodies?

As for Strength I'd have to read up what SB actually does aside from melee damage bonus before I'd cast my judgement there. It may well be possible that Unnatural Strength actually works fine - Unnatural Toughness, however, confers too much of an Invulnerability bonus. One that is not backed up by the fluff and one which trivializes many potentially fun encounters. Surely you have to agree that a Marine's naked body should not rival his own power armour in terms of protection?

Fenrisnorth said:

As I said, I'm all for more toughness - just not 100% more. It breaks the game's balance/compatibility, and it isn't necessary. +10 to stats may not be much, but in the grand scheme it is a lot when you consider that these +10 apply to everything (even Fellowship, which is weird) and are far from the "full package". The implants, the advanced armour features, the unique talents and special rules, they all add to what results in that superhuman Angel of Death. There really is no need to cling to something that is just one of many parts for fear that it would have a considerable impact on the end result. Space Marines would still be much better than normal humans, as it should be. They'd merely lose their invincibility against weapons they were never meant to be invincible to. Keep in mind we are talking about a mere 2-3 points of protection here (depending on the character's total TB). They're not much in the grand scale, considering the adversaries the Marines usually fight against, but they would allow a Guardsman that small chance to land that one shot that might actually cause a wound.

Tl;dr: Even heroes have weaknesses, else it would get pretty boring. At least I assume it would. And I'm not even that intent on the whole toughness issue - there I just think it's breaking the balance. What really troubles me is the gutting of one of my favourite factions. Though I would appreciate more compatibility in general. In the TT, Sisters dish out the same amount of ranged damage as Marines due to equal basic equipment, but aren't able to take as much damage due to their non-enhanced human bodies. This would translate nicely to the RPG and make non-Astartes combat characters feel useful even in a DW game by being more squishy but at least able to contribute to the group's effort in purging the enemies of the Emperor. So why can't we have this here?

Fenrisnorth said:

Because as per the fluff they're simply more expensive, more difficult to maintain and service, have a higher chance of jamming and are way more reliant on a steady supply chain than the trusty old lasgun. The Imperium also has no problem acquiring carapace armour in larger quantities and would still not equip its rank and file troops with it. Cost/benefit. The Ministorum has no such issues with their budget, especially considering that there aren't that many Battle Sisters around. Or, in case of the Inquisition, Inquisitors and Acolytes.

Bolt weapons also require a certain amount of strength to be used effectively, but the idea that this would be limited to Space Marines is wrong, and a look into the codex books (as well as simple math when calculating a DH character's SB) should be enough to confirm this.

And I wouldn't say " any old forge". In general I tend to think that bolt weapons were treated poorly in Dark Heresy, having been made accessible too early (or rather without the aforementioned minimum SB - an idea that was touched upon with the Sacristan bolt pistol) and thus being taken for granted by everyone.

2-3 points of damage doesn't DO anything, though. except when you're getting pinpricked to death. All that it seems like the Prim/non-Prim change would do would be do have the marines take damage occasionally from lasgun fire, and get as messily splattered across the landscape as a hive ganger when a real opponent appears.

On the subject of a marine's body and his armor. Yes, it gets a little silly once the marine maxes his toughness. At 65 yes he can soak a ridiculous amount of firepower, but if he's getting hit with things that would vape him anyways. Remember, the Ossumoda (Sp?) makes the marine's bones into a mettalic/caramic alloy from extra minerals in his diet. He's basically turned into Wolverine from the X-Men. I don't think that the Sisters are gutted, they still are flipping badarse. Especially if they have the 2d10 tearing bolters. Marines aren't going to laugh those off unless they are a Techmarine who has specialized in maxing armor/TB

Can't we all just get along?

If you want to keep up with a Space Marine play a living saint or someone like Ephrael Stern. Theres probably more of them than there are Space Marines.

Space Marines need to be orders of magnitude better than normal people or a lot of the fluff makes no sense.

Speaking of Deathwatch Marines not living up to the hype,

'every single one of them is a Space Marine, a guy who single handedly can take on a modern infantry division with ease'

Lynata said:

Each die you roll has a 90% chance of not hitting RF. You multiply .9 by itself for every die you have and subtract it from 1 (or cheat and subtract 1 from the result and remove the negative). .9 * .9 = .81, 1 - .81 = .19 or 19%. 3 Dice is .9 * .9 * .9 = .792, .792 -1 = .27, or 27%.

A dice based explanation (it's with 6s and fractions rather then decimals, but the theory is the same): http://www.edcollins.com/backgammon/diceprob.htm

The rest of this argument is going in circles- you continue to compare your DH and RT characters to DW marines and you're not taking ascension into account here. You CANNOT compare a 3rd level DH character to a 9th level DW or Ascension character, it just doesn't work, it never will, and it was never intended to. The themes of the game are dfferent and the stats and abilities reflect that. Ascension characters have things like 10 dodges around, unnatural willpower that gives insane abilities to psykers, lore and influence powers that can actually bring in a group of guardsmen to do your bidding, or requisition a ship. If you make a non-combat character, you're not going to be comparable to combat characters either; DW is essentially a game where everyone plays a different class of fighter. If you play the investigator you'll not be able to fight as well as the fighter. You don't see people complaining their level 3 adept gets beaten up in bar fights more than the level 3 guardsman and level 3 arbite, do you?

They're not gutting your favorite faction by making the marines do 5 more damage on average with their boltguns. Give your SoB a Mantle of Ophelia and she's suddently as tough as a marine AND has faith powers from BoM. So her bolter doesn't do quite as much. IMHO the direction SoBs went with BoM is far more compelling than simply making the equivalent to Female Space Marines.

And if you want the sisters to be FSMs, simply give them UT and US and up their weapon stats. End of story, problem solved.

Lynata said:

Why on earth, at level 10 or higher, do I want to worry about a level one character? As a GM, if I want the player to be threatened by low level grunts I'll give them a better weapon (meltas work nicely) or give them the ability to do RF. To be honest, I throw elites into the middle of my hordes in DW that aren't the commanding officers from time to time in order to keep my players off balance. Will that guy with the lasgun simply be a chump, or has he been around the block a couple of times? For me, this gives them some added help in roleplaying out the fact that while the PLAYER knows they're immune to basic lasguns (outside of a horde) the CHARACTER doesn't. Give your adversaries traits and talents to improve them and make them threats, you don't have to rework the whole bloody system so that your marine can get accidentally headshotted.

Lynata said:

We do, it's called Ascension characters.

AluminiumWolf said:

~30.000 vs ~1.000.000

AluminiumWolf said:

And a lot of the fluff doesn't make sense when they are that much over the top, either.

It boils down to finding that "happy medium" - but this means discarding the worst displays just as much as the most awesome. There actually is a Sister that has single-handedly defeated a Hive Tyrant in close combat (Saint Praxedes, former Canoness, MIA), but you don't see me going around and claiming this should be regarded as perfectly normal.

Charmander said:

I don't compare characters. I'm comparing signature equipment. And even Ascension doesn't change anything about it.

"The Sisters of Battle are exceptionally well equipped, with armour and weapons the equal of any Space Marine Chapter."
- Codex Witch Hunters, p. 2

You don't have to like it, but don't condemn me for my wish for an accurate portrayal of a faction I tend to like.

Fenrisnorth said:

That would be nice, yes. It would also require all of us respecting each other's toys, though, and not lay claim to even more areas of supremacy that are neither necessary nor backed up by the fluff.

Really, it may not seem like it, but I don't have any problem with the mighty Astartes per se - in fact, they were the first miniatures I ever had and I'm still looking forward to some day try out a game of DW as well, as a Sister or as a Marine (Black Templars ftw). I become fiery when some of their more eager fans feel they "still don't have enough yet", though, despite already being at the top of the food chain.

Well, would you mind awefully getting out of the way so we can have a little fun with our favourite eight foot supermen.

What I've more or less gotten from you Lynata is that you want things to be the way you want them to be, constantly provided proof be damned(Don't bother responding I really don't value your opinions since you've refused to admit you even might be wrong on a few matters that are pretty huge). Two issues here, one the RPG is canon in the RPG realm, don't like it? House rule it. Two, you seem to think this game somehow caters to the minority, it does not. And from what I've seen so far, the majority is not in agreement with you, at least on the topic of weapon damage/useability.

Woah, who aside from crazy McWierdo up there is demanding more?

On an aside note, I dug out my Witch Hunter's book. Where does it talk about their numbers? All I could see was that each Order has multiple "chapters" of Sisters.

Bombernoy said:

Why should I admit to be wrong on something I have backed up with direct quotes from official material when no-one else had to show anything other than personal bias?

Of course I'm in a minority - look at GW sales numbers. But that doesn't somehow render my sources invalid. Don't like it? Then admit that the subject at hand is not an accurate depiction of the setting as set forth by GW and we have this discussion settled.

Or continue to close your eyes and blend out these facts you find inconvenient. It's up to you. But when you post here and proclaim the opposite, do expect a reply. I won't get tired of pointing these facts out, regardless of how little you value them. This is a public forum, after all, and it is in my own interest that any audience that is somewhat more openminded can see them. After all, given some of those previous posts I have to assume that a lot of misinformation has been spread around, especially as some posters have expressed an active dislike for this faction on more than one occasion.

Fenrisnorth said:

That's from the 2nd Edition Codex - the last time we got any official numbers at all. Basically there are millions of Sisters (thanks to the Scholae Progenium), but even though they all receive some amount of martial training only the most able may become Sisters Militant as the requirements of the Orders are pretty steep.

"When Sebastian Thor ascended to the position of Ecclesiarchy there were roughly 4,000 Daughters of the Emperor under his command. Upon founding the Adepta Sororitas these warriors were split between the Convents on Ophelia VII and Terra (the Convent Sanctorum and Convent Prioris respectively). With recruits passing through the hands of the Schola Progenium once again, the Adepta Sororitas' ranks soon grew to over 10,000 fighters. The Ecclesiarch succeeding Thor Ecclesiarch Alexis XXII split each of the Convents into two Orders each, founding the Orders Militant of the Ebon Chalice, Valorous Heart, Fiery Heart and the Argent Shroud.

Two and a half thousand years later, two more Orders were created by Deacis VI (the Orders of the Bloody Rose and Sacred Rose) and the Convent buildings were extended to accommodate almost 15,000 warriors each. In recent years, the number of the Militant Orders' members has declined slightly and each Order now numbers between 3,000 and 4,000 Battle Sisters, of which perhaps 500-750 will be trained as Seraphim. These warriors are spread throughout the galaxy in various battle zones and on extended tours of duty. The size of an Order waxes and wanes irregularly, depending on the quality of recruits available and battle losses. On occasion an Order may number no more than a few hundred warriors, all fighting the enemies of the Emperor, while at other times it may reach a peak of six or seven thousand warriors, with much of the Order fighting in distant wars but still leaving a reserve of several thousand Battle Sisters and Seraphim that can be despatched if needed."

It is actually possible that the numbers are even lower now, for the 5th edition Core Rulebook only mentioned three Orders Militant left. As of yet we don't know what happened to the other three, but I suppose we will get to know in 2012.

It's way easier/quicker to train a Battle Sister than to train a Marine, of course, just as they die way easier/quicker than a Marine, which is why these numbers are fluctuating so heavily. I assume that in addition to the harsh physical and mental requirements their numbers are also somewhat limited by the Ministorum's budget. Astartes-grade equipment isn't easy or cheap to come by, after all, even for the Church. They may have the manufactoriums to produce the power armour and boltguns themselves, but everything else still has to come from the AdMech, and their relationship is somewhat strained. Not to mention that even in self-production all this equipment must cost a fortune just to equip a single warrior.