Yeah but you have like who units joining apparently. When you've got more than one guy, it's no longer about personal self-interest it's about the interest of your clan as a whole. I mean basically to me this all seems like treason. Abandoning your clan to join another, even under some flimsy pre-text of combat or what not.
What's the point of invasion honours if you dishonour yourself in the process? May be not to the letter of the law, but it certainly seems under the spirit of the thing it seems dishonourable.
Rarely was it a whole unit.
Most of the time it was a couple stars from a cluster, often the "Crusader" stars from a Warden clan/cluster.
IIRC there was even mention of some of them being undesirables & troublemakers.
Its the clans, they have a rather odd society that while in some ways is similar, in others is very different.
Its not treason to them, its simply being adopted into a new home
Finally, remember than not all of them lost, if they beat the Wolves/Falcons they got whatever they challenged for...supplies etc etc. They didn't just go out there and power down, they fought, but w/ a bit less enthusiasm maybe than normal and with an agreed upon note to skip the isorla/bondsmen stage and basically go straight to adopted warrior.
I think the operative word is WERE though. They were the best, now they're in shambles.
More like now they are the size of a small clan instead of the titans they were.
I don't see the Cobras coming along and absorbing them.
And the average Joe Star Captain will likely not know exact statistics of the Wolf & Falcon toumans but will still know that they are in control of the 2 largest OZ's and still have functioning, if smaller, toumans even after beating the crap out of each other.
Hell even the Home Khans would likely not know the full extent of the OZ damage.
The previous Wolf Khan was impeached for whatever.
And the new one went out there and killed a Khan & the ilKhan right after than.
He then raided the Jags across the Bears OZ and smacked around a Jag cluster.
He backed down the other Khans at the council meeting.
And then by tossing out that little "harvest trial" offer started nipping away at the forces of any clan that might want to challenge them by taking away a star or 2 from each cluster.
The previous Falcon khan was a politician and was killed on the chamber floor. Who'd want to join these guys? And more importantly, why not simply try to take them out? Call for absorption, attack them, etcetera.
See my notes above on actual knowledge of force size.
Then toss in that the Wolves & Falcons w/ major combat experience are going to be the most elite (if small) force around.
Finally attacking an invading clan then opens up your own territory to counter invasion by another home clan.
The fun and joy of the "Piranha tank" that is the Clan homeworlds is that everyone knows everyone else's business since half of them share worlds and they are all eager to stab each other in the back to gain some territory.
And we've all seen how well the Ice Hellions deep strike to hit the Falcons worked out for them in the Jihad.
And remember, the Wolves had some 26 PGCs in the OZ alone and only 1 Galaxy of 2nd line troops took part in offensive actions IIRC, Tau.
While they were spread thin they still had clusters in the homeworlds that were untouched.
Heck, 26 clusters is as large as some entire small clans, and that was JUST the Wolf OZ Reserves forces.