110500 Spartans

[Wolflord]

In WoK we are given the figure of 110500 as the population of the warrior caste.

It has always intrigued me that 110500 warriors / 17 clans = 6500 warriors per clan [putting aside that WoK is written after the annihilation/absorption/Abjuration of the jaguars/Burrocks/cats/exiles]

45 mechs+ 30 fighters + 15 elemental points = 150 warriors

6500 / 150 = 40 clusters plus 500 warriors for duties outside combat clusters e.g. Galaxy command units, dropship/jumpship/warship officers etc etc

40 clusters * 17 clans = 680 clusters total

All very back of an envelope but it seems to give a reasonable ballpark figure.
IF we can believe Phelan that is.

[Hawkeye Jim]

There weren't 17 Clans after the Burrocks, Nova Cats and Jaguars were eliminated from the totals. There were only 14. 17 is the total before Revival.

[Wolflord]

I know that's why I put the bit in brackets and put IF we can believe Phelan.
That is  why I find the numbers intriguing.
An exact multiple of 17 in a document written after the clan count drops to 14 is an anomaly worth considering.

The odds of a randomly selected number for the population of the clan warrior caste being a nice neat multiple of 17 are pretty slim I don't think the number 110500 was a randomly selected ballpark figure and that makes me wonder why it was chosen?

Is Phelans data out of date?
Is this a clue that Phelan is lying in WoK?
Should the clans cluster count be above 700 pre revival?

[Stormfury]

Having a quick look through the Field Manuals, using an average of 60 Clusters for the three big Clans plus the Blood Spirits and using their FM strength for the rest provides a total of over 650 Clusters*. That figure does not include the Burrocks, but going on what we know from the Absorbtion War a guess of about 30-40 Clusters for them seems pretty reasonable, which would put the total in excess of 680, maybe into the 690s.

This is also pretty significant since the Clans actually lost strength in the post-Revival period when things hotted up in the Homeworlds. I could be a bit more specific about numbers if I combed through the Field Manuals, but my eyes are starting to bug out with all the facts and figures I've analysed here recently as it is.

Honestly, I'm a little surprised by that; I thought ~650 would be a fairly safe guess for the combined strengths of the Clans. I thought estimates heading towards 700 would be a bit excessive, but it's starting to look like a fairly supportable guess.

With regard to Phelan's numbers, I'm given to understand that those figures include all warriors- so Watch agents and some WarShip and DropShip crew, along with all the fighters that operate out of carrier vessels.

*I also used 50 for the Star Adders, since IIRC the last time we went through their pre-Absorbtion numbers they had around that number- certainly in the higher forties; the Nova Cats got 40 since they were of similar size and power to other Clans with that number before their Abjuration.

[Archangel]

Is Phelans data out of date?

The numbers he gives are probably just rough estimates which is actually stated in the name of the table: Population Estimates by Caste.  He also states the numbers are based upon information available to him which may not be complete.

Is this a clue that Phelan is lying in WoK?

No.

Should the clans cluster count be above 700 pre revival?

Not necessarily.  After all the warrior count includes conventional infantry and conventional armor which some Clans, such as the Hell's Horses, still deploy in their frontline units.  The average Hell's Horses Cluster includes a supernova of conventional armor and conventional infantry which includes 250 infantry and the armor crews which vary depending upon the vehicle.  As a result Hell's Horses Alpha Galaxy could easily field 1,500 warriors alone.

You also have to remember that the warriors are not spread out evenly among the Clans and depending upon the force types fielded by the Clan their numbers could be more/less than their Cluster strength suggests.

[Ratwedge]

I like how this conspiracy started because someone failed to read the very thing they were trying to cite.  ;D

[Meow Liao]

Blood Spirits with the vehicle trinaries in every cluster eat up a lot more warriors.  300-330 warriors to fill an assault trinary.

The population numbers really let you know how much Tukayyid hurt them.  The Vlad/Phelan bloodtrial killed off about 15 warriors (not including grand melee, don't recall that number being given).  Wolf Clan has 73 bloodnamed killed at Tukayyid.  That is a good chunk of the touman about to die in the trials for those open slots.  And the other clans tended to do worse (or a lot worse) than the Wolves.  These clans are looking at 10%+ of their warrior caste dying trying to fill all of those empty bloodnames.  For a trueborn only clan, this could be a decades long problem.

Meow Liao

[Hawkeye Jim]

It might also depend on the survival rate from the sibkos. In some Clans, far fewer youngsters made it all the way thru. That would make refilling the units slower in Clans that didn't use freebirths as much.

[Wolflord]

I like how this conspiracy started because someone failed to read the very thing they were trying to cite.  ;D

Want to elaborate on that?

[Wolflord]

The numbers he gives are probably just rough estimates which is actually stated in the name of the table: Population Estimates by Caste.  He also states the numbers are based upon information available to him which may not be complete.

I know it's an estimate (the heading of the table is a clue  ;) ) but it is the number we have. It's an estimate that intrigues me in the way that an estimate of 110600 (a multiple of 14 as in the 14 clans extant at the time WoK was written) would not have intrigued me.

I can imagine Phelan asking for an estimate from his lower caste PA and being given any of
A) the scientist caste calculated optimum number of warriors for the homeworlds resources
B) the last census number someone wrote down before the refusal war
C) some number times a wild assessed guess, cause who's going to bother double checking
D) a number that he (Phelan) decides to scale up to make sure people stay worried about the clans and grateful for his exiles presence
Etc. etc.

So here is a question does Phelan include his exiles in the count of 110500?

[Wolflord]

You also have to remember that the warriors are not spread out evenly among the Clans and depending upon the force types fielded by the Clan their numbers could be more/less than their Cluster strength suggests.

I didn't say they were spread evenly between the clans; I did some quick calculations including working out some averages, and said I found the results interesting. Granted I used a standardised cluster for ease of calculation but that doesn't seem unreasonable (In WCSB for example the number of warriors per cluster varies from 90 to 210 in Gamma Galaxy alone.) for what I freely stated was a back of an envelope job.

[Stormfury]

The population numbers really let you know how much Tukayyid hurt them.  The Vlad/Phelan bloodtrial killed off about 15 warriors (not including grand melee, don't recall that number being given).

The only warrior in that we knew who was killing off all opposition was Vlad. Nobody else did, so predicting a 50% fatality rate seems a bit off, especially since deaths in Clan-style combat aren't nearly as common as they are in Sphere-style combat, and Trials of Bloodright usually have everyone acting as honourably as possible.

[Meow Liao]

It's not a prediction.  I read the book recently and added up the values as I went along.  Phelan mentions how many are killed in the rounds.  Ends up somewhere around 15.

Meow Liao

[Alan Grant]

I once did the math on an average Clan warship fleet and concluded that if all the "officers" are warriors, as has been claimed in TROs and on these forums, that in the fleet alone you can find approximately the equal of a galaxy of warriors assigned to the fleet. Mostly ASF pilot phenotypes probably (outside the Snow Ravens of course)

That did not count elemental marines assigned to warships/jumpships, or anything along those lines.

[Wolflord]

I once did the math on an average Clan warship fleet and concluded that if all the "officers" are warriors, as has been claimed in TROs and on these forums, that in the fleet alone you can find approximately the equal of a galaxy of warriors assigned to the fleet. Mostly ASF pilot phenotypes probably (outside the Snow Ravens of course)

That did not count elemental marines assigned to warships/jumpships, or anything along those lines.

I got much the same when I ran those numbers and came up with some possible solutions

1) the pilots and marines are drawn from the "normal" clusters when they are required - don't like the potential for needing the troops in two places at the same time
2) Phelans numbers are in some way in error and thereby don't count these warriors - Phelans numbers are the only ones we have at that timeframe if we throw them out then we can make up whatever with no constraints as guidance
3) only the very highest ranking officers count as warriors the rest are techs - living mechanisms as it were - too much like 40K fluff even if they are not wired into the ships

As you can tell I'm not particularly happy with any of them.

Anybody got a better suggestion?

[Arkaris]

I got much the same when I ran those numbers and came up with some possible solutions

1) the pilots and marines are drawn from the "normal" clusters when they are required - don't like the potential for needing the troops in two places at the same time
2) Phelans numbers are in some way in error and thereby don't count these warriors - Phelans numbers are the only ones we have at that timeframe if we throw them out then we can make up whatever with no constraints as guidance
3) only the very highest ranking officers count as warriors the rest are techs - living mechanisms as it were - too much like 40K fluff even if they are not wired into the ships

As you can tell I'm not particularly happy with any of them.

Anybody got a better suggestion?

4) Phelan only counts Mechwarriors in that number.

[Hawkeye Jim]

Wouldn't the warrior count also be affected by how many Bloodnames are currently in use? I know Coyote had reaved a number of theirs. Obviously they could increase the number of sibkos from the names they had left, but if a number of names were gone, wouldn't that limit their choices? Would they still use as a paternal line, legacies from a bloodname they don't use anymore?

[Diablo48]

Wouldn't the warrior count also be affected by how many Bloodnames are currently in use? I know Coyote had reaved a number of theirs. Obviously they could increase the number of sibkos from the names they had left, but if a number of names were gone, wouldn't that limit their choices? Would they still use as a paternal line, legacies from a bloodname they don't use anymore?

That or they could allow more freeborn warriors into the touman to make up for the reduced availability of trueborns.

[Hawkeye Jim]

Some were pretty stubborn about using freeborns.