Increase Chapter size

>>48629253
Be codex adherent.

>>48629253
Spread your chapter out across a large area.

Even then, you'd probably only be able to stretch it to like 1500 or 2000 before attracting a lot of attention, and 4-5000 is about the absolute max you could cleverly get away with. Even then, that'd be hard, and you'd make quite a few enemies in doing so, and you'd have the Inquisition breathing down your necks at literally every turn.

>>48629268
screw you, smurf.

>>48629324
do support roles count towards the limit?

>>48629352

Usually.

However, I don't think Scouts count, only fully blooded Space Marines count towards it, so you could maintain higher numbers of Scouts who serve as elite infantrymen, the hardest of which become Space Marines.

Though if they do count, there are Chapters who suffer from genetic abnormalities, usually terminal, that necessitate the creation of a Death Company to give the terminally insane a shot at causing more damage to the enemy than the parent Chapter. In those cases, Death Company don't count towards the chapter's 1000 active member cap because they are already dead and counted among the deceased.

I'm not sure, but it could be possible that Deathwatch members aren't counted, but even the Chapters that send the most members to the Deathwatch only ever have at most a few dozen active members in their service, so hiding a sizeable reserve in Deathwatch black isn't a viable strategy.

Alternatively, the Dark Angels spawn successors who basically just follow whatever the Dark Angels are doing and might as well just be extended Dark Angels companies, and the Black Templars can go above that limit because the limit is lifted while a Chapter is on crusade, and the Black Templars have not stopped crusading since their inception.

>>48629253
Do what smart legions did post heresy. Have various chapters who pretend to be separate on paper but are still beholden to spiritual lieges, dark covenants, and blood curses.

Or you could go full Lufgt and just try to get big enough that when you get caught you can pull it off. Didn't exactly work as planned, but there are more than 1000 Red Corsairs.

>>48629324
>>48629451
I think some space marines get assigned duties to guard certain facilities, spread out across space.

Imperial fists were apparently defending that one monastery in bumfuck nowhere in the Ultramrine movie, and a bloodraven librarian was working with some sisters of battle in a isolated archaelogical/research base on Rahe's paradise.

If one spreads out their forces to hold grounds far apart from one another, would that work?

>>48629253
There's no cap on a Chapter on Crusade.

There's no cap on Scouts.

>>48629451
That's why I love Black Templars.

There's nothing quite as satisfying as using loopholes to betray the spirit and intent of the rules.

>>48629842
>There's nothing quite as satisfying as using loopholes to betray the spirit and intent of the rules.
aw yeah.
nothing beats being technically in the right.

>>48629842
>>48629850
1. Black Templars never followed the Codex, they didn't use any loopholes.

2. The above statement is now retconned, and they now have never been above 1300 men.

>>48629879
>retconned
when the hell did this happen?

>>48629253
Captains, Command Squads, Techmarines, Librarians, Drivers, and Scouts are all separate from the 1000 battle brother clause.

Increase the size of those.

A full fledged chapter would probably have about 1500 active marines at a given time.

build your own hidden bases and staff them with marines.

if techmarines and librarians don't count, have them be the ones who look after the bases.

>>48629917
>>48629954
If the codex has a limit on Battle Brothers, why wouldn't it have a limit on Astartes support staff?

Send a few companies off on an extremely long mission.
File the paperwork assuming them missing in action presumed dead, and rebuild their chapter from reserve companies.
When they return, all of a sudden you've got a Chapter in excess of 1000 Marines.

Only problem is outfitting them all.

>>48630125
because Guilliman was an administrator who knew the Bureaucracy had to expand to accommodate the needs of the expanding Bureaucracy

>>48629917
The Codex clearly states there is to be only one Captain per Company and one command squad per captain. Specialists are rare and take large amount of time to train. Drivers aren't separate from the company. The amounts of scouts you'll have is largely arbitrary based on initiate causalities and they aren't even true Space Marines yet.

>>48630299
The Bureaucracy never increases a little over 1000.

>>48629954
>Strip your companies of important weapons against Chaos and battlefield engineers to watch over a bunker

Why?

>>48630578
only when you have surplus support specialists.

>>48629902
A while ago. A BL author confirmed that GW retconned them.

It was glorious seeing the rage of the Templarfags.

>>48630734
source?

>>48630770
It was on his facebook. Dunno who, and I lost my screencap of it.

>>48630770
>The Black Templars were stated to be 5,000-6,000 strong in the 4th Edition Codex. However in the 2014 Novel Eternal Crusader, they were stated to be Codex compliant, with 1,000 Battle-Brothers. Author Guy Haley went on to state on his blog that the Black Templars numbers are variable depending on the time of the setting and story requirements.

>>48630927
There's an important thing to consider here, perhaps GWs best and worst feature: Everything is sort of canon.

I choose to believe the Templars are using the crusade loophole to bypass number restrictions as has been mentioned in earlier canon, thus, they are.

>>48631164
>I choose to believe the Templars are using the crusade loophole

So to you the Templars are following the codex?

>>48629253
Combine all the suggestions in this thread to exploit any and all loopholes and clauses

>1000 standing battle brothers
As said already, add a bumfuck of scouts, support roles, and specialists. Horde neophytes in your librarium.
Stock and maintain as many dreadnought sarcophagi as you can. If you want to go full retard, lower the standard for getting interred.
>"Unready" some of your battle brothers
Deploy some demi companies to guard duty of fortresses/relics etc. in other sectors and second a dozen to deathwatch. Send as many marines as you can to the ecclesiarchy or Mars for training, even if they are not awarded specialist roles when they return. Top up the difference to 1000 again (if they are assigned to roles elsewhere they are not technically ready to mobilise among the 1000 battle-ready in emergencies).

>Crusades to not keep track
>>48629708
Declare One or more Crusades with three or more of your companies each, who will recruit on the campaign trail and generally "fluctuate" so rapidly that nobody will care when you go over the limit. Keep them in your segmentum so that they're always relatively close.

>Open a second shop
Donate to a Space Marine founding and make sure your successors are in on the game. Disguise collaboration with cultural exchanges, campaigns and whatnot.

>Chapter culture
Good enough for the Wolves, good enough for us. Use your homeworld culture as an excuse to assign even more brothers. Create a new specialist role by slapping bone fetishes on every 4th marine and call them a spirit animal or some symbolic thing. Add a librarium neophyte to every squad and say he's just there to record deeds. Fuck it, give yourself three honour guards. Calgar does it already.

>File a fake death return
>>48630142

>>48630927
Who says so in the book? A big part about 40k is that EVERYTHING is hearsay and rumor so if a character in the book said the Black Templar are codex compliant then he may very well be mislead to think so.

>>48630578
You misunderstand.

They're not necessarily Librarians or Techmarines. That's just what they're labelled as on the roster.

>>48629451
Dark Angels can get away with it because they're one if the most powerful factions in the Imperium. That, and only other Space Marines would ever realize they're acting the same

>>48631275
You have to send techmarines to the Mechanicus, right? Either the cyborg wizards notice something is dodgy on that end or the dodginess shows up when someone looks into your mass of techmarines and sees three quarters of them don't have their license. And won't someone notice most of your librarians aren't actually psykers?

>>48630927
Nah mate, there was another thing that was even more recent where the author said that GW told him that they have never had more than 1000-1300.

Close relationship with AdMech. Make army of combat Servitors out of failed initiates.

Grimdark enough?

File: 4000_screenshots_20160607060203_1.jpg (305KB, 1360x768px) Image search: [Google]

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>>48629253
Pretend you are Codex Adherent.

But you really aren't

>>48629253
Say "fuck it" and just do it anyway. The 1000-marines-per-chapter-limit is not actually a law or oath whose violation can be prosecuted by the lower adepta. The worst that result, for that violation itself, is prompt censure from your progenitor chapter, or perhaps cause other codex chapters to refuse to fight alongside you (as if you'd need the help of other chapters if you were substantially above the 1,000 marine limit).

Just make sure you've got the rest of your house in order, because you'll attract a lot of undesired attention from a multitude of would-be enforcers, and anything at all that can be called into question, will be.

>>48629457
>there are more than 1000 Red Corsairs
There wasn't at the end of the Badab Wars; only about 200 escaped Badab itself and perhaps a few handfuls more were already on ships elsewhere throughout the warzone and able to flee into the Maelstrom.

>>48631730
in the case of progenitor chapters, who would have a problem with oversized descendants?

Go black Templar or space wolves and just say "what are you gonna do about it"

Go dangels and have your successor chapters be more like successor companies

>>48631315
>You have to send techmarines to the Mechanicus, right?
Yes, but not all go to Mars; any Forge World is acceptable. They're not interested enough to be coordinated on that point. Also, they're supposed to go early in their career (e.g. within a couple of years of being a full battle-brother), but it can be delayed if circumstances dictate. Finally, if they simply don't send them (as happens for chapters that are unable to send them for centuries at a time due to various reasons), no-one can do anything about it (though the chapter might be worse-of for it in terms of the knowledge they can attain/retain).

>And won't someone notice most of your librarians aren't actually psykers?
No, they're not navigators nor astropaths, so they don't need to be trained or vetted by anyone outside the Librarius.

what about apothecaries and chaplains?

They're specialists, too, right? So they won't necessarily count to the limit?

>>48631808
Any that really like the Codex Astartes (e.g. the Ultramarines)
Any that really like descendants who don't provoke unnecessary attention to their affairs (e.g. the Dark Angels)
Any that really don't want anyone starting another inter-Chapter war (e.g. the Raven Guard)
Probably others, but that's likely over three-quarters there.

>>48631950
so who'd be accepting?

Wolves? Scars? Iron Hands?

Have a higher number of librarians, chaplains techmarines and apothecaries as they dont count towards the limit. Maybe have 10 "captains"as a council per company. Extra 100 men right there. Each captain is elected by the council of 10.

Have extra scouts and keep them in training that way you have more warriors. Dreadnoughts also do not count to the limit so recover as many fallen brothers as possible.

>>48632007
Imp fists have diverse as fuck successors

The Black Templars have like 4000 marines or some shit already

>>48631200
Yes. They are following the letter of the law, but certainly not the spirit of the law.

>The Codex is meant to curb our power and says we can't have more than 1000 marines unless we're crusading. Guess we're crusading forever then.

chapter serfs don't count, either, do they?

are there stringent requirements for being a serf? also, are women allowed to be chapter serfs? Because maybe having your own propagating population (in the case of a fleetbased chapter) could provide a pool of astartes to boost the ranks?

File: Templar slighty above chapter strength.jpg (68KB, 489x335px)

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>>48631234
The Grand marshal (Chapter Master) himself says it. Also Guy Haley confirmed that GW managment asked him to do it.

File: Guy Haley on BT.jpg (94KB, 673x804px)

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>>48633078
A year later and Templarfags haven't been fully briefed yet.

>>48632539
The Black Templars only have around 1.5k thanks to GW being GW again.

>>48633510
Less.

>>48629954
Shit idea, you can't just decide to have lots of techmstines and librarians.

Techmarines have to be mechanicum trained and they won't just accept and abnormal number without comment.

As for librarians, if you're recruiting from people with an abnormally high psychic potential or seeking out large numbers of Psyker recruits then you're just begging for lots of scrutiny.

>>48631315
>And won't someone notice most of your librarians aren't actually psykers?
Claiming to have an abnormal quantity of Psykers will be enough to attract attention.

>>48629253
Do like the Black Templars and flip the Imperial Aquila to the Inquisition and the Codex Astartes