Let's talk about the Recent(past year or so) WH40K fluff updates. Spoilers all

[Elheru Aran]

It doesn't disprove the idea, no... but let's be frank here, Black Library writers (with a few exceptions) aren't dumb. They know bloody well that if they write a vague passage, it's going to be construed any number of ways. Certainly the passage can be taken to either mean he's well hung, or that he's lacking a twig and berries. And they like it that way, if someone ever asks them straight up they can just shrug and say that it's up to the reader. Certainly most readers aren't going to assume he's deprived of something which usually occasions such porn-ish comments.

Of course, you can't make everybody happy, if they said for sure one way or the other on the issue *someone* would be unhappy, which is precisely why they're not bothering to elaborate... either way: the assumption can be safely made that the great majority of Space Marines are effectively without sex drive or inclinations thereof, regardless of physical makeup, and that HH codex would tend to reinforce the notion.

[NecronLord]

Yes, that's why the Inferno quote is there. It's a very recent comment in as-explicit terms as possible that sexual acts and thoughts, not possible. Black and white - well, black and cream-tan. As mentioned, the authors themselves are undecided whether any genitals physically exist, but the actual social meaning of these things - that's lost to them.

It's a topic that keeps getting asked - and I think the Inferno quote is intended to pretty much nail that coffin lid closed and ensure that the fandom gets the point that astartes and custodians do not 'fraternize.'

[Lonestar]

So, about 30,000 Space Marines mustered for the Defense of Baal

Could the 13th Black Crusade gone the otherway if they had been sent to the Cadian Gate instead?

[Elheru Aran]

So, about 30,000 Space Marines mustered for the Defense of Baal

Could the 13th Black Crusade gone the otherway if they had been sent to the Cadian Gate instead?

To be fair, IIRC all the events of Gathering Storm more or less happened simultaneously. The defence of Baal happened well after Gathering Storm and were a bit of a special circumstance, being all Blood Angels Successor Chapters. There's no such draw for Cadia. Now if the Ultramarines had been based on Cadia rather than Macragge...

That said. 30,000 is a decent size Legion. There's nine of those on the other side, more or less united under Abaddon and Chaos during the Crusade, plus who knows how much in the way of daemons and cultists. Not sure it would've made that much of a difference.

[Bedlam]

So, about 30,000 Space Marines mustered for the Defense of Baal

Could the 13th Black Crusade gone the otherway if they had been sent to the Cadian Gate instead?

To be fair, IIRC all the events of Gathering Storm more or less happened simultaneously. The defence of Baal happened well after Gathering Storm and were a bit of a special circumstance, being all Blood Angels Successor Chapters. There's no such draw for Cadia. Now if the Ultramarines had been based on Cadia rather than Macragge...

That said. 30,000 is a decent size Legion. There's nine of those on the other side, more or less united under Abaddon and Chaos during the Crusade, plus who knows how much in the way of daemons and cultists. Not sure it would've made that much of a difference.

30K might have been a resonable size for a legion back in the days of the Great Crusade, but how big were the legions after the battles of the Heresy? Sure the chaos gods can cheat with raising the dead and altering time and there's probably been some recruiting over the last 10K years but are they up to full legion strength? Several of the legions ended up sacrefising their loyalist arms at Istvan so that reduced their numbers then there were the other battles before they got to earth and then were pushed back into the eye.

Sons of Horus - As far as I know were a faily average sized legion, they killed off a chunk of their numbers at Istvan but didn't do that much at Terra so they might be at a good strength. Some old fluff says the other traitors gave them a good kicking after the Heresy as punishment for running so they might have lost some numbers there.
Thousand Sons - Never a big legion, although Rubric marines are probably easier to bring back than most.
World Eaters - A fairly average legion which took some big losses making their may through Ultramar, plus their nature means they probably arn't big at preserving their numbers or recruiting.
Word Bearers - Second biggest legion but took a serious pounding in Ultramar. Probably a big recruiter though so maybe back to average legion strength?
Iron Warriors - Average legion size, maybe tending to large. Probably in fairly good shape.
Emperors Children - Maybe a bit undersized as they were much reduced by some plague early in the crusade but apparently picked up later on. Probably in fairly good shape.
Death Guard - Average legion size. Probably in fairly good shape.
Alpha Legion - One of the smaller Legions and they didn't really flee in the eye in large numbers.
Night Lords - Don't really care that much for chaos and didn't flee to the eye in large numbers.

So certainly Abaddon has tens of thousands of marines at his command, probably low hundreds of thousands it probably isn't fair to say nine full strength legions unless there's some fluff I havn't seen which states that. 30K loyalist marines would definately help, particularly as there were probably already that number of marines in the general area, from what I recall there are quite a few chapters positioned around the eye and in cadia's general location to counter crusades.

[Elheru Aran]

Don't have a great deal of time to get into hard numbers here, but general consensus on a few of those points--

The Emperor's Children are no longer an unified Legion, they fractured soon after the Heresy. Individual war-hosts can still muster a respectable force, but in general they are a shadow of their past selves. Useful for their alliances with Slaanesh, at least.

World Eaters are actually doing OK, considering. The whole berzerker thing isn't a permanent condition (usually), they're generally pretty reasonable when they're not in the thick of combat. Plus Khorne is a fairly aggressive deity and pretty easy for people to get into, so there's lots of Khornate cultists for them to draw recruiting from. Overall they're not doing too badly. Sameish deal as the Emperor's Children as far as Legion cohesion goes, though-- they broke up much about the same time. Kharn the Betrayer is about as much of a leader as they have, and well, he's a swell guy, but he can only do so much...

Iron Warriors are... debatable, as far as 'fairly good shape' goes. They have a lot of intercine warfare going on because they simply can't stand each other. Perturabo isn't helping much either because he doesn't give a shit about his own Legion, unless the Imperial Fists start calling them names.

Night Lords are another fragmented Legion. That may actually have helped them more than it hurt them though, as they broke up fairly early in the Heresy, well before the Siege, and many of their Legion elements scattered past Imperial retaliation.

So essentially you're looking at massive numbers of Traitor Marines, just all scattered and disunited. The main problem Abaddon has is actually getting enough people in the same place to do something, as much as it is getting them to actually work together...

[Block]

My understanding of the Night Lord's is that they're barely hanging on based on the trilogy of books about them. They do reunite as a whole legion at the end, but still only have very limited numbers.

[Imperial Overlord]

It's not that they're barely hanging on, it's that they're shattered as a legion. Talos's band is hanging on by the skin of its teeth and it can't expect any help from their legion brothers. That's a pretty fucked up situation and why the prospect of reclaiming they're dying brotherhood is so important. They're killing each other and dying piece by piece, but there's a shard of their unity left behind. That's why bringing the legion back together at the end is such a big deal and why incidents where they do help each other (like when the battle barge "accidentally" blocks Abbadon's line of fire and helps the Exalted's warband escape) have such dramatic weight.

[Block]

Right, sorry. What I meant by barely hanging on was logistically. They were having to scrounge armor plates, raid for simple armorer slaves, stuff like that. And replacements were few and far between, so very few full combat squads, fewer apothecary, etc.