", "Do not even think it, my friend," warned Malcador. The Emperor saw no problems with this development; He believed the loyalty of the Primarchs to Him was unshakable. The entire galaxy entrusted to twen– no, eighteen brothers. Sometimes, the Emperor's Tarot gives no indication at all with regards to the reason for a new Chapter's creation, providing no clues as to what it should guard against, what it should fight or where it should be based. The Space Marine Legions, or the Legiones Astartes in High Gothic, were the original unit formations of the Space Marines created during the First Founding by the Emperor of Mankind on Terra in the late 30th Millennium. With these caveats in mind, the Strategic Disposition of a Space Marine Legion chart above describes the broad and most common structural basis of an Astartes Legion (as well as some of the more commonly used terminology of rank) in the latter half of the Great Crusade. Approximately 120,000 Astartes estimated at the Legion's peak. "And the Emperor forbade us to speak of it again. The Imperium is a realm governed as much by superstition and paranoia as it is by the cyclopean bureaucracy of the Administratum. Around the time that both these wayward Legions were expunged from all Imperial records, it was said that the number of the Astartes in the Ultramarines Legion swelled in size until it eclipsed all of the other Legions. Founding that occurred alongside the honoured dead during the Year of Ghosts. The Legions were aided by the ground and naval forces of the Imperial Army, the predecessor of the present-day Astra Militarum and Imperial Navy, but these forces more often served in support and garrison duties while the heaviest combat and the most important and difficult missions were always carried out by the Astartes Legions. I would argue that the Mentor Legion holds a special place in the history of Warhammer 40,000. Do you disobey that command?". There are only two acknowledged Chapters that were created during this mysterious Founding. "A great day is it not? The fortress homes of the Allfather's eighteen Legions Astartes are the most formidable and impregnable sites in the new Imperium.". Many of the First Founding Chapters maintain close links with Chapters created using their own gene-seed stocks, and the Chapter Masters might have a hand in planning future Foundings using that genetic material. This also included experiments with the gene-seed of the Lost Primarchs of the II and XI Legions. The process merely indicates that the fates demand the new Chapter be created, and so, it is.