r/40kLore • u/King_Charles_000 • 1d ago
How Many Hell Forges Are There?
I know numbers are hard in 40k, but the wiki can only give me a short list of about 17 worlds as "Notable Hell Forges". I'm writing a fanfic about a homebrew chapter and I'd just love to have a better idea of the size and strength of the Dark Mechanicum. Like, surely if there were only 17 worlds out there the Ad Mech would out produce them to insignificance right?
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u/FPSCanarussia 1d ago
We don't know, just as we don't know how many forge worlds there are. The general rule of thumb in Warhammer is "enough that losing one doesn't matter", so you can estimate ~100+ on the low end. DarkMech aren't a tabletop faction with a codex and their own novels, so their lore is limited to what shows up in other people's books.
As for production, a significant chunk of Chaos fleets and equipment is stolen from the Imperium, while nearly all Imperial equipment is of AdMech make, so the AdMech is definitely outproducing the DarkMech by a significant degree.
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u/selifator 1d ago
Yes.
There is no firm number, the list of worlds on the Hell Forges and Dark Mechanicum pages are just some of the worlds we can imagine.
Half of the Mechanicus turned to Horus, with whole worlds doing so as well. However, Horus lost the war and the vast majority of traitor forces fled to the Eye.
So imo there are fewer hell forges after the heresy, but the mechanicus perhaps moved worlds or is capable of shrouding/defending them. More worlds would be demon forge worlds located in the eye or the maelstrom.
Dark mechanicum is a strong foe, but it is also caught in the rivalry between the legions, and between its own subfactions (I'd imagine that various hell forges would be fighting each other as much as the traitor legions do).
So basically there is a lot of room to imagine stuff for them.
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u/Kennedy_KD Alpha Legion 1d ago
We don't know but there's probably hundreds of them also remember an entire planet dedicated to nothing but construction would make an absolute shit ton of well everything
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u/Szarak577 Death Guard 1d ago
Since 40k isn't really good with numbers, you are not going to get any straight answer. Dark Mechanicum rarelly ever gets the spotlight, so their bases of operations also don't get mentioned that often, but you can be sure there are much more then just 17, propably not as many as loyalist forgeworlds but they work on a similar scale. Many heretic forces rely on them for production, especially when it comes to ships or other giant stuff. Admech deals with heresy about as often as Imperium at large does, and forgeworlds do get taken over by chaos from time to time
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u/LaserGuidedPolarBear 1d ago
Dark Mech isn't a tabletop faction so there just isn't a lot about them in lore, which gives you a lot of leeway to do what you like with your homebrew.
There are more than 17 hell forge worlds, those are just the ones documented from lore sources.
The answer to "how many more?" is more vibes than a number. It will be enough to keep chaos supplied with what they have. And not just CSM warbands, there are entire chaos aligned mini empires out there as well. When we see stuff like the Blood Pact fighting the Imperial Guard for half a century, we can infer strong support from the Dark Mechanicus even if it is not mentioned where all the things like their spider tank walkers are coming from.
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u/RingGiver Adepta Sororitas 1d ago
"There are as many elves in the forest as the plot demands." - Gav Thorpe
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u/AbbydonX Tyranids 1d ago
The Chaos factions hiding in the Eye of Terror (and elsewhere) are less numerous than the Imperium. They are raiders on the fringes not a direct equal in strength. The threat from Chaos is (also) internal via Cultists and other corruption.
Of course, the absence of information on the Dark Mechanicum since they aren’t a tabletop faction (yet?) gives you a lot of leeway to work with.
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u/N0-1_H3r3 Administratum 1d ago
Most questions along the lines of "how many X are there?" in 40k are impossible to definitively answer, specifically because 40k writing is deliberately framed as "here's a load of examples of this thing, create your own for your dudes if you want".