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Following the discovery of Mortarion, the Death Guard Legion was based on their [[Primarch|Primarch's]] army of the same name on [[Barbarus]]. The Legion was divided into seven Great Companies, each with a nominal strength of 70,000 marines (though it's noted this number was never reached in practice) and divided into smaller battle [[Space Marine Company|companies]]. Some captains of the Great Companies had their own honorific titles based on Barbaran tradition; as such, the leader of the 2nd Company was known as 'Commander' while the leader of the 7th was known as 'Battle-Captain'.{{Fn|2a}} The Legion favoured heavy infantry above all else, usually equipped for extended operations without resupply or support.{{Fn|67}}
Besides line infantry, the Legion also made heavy use of [[Dreadnought]]s and [[Terminator]]s. Despite a few exceptions such as the [[Grave Warden]]s, the Death Guard Legion lacked extensive elite units.{{Fn|67}} The fleet of the Death Guard was composed of approximately 70 capital vessels, and perhaps 210 smaller escort and attack craft.{{Fn|16c}} Although not as numerically large as the dedicated warfleets of certain Legions (notably the [[Imperial Fists]], [[Sons of Horus]] and [[Dark Angels]]), the Death Guard possessed a high proportion of heavy capital units, many of which were not only of considerable size and power but in several cases unique-being relics of the lost [[Dark Age of Technology]]. The names of these vessels had entered into legend well before the Great Betrayal and would live on in infamy long afterward, such as the [[Battle Barge|Battle-Barge]] ''[[Reaper's Scythe]] '' which often served as Mortarion's flagship and the stage for much of the Legion's rituals and rites. Others included the ''[[Terminus Est]]'', a Dark Age survivor believed the better of any Imperial vessel of its class in service, while the ''[[Fourth Horseman]] '' was configured as a [[Attack Barque|ramship]] able to make orbital descent attacks despite its tremendous size. Perhaps most ill-reputed before the Heresy was the [[Goliath Class Battleship]] ''[[Mia Donna Mori]] '' - an engine of destruction known to carry enough Exterminatus-class alchem and bio-kill weaponry within her armoured vaults to end life in an entire [[sector ]] if unleashed.{{Fn|16e}}
===Post-Heresy===
