User blog comment:FTWinchester/Season 9 concepts/@comment-198.22.122.159-20140107180007/@comment-5619706-20140112191545

Yes, factionalized. But factor in the events since Season 4, and you'll get a picture of how severely weakened the host of heaven is. Case in point, half of them got obliterated in first part of Season 7 alone--and that does not yet count how many angels were killed by Leviathans (according to Castiel) late into the season. You still have to take into account their casualties in Season 4, 5, 6 and 8. Circa season 9, you have had several angels dying from the fall alone, several killed between Malachi and Bartholomew's rivalries, several dying at the hands of the Winchesters, and we still aren't counting the angels still without vessels, orbiting the earth rather vulnerably.