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Hello, I recently went over from being a Warhammer Fantasy player in hiatus to starting an Imperial Fists army, and I was wondering about one thing:

I want to make things the most Codex that I can, and as such I'm going to be painting them according to Companies (1-10) within the Chapter. What I was wondering is, it seems that to get most units mixed in one army, I will need to mix companies. Is it "appropriate" according to the Codex to paint my Tactical Squads with Orange Trims (setting them out as members of the 6th Company), but my Assault Squad with Black Trims (Making them 4th company) and then Veterans with White trims, and also white helmets? Or do I just put them all in one Company?

And for the Eagles and the bolters, is it very un-Codex to be painting them something else than red and black, respectivly? I'm considering having the PW quite dark-yellow, and having grey with white highlights weapons, and Black Eagles.

I can't remember the specifics off the top of my head, but the Codex Astartes dictates that there are a certain amount of line companies, (2-6 i think?) and then a number of reserve/specialist companies (7,8,9) and one scout company, (10) and of course the 1st company being veterans.

Anyway, it's common for a line company to deploy with elements of the reserve companies, scout company, and 1st company, as the mission dictates. There's certainly that route.

This is what I'm talking about.

Of course, you can also justify it by saying that multiple companies were deployed for your mission, and that the miniatures that you place on the table are but hodgepodge of those units.

Ah yes, that's what I thought. I was just wondering if I was misunderstanding something, because if you can only have 1 Company then the reserve Companies would be pretty boring, consisting of only Tactical Squads

1st Company is the Veteran Company
Companies 2-5 are Battle Company's composed of 6 Tactical Squads, 2 Devastator Squads, 2 Assault Squads and vehicles
Company's 6 and 7 I do believe are reserve compnay's made of nothing but Tacticals
Company 8 is all Assault Marines
Company 9 are all Devastator Marines
Company 10 is the Scout Company

Typically though you can field every unit in the game through a Battle Company. Assault Marines are trained to use Landspeeders and Bikes, and Tactical Marines are trained to use Bikes and Landspeeders as well, as the 6th and 7th are trained to operate them respectively, and all Battle Company marines were in the reserve company's first.

Daskeland wrote:Is it "appropriate" according to the Codex to paint my Tactical Squads with Orange Trims (setting them out as members of the 6th Company), but my Assault Squad with Black Trims (Making them 4th company) and then Veterans with White trims, and also white helmets?

And for the Eagles and the bolters, is it very un-Codex to be painting them something else than red and black, respectivly? I'm considering having the PW quite dark-yellow, and having grey with white highlights weapons, and Black Eagles.

It's *your* army, so *you* decide.

For Codex Astartes, a Battle Company is 6x 10-Tacticals with 2x 10 Assault. So if you wan them all 6th company, you can do that, and not need to have the Assault guys from 4th (or 7th or 8th). Typically, Veterans wear white trims, so that's normal.

You can paint the bolters how you choose - nobody will complain if they're black & silver; similarly, you have freedom in the color of your PWs.

Have fun with your army!

In a related question, how do you do codex heraldry for vehicles (i.e. the guy popping his head out of the top with at stormbolter on a rhino)?

Personally, I do the colors based on the company the vehicle would most likely be working with (i.e. LRs full of terminators, would have their crews with the first company, Vindicators would have 9th company colors). Kind of gives the vehicles some personality, I think.

Well, technically, other than Rhinos, bikes and speeders, vehicles are assigned from the chapter's Armorium (Armory) which is largely Techmarines, so designating them as such wouldn't be wrong...

Yeah, that's why GW includes separate shoulderpads for those guys.

Exactly.

Typically what I hear is on campaign it is usually one battle company with all other reserve companies, armory, libraruim ect chipping in support and reinforcements.

They had a list in the codex space marines a few editons back I think it was. It listed the full Ultramarines chapter with actual combat strength. Then it listed a few expeditionary forces sent out to fight and what units went with from which companies.

I think it was the edition before that where they talked a lot about how the land speeders and bikes are often taken from the assault marines. As far as the pilots that is.

That is just the standard though. As long as you stick to the one rules set you can make up what ever fluff seems appropriate. As well as unit markings and weapon colors and everything. My Dark Angels have yellow eagles and red bolters with boltgun metal for the metal parts. Ravenwing has different armor and white eagles. Deathwing has green and metal bolters.

So in short do what you want. If you want to do something non standard as far as organization or colors or what ever do it. Just pick a rules set and stick with it. By which I mean don't combine space wolf squads with dark angel squads and black templar ones. You have to pick one rules set. Of course the other thing that holds true is that if you want to stick as close to a published official army organization list then do that instead.

One friend has each squad from a different army and plays with vanilla marines as rules. 40k universe is a mix of do what you want and the here's a solid framework styles.