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I agree with the Sternguard/Vanguard interpretation:

All 1st Company members are Veterans and belong to a squad.

Each squad will have a preference, Sternguard or Vanguard (although they are all capable of fighting as either).

When called upon, any of those squads could be equipped with Terminator armor as the mission requires (in general, the majority of the 1st company would have terminator honors).

Once again, the mission might dictate weaponry, but in general Sternguard veterans would prefer to deploy as tactical termies, while Vanguard veterans would deploy as assault termies.

So divide up your company into Sternguard and Vanguard squads, say 6 Sternguard squads and 4 Vanguard squads.

Then decide how many suits of Terminator Armor you have available. Older chapters would have close to 100, younger ones or those that suffered recent heavy losses might be closer to like 40 or so, or even less.

Then paint your army based on how you want them to be "deployed": maybe Squad II is a Sternguard squad, and five of their members have deployed in Terminator Armor for this mission, then squad IV is deployed in power armor, Squad VIII is Vanguard and all ten are deployed as assault terminators, and squad X is Vanguard and is deployed in power armor.

Sorry, it's a complicated answer, and clearly whatever you choose to do, no one will call you out on being "incorrect".

Calgars has come closest to what the codex says.

Essentially the veteran company is divided up into two factions. One faction prefers close combat (vanguard), the other prefers shooting (sternguard).

Those factions have their own squads. There are 10 squads and for the Ultramarines at least, they're fairly evenly split between vanguard and sternguard.

When terminators are needed they would issue terminator armour to one of the sternguard or vanguard squads, or part of one of those squads depending on how many terminators are needed.

The terminator suits might have their own suit numbers but you can be sure that whatever squad is issued them would also paint their own squad numbers on before battle.

cadbren wrote:
Calgars has come closest to what the codex says.

Essentially the veteran company is divided up into two factions. One faction prefers close combat (vanguard), the other prefers shooting (sternguard).

Those factions have their own squads. There are 10 squads and for the Ultramarines at least, they're fairly evenly split between vanguard and sternguard.

When terminators are needed they would issue terminator armour to one of the sternguard or vanguard squads, or part of one of those squads depending on how many terminators are needed.

The terminator suits might have their own suit numbers but you can be sure that whatever squad is issued them would also paint their own squad numbers on before battle.

I disagree on the even split part. If you look at the chapter make up, something like 4/5s of the marines are in some sort of shooting role. While the first company vets are better at CC, I'm not sure it would swing the ratio over to even. Personally I'd go with 2/3rds shooting as a compromise.

p63 of the codex:

"In most Chapters there is a rivalry of sorts between the Vanguard and Sternguard halves of the 1st Company."

That suggests there are similar numbers of marines serving in both.
True, only 20% of the marines are in squads that specialize in close combat, but it seems that by the time the marine has become a veteran, there's a 50/50 split in those that prefer close combat and those that prefer shooting - they just don't get much of a choice when serving in the line and reserve companies.