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Hey guys

Recently i saw the new GW offer of a whole chapter of space marines (reference: http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/productDetail.jsp?prodId=prod2160196a) where it shows each company having what appears to be a set number of units assaigned to them.
Now i bring this up because it was always my understanding that a space marine company had only a set number of personal in it, that number being 100 excluding command staff and where needed the company commander would withdraw vehicles, weapons and other items from the armouries of the chapter as needed. This seems to make more sense to me. On the same subject, having something a storm eagle assaigned to a squad of death company seems unlikely as i am sure the chapters techmarines would take a dim view of sending such a prized vehicle of war into what would basicly amount to a suicide mission. No doubt someone will debate me to that point and i welcome it, but the main question i am looking to answer is this:

"Do space marine Battle Companies withdraw weapons, vehicles and other items directly from a armoury and other reserve companies or are they pre-assaigned to them on a permanent basis?"

EDIT - I would assume dreadnaught exempt from this as they would likely go back to the company they orignaly hailed from

Grizzly256 wrote:Do space marine Battle Companies withdraw weapons, vehicles and other items directly from a armoury and other reserve companies or are they pre-assaigned to them on a permanent basis?

Both. At least going by Codex fluff. This isn't really a new thing, either.

*rummages* ... ah here :

"Alternatively they may be allocated to an individual company under the command of its Captain. In the latter case the vehicles are given appropriate company badges and are assigned a simple number."
- 2E C:UM

In short, it depends on the Chapter - its tradition as well as its current leadership. Rhinos are the only vehicles permanently assigned to a company by Codex standards whilst the rest would be drawn from the Armoury on a per-mission (or per-campaign) basis, but many Chapters have expanded this "default" allocation by, for example, adding Land Raiders to their 1st Company or a set number of Bikes to one of the Reserve Companies.

Grizzly256 wrote:i bring this up because it was always my understanding that a space marine company had only a set number of personal in it, that number being 100 excluding command staff

That is correct and did not change. All Space Marines are also trained as vehicle drivers, though it has been mentioned in some sources (WD #300 and the 2E 'dex again) that crews are mostly drawn from the Reserve companies - that's what they're for (in contradiction with what contemporary military lingo means with the term "reserves").

There's plenty of conflicting data on this question and it does depend entirely on what Chapter we're talking about, but from what I know strict Codex organization puts a Chapter at closer to 1,300 Space Marines once command staff, the Honour Guard (from which Command Squads and Honour Guard squads are drawn), the Librarium, the Armoury (which is occasionally depicted as containing sufficient Techmarines and dedicated vehicle crews to manage a Chapter's entire motor pool), and the fleet get factored in.

Indeed, as with all things in 40k, different sources may tell different things - I should have added in my previous post that my interpretation is formed exclusively on Codex fluff.

Which reminds me - the 5E Marine 'dex actually had a good chart of how the Ultras are organised, complete with numbers of how many people belong to a "department":

Chapter Command: 29
Armoury: 28
Apothecarion: 13
Librarius: 25
Battle Companies: 502
Reserves: 404
Scouts: 101? (estimate, exact number of Scouts not provided)
----
Total: ca. 1102 Astartes (not counting Dreadnoughts)

(they seem to have forgotten the Chaplains though?)

 Lynata wrote:
Indeed, as with all things in 40k, different sources may tell different things - I should have added in my previous post that my interpretation is formed exclusively on Codex fluff.

Which reminds me - the 5E Marine 'dex actually had a good chart of how the Ultras are organised, complete with numbers of how many people belong to a "department":

Spoiler:

Chapter Command: 29
Armoury: 28
Apothecarion: 13
Librarius: 25
Battle Companies: 502
Reserves: 404
Scouts: 101? (estimate, exact number of Scouts not provided)
----
Total: ca. 1102 Astartes (not counting Dreadnoughts)

(they seem to have forgotten the Chaplains though?)

IIRC the 5th codex was one that stated that each company had a command squad and chaplain in addition to the listed strength. This isn't always the case, leading to questions as to wether the command squad is counted in the 100 or not. It also doesn't touch the can of worms of who's driving the tanks.

In some editions (3rd comes to mind) bikes and speeders are allocated on a company level.

So a company definitely owns:
Rhinos, dreadnoughts
They might own:
Razorbacks, bikes, speeders
They are requisitioning/borrowing:
Preds, vindis, other tanks, TFCs LRs,

Ah, I'd say it's more consistent than you think. I believe the only time the Command Squad was counted amongst the 10 squads that make up a company was waaay back during 1st edition Rogue Trader (and even then this only meant they were filling the role now occupied by the 1st squad, rather than being "added on top"). Ever since 2nd edition, Captains, Apothecaries, Chaplains, Librarians were said to belong to the HQ Staff, which explicitly did not count against the 1k limit.

As per the 2E Codex Ultramarines, which had some really interesting fluff that has (to my knowledge) not been reprinted yet - but also not contradicted! - any vehicles aside from Rhinos will belong to the Armoury by default, but permanent assignment to a company can be arranged. Whether or not a Chapter does so and on what level is a case-by-case thing, dependent on their tradition as well as vehicle availability.
If a Chapter has any Dreadnoughts, they will stick with their company, but that doesn't mean that every company or indeed every Chapter must have one or more.

As for the can of worms about drivers - both 2E as well as the WD #300 article said they'd be recruited on an as-needed basis out of the companies, and the 5E chart above shows no Marines in the Armouries except the Tech dudes, which would seem to support those statements. I'm not entirely sure how Chronus from the very same book fits in there, but the option that he'd remain a normal member of a Reserve company until his armoured column is actually needed would fit in with the other material, and avoid the awkward situation of having Space Marines sitting around with nothing to do (which was the whole point behind the "everybody gets trained to do everything" schpiel the Marines have going on). This "dual assignment" would then be similar to how they did it for the Captains, each of whom is simultaneously the leader of a company but also fills another position, such as Idaeus being both the Captain of the 4th whilst also being the Master of the Fleet, so perhaps Chronus is simultaneously a Sergeant from the ?th whilst simultaneously being the Spear of Ultramar from the Armoury.

That's the only way I could explain it without throwing up contradictions, which is my main goal when looking at the material.

Grizzly256 wrote:Hey guys

Recently i saw the new GW offer of a whole chapter of space marines (reference: http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/productDetail.jsp?prodId=prod2160196a) where it shows each company having what appears to be a set number of units assaigned to them.

Did you click on "buy now" ? If so, we expect your progression shown in a P&M blog....

Grizzly256 wrote:
Now i bring this up because it was always my understanding that a space marine company had only a set number of personal in it, that number being 100 excluding command staff and where needed the company commander would withdraw vehicles, weapons and other items from the armouries of the chapter as needed.

The Offer is the Chapter mobilized and you could use them all at once on the Tabletop. They are 100% mobile as shown, no matter what fluff someone has read, because crew is included whenever you "buy" a vehicle ( rules ). GW has done just one thing that maybe is a hint towards fluff, you get almost no Techmarines on foot but plenty of them as pilots with the storm-talon-raven-..

Grizzly256 wrote:
Having something a storm eagle assaigned to a squad of death company seems unlikely as i am sure the chapters techmarines would take a dim view of sending such a prized vehicle of war into what would basicly amount to a suicide mission.

Death company is formed wherever they have some of them and a Storm Eagle may deliver them nicely on Top of a worthy target . The marines in black are lead and kept in check by a chaplain. Suicide mission? Never heard they spend Chaplains like there is no tomorrow... So your point was a BA successor wouldn't use a storm-Eagle but a storm Raven ? Or a Thunder-hawk?

Grizzly256 wrote:The main question i am looking to answer is this:

"Do space marine Battle Companies withdraw weapons, vehicles and other items directly from a armoury and other reserve companies or are they pre-assaigned to them on a permanent basis?"

Actually the Codex Space Marines 6th Edition tells you at page 12 how a chapter of codex adherent marines may organize themselves.

To look at the time-frame and assignments:

Nevelon wrote:
In some editions (3rd comes to mind) bikes and speeders are allocated on a company level.

So a company definitely owns:
Rhinos, dreadnoughts
They might own:
Razorbacks, bikes, speeders
They are requisitioning/borrowing:
Preds, vindis, other tanks, TFCs LRs,

The last decade had the codices with something like that, yes.
Specifically in 6th, the fliers were added.

So currently ( since 2013 AD ):

Companies own stuff:
- Rhinos
- Razorbacks ( depends on their view upon this "new vehicle" )
- Dreads

Some companies may have:
- Jumppacks, bikes and Land-speeders to equip the ASM of a battle-company
- Bikes for all of its members if this is a 6th company
- Landspeeder for all of its members if this is a 7th company

The best pick have the Veterans:
- Land Raiders
- Storm Ravens

Arsenal gear:
- any Land Raider not given to 1st co
- any Storm Raven, Eagle , Talon, etc after the Vets claimed some
- Predator Tanks
- Vindicator Tanks
- Whirlwinds
- TFC
- T-hawks
- "Centurion suits"
- any bikes, land speeder, rhinos and razorbacks not handed to a company.
- if they are lucky, some relics

Other common elements as T-hawks seem to be part of the fleets equipment and a company gets them "just in time" from their space vessel.

Vehicle markings at page 15 codex space marines 6th edition doesn't just explain the schemes used ( codex astartes compliant ) but also mentions the transports as the only vehicle which isn't assigned according to mission but permanently.


And 10 millenia have gone and a codex astartes is not set in stone. 1000 chapters can come up with a lot of variety...