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Returning to 40k after a year long break and deciding to start a new army. I'm going straight and leaving my dark nurgle past behind and defecting to Space Marines.

Want to make an assault army and I'm for sure going to be using some vanguard vets to accompany a Death Star hq with jump pack.

Regardless of whether you think vanguard vets are good or not. What's the advice on how I should run/build them?

I was thinking 2 with storm shields 2 with thunder hammers and melts bombs and the sergeant with power wep.

Just leaving the guys with storm shields with bare chainswords only to tank up any potential ranges attacks.

I'd love to know your thoughts on how to run the unit.

Chux.

If you MUST get the Vanguard Vets, I would suggest running Iron hands supplement, get chains of gorgon and let your chapter master tank, so you don't waste stormshields only for tanking purposes. Load your dudes with maces and/or lightning claws, but be prepared to pay a hefty sum of points for that unit. For added measure, add a level 2 jet pack Libby and try to fish for invisibility. Good luck!

I say keep 'em cheap! Your beatstick HQ will be able to do a lot of damage and tanking, so I'd use them with maybe one power weapon or hammer and the rest bp/CCW. They get plenty of attacks when charging, and you don't pay an arm and a leg.

For bonus awesome, add a Chaplain or Divination Libby for rerolls.

if your running twin claws, run a few claw/fists so you can choose and get the extra attack.

Just run them completely bare. Sometimes I'll add in a power axe or two (just make sure you're NOT giving those to the sgt, you want to use the rest of the squad to shield these models).

Don’t forget a few melta bombs. You can multi-attack without penalty, so can spare a guy to go bust a tank next to the troops you are mulching.

Overall, I’d recommend keeping them lightly equipped.

If you truly want to make them assaulty, why not power weapon and plasma or grav pistol? I don't think you'll need stormshields on each guy, you only need someone to tank the incoming AP3/2 fire, which your chapter master can do. Having a nasty pistol can give you some shooting punch to add to the assault. I'd also throw in one Thunderhammer in there somewhere.

To be SUPER cool though, go dual pistol gunslingers. Give them plasma or grav and pop in close, shoot something to pieces, assault the remnants. Use White Scars tactics so you can hit and run out of combat if need be.

From my experience of using chosen, they work best with minimum ammount of upgrades. You take like 1 power fist on a regular guy and call it a day. If you start to invest points in them and get a lot of stuff like lighting claws, stormshields, power weapons here and there, you end up with a squad of 3+ guyz that cost like termies. Or even more. While they can't do the same job.

VV have an interesting build with max melta bombs and jumppacks. You take 5 guyz with jumppacks and take 5 melta bombz.