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So, after all this time, do you think that the Demi-company, and, moreover, the Gladius, are worth the lose in "flexibility" ?
I mean, the fact you can't make your list as you want it.
I understand that all this reroll and "obsec" help a lot.
I considered using Imperial Fist tactics to help my devastator squad (if I play Gladius).
For example, I can't take just a Sternguard squad in a drop pod, if I want one, I need a 1st company task force or a cad (or unbound...).
I'm speaking about the formations WITHOUT the free transport in this thread (this is obviously totally good).
Let us know your experiences !

I like my Bikers and Scouts too much to ever want to use Tacticals. Even when getting free Transports, Tactical Marines are garbage.

The rerolls are nice, but nice enough for me to want to add more Bolters in the army.

I’ve run the demi-co, 1st, and 10th co formations. Separately, and combined into a Gladius. I like them. I do mourn the loss of flexibility, but the re-rolls from the doctrines are very nice. I play Ultramarines, so if I go with the Gladius, I can hit the tac doctrine 3 times. That’s huge.

The 1st and 10th have some nice perks. One of the extra perks of the vet formation is freeing up Elite slots.

One of my problems is the points. I usually run the demi co with 3 full tac squads and 5 man assault/dev squads. This puts the list around 1,000 points right there. So depending on the size of the game, there might not be a lot of room for other things. Pretty much the scouts for smaller games, vets for mid sized, both for larger games. Splash a dread a/o a command squad to help level things out. So my lists start to feel a bit “samey” One thing with CADs is that I could mix things up to keep things fresh. I still can, but I feel I’m missing out on free power I could be getting. And I’m often giving up that power just to include fluffy and fun things.

While I have the troops to field a full company, I lack the transports to really take advantage of it, so haven’t bothered.

I don't think you'll ever see a competitive gladius without free transports anywhere near the high ranks, no.

But I could still see single Demi company gladius' taking on the standard other flgs lists.

I prefer a CAD myself with some of the auxiliary. This largely stems from my dislike of captain and Chaplin as HQs. Sometimes I wish there were options for a shooting captain. Combat isn't what it once was and most of the units inside a demi company don't want to be in combat. If i could take some sorta relentless HB or a super plasma gun that would make it more likely that i would take a demi company

 niv-mizzet wrote:
I don't think you'll ever see a competitive gladius without free transports anywhere near the high ranks, no.

But I could still see single Demi company gladius' taking on the standard other flgs lists.

True. Most discussions about how good something is, or if it works well, need the: *YMMV, depends on how competitive your local meta is, who you play, and how good a player you are in general.

If you want to talk about more competitive lists, I think you will need to looks elsewhere for gimmicks to leverage. But I find that the basic formations do just fine at the local friendly level. The power they give is worth the flexibility you give up. My main problem with them is that my model collection only supports a few of them, so I’m locked into a finite number of lists if I want to use them. This grates on me, so I dip back to the CAD not infrequently.

YMMV

I enjoy the Demi-company and Gladius as I get to play lists closer to what I would like to play anyway as I run mostly UM lists. Other Chapters I think it would not be as good for even bad for, The closer you like playing to a "Codex Chapter" the better it will work for you.

i think the demi company/gladius are pretty awful, they rely on a war of attrition or your enemy not packing an insanely durable deathstar like say the thunderdome or jetseer. your gambling on a list thats more midrange and less all aggressive or all reactionary that simply cant handle a wall of sheer worthless stuff. (because lets be upfront here a short 6 months ago nobody was running captain or chaplains as codex marines, and nobody was running assault marines or standard dreadnaughts). and that i feel does have its place in a more relaxed setting but a place like NOVA or LVO it simply has no chance. it can handle swift lethal strikes or a thousand lb anvil being thrown across the table so it cant stack up.

i think that its a fun idea certainly and it lets models see tables where before they never would like normal chaplains for dark angels, and dreadnaughts which are both units the meta long ago deemed no longer relevant and discarded like used gum wrappers. but its not going to do anything earth shattering in a game thats quickly evolving into a nightmarish arms race of who can obliterate who more/faster with lists aiming to kill you turn 1 a lot of the time like the upcoming mechwarrior tau.

mechwarrior tau in fact will probably be the thing that kills gladius for a lot of people too many high strength plates and too many ignores cover shots, not to mention melta's and strength D blasts it would literally melt your amry in two salvo's before you ever reach some kind of effective range.

i look at gladius and the other formations flow charts as what it always was a gimmick. its designed as a "my first army" guide for new players. rather than thinking about what units to include in your army your simply being fed a shopping list and told to go out n buy them and then maybe experiment after your gone so far. its a great idea when you have nothing to build on, but established players shoudlnt be hanging around the formations flow chart crib; its a childish place that you outgrew when we stopped using lists we dug up from our older brothers things when he left the hobby as we were coming in.

 Nevelon wrote:

If you want to talk about more competitive lists, I think you will need to looks elsewhere for gimmicks to leverage. But I find that the basic formations do just fine at the local friendly level. The power they give is worth the flexibility you give up. My main problem with them is that my model collection only supports a few of them, so I’m locked into a finite number of lists if I want to use them. This grates on me, so I dip back to the CAD not infrequently.

YMMV

I feel your pain on the model collection keeping me from trying all the formations.

I have run the Dark Angels equivalent of the Gladius, the Lion's Blade Strike Force. It is fun, although somewhat restrictive and does force you to take units you might not otherwise (like the chaplains that have already been mentioned in this thread). The auxiliaries are neat, but most of them are not that amazing (the Ravenwing ones are pretty sweet, though). Here is my take on them (warning: mostly theory since I haven't actually run most of them):
10th Company Support: No formation bonuses, but a good way to use up those last few points that you don't know what to do with.
Ravenwing Attack Squadron: Very nice formation; good way to get some mobility for your Lion's Blade.
Ravenwing Support Squadron: This one is only really good if you have other Ravenwing, and it really shines when you run a Ravenwing Strike Force instead of a Lion's Blade. Still, BS5 (strafing run) landspeeders are not too shabby.
Ravenwing Silence Squadron: Like the Support Squadron, I don't think this one is that great in a Lion's Blade, but it could be pretty awesome paired with a Ravenwing Strike Force.
Deathwing Redemption Force: Very expensive, like the Silence Squadron, but probably better in a Lion's Blade, especially if you can find the points to run both this and a Ravenwing Attack Squadron.
Hammer of Caliban: This one is pretty awkward; it forces you to run a lot of vehicles together that really don't want to be together. This is the only one I have no interest in trying, at all.
Someone should comment similarly on the vanilla formations. I'm not even sure what all you guys get formation-wise.

Can't talk much about formations other than the gladius, I mean, who needs anything else?

One of the strongest formations in the game by far.

Certainly on par with the decurion and eldar imo.

Stick a star or some superheavies with it and you have everything you need to be competitive.

Ar the very least, it depends on what you bring outside of troops.

For example, I run 3 Sternguard squads. I can save Elite slots by going for the 1st Company formation. BAM, done. Now I can fit in LotD.

Drop Pod Army -> formation

Bike Army -> CAD

Specialty (like thunder fire cannons) -> CAD

Really crappy army based on "Your opponent can't kill this many worthless razorbacks with their amazing heavy bolters... unless they playing Eldar or necrons or tau or centurions or ...." -> formation

Pfft, I'd pay for the Assault Cannons at least. Heavy Bolters suck, even when they're free.

Only formation I run is Skyhammer.
Why the rest exist is beyond me, because CAD on Ultratoiletseats is sometimes better than no flexibility.

If your play group allows web exclusives even when you are not playing on the web then yes just go skyhammer.

I got the rules for Guilliman, Skyhammer an Vulkan through a quick Google image search, I then copied these into a word document for clarity.

Kisada II wrote:
If your play group allows web exclusives even when you are not playing on the web then yes just go skyhammer.

And why wouldn't you?

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Pfft, I'd pay for the Assault Cannons at least. Heavy Bolters suck, even when they're free.

Heavy bolters are actually okay at getting Black Knights to jink, because even forcing a couple saves against them is an expensive prospect for them. But you need to get up that kind of wound/pt ratio from them to be decent. They are worthless against say, Orks. Ironic indeed.

I do well with a Gladius, playing in local games and the occasional tournament. I don't even do the full company for the free transports, just the single demi-company with a formation or two in support.

The real limiting factor I've faced with the Gladius is that it is difficult to take enough formations to cover all of your bases in sub-2000 point games. Usually I'm pretty much forced to take the Armored Task Force if I want to have enough tanks in my army to actually tax the enemy's ability to crack armor. However, a sneaky way to get a tank into your force is to take the 1st Company formation and give a Terminator squad a Land Raider - not quite as good as a bunch of Vindicators, but good enough.

I've taken most of the formations allowed for the Gladius, save for the Assault Centurion one, and they're all good in their own way. The Whirlwind Suppression Force is great against hordes and high-value single wounders like bikes, the Anti-air force is good at killing flyers and skimmers though less good at killing flying monstrous creatures, and the 1st and 10th company forces have really nice rules though you do pay for them with the loss of flexibility.

Over all I'd say the Space Marine formations are balanced. They're good but they're really restrictive, so sometimes they're better than a CAD, sometimes worse, so there's no no-brainer choices. Kind of what you want from a codex, wouldn't you say?

You can still in a centurion star out of a gladius, since you have smashfether, access to librarians, and centurions all right there.

The only problem is you are typically spending enough points on other things that you can't fit Draigo in, and the gladius has no fortification slot for you to take a slingshot bunker, meaning you have to rely on luck to get gate of infinity or ally in a scout inquisitor (that relies on a leadership test, and 6" extra movement can still leave out out of range turn 1...)

Also, no cheap way to get A thunderfire I n makes me sad as well.

I'm hoping the new demi company in the new campaign book that has scouts in it (instead of tac marines) will be a viable alternative to taking a battle Demi company in a gladius. We'll see, I suppose. (Well, BOLS leaked it, so it's just as good as being fake...)