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Hello all Dakkians,

I am working out planning my next Battle Company as I complete my Ultramarines Chapter. I want something that will be able to be stand up to anything I might face in a local tournament. I know Bikes and MSU is preferred, but I am trying to create the full company/chapter.

Here are the requirements. I don't need formations/list building/points, but what specials/heavies/CC weapons you would put and where.

It must include

A Captain
A Chaplin
A 5 man Company Command Squad with Apothecary, Standard Bearer, and Champion
6 10 man Tactical Squads
2 10 man Assault Squads
2 10 man Devastator Squads.

So what would the preferred loadout be and what vehicle support (Rhinos, Drop Pods, Razorbacks) should I use.

Thanks for the help.

Which company? I only ask if you need to have Sicarius. You also forgot your dreads.

Here is how I built mine:

Now there is a lot of legacy stuff, and practical considerations there. If I has it to do over again, I’d make a lot of changes.

How competitive do you want to be? How many concessions of fluff for performance?

Some examples. From a fluff POV, you could be completely justified taking all 20 assault marines on bikes. IMHO that would not feel right, as you should have some with jump packs, as they are the iconic way they take the field. There is also the question of squad size and sarges. From a practical POV, you might be better off fielding them as multiple smaller squads. But by the codex, you only have 2 sarges to lead the assaults.

Formations can also change what gear you want. If you field a skyhammer annihilation force, you are going to want your assault with jump packs, and your devs with MMs or GCs. If you want to use a CTDA captain, you could use S&P tricks to get a similar effect. But if you are going for a more classic build, you probably want LCs/MLs on your Devs.

The fact that you want to use the champion and standard bearer in your command squad pushes them towards close combat. Mechanically, the rules favor them on bikes (or podding) spamming special weapons. But you can run them as a bike CC unit. Probably want an axe in there somewhere, and possibly a SS or two. While I like flying my companies’ colors, IMHO they are a waste of points. Points I willingly waste when I field the squad, but still.

If you run a bike command squad, you probably want to put your captain with them. If you want to make sure he can tank, give him a SS/SE. But T5 with a 4++ is pretty rugged on it’s own. PF/LC is a more offensive load. If you do go for the shield, run a specialist weapon. LC, relic blade, fist, TH, Teeth of Terra. A lot depends on your mood and what you think looks cool. If you grab something that’s not S8, take a meltabomb.

I’d get some diversity in the tac squads.

2x GC/G, c-grav sarge
2x MM/M, c-melta sarge
1x HB/F, c-flamer sarge
1x ML/F, BP/CCW sarge (purely on tradition)

Everyone in a rhino/pod. How many pods depends on the rest of your army. Should be an odd number, I’d suggest 3/3 for a nice hybrid list.

There are a zillion ways to build the assault marines. Back when I first put together my company, I had 2x5 man squads, a bike squad, and a few in land speeders. The apocalypse book demanded 2x10 man squads for the company formation, so I built up to that. Competitively, you want as many MSU grav biker squads as you can stomach. Thematically, I agree with the old apoc books that 20 men with jump packs looks awfully nice.

My assault marine squad of choice is 5 men, 2 flamers, and a vet sarge with a power sword. If you want go with this, just field 10 man squads and call it a day.
My bike squads were built in the last edition, where you needed 5 models to count as a troop pick. One grav, one melta. With attack bikes.
If you don’t want to field large squads, and don’t want to MSU as you technically only have 2 assault sergeants, speeders can take spare bodies. I have a lot of luck with TML/HB speeders in a pair, but most speeder loadouts have merit.

The Chaplain probably wants to be hanging out with these guys. Give him a JP and stick him in an assault squad and go chop things. He’s a great bare-bones HQ, and doesn’t need much more then that.

IMHO dev squads are a great place to get some needed AV into a list. 4xLC is my dev of choice. You could splash in some MLs for flexibility. Formation tricks can make MMs/GCs work. You could also take 2xGC in a rhino and roll around shooting out the top hatch.

As competitive as I can make it. It is 5th company. I have 3 other companies to draw softer units from if I need to, so this would be just my throw down list. I have the assault reserve company on bikes/lands speeders/flyers as well so I can pull units from there if need be. 20 assault marines does look awesome in context especially with the rest of the company.

I want to keep the terminator armor to 1st company so probably more traditional for the devastators.

All right. Thanks for the advice.

I like the loadouts you listed. Not just the grav spam I expected.

Thanks

If you're going competitive, then I'd suggest the following.

No assault marines or terminators. Scouts as your auxiliary.

Naked devastators. You're taking them to spam razorbacks and drop pods (obsec units).

Attack bike or maybe bike squads.

5-man squads. If you want to take heavy weapons, take grav cannons. Generally heavy weapons aren't worth it due to the disparity with your regular bolter marines (movement/range/target priority etc).

That's about it... dull, but tough to beat due to sheer number of units.