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I was looking over the details of Codex Chapter organization. Each company (at full strength) contains 20 Assault Marines. That said, these Marines can be deployed in Bike or Landspeeder Squadrons. Wanting to build a full company, I thought I would throw out he question. Basically, who's driving?

Tanks are maintained on a Chapter level, with the exception of transport vehicles like Rhinos, which are attached to specific companies. Here, it's assumed that the 2 crew (driver plus storm bolter gunner) are attached from elsewhere in the Chapter, so as to pilot the vehicles while still allowing a full company to deploy. It would be super lame if the company had to pull from it's ranks in order to crew a Rhino.

Would Landspeeders be set up the same way, with one of the crew coming from another pool (like a Rhino's crew likely do) and the other from the company's Assault Marines? Or would both come from the Assault Marines for that company?

Thoughts?

The other option is that they come from the Reserve Company that specializes in Land Speeders...

I'm sure that each vehicle type has their own pool of SM that showed talent for that vehicle.

Sisters of Battle.

 BlaxicanX wrote:
Sisters of Battle.

Oh, c'mon now, the Imperium's finest warriors putting themselves at the mercy of women drivers??

Battle Companies have their own integral pool of Land Speeders which are then manned by the companies assault marines when judged necessary by the companies Captain.

Additional Speeders & Crew may be requested from the 7th and 8th companies.

SerQuintus wrote:Battle Companies have their own integral pool of Land Speeders which are then manned by the companies assault marines when judged necessary by the companies Captain.
Additional Speeders & Crew may be requested from the 7th and 8th companies.

This is what I've read in the 2E Codex Ultramarines as well - it even has a picture of a Land Speeder where you can clearly see the crew's right shoulder pauldrons, which bears the Assault insignia and the number "VII". As per Codex Astartes company organisation, squads VII and VIII are indeed Assault squads, so it's not just a change of pauldrons for the duration of the assignment (as it happens when a company's Tactical Marines serve as tank drivers, according to the same source).

ajmerrifield wrote:Oh, c'mon now, the Imperium's finest warriors putting themselves at the mercy of women drivers??

To turn a sexist comment around - in spite of what many male drivers like to believe, statistics and studies actually suggest that on average, women are the better drivers.

 Lynata wrote:

ajmerrifield wrote:Oh, c'mon now, the Imperium's finest warriors putting themselves at the mercy of women drivers??

To turn a sexist comment around - in spite of what many male drivers like to believe, statistics and studies actually suggest that on average, women are the better drivers.

That comment, in case you didn't get it, was tongue-planted-firmly-in-cheek.

Well, it wasn't funny.

 Lynata wrote:
Well, it wasn't funny.

Just like a Sister of Battle, taking one little joke and next thing you know it's "Heretic this" and "Heretic that" and soon there's folks being burned at the stake...

 ajmerrifield wrote:

 Lynata wrote:
Well, it wasn't funny.

Just like a Sister of Battle, taking one little joke and next thing you know it's "Heretic this" and "Heretic that" and soon there's folks being burned at the stake...

There's one fluff piece where a sister of battle was forced to get behind the wheel of a Rhino (that I think was originally an Astartes Rhino. Not sure.) to save some holy relics from some orks, and was an absolutely amazing driver with the thing.

...although I suppose to an outside observer, the crazy things she did in that Land Raider would likely only reinforce the belief that women drivers are crazy. The fluff described the Rhino's machine spirit (IE, the engine) as absolutely SCREAMING in protest at the things she was making it do.

 ajmerrifield wrote:

 Lynata wrote:
Well, it wasn't funny.

Just like a Sister of Battle, taking one little joke and next thing you know it's "Heretic this" and "Heretic that" and soon there's folks being burned at the stake...

yeh fight the power if youve noticed that sisters of battle have no land speeders or hovering objects they only have tanks which cant fall from the skie

TiamatRoar wrote:
There's one fluff piece where a sister of battle was forced to get behind the wheel of a Rhino (that I think was originally an Astartes Rhino. Not sure.) to save some holy relics from some orks, and was an absolutely amazing driver with the thing.

...although I suppose to an outside observer, the crazy things she did in that Land Raider would likely only reinforce the belief that women drivers are crazy. The fluff described the Rhino's machine spirit (IE, the engine) as absolutely SCREAMING in protest at the things she was making it do.

Rhinos becoming Land Raiders if driven by sisters.... now if we put her into a LR we get????



To contribute more than jokes, how about "auto-pilot" also called PotMS ?
I know its an extra included in some of the more expansive vehicles...but think about this LS ( aka "kitt" )...

TiamatRoar wrote:
There's one fluff piece where a sister of battle was forced to get behind the wheel of a Rhino (that I think was originally an Astartes Rhino. Not sure.)

No, it was a Sororitas Rhino.

See for yourself. It's a cool piece of fluff.

Argh, my typos.

Thanks for the story-repost. Well, it does still show how a sister can be a competent driver and a crazy one at the same time. (though in this case it was more than justified. I'm just joking around)

whats the massive differance between their rhino and the space marine rhino

 rhino-40-000 wrote:
whats the massive differance between their rhino and the space marine rhino

There aren't really any, as far as I'm aware. Apart from a load of iconography on the Sororitas ones, it's all coming from the same STC.

 Troike wrote:

 rhino-40-000 wrote:
whats the massive differance between their rhino and the space marine rhino

There aren't really any, as far as I'm aware. Apart from a load of iconography on the Sororitas ones, it's all coming from the same STC.

yeh who drives them the henchmen guys or the astartes

It has prettier decoration.

Marine Rhinos appear to be mostly utilitarian, although obviously some Chapters would deviate from this. SoB Rhinos tend to flaunt the Ecclesiarchy's wealth by sporting fancy but useless trappings and blessed insignia, sometimes even laud hailers to blast holy hymns to inspire the Imperial forces and/or drive fear into the hearts of their enemies.

Other than that, I suppose a the Marines' seats would be a little more spacious, but that should be it. Maybe the Sororitas' version of the RH1-N0 (the chassis used by all Imperial forces) would use the additional space to store spare ammunition or medical supplies. The latter might be important to counteract the issue that their power armour lacks an onboard medical suite (aside from basic painkillers, depending on which source of fluff you go by), whilst the Marines have it already built-in.

Just a theory, ofc.

rhino-40-000 wrote:yeh who drives them the henchmen guys or the astartes

Going by the 2E Codex and a recent White Dwarf article, Marines pulled from the Reserves, or (should they not be needed as infantry) the Battle Company's own - a little like with the Landspeeders, I guess, just with Tactical Marines instead of Assault. Supposedly they change their Tac-Squad shoulder pauldron for Armoury insignia when assuming this role.

Unless you were talking about SoB Rhinos - see Troike's post.

 rhino-40-000 wrote:

 Troike wrote:

 rhino-40-000 wrote:
whats the massive differance between their rhino and the space marine rhino

There aren't really any, as far as I'm aware. Apart from a load of iconography on the Sororitas ones, it's all coming from the same STC.

yeh who drives them the henchmen guys or the astartes

Wait, what? I thought you were talking about SoB Rhinos? Because Astartes would not be driving SoB vehicles. SoBs would, as we saw in the above fluff. And as we've seen above, Astartes drive their own vehicles.

Wait, what? I thought you were talking about SoB Rhinos? Because Astartes would not be driving SoB vehicles. SoBs would, as we saw in the above fluff. And as we've seen above, Astartes drive their own vehicles.

 Lynata wrote:
SoB Rhinos tend to flaunt the Ecclesiarchy's wealth by sporting fancy but useless trappings and blessed insignia,

Cool piece of trivia for you: SoB Rhinos actually have AV 10 on all sides. However, all of the iconography on it actually pushes the front and sides up to AV 11!

 rhino-40-000 wrote:
they are a form of astarties with the ower armour but my firt question who?

Well they're not actually a form of Astartes, since they don't have all of the biological augmentations that the Astartes get. The term "Astartes" refers to the superhumans, not a soldier who is issued with power armour. But anyway, yes Sisters drive their own vehicles. not "henchmen".

 ajmerrifield wrote:

 Lynata wrote:
Well, it wasn't funny.

Just like a Sister of Battle, taking one little joke and next thing you know it's "Heretic this" and "Heretic that" and soon there's folks being burned at the stake...

The wise man learns from the deaths of others.

The seats are probably smaller in Sisters rhinos

I love how much this thread has been wrecked by my three-word long post.

yeah its quite amusing

Let's assume that most of the time the companies are based on board a spaceship of some sort. The tanks, rhinos, dreadnoughts and so on are maintained by the techmarines, leaving the marines to get on training/praying/whatever.

Come time for a fight, compnies choose their equipment, so might go in by drop pod, by thunderhawk ( carrying raiders/rhinos etc).

Now, to maximise the fighting potential of the company, there aren't enough techs to drive everything, and you don't want to waste a marine as a driver, what's left?

Remember, they'll know where they're going in, what the enemy is likely to be?

So why not use servitors as drivers? And as gunners?

IG GENERAL wrote:Now, to maximise the fighting potential of the company, there aren't enough techs to drive everything, and you don't want to waste a marine as a driver, what's left?

The Reserve Companies.

Going by GW's fluff it is standard practice to attach elements from the reserves to a Battle Company. The Reserve Companies are not independent fighting organisations like the Battle Companies; they exist solely to provide individual support squads, man the supporting vehicles, and replace casualties.
A lot of people may mistake Astartes Reserves to work like they do in contemporary military forces (meaning, large formations capable of independent action held back until they are needed), but this is a misinterpretation based on the term.

IG GENERAL wrote:So why not use servitors as drivers? And as gunners?

I'd assume Servitors just aren't good enough. From the fluff I've read they are very focused on monotonous tasks and unable to quickly adapt to changing circumstances. For the Space Marines, however, this is an important part of their tactics and thus a required skill of their forces.
Plus, a Marine driver can leave his vehicle if he has to, either because it was wrecked (to commence repairs or join the fight on foot) or because the situation warrants it in some other way.

If we can get this back on subject... and possibly delete a few of the less relevant derailments...

It seems that both of a Landspeeder's crew are drawn from the Assault Marines of the company. In an interesting twist though, there is conflicting information on who drives a tank. The color entry for the Whirlwind (2nd ed Codex) says that Tactical Marines normally provide vehicle crews. But on the next page, the Razorback says that crew are usually draw from reserves. It seems odd that a Rhino would be crewed by Tactical Marines, since that could leave squads with 80% strength (1 driving, 1 manning the army of storm bolters). It should be noted that both of these tanks (circa 2nd edition) were a part of the armory and not any one company.

The whole reason this is coming up is because I'd like to work on a single company of Space Marines that are adherent to the Codex Astartes. For the time being, I largely only want to deal with that company's Marines (plus any reservists for vehicle crews). This is largely a painting project, and I'll be marking and numbering all squads, so I want everyone accounted for correctly.

I remember reading that someone starting counting Marines to come up with a better number for Chapter sizes (in that it isn't strictly 1000 Marines). I recall that there were handfuls of Marines kicking around for vehicle crews, Command Squads, and other previously unaccounted for Marines. So that's sort of where this is coming from. Is a company strictly those 104-106 Marines (10 squads plus command), or are there other Marines within a company but outside of squad structure to handle vehicle crews and other empty spaces?