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I know in the Space Marines that every company has a Captain. But to get around the whole "Captain Sicarius is 2nd Company Captain, so to be accurate in the current timeline, you must use him when using Ultras 2nd Company.", can/do 1st Company Vets get seconded to a company and take a section of the Company (say, a third or a bit of the company) and act as a temporary captain for the Veteran's training? Or if half of the company is in one warzone, can a 1st Company Vet take the other half to another warzone?

There's always the First Sargent or one of the comand squad that could take up the role of leading the detachment of marines.
If there are just sargents then I guess the most senior one leads them and is named force commander, I think.

The fluff is certainly flexible enough to get away with it, a drawn-out campaign or being caught out could make this necessary.

Alternatively, Cato Sicarius is wounded in the midst of a vital battle, and the First Sergeant, while capable, cannot be trusted to finish it or is stuck elsewhere. Hence a (obviously very high-ranking) 1st Company Veteran steps into the breach and takes over.

A company is often going to be spread over a while planet/warzone, and the captain can only be in one place at a time. So somebody is going to be in charge elsewhere. This is going to be either a senior sergeant, specialist (like a chaplain, librarian, or MotF), or a captain from another company (The 1st and 10th captains might be deployed with their detachments, or one from the reserves)

Why do you want to know? What's your end goal? If it's for mechanical reasons (you want to field a model with captain stats, but not Sicarious) there are a number of ways to do it and keep fluffy.

Forget this modern age thing. Go back to the halcyon days of 6500745.M41 where Captain Agemman was still in charge of the 2nd company. (ref. 3rd ed codex)

Borrow a captain from another company. I don't see them being present without at least one squad from their own, so unless you have some marines with reserve company trim, this is probably the 1st or 10th. Assuming you have some vets a/o scouts.

The problem I have with giving a sarge a temporary promotion to captain, is the iron halo. From a mechanics POV, I don't see that happening. So while it is fluffy in the background for a sarge to be in command of a SM force, he's not going to have the garb and wargear of a captain. With the very limited number of command positions, I could see a marine having the stats of a captain. He's just waiting for someone upstairs to kick off, and then fill his shoes; a wait that can take decades. But until that day, he's going to be using the kind of kit you find on vet sarges and command squads. If you were to take a sargeant (from fluff) and field him with captain stats, I'd give him a storm shield. The fact that he has a 3++ will override the fact that he comes standard with the 4++ iron halo, so you can just hand wave/ignore the fact that he should have it.

I don't really want to go back in time as I actually have a Sicarius model and intend to use him later on.

Aren't 1st Company captains in terminator armour? If so, I don't actually have it. And no, no scouts.

I was going to give him the Shield Eternal anyway, so I can get away with the lack of an Iron Halo.

Could he be a sergeant from just the 2nd company or from another?

also remember Siccy is only captain in one Universe. in your personal one the ultramarines second company might be lead by the Heroic Captain Gaius Julius.

Sgt_Smudge wrote:
I don't really want to go back in time as I actually have a Sicarius model and intend to use him later on.

In this case, the "oh noez!! Sicarius is wounded" approach seems best. And yes, acting Captains are indeed a thing - it's mentioned I believe in the 5th Codex that Sergeants that have assumed command with a Captain incapacitated go on to succeed them if they are successful enough.

Also I could easily see a veteran sergeant in command of a detachment of a company, while the Captain commands the others elsewhere.

Sgt_Smudge wrote:
Aren't 1st Company captains in terminator armour?

Not necessarily. The first company gets dibs on the chapter's Terminator Armour if they want to use it, but they don't always elect to.

Terminator armor for the Ist company is equivalent to a normal Company's Assault squads taking to the field with/without jump packs.

Unless the first company vet had specialist knowledge and so was needed for the mission, a detachment of three squads would be led by the most senior squad sergeant.

Space Marines train hard enough that any basic marine could take over the duties of the sergeant if needed, every sergeant would be able to take over the duties of the captain in an emergency.

A first company veteran would not take command of another company at all, because that is the point of having companies.

oh hey.

Sgt_Smudge wrote:
I know in the Space Marines that every company has a Captain. But to get around the whole "Captain Sicarius is 2nd Company Captain, so to be accurate in the current timeline, you must use him when using Ultras 2nd Company.", can/do 1st Company Vets get seconded to a company and take a section of the Company (say, a third or a bit of the company) and act as a temporary captain for the Veteran's training? Or if half of the company is in one warzone, can a 1st Company Vet take the other half to another warzone?

I believe Force Commander is the title given to such individuals in the Blood Raven Chapter; but in no way another brother in the Ultramarines Chapter shall be given such a title just because he the 'Real' Captain is not available. If anything, Titus should be called "Commander Titus" or "Force Commander Titus".


Automatically Appended Next Post:

pelicaniforce wrote:
A first company veteran would not take command of another company at all, because that is the point of having companies.

oh hey.

I'm no sure about this since I haven't bought the 6th edition Space Marine Codex yet; but in the E5 SM codex, it states that "...it is quite common for Tactical squad sergeants to be seconded from the elite 1st Company, ..." (Codex: Space Marines, 5th Edition, 2008, P59).

Besides, all Terminators are attached to individual battle companies from the First Company.