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So i'm slowly stripping my marine army to play as Raven guard, and I thought I should get a second opinion before I continue to build my guys. Should I build towards a battle company with 6 tactical squads, 2 assault and 2 devastators, Or should I try and move towards a Tactical company like the 6th or 7th?

I do like making my own captains and such, so 6th and 7th are open for now, so I would be able to, but I would be limited for model choice. I don't know currently so help would be awesome!

Battle Company. You'll get far more utility from that in game, and it'll be more fun to paint than 100 Tactical. While you can do a lot with the Tac Squad kit, I'm not sure you can get 100 models out of it without a lot of same-ness.

Battle Co. if you really insist on doing it at all. I built a battle co. and in the end it wasn't really worth it. I have never fielded all of the models in a single game or even care to at this point. Two smaller companies from different chapters/codexes would be better IMO.

Battle Company, no contest.

I have my 3rd company sitting on the shelf. While I’ve only fielded the whole thing once, it’s an awesome base to pulls lists from. I don’t normally field more then 2-3 tac squads in a list. I think the most might have been 4 in a 2,500 point game. So even in a battle company you are going to have more tac squads then you need. I can’t imagine collecting a tactical reserve company. The only way I could see it is if you did the 7th, which IIRC is the one that uses bikes. That way you could mix up tac squads and bike squads, and still have a viable force.

Battle Company has a good apoc formation, and benefits from being able to fill a single FOC on it's own if you go high enough in points without needing to go Unbound or use multiple detachments.

Ditto what everyone else has said. Unless you are playing a truly epic game of Apocalypse, (10,000 points +), your Tactical reserve company will see more shelf life than table life.

The Battle Company is by far superior. Even in fluff the Battle Companies are the "fighting" force while the 6th-9th are just reserves and not exactly fighters.

Besides that, the Apocalypse formation is good and a standard CAD detachment was designed to fit around the battle company (its exactly right for 6 Tactical Squads, 2 Assault Squads with Vanguard Vet support, 2 Devastators with Tank or TFC support, 2 Dreadnoughts with Sternguard, Terminator, Techmarine or LotD support, 1 Captain with Command Squad and a Chaplain or Librarian, as the fluff supports).

Are you ever actually going to [i]field[i/] a company?

Otherwise, it seems like having a Battle Company will be more fun to assemble and more useful for gaming since you'll have plenty of models to draw from.

And how would you be restricted in models for your Captain? The only one with rules is Shrike, is he not? Or do you mean giving him his own name?

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:
Are you ever actually going to [i]field[i/] a company?

Otherwise, it seems like having a Battle Company will be more fun to assemble and more useful for gaming since you'll have plenty of models to draw from.

And how would you be restricted in models for your Captain? The only one with rules is Shrike, is he not? Or do you mean giving him his own name?

I mean giving him his own name and backstory, as I found that is my favorite part of building my ork army and his antics. And several people at my GW have and use the company a lot, so another reason for doing a tactical one would be not to copy others with the same old company.

I built the Ravenguard 4th company. I figured it would mean I always had the units I needed for any game, and as the Ravenguard are much more company autonomous they don't tend to do the mixed company strike forces that other chapters do, so having everything you need from just one comapany is a lot more fluffy.

Although I would love to do an assault company Ravenguard army based on blood angel rules and the 8th company.

 Tiger9gamer wrote:

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:
Are you ever actually going to field a company?

Otherwise, it seems like having a Battle Company will be more fun to assemble and more useful for gaming since you'll have plenty of models to draw from.

And how would you be restricted in models for your Captain? The only one with rules is Shrike, is he not? Or do you mean giving him his own name?

I mean giving him his own name and backstory, as I found that is my favorite part of building my ork army and his antics. And several people at my GW have and use the company a lot, so another reason for doing a tactical one would be not to copy others with the same old company.

Even if other people are collecting/fielding battle companies, are the the same chapter/company as what you are running with? You can always run with one of the off the beaten track battle companies. I know as an Ultramarine, we get a lot of the 2nd company, less of the 3rd, very few 4th, and I think I saw a 5th company force once. So unless your FLGS is huge, I doubt someone is playing every battle company of a specific chapter. If there is someone playing every battle company, then by all means go for one of the reserve companies. And organize the rest of the store to fill the rest of the gaps and be able to collectively put down a whole chapter of marines.

As for the battle companies being popular, of course they are! They are the way marines were designed to fight. They are the flagship formation of the core race. And from a TAC list building POV, they work. Because the game was designed around them.

I’d like to hear the voices of the people who clicked on “tactical company” (2 at the time of this post), just to hear your justification. I can think of a few, but not enough to swing the vote away from the much stronger choice of a battle company.

The reserve companies are easily the most muscular, most industrious, least equivocal companies.

You should probably do a regular shadow company, because jump packs, but the general advice in this thread is really ludicrous and bad.

Netlist/"competitive" players in fifth and sixth editions usually got about five tactical squads into their standard FOC, and then pile on the bread and butter units of fast attack melta units and heavy weapon dreadnoughts, all of which are as or more available to the tactical reserve companies.

Then, if you have a battle company, you more or less have to build at least one of the assault squads as an actual jump pack assault squad, which, I don't know, they do look sort of nice. If you are talking about tabletop power, your main problem with building a "battle company" as 100 infantry/jump infantry models is being saddled with 20 jump infantry and two dev squads that can't get ObSec.

Then look at the credibility of the posters in favor of battle companies.

There is one guy who not only did not know, but did not bother to google which company does bikes and which does speeders, there is another fellow who implies that you have all the units in a company if you don't have a chaplain, somebody else who seems to think that "autonomy" means that the ninth and tenth companies run around trying to fight campaigns by themselves instead of meaning that the master of shadows doesn't give them as many orders as a chapter master would, and one of them seems to think that reserves exist to stand around playing hide the salami.

Also, the Ultramarine battle companies look like garbage, with their blocks of primary colors and their inadequate understanding of blue and green never being seen.

If you're raven guard you should do combined companies, if you're anything else you should do a pure reserve.

Also yeah, I think people who insist on 6 infantry tactical squads, 2 jump and only, have to be jump squads, two devastator squads, 10-11 rhinos, and all the officers in a line at the front are exhibiting poor critical faculties or the obsessive symptoms of some kind of pathology.

pelicaniforce wrote:
The reserve companies are easily the most muscular, most industrious, least equivocal companies.

You should probably do a regular shadow company, because jump packs, but the general advice in this thread is really ludicrous and bad.

Netlist/"competitive" players in fifth and sixth editions usually got about five tactical squads into their standard FOC, and then pile on the bread and butter units of fast attack melta units and heavy weapon dreadnoughts, all of which are as or more available to the tactical reserve companies.

Then, if you have a battle company, you more or less have to build at least one of the assault squads as an actual jump pack assault squad, which, I don't know, they do look sort of nice. If you are talking about tabletop power, your main problem with building a "battle company" as 100 infantry/jump infantry models is being saddled with 20 jump infantry and two dev squads that can't get ObSec.

Then look at the credibility of the posters in favor of battle companies.

There is one guy who not only did not know, but did not bother to google which company does bikes and which does speeders, there is another fellow who implies that you have all the units in a company if you don't have a chaplain, somebody else who seems to think that "autonomy" means that the ninth and tenth companies run around trying to fight campaigns by themselves instead of meaning that the master of shadows doesn't give them as many orders as a chapter master would, and one of them seems to think that reserves exist to stand around playing hide the salami.

Also, the Ultramarine battle companies look like garbage, with their blocks of primary colors and their inadequate understanding of blue and green never being seen.

If you're raven guard you should do combined companies, if you're anything else you should do a pure reserve.

I would think carefully about knocking anyone's credibility. You may not agree with their ideas and viewpoints, but where I come from saying someone doesn't have any credibility is classed as defamation.

And for the record, yes, you can have all the models of a Battle Company without a Chaplain, seeing as a Chaplain is part of the Chaplaincy, only attached to the Company. The Company itself is composed of 6 Tactical Squads, 2 Assault Squads, 2 Devastator Squads, 4/5 Veterans who make up a Command Squad, a Captain and any Dreadnoughts, however many that may be, and all associated Rhinos and Razorbacks

Oh, Sorry.

Insignium Astartes says "Every Company has its own Chaplain. He acts as a leader in both devotions and battle. The Chaplain is more than capable of commanding the Marines in combat and is second only to the Company Captain in rank."

The Codex:Ultramarines shows sample banners and pictures of studio models in company colors, with captions calling saying they are company chaplains.

The third edition codex's chart of the Ultramarines' exact numbers at a given time (depleted companies, etc) give each company's command staff as including one chaplain, and the first company's as including two.

The other chaplains in the chapter are the custodian of the chapter chapel - a relusiarch - and the Master of Sanctity. Apart from those eleven company chaplains, one reclusiarch, and one Master, other chaplains are not almost entirely absent.

If there were people who thought a company of space marines had a squad of librarians, four platoons of guard, and a women's auxilliary that sewed uniforms, and that understanding happened to diverge from mine (which it doesn't, I believe all those things are true), then I would also discard their opinions on whether battle companies are not 1000x worse than reserve companies.

pelicaniforce wrote:
Insignium Astartes says "Every Company has its own Chaplain. He acts as a leader in both devotions and battle. The Chaplain is more than capable of commanding the Marines in combat and is second only to the Company Captain in rank."

The Codex:Ultramarines shows sample banners and pictures of studio models in company colors, with captions calling saying they are company chaplains.

The third edition codex's chart of the Ultramarines' exact numbers at a given time (depleted companies, etc) give each company's command staff as including one chaplain, and the first company's as including two.

The other chaplains in the chapter are the custodian of the chapter chapel - a relusiarch - and the Master of Sanctity. Apart from those eleven company chaplains, one reclusiarch, and one Master, other chaplains are not almost entirely absent.

If there were people who thought a company of space marines had a squad of librarians, four platoons of guard, and a women's auxilliary that sewed uniforms, and that understanding happened to diverge from mine (which it doesn't, I believe all those things are true), then I would also discard their opinions on whether battle companies are not 1000x worse than reserve companies.

May I direct you to Page 16 of Codex Space Marines 5th Edition, where it states "A Chapter includes a number of officers and specialists who stand aside from the Company organisation. These include...Chaplains from the Reclusium..."

This states they are seperate.

Pg19 of the same says, next to the Chaplain "attached to the 2nd Company since 901.M41," further showing they are considered seperate.

Pg 13 of 6th Ed (current) Codex lists the Reclusiam as a seperate body to the Companies, with its own banner and everything, and Pg 12 reiterates the stuff of the 5th Ed Codex.

I know that is how you understood it before now, but now you know that there are things that say specifically that companies always have their own chaplains who wear the company colors.

Of course, none of what you read before now says anything like "companies never have their own chaplains." It just says, to paraphrase "there are chaplains who are not part of companies;" and it is true, the reclusiam has a reclusiarch, a banner, and a master of sanctity. It might have more chaplains than that.

Oh, edit:
/
It doesn't even say "including chaplains," it says "including chaplains from the reclusiam," which can mean that there are chaplains who are not from the reclusiam, and that those chaplains not from the reclusiam do not stand aside from the companies.
/

There are apothecaries that aren't in companies because they are in the apothecarion, and there are also so many apothecaries in companies that there are no companies without one.

The "stand aside from" quote is also language in a document that says, not even pages away, "A Company consists of ten squads of ten men including a Sergeant. In addition to this basic fighting unit, each company has its own Captain, Standard Bearer, Chaplain and Apothecary."

I'm sure that since all the sources are in agreement that there are some chaplains who are not part of companies and many chaplains that are part of companies, we can agree that it is much better to give opinions if you know more of relevant information on the topic than to do it when you know less.

Anyway, it's "separate."

Actually there's a salient point your ignoring there pelican, all of the older sources you cited listed chaplains under the companies on the organisation chart and none included a separate listing for the reclusium although the 3rd edition codex had 3 chaplains listed under the Chapter HQ. The current Space Marine, Dark Angel and Blood Angel codices however do not list the Chaplain under the company at all, but all have a separate listing for the Reclusium with the two that have numbers listing enough for the entire chapter, as opposed to the handful of spares in the 3e dex. This does kind of suggest an intentional retcon.

 Gashrog wrote:
Actually there's a salient point your ignoring there pelican, all of the older sources you cited listed chaplains under the companies on the organisation chart and none included a separate listing for the reclusium although the 3rd edition codex had 3 chaplains listed under the Chapter HQ. The current Space Marine, Dark Angel and Blood Angel codices however do not list the Chaplain under the company at all, but all have a separate listing for the Reclusium with the two that have numbers listing enough for the entire chapter, as opposed to the handful of spares in the 3e dex. This does kind of suggest an intentional retcon.

I agree, and don't forget with the old stuff things would get really weird at times. Authors rarely checked what the other authors were doing back then so stuff like company organization and other things we take for granted as a given thing in current codexes were not very well organized. Stick with the most current sources if possible, since that is the new "official" fluff.

As an aside, i personally through accidental purchases over the years have myself a full battle company minus the rhinos. Once i get all the rhinos I will be able to field, or at least show off the full might of the Ultramarines 2nd company! (also i should paint them all too, that would help)

 generalchaos34 wrote:

I agree, and don't forget with the old stuff things would get really weird at times. Authors rarely checked what the other authors were doing back then so stuff like company organization and other things we take for granted as a given thing in current codexes were not very well organized. Stick with the most current sources if possible, since that is the new "official" fluff.

Actually in this instance its the more recent stuff that's a mess. The organisation info from Codex: Ultramarines was reprinted wholesale in Insignium Astartes and the 3rd edition spread for the Ultramarines matched up with both. Then 4th edition came around and whoever was doing the charts thought it would be nice and neat to combine the 6th & 7th companies into a single entry even though they have separate equipment, and then topped it off by copy-pasting Land Raider everywhere Land Speeder was supposed to be. 4th edition was also the edition where the Master of Sanctity and Reclusiarch appeared seemingly out of nowhere (having not been mentioned since 1st edition) as the two sub-ranks of Chaplain, only to vanish again when we got to 5th edition - possibly because someone finally bothered to actually read the 1st edition article and realised neither are in fact Chaplains. Then we get to 5th edition and the chart dude decides to copy paste the Ultramarines armoury vehicle numbers from the 3rd edition codex, but decides we don't need to know the other numbers thereby cutting the Ultramarines non-HQ Land Raiders rather drastically from 19 to 12 and seemingly invalidating Insignium Astartes (which said most chapters have 20-30 Land Raiders, 3e codex put them at 22 IIRC). And now we have this sudden relisting of Chaplains which may be a retcon of existing fluff or it may be a case of the same slowed chart dude trying to put his own spin on things again. (it might be a case of him deciding to list them separately because they exist outside the company command hierarchy, even though they occupy a place in the company)

Wow, so that is a genuine piece of information. I think it indicates chaplain-free companies are something to remain open to the concept of, if it isn't an explicit description of such.


I have thought about it some more, and here is a reason that I love reserve companies and do not care for battle companies. You know, I like them because they are how the Legiones Astartes fight wars actual stand up sit down flatten your house conquer the galaxy wars. The reason that reserve companies are called that is that they are too imbalanced in their composition to work in a lot of situations. The assault reserves do not have staying power and can get swamped by enemies, and the tactical companies cannot shift into higher or lower gears. All the sixth, seventh, eighth, and ninth companies need another company to be the main fighters so they can stay in reserve until the right conditions for them are met.

That is what makes them muscular. They are there to be used when space marines need to drop the hammer. They are there when fights go pear-shaped and some kind of nancy battle company is too compromising. Reserve companies do not compromise, they are the kind of music band that plays good music all the time because they don't have keyboards or string sections or triangles or girl members, and actually anything that does not have a guitar and testicles does not get on stage.

This is how legions fight. The legions deployed 500, 1000, 3000 marines at a battle. They had enough marines per battle that the individual companies did not have to fit every situation and instead specialize. Heaven knows they did. The legions had siege companies, siege-breaking companies, tank companies, super heavy tank companies, assault companies, rifle companies, heavy companies, recon companies, raider companies, terror-companies, WMD companies, drop companies, they had all the companies possible.

That is what was good about the Legions, not the number of marines. In every thread that even mentions space marines, some ever-present poster who is always complaining, and some goon poster who does not post often enough to be on anyone's ignore list are liable to show up and complain that Roboute Guilliman, a fictional character, hamstrung the fictional space marines by breaking up the legions out of some kind of diabolical incompetence, and that chapters are too small, there are not enough marines in them and they should be in legions. This is my conjecture and maybe the data contradict it, but there is a huge overlap between these people, and the people in this thread who voted for battle company without thinking about why a reserve company would exist, and this overlap is not even slightly respectable.

Every legion had some kind of Grand Company, Battalion, or Chapter structure, and those structures sometimes fought together and very frequently fought separately. This is the same as what happens between chapters in the 41st millenium; they fight together sometimes and fight singly or in different combinations at other times. The only differences between the Legions and the independent chapters are that now it is possible to say that all the corrupt marines came from one scout company that didn't send its recruits anywhere else, that all the corrupt officers were appointed by one chapter master that didn't have power to appoint corrupt officers to any other chapters, and all the mutated gene seed came from one template that has not contaminated the supply of gene seed in other chapters.

When a marine is in a reserve company, his job is to be the marine that other marines count on. His job is to be a marine of the Legiones Astartes, the way marines were all called Legionnaires and traitor Legionnaires when marines had always been chapters, when the Black Legion were a chapter and Citadel/GW had never even thought of calling them Legions.

Being a reserve marine is bad ass, it is being a hard working, honest to god, down to earth, blue-collar Legionnaire. I don't know what battle company marines are, but it does not involve wrangler jeans and does involve driving a compact sedan and a frothy coffee drink to some kind of work-in-a-room, shirt-and-tie kind of hell.

Here is the problem with all of that. It isn't about models. It is some kind of post-on-the-internet, never-played-a-game garbage spouted by a kid who doesn't know gak because even though he went to college he is fundamentally middle class and uncultivated. The most important thing is playing this game with models that are awesome.

If you play Ultramarines, you have a seriously bad choice of color schemes if you do not play reserve companies. The second and third companies have all three of the primary colors, and basically nothing else. This is, for someone who has heard of design or color theory of any kind, a bunch of garbage. The fourth company are blue and green, which should never be seen. The fifth company are pretty nice looking, but if they are going to look like sober, professional space marines, they have the problem of not being the raven guard. I think they are actually the best of the battle companies. The reserve companies are all way better than the veteran, battle, and scout companies in terms of shoulder trim.

 generalchaos34 wrote:
Authors rarely checked what the other authors were doing back then

That is an interesting thought and it's important to think about that kind of thing. The stuff posted is mostly from a time when a single GW employee oversaw the whole product line. Many people refer to it as a golden age of comprehensive information. Before that, background was written mostly by people who had felt ownership of the setting from the beginning. Like Gashrog says, it is more something to worry about over time, as in a newer writer who has been hired on to make new merchandise is confused about what went before, and doesn't really have an incentive to "fact check."