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Alright so I'm working on my emperors fist tank company.

I've came to the point where I'm numbering each of the squads and they are themed off of a cadian tank company.

The idea I started with was from the new paint scheme with the Astra militarum codex. The russes are marked "31" "32" and "33" for the squad shown

How would the rest of the company be marked would the two other squads be "11" "12" "13" and "21" "22" and "23"???

I've tried looking up from older codexs to see how tanks are numbered in companies. But I wasn't able to find anything. Anyone have anything they've got to add for advice???

Best advice for IG is to just look up what historically was used for various armies from WWII-Modern day.

The system you describe is a common feature of Soviet tanks in WWII for example. It would be something like

1st platoon (squadron for 40k)

11 Command tank
12
13

2nd platoon

21 Command tank
22
23

Etc.


Other armies would have a 3 number scheme, which included your company if I remember correctly. The germans are well known for that.

So for example, a tank with the number 314 would be the fourth tank of the first platoon in the 3rd company, if I'm remembering it correctly.

In both cases, usually you hear of command tanks having some sort of 00 or 000 designation for the company command. So for example 00 might be company command and 01 might be 2iC. However, sticking a very obviously different number on your command tank can make you a bit of a target, so sometimes they would make up a fake platoon number for the company command, so it would be possible to see a command tank marked 501 or 500 for example.


And just for maximum "it depends", some units would intentionally fudge the numbers, because eventually other armies would get smart to their antics, or the platoon commander just commandeers a nicer tank that isn't necessarily designated the command tank. So for example it could be possible to see the 23 or 323 tank as the platoon command for one squad just because the commander's tank broke down.


So yeah, go nuts. If you can come up for a justification of it odds are it's been done in the IG.

Oh neat I never really thought of it that way. I will certainly have to look a couple of those up!

I've read something of that somewhere I just thought it was in a prior 40m IG codex or apoc book but I couldn't remember lol.

But thanks again for the advice!

If you look through the FW Imperial Armor books (especially IA1, the IG book) you'll see a whole bunch of examples of unit markings. There's no explicit formula given, but there are captions like "third tank of 5th Platoon, Cadian 3405340503th Armored Regiment, the red stripe is a campaign badge from blahblahblah" and it's pretty obvious how that translates to the number 35 on the side of the turret. And there are all kinds of combinations of numbers, color stripes, etc, to represent these things. Pick a system that you think looks cool, or invent your own. Mine, for example, uses the unit number/vehicle number approach. So one of my LRBT squadrons is numbered 811, 812, 813, 814, 815, with 811 being the command tank. The next squadron I've started working on will be 111, 112, 113, 114, 115, with 111 as the command tank and, sometimes, General Grizmund as leader of the entire armored regiment. My superheavies, on the other hand, have single-digit numbers, except that random Valdor marked as K4-1 in a completely different style (guess that's a replacement "borrowed" from another regiment!).

Oh neat! I never looked through the imperial armor books. I've been telling myself to get the updated guard one for a while now!

I believe this is the right book?

There you go

What's the difference between the above book and this one?

 tankboy145 wrote:
What's the difference between the above book and this one?

The one you've pictured is out of date and been replaced by the above book which is the current 2nd edition of it

Ohhh alright so the first picture is the correct one then. So many books a codexs getting redone! Lol

 tankboy145 wrote:
What's the difference between the above book and this one?

The first one you posted is the first edition of IA1. Its rules are long obsolete, but if you're getting it for the fluff it's still just fine (and may be cheaper). It won't have all of the newest releases, but if you want lots of pages of pictures of LRBT markings you'll get them. The second one you posted is one of the old rules-only books from way back in 3rd edition (or earlier?), any rules in it are worthless and the fluff was mostly limited to a paragraph or two like in the codex.

Oh I see! would the imperial armor volume one second edition on forgeworlds sight give me the same content?

 tankboy145 wrote:
Oh I see! would the imperial armor volume one second edition on forgeworlds sight give me the same content?

I've got IA1V2 so I can say it does have a couple of pages devoted to vehicle markings ( 279+) but it's not more in depth than what you'll find on here. The very first sentence then renders the whole exercise redundant with "The markings on imperial guard tanks... vary greatly from regiment to regiment and campaign to campaign'.

So basically do as you please, just be consistent about it

 malamis wrote:

 tankboy145 wrote:
Oh I see! would the imperial armor volume one second edition on forgeworlds sight give me the same content?

I've got IA1V2 so I can say it does have a couple of pages devoted to vehicle markings ( 279+) but it's not more in depth than what you'll find on here. The very first sentence then renders the whole exercise redundant with "The markings on imperial guard tanks... vary greatly from regiment to regiment and campaign to campaign'.

So basically do as you please, just be consistent about it

Honestly you could even make an argument for inconsistency as I mentioned above. The squadron commander's tank might've been wiped out so he switched to a platoon mate's, or the unit could intentionally randomize their schemes if they're against an enemy like traitor guard who would know to snipe the command tank.

So yeah go nuts

Awesome I appreciate it! Thanks again everyone!