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So if I read the rules for formations, allied formations, and the strike force command formation, I could take just a an iron hands captain by himself as an allied formation for my army?

Not familiar with the Iron hands book, but in the newest ravenguard/White Scars one, dont see any way thats legal.

All the parts of a the gladius formation are in fact smaller formations if im not mistaken? And while I would not gain benefits of the gladius formation in theory couldn't I ally in a formation as stated by the rules of formation IE being taken alone with out needing a CAD to support them.

 AdeptusAwesome wrote:
All the parts of a the gladius formation are in fact smaller formations if im not mistaken? And while I would not gain benefits of the gladius formation in theory couldn't I ally in a formation as stated by the rules of formation IE being taken alone with out needing a CAD to support them.

This is a common mistake. You see people trying to take wraithknights on their own as a formation due to this same error.

These detachments say something like this in their descriptions:

Unlike Detachments shown in Warhammer 400000 The rules, it has a Force Organization Chart whose slots are a combination of specific Formations and Army List Entries instead of Battlefield Roles.

So some things are just army list entries and not formations.

Put another way, a formation is defined by its datasheet -- no datasheet? Then it can't possibly be a formation.

okay so in order to take allies of vanilla marines I would have to stick the standard ally CAD, yes? also thank you for that very concise answer.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
This Detachment must include at least one Core choice and one Auxiliary choice. It may
include up to one more Core choice, up to three Command choices and any number of
additional Auxiliary choices, in any combination. Only the datasheets listed here can be
included in this Detachment. All units in the Detachment must have the Space Marines
Faction and must be drawn from the same Chapter.

this is from the gladius strike force page, it referes to them as datasheets?

Auxiliary choices are not always formations, but most formations are also Auxiliary choices.
So, if you take the detachment, you get to pick a whole load of aux choices.
If you don't take the detachment, you get to choose from CAD, allied detachment and/or formations.
If the Iron Hands Captain is an option to take in the aux slots, you have to take a Core choice to get that, or as an HQ in one of the other detachments.

Datasheets are just pages in the codex. They have the symbols and points costs in the corner of the page.