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Hoping you guys would be able to shed some light on this, as I don't have access to Extermination, haven't reached the Fists HH books, and internet searches haven't turned up much. Can anyone give me details about the legion structure the Fists used? According to a friend and a post on B&C, Captains only exist at the highest division, normally where the Chapter Command title is used, then breaks down from there to Marshals for the Battalion Command and Castellan for the Company Command. I just wanted verification and any extra info on their name breakdown and any differences they might've had for the structure breakdown from the 'Standard' structure.

I've been working on the fluff for my army, having a Templar Brethren Lt promoted to a Captain, or whatever Company Command title it actually is, and given command of his own Expeditionary Company. Don't think any of this affect gameplay, but it gives me something to do until they release the new Space Marine codex this month, and who doesn't like a coherent story?

From pages 62 and 64 from Book 3: Extermination.

Imperial Fist observed strategic tendencies: ship-bourne assaults and boarding actions, defensive and fortification operations in extremis, stronghold assaults, void warfare.

The fists have a lot of assault units and special weapon teams dedicated to killing vehicles and fortifications.
After those, there are a lot of heavy weapons - on vehicles and carried by marines, but missile launchers and lascannons rather than autocannons and multi-melta.

They are the strongest proponents of tactical dreadnought armour (they rocked the indomitus pattern in large numbers early on) and at the time of the betrayal, they were the only legion to have Abstina and Iliastus pattern assault cannons on their terminators

A company could vary in size from 'a few squads' to 'several hundred' marines.
The size changes according to recruitment and casualties.

Each company is a battalion regardless of actual size and two battalions make a regiment or 'crusade' or 'household' - larger companies were formed as needed.

There is a temple on board the 'Phalanx' which is dedicated to renewal of oaths of allegiance to the great crusade/emprah and only Dorn, omnissiah and Templar brethren could go without a direct invitation.

The first company rarely drop below 1000 and are drawn from all over the IF legion - bearing in mind that each company tends to get made from recruits from a single conflict, that first company is going to be a mess of different traditions, colours, languages and combat preferences.

There is a direct link from Dorn through the 'senior captains' - no fixed advisors or senior lieutenants like other legions.
(there is actually a second layer between Dorn and the captains made up of fleet masters, siege masters, theatre commanders, marshals and the 'first captain' - they take command of a combat zone rather than individual units)
Under the 'senior captains' are the 'line captains' and 'centurions' who actually command the battalions and regiments.

The IF generated impromptu titles for marines taking command of permanent fortresses that they built.

The last two titles they used are 'Castellan' and 'Legion Seneschal' and these titles were retained by the honoured marine regardless of posting/mission/command.

Buy the book! (you know you want to...)

Thanks, man! This was exactly the info I was looking for!

Very interesting that aside from the First Captain, senior Captains, and line Captains, he kept essentially a temporary command structure. That's a very cool trait, and makes me wonder what other command structure quirks other legions have.

A question I've had that wasn't answered in the first book and not brought up in what you told me was in regard to Company numbers. Is there only ever a single, as an example, First Company, or are there, say, X amount of First Companies scattered across the various Expeditionary Fleets out in the universe. Would it vary per legion? It's probably vague on purpose.

I imagine that there's only one First Company for the FIsts, which means there's only one Second Company, Third Company, 99th Company, etc. etc. rather than Second Company, 635th Crusade and Second Company, 445th Household.

Again, thanks for the info! Definitely lets me keep working on my fluff (buying the book is planned, but I'd first grab models I need to play before books I won't use but will enjoy reading).

There may still be a "First " style unit in other companies.

Say a more veteran sqaud , with more battles than rest might be that company first squad..

For a tough asignment you might pull your first into a single formation when you need your best marines in one Pla,e at one time.

So they may form a first company of sorts outside the first as battle requires.
The thing about imperial fists seems they are quite capable to adopting, and sometimes deploying adhoc and new formations and tactics as situation demands.

Yeah, a First style unit I totally see. I just don't imagine they'd call themselves First Company since Fists have specifically defined First Company as guardians of the Temple aboard the Phalanx. I'll probably use Battle Company or Veteran Company for the unit they form, like you stated.

Yeah, they could call them self the veteran company, or say the fleet Phalanx Company, go crazy with it. Maybe the fleet command personalt leads the unit and matains it like own company that's spread about the fleet as needed or pulled together as one.

Makes perfect sense, tough siege or assult and pool the veteran units into the first wave to solidly hold and capture the breach.

A mix of terminators, maybe veteran squad's and such backed by support teams, they cam figfht as one, the terminators pulled for boarding action etc.

A flexible adhoc formation that pools it assets for mission specific objectives.