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I have always been under the impression that a space marine chapter would send in part of whatever company was in the area at the time to do their missions, but in reading the ultramarines books, I have come into instances where elements of assault marines were used alongside terminators and bikers etc.
Seeing as the terminators are all first company, this got me thinking: How exactly do space marines come up with the forces they are going to use in a given engagement? It's clearly not company based

Thanks
Austin

Companies 2-5 are the "Battle Companies" while the others are reserve/specialist companies. A battle company is often the core of the force, while elements of the reserve/specialist companies are temporarily attached to it depending on the mission. First Company and companies 6-10 don't usually operate as a single unified force, as they are dispersed amongst companies 2-5 as needed.

That's for Chapters that are more or less Codex compliant. Some chapters do things very differently.

IMHO the 7th edition space Marine codex explained it pretty well with the advent of the Gladius. Generally a space marine task force will be made up of eaither a demi battle company (a half sized battle company. 3 tac squads 1 devestator and 1 assault) or a full sized battle company, plus additional support assigned from the chapter in the form of scouts, terminators, and back up from the reserve companies. with the return of Gulliman some minor changes to the codex where made that makes it so that back up from reserve companies may be semi-perminatly assigned to a battle company. where they may wear the colours of said company (this allows someone to paint up their 3 devestator squads in Ultramarines second company colours without it technicly being lore breaking, a nice minor tweek on GW's part IMHO)

Sorry to hijack but still a question on detachments

I have seen some field less than 5 marines, how does that work?
Back in 3rd ed I remember people shunning combat sqauds, yet most of the units are sold as a set of 5

Rybrook wrote:
Sorry to hijack but still a question on detachments

I have seen some field less than 5 marines, how does that work?
Back in 3rd ed I remember people shunning combat sqauds, yet most of the units are sold as a set of 5

well bikes, centurions agressors and interceptors all come in squads of three. other then that marine squads should be 5 minimum. but there are rules allowing for under strength squads in 8th.

BrianDavion wrote:

Rybrook wrote:
Sorry to hijack but still a question on detachments

I have seen some field less than 5 marines, how does that work?
Back in 3rd ed I remember people shunning combat sqauds, yet most of the units are sold as a set of 5

well bikes, centurions agressors and interceptors all come in squads of three. other then that marine squads should be 5 minimum. but there are rules allowing for under strength squads in 8th.

Also, don't the Easy To Build kits come with datasheets? Presumably you could use those to field 3 Reivers or Intercessors, for example?

Space Marines are grouped in blocks of 100 for the long term because they need staff. The creation of a space marine article describes them needing regular hormone therapy and diet adjustments. That means each one effectively needs a single primary care doctor to supervise their overall health, which is why each company has its own apothecary. After all, it's not like a single apothecary can be the only battlefield medic and combat surgeon for a whole company, especially since most of the companies are split up over 3 - 5 different places in the galaxy months' of travel away from each other. There are another 12 apothecaries in the chapter, partly to help with the actual combat medicine.

Chaplains also work that way. Chaplains find and vet each aspirant into the scout company, and they are in charge of discipline, skill standards and career development. Each company has its own chaplain becaus chaplains are HR officers and each marine needs about 1/100th of an HR officer to oversee him.

That's why librarians and techmarines are not permanently in the companies, because each group of 100 marines doesn't require a case manager from those groups just to keep themselves in fighting shape.

The captains are what answer the OP question, b cause the chapter can decide to send a task force that includes four squads from the assault company, but the captain has to figure out which four squads and who is going to lead them. He could have 8 - 10 functioning squads with different levels of experience, sergeants with different skills, possibly veteran sergeants because sometimes they are separate from the 10 basic sergeants, and he has to decide which vehicles to include and whether they will be lead by a sergeant, veteran, lieutenant, chaplain, or himself.

The same squads in different company do different operations. In the eight company, assault squads could do a raid with three or four other assault squads sharing the job, do damage and withdraw. In a battle company, they are the only assault squad in a demi company, and they have to be close with tactical squads, wedge themselves into the enemy and stay there until the tactical squads follow up and relieve them for a few seconds. So they practice for different tasks and have to be managed differently.

As for what task forces get built and where they go, in some chapters it's the chapter master. In the Raven Guard the shadow-captains are "fiercely independent," so it would be them inventing missions and then asking the other captains for squads directly, with the chapter master being for more general asset management, external diplomacy, but not forming missions. In the Iron Hands the captains also decide on their own task forces but are managed instead by a council of Iron Fathers who can appoint a chapter-wide force commander after the missions have already been agreed upon.