If you had an SM Battle Company how would you equip them?

[brightblade]

I'll have to disagree with you there. ....

Combi weapons depends on what you want to do with the squad.

Fair enough. We can only offer advice given our experience. Nothing is absolute. Personally, my anti-tank exists in other parts of my army. My sternguard are there to offer extra punch vs infantry and monstrous creatures (ie; high T, low save beasties). Something they have done with aplomb in the past. I am not particularly a fan of combi's but that is just my experience. What I want to do with the squad is close fire support for tacs against those tricky monsters or to offer those extra wounds in weight of dice situations. Heavy flamers aid this.

We all play differently (well, some of us!) Wouldn't it be dull if we all played the same way?

[Balerion]

I would equip them with a Buy-it-now option on ebay and buy an army that doesn't make me soulsick to think about.

[Sinisterfence]

I'm just over halfway through building a battle company myself. I take each squad with a different loadout so I can switch out squads depending on what I want them to do, generally giving the squad an overall role and splitting them into combat squads so I get a 5 man unit with a sergeant with power weapon/ fist and special weapon for short ranged fire, taking positions and countering assaults, and a 5 man unit to sit back a bit and support with a heavy weapon. I have a unit with a heavy bolter to follow up the first half and support them, one with a lascannon to pick off enemy vehicles, and one with a plasma cannon to take out my opponent's more elite units/ support the other combat squads. Being a Blood Angels player I'm toying with the idea of painting up a couple of Rhino-bound assault marines as tacticals for position taking/ taking out weaker units in combat.. Squads of 10 Space Marines with chainswords is oddly intimidating!

[Orthodox]

Bike Squad (8 Bikers (2 Plasma guns and sargent with power weapon) + Attack Bike with Heavy Bolter)

Land Speeder Squadron (2 Land Speeders with flamer/Melta and 1 Land Speeder Heavy Bolter and Big Missile Launcher pods - I forget name)

This is your first assault squad. A squad of two land speeders and a squad of five bikes plus an attack bike makes one assault squad. Then you have a slot left over for a flamer assault squad.

If you want to believe that your characters are real people and have to confront the problems at hand in a pragmatic way, it helps to let them act that way. It is more dignified than insisting that your rule books say that there are ten guys with swords so those ten guys always have to have swords and stuff'em if that gets them killed or makes them fail.

If you are fielding a battle company only, you have no other place to get land speeders. I mean, it is too bad about the sergeant's power weapon and the mismatched guns, but they are better than trying to find something for those jump packers to do.

I tried to do a full Seventh Company, and I'm like seriously, can I get some variety up ins?

the next two would be designed for combat squading. I'm not a huge fan of combat squads, but I'd like to try it occasionally.

Combat squads win games, all games. They also remind me to pick out the squad leader with an iron halo decoration.

[The Marshel]

Combat squads win games, all games. They also remind me to pick out the squad leader with an iron halo decoration.

And i find them terribly fragile, expensive if you give them razorbacks (assuming you've taken a 10 man squad and used combat squads rather then just taking a 5 man squad), and unnecessary given i have an easy enough time without them.

Either way, it works best when you plan out your unit with combat squadding in mind, and tactical squads that plan on using combat squads are typically quite wasteful if they don't do so. it makes more sense to have 2 squads set up for dedicated combat squad usage given you'll rarely use more then 2 tactical squads in most games. use 2 more for the better 10 man squad builds and have the last two for the wargear you like more.

Also, while I agree with your point on the company having to re-equip and adapted to situations as they happen rather then always use the same equipment, most people collect battle companies specifically to collect that 6 tact, 2 dev, 2 assualt battle company that marines are famous for. It's not really a gaming thing. Your point is very realistic and very valid but not hugely relevant given the reasons people are making battleforces in the first place. If that were the driving logic, you'd just make a normal marine army and be done with it.

[Orthodox]

given you'll rarely use more then 2 tactical squads in most games.

If you mean me, personally, I play seventh company Ultramarines and use exclusively* tactical squads, land speeders, tanks crewed by tactical squad members, a captain, a chaplain, and dreadnoughts. Mostly I use tactical squads though. If you mean "you" in the general sense, the WAAC blogs all describe using five or six tactical squads designed to combat-squad with rhino, missile/multi-melta, meltagun, and combi-melta.

Also, while I agree with your point on the company having to re-equip and adapted to situations as they happen rather then always use the same equipment, most people collect battle companies specifically to collect that 6 tact, 2 dev, 2 assualt battle company that marines are famous for. It's not really a gaming thing. Your point is very realistic and very valid but not hugely relevant given the reasons people are making battleforces in the first place. If that were the driving logic, you'd just make a normal marine army and be done with it.

That is not a battle company; that is a piece of paper with the words "battle company;" that is a pile of colorful plastic.

On seeing a marine piloting a land speeder and marked as an assault squad member, I can realize that he, at other times, wears a jump pack, and sometimes rides a bike. I infer that he has a life and career before and after the instant I see him on the tabletop.

Conversely, two rows of ten marines with jump packs lined up with 80+ other models do not imply anything other than that I am looking at marketing material.

In fact, by using bikes or speeders to account for the assault squads, and vehicle crew to account for some tactical squads, while remaining within 100 marines, a person collects an actual, living battle company. I infer, by their restriction to a single company and not "a normal marine army," that they are brothers sharing an identity, that some of them are newer to the company than others, that some are more loyal to the company standard and traditions than to the captain and some the other way around, or that one sergeant is the most senior and commands detachments, or that the gunner of a mkI razorback is actually a sergeant commanding not just his combat squad but two neighboring predators crewed by the other half of his squad. I get that I am looking at a group of individuals as they may have looked in a specific time in place.

It is information-dense, which is good. Other people may have problems with information or empathy, but search me as to why.

The alternative to that is allowing myself to be victimized by the media and paying hundreds of dollars for a piece of paper that reads "battle company."

*I do stuff like scouts in land raiders too, 'cause I like building DIY scouts. It is a change from spamming melta with tactical squads.