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Is terminators and bikes in normal battle companyes ?


Dexo

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Hi

 

I was wondering is the use of terminator armour and bike restricted to the first and second company, or is there also "green" terminators and bikes in the standard battle companies ?

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No, there are not.  Dawn of War got that wrong but I guess they couldnt spend the money for code monkeys to fix that.

 

If you want green bikes and termies, may I direct your attention to the Desciples Of Caliban (Green and Black) who do not have different colors for bikes and termies...   Well I guess none of the successor chapters have different colored bikes and termies...

 

In the end, they are your toys and you can paint them green if you want to and make up a story why they are not bone or black.

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Terminator suits are exclusive to 1st Co (As in other chapters) , so noral companies don't have them. They can "call" for their help in any given campaign though and be under command of the regular company officer.

As for bikes they are also exclusive to 2nd company although in previous editions the 8th company used to have bikes as well. In this edition bikes only appear as part of the 2nd. 

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Well, I'd reckon that characters like company masters, interrogator-chaplains and librarians would have access to TDA outside of the deathwing. That said, the company master would likely be the only one to have it in green.
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Members of both companies join other companies as parts of differing strike and task forces. They are now of "undetermined number", so it's entirely possible that there are five squads of Deathwing and five squads of Ravenwing with every strike/task force the DA put out there. No one can even tell you the numbers are wrong. Assuming eight strike forces built out of various battle and reserve companies, plus armory components for each, and let's call it 5 squads from each of the 1st and 2nd Companies, its possible that Deathwing and Ravenwing both number upwards of 500+ Marines each, and that's not counting individual units that could be out there operating, etc, and no one can say that you are wrong on the numbers. Unlikely, sure, but proveably wrong, nope.
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its possible that Deathwing and Ravenwing both number upwards of 500+ Marines each, and that's not counting individual units that could be out there operating, etc, and no one can say that you are wrong on the numbers. Unlikely, sure, but proveably wrong, nope.

I did some maths a while ago using some of the statements in the Codex (such as all fighter pilots are from 2nd Company, and that there are more marines deployed on bikes than any other vehicle within the company), and a few assumptions based on a "reasonable" number of Dark Talons and Nephilims, and came up with a minimum company size of over 400 for the Ravenwing.....
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I actually thought it was a little low for the Ravenwing when you start counting up all the planes and speeders....   Deathwing not so much, 150-200 in TDA tops... 

 

 

facmanpob can correct me but it went like this:

 

Known numbers:

15-25 Black Knights (1st Squad)

Nephilim and Dark Talon crews (10 each so 20?) (2nd and 3rd squad) (awful low number if this is fleet wide...)

Bike squads 2 thru 8 (70 guys)

Speeder squads 9 & 10 (20)

The Ten Brothers (Dark Shrouds) (30 crew)

Land speeder Vengance (10 assumed, nother 30)

195 + Sammael known and/or guessed at minimum size.

 

Now lets debate whether Thawk and Storm Eagle pilots belong to the RW or the motor pool, Whether there is a "tactical" bike 1st squad in addition to the Black Knights and just how "oversized" the fighter squadrons are.

 

We are still a legion and all...

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Hmmm I'd like to see the breakdown of that figure facmanpob just out of interest.

Damn, should have kept my mouth shut msn-wink.gif Will have to try to find the spreadsheet!

I actually thought it was a little low for the Ravenwing when you start counting up all the planes and speeders.... Deathwing not so much, 150-200 in TDA tops...

facmanpob can correct me but it went like this:

You are essentially correct, your numbers are a little off, as the most important thing is that the codex clearly states (in 2 different places) that the number of guys on bikes is at least 50% of the strength of the company.....In your example above you only have 70 guys in bike squads, and 20 of them are in speeders, leaving 50 bikers + Black Knights, which is miles too low compared with the rest of the company (around 120 in your example above).....

Give me a few minutes and I will dig through my files....

smile.png

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Here was my original post from 3 July......

 

http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/277579-company-equipment-size/?p=3405780

Codex statements: there are 10 Darkshrouds; Over 50% of the 2nd Company strength is made up of bikers; Nephilim and Dark Talon pilots come from 2nd and 3rd squads and so are drawn from company roster; Each RAS has an attached speeder, other speeders form Support Squadrons up to 5 speeders strong; 2nd Company does not adhere to the 100 marines principle.

 

Fluff from the book Ravenwing: there are 15 Black Knights

 

Assumptions: if there are 10 Darkshrouds, lets assume there are 10 Vengeance speeders also; let's assume 5 RW Support Squadrons of 5 speeders each; lets assume 10 Nephilims and 10 Dark Talons in the air force.

 

Taking all of the above, and plugging into a spreadsheet gives the following results.....

 

15 Black Knights

20 Attack Squadrons, each with 6 bikes, 1 attack bike, 1 speeder

5 Support Squadrons, each of 5 speeders

10 Nephilims with a single pilot each

10 Dark Talons with a single pilot each

10 Darkshrouds, each with a pilot, gunner and statue operator

10 Vengeance speeders, each with pilot, gunner and DJ plasma

 

So that's 135 marines on bikes, 40 on attack bikes, 20 pilots and 150 in speeders of various types, for a total company complement of:

 

345 marines.....

 

plus attached Techmarines, Company Master, Chaplains, Apothecaries and Librarians....

As Brother Dean suggested, the number of Nephs and Talons is very low considering its for the entire Chapter, so later on in the thread I upped the number of fighters to 20 for fun...

I just took 10 of each aircraft as a representative number. If we made it 20 of each then that takes the number of non bikers above the number of bikers in my example, so we have to increase the number of RAS up to 23 to compensate and the total complement of 2nd Coy goes up to 396.

I will still look for the spreadsheet so that we can play around with more numbers.....
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Where I think there is a flaw in your reasoning is assuming that the crews are only crews and don't assume other functions, ie, the Company has a motorpool and a number of marines that can do any function, granting specialists will commonly get assigned to their forte. 

To clarify further, if they send 20 RW marines as an attachment to the 3rd company they can take with them from the motorpool for example 20 bikes, 5 speeders and/or 10 attack bikes, with the marines crewing them as needed. I think it makes more sense to 20 marines change seats then to send 40 marines, specially giving the limited number of marines, even with numbers greater than 100...

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I think the rules guys and the fluff guys had a heart attack when somebody pointed out that the "Ten Brothers" needed 30 guys and the fighter inconsistancies and that is how the RW got an "Undetermined" number of squads....  

 

Battlestar Galactica has more than 20 Vipers/Raptors (Raptors being counted as the ground attack ship) and is only one capital ship.  A Dark Angel FLEET of several capital ships "should" have more fighters so either the fluff facmanpob quotes about the fighter+speeder/bike ratio is inaccurate or the "Fleet" fighters are not part of the Ravenwing...

 

Or the Ravenwing is a chapter in its own right....

 

Edit: and Lucifer has a point but Fleet fighter assets wont "Change seats" as easily as bikers (because they are ship based) and must be held out of that equation...

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Where I think there is a flaw in your reasoning is assuming that the crews are only crews and don't assume other functions, ie, the Company has a motorpool and a number of marines that can do any function, granting specialists will commonly get assigned to their forte. 

I understand what you are saying, but my reasoning is based on the entire company being able to deploy everything that they've got at once, which is kind of how GW organises the Space Marines (not very "real world" I know, but that's the way they do it)

 

Page 46 of the codex states:

All member of the Ravenwing operate a fast vehicle... blah, blah.... the standard ten-strong squad within the Ravenwing is the Attack Squadron, a force made up of six brethren riding Space Marine bikes, two riding an Attack Bike, and two crewing a Land Speeder. These are further supported by additional Land Speeders or squads of the veteran bike-mounted warriors known as Black Knights.

This quote implies, to my mind anyway, that 2nd company Marines are assigned to a specific squadron, with a specific task, be it as a Speeder driver in a RSS, DJ plasma in a derp speeder, or an attack bike gunner in a RAS, rather than operating the motorpool method....

 

EDIT - remembering the way Gav Thorpe wrote about the RW in his last book, he also implied that a marine's role in the squadron was specified.... so that the hero of the tale, Brother Annael, is assigned the bike Black Shadow as his personal mount, and is part of Sergeant Cassiel's Attack Squadron......

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Gav Thorpe's Ravenwing, although being an obvious shill for all the new toys, implies that Sammael has a command squad/or a squad  and one more squad of Black Knights because he only has two huntsmasters along .   The number is also fexible because the Black Knights are de-facto members of the Deathwing circle because they have knowledge of the fallen....  other than the common RW trooper who just knows "Horus did it".

 

 

But we have gone horribly off topic...

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only 15 black knights? that seems a little too small for a pool of them, even if they are the elite.

I was trying to keep it to what we know, keeping the assumptions to a minimum. We know there are 15 BK, we don't know if there are any more. :)
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A Dark Angel FLEET of several capital ships "should" have more fighters so either the fluff facmanpob quotes about the fighter+speeder/bike ratio is inaccurate or the "Fleet" fighters are not part of the Ravenwing...

From what I remember of older fluff (and BFG), is that thunderhawks formed the mainstay of Space Marine fighter craft in space operations. So there would be far less need for a large amount of nephilim or dark talons.
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ohhhh okay, cool! just wondering!

I know, and I agree that 15 is a small number if the company size is a few hundred. I would have thought there could be 30+ BK myself, but until we get more info from either a codex supplement or the next Gav Thorpe novel, 15 is the minimum number.

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The only guys on bikes are definitely Ravenwing.

 

Captains, though, are known to dawn Terminator armor without actually being in First Company. Most of them had served in First Company at some point before being promoted to leading a chapter.

 

That's why you can take a Company Master in terminator armor, but cannot stick one on a bike. Damn shame you can't, too, because I would love to jam an artificer armored CM on a bike, give him a storm shield and let him ram things to death with a thunderhammer.

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To me, the question is not how the Ravenwing can put bodies in every seat they maintain, because as noted above marines of the Ravenwing have always been understood to be able to operate multiple machines as needed. The question for me is how the Ravenwing can keep tabs on a galaxy full of Fallen. I created a thread called "Ravenwing Reforged" a couple years ago where I reimagined the Ravenwing as a very large organization, spanning all the Unforgiven chapters, and ultimately of more than chapter-size itself, with Inquisition-style agents and Librarians spread across the galaxy.

 

Obviously just a mental exercise that has no bearing on "reality," but I think it highlights the challenge presented to us Dark Angel fans when GW decided to make the Ravenwing the primary Fallen hunters in the chapter. They've seemed to dial that back a bit in the latest codex, making it seem as though the Librarians are actually responsible for alerting the chapter to new Fallen, which I guess makes more sense. I still think the Dark Angels need an intelligence network, though.

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To me, the question is not how the Ravenwing can put bodies in every seat they maintain, because as noted above marines of the Ravenwing have always been understood to be able to operate multiple machines as needed. The question for me is how the Ravenwing can keep tabs on a galaxy full of Fallen. I created a thread called "Ravenwing Reforged" a couple years ago where I reimagined the Ravenwing as a very large organization, spanning all the Unforgiven chapters, and ultimately of more than chapter-size itself, with Inquisition-style agents and Librarians spread across the galaxy.

Obviously just a mental exercise that has no bearing on "reality," but I think it highlights the challenge presented to us Dark Angel fans when GW decided to make the Ravenwing the primary Fallen hunters in the chapter. They've seemed to dial that back a bit in the latest codex, making it seem as though the Librarians are actually responsible for alerting the chapter to new Fallen, which I guess makes more sense. I still think the Dark Angels need an intelligence network, though.

One of the reasons I ran some of the numbers was to imagine just how large the organisation could get if you then multiplied it by the number of successor chapters and assume that the Unforgiven still act as a Legion. If we said 400 brothers in 2nd Company, and said there were 10 successors, that would give a total of 4400 Ravenwing active in the 1st Legion...... and I think that 10 successors is a conservative estimate....

Imagine if the Deathwing was a similar size...... the equivalent of 4 space marine chapters of terminators biggrin.png

So is the old line from the 2nd Ed codex no longer valid...

It said something about every member of the RW was an expert rider, gunner and pilot. And that they could perform whatever role their commander required of them.

I wouldn't say so. When I was in the navy there were a whole host of different jobs I could do, but I was still assigned to a ship in a particular role. I imagine it is similar in the Ravenwing. Brother Bob gets assigned to Squadron Dib-Dob, and learns his trade as a gunner in an attack bike for a couple of years, before moving to a Support Squadron for a stint in the speeders. After a tour of duty in a speeder he gets reassigned back to an Attack Squadron, this time riding a bike..... etc etc.... Just because he may be able to fill lots of different roles doesn't mean he has to sit in a motorpool waiting for a job to come along. Assigning people to posts for a continued period of time promotes squad cohesion and increases the efficiency of the unit as they get to anticipate each other's actions smile.png
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I wouldn't say so. When I was in the navy there were a whole host of different jobs I could do, but I was still assigned to a ship in a particular role. I imagine it is similar in the Ravenwing. Brother Bob gets assigned to Squadron Dib-Dob, and learns his trade as a gunner in an attack bike for a couple of years, before moving to a Support Squadron for a stint in the speeders. After a tour of duty in a speeder he gets reassigned back to an Attack Squadron, this time riding a bike..... etc etc.... Just because he may be able to fill lots of different roles doesn't mean he has to sit in a motorpool waiting for a job to come along. Assigning people to posts for a continued period of time promotes squad cohesion and increases the efficiency of the unit as they get to anticipate each other's actions smile.png

This!

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