1st Company and Terminator Armour Ratio

[SM1981]

Does anyone have any idea how many suits of TDA the first company is supposed to have / the Chapter is supposed to have?

 

Obviously there are 100 marines in the company (at full strength), but how many of those are Vanguard and / or Sternguard?

 

I know VV are supposed to out number SV, but what about total ratios? Does 50 TDA, 30 VV, 20 SV sound about right?

[Damon Nightman]

For BAs the codex says somewhere, I believe that we field many terminators and not so many stern guard. Not sure where I saw that and does not help with specific numbers...

 

I think though if it's your own chapter, it's totally up to you. I think it would vary significantly depending chapter and there wouldn't really be a normal set amount for everyone.

 

I'd say your numbers would match closely to what the BAs would have in a full strength 1st company.

[Leonaides]

They are ALL vanguard or sternguard. Occasionally some of those squads are allowed to be issued with chapter relics from the first company chapel. Given its blood angels with a marked preference for close combat its probably something like a 70-30 split between vanguard-sternguard. As for terminator armour, they almost certainly have enough to put 70-80 marines into it though i cant remember if space hulk has numbers of squads involved?

[Charlo]

As a first founding chapter and originally a legion, we will have more than enough resources to fit the entire first company in TDA if the situation arises - or at least I'd like to think so.

[Paikis]

3rd edition Space Hulk says (pg42) "...nearly 100 Space Marines of which 80 were Terminators of the 1st Company..."

 

Also as per White Dwarf's 40k Compendium

"The bolter's magazine was tiny in comparison to Levi's power glove. but he had no trouble in sliding it home. There was a click and the bolter's catch held the magazine. Levi shook his head, working the helmet seals carefully into place. His suit was battered and scarred and badly in need of repainting. It wasn't even in the proper chapter colours, having come from the Ultramarines armory a generation before. Bare metal showed in several places. Levi, like many of the suits previous users, had refused to let the Techmarines repaint it. Every time it's Ultramarines colours had been hidden, the suits wearer had been killed. Levi maintained that the suit knew it was only borrowed, and even the techs had come to believe the same. They had given up trying to persuade him to have it repainted in the proper colours."

 

We have a suit of Ultramarine's Terminator armour.

 

Bare in mind I found this through google searches and I don't have any of the documents referenced.

[Dont-Be-Haten]

Fluff wise more than 100. The Archangels Strike formation allows 1HQ and 2 Elites which unlocks 1HQ and 14 elites you just can't field more than 10 squads of veterans or 6 furioso Dreadnoughts. So my interpretation is more than 100 suits of TDA.

[Canadian_F_H]

It's my understanding that all veterans of the 1st company of all codex compliant(ish) chapters are 100% vv or sv. They are issued tda as needed and a given chapter may or may not have sufficient suits for all 100 1st company veterans plus assorted officers who might also have tda.

 

So basically tactical terminators are stern guard vets and assault terminators are vanguard veterans.

 

Ps. I'd assume that the ba have enough terminator armour for the entire company plus some officer spares at most points in the laSt 10 millenia . The whole having excellent artificers lends to them being good at maintaining the suits.

[Lucien Eilam]

The Blood Angels 1st Company has ~80 suits at the start of the Sin of Damnation campaign. They'd lost 40+ suits ~600 years earlier in the Disaster at Secoris. Replacing relics isn't going to get any easier, so I very much doubt they have anything like 100 in 999.M41.
 
Even the Ultramarines only have 76 suits, and it's supposed to be a huge deal that the Unforgiven are capable of equipping their 1st Companies entirely with Terminator armour. 100+ suits for any other Chapter would be extremely unusual.

[Xenith]

 it's supposed to be a huge deal that the Unforgiven are capable of equipping their 1st Companies entirely with Terminator armour. 100+ suits for any other Chapter would be extremely unusual.

 

Hmm. Maybe it's the Dark Angels that keep guiding Space Hulks into other Chapters space, then they go in afterwards and loot the TDA...

[NTaW]

Fluff wise more than 100. The Archangels Strike formation allows 1HQ and 2 Elites which unlocks 1HQ and 14 elites you just can't field more than 10 squads of veterans or 6 furioso Dreadnoughts. So my interpretation is more than 100 suits of TDA.

 

Those could be 5 man squads (how they are pretty much exclusively sold, marketed, and shown) making for 50 suits.

 

OP, our Codex simply says we have "100 Veterans" in the 1st Company. Pretty sure you only get to the 1st Company if you're exceptionally proficient in every aspect of warfare so I have a feeling that they all are able to swap between roles depending on the battle situation. As Don't-Be-Haten pointed out we can field in-game 10 squads of Sternguard, Vanguard, or Terminators of either brand so it's hard to nail down a specific number.

[Quixus]

Those could be 5 man squads (how they are pretty much exclusively sold, marketed, and shown) making for 50 suits.

They could be, but they do not have to be. So a hundred suits must be avialable unless there is some text saying that there aren't or there is a rule that all squads may not be maximized.

[Xenith]

I believe the Blood Angels Traditionally have 10 stand by units of 5 suits of TDA each. They bear the names:

 

Redemptor, Invictor, Avengor, Damnator, Venator, Vindictor, Destructor, Vexator, Signator, and Praetor instead of using the sergeants name for the unit designation.

 

This would mean there are around 50 suits of armour in active use by veterans at any one time, with other suits reserved for captains and other HQ staff.

 

It might be the case that specific marines are seconded to a terminator unit, which may be comprised of different veterans than their standard van/sternguard unit. 

[Arkangilos]

 

Those could be 5 man squads (how they are pretty much exclusively sold, marketed, and shown) making for 50 suits.

They could be, but they do not have to be. So a hundred suits must be avialable unless there is some text saying that there aren't or there is a rule that all squads may not be maximized.

Because we know that rules = fluff, right? ;)

[Quixus]

Those could be 5 man squads (how they are pretty much exclusively sold, marketed, and shown) making for 50 suits.

They could be, but they do not have to be. So a hundred suits must be avialable unless there is some text saying that there aren't or there is a rule that all squads may not be maximized.

Because we know that rules = fluff, right?

Does the fluff actually say the Blood Angels do not have enough suits to equip the whole 1st company with TDA?

[SM1981]

I believe the Blood Angels Traditionally have 10 stand by units of 5 suits of TDA each. They bear the names:

Redemptor, Invictor, Avengor, Damnator, Venator, Vindictor, Destructor, Vexator, Signator, and Praetor instead of using the sergeants name for the unit designation.

This would mean there are around 50 suits of armour in active use by veterans at any one time, with other suits reserved for captains and other HQ staff.

It might be the case that specific marines are seconded to a terminator unit, which may be comprised of different veterans than their standard van/sternguard unit.

Xenith - That is great info, cheers!

 

Out of interest, where did you garner that detail from, I'd love to do some more reading around the first company.

[NTaW]

More ambiguity from the Codex from the standard Terminator datasheet:

 

 pg. 74 BA Codex:
Each suit of Terminator armour is a relic of the Chapter, bestowed only upon the finest veterans of the 1st Company.

 

 

Which seems like we're free to think of either:

 

a ) the veterans of the 1st Co. are the finest of all Blood Angels and as such are all bestowed TDA (at least 100 suits)

b ) only the finest of the 1st Co. are allowed access to TDA (less than 100 suits)

 

Personally I ascribe to the second interpretation.

[Lucien Eilam]

Out of interest, where did you garner that detail from, I'd love to do some more reading around the first company.

 

Those are the 10 named Terminator squads from Codex Angels of Death (the 2nd edition Blood Angels/Dark Angels book, not the recent Codex Space Marines supplement), when Blood Angels Terminator squads were fixed at 5 men.

[Xenith]

 

Does the fluff actually say the Blood Angels do not have enough suits to equip the whole 1st company with TDA?

 

The point was that it is unusual that the DA have enough suits for all their 1st co, implying that most chapters do not have 100 suits.

[JeffJedi]

I can confirm that I have personally looted Space Hulk for Blood Angels Terminator Armor and converted them to Deathwing.

[Canadian_F_H]

 

 

 

Does the fluff actually say the Blood Angels do not have enough suits to equip the whole 1st company with TDA?

The point was that it is unusual that the DA have enough suits for all their 1st co, implying that most chapters do not have 100 suits.

Well even if all loyal 1st founding chapters had 100 suits of tda that would still be less than 1% of all chapters at any given time... so "most" doesn't tell us much

[Arkangilos]

To be fair, the thing with the DA isn't necessarily that they are the only ones that have a full set of over 100 suits, it's that they are the only ones that *only* field all 100 suits.

[Quixus]

 

 

Does the fluff actually say the Blood Angels do not have enough suits to equip the whole 1st company with TDA?

 

The point was that it is unusual that the DA have enough suits for all their 1st co, implying that most chapters do not have 100 suits.

 

I cannot find such a statement in the most recent DA codex.

 

To be fair, the thing with the DA isn't necessarily that they are the only ones that have a full set of over 100 suits, it's that they are the only ones that *only* field all 100 suits.

Not quite. The Deathwing, contrary to the 1st companies (i.e. veteran companies) of other chapters, only fight in TDA. Other 1st Co veterans use PA and TDA, but due the different structure of the DA the chapter has veterans in the other companies as well, who fight (only) in PA.

[Dont-Be-Haten]

I feel like the rules reflect the narrative of 40k. In Exterminatus it specifically states that the formation allows you to only have 10 squads in any combination with no further restrictions, as well as up to 2 HQs in TDA. Which if I wanted to field 100+ TDAs I could. Thus leaving to interpretation that they could legitimately have more than 100 suits of TDA at the later parts of the 41st millennium.

[Arkangilos]

 

 

 

 

 

Does the fluff actually say the Blood Angels do not have enough suits to equip the whole 1st company with TDA?

The point was that it is unusual that the DA have enough suits for all their 1st co, implying that most chapters do not have 100 suits.

I cannot find such a statement in the most recent DA codex.

To be fair, the thing with the DA isn't necessarily that they are the only ones that have a full set of over 100 suits, it's that they are the only ones that *only* field all 100 suits.

Not quite. The Deathwing, contrary to the 1st companies (i.e. veteran companies) of other chapters, only fight in TDA. Other 1st Co veterans use PA and TDA, but due the different structure of the DA the chapter has veterans in the other companies as well, who fight (only) in PA.

Isn't that what I said?

 

Well it's what I meant, lol. The *only* meant that they fielded only those.

[Xenith]

 

 

 

Does the fluff actually say the Blood Angels do not have enough suits to equip the whole 1st company with TDA?

 

The point was that it is unusual that the DA have enough suits for all their 1st co, implying that most chapters do not have 100 suits.

 

I cannot find such a statement in the most recent DA codex.

 

The "Deathwing" section is the place to look: It's on page 20 of the interactive edition.

 

"The Deathwing are the Dark Angels 1st company. Unlike the elite battle brothers of other chapters, the fight exclusively in terminator armour. That the Dark Angels can equip all of their veterans this way speaks volumes of the wealth of relics hidden deep within the rock"

 

Emphasis mine. The Deathwing Structure Chart on the following page also shows that the company consists of 20 Terminator Squads.

 

As of this (and I guess last edition) Knights are separate to this, so in addition to the 100 suits for regular veterans, there are 15 suits for 3x knight houses, Librarians and Chaplains is plural, so minimum 2x suits for each branch, and then one for Belial. As of 7th Ed, the Dark Angels can field 120 suits of TDA simultaneously.