Chapter Organization Critique (Pre - DIY Submission)

[VengefulJan]

Just asking for some feedback and assistance with the number crunching and composition with a draft of my Chapter (War Angels) layout. This is for my Chapter of American WWII marines, if anyone's asking. Questions, Comments, Concerns, and Suggestions are welcome.

 

Currently, I have a remainder of 3 marines according to my math (thought miscalculations may have occurred) so assistance with covering all positions/chapter roles while hitting the 1000 mark would be appreciated.

 

1x Chapter Command

 

1x Master General

8x Honor Guard

1x Chapter Champion

1x Chapter Standard Bearer (Chapter Ancient)

 

1x Reclusiarch

 

1x Chief Apothecary

 

1x Chief Librarian

1x Epistolary

 

1x Master of the Forge

2x Techmarines

1x Venerable Dreadnought

 

4x Battle Company Composition

 

1x Company Captain

1x Company Chaplain

1x Senior Apothecary

2x Librarians

1x Standard Bearer (Company Ancient)

2x Company Veterans

1x Razorback Command Vehicle, 2x Crew each

 

4x Platoon Lieutenants

6x Tactical Squads, 10x Marines each

3x Devastator Squads, 10x Marines each

3x Assault Squads, 10x Marines each

9x Junior  Apothecaries

9x Rhino Transports, 1x Crew each

 

Minimum

2x Scout Platoons, 10x Scouts each

4x Landspeeder Storms

 

3x Support Company Composition

 

1x Company Captain

3x Techmarines w/Thunderfire Cannons

 

1x Platoon Lieutenant

3x Tactical Squads, 10x Marines each

1x Veteran Squad, 10x Veterans each

 

1x Sternguard Squad, 10x Veterans each &

1x Vanguard Squad, 10x Veterans each &

3x Dreadnoughts

or 

2x Terminator Squad, 10x Veterans each &

1x Terminator Librarian &

3x Ironclad Dreadnoughts

 

6x Predator Tanks, 3x Crew each

2x Vindicators, 2x Crew each

2x Land Raiders, 2x Crew each

3x Thunderhawk Gunships, 4x Crew each

2x Thunderhawk Transporters, 3x Crew each

3x Stormraven Gunships, 1x Crew each

12x Stormhawk Interceptors, 1x Crew each

 

Minimum

3x Scout Squads, 10x Scouts each

 

- The 1st Company has been relegated to a standard Battle Company and does not contain the majority of the Chapter's Veterans.

 

- Companies 1-4 are relegated to the position of Battle Companies and each harbor an additional 10 Assault Marines and 10 Devastator Marines for a total of 120 Battle Brothers per Battle Company (not including Command or Support Personnel).

 

- Companies 5-7 have now been relegated to the designations as Support Companies and serve the purpose of harboring support units and reserves for a Battle Company, maintaining a complement of infantry, veterans, heavy support vehicles, and aerial support vehicles.

 

- The 7th Company maintain the Chapter's Terminator Veterans.

 

- The Scout Company is not allocated a number, but is established to hold organization of all the Chapter's Scout Squads as per usual of a Codex Scout Company.*

 

- Within standard Company structure, 3 Tactical/Assault/Devastator Squads are organized into a Platoon and are organized by a Lieutenant**. The duties and responsibilities of a Lieutenant is command and organize his platoon in smaller scale operations on the battlefield.

 

*Not all Scout squads are listed within the Battle and Support Companies, as the Scout Company is based on the Chapter's Fortress Monastery, training until they are deemed ready to fight alongside their Seniors in battle.

 

**These are not Primaris Lieutenants, just an additional title/rank within the command structure.

 

EDIT:  - Reduced Junior Apocs to 9 per Battle Company after realizing reconfirming that they cannot take jump packs.

          - Corrected more typos and implemented Lieutenants into the roster.

[Hrvat]

I am counting 873 full Marines and 172 Neophytes or 887 and 158 depending how you count the Scout Sergeants, so you are over 1000 marines one way or another. :) 

[VengefulJan]

Checking the math on that. Are you counting each Neophyte as a Marine, cause they count towards the Chapter's 1000 Marine limit, save the Sergeants.

[Claws and Effect]

I've always heard it told that the commanders and specialist ranks (Techmarines, Librarians, Chaplains, etc.) Are not counted when adding up the number of Marines in a chapter.

 

If you look at a standard codex chapter, you can see that each company is 10 squads of 10. But each company also has a Librarian, a Chaplain, and a Captain attached for a minimum of 103.

 

If they counted all those ranks toward the 1,000, you would find that every chapter has gone over if they are codex compliant.

[Doctor Perils]

You seem to have a large amount of specialists

 

Tbh, I think you're going into too much detail. The 1000 marines is only the "line soldiers" and is more of a guide line then a hard rule - after all, the codex scout company hasn't got a fixed size.

 

What's more important than the *exact* composition of the chapter is *why* they have a different composition

[Olis]

As Lord Thørn has said, the minutiae probably don't matter too much. But I'd wager most of us have done this at one point or another, so I can't fault you on doing something that comes naturally to everyone. My main question would be why your Chapter includes lieutenants as a matter of course. What does this additional rank do that traditional sergeants and captains couldn't do already?

[VengefulJan]

This is just something that I like to do, gives myself a foundation to work off of in terms of how I want write out their fluff. It's a tool at the very least.

 

In terms of the additional rank, the idea was that Lieutenants would be in charge of utilizing the squad to the best of it's abilities on their designated objective. The Sergeant, the go-to second, would be responsible for overviewing and rallying the squad so that they are optimal with their abilities; one looks outward, one looks in.

 

It's also very helpful for when the Squad breaks into Combat Squads with a Sergeant leading one and a Lieutenant leading the other (makes it easier to count on the table too).

[Olis]

Not to be a stickler for detail but... isn't running a squad with an NCO and an officer kinda inefficient? At the moment you're adding an extra officer to do half the job a sergeant already does. If you're going to keep the lieutenant as a rank, I'd suggest doing something else with them. Perhaps overseeing three squads, rather than one?

[Wargamer]

I'm confused why you use "brigade" so often. Companies are called companies for a reason.

 

If you want real structural organisation, your Chapter Master would be a brigadier. There would then be two battalions each with a lieutenant-colonel, and each battalion would be divided into companies as normal.

[VengefulJan]

That is something similar to what I had before where I had one officer oversee a "platoon" of marines. But how would you have that play out on table top? Would it be that the sole Lieutenant is imbedded within 1 squad, or would he be and independent character, in which case, what character unit could I use that isn't the Space Marine Captain statline?

[VengefulJan]

I'm confused why you use "brigade" so often. Companies are called companies for a reason.

 

If you want real structural organisation, your Chapter Master would be a brigadier. There would then be two battalions each with a lieutenant-colonel, and each battalion would be divided into companies as normal.

 

Brigade was a typo from the previous fluff that I created years ago. I'm rewriting a lot of the fluff and organization for Chapter cause I realize that a lot of the ideas that I made by myself were bad ideas.

[Olis]

That is something similar to what I had before where I had one officer oversee a "platoon" of marines. But how would you have that play out on table top? Would it be that the sole Lieutenant is imbedded within 1 squad, or would he be and independent character, in which case, what character unit could I use that isn't the Space Marine Captain statline?

 

In fairness, I don't factor in tabletop representation. Fluff first, crunch later.

 

As for finding a representation, there's not much to choose from, to be fair. Not like in older editions when there was three gradations of 'hero' unit. Perhaps you could appropriate a Chaplain's stats?

[VengefulJan]

I like to have to fluff and the tabletop work together hand in hand; if I say that my chapter has these units, then they have those units. It's the way I like to enjoy the hobby.

 

Also, I specified captain specifically because I didn't know if there was any other potential units that I could use instead, as the captain seemed like the obvoius go to choice, I just need to hold back on upgrades is all. I'm trying to cover all my bases.

 

Thanks for the suggestion btw

[Wargamer]

Okay, so with regard to some of the new ranks, you need to consider what advantage that role gives. The squad lieutenant, for example, adds absolutely nothing to the squad. You already have one man in charge of the unit, and he will almost certainly already have a corporal / second who can also act as a sergeant if needs be.

 

The whole idea of officers is to look at the bigger picture, not the fine detail. I think that is what's missing here.

 

This is obviously oversimplified, but I see it working as follows:

The Chapter Master tells 2nd Company to secure the Prometheum Refinery.

The Captain tells his squads to secure the Refinery by destroying objectives A, B and C.
The Sergeants direct their men on how to destroy their allocated objective.

 

Now in this structure there is a need for a Lieutenant - and that's the officer on the ground keeping an eye on each specific objective.

 

So here's two ideas on how to work the lieutenant into the Chapter; either each Company has one lieutenant who acts as a support for the Captain (gamewise, he's the sergeant of the Command Squad), or a Company has 1-3 Lieutenants who lead squads of their own like Sergeants do, but also have higher command roles and are responsible for directing front-line combat so the Captain can stand back and keep an eye on the bigger picture.

This also makes a lot of sense given that in 40K, officers often lead from the front. If the Captain goes down it makes sense to have Lieutenants who everyone recognises as the next in line. :cuss hits the fan, Lieutenant Crassus of Alpha Squad is now acting-captain.

[Black Cohort]

I could see each company having 2 lieutenants, but one per squad is unnecessary in my opinion. Space marines are highly trained so if anything need less officers than normal troop.

[Lysimachus]

I think generally in the fluff if a Company needs to be split up to different battle zones, then one of the Sgts (either the Command squad sgt or even Tactical squad leader) will be plenty experienced enough to lead 3 or 4 squads without supervision. If the Company is fighting all together then having an extra level of command is pretty much redundant, as a Captain is totally capable of coordinating 10 squad Sgts without help.

 

I guess if I really wanted to include Lt.s, I'd make it a simple rename of the Command Squad/First Sgt to differentiate him from the other regular Sgts?

[VengefulJan]

I agree with the idea of 1 additional officer per squad is overkill, so I've reduced them to simply 1 every 3 squads as an independent character (like Primaris Lieutenants) utilizing Captain stats. Fluff wise, their whole purpose would be to organize smaller compositions of units for smaller operations on the battlefield.

 

Also, redundant, yes, but good militaries have multiple redundancies.