Blood Angels Primaris company and squad markings

[Parcival]

Hi everyone,

 

I am still confused about Primaris company and squad markings despite reading through the 8th Edition codex, Blood of Baal, and using the search function on Google in general and in this forum specifically.

 

My Blood Angels are painted with 4th Edition company and squad markings with the classic 10*10=100 structure for a battle company. So far, so good. What I don't get is the question how Guilliman added the Primaris to the chapters as I have no sources on these.

 

• Do the Primaris serve as extra companies in the Blood Angels chapter?
• Are the Primaris integrated into the existing companies?
• If integrated into existing companies, do the Primaris get the new squad markings numbers 11 to 12?
• Or may Primaris replace existing squads of regular Marines (e.g. after they died in battle)?

How do you guys solve this problem? Do you have any reliable sources?

[Panzer]

Primaris follow the exact same heraldry and structure as regular Marines. It doesn't matter whether the 10x10 in a company are Primaris or not.

 

The only exception are Vanguard Primaris which are either part of a regular company like the rest or are part of the standing force of the 10th.

[Xenith]

Primaris follow the exact same heraldry and structure as regular Marines. It doesn't matter whether the 10x10 in a company are Primaris or not.

 

The only exception are Vanguard Primaris which are either part of a regular company like the rest or are part of the standing force of the 10th.

 

I'll chime in here as I feel it isnt quite accurate.

 

Primaris act as any other squad, either battleline, close, or fire support.

 

Companies have expanded from being 10 squads of 5 - 10, up to 20 squads of 5 - 10, allowing for a company of 200. Normally the additional squads are taken from reserve companies, so an inceptor squad from the 8th company joining the 4th company would take the knee heraldry of the 11th squad.

 

It's basically a way to get people that already have 'complete' companies of 100 marines a way to add primaris to their armies. 

 

To answer your questions:

 

 

 

• Do the Primaris serve as extra companies in the Blood Angels chapter? - No
• Are the Primaris integrated into the existing companies? - Yes
• If integrated into existing companies, do the Primaris get the new squad markings numbers 11 to 12? If the primaris replace the former 5th squad, they get 5th squad markings. if a company was wiped out and reinforced with primaris, primaris marines get the normal company markings
• Or may Primaris replace existing squads of regular Marines (e.g. after they died in battle)? Yes, though primaris dont replace a tactical squad, they would replace a tactical squad with an intercessor squad. This is only a gameplay mechanic, I think there is literature out there with mixed squads. 

Edited April 10, 2020 by Xenith

[Sugarlessllama]

In the Vanilla Space Marine codex, it mentions that Primaris Marines were slotted into existing companies like regular replacements. The only exception being, that the Big G, added two additional "Battleline" squads to each company. Although in the BA codex, it seems that they still adhere to the standard 100 Astartes per company. 

 

So maybe, fluff-wise, the losses defending Baal from the tyranids were so great, that extra squads didn't need to be added in order to fit in the reinforcements?

[Xenith]

I think a company is still 100 men, but a strike force or whatever can be over that with reinforcement from reserve companies, which is where the 11-20 squad markings come in.

[Parcival]

I think a company is still 100 men, but a strike force or whatever can be over that with reinforcement from reserve companies, which is where the 11-20 squad markings come in.

Big thanks to everyone providing answers. After some more reading and also asking on other platforms I have come to the conclusion that it apparently is as Xenith says.

 

The regular marines I have are all painted in 1st and 2nd company and are already way beyond company strength, so I didn't want to slot my Primaris in there as well. However, while reading through my codices for the n^th time I realized that between the 7^th and 8^th edition codices, Erasmus Tycho got dropped from the list of active captains - which makes sense because of the fluff progression. Hence in my gaming universe I use the Primaris to rebuild the 3^rd company. And I am already aiming at a model that will hopefully be a worthy Tycho successor.