Most of you will be aware of the discussion about how best to arrange formations under the new platinum rules, all the details of which can be found here:
http://www.tacticalwargames.net/taccmd/viewtopic.php?f=146&t=27149
Since I am working with marines to start with I thought I would throw out a few early layouts and see what peoples thoughts are. I think there are two ways of doing this and it depends on how far down the rabbit hole people want to go when it comes to building their armies.
So first up I will be starting with a Battle Company and give a background on how they are expected to be arranged in the world of 40k.
Each company has roughly 100 Space Marines plus support staff (except the Scout Company which has no pre-determined number of warriors or squads).
Battle Companies have 6 10-man Tactical Squads, 2 10-man Assault Squads, and 2 10-man Devastator Squads.
The Devastator Squads can be deployed as Devastator Marines or Centurions.
The Assault Squads can be deployed as Assault Marines, Centurions, Bike Squadrons or Land Speeder Squadrons.
All the squads often use Rhino or Razorback transports. Each of the main Battle Companies have four Dreadnoughts available to them.
So at its basic level a Battle Company Formation I would expect to look something like this:
Attachment:
BC New Formation.JPG [ 70.32 KiB | Viewed 3409 times ]
This keeps everything everything simple, but forgoes the various options the Devastator and Assault marines have.
If we want to have a true representation of the options available for a Battle Company, then we should be looking at something like this.
Attachment:
BC New Formation Alt.JPG [ 135.77 KiB | Viewed 3406 times ]
Obviously there is a lot there to work out to get to the final points tally of your company, but it is more true to the fluff since the 20 Assault and Devastator marines have several deployment options available to them. It also means you have to take a lot of bikes or land speeders if you don't go for an Assault detachment as 2 stands of Assault marines equals 5 bike or speeder stands given the normal basing convention of 2 bikes or 1 speeder to a base.
Centurions are a bit up in the air at the moment (since we don't have any models) but they normally roam around in groups of 3, so 6 stands of 3 is close enough to the 20 men you have in the Devastator detachment. That isn't to say we shouldn't form them like terminators (though they are slightly bigger) and stick with 5 on a stand, but then fluff demon in me doesn't like that as it would imply 5 could ride in a land raider and 40k rules only allow 3 to fit
And just for completeness, here is how the traditional Battle Company would look in the new set up:
Attachment:
BC Classic Formation.JPG [ 69.55 KiB | Viewed 3409 times ]
As much as I want the Battle Company with all the options, I just think it would be to much and think the simple version is the best route to go, with bikes, speeders and the rest just taken as support.
Thoughts?
Matt
