Boarding Assault Squads and Codex Companies

[Brother Casman]

Hey all, I'd like to pick your brains a bit. Forgeworld's Boarding Assault upgrade got me thinking about having a dedicated squad (or maybe two) of dudes in my army (mostly for fluff reasons, I'll admit). What I'm curious about is: how would you mark their heraldry/uniforms in a Codex-adherent fighting force?

 

My initial thought was that these gents would be pulled from a Reserve Company - probably the 8th/Assault Reserve, given the whole "boarding assault" name, but I could see an argument for pulling them from the 9th/Devastator Company, since these are also referred to as Siege Mantlets, and in my mind, the Devastator Reserve would be the first on the line for a siege force. Would you agree? Or should these lads come from a Battle or Veteran Company? Or are they something else?

[Biscuittzz]

If they are boarding assault units i.e. for fleet actions, you could argue a lot of them would be drawn from the Master of the Fleet's own company? I don't know what that one is to hand.

[Brother Casman]

Ooh, good point - that'd be the 4th Battle Company, I believe. Possibly an alternate load-out for the Assault element of the battle company, since jump packs would likely be less useful during a boarding action.

[Toxichobbit]

3rd Company is the Siege Company in a Codex Chapter and the Master of the Arsenal is also the Chapter's Siege Master. So if you're using them as siege mantlets they'd most likely be from the 3rd Company. In addition, siege mantlets are used by Tactical Squads, so any squads using them would traditionally be 3rd Company Tacticals.

 

That said, I'd imagine any Astartes vessel would have siege mantlets/boarding shields for use during boarding actions and ship defense, while all Astartes will be trained in their use. So they could be modelled as any squad type from any company.

[Brother Casman]

All great points, Toxichobbit, thanks!

[Brother Tyler]

Ship-to-ship warfare is one of the defining roles of the Adeptus Astartes (along with planetary assaults). I'd see this as a role that pretty much any Adeptus Astartes (minus scouts) would be trained to perform.

 

I wouldn't put this on the shoulders of the Master of the Fleet's company. Their role (serving under his role) is more the operation of the fleet - both the basics of the ships and the tactics of fleet actions (rather than interpersonal ship boarding actions). They're just as capable as anyone else in boarding actions, and probably in coordinating the tactics of boarding actions (offensively and defensively), but they wouldn't be the specialists in the nitty gritty of boarding actions.

 

Siege warfare and boarding actions are very different things. There are certainly some areas of overlap, but there are distinct differences between the two, not least starting with the operational maneuver - a static defensive position in the case of siege warfare and dynamic reactive opponents in the case of a boarding action (likelihood of one or both being "dead in the water" at some point notwithstanding). It's like comparing a classic land-based siege with naval warfare in the Age of Sail. I wouldn't put this on as a specialism of the Master of the Arsenal's company, either.

 

If anyone "specializes" in this role more so than any other, I would bet it is the 8th (Assault Reserve) Company. I doubt that they have a monopoly in this, though, and the capabilities are relatively equal (and to a high level of competence) across the Chapter. If there are any "specialists," whether the 8th Company, 3rd Company, 4th Company, or someone else, they are probably only "better" by being slightly more prepared to conduct these types of operations than the rest of their battle-brothers. Slightly.

[Marshal Rohr]

It’s just a tactical squad with shields, it’s partner is the assault squads on foot with combat shields.

[Brother Casman]

I was hoping one of our resident lore-masters would weigh in, thanks for your insights, Brother Tyler.

 

To expand on my thoughts: I'm currently working on the 4th Company for my Blood Ravens, and I want to add supporting elements from other companies, using a wide variety of GW's and FW's models. Lore-wise, I was thinking that, assuming we follow the progression of Scout Company -> Devastator Reserve -> Assault Reserve, the first time a Marine would get to participate in/be trained in boarding actions would likely be when they're in the 8th Company. That said, I wasn't wholly sure if that fit, so I wanted to see if there were any "guidelines" in books that I missed out on. I did figure that, technically, boarding assault parties would be drawn from whoever is available, and given how Marine training works, that'd be perfectly fine, but I did want to expand my forces a little bit.

 

Thanks for the help folks!

[Wolf Lord Loki]

Did forge world ever release 8th Ed rules for seige mantel let's?

[Brother Tyler]

No, but it shouldn't be difficult to develop rules by comparing them with similar wargear (storm shields), then looking at how that wargear works in 8th edition.