I just wish it looked more like a company.

It's probably not a perfectly optimised list for competitive tournament play (a second Warhound would be a better choice than the second Tactical detachment), but it's not ridiculous.

Well, you don't have to deviate that far from that list to get an army that's built around a battle company
.

That the core of *ALL* Space Marine forces is regarded as a sub-optimal choice is something that does stand out like rotten fruit in buffet though.

At least it's taken out all the pressure from my own building/playing Space Marines. I'll just throw every game deliberately because I'd rather pick an army that fits fluff than something that ignores that and goes with winning as the goal.

Keep in mind that you can count the crew of land speeders as assault marines for working out your company allocation. So even if you don't have assault marines as a formation, they are still on the field in the speeder formation.

I read somewhere on here that it was 9th company devastators. I've never seen that in an official source though.

In addition, the Marines of the 6th and 7th Companies can also act as crews for large, independent formation of the various armoured vehicles deployed by the Chapter. Thus the Chapter is able to field entire companies of Land Raiders or Predator battle tanks, for example.

All Space Marines are ablke to act as crew for the vehicles maintained in each Chapter's armoury. It is normally the Tactical squads qhich provide vehicle crews. When fighting in this role they replace their normal tactical markings with crew badges, but otherwise they retain their company colours and Chapter insignia as normal.

Each Space Marine Chapter maintains a huge arsenal of special wargear which include variations on the basic Rhino and other armoured vehicles...The crews of these vehicles are drawn from the ranks of training and reserve units, and they bear special insignia in place of their usual tactical badges."

So in the fluff we have learned that the veteran and battle companies may use the reserve 6th and 7th companies as drivers and auxiliaries. But my question is still whether this was unusual or actually the norm; whether the battle companies and especially the 1st would always be deployed with a significant arsenal of additional 'war gear'; vehicles, other transport, heavy weapons teams etc. And what that would look like in E:A terms.