Battle Demi-Company Formation: a rant and some questions…

Okay first off I'll get my rant out of the way:

Personally, I think formations are investor driven cash grabs and nothing more. GW is well aware that a lot of gamers apparently want an 'I WIN' button and many are all to happy to buy into the new winning bandwagon if it is presented to them. Why field a C.A.D. list when you can have a formation (or two) which will blow the other player off of the table due to the *free* rules incentives?

A complete lack of even acknowledging game balance is why GW insist that 40k is a narrative game. The forged narrative being spend more = win more (with the ultimate winners being their investors). Its like the Ferengi are now writing the rules.

Floyd Uberson of the Angry Marines HATES the fucking Ferengi!!!

Moving on…

The other day I was perusing my new Spess Mahreen PDF which was made available to me via our Russian friends on the internet. The hacked iPad interactive PDF was free-to-me BUT, in order to make that possible, the process turns the hyperlinks and drop downs into nothing more than blue type, limiting the PDF's usefulness considerably. Unfortunately I'm poor so beggars can't be choosers (and anything useful for Noble-Knight Trade-in credit has already been used as such).  At least I can build army lists with it which brings me to the following questions…

Starting off in an act of COMPLETE hypocrisy (when considered with the above rant and why not? GW retcons their code of conduct all the time, so why shouldn't their customers?) I was looking at the Battle Demi-Company Formation and realized that I can actually field that with the remnants of my Storm Wardens army. Well, I think so anyways. As such, I'll be looking at the formation based on what I have left of my army and without adding in any future purchases.

First up, I don't see anything that says I can't use the minimum squad sizes. If that's the case them my half-company is more like a quarter company, but it's still legal, right?

Also what if I want to use a Techmarine? Can I do that, and if so as what? An ally to his own army? (lame) Putting him in the list by himself (as he's not in the formation) feels like the army would instantly go unbound (and unbound armies are about as frequently played around here as WHFB is).

Techmarine aside, the same question stands for my Predator tank. Can I just tack that onto the formation too? Or do I have to buy a bunch of crap to make a legal CAD (or other formation) for allies in which to be able to use either of the two? If that's the case, then I'll just sell 'em (well, not the Techmarine, he'll stick around as I love the mini) as I can't afford to buy more stuff in order to use it, and as mentioned above, formations are apparently what 40k is all about these days.

Lastly the formation lists 0-1 unit of Dreadnoughts. Are the dreadnoughts in a squadron then? Or do they deploy as one and then wander off to do their own thing after that (which, considering their wildly different weapons fits, would be appropriate).

All told, using what I have left of the Storm Wardens, and using this formation my army would clock in at approximately 750 points (techmarine and predator excluded). Given that the average game is played at the 1500 point minimum most of the time (but often more), I wonder if I should even worry about any of this at all, or rather just sell off the whole lot (again, minus the techmarine).

That or fuck it, I'll just run a standard CAD as usual and just be behind the 8-ball since the CAD gives no free rules (because I didn't spend any $$$).