Standard squad member info?

[Penitent]

So how much better do the regular squad members get as they level up? Their armour gets better visually, but their weapons look the same. Also the squad members for Avitus keep their basic armour all the way through the CR campaign for me and they don't seem to do much damage, so I'm suspecting their heavy bolters don't level up enough (or at all) to keep up.

Also, how do the veteran squad members compare to the regular guys? Thaddeus squad can upgrade to Vanguard veterans, whereas Tarkus can upgrade his squad to first company veterans as well as Sternguard, what buffs do these provide? Thanks.

[konfeta]

Veteran squadmates are awesome, (Teddybear's Powerfist using one even stuns vehicles!), I can tell you that much.

Regular, not so much. Basically suck ass unless they are Teddybear's Terminators. Avitus regular team-mates are mostly useful for suppression when he uses a non-Heavy Bolter.

[Arbit]

Tarkus' buddies get plasma guns when you get the veteran trait. If Tarkus himself is using a good plasma gun, they provide a decent amount of antivehicle umph.

[Penitent]

I know all of that, I'm hoping for something more in-depth. I don't see any useful info anywhere, I guess people only care about the sergeants?

I find playing through the game to be horridly dull, spamming special abilities on sergeants to do everything. So I play on standard and make a challenge out of getting to the end of each mission with most of the marines alive (not helped by retarded boss fights, I don't even like this game much tbh), which is why I'm interested in their stats.