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Hello Dakkites, I was hoping you could answer me a question.

As a new Templars player, how would you suggest that I would run them. I have heard that loads of Neophytes works, but what else is there?

Thanks in advance.

Before reading my advice, I suggest you check out the latest Black Templars FAQ if you haven't: http://www.games-workshop.com/MEDIA_CustomProductCatalog/m1620223a_Black_Templars_Version_1_1.pdf

It changes quite a lot and makes us so much more awesome than we were before.


That said, I run mine shooty.


70 point land speeder typhoons, 5-man lasplas squads to hold home objectives, terminators with CMLs and tank hunters make up the core of the army. Add whatever you feel like to the rest.

(As a side note, what's up with all the Templars threads lately? This must be the fifth or sixth time in a month that I've given the same advice. Not that it's bad mind you! )

Firstly, Black Templars have the best potential for an all-drop pod army. Whereas other marine armies with drop pods are countered by reerving your entire army, thus guaranteeing that you get to attack the enemy first, since the Black Templars use the old 4th edition drop pod rules and roll for reserves as normal, this tactic is largely neutered. Another nice thing is the ability to put terminators in a drop pod.

Which brings me to my next point: Terminators. Assault Terminators with furious charge and lightning claws. 4 S5I5 reroll everything (thanks to AAC, NMTO and claws) on the charge per model, and it's power weapon attacks... mix in some TH/SS terminators and you've got anti-MC/walker/scary-IC stuff as well as the 3++ covered. Tactical terminators are AWESOME. With two CMLs per 5 termies, when combined with tank hunters, you get 4 effectively S9 krak missiles every turn. Or, you could put 5 terminators with tank hunters and 2 assault cannons in a drop pod and watch any armour you deep strike next to melt away. Anyhow, the thing with the CML terminators is that they're nigh impossible to lock down*. Either you assault them and kill them all, or you fail to kill them and they strike back with preferred enemy power/chain fists. Either way, you lose. If you kill them all, you get so much dakka up your bum next turn that your unit is toast or the terminators actually kill you in HTH.

Another possibility is to spam as many 20-man crusader squads as you can, the infamous "Black Tide" list. Chaplain Grimaldus is a must-have in this kind of list IMO, as he gives every unit within 6" fearless, meaning that you pass your Righteous Zeal tests automatically. The thing with Black Tide lists is that there isn't too many enemies that are prepared to kill 40+ MEQs with another 40+ meatshields running at them. Besides, if one of the neophytes die, you get your "Are we pissed? YES WE ARE!" roll, and will probably end up closer to the enemy. The thing you have to remember with this kind of list is that you need some serious ranged anti-tank capabilities to take out things like Eldar skimmers and the like, to give your tide something to smash.

Welcome to the Eternal Crusade sir! I hope you enjoy the army and are successful using it. To help facilitate the latter, I invite you to explore Implausible Nature. It will hopefully prove to be useful for you and might even answer all of your questions.

What you can do is look up army lists posted by other players or Threads related to them but play testing is the best idea

The following is cut and paste from another tread where the same question was asked.



Here is my list of The good stuff in the Black Templar book, in no particular order

1) Tactical Terminators. 5 guys, 2 TML, Tank hunters. this gives you a great shooting unit with 4 S9 shots against tanks, decent anti-infantry shooting power (10 bolter shots + 4 frag missles). You can move and shoot, have 2+ armor, and a decent counter attack if you need it.


2) Marshal. give him TDA, and 2x LC. you get a base of 3 attacks, then 1 more for your TDA, then another 1 for 2x LC, giving him a grand total of 5-6 attacks with re-roll to hit, and re-roll to wound at I5. Also, LD10 rites of battle is needed so you can pass your LD tests (both the priority tests for shooting and your morale tests as well)


3) Terminator command squad. Basically the same as the terminators, BUT they attach to your commander. They form a retinue so your commander does not need a pricey INV save. Again Tank hunters +2 guns, Assault Cannons might be a good choice here as you will be closer to the enemy, but a command squad has better combat power than the regular terminators.


4) Drop Pods. First off, your troops choices are not that great. Crusaders are decent, but not good enough to base an army around. You will want some of them to enter the game late and take objectives wherever they are on the board. Drop Pods are perfect for this. They are all in regular reserves, meaning there are fewer turn for the enemy to shoot your guys off of the table. Also, the deathwind is a great buy. It is cheap, it makes your pod a threat, AND it can fire on the turn it lands, helping your crusaders clear off an objective.


5) Another option for crusaders is the Las/Plas squad. 5 people, Lascanon, Plasma gun. It is cheap and perfect for holding a backfield objectives and taking a few pot shots at whatever they can see. If the enemy gets closer, unleash the plasma gun to whittle their numbers down, and you might beat them in combat as well.


6) Land Speeder Typhoons. 30 pts less than the space marine version, which is already considered a good deal. Fast enough to get side shots or to contest objectives, and you get either 2 S8 shots for tanks, or a Heavy bolter and 2 Frag shots when you move 12".


7) Bikes. 3 bikes, 3 power weapons. the FAQ made it so you keep the bolt pistol and gain a PW so each member has 3 attacks on the charge. Use these guys like assassins, Take out small squads, devastators, or weakened units and you will be very happy with them.


8) Vindicator, PotMS, Extra Armor. So you get a vindicator that can move 12" and shoot AND ignores shaken and stunned resuls, (stunned becomes shaken, you can still fire the one gun while shaken). It combines the best aspects of a Blood Angel and a Chaos Space marine Vindicator. it is a little pricey but I think it is worth it. Take at least 2 if you are taking them.


9) Predator, Auto-las, PotMS. This one is nice as you can stay still and fire 2x S7 shots at one target and 2x S9 shots at another. Also you can move 6" and still fire 2x S9 shots at two targets. If you have other anti-transports shooting, take the vindicator. if you need more anti-transport shooting, take the Predator.


=========================


The black Templar have a surprising amount of shooting power, that is then backed up by a strong counter assault. There are a few potential builds here.

1) Heavy Tank shooting. vindicators, Tyhoons, and small troops in Pod, your only HQ is the Champion and you add dreads in higher pt games. This list is harder to scale up, but your tanks do not need to test on their LD -1 to shoot at any target. All of your shooting is effective while on the move, so going all reserves is not a bad option. You do not need the Marshal for the LD buff, and your min troops will come in later and take objectives.

2) Heavy Infantry Shooting. Marshal, Terminator Command squad, Tactical Terminators, Las/plas crusaders, bikes. This time you have most of your shooting on you infantry units. The list is slower, but hits harder in combat, especially as you can weaken the enemy squads with shooting quite a bit. The bikes add a bit of speed and can take out any threats or units hiding near the back of the board. You will hold objectives close to you, and rely on your terminators and bikes to contest the objectives far from you.



As is the case you can field a mix of these two lists as well.


I do not like an aggressive close combat build for the Templar. for a few reasons.
1) Your crusaders have to pay for Frag and Krak grenades, you need these for an aggressive assault list, but not if you are mainly counter attacking.

2) You rely on Land Raiders to get across the board fast, but even though they are a bargain compared to Space Marine ones, it only takes a few melta shots to ruin your day.

3) The other option is big squads on foot. You are not orks, Your models are not cheap, not even the Neophites. You will be slow and shot to pieces.

4) Neophites DO NOT benefit from your re-rill to hit vow.

5) Most competitive lists are based around vehicles. You need to pop those transports and then eat the people inside of them.

Black Tide

svendrex wrote:
3) Terminator command squad. Basically the same as the terminators, BUT they attach to your commander. They form a retinue so your commander does not need a pricey INV save. Again Tank hunters +2 guns, Assault Cannons might be a good choice here as you will be closer to the enemy, but a command squad has better combat power than the regular terminators.

Dunno who you copypasted this from, but Black Templars command squads don't prevent any attatched IC from being singled out in CC... Besides, the storm shield is only 15 points anyway.

HQ + Command Squad = Retinue.

Page 22 in the Black Templar Codex

Black Templar Characters . . . can be used in one of three ways.

1. All may operate independently, joining and leaving units as described in the Warhammer 40k rulebook.

2. A commander or Chaplain may lead a command squad. The character is a member of that unit and may not leave it. If the squad is destroyed the character may operate independently.

3. Chaplains .... (does not matter as it does not apply here).

So you can see that you chose to Either be an IC and follow all of those rules, OR have a command squad and become a "Member" of that unit, and not an attached character. I would day that you would not follow any of the rules for ICs in this situation.

======

If you take the SS you can not take 2x LC. I like having both Claws as you get a lot of attacks at I5 which makes your command squad more formidable to assault. A commander with SS and LC is 10 pts. more expensive and has one less attack, but has an INV save. It is honestly a trade off, but I would go for the extra damage in combat over the save.

svendrex wrote:HQ + Command Squad = Retinue.

Page 22 in the Black Templar Codex

Black Templar Characters . . . can be used in one of three ways.

1. All may operate independently, joining and leaving units as described in the Warhammer 40k rulebook.

2. A commander or Chaplain may lead a command squad. The character is a member of that unit and may not leave it. If the squad is destroyed the character may operate independently.

3. Chaplains .... (does not matter as it does not apply here).

So you can see that you chose to Either be an IC and follow all of those rules, OR have a command squad and become a "Member" of that unit, and not an attached character. I would day that you would not follow any of the rules for ICs in this situation.

When lecturing someone, make sure you know what you're talking about. Page 22 states, below the three bullet points that you so graciously quoted, that: "A character who is leading or attatched to a squad does not stop being an independent character for the purpouses of close combat." In other words, no hiding from power fists.

I like how you strategically missed out on the last paragraph in the Black Templars Character rules:

"A character who is leading or attached to a squad does not stop being an independent character for the purposes of close combat."

Yes, that means command squads too. Because that is the only squad you can "lead".

I'm not a player of BT, but it's one of the armies I end up playing a LOT against.

The terminators (Lightning Claw with a couple of SS/TH) and Emperor's Champion are far the things I seem to have to dance around the most on the board.

The meat-shield scouts are also incredibly irritating - it means that even if you DO manage to pick off a few of their models, the good ones are going to smash face.

AlmightyWalrus wrote:

When lecturing someone, make sure you know what you're talking about. Page 22 states, below the three bullet points that you so graciously quoted, that: "A character who is leading or attatched to a squad does not stop being an independent character for the purpouses of close combat." In other words, no hiding from power fists.

My mistake. I apologize.


In that case, I would take a Power Weapon and a Storm Shield for a Terminator Marshal. You could go single LC but it seems to be a little pricey for me.

I guess that Rhino-rush is completely useless, along with the special characters.

Small, Far Away wrote:I guess that Rhino-rush is completely useless, along with the special characters.

Rhino rush can still work, and Grimaldus is decent in a Black Tide. Helbrecht lets you do the meltabomb drop pod.

Seconded most of the options above. There are a few things that we want to keep in mind tho.

Black templar bikes never came with a bolt pistol to begin with... so no extra attacks, I prefer them with cheap plasmas as a plasma MC suicide squad.

The tactical dreads are awesome... but I also like the POTMS dakkapreds they can split fire

Black Templar assault terminators with FUrious charge, and the new storm shields are the daddies of all close combat when they are unloaded from their crusader.

Marshal is a must... make all the squads ld 10 ? heck yes...

Rhinos are expensive, but as long as you mitigate their cost with the cheaper typhoons it balances itself out with other comparable marine lists.

Drop pods are a hidden gem. Making them reserves is always fun making the one dreadnought in a drop pod a fantastic reserve unit.

I am not a fan of the shooting done my any infantry because of the "kill them all" rule. This makes them unreliable as someone once said, whenever you roll dice, bad things happen.

Cheers!

Ahhh, so the Rhinos are viable.

I think I know roughly what I'm doing now. Cheers guys!

Rhino rush is still viable and fun, mostly because if you bust them out of their transports they cans till run at you at a decent clip.

You could even combine it with outflanking command squads for extra fun.

I'm thinking Rhino based mechy-stuff. Would this work?

Seconded most of the options above. There are a few things that we want to keep in mind tho.

Black templar bikes never came with a bolt pistol to begin with... so no extra attacks, I prefer them with cheap plasmas as a plasma MC suicide squad.

The tactical dreads are awesome... but I also like the POTMS dakkapreds they can split fire

Black Templar assault terminators with FUrious charge, and the new storm shields are the daddies of all close combat when they are unloaded from their crusader.

Marshal is a must... make all the squads ld 10 ? heck yes...

Rhinos are expensive, but as long as you mitigate their cost with the cheaper typhoons it balances itself out with other comparable marine lists.

Drop pods are a hidden gem. Making them reserves is always fun making the one dreadnought in a drop pod a fantastic reserve unit.

I am not a fan of the shooting done my any infantry because of the "kill them all" rule. This makes them unreliable as someone once said, whenever you roll dice, bad things happen.

Cheers!