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Do Black Templars offer a sizeabe amount of tactical gameplay?
It's a bit of a stupid question, as their whole premise is that of fanatic space zealots, but I'm sure they offer some strategic depth.
I don't want to start an army that will cause 90% of games to degrade into melee slugfests. Meatgrinders is probably a more fluff friendly word, but..

So: Can I start a BT army and still expect some good strategy down the road?
Thanks.

The only strategy you will need is run as fast as you can into the enemy. Sounds simple, but thats all they need to do.

40kTactics wrote:Do Black Templars offer a sizeabe amount of tactical gameplay?
It's a bit of a stupid question, as their whole premise is that of fanatic space zealots, but I'm sure they offer some strategic depth.
I don't want to start an army that will cause 90% of games to degrade into melee slugfests. Meatgrinders is probably a more fluff friendly word, but..

So: Can I start a BT army and still expect some good strategy down the road?
Thanks.

Black Templars are in a sort of weird tactical void right now. They got some major changes in the last FAQ/Errata, which meant that the old "run into melee" strategies were no longer the only way to play BTs. Now they've got a reasonable amount of good shooting from PotMS Vindis and cheap Typhoon Speeders (my personal favorite), as well better elite close combat units (aka their dead 'ard Assault terminators). However, they're basically still a close-combat army that happens to have some really good ranged options due to the Errata.

With that in mind, you're probably going to find more strategic options with your Templars now than you could pre-FAQ, although in many ways they underperform compared to newer marine codices. They have always been a "huge mob of space marines running straight into combat" type of army, but with the rise of mechanization and fast, powerful anti-infantry options, it's often very hard to play a satisfying game using their old tactics.

I guess all in all, I'm saying they have some tactical diversity (which you need to use skillfully in order to win), but if you're looking for some real depth, they're actually pretty limited - even compared to "point-and-click" marine armies like BA, GK, and SW.

As much as BA.
There is.

Yes they do! I know a bloke who plays BT, he just lays down an army consisting of entirely infantry with little long range support. Of course most experienced opponents facing him the first time think it will be a walk in the park. But by running the units forward and taking chaplains to control righteous zeal moves, he just stays right on top of you from turn 2, so unless you have enormous shooting or an even better close combat army (of which there aren't that many, BT vows are pretty boss) it is very hard to beat him.

That said, BT just don't have the numbers behind their units that more modern SM books (especially BA and SW) do, so some battles might be a bit harder.

They really excel at shooting now due to the FAQ.

I both BT and BA and I think that with certain builds BT can out shoot my BA mech army.

Ive played Black templars for something like 6 years now and started playing them as the huge black blob of marines running at you, now if you play templar right you can put out almost as many rocket launcher shots as some of the best armys and still have a death star unit with assault terminator in a LRC. Also I find them fun to play, like my IG are good but they dont have the same feel as my templar. You can play templar like orks or nids some times.

They are still a strong Army and can choose to shoot or get in close (or both) so strategy wise they have a lot of options. Problem is that for all their options, the points to field them aren't terribly efficient. now that's not to say they aren't a good army; they are still a decently competitive group, just against SW or BA you can end up facing about the same list and having him be around 100 points below you.

40kTactics wrote:Do Black Templars offer a sizeabe amount of tactical gameplay?
It's a bit of a stupid question, as their whole premise is that of fanatic space zealots, but I'm sure they offer some strategic depth.
I don't want to start an army that will cause 90% of games to degrade into melee slugfests. Meatgrinders is probably a more fluff friendly word, but..

So: Can I start a BT army and still expect some good strategy down the road?
Thanks.

Translate: are they viable?

Yes. Now play!