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For converting creative pre-heresy Word Bearers, could one take Grey Knight plastic models and combine them with the Black Templar upgrade sprue? The Grey Knight shoulder pad with icon works great for Pre-Heresy Word Bearers if you shave off the sword bit, and the Grey Knight power armor has the little carved rune-letters that the Lexicanum image for pre-heresy Word Bearers has. The Grey Knight helmet is just sick. Then, the Black Templars upgrade can be used to give them robes, incense burners, guns, chainswords, and coolest of all, chains everywhere. Wpuld this be a good idea, or not so much?

Im not so sure on the lots of chains. Although chains would look cool, they dont really fit in with the pious style of the WordBearers during the great crusade. You have to remember that the chains are a Templar only thing. Its not about being loyal to the Emporer, its about never dropping their weapons, so proving that they cant ever be caught disarmed like other chapters. Not really applicable to the Word Bearers. Now, lots of Imperial Eagles, lots of Halos, laurels, personal banners, scripture hanging from pauldrons, and the flaming book symbol are more of what you are looking for. They werent dark, withdrawn, and rage consumed like the Templars seem to be most of the time. I mean.....Ive played Templars a long time so I suppose Im sorta biased, but Ive also loved the Word Bearers for a long time. Also, remember not to use any Ultramarines related peices. The Word Bearers hate the Ultramarines with a burning passion.
But I do like your idea for some of the Grey Knights parts. Maybe even turn that sword on their armour into a Flame with a bit of green stuff. http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/File:Word_Bearers_Marine.jpg This is what you're shooting for if you're doing the Legion during the ending days of the Crusade. Or maybe
http://media.photobucket.com/image/recent/SGM-Daly91/Warhammer%252040K/RongarAssaultSquad.jpg
Just thoughts. Dont take my words for it though, do what you want!

Don't worry, I hate the Ultramarines too. NO smurf pieces will be used. That image from lexicanum is the one I was referring to, but I quite like that one from photobucket. Question - seeing as the Word Bearers legion was divided into individual chapters, not unified companies, would it be possible to use the Templar cross as a chapter symbol? Or not really? It's just the decorated shoulder pads look so cool! And yeah, I was planning on converting the GK shoulder pads to become Word Bearer pads.

Well, for the most part, the Word Bearers, to this day, do tend to show more loyalty to their Chapter than to their Legion as a whole, so really, what you need to do is either look into the diffrent chapters the Word Bearers were seperated into, or create your own and use your own iconography. A cross? I dont know. I dont really know if anybody was using any cross incons during the Great Crusade, but I suppose you could. But you'd have to remember that there are a good number of BT players out there, and if you want to show this army off to people, you're really gonna want to add some flaming book Icons to clearly show that they are Word Bearers, pre-heresy. Id advise just scraping off the crosses, and putting some small books at the end of the chains on the BT bits to make it look like they are covered in books and scripture, since thats usually how they are protrayed. I think there are a few of the Horus Heresy series books that either focus, or mention the Word Bearers, you might ask in the part of the forum dedicated to the discussion of lore about some of the things the Pre-heresy Word Bearers did for armour and such, theres bound to be a few with special knowledge of that area. Hope that helps!

Sounds more like Dark Angels would be a fit since they have robes, but then you'd be covering up the AEGIS WRITING and stuff.

Thanks for the help Purifying Flame! And BrotherSRM, the Word Bearers did have aegis-writing type stuff engraved on their power armor