Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Hey y'all!

Ok, basically I've been trying to come up with a project army, but my basic idea is giving me some issues...
Essentially, Ive been wanting to make up a Knights army (perhaps Templar-esque, but lets not skip ahead just yet) so as many units as possible modelled with storm/combat shields, very hard to kill, lots of power weapons and some big "cannon" style weaponry almost, although the shootiness aspect is fairly flexible in my mind so far.

Now for a start, the storm/combat shields thing implies ive chosen to do a space marine army, which is true, because no other army seems to use shields at all (except for necron lychguard anyway).

After a lot of looking through Codices and suchlike, and seeing options and solutions (as well as the ability to make certain units "Troops" which is necessary for some of these), I have narrowed it down to the following:

Black Templars:
Clearly the ideal solution, at least at first glance. They *are* templars after all. However, other than the standard assault TH/SS terminators, the only unit that can take storm shields (or combat shields) in a flexible way is the standard Sword Brethren. Which are currently Elites only. The other problem of course, is that the codex is very old, and if I spend time making up a Templar army with brethren storm shields, and the codex update comes out and changes anything dramatically (which it probably will) then all that money and hard work would be wasted. Sad face.
But anyway, the squad would be something like:
10x Brethren, 5x honors (needed for SS), 5 storm shields, Lascannon + Plasma gun = 340 points a squad. Expensive, and the only other option in the list to fit the theme are TH/SS terminators.
Although brethren have the nice abillity to Infiltrate, meaning that I can save on vehicle costs. Petrol is way too much these days. Wont count as troops though, although this MAY change in the new codex. Or it might make things worse, no way to know.
Edit: Fluff-wise, these guys are the ones I like the most. And the ability to have 2 special weapons in a squad is very nice. Also, even though brethren arent troops (atm anyway), the troops choice is interesting and fluffy so I can live with that.

Grey Knights:
Well these guys are knights too! Its in the name! Seems ideal.... oh but wait, these knights forgot how to use shields. Oh dear. Luckily, if I pay the Coteaz tax, I can use henchmen as troops (Or I could just have standard Inquisitors, and limit myself to 2 squads of henchmen). Fortunately its a new codex, so no changes to worry about for a long time.
Squad makeup:
5x Crusaders, 5x Acolytes with 3x Storm shields, 3x Plasma guns, 2x Storm Bolters = 191
Cheap. Very cheap. I purposely limited the squad size to 10 so it matched up with the space marine squad sizes in numbers, 8 shields and 3 plasma guns, with an extra 2 storm bolters tacked on for extra shots, though these could easily be replaced with something else. Using grey knights would also allow me to field my DreadKnight with shield conversion (though the shield would just be aesthetic, as theres no shielding for dreadknights. Might look good though!
Edit: I already have a DreadKnight, so I may well do this conversion whatever I decide in the long run. I wanted to add that I do realise that these squads are cheaper for a reason, they lose out on WS, BS, S, T, and LD... Though they can make up for it in numbers at least.

Space Wolves:
Well. These guys arent very knightly. Totally the wrong image. Oh except these barbaric wolfmen have remembered how to hold shields in their hands! Take that grey knights!
But yeh this relies on using Wolfguard as a basis, which probably works best with Logan making them troops, who is a very expensive HQ to be taking. However, this does lead to interesting Black Templar style mixed squads (except with Termies and PA marines, instead of Neophytes and Initiates), as well as a lot of customisation.
Squad makup:
Wolfguard x10, StormShield x5 = 305. Adding in weapons and any TA things will push this cost up, so a proper squad would easily be as much as, or more, than the Black Templar option.
These guys do have some other nice options though, and other units in the list could be made to work (Thunderwolves/cavalry with shields spring to mind).


At the moment, my leaning is towards the grey knights. It would mean using coteaz though, otherwise I would have to fill out my remaining points with standard marines and terminators (for scoring troops), which wouldnt really fit at all. Unless I have a Grand Master... but then im relying on a dice roll for scoring units. This does mean being able to use my converted DreadKnight idea however.
Actually, my ideal army would be a Black Templars one, that includes dreadknights in it. but we cant have everything unfortunatley!

So yeh, if anyone actually managed to get this far on this rambling wall of text, well done!
And now I hope someone will come up with a fantastic idea to help me out lol

PS. Im not looking for uber-competitive, this isnt something I'd be planning to take to a tournament or anything, I just want a project that could be competitive enough for casual games.

Thankoo!

With Black Templars, don't forget that Assault Marines also get shields, but most importantly, so do Command Squads.

I often run Command Squads with Terminator Honors and Combat shield + bolt pistol + PW and furious charge.

That gives them 4 str 5 power weapon attacks on the charge that re-roll to hit each, and a 6+ invuln.

It is expensive though - 32 pts / model.

And their assault squads with as many storm-shields as models are hilarious.

I'd go for the GKs, they will be good fluff wise and a henchmen army will be decent in game and you could do some really nice conversions, making it the perfect army for the hobbyist, as you said with BT a new dex may be on the cards soon so the things you buy may be redundant and if you do SW's they don't in fluff wise and they are the filth, you'll be seen as a mega power gamer!

Unit1126PLL wrote:With Black Templars, don't forget that Assault Marines also get shields, but most importantly, so do Command Squads.

I often run Command Squads with Terminator Honors and Combat shield + bolt pistol + PW and furious charge.

That gives them 4 str 5 power weapon attacks on the charge that re-roll to hit each, and a 6+ invuln.

It is expensive though - 32 pts / model.

And their assault squads with as many storm-shields as models are hilarious.

I hadnt forgotten them, I just dont own any jump-pack troops yet, and arent too sure if I like the models... was never a huge fan of the old ones. Might be because the person I have played against the most over the years, has a blood angel army with lots of jump troops lol. Of course, if I can come up with a suitable knight-style conversion for them, then THAT would be interesting...

If I was going to pick an assault unit with shields, it would probably be the assault terminators... although they are slower.

This was another thought I had on the choices actually, in that I am not a huge fan of using big tank-heavy lists. My henchmen lists so far, at most, had 4 transports (2x chimera, 2x rhino). Using mystics as beacons for accurate teleporting and deepstrikes. The imperial transports and tanks dont interest me enough to want to spend money on a lot of them.
Templars can get drop pods though, which is handy. And I can make my own pods easily enough.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

Unit1126PLL wrote:With Black Templars, don't forget that Assault Marines also get shields, but most importantly, so do Command Squads.

Also, I did know about the command squad, cos thats what I was originally going to use. But then I noticed that only the "special" members can get shields, which is the apothecary/sergeant/banner carrier.... so only 3 or 4 shields, if i buy all the extra members.. and then I wouldnt want to be taking the big hits on those shields, cos if they fail I lose someone good not a standard marine..

Seemed unfortunate, though I may be missing a useful aspect of this


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Anyone with any helpful thoughts? Before I start buying bits'n'bobs lol