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I've been playing Fantasy for quite a while, but now I'm going to try 40k for a spin. I know absolutely nothing about 40k. I want to play Black Templars... I wanna start buying models, where do I start? Any general Black Templar/40k advice?

P.S. I love the Black Templar models/paint scheme with a burning fiery passion.

I started a Black Templars army a while back and to get me started I got the Space Marine Megaforce (the one at christmas) and converted it up with BT bits from a couple of the upgrade sprues and blisters of shoulder pads.

This probably isn't too helpful unless you happen to have one of those boxes, but you could similarly buy one of the SM battleforces and build on that, a good thing to do also is to gather up plenty of scouts/scout bits as these will make for handy conversions for Neophytes.

Another thing worth noting if you can is to snatch up any bretonian, grey knight, dark angels or imperial guard spares that you can as these can make for excellent conversion parts for Initiates, Sword Brethren or Neophytes alike.

Finally buy what you like/feel you want or will use, at the end of the day if you love the army then build it to suit you. I bought some Sword Brethren Veterans as a starter as well and while I very seldomly use Sword Brethren Veteran Squads, they make for excellent additions to tactical squads or as Squad Sargeants.

At the end of the day, do what you love and love what you do.

Good advice, thanks.

My twin brother might be getting Dark Vengence and not using the Dark Angels, perhaps I can scrap them for bits.

You should decide how you want to run them. If you want tons of marines on the field, getting marines and scouts for your troops is an excellent idea. Then decide on what you want in your elite slot, dreadnoughts or terminators? Finally your heavy support, I would personally recommend vindicators, but there are other good options for BT. Of note their landspeeders are very cheap in points compared to other codexes.

Currently black templars suffer from a lack of anti-air, which can be mitigated by using a defense line and allies.

 LordHamshire wrote:
Good advice, thanks.

My twin brother might be getting Dark Vengence and not using the Dark Angels, perhaps I can scrap them for bits.

That could be a good start, might be a bit tricky getting the DA symbols off of the shoulder pad, but with a little perseverance and a file it should be possible. (I've not really studied the models too closely from that set yet.)

Also Juraigamer has hit the nail on the head with Vindicators and especially land speeders, it's worth mentioning as well that you could probably still get some of the 'Assault on Black Reach' stuff on ebay and similar places for quite cheap, this would give you quick and cheap (money wise) access to terminators, dreadnoughts and marines with no chapter specific markings. Although Templar-ing up those tactical marines could be tricky also as they are quite static (the DV ones are posed better), the termies and dread should be fine though.

Yeah, I don't think I could directly use the Dark Angels stuff.

I'm not 100% sure on what I want list-wise. Could someone maybe elaborate on the positives, negitives, and common opinions of various BT builds? (I just learned that abbreviation from this topic, lol)

It's not that hard to get the DA symbols off the models. It just takes a little patience, a sharp exacto knife, and a steady hand.

I'm currently doing the same thing you're planning. Turning DV Dark Angels into Black Templars. Here is a quick WIP gallery with one model almost done. I still need to a bit of clean up and highlighting before I add the BT symbols.

http://imgur.com/a/rVsrv

Something I'm planning on doing is running them kind of like Dwarves. Taking Abhor the Witch will give a 44%+ chance at stopping all psychic abilities, then take advantage of the BT two heavy weapon per Termie squad an load up on Termie command squads and Termie elite squads.


Edit: Also here is a list I'm thinking of.

Points: 1999

MoS (TDA, bionics, Crozius + Bolter, Teleport Homer) 146
TDA Command Squad (2x Ass. Cannon) 215
Drop pod 30

MoS (TDA, Bionics, Crozius + Bolter, Teleport Homer) 146
TDA Command Squad (2x Ass. Cannon) 215
Drop pod 30

Emperor's Champion 110

5x Sword Bretheren Terminator Squad (2x CML) 265
5x Sword Bretheren Terminator Squad (2x CML) 265

9x Initiates (PowerFist, Plasma) 165 (EC goes Here)
Drop Pod 30

8x Initiates (PowerFist, Plasma) 149
Rhino 50

7x Initiates (PowerFist, Plasma) 133
Rhino 50

Not to be lazy but here you go:

AlmightyWalrus's Black templar Tactica

Black Templars 101

I could explain it to you but both of these guides would be much better and cover a lot more than I can, so I hope they help you.

If you have any more questions feel free to post them here or PM, and we'll do what we can to help, but guides like these should be able to give you a good idea and feel for the army, especially walrus's one as it covers the new faq elements also.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

jeratoll wrote:
Edit: Also here is a list I'm thinking of.

Points: 1999

MoS (TDA, bionics, Crozius + Bolter, Teleport Homer) 146
TDA Command Squad (2x Ass. Cannon) 215
Drop pod 30

MoS (TDA, Bionics, Crozius + Bolter, Teleport Homer) 146
TDA Command Squad (2x Ass. Cannon) 215
Drop pod 30

Emperor's Champion 110

5x Sword Bretheren Terminator Squad (2x CML) 265
5x Sword Bretheren Terminator Squad (2x CML) 265

9x Initiates (PowerFist, Plasma) 165 (EC goes Here)
Drop Pod 30

8x Initiates (PowerFist, Plasma) 149
Rhino 50

7x Initiates (PowerFist, Plasma) 133
Rhino 50

Thats a pretty good list, not too much different to mines, but I wouldn't use the two MoS led squads, I would probably only use one and use those points to grab some Speeders and bump up the squads to full capacity where I could. Although your list is perfectly viable too, I just don't like not taking Landspeeders.... old habits and that

Thats a pretty good list, not too much different to mines, but I wouldn't use the two MoS led squads, I would probably only use one and use those points to grab some Speeders and bump up the squads to full capacity where I could. Although your list is perfectly viable too, I just don't like not taking Landspeeders.... old habits and that

I'll do that once I get some Land speeders. Though I'm proxying the Rhinos at the moment so I plan to get those first.

jeratoll wrote:
I'll do that once I get some Land speeders. Though I'm proxying the Rhinos at the moment so I plan to get those first.

Your list seems fine to me as it is dude and if its working for you stick with it, I just find landspeeders too invaluable not to use

Besides, having that Third Pod makes for quite an interesting balance in power as you'll be able to split and control your forces better with 3 than 2 due to the drop pod assault rules I'd imagine (up to half?), but I don't pod often besides Sternguard for C:SM occasionally, so trust me I'm no expert

I Pod those two with the teleport homers as they can drop in within 24" of the enemy, then have the two Termie units deep strike safely within 18" of the enemy, close enough so they can shoot the crap out of whatever unit I want to and to assault in Turn 2, but they're safe from assault in turn 1.

In my experience nothing scares an opponent more than four full units of termies just out of their assault range that can safely get two rounds of shots and then get the charge off.

Yeah, personally I would get rid of one of the MoS, and use a Marshal. I am not sure on the points difference tho. But the Marshal will give your army 10 LD across the board. Its worth it.

I dont play shooty templar, I mainly go for assaulty, but that just me.

Just be careful not to run afoul of the new FAQ, which I believe nerfed the BT ability to use Drop Pods for Termies.

The rumor mills are sure that a new BT codex is due to drop within the next year, but rumors are ever unreliable.

Pick up a used BT codex from ebay, and then get the vanilla codex. You can run your templars using either codex with the same paint scheme and try things out.

For cheap marines, I second the idea to go nuts with a file on the DV squads, they are cheap as hell on ebay these days (saw one for $12!). After that try to pick up one of the cheap AoBR dreads before they become scarce.

Hope that helps

Termies cannot use Drop Pods anymore as per our new FaQ.

If you are looking to play BT as competitively as possible you will be looking at Support Terminators with Tank Hunter and CML. Typhoon land speeders are another great place to look for mass killing potential. However, while elements of these can be good to bring along as your heavy support I find that spamming them like many enjoy doing grows boring and dull. I never got my Templars to play this style of game.

The other is an all out melee assault where you bore into your enemy come hell or high water. THIS is what I enjoy playing, however if you are in a super competitive environment it could prove difficult to run well. However 50+ Marines charging at your opponent can be scary, and with Righteous Zeal you are across the board and assaulting by Turn 2.

My overall suggestions would be to play them how you want, and don't listen to people if they call a list bad. Try it anyway as I have had amazing success with things that people claim are horrible (looking at you standard Sword Brethren). One other thing is to really read over the 1.1 FaQ, it really did change a lot for us. Hope this helped, if you have any particular questions feel free to shoot me a message anytime!