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I've been wracking my brain to figure out a way to build a Black Templar army that plays on the table like it's fluff suggests that it should. I know with my current group of players, this wouldn't be an issue, but I wanted to know how the community at large would feel about this.
The main part of the army would be Drop Podded Black Templars. I really like the idea of fanatical assault marines, but the Black Templar assault squad just doesn't hit very hard. Templars also don't have access to a flyer of their own. My idea is to ally in a Blood Angels death Company Squad with an attached Reclusiarch as HQ, a Furioso Dreadnought, and a Stormraven. However, I would like to model them as Templars still so as to maintain a cohesive look on the table.

As far as my reasoning behind this:
1. Templars are fanatic and fearless. Death company is as well.
2. Templars refuse to work with psykers and love their chaplains. That's why I didn't use any of the psyker HQs, and the Furioso isn't a librarian.
3. Jump Pack death company with a few special weapons, a chaplain, furioso, and stormraven are nearly 1000 points, so it's not all that competitive. And death company is non-scoring as well. It's a lot of eggs all in one basket.
4. There would be no confusion as to which units are using Blood Angel rules as the only duplication between lists would the the dreadnoughts, but the furioso would be outfitted quite differently than the BT dreads.

Anyway, I feel it could be cool. What issues with any would you have and suggestions for remedying them.

Thanks

As long as there is a way to differentiate between BA and BT units, you'll be fine.

If it was instantly obvious at a casual glance which units belonged to which detachment, I would be okay with it. Otherwise, I might suspect it was a cheap ploy to use a second army without paying for it.

Sounds fine to me. Go for it.

All of my Templar and Marine bits and sprues are actually sitting there waiting to be assembled. The army would be WYSIWYG, because that's how I like to build them.

Maybe a good idea would be to use a different trim around the bases. Black for the Templars and white for the Blood Angels....

Just getting my brain working

I don't care about the "cheap ploy to have a second army without paying for it" argument, but I do care about things being reasonably WYSIWYG. Since death company and BT squads aren't obviously different in equipment I would expect there to be a very different paint scheme to make it immediately obvious which unit is which. Just having different edges on the bases wouldn't be enough IMO.

I'd be down, but paint them a bit different I think, something to show they're DC and the fun that goes with them.

WYSWYG is more then just wargear. You need to be able to tell what a mini represents by looking at him. If I can't tell the chapter, or ally from main, then it fails to be WYSWYG.

Now, if you can look at him and tell which is which, I don't have a problem. Depending on how you base, this might be enough. You might want to give them red tabards or crosses or something more distinctive.

Give the Death Company red shoulder trims whereas the regular BT get the normal black. Should be clear enough.

But seriously, no one really should have a problem with this, regardless of how you paint them. People (sadly) play with unpainted models all the time, and there is no telling BTs from BA then.

I'm a little apprehensive because you say you want to "model them as Templars still," and then say "there would be no confusion as to which units were using blood angel rules." I can't tell if you're saying you'd do something to differentiate them or not. As long as you're doing something on the models to make it clear what the allies are and what the main force is, it is totally fine. Otherwise it WILL get confusing.

Also, BT's are supposed to be getting the Stormraven in the flyer supplement that is supposed to be coming out this month, so wait a week or so and you can put that in your main force if you want.

I agree with the idea of painting their shoulder pads in a different combination of the BT heraldry. That would easily be enough for me to identify them, especially if you made the effort to point them out to me as such before we sat down to play. You could even challenge yourself and paint them all in reverse- with white armor and black heraldry! That would make for a striking unit.

But then again I've always been a fan of well thought out modelling and painting to show imagination with counts-as models. Right now I am personally in the infant stages of a Blood Angels 1st Company Terminator force which uses the Deathwing rules, but entirely represented as Blood Angels paint jobs and iconography, even down to swapping the new plastic Deathwing Standard bit with the one from the Sanguinary Guard.

ragingmunkyz wrote:
I'm a little apprehensive because you say you want to "model them as Templars still," and then say "there would be no confusion as to which units were using blood angel rules." I can't tell if you're saying you'd do something to differentiate them or not. As long as you're doing something on the models to make it clear what the allies are and what the main force is, it is totally fine. Otherwise it WILL get confusing.

Also, BT's are supposed to be getting the Stormraven in the flyer supplement that is supposed to be coming out this month, so wait a week or so and you can put that in your main force if you want.

By that, I mean that the only models using Blood Angel rules would be the jump pack death company. The primary list would contain only foot troops in drop pods. The Black Templar Dreadnoughts would have assault cannons and heavy flamers while the Furioso would have blood talons. So the majority of the differentiation would be in list construction as instead of blood angel and death company bitz I would be using the Templar upgrade kit. However, I'm trying to get a feel of just what will make it easiest/most acceptable for most players. If the rumor of the Stormraven being in the new supplement is true, then that does make things easier if someone is unwilling to play me with that squad as death company. Still, the rules for a BT assault squad don't fit the fluff like DC's do.

 Crimson wrote:
Give the Death Company red shoulder trims whereas the regular BT get the normal black. Should be clear enough.

But seriously, no one really should have a problem with this, regardless of how you paint them. People (sadly) play with unpainted models all the time, and there is no telling BTs from BA then.

Good point on the painting.

 AegisGrimm wrote:
I agree with the idea of painting their shoulder pads in a different combination of the BT heraldry. That would easily be enough for me to identify them, especially if you made the effort to point them out to me as such before we sat down to play. You could even challenge yourself and paint them all in reverse- with white armor and black heraldry! That would make for a striking unit.

But then again I've always been a fan of well thought out modelling and painting to show imagination with counts-as models. Right now I am personally in the infant stages of a Blood Angels 1st Company Terminator force which uses the Deathwing rules, but entirely represented as Blood Angels paint jobs and iconography, even down to swapping the new plastic Deathwing Standard bit with the one from the Sanguinary Guard.

Before you even mentioned it, I was thinking that a reverse scheme of white primary and black and red heraldry would look really cool, be easy to distinguish, and be a painting challenge as well.

I like to make things easy for everyone involved as it makes the game more enjoyable and fun. I also like my armies to "feel" like the books say they do.

I'm thinking of doing something very similar with my Imperial Fists (C:SM) morphing into Blood Angels.

As long as the various unit types are easy to tell apart at a glance, (and it sounds like you have that covered) no one aside from mouth breathing TFG types are going to have an issue with it. As I always say, if someone is unreasonable enough to have issues with a simple "counts as" substitution like this you should not be playing them to begin with.

TR

I have been playing black templars for ten years, half the time I field them as codex marines because I find that they just aren't competetive.

There's no reason that you couldn't just buy all blood angels models and paint them in a black templar scheme, and play the blood angels codex.

I've been thinking of these things a lot what with my BT, C:SM and two units of BA (10x DC + DC Dread). I've been thinking of using BA allies on occasion to get access to Assault Marines as troops, but while I do have the 10 DC models (which would most likely more often than not count as regular BA Assault Marines), I'd need to take the other 10 from my BT models. In this case it really wouldn't be a problem, since it'd be very clear that every jump pack-equipped model on the table is BA, while the other things are BT. It gets slightly trickier with C:SM and stuff, although C:SM tactical marines are of the AoBR and DV variety mostly, while all BT Initiates currently have tabards. Mostly I'm undecided on how to paint "distinctly" C:SM units like Stormtalons or Sternguard.

In general I wouldn't have a problem playing against such a list at all, but it still is a good idea to somehow differentiate the units. One good way is indeed shoulder pads. For example as a BT player if you used chapter upgrade kits you should have an excess of "blank" shoulder pads. If you don't glue in your shoulder pads (I don't because my models' arms are swappable and thus the pads need to be too - and with blu-tack there's no need to glue the pads anyway) then it's easy enough to swap in the non-BT pads to represent a different chapter's unit. For vehicles where it matters - like transports - just use some sort of chapter icon or such blu-tacked onto it to make clear which detachment it belongs to. One good source for such icons is of course the Drop Pod kit.

I do this all the time. My army is SW with BA allies, but they're all painted in my own scheme. As long as you know what units are which, who cares how they're painted? If it's wysiwyg the scheme doesn't really matter that much.

I would be happy to play against it - also provided it was easy to tell who's what chapter.

The Blood Angels modelled as Templars doesn't bother me (there's a mostly black BA successor if I remember correctly).

I would suggest either a different basing technique or, if you wanted to keep the basing consistent, different coloured bands around the base. They wouldn't HAVE to be red, just something different to the rest of the army so the difference was readily apparent.

stewy37 wrote:


Before you even mentioned it, I was thinking that a reverse scheme of white primary and black and red heraldry would look really cool, be easy to distinguish, and be a painting challenge as well.

Yes, but I'm not sure they'd look like Black Templars any more then.

 Crimson wrote:

stewy37 wrote:


Before you even mentioned it, I was thinking that a reverse scheme of white primary and black and red heraldry would look really cool, be easy to distinguish, and be a painting challenge as well.

Yes, but I'm not sure they'd look like Black Templars any more then.

True, but they would still have the iconography and physical look (chains, helmets, robes) of the Templars. I'm getting the feeling that as long as I put enough time in to them and make them look cool, no one is going to have an issue. It's not like I'm taking a bunch of marines and saying "these are necrons".

I definitely appreciate the input and ideas. Sometimes it just helps to bounce things off of others and talk through possibilities.

stewy37 wrote:


True, but they would still have the iconography and physical look (chains, helmets, robes) of the Templars. I'm getting the feeling that as long as I put enough time in to them and make them look cool, no one is going to have an issue. It's not like I'm taking a bunch of marines and saying "these are necrons".

I definitely appreciate the input and ideas. Sometimes it just helps to bounce things off of others and talk through possibilities.

Don't forget that the "Rule of Cool" covers a lot of sins. Well modeled and painted minis, that are distinctive enough to show you put forth a good faith effort to make things clear, is a completely different story then "These grey plastic guys are different from these other grey plastic guys"

I've seen Templars done with crimson coloured robes instead of cream, maybe that could be a way to go? Two crusades joining forces.

I don't understand why people are so hung up on making the detachment look different than the main force. As long as the models are wysiwyg, there's no reason you can't paint your allied BA detachment (which you are using to represent BT) the same as your main BT army. There's nothing special about allied detachments that should require them to be visually distinct from the rest of your army.

Nate668 wrote:
I don't understand why people are so hung up on making the detachment look different than the main force. As long as the models are wysiwyg, there's no reason you can't paint your allied BA detachment (which you are using to represent BT) the same as your main BT army. There's nothing special about allied detachments that should require them to be visually distinct from the rest of your army.

If the rules are 100% identical, that'd be fine. But if one squad has combat tactics (allied C:SM) in an army that has something else (Like DA) you need to be able to tell the difference. With all the marine armies you have guys who look the same, but the underlying rules and abilities can be different. And there will be times when those subtle differences will have a significant impact on the game, so you need to be up front about what's what.

Nate668 wrote:
I don't understand why people are so hung up on making the detachment look different than the main force. As long as the models are wysiwyg, there's no reason you can't paint your allied BA detachment (which you are using to represent BT) the same as your main BT army. There's nothing special about allied detachments that should require them to be visually distinct from the rest of your army.

Rules, obviously.
BT suck in melee. The bog standard BT crusader squad, power armored with close combat weapons sucks in melee these days compared to their BA cousins.
The codex is dated and functions more or less entirely differently.

A counts as death company squad (for example), using also regular assault squad models ie crusader squad, could have rage, feel no pain, more attacks, ws5, etc.

When the models look identical, but have different rules sets, it creates big problems for gameplay. If your opponent can't tell easily at a glance, which is which, its not fair for him to have to keep track.

Especially when you have something like, 50 marines running around on the table.

 Nevelon wrote:

Nate668 wrote:
I don't understand why people are so hung up on making the detachment look different than the main force. As long as the models are wysiwyg, there's no reason you can't paint your allied BA detachment (which you are using to represent BT) the same as your main BT army. There's nothing special about allied detachments that should require them to be visually distinct from the rest of your army.

If the rules are 100% identical, that'd be fine. But if one squad has combat tactics (allied C:SM) in an army that has something else (Like DA) you need to be able to tell the difference. With all the marine armies you have guys who look the same, but the underlying rules and abilities can be different. And there will be times when those subtle differences will have a significant impact on the game, so you need to be up front about what's what.

I can see how it might be cheeky in some situations, but in the OP's situation, his only allied power armor troops will also be the only models in his army with jump packs. There's no reason he can't paint them exactly the same as the rest of his force if he wanted to. In addition, what color you paint your models has never been part of wysiwyg as far as I know. If you want to try to catch people off guard by having an allied tac squad with combat tactics in your DA army painted the same as the rest of your DA army (which would be a questionable strategy at best), or a more reasonable example of using codex marines painted as BT with bolters in your BT army instead of initiates, I don't see any rules that say you can't.

Nate668 wrote:
I don't understand why people are so hung up on making the detachment look different than the main force. As long as the models are wysiwyg, there's no reason you can't paint your allied BA detachment (which you are using to represent BT) the same as your main BT army. There's nothing special about allied detachments that should require them to be visually distinct from the rest of your army.

Because the different units have different rules, and different rules that effect them.

This is an issue beyond; "they are Battle Brothers, so what is the problem?"

It's not breaking the rules, and it's a pretty cool idea. Both armies have similar rule and doctrines, except for the psychic powers and mutations.

Nate668 wrote:
I can see how it might be cheeky in some situations, but in the OP's situation, his only allied power armor troops will also be the only models in his army with jump packs. There's no reason he can't paint them exactly the same as the rest of his force if he wanted to. In addition, what color you paint your models has never been part of wysiwyg as far as I know. If you want to try to catch people off guard by having an allied tac squad with combat tactics in your DA army painted the same as the rest of your DA army (which would be a questionable strategy at best), or a more reasonable example of using codex marines painted as BT with bolters in your BT army instead of initiates, I don't see any rules that say you can't.

I don't think the OP will have problems with what he's doing, this is more of a WYSWYG philosophical argument at this point.

I'm not even sure if WYSWYG is even baked into the rules anymore. What it is, is a courtesy to your opponent. 40K is an open list game. There are no secrets. At the start of the game, I go through my list, and point out to my opponent what is what, and what war gear/options everyone has. If he has any questions, then or during the game, I'll remind him. As I play a fully WYSWYG army, with no allies, I generally don't have many issues come up. I recognize that not everyone subscribes to the same philosophy as I do, for many completely valid reasons. But I don't want to have to ask my opponent all the time to remind me which one of his identical, partially assembled models, in his army is what. Simple, blanket, statements are fine. "All flamers are actually meltaguns" or "My one and only jump squad are BA death company" don't bother me. I can file that away and remember it for the one game. This assumes there are only one or two things I need to keep track off, and they are obvious/distinctive. Once you go into conditional things (The assault cannon in this squad is a plasma cannon, but the AC in this other squad is a CML) I start having problems. Or you have a laundry list of substitutions.

If I see an assault marine squad in a normal marine army, it has a much different threat assessment then a death company squad. The minis might be close, but one is a whole lot nastier then the other. Beat your opponent because you are a better general, or the dice like you better. Not because they couldn't remember what was what in your list.

And something as tiny as "this squad is stubborn, this one has combat tactics" can decide games, even when on identically equipped tac squads.

As long as there is some way to tell them apart other then having to ask you I would have no issue. If you only had jump packs on blood angels for example you can just tell me that and as long as all of your blood angels we assault or jump pack death company then it would be easy for me to tell who is who.

I would play against them, but make fun of them the whole time, and flatten them with my real Templars.