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I see the benefits of Black Templars that have been posted earlier, but it seems that their big weakness is a lack of powerfists/power weapons in Crusader squads. Massed blood claw squads either running (although they dont fall forward) with the first squad covered by a Rune Priest's cover save, or in a Crusader with other rushing support seem to be more killy than crusader squads, as they can get 3 fists (with 3 attacks each in the first round of combat) and an untargettable Wolf Guard thammer. Plus, it seems now that with drop pods holding 12, Blood Claws can get 3 pfists and a wolf guard in every dropping squad, and get the bonus attacks when charged.

Is there any basis for a competitive massed infantry SW force with some ranged support nowadays for 1750(obviously not long fangs), or do Templars simply do it better, even without the pfists? Is rerolling basic attacks that much better than 4 3 attack pfist equivalents in every squad? Anyone take into account that it appears you can give WGBLs plasma cannons/assault cannons, and act as bs5 snipers?

Even with the less P-fists, BT marines are better in CC then SW ones, barely. Also, LRCs, troop choices. Take a 14-18 man squad+IC, and you won't miss the P-fists. We have some of the best characters for the points, it does well. You have to generally rely on tanks to shoot, since Zealing/Taking target priority kill us in inf shooting.

We can both spam large squads, but with Zeal(Not Fall Forward, that's what, 2nd Ed?) we do footslogging better, and with Dedicated LRC's, we do mech better. See how SW is after the SM dex, it will effect them more then BT. Currently, BT are Tier 1, while SW is Tier 2ish I'd say.

If you depend on inf shooting, then SW will probably work better, but BT will massed footslog better, and mech better, period.