Topic: Black Templars, need input. 1250-1500

[Neo-Buzzard]

So one of my long time buddies (the one who got me into 40k as a matter of fact) recently had his apartment broken into and all of his 40k stuff stolen. We're talking around 4000 points of eldar and 2-2.5k tau. Sad day for all, but, with the holidays around the corner, me and another friend are building him a Black Templar army as a gift. Now, I'm a Space Pup, so I dont know jack about Codex: Space Marines or Black Templars and just need to figure out where to go next. Everything we have so far is 2nd hand and was unfortunately put together with that plastic fusing glue so we can't really make changes to the unit load outs. So far we have 4x 10 man tac squads (Dark Vengeance-y), a 5 man termie squad (normal termies w/ assault cannon) and a captain. I'm thinking about getting him a dread or the emperor's champion next, but as I have no knowledge of the codex and have only played vs BT once before, not sure where to go next. We're aiming around 1250-1500 points here. We're trying to do this on the cheap, so he's going to be on his own for most vehicles (land raiders/preds/etc) and the codex.

TL;DR version
We have 40 tac marines, 5 standard termies and a captain, what should we get next, or roughly how many points we have.

[Dangerousdave0042]

Definitely no librarians!!

Their chapter tactics don't lean you towards anything particular.

He'll need a crusader squad which is a BT only troop choice.

Other than that it's whats good for SM so maybe some grav centurions? Sternguard in a drop pod?

[Spectral Arbor]

As a gamer-first hobbyist, I can tell you that the crunch for BT is just awful. Out of the Codex chapters, I think White Scars, Ultramarines, and Salamanders are the most powerful chapters, with an argument for Iron Hands being not-crappy.

White Scars are probably the best, if you focus on Bikes, and they have good reason to do so.

Ultramarines / Salamanders are pretty equally powerful. Sallys tend to have a more fixed play style, while Ultras can do pretty much anything well. Even bikes, but Scars are better.

Assuming you guys are good with Blacktramarines, or Blackamanders, or Black Scars... I'd probably focus on picking models that work with their playstyles. Since you don't already have Bikes, I'd say Scars are probably out...

So if you have lots of Melta and Flamer weapons, I'd lean towards Sallys.

If you have lots of Plasma, or Heavies besides Multi-Meltas, I'd probably lean towards Ultras. You can bitz order some heavy guns, and then use some of those "Tactical Marines" as Devastators. Or, if you can find fancy looking bolters / combi bolters, they could be Sternguard.


If you can convert the captain to look like a Psyker, then using him as Tigurius gives you a powerful boost to some sit and shoot squads. Depending on play style, either Drop Pods, Razorbacks, or Rhinos would be good. Given that you have lots of infantry, I'd lean away from Razors.

You can probably find cheapish Dreadnoughts, and they're excellent support for infantry heavy armies.

DV had bike squads in them. If you dig, you can find 3-man squads for $15 USD some places. They're pretty good, and a bit of conversions can get you a Chapter Master on a Bike, with Power Fist. Modeled with a Shield, you have "The Shield Eternal" and he's pretty much the go-to HQ for most lists.

Dev Cents are pretty amazing, though I've never used them. Don't like the models.

You might also like to look at the Dark Angels codex, though to the best of my knowledge it hits its stride when you go bike heavy.

[Neo-Buzzard]

Well, we're looking at BT because he's always wanted to build a BT and SoB army and BT seemed like the more financially sound option for us. If I know him, even if the BT chapter tactics suck, he'll probably still use them, so making a Libby is probably out. ATM we're between using the heavy weps from the tac squads to make a dev unit or getting him a dread. He's lacking some anti-armor so I'm leaning more towards the dread.

But I'm going to keep in mind what you said about the BT tactics, and build the army a little more flexible, so if he decides he doesn't like BT he can easily do a different chapter.

[Spectral Arbor]

Oh, for sure, marines are much cheaper.

The "trouble" with building BT as any other chapter, is the only thing that makes them remotely playable is their access to a special Troop choice. Specifically, the Crusader Squad. Kind of like Assault Marines, on foot. Imagine a Tactical Sqaud, that can trade in bolters for a CCW, and instead of a Heavy can take a duder with a CCW upgrade. So they can be geared towards assaulting. They can also have CCW "scouts" join those squads.

To support that, you'd typically want to give them some kind of Assault class transport, like a Land Raider or Storm Raven... but that's pretty pricey for grunt squads. Definitely not something you'd typically do with any other Vanilla chapter.

If you have some bitz available, I've found that hobby titan is a reasonably priced source for bitz. I had a couple Dreadnought arms, and built the rest from $12 worth of bits from this site...

Hobby Titan

So yeah, $12 Dreadnought. And they also were selling the 3 bikers from DV for something like $15 at one time... which is why I have a 5 man bike squad with a converted Chapter Master. You can also buy Storm Shields, things like that, if you want them for characters / termies.

Even when built to the BT's modest strengths, they're not considered to be very powerful. Built away from their strength, towards a more versatile list cripples them, and would leave a player desirous of a different CT... so my strong suggestion would be to build towards an Ultramarines army that can do assault pretty well. I've done that using my Blood Angel collection, and had some decent success with them, though it's not the strong suit of the codex, it's better than the BA codex.

If you don't have a vanilla codex, you should maybe try... sourcing... one. I'll post a list this weekend in the SM section, that I used to emulate the BA playstyle. You could maybe tweak that towards using BT models.

[Neo-Buzzard]

I'm going to see if I can make the Tac squads into Crusaders (replacing the Plasma cannon guys for power weapon ones) and then putting the cannons into a Dev unit. I know him, and he'll probably buy himself the assault vehicles, he's just really disheartened atm since armies he put so much time into are gone with absolutely no return. I know since we're getting him started with an army he's always wanted he'll most likely get charged up again and sink another $200 into buying vehicles and such to reinforce his list (esp since he's always had a hard on for land raiders).

I'm not trying to be difficult but knowing him, he's going to play them as Black Templars just because he likes them so much and he digs the lore, so that's why I'm trying to stick to the BT theme as much as possible. I feel it might help to mention we tend to play with more fluffy lists than with "meta" lists. Really just trying to make sure he's starting out with something balanced he can build off of.

[Spectral Arbor]

Well, nothing stops a person from using Crusader Squads as Assault Marines without Jump Packs, I guess.

I'll put my mind towards a BT list that tries to use what you've got on hand.

[Neo-Buzzard]

I really appreciate you putting in your time to helping me, I know this is going to mean a lot to my friend and it's kind of become a big project for me.

EDIT
So my other friend that's helping me with this, got an Emperor's Champion and 5 extra unassembled Tac marines. So I'm definitely going to take the plasma cannon marines and make them into a Dev unit. I'm thinking with the 5 new marines of giving them power weps and using them as hidden power swords/axes/fists in the Tac/Crusader squads.

[davethemadorctwo]

nowt wrong with crusader armies,  my favourite back up that catches ppl out is a few squads of legion...

[Draggo Blacksun]

Ok I have not played in 7th ed and I have no desire to do so (As i want to play Templars, not Smurfs). But Back when the BT's were Black Templars and not Black Smurfs these are the lists I ran and won with in friendly hobby store sanctioned leagues....:

1000 pts
   The 1000 point Black Templar army I used in the League, held at the local gaming store a few years back. I left the costs for the units in here as there is no codex for them and early everything is cheaper. This was a 8 round league, with my results being... Loss, Draw (DNP), 6 consecutive wins.

HQ

Emperors Champion (90) /w/ AAC vow (50)         {140}


Troop

Crusader Sqd "Long Bow" = 6x Initiates (96) /w/ 1x Laz Cannon (15), 1x Plasma gun (6), 6x frag grenades (6), 6x krak grenades (12)   {135}

Crusader Sqd "Mace" = 6x Initiates (96) /w/ Missle launcher (10), Melta gun (10), 6x frag grenades (6), 6x krak grenades (12), Rhino (50), PMSB (10), Smoke launcher (3)               {197}

Crusader Sqd "Sword" = 6x Initiates (96) /w/ 1x Power Weapon (10), 1x flamer (6), 6x frag grenades (6), 6x krak grenades (12), Rhino (50), PMSB (10), smoke launchers (3)            {193}

Elite

Sword Brethren Sqd = 5x Sword Brethren (95) /w/ 5x terminator    Honors (50), 1x Pair of lightning claws (25), 1x Power weapon (15), 5x frag grenades (5), 5x krak grenades (10), 5x crusader seals (10)   {210}

Dreadnought (105) /w/ Heavy Flamer (10), smoke launcher (3)      {118}


And this one. Which was another army in a league campaign, in which the imperium were defending a hive city against all enemies (7 v 7). This force held its objective in the apocolyptic final battle against a combined force of Nids and Necrons (thats 2500 pt).... In so doing Secured a victory for the imperium :


1250 pts (1248)

HQ

Emperors Champion (90) /w/ AAC vow (50)         {140}


Troop

Crusader Sqd "Long Bow" = 5x Initiates (80) /w/ 1x Laz Cannon (15), 1x Plasma gun (6), 5x frag grenades (5),
5x krak grenades (10), Razor Back (70), POTMS (30), PMSB (10), dozer blade (5), Smoke launcher (3)            {234}

Crusader Sqd "Mace" = 8x Initiates (112) /w/ Missle launcher (10), Melta gun (10), 9x frag grenades (9), 9x krak grenades (18), 1x Neophyte (10), Rhino (50), PMSB (10), Smoke launcher (3)      {232}

Crusader Sqd "Sword" = 8x Initiates (112) /w/ 1x Power Weapon (10), 1x flamer (6), 9x frag grenades (9), 9x krak grenades (18), 1x Neophyte (10), Rhino (50), PMSB (10), smoke launchers (3)   {228}

Elite

Sword Brethren Sqd = 8x Sword Brethren (152) /w/ 8x terminator Honors (80), 1x Pair of lightning claws (25), 1x melta gun (10), 8x frag grenades (8 ), 8x krak grenades (16)         {291}

Dreadnought (105) /w/ Heavy Flamer (10), smoke launcher (3), Extra armor (5)   {123}


 In both leagues we were asked to write stories of the campaign to add a bit of flavour to the whole enterprise... And If you eat all your vegie's i'll read them to you as a bed time story. Ha ha ha.

[Wyddr]

While interesting, Draggo, those lists don't help very much in that neither of them would be legal or fieldable in 7th edition.