Codex Review: Black Templar Fast Choices

Sorry it's been awhile since I last posted an article on the Templars.  Loads has come up, what with school starting to wind down and the royal heir coming, but luckily this post won't be very long.  Unlike my previous articles though, this one won't be overly long.  The majority of our fast options are subpar for one reason or another. However, I will do my best to at least give them a good shake. 

Assault Marines

Well, these guys are everything that Blood Angels aren't and I don't mean that in a positive way.  The reason Codex Marine and Black Templar assault marines are subpar is because they have the ability to close somewhat quickly with their opponents, but then they don't have the tools to do anything when they arrive.  Blood Angels help this out by giving their assault marines meltaguns and access to furious charge and feel no pain.  Unfortunately, for the costs (22pt. per marine), these guys just can't compete.  One interesting note is that any assault marine can exchange his pistol for a storm shield for 3pts.  With Templars getting updated storm shields, this helps to create a unit that can soak high strength low AP weaponry fairly well, for 25pt per marine.  Still not enough in my book.

Templar Bikers

Again, a unit that doesn't do its job as well as the same unit in other codexes.  One huge fault of this unit is that it is limited to squads of 3-5, though they can take an attack bike.  Being able to combat squad or take bigger squads would be a huge boon for this unit.  One good thing going for this unit is that it can take up to 3 special weapons including: plasmaguns, meltaguns, flamers, or power weapons.  The best part of this is that you can make a fairly reliable melta threat.  Of course, it would be considered a suicide melta threat.  The massed power weapons would be good except these are 1 attack marines.  Not enough to scare most people.  If I were to take these guys, I think I would take 3 meltaguns and a multi-melta attack bike. This rings in at 191 points though (yuck), but it will shred tanks.

Attack Bikes

My big beef with this unit is its minimum size(2).  One of the flexible parts of attack bikes is being able to take singles which you can't do in the Templar codex.  The only way I would take one is as a part of a melta biker squad.

Landspeeders

This is your best bet.  Unfortunately, I have never had good luck with speeders, but these are a real help for Templars.  The multi-melta/heavy flamer models provide anti-tank early on when the majority of our army either has to pass a LD test or simply doesn't have reliable long range firepower for taking on high AV. This is perhaps the most useful variant as it combines points efficiency, duality, and the ability to be a sacrifice. It is sad though that it comes in more expensive than its partners in other codexes. 

With the latest FAQ though, our landspeeder typhoons have gotten very tempting. Ringing in at 70pt. for a typhoon with heavy bolters, we get a heck of a buy here coming in 20pts. cheaper than in other codexes.  If you want to go for a missile spam list, I would consider taking multiples of this one. 


So, after it's all said and done, the humble landspeeder wins out for our fast selections.  If I had the models (and liked them at all), I would fill my fast choices with landspeeders over the other choices every time. 

Coming soon, we wrap this review up with a view at our heavy choices.

If you missed it, here is the articles before this one in the series:
Codex Review: Black Templar Elites

And here is the next articles in the series:
Codex Review: Black Templar Heavy Selections

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