Building a 5th Edition Army List
This is an important part of this guide. Based on the information you've read in the previous parts of the guide, I'm going to assume you made the correct decision to create a mechanized army. This is because mechanized armies have the best chance at winning games in 5th Edition, so that's the type of list we're going to build for this exercise. Additionally, I'm of the opinion that the best way to start an army is to plan ahead. Building a list before you start the army will give you an idea of what you want to purchase. This will save you from making unnecessary buys, especially of units that you'll never use. Plus, you can start to visualize the army once its on paper and run through how you want to play it in your head while you're building the army up.
This page is designed to walk through building a list from scratch. The list will feature all the necessary elements to be successful, but that doesn't mean the list will be an end-all, beat-all army. The end result of this article is NOT a competitive tournament list. It will win more than it loses, but will fall against tournament-tuned lists. It is a casual, semi-competitive list. In addition, you don't have to run this specific army to be successful; it is simply an exercise in proper list building skills. My army does not need to be your army. It is simply a guideline for you to us. If you want to see the lists that I run, you can find them on my Army List page. Each list there contains analysis and basic use information. Each army takes practice to learn and use efficiently. Expect to lose some games after you design your army, but have faith. You'll get there. If you are more interested in competitive tournament lists or want to see more list building exercises, I recommend you visit the BT 101: Building a Competitive 5th Edition List page.
As I mentioned earlier, this list will be mechanized. Not only that, it will be built up to 2000 points, as that is one of the most commonly used point values for games. Many people prefer smaller games, but I don't believe that Warhammer 40k is very balanced until 1750-2000 points. Several armies are extremely powerful at lower points levels and other armies scale much better at higher points costs. There are many examples of this: Dark Eldar ream at low points levels but Space Marines have a difficult time putting forth a decent army. It doesn't mean any army is bad at low points level, but the game balances itself out better at 2000 points. With that in mind, we move onto the list.
This page is designed to walk through building a list from scratch. The list will feature all the necessary elements to be successful, but that doesn't mean the list will be an end-all, beat-all army. The end result of this article is NOT a competitive tournament list. It will win more than it loses, but will fall against tournament-tuned lists. It is a casual, semi-competitive list. In addition, you don't have to run this specific army to be successful; it is simply an exercise in proper list building skills. My army does not need to be your army. It is simply a guideline for you to us. If you want to see the lists that I run, you can find them on my Army List page. Each list there contains analysis and basic use information. Each army takes practice to learn and use efficiently. Expect to lose some games after you design your army, but have faith. You'll get there. If you are more interested in competitive tournament lists or want to see more list building exercises, I recommend you visit the BT 101: Building a Competitive 5th Edition List page.
As I mentioned earlier, this list will be mechanized. Not only that, it will be built up to 2000 points, as that is one of the most commonly used point values for games. Many people prefer smaller games, but I don't believe that Warhammer 40k is very balanced until 1750-2000 points. Several armies are extremely powerful at lower points levels and other armies scale much better at higher points costs. There are many examples of this: Dark Eldar ream at low points levels but Space Marines have a difficult time putting forth a decent army. It doesn't mean any army is bad at low points level, but the game balances itself out better at 2000 points. With that in mind, we move onto the list.
The List -- 2000 Points
Most new players get into the Black Templars because they pick up the Codex and see the vows at the beginning. They think, "Hey! Preferred Enemy! That means the BT are really good in close combat!". Then they proceed to buy the codex, an army, but have likely purchased things that aren't too good for the army. Or they have built their dream close combat army and have found they can't win with it.
Why is that? Often its because these new players build lists that lack balance, or in the case of 5th Edition, they have all these close combat monsters that can't kill transports. The days of 4th Edition are gone. With exception to very specific armies (i.e. Tyranids and Tau), people don't leave their infantry just laying around waiting to be charged. You have to have a way to get at them. That's where our balanced list comes in. Having duality in your lists is essential. If you don't know what this term means, quickly go over to my article regarding it on the BT 101: Duality page. Once you're finished reading that, continue on here. This article will be written with the assumption you understand duality and units will generally be built with it in mind.
Because close combat orientation is why most people choose Black Templars, this is the theme we're going to use for our list. I must mention, however, that BT need not always play this way. We can play several varieties of shooty armies quite well. In fact, I would argue that gunline armies are what the Black Templars are best at right now in 5th Edition (with our current 4th Edition codex). But that is besides the point, let's get back to our close combat list shall we?
Lets assume you've taken a look at the codex and have a basic understanding of the units inside of it. You see that we have to take the Emperor's Champion and two full-sized Crusader squads. Because you want to be mechanized, those crusader squads need transports. For now, we'll give them Rhinos. They will also be taking meltaguns and powerfists. These are taken so that our crusader squads have the ability to kill vehicles via shooting and close combat (especially important if a Dreadnought charges you), as well as some nice close combat hitting power. If we were running minimal-sized crusader squads, power weapons would become an option. The destruction of your smaller squads won't hurt you much, as they are less costly points-wise, provided you took several units of them. However, because we have large units, we cannot risk them getting locked up with something they cannot kill (i.e. armored Walkers, T8 units, etc). When you get more experienced, you can transition to power weapons if you desire, but often its safer to just stick with the powerfist. We'll also take the 'Accept Any Challenge' vow so we get Preferred Enemy. Not a bad start, and has us sitting at about 600 points.
Emperor's Champion -- 140
Crusader Squad (10 initiates): 1 meltagun, 1 powerfist, and Rhino w/ Smoke Launchers -- 238
Crusader Squad (10 initiates): 1 meltagun, 1 powerfist, and Rhino w/ Smoke Launchers -- 238
We've got some points to play around with, so why not add some more stuff that kills. Assault terminators are one of the best close combat units in the game, so they should do nicely. We'll take a squad of 5 with Furious Charge (3x Pairs of Lightning Claws, 2x Thunder Hammers/Storm Shields). They need to have a transport for protection, so they'll take a Land Raider Crusader. The LRC will also give your Terminators the extremely important Frag Grenades the turn they charge (Assault Vehicle ftw). These will draw lots of fire in games, but will certainly kill anything they charge. As I mentioned earlier, we'll be taking 3 terminators with Lightning Claws and 2 with Thunder Hammers/Storm Shields. The TH/SS are taken in the event you are charged by a Dreadnought or T8 enemy, plus give some additional durability in close combat. The unit will then at least be able to fight back, without being slowly murdered. Besides, 3 Lightning Claws are more than sufficient to kill almost an entire 10-man MEQ squad on the charge. Taking more than that is really overkill.
We also need some fire support. Since Tyranids are a fearsome foe and are often in mob form, why not take a Vindicator or two? That will give us a way to kill infantry that our terminators and crusader squads can't get at. But what about vehicles? We have only have 3 meltas in the army right now, and that surely won't win the day against mechanized lists. Looking over what we can take, Land Speeders and Attack Bikes are great mobile options for this. Lets take two squads of two Attack Bikes. This will give us two mobile squads that can get into melta range quickly and fire two shots each at whatever vehicle they've pointed at, more than likely killing the said vehicle. That gives us 7 melta shots a turn. Should be good right? The updated list:
Emperor's Champion -- 140
Assault Terminator Squad (5 terminators): 3 pairs of lightning claws, 2 sets of Thunder Hammers and Storm Shields, and Land Raider Crusader w/ Smoke Launchers -- 483
Crusader Squad (10 initiates): 1 meltagun, 1 powerfist, and Rhino w/ Smoke Launchers -- 238
Crusader Squad (10 initiates): 1 meltagun, 1 powerfist, and Rhino w/ Smoke Launchers -- 238
Attack Bike Squadron (2 bikes): 2 multi meltas -- 130
Attack Bike Squadron (2 bikes): 2 multi meltas -- 130
Vindicator w/ Power of the Machine Spirit -- 155
Vindicator w/ Power of the Machine Spirit -- 155
Hmmm. That only comes to 1669 points. That still leaves us some room to maneuver. We are a bit weak in the troops department and considering 5th Edition set them as the only slot able claim objectives, two will probably not be enough for most games. At least one more squad is needed. In it goes. So we have a decent amount of close combat goodness, as well as excellent anti-infantry capabilities. We're still a bit lacking in anti-tank firepower, particularly in the "First Turn Firepower" department. We still have an open slot in the heavy support, so we'll take a Tri-Lascannon (trilas) Predator. This will enable us to disable enemy firepower the first turn. Anything that harms our rhinos or LRC needs to die as soon as possible, and the first turn is ideal.
Emperor's Champion -- 140
Assault Terminator Squad (5 terminators): 3 pairs of lightning claws, 2 sets of Thunder Hammers and Storm Shields, and Land Raider Crusader w/ Smoke Launchers -- 483
Crusader Squad (10 initiates): 1 meltagun, 1 powerfist, and Rhino w/ Smoke Launchers -- 238
Crusader Squad (10 initiates): 1 meltagun, 1 powerfist, and Rhino w/ Smoke Launchers -- 238
Crusader Squad (10 initiates): 1 meltagun, 1 powerfist, and Rhino w/ Smoke Launchers -- 238
Attack Bike Squadron (2 bikes): 2 multi meltas -- 130
Attack Bike Squadron (2 bikes): 2 multi meltas -- 130
Vindicator w/ Power of the Machine Spirit -- 155
Vindicator w/ Power of the Machine Spirit -- 155
Predator w/ Twin linked lascannon and lascannon sponsons -- 145
Oops, we went over our 2000 point limit by about 50 points! That is a problem, as we need our AT firepower and need our crusader squads. What can we do to fix this issue? Looking at the list, the vindicators don't really fit our army style very well. Sure they charge forward blasting away and will likely draw lots of enemy fire away from other elements of our list, but they are much too fragile for our needs. Plus, chances are our opponent's troops will be in transports where the demolisher cannon will do minimal damage. It also does very little against Monstrous Creatures. We'll just have to rely on our terminators and crusader squads for our anti-infantry roles. Out the vindicators go. We can always take predators to fill AI needs. Why not, we'll try out a Dakka predator. We also will take a Marshal with lightning claws, holy orb of antioch, and an iron halo to add to our CC knockout punch. He'll also give us leadership 10 across the board.
Marshal: Pair of Lightning Claws, Holy Orb of Antioch, Iron Halo, and Frag Grenades -- 146
Emperor's Champion -- 140
Assault Terminator Squad (5 terminators): 3 pairs of lightning claws, 2 sets of Thunder Hammers and Storm Shields, and Land Raider Crusader w/ Smoke Launchers -- 483
Crusader Squad (10 initiates): 1 meltagun, 1 powerfist, and Rhino w/ Smoke Launchers -- 238
Crusader Squad (10 initiates): 1 meltagun, 1 powerfist, and Rhino w/ Smoke Launchers -- 238
Crusader Squad (10 initiates): 1 meltagun, 1 powerfist, and Rhino w/ Smoke Launchers -- 238
Attack Bike Squadron (2 bikes): 2 multi meltas -- 130
Attack Bike Squadron (2 bikes): 2 multi meltas -- 130
Predator w/ Autocannon and Heavy Bolter sponsons -- 110
Predator w/ Twin linked lascannon and lascannon sponsons -- 145
1998 points. Perfect! Or is it? You think it is, so you take it to your local tournament to play!
Why is that? Often its because these new players build lists that lack balance, or in the case of 5th Edition, they have all these close combat monsters that can't kill transports. The days of 4th Edition are gone. With exception to very specific armies (i.e. Tyranids and Tau), people don't leave their infantry just laying around waiting to be charged. You have to have a way to get at them. That's where our balanced list comes in. Having duality in your lists is essential. If you don't know what this term means, quickly go over to my article regarding it on the BT 101: Duality page. Once you're finished reading that, continue on here. This article will be written with the assumption you understand duality and units will generally be built with it in mind.
Because close combat orientation is why most people choose Black Templars, this is the theme we're going to use for our list. I must mention, however, that BT need not always play this way. We can play several varieties of shooty armies quite well. In fact, I would argue that gunline armies are what the Black Templars are best at right now in 5th Edition (with our current 4th Edition codex). But that is besides the point, let's get back to our close combat list shall we?
Lets assume you've taken a look at the codex and have a basic understanding of the units inside of it. You see that we have to take the Emperor's Champion and two full-sized Crusader squads. Because you want to be mechanized, those crusader squads need transports. For now, we'll give them Rhinos. They will also be taking meltaguns and powerfists. These are taken so that our crusader squads have the ability to kill vehicles via shooting and close combat (especially important if a Dreadnought charges you), as well as some nice close combat hitting power. If we were running minimal-sized crusader squads, power weapons would become an option. The destruction of your smaller squads won't hurt you much, as they are less costly points-wise, provided you took several units of them. However, because we have large units, we cannot risk them getting locked up with something they cannot kill (i.e. armored Walkers, T8 units, etc). When you get more experienced, you can transition to power weapons if you desire, but often its safer to just stick with the powerfist. We'll also take the 'Accept Any Challenge' vow so we get Preferred Enemy. Not a bad start, and has us sitting at about 600 points.
Emperor's Champion -- 140
Crusader Squad (10 initiates): 1 meltagun, 1 powerfist, and Rhino w/ Smoke Launchers -- 238
Crusader Squad (10 initiates): 1 meltagun, 1 powerfist, and Rhino w/ Smoke Launchers -- 238
We've got some points to play around with, so why not add some more stuff that kills. Assault terminators are one of the best close combat units in the game, so they should do nicely. We'll take a squad of 5 with Furious Charge (3x Pairs of Lightning Claws, 2x Thunder Hammers/Storm Shields). They need to have a transport for protection, so they'll take a Land Raider Crusader. The LRC will also give your Terminators the extremely important Frag Grenades the turn they charge (Assault Vehicle ftw). These will draw lots of fire in games, but will certainly kill anything they charge. As I mentioned earlier, we'll be taking 3 terminators with Lightning Claws and 2 with Thunder Hammers/Storm Shields. The TH/SS are taken in the event you are charged by a Dreadnought or T8 enemy, plus give some additional durability in close combat. The unit will then at least be able to fight back, without being slowly murdered. Besides, 3 Lightning Claws are more than sufficient to kill almost an entire 10-man MEQ squad on the charge. Taking more than that is really overkill.
We also need some fire support. Since Tyranids are a fearsome foe and are often in mob form, why not take a Vindicator or two? That will give us a way to kill infantry that our terminators and crusader squads can't get at. But what about vehicles? We have only have 3 meltas in the army right now, and that surely won't win the day against mechanized lists. Looking over what we can take, Land Speeders and Attack Bikes are great mobile options for this. Lets take two squads of two Attack Bikes. This will give us two mobile squads that can get into melta range quickly and fire two shots each at whatever vehicle they've pointed at, more than likely killing the said vehicle. That gives us 7 melta shots a turn. Should be good right? The updated list:
Emperor's Champion -- 140
Assault Terminator Squad (5 terminators): 3 pairs of lightning claws, 2 sets of Thunder Hammers and Storm Shields, and Land Raider Crusader w/ Smoke Launchers -- 483
Crusader Squad (10 initiates): 1 meltagun, 1 powerfist, and Rhino w/ Smoke Launchers -- 238
Crusader Squad (10 initiates): 1 meltagun, 1 powerfist, and Rhino w/ Smoke Launchers -- 238
Attack Bike Squadron (2 bikes): 2 multi meltas -- 130
Attack Bike Squadron (2 bikes): 2 multi meltas -- 130
Vindicator w/ Power of the Machine Spirit -- 155
Vindicator w/ Power of the Machine Spirit -- 155
Hmmm. That only comes to 1669 points. That still leaves us some room to maneuver. We are a bit weak in the troops department and considering 5th Edition set them as the only slot able claim objectives, two will probably not be enough for most games. At least one more squad is needed. In it goes. So we have a decent amount of close combat goodness, as well as excellent anti-infantry capabilities. We're still a bit lacking in anti-tank firepower, particularly in the "First Turn Firepower" department. We still have an open slot in the heavy support, so we'll take a Tri-Lascannon (trilas) Predator. This will enable us to disable enemy firepower the first turn. Anything that harms our rhinos or LRC needs to die as soon as possible, and the first turn is ideal.
Emperor's Champion -- 140
Assault Terminator Squad (5 terminators): 3 pairs of lightning claws, 2 sets of Thunder Hammers and Storm Shields, and Land Raider Crusader w/ Smoke Launchers -- 483
Crusader Squad (10 initiates): 1 meltagun, 1 powerfist, and Rhino w/ Smoke Launchers -- 238
Crusader Squad (10 initiates): 1 meltagun, 1 powerfist, and Rhino w/ Smoke Launchers -- 238
Crusader Squad (10 initiates): 1 meltagun, 1 powerfist, and Rhino w/ Smoke Launchers -- 238
Attack Bike Squadron (2 bikes): 2 multi meltas -- 130
Attack Bike Squadron (2 bikes): 2 multi meltas -- 130
Vindicator w/ Power of the Machine Spirit -- 155
Vindicator w/ Power of the Machine Spirit -- 155
Predator w/ Twin linked lascannon and lascannon sponsons -- 145
Oops, we went over our 2000 point limit by about 50 points! That is a problem, as we need our AT firepower and need our crusader squads. What can we do to fix this issue? Looking at the list, the vindicators don't really fit our army style very well. Sure they charge forward blasting away and will likely draw lots of enemy fire away from other elements of our list, but they are much too fragile for our needs. Plus, chances are our opponent's troops will be in transports where the demolisher cannon will do minimal damage. It also does very little against Monstrous Creatures. We'll just have to rely on our terminators and crusader squads for our anti-infantry roles. Out the vindicators go. We can always take predators to fill AI needs. Why not, we'll try out a Dakka predator. We also will take a Marshal with lightning claws, holy orb of antioch, and an iron halo to add to our CC knockout punch. He'll also give us leadership 10 across the board.
Marshal: Pair of Lightning Claws, Holy Orb of Antioch, Iron Halo, and Frag Grenades -- 146
Emperor's Champion -- 140
Assault Terminator Squad (5 terminators): 3 pairs of lightning claws, 2 sets of Thunder Hammers and Storm Shields, and Land Raider Crusader w/ Smoke Launchers -- 483
Crusader Squad (10 initiates): 1 meltagun, 1 powerfist, and Rhino w/ Smoke Launchers -- 238
Crusader Squad (10 initiates): 1 meltagun, 1 powerfist, and Rhino w/ Smoke Launchers -- 238
Crusader Squad (10 initiates): 1 meltagun, 1 powerfist, and Rhino w/ Smoke Launchers -- 238
Attack Bike Squadron (2 bikes): 2 multi meltas -- 130
Attack Bike Squadron (2 bikes): 2 multi meltas -- 130
Predator w/ Autocannon and Heavy Bolter sponsons -- 110
Predator w/ Twin linked lascannon and lascannon sponsons -- 145
1998 points. Perfect! Or is it? You think it is, so you take it to your local tournament to play!
Fixing Our List
Ack! We still lost! But what happened? We did everything right didn't we? Not quite. Our above list is certainly balanced, but it is not optimized for competitive play. It is where most newer BT players would stop in the list building process, but we will do no such thing! We are trying to go with a close combat oriented army but I think we've lost sight of that in the quest of building a balanced list. So we'll go back to the drawing board. Pulling out the codex (or Army Builder) again, we need to find ways to keep decent amounts of AT fire into the list while providing our army with our desired close combat prowess.
There are several problems with our list as it currently stands. We have decent AT firepower, but they are on units that are quite expensive and frankly, easily neutralized in their current form. Attack Bikes are nice, but suffer from instant death. At 130 points, that is a big problem. They have a nice 3+ and turbo boost save, but I think these need to be changed for something else. There is also a problem with our Trilas predator. It doesn't fill a duality role and that is important in our games. It is also extremely expensive and will be targeted early and often, especially since its by itself.
We also have a few opportunities with our crusader squads. In our tournament games, we had to put our Independent Characters with the terminators so they weren't walking on the ground. But that made our Land Raider Crusader a huge target and it never got across the board to unload its squad. With such a massively expensive squad, you need to ensure it is as unimportant looking as possible. Failing that, give your opponent other targets that are dangerous to him or her. Playing around with the crusader squad sizes and composition will net us extra points, and space for our IC's in the rhinos.
Taking these ideas into consideration, we start playing around with our list again. We're going to take out the Attack Bikes and the Trilas Predator to start. That gives us roughly 400 points to mess around with. We need some mobile firepower to fill the attack bike void. Typhoon-Pattern Land Speeders fit this role perfectly after their BT FAQ 2011 update. They excel against vehicles and can be directed towards infantry if the situation calls for it. You can also use them to deep strike at your leisure. Lets take three of them in separate squadrons so we don't face the cons of squadron rules, plus give our opponent targeting problems. We're losing 4 MM from the Attack Bikes, but we save quite a few points and fulfill duality better than before. In exchange, we gained 6 Missile Launchers and 3 Heavy Bolters. Plus, they aren't likely to be hurt by small arms fire (i.e. bolters or equivalents) and won't be against Str 3 or poison weapons. An acceptable trade-off.
Next, we need to address our FTF (First Turn Firepower) since we dropped the Trilas predator. Fortunately, there is a predator configuration that costs quite a bit less and does the job of AT sufficiently well. This load out has an autocannon turret and lascannon sponsons. We'll take three of these. Combined with the Typhoons, that should provide us with some nice vehicle busting firepower without presenting too focused a target to shoot at.
Unfortunately, that puts us over the limit. Hmmm. What to take out? Fortunately we still have to play around with our Crusader squads to be able to fit our ICs in them. To start, we're going to drop the initiate count to 7 on two squads and 8 on one of them (see here for explanation on squad sizes). That should still give us ample Preferred Enemy coverage in each squad. Adding in the IC's to the two smaller squads, bringing their count up to 8 for both. Those last two slots in each squad will be filled by neophytes. Cheap and only marginally worse than initiates, these will provide ablative wounds to your squad. Just remember, neophytes don't gain the benefits of our Vow. Its okay though, as we gained the protection of the Marshal and EC in two of the squads. But alas, we're still over the limit. Easily fixed by making a change to the Marshal. The Iron Halo has to go. There goes our invulnerable save. Or did it? With the errata corrections with the BT 2011 FAQ, Storm Shields give us a 3+ invulnerable save from shooting and close combat attacks for 15 points. A discount! Unfortunately, this will cause us to lose a lightning claw attack because the SS takes up a hand. But we'll live. That puts our list at this:
Marshal: Lightning Claw, Storm Shield, Holy Orb of Antioch, Melta Bombs, and Frag Grenades -- 131
Emperor's Champion -- 140
Assault Terminator Squad (5 terminators): 3 pairs of lightning claws, 2 sets of Thunder Hammers and Storm Shields, and Land Raider Crusader w/ Smoke Launchers -- 483
Crusader Squad (7 initiates; 2 neophytes): 1 meltagun, 1 powerfist, and Rhino w/ Smoke Launchers and Extra Armor -- 215
Crusader Squad (7 initiates; 2 neophytes): 1 meltagun, 1 powerfist, and Rhino w/ Smoke Launchers and Extra Armor -- 215
Crusader Squad (8 initiates; 2 neophytes): 1 meltagun, 1 powerfist, and Rhino w/ Smoke Launchers and Extra Armor -- 231
Land Speeder w/ Heavy Bolter and Typhoon Missile Launcher -- 70
Land Speeder w/ Heavy Bolter and Typhoon Missile Launcher -- 70
Land Speeder w/ Heavy Bolter and Typhoon Missile Launcher -- 70
Predator w/ Autocannon and Lascannon sponsons -- 125
Predator w/ Autocannon and Lascannon sponsons -- 125
Predator w/ Autocannon and Lascannon sponsons -- 125
Now that is a list you can use to win games with. It retains quite a bit of close combat goodness from the Marshal and Emperor's Champion led crusader squads, the Terminator Squad, and the "objective-taker" crusader squad. Then you have plenty of AT fire from the 3 meltaguns in the crusader squads, 6 Missile Launchers from the Land Speeders, 1 MM on the LRC, and then you've got the Auto/Las Predators. Lots of duality, lots of killy units, plus we have managed to stay mechanized and balanced.
Remember: this list is not perfect, nor should it be considered ultra-competitive. It is a template, but more than that, it was an exercise to try and teach players how to look at their lists and build them properly.
Learn to make a truly competitive Black Templars list in BT 101: Building a Competitive 5th Edition List or BT 101: Building Another Competitive 5th Edition List!
Finished with the other list exercises? Check out Part Three: Assembling Your Crusade!
There are several problems with our list as it currently stands. We have decent AT firepower, but they are on units that are quite expensive and frankly, easily neutralized in their current form. Attack Bikes are nice, but suffer from instant death. At 130 points, that is a big problem. They have a nice 3+ and turbo boost save, but I think these need to be changed for something else. There is also a problem with our Trilas predator. It doesn't fill a duality role and that is important in our games. It is also extremely expensive and will be targeted early and often, especially since its by itself.
We also have a few opportunities with our crusader squads. In our tournament games, we had to put our Independent Characters with the terminators so they weren't walking on the ground. But that made our Land Raider Crusader a huge target and it never got across the board to unload its squad. With such a massively expensive squad, you need to ensure it is as unimportant looking as possible. Failing that, give your opponent other targets that are dangerous to him or her. Playing around with the crusader squad sizes and composition will net us extra points, and space for our IC's in the rhinos.
Taking these ideas into consideration, we start playing around with our list again. We're going to take out the Attack Bikes and the Trilas Predator to start. That gives us roughly 400 points to mess around with. We need some mobile firepower to fill the attack bike void. Typhoon-Pattern Land Speeders fit this role perfectly after their BT FAQ 2011 update. They excel against vehicles and can be directed towards infantry if the situation calls for it. You can also use them to deep strike at your leisure. Lets take three of them in separate squadrons so we don't face the cons of squadron rules, plus give our opponent targeting problems. We're losing 4 MM from the Attack Bikes, but we save quite a few points and fulfill duality better than before. In exchange, we gained 6 Missile Launchers and 3 Heavy Bolters. Plus, they aren't likely to be hurt by small arms fire (i.e. bolters or equivalents) and won't be against Str 3 or poison weapons. An acceptable trade-off.
Next, we need to address our FTF (First Turn Firepower) since we dropped the Trilas predator. Fortunately, there is a predator configuration that costs quite a bit less and does the job of AT sufficiently well. This load out has an autocannon turret and lascannon sponsons. We'll take three of these. Combined with the Typhoons, that should provide us with some nice vehicle busting firepower without presenting too focused a target to shoot at.
Unfortunately, that puts us over the limit. Hmmm. What to take out? Fortunately we still have to play around with our Crusader squads to be able to fit our ICs in them. To start, we're going to drop the initiate count to 7 on two squads and 8 on one of them (see here for explanation on squad sizes). That should still give us ample Preferred Enemy coverage in each squad. Adding in the IC's to the two smaller squads, bringing their count up to 8 for both. Those last two slots in each squad will be filled by neophytes. Cheap and only marginally worse than initiates, these will provide ablative wounds to your squad. Just remember, neophytes don't gain the benefits of our Vow. Its okay though, as we gained the protection of the Marshal and EC in two of the squads. But alas, we're still over the limit. Easily fixed by making a change to the Marshal. The Iron Halo has to go. There goes our invulnerable save. Or did it? With the errata corrections with the BT 2011 FAQ, Storm Shields give us a 3+ invulnerable save from shooting and close combat attacks for 15 points. A discount! Unfortunately, this will cause us to lose a lightning claw attack because the SS takes up a hand. But we'll live. That puts our list at this:
Marshal: Lightning Claw, Storm Shield, Holy Orb of Antioch, Melta Bombs, and Frag Grenades -- 131
Emperor's Champion -- 140
Assault Terminator Squad (5 terminators): 3 pairs of lightning claws, 2 sets of Thunder Hammers and Storm Shields, and Land Raider Crusader w/ Smoke Launchers -- 483
Crusader Squad (7 initiates; 2 neophytes): 1 meltagun, 1 powerfist, and Rhino w/ Smoke Launchers and Extra Armor -- 215
Crusader Squad (7 initiates; 2 neophytes): 1 meltagun, 1 powerfist, and Rhino w/ Smoke Launchers and Extra Armor -- 215
Crusader Squad (8 initiates; 2 neophytes): 1 meltagun, 1 powerfist, and Rhino w/ Smoke Launchers and Extra Armor -- 231
Land Speeder w/ Heavy Bolter and Typhoon Missile Launcher -- 70
Land Speeder w/ Heavy Bolter and Typhoon Missile Launcher -- 70
Land Speeder w/ Heavy Bolter and Typhoon Missile Launcher -- 70
Predator w/ Autocannon and Lascannon sponsons -- 125
Predator w/ Autocannon and Lascannon sponsons -- 125
Predator w/ Autocannon and Lascannon sponsons -- 125
Now that is a list you can use to win games with. It retains quite a bit of close combat goodness from the Marshal and Emperor's Champion led crusader squads, the Terminator Squad, and the "objective-taker" crusader squad. Then you have plenty of AT fire from the 3 meltaguns in the crusader squads, 6 Missile Launchers from the Land Speeders, 1 MM on the LRC, and then you've got the Auto/Las Predators. Lots of duality, lots of killy units, plus we have managed to stay mechanized and balanced.
Remember: this list is not perfect, nor should it be considered ultra-competitive. It is a template, but more than that, it was an exercise to try and teach players how to look at their lists and build them properly.
Learn to make a truly competitive Black Templars list in BT 101: Building a Competitive 5th Edition List or BT 101: Building Another Competitive 5th Edition List!
Finished with the other list exercises? Check out Part Three: Assembling Your Crusade!
