Any Tips against Black Templars?

[the6thdegree]

Hi guys - I have a game against Black Templars coming up and wondered if anyone had any advice?

Its 1850pts, no idea what he's fielding and I can field any Nids.

I've only had one game against BTs in 5th and it was Terminator-heavy and I found it an uphill struggle.

My current thoughts are:

Armoured Shell Tyrant (with LW/BS) with 2 T Guards (with LW) - for 2+ save Termi killing
2 x Tervigons & 2 x 20 Gants - standard for swamping, claiming & psy support
6 x Hive Guard - auto-in normally
Maybe some LW/BS Warriors? Do BTs have much S8+ normally? If not, they are good Termi killers.
2 x Trygons? Could hurt 5-man Termi squads...

[free]

I played a BT army at 1850 just last week. My Brood of 7 Ymgarls did great as always and 3 Tervigons with toxin, producing swarms of Termagants is really efficient. We played Crusade and I tabled him in turn 5 after I had lost 3 KP (Doom, a gaunt brood, and a Mycetic Spore). In all fairness he rolled really bad but anyway, my feeling is that if you just watch out for the command squad/Character and anything else seems pretty ok. i will post my list if you want.

I think your list sounds great but I am missing some disruptive elements like Ymgarls, Doom or Something quicker to rush him.

[swarm492]

I find tervigons and masses of gants to be my preferred way of dealing with templars, I haven't played them however in 5th or after their faq resulting in the rewording of their accept the challenge no matter the odds vow. The change in that vow I think alone will take some of the bite out of the army. Pretty much I would just super support my gants with ability's and let them crash against them and die in the tide. You gotta play really number heavy though which is my play style, I like having 2 maybe 3 tervigons and 50 to 75 termagants in addition to whatever else I use.

[arbitershade]

Well as my two armies are Tyranids and BTs I can honestly say...you have nothing to REALLY worry about.

The nastiest thing you will see from BT is a group of TH/SS Terminators lead by a Master of Sanctity in a LRC, THEN they take AAC which gives every unit in the army rage.

So what I do when I play my BT I do the above, with the Chaplin with a Powerfist/Lightning Claw, that means the MoS is getting 5 attacks, 7 on the charge, at either I1 S8 OR I5 S4 Shred. Then you have all of the Termies getting 4 attacks each with TH.

It is a very nasty squad but...it cost more than an arm and a leg, running close to 700 points or more.

Other than that you have to worry about BT shooty squads because it is a 4th edition codex they can still take 5 man Las/Plas. Basic Crusade squads are really (please do not swear) marines, so you don't have to worry about anything except the fact that their PF is NOT a seargent, so no challenges but only one attack.

Cheap Land Speeders are another point to worry about. BT can get away with 70 point Typhoons and can lead to a lot of missile spam.

Also, get your HT into combat with the Emperor's Champion ASAP. The Champion may be strength 6 in close combat but his weapon is only AP3 and he HAS to issue a challenge. So your HT can 1v1 him down with his 4++.

EDIT: Also, due to 6th FAQs Righteous Zeal MUST be made at full movement...so last turn you can actually shoot his squads that are controlling points and FORCE them to move off of the point.

[N.I.B.]

I've played more against Black Templars than any other flavour of spezz mahreens, and I can say that they have been really nerfed by 6th ed. Two big ones - as mentioned above, less Righteous Zeal shenanigans, and losing the old army wide Prefered Enemy. Huge, the last one is.

[the6thdegree]

Sooooo - I had the game and got I strongly disagree handed to me...

He ended up bringing 3 shooty 5 man Termi squads, a 10 man GK Termi ally squad, a Bastion and some BT marines or something.

I lost the game on the deployment - it was the length-wise setup and I set up as far forward as possible, but he set up his half-dozen cyclone missiles 40 inches away and backed-up firing every turn for 4 turns and took down 2 MCs a turn with Krak missiles. I only managed to get into combat on turn 5 and that was with the remnants of a Gant brood that did nothing.

I was faced with the difficult choice of getting to 18 inches of them and either firing and letting them slip away or pray for a high charge roll. Neither worked

Plus I have never known anyone make so many Terminator armour saves - he failed a total of 4 saves all game.

[arbitershade]

Okay so basically he wasn't playing BT, he was playing the numbers. Seriously, he could have taken Dark Angels and ran Deathwing for the same effect. Let's break down his points...

220 for the Fortress, minus any upgrades.

Not knowing his actually list I am just going to go off of bare minimums...

GK: 460
Brotherhood Champion 100
Terminator Squad 360

BT: 1075
Emperor's Champion 100
Castellan 65
Crusader Squad 80
Crusader Squad 80
Terminators 250 x 3 = 750

Total: 1755

That is BARE minimum no upgrades to anything. That means he had 95 points to play with for upgrades...now that I look at this it seems fishy that he was even able to legally FIELD what you describe. That would be two missles per termi squad for the BT, NO upgrades for the GKs. And the crusaders with nothing but bolters.

[swarm492]

I'm telling ya, a sea of bodies. A guy I use to be friends with stopped playing me because he couldn't win, he was always a unforgiving player that had to win. So to be honest I didn't give two (please do not swear).

[fragile]

Sept 25, 2012 10:44:06 GMT the6thdegree said:

Sooooo - I had the game and got I strongly disagree handed to me...

He ended up bringing 3 shooty 5 man Termi squads, a 10 man GK Termi ally squad, a Bastion and some BT marines or something.

I lost the game on the deployment - it was the length-wise setup and I set up as far forward as possible, but he set up his half-dozen cyclone missiles 40 inches away and backed-up firing every turn for 4 turns and took down 2 MCs a turn with Krak missiles. I only managed to get into combat on turn 5 and that was with the remnants of a Gant brood that did nothing.

I was faced with the difficult choice of getting to 18 inches of them and either firing and letting them slip away or pray for a high charge roll. Neither worked

Plus I have never known anyone make so many Terminator armour saves - he failed a total of 4 saves all game.

The key thing to take away from this is that you need disruption units. Things like Drop pods with DoM, Fex, Guants to distract, or things like Ymgarls to come out of terrain and tie up their Dev squads or kill vehicles. These things are key in letting you come across the board.

Also speed units make a big difference. Getting 13-18" a turn with jump or beasts lets you close in fast. The farthest you should have to go on a 4'x6' table is 48". You should get your guys into melee by Turn 3.

[the6thdegree]

Yeah - to get that many Terminators in, I think they were all armed basically. It def a legit list though; he's been running it a tournaments.

Looking back, I can now see why disruption units are even more important in 6th - in 5th I would normally take the hits and have more bodies on the ground, but a couple of Ygmarl broods would have ruined his day royally....

[fragile]

And a thing to remember is that the broods do not have to be large enough to "win" the fight. They only have to survive for 3 combat phases to be effective. By then your other troops should be arriving to clean up. I run 1 brood of Ymgarl's and usually they are eaten up in combat, (by almost anything it seems) but they do their purpose and tie up key things like Dev Squads, etc..

[demoric]

Sept 28, 2012 13:24:32 GMT the6thdegree said:

Yeah - to get that many Terminators in, I think they were all armed basically. It def a legit list though; he's been running it a tournaments..

I like this guys style of lists. I struggled with my vanilla Space Marines until I implemented some good advice. The best upgrades you can buy for your army is more units. That is pretty much my mantra and rarely does it not produce better lists.