Black Templars on a budget

[marine77]

I am a teacher, and as such, am poor. My entire Warhammer hobby has centered around my ability get good deals on models and to paint those models up nicey enough to sell and get new models with. Thus far, I have exclusively played Warhammer Fantasy starting with Dark Elves then moving on to Dwarfs, Wood Elves, Beastmen, and High Elves. I have always kept the Dark Elves and have lived to see them in vogue again. I currently have full Dark Elf and Hig Elf armies.

As such, I have always loved the space marine models. In particular, I have always had a huge desire to paint up a wicked looking Emperor's Champion model. The EC is one bad dude! It is because of this that I decided to start a Black Templar army, but in doing so, I am hoping to make it under the $500-600 that GW suggests as retail for it.

To aid me, I have used ebay, bartertown, and a local indy retailer to help me out.

Thus far, I have accumulated:

$60- Emperor's Champion

11 Initiates with black templar upgrades, 8 pistol/CCW, 1 fist, 1 melta gun

5 neophytes with pistol/CCW

$40- 10 Initiates with black templar upgrades, 6 pistol/CCW, 2 fists, 2 melta guns

5 neophytes with pistol/CCW

$23- 6 Terminators- 4 with stormbolters and power fists, 2 with assault cannons and powerfists

Coming up, I have a marine commander and a rhino coming my way.

I will attempt to keep everyone up to date on my painting attempts along the way. As such, I have been really inspired by Titan's plog on Relicnews. His painting, converting, and subsequently, army look amazing. I am blatantly ripping off some of his ideas as I am just not that creative. Here ends the rant and begins the pics. First are my terminators:

I have made only a few changes to these guys.

1) I have added the tabards to give them a crusader feel.

2) As templars, they need some sort of knightly weapon. I added a power punching dagger to each powerfist to count as the fist.

3) I have magnetized all of the arms in order to make the most of the models. I am now hoping to get storm hammers and storm shields and lightning claws that will be ready to magnetize to maximize these models. Always budget minded!

4) A final touch I need to work on is getting the black templar shoulder pads for their right arms.

Next is a drop pod that I made from foamcore board, plasticard, and cardboard using the plans from Santa Cruz warhammer. This is a great blog. Check it out at: Santa Cruz Warhammer: Scratch Built Drop Pods that Don't Suck

I am almost finished with my Emperor's Champion who has some simple conversions that will hopefully make him stand out. Until my next post, thanks for reading.

[lostraven]

Very nice looking terminators and thanks for the link - very useful.

[Glaeken Templaris]

As your doing a templar force on a shoe string i would defo recomend you get your hands on the "assault on blackreach" set then sell the orks, that leave you with a dreadnough, terminators with captain, initiates with and captian, and a force commander. plus you get your new green templates and a mini rule book for this current edition.

 

also have a look at Project: Black Reach

 

an awesome guide of customising ther AoBR to dark angels but im sure you can just chaneg things to the might templars

[marine77]

Thanks for the suggestion. I have been interested in the Black Reach set for awhile now, but was a bit unmotivated to move forward with it as I haven't found a good place for shooty marines in my army yet. That very well may change, but I do like the idea of having the extra minis.

[marine77]

My Emperor's Champion is coming along. I mentioned in my first post that this guy is the reason I started playing 40k and the Black Templars. I love this model. To that end, my anal retentiveness is really coming into play. Currently, I am not quite happy with his army as highlighting black is somewhat harder that I had anticipated when wanting a smooth, seamless look. I will probably give him a black wash and add some more highlights before I am happy. Currently though, he is playable and looks fairly decent. The only real difference I have put into him is giving him a white helmet. It really provides some contrast to the model and makes him unique. To that end, I believe all of my powerfist models are also going to have white helmets. It should be a striking effect. Also, I decided the represent the vows that the army takes on the model, so I have tacked on two long pieces of parchment with the vows on them. The give the model a cape-like look. Here he is:

Let me know what you think. Thanks.

[InsideReticle]

I love budget blogs. What did you use for tabards on those terminators? Everything is looking good.

 

I also want to second the 'get black reach' sentiment, it's a great deal for marines.

[marine77]

Thanks for the reply.

 

The long tabards on the terminators are cloaks from the High Elf archer sprue. The short ones are banners clipped from a Bretonnian knight of the realm musician's horn, and there is one inbetweener which I took from a chaos warrior cloak that I cut down and shaved the skull from. That said, plasticard is fairly easy to heat up and mold, so I might try to do a few of those with my marines that don't have tabards.

[titan136]

The terms came out looking very good! Your highlights come out very soft and muted.

 

I like the giant purity seals on the EC as well, I think the gold areas could use just a tiny bit more depth. I think a gold+mithril drybrush or a thin ink wash would really make them areas POP.

 

great work over all, looking forward to seeing more.

[marine77]

This installment of Black Templars on a Budget is entitled, "Bitz Bargains".

In trying to make a cost effective force, I have decided to make as many multi-purpose minis as possible. With that in mind, I knew I would need to invest in some quality bitz. To that end, I went to The Warstore. They have a great bitz section called Battlewagon Bitz. While perusing their selection, I noticed that they accept bitz trad-ins! Great, I thought, Now if I only have something they need. Suffice to say that a few dozen flying bases and some 15 Wood Elf Glade Guard heads later, I had a substantial (in bitz terms) sum of credit to spend on bitz without actually paying anything. With my credit, I collect two thunder hammer/storm shield combos, a BT back banner, and some Terminator shoulder pads. With them, I have been able to do the following:

With the help of my pin vise, a hobby knife, and some rare earth magnets, I was able to make my Marshall customizable by allowing him the ability to eventually swap out arms. The first pic is a closeup of my magnet placement. The last two are the WiP Marshall with bolt pistol and power sword.

Next, we have my primed Rhino. This guy is ready for some paint as soon as I finish a commission job.

Next, we have two Terminators that I have modelled with storm bolters and powerfists. Due to yet more magnet-y goodness, they will serve as my thunderhammer/storm shield bearers. Check out these pics.

First, with storm bolters.

Second, look mom no hands!

Third, close combat action! I just need to paint the arms.

Finally, I have a few pics of my WiP BT upgrade marines. Notice the powerfist model. All powerfists and HQs will have white helmets to identify them as leadership. It gives the army some character.

Also, note that I went with blue eyes on all of my models. With the amount of red in the iconography and heraldry of the BT, I thought the blue accents would set the models off nicely.

Not pictured, but finished are my Emperor's Champion clean up. He is slightly more clean and about to receive a hip mounted bolt pistol. Also, my drop pod is pretty much finished. Hopefully, those will be in my next update. Thanks again for your constructive comments.

[A D-B]

I'm in the birth throes of a Templars army, and this thread is hellishly inspiring. Great stuff.

[Fire Lord Captain]

Very nicely done! I don't usually like Black Templars but yours look cool. Is it because of the red cross me wonders. Forgive my ignorance, what does plog mean?

[Marshal Rohr]

These are painted very well. I like the Titan-esque Bone coloring. Have you written any fluff for your Crusade?

[Thantoes]

Your army is painted so well yet I want to get out a stick and beat you.....Mold lines!!!!!..especially on terminator legs :D

[marine77]

Thanks for the comments guys.

 

@A D-B. Thanks for the comment. I actually am stealing a lot of my ideas from Titan136's relicnews blog. Check it out in the link found in our Black Templar Resource sticky. Talk about inspiration!

 

@ Fire Lord. Once again the crosses are inspired from Titan136. I love the busy, personalized detail work on each piece of armor and cloth. I imagine that the Templars decorate their armor and gear after each campaign to commemorate their accomplishments.

 

@Marshal2. I haven't come up with fluff yet, but I am thinking about it. There won't be a ton their. Mostly just reasoning why models are painted the way their are.

 

@Thantoes. yeah yeah yeah.... I know. I am really bad about mold lines. My main goal with these models is a really solid tabletop appearance. Close inspection of my models will show tons of flaws. I just want my opponent to get their butt kicked and then think, At least the army looked great.

[reaver13]

Keep up the good work! You've got some fantastic looking models, and as you've already acknowledged, scrape those mold lines! ^_^

[ThirtySixNights]

Amazing!

 

loving that fruitful red colour!

 

where do you get your magnets from?

[verpine]

That's some magnificent gold on your marshall.

[marine77]

@Thirtysixnights. Thanks for the compliments. All of my reds are reaper master series paints. I go through a progression of blood red, 50/50 blood red/fire red mix, fire red, 50/50 fire red/pheonix red, with a final touch of phoenix red highlights as it is more of an orange tone. The magnets are some very small rare earth magnets.

 

@verpine. Thanks for the comment on the gold. Yet again, I owe my success to reaper master series paints. I start with a base coat of Ancient Bronze, then wash with GW's devlan mud, then I highlight with reaper Ancient Gold.

[Terminatorinhell]

These are REALLY nice Black Templars! I especially like the punch daggers and the Champion!

[Skirax]

The black is just awesome. Especailly the highlights.

[marine77]

@Terminatorinhell. Thanks man! You are the first person to get that! I wanted them to have a more templar/knight theme, so I figured that since their powerfists were power weapons anyway, adding a blade for aesthetics couldn't hurt. My next similar conversion idea is to have a dreadnought with a giant blade coming out of the DCCW claw.

 

@Skirax. Thanks. I owe that effect to a friend of mine's suggestion. If you use a very dark grey like GW's adeptus battlegrey foundation paint first and then heavily wash it with GW's badab black, it gains a lot of depth. I happen to use a primer that is a very dark grey, so the effect is the same.

[marine77]

I have entitled this update, Pimp my Dreadnought. I recently purchased a AoBR Dread for $12.99 on ebay. I think this guy is great as I will be using him almost exclusively with a drop pod. He comes with a multi-melta and a DCCW w/bolter, though I don't think it would be hard to convince people to let me run him with a heavy flamer. That said, I decided to spice him up a bit by adding a few bits. Here are some pics.

I added a tabard, a templar shield to his DCCW, a templar cross on that arm's shoulder, a skull to his right leg armor, and a banner pole to the top of his torso. In the works still, I need to clean up his left arm around the templar cross and I think the cross will be outlined in either black or gold. I am also working on a sword that if asked belonged to the marine when he was an initiate and he now carries it as an heirloom of sorts. It will be mounted across his power plant on his back. I think this guy looks pretty wicked and he fits my army's theme with a white sarcophagus plate and a white DCCW like my IC's and powerfists have.

Next is a picture of my first drop pod. it looks pretty decent and will be usable. It cost me nothing as the foamcore board and cardstock was laying around the house. I am currently working on a second one so that I can have both a drop pod Dreadnought and a drop pod crusader squad to go after objectives across the board. Here is the pod.

Next I am finishing up some details on my marshall and champion and will be painting up my thunder hammers and storm shields. Hopefully in a week's time or so, I will have two land raiders, a rhino, and a trilas pred along with some lightning claws for my remaining terminators to make them able to either be regular terminators or assault terminators.

Thanks for looking and as always your comments are appreciated.

[Dosjetka]

These are really good. I really like your Sword Brethren. I'm not extremely keen on your Drop Pod, but I couldn't do it much better and that's just me. Anyway, good work! Can't wait to see more! :devil:

[Dennis]

Even though the highlights are very harsh, I must say that I really like your style of painting, it has a 'comic' feel which I like. What are your plans for the bases?

[marine77]

@Dannis. Thanks for the reply. The highlights are more striking and strident because I really want this army to look good on the table, not upon intense scrutinization. I find that that level of detail just bogs me down. If I can just get creative with the details and make the paint job look great on the table, most people will really like this army. The black with red and white detailing really pops in games.

 

As far as bases, I am going to pop off all of these bases eventually and go resin, either a rocky theme or maybe a paved stone theme. I have a WFB High Elf army whose main colors are red and white and by painting stone or rock with a base of adeptus battlegrey followed by astronomican grey, I get a lot of great contrast between hot and cold colors from the base and the model. It really pops. I will have to post some high elves to show your what I mean.

 

@Battle Brother- thanks for the comments. Yeah, my drop pods aren't pretty and they are nearly as snazzy as the GW ones, but they are free at the moment, so that fulfills a lot of criteria for me and they don't look terrible, so I guess that is a win-win with this being a budget army and all.