How to Make Black Templars Stand Out?

[Carrelio]

Hey everyone, so I recently cracked the code on how to break apart the old assault on black reach starter set marine.  I have 50 of them... and I wanted to do something special with them.  I consider myself quite skilled with modeling and I am looking for a challenging conversion.  I picked Black Templars because I feel they have more going on visually than a regular marine chapter, and I really like the overly zealous grim dark never ending war fluff.  But how can I make them stand out from other marines?

The obvious choice is to give them all robes, chains, and the Templar cross, but I was wondering if anyone could think of some conversion ideas that would make them really stand out.  I'm using the standard snap fit marines from the 5th edition starter set, and I have currently been able to break them down into a head, left arm, body (with right arm fused to it), and legs (which can be broken down at every joint including hips, knees, and even feet).

Ideas?

[LinnScarlett]

Pff there's a head twister if you ask me! Hm. Well, depending on what you have laying around in your bitzbox and how good you are at sculpting you could do some awesome things with them I think. My first thought was that perhaps trying to get your hands on some Dark Angel upgrade sprues or sprue bits would be a nice way to 'tack out' the regular marine look. Or a Black Templer upgrade sprue, if that exists. The Dark Angel one is not too hefty in the prices, and it comes with robe bits that you can mix in for some flavour to your captains/sergeants/leader dudes.

I am not sure if you just want your snap-fits to look less like snap-fits and more like the stuff of awesome, or that you aim to make BT that also stand out from other BT? The last might be quite difficult to tackle. You could go with a colour accent to their normal scheme, to give it a bit of an unique flavour. Nothing too bold, but a little something that makes people look back at them.  When it comes to fitting the models in nice poses, I think your best bet is looking up some BT art work, or images of what other people did with SM in general and BT in particular. Another source of inspiration might be looking into some historical depictions of paladins and knights templar. There might be details and themes there that could give you inspiration.

Other than that, the sky's the limit, no? What I do when trying to figure out a pose, is cut the 'test' marine up in small joint bits (head, chest, upper arm, lower arm, hands, upper legs, lower legs, feet etc) and use green stuff and start tacking him back together, taking a picture of every position I come up with, and then later put those together and see which ones came out best. Its a bit of a lengthy thing to do (though I find it fun) but it can yield some great results by just 'letting out the crazy' as you work and try and find.

The last time I did that (let out the crazy, that is) was some days ago and I wound up with standard Space Marines meet Dark Angels upgrade sprue and Chaos Space Marine bits gone robed Alpha Legionnaires mounted charging on Cold One Raptors...

Just my thoughts, good luck with them! I personally find making snapfits look good/unique/interesting a pain.

[Narric]

Some more obvious mods would be running poses, holding the gun one handed, changing tacticals to Assault marines/Sword Brethren.

Do you have terminators as well? Giving them more dynamic poses (see Dark Vengeance Termies) would improve them, but they also have the option for a second Heavy Weapon in a 5-man squad, so theres an addition you could do.

If you give us some snappies of what the broken down pieces look like, and it might help us give you ideas.

[Carrelio]

I'll post up some pictures ASAP 

[Carrelio]

Thanks for the advice I'll try to make what I'm doing a little more clear...

A couple years ago now, I went half in with my friend on 5 AOBR sets.  He wanted the orks for a green tide, and I felt I could always use more marines (for the $200 I paid, the dreadnoughts alone... which I used as psyriflemen in my grey knight army... have just about paid for themselves).  Now, 2 years later, with a nearly complete Tau list, I am looking for something new to work on.

I started a similar project for fantasy, where I am remaking my entire dark elf army with custom sculpts (every model to this point has been reposed, with a fur-lined cape, added chainmail, clothing including hoods and sleeves, and plates of armour, as well as individual cobblestone bases) and I would like a similar project for 40K.

The choice was clear which army I should be looking at, I had 50 unfinished marines and 25 unfinished terminators... the pieces were all there.  So, over the past couple weeks, I looked into how they could be dismantled into their core pieces and did some very extensive research into several marine chapters (Lamenters, Salamanders, and Black Templars).  Lamenters didn't provide a large enough conversion range, the Salamander fluff bored me half to death (also, my first attempt at a Salamander turned out looking very much in the realm of a post-herasy Alpha Legion model), and thus I settled on Black Templars.

The overall goal is to create a Black Templars army that stands out on the battlefield.  This means that it will stand out distinctly from not just other marine armies, but other Black Templar forces as well (because a quick search on google images will tell you those have the potential to be boring too).  It is my intention to try to make each and every model fielded worth a second look, and unique in its own right.

I am confident my work with greenstuff is proficient (or else will improve rapidly enough) for any suggestions people throw my way, and I intend to use as many suggestions as I can to improve the models I have.  Below is an image of a few marines from the work in progress thus far to help get an idea of what I have to work with, and hopefully (though its just a little work so far) my ability to sculpt.



To reiterate the above with the standard marine on the far left as an example, an Assault on Black Reach space marine can be broken down into the following parts:
Head
Left arm
Torso and right arm (fused nearly inseparably)
Abdomen
Left thigh
Right thigh
Left leg and foot
Right leg and foot
Gun
Backpack
Base

Ideas I have for the project so far include:
Basing the marines on a volcanic base (I've always wanted to try it out, and now that I've just ordered 2 rolls of adhesive cork there has never been a better time to try it), this will include the possibility of object light sourcing a warm glow around the lower portions of the miniatures, though I am not yet sold on that.
Repositioning of the legs, torso, and head to provide more dynamic poses.
Sculpting robes, chains, and Black Templars iconography where possible (I would like to hear opinions about where and how I could consider placing such things).

Any other suggestions would be of great help!

[Narric]

What are you plans for the 5 Captain Sicarius models? My own first thought was Sword Brethren, or Command Squad, by they may have the same look about them.

For the army in general, thereis plenty of official and fan-made artwork, that can be used as inspiration for model conversions. Such as these:

http://mrdue.deviantart.com/art/Black-Templars-Colored-2-127891340
http://majesticchicken.deviantart.com/art/Knight-Ops-165780818

[LinnScarlett]

What are you plans for the 5 Captain Sicarius models? My own first thought was Sword Brethren, or Command Squad, by they may have the same look about them.

I think Sicarius will require some modelling/kitbashing, if you change some of the ornamentations and go a bit wild with the poses you can make them into an awesome command retinue for your captain. In the category of completely crazy thoughts: the first thing it made me think of were twin captains! Hmm, potential... and crazy, I know. Hehe. If Alph/Omg can pull it off though? Sounds like a blast to have for an Alpha Legion theme (oh my poor Alphas, how hard it is to make you all look 'the same' without pulling 'lack of creativity'...).

[Charistoph]

If you're going with just the Black Reach models, don't forget to convert one to an Emperor's Champion, he's required above 750 still.

[Carrelio]

I may have already converted most of the Sicarius models into Grey Knights...  :-X
I'm not sure if I'll actually be playing them using the Black Templar book, since they are all tactical marines and that probably won't make a super strong choice.  I've actually been considering making them count as Blood Angels Death Company army (to represent the righteous anger!) and stuffing them all in drop pods (to represent the drop pod style assaults).

[Narric]

Carrelio, do you not have the Black Templar codex? BT HAVE rules to represent their "Righteous Fury," and they DO have access do Drop Pod Assault.

The only thing you'd be missing out on is the ability to take Scouts as a seperate unit. Everything else is fairly close to the SM codex, with the exception of some recently made units. Even then i think the Stormraven can be used by any Space Marine Codex so long as your opponent knows, and the Storm Talon is a White Dwarf addition anyway, so is definately available to Black Templars.

[Chocomel]

Convert some of the helmets into more knightly looking. i recently watched a WD from days gone by which had the BT releases, the artwork had some real nice helmets.

[Carrelio]

I don't have the Black Templar codex at the moment; but I was aware they had access to all the things I just listed.  My issue was from a perspective of army list building; that they will all be using bolters.
Now, perhaps, given that I have not read over the BT book, I am missing something that would make their 'tactical' marines more powerful than regular tactical marines, but from what I know of a basic bolter build in every other marine list, is that it is among the worst of the choices to pick (playing Tau I actually find them downright excellent troops by comparison... but most people don't share my thoughts on this).  My solution, both to not having the BT book (being cheap) and wanting my bolter marines to actually be worth something when I field them, was to play them as Death Company, where the FNP, Furious charge, Rage, and Relentless serve them much better than regular tactical marines.

[Chris]

I found some of the more effective ones were simply dynamic ones.... Remember, like the Space Wolves, each Templar wants to be a hero...

Some simple head swaps with some Fantasy Empire men at arms, maybe chuck some swords from there too (CCW doesn't have to be a chain sword!)

Green stuff some robes on them and perhaps the simple combat knife bayonette job works well too!

[Chicop76]

I've found Dark Angels and Grey Knight bits work really well together. Grey Knight heads which you will have etras of would fit nicely. If you willing to buy bits I will search for links to post here what I find.
http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/Warhammer-400[url]]] http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/Warhammer-400[url]00/Space_Marines/Space-Marine-Dreadnoughts/BLACK-TEMPLARS-VENERABLE-DREADNOUGHT.html [/url]
Forge World Black Templar Ven Dread
http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/Warhammer-40000/Space_Marines/Space_Marine-Vehicle-Accessories/BLACK_TEMPLARS_LAND_RAIDER_DOORS_SET_2.html
Landraider doors
http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/Warhammer-40000/Space_Marines/Space_Marine-Vehicle-Accessories/BLACK_TEMPLARS_ICONS.html
Icons
http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/Warhammer-40000/Space_Marines/Space_Marine-Vehicle-Accessories/BLACK-TEMPLARS-MK2B-LAND-RAIDER-DOORS.html
More land raider
http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/Warhammer-40000/Space_Marines/Space_Marine-Vehicle-Accessories/BLACK-TEMPLARS-RHINO-REAR-DOOR.html
http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/Warhammer-40000/Space_Marines/Space_Marine-Vehicle-Accessories/BLACK-TEMPLARS-RHINO-DOORS-AND-FRONT-PLATE-SET-1.html
http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/Warhammer-40000/Space_Marines/Space_Marine-Vehicle-Accessories/BLACK_TEMPLARS_RHINO_DOORS_AND_FRONT_PLATE_SET_2.html
http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/Warhammer-40000/Space_Marines/Space_Marine-Infantry-and-Accessories/BLACK_TEMPLARS_TERMINATOR_SHOULDER_PAD]] http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/Warhammer-40000/Space_Marines/Space_Marine-Infantry-and-Accessories/BLACK_TEMPLARS_TERMINATOR_SHOULDER_PAD

[Chicop76]

http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/Warhammer-40000/Space_Marines/Space_Marine-Infantry-and-Accessories/BLACK_TEMPLARS_TERMINATOR_STORM_SHIELDS.html

These storm shields look nice. I started another post due to me not being able to see what I write.

http://www.thewarstore.com/BlackTemplarBits.html

Link for bits

For 33 dollars American GW offer a sprue which have a lot of going on with it.