30k Templar Brethren

Sword-wielding loyalists, ready to defend their Legion's honour to the end!

A slow-but-steady drip of reinforcements continues for the VII Legion Astartes, the Imperial Fists. This is a squad of Templar Brethren, elite warriors of Rogal Dorn's legion, clad in fancy customized Mark III power armour, bearing bolt pistols, shields, scary swords and a burning desire to adjust the attitudes of others. These are 28mm resin-and-plastic kits from Forge World.

Bolt pistols, swords and shields...ready to establish some loyalty, up close and personal.

In GW's "Age of Darkness" setting, every Space Marine legion has its own elite and specialized formations, and the Imperial Fists are no exception. The Templar Brethren are "guardians of the temple" on board the Imperial Fist flagship Phalanx, and as you might guess from their equipment, are pretty great with swords. In the Age of Darkness game these fellows are meant for close contact action, and they will be beheading traitors with grim, fanatical determination - which is great fun, I expect, so long as you are on the loyalist side. 

The vox-caster is a nice touch...yes, they are fanatical, sword-wielding warriors, but they still need a tactical vox connection - how very Rogal Dorn!

I have not had occasion to use these fellows in a game yet, but from all accounts they are quite nasty on the table. The Imperial Fists, in the lore and in their presentation of the Age of Darkness rules, offer a sense solid, uncompromising and stoic defence. Their advantages seem to focus, for the most part, on firepower, with all of the Marines in the Legion receiving a bonus to hit with bolt weapons. Seems about right for the sort who like to build big walls, and then stand on top of them to shoot any trouble-making sorts.

The back banner is a lovely touch, but I definitely struggled painting it...the embossed fist is tricky to paint, and I'm not exactly an ace when it comes to edge highlighting black armour and symbols...and the detail of the wreath being a little soft was an additional challenge...but from a foot away, it all looks OK.

But no long-range firepower for this lot. They will step right up and cut rebel Space Marines into tiny pieces! They have fancy swords, fancy pistols, fancy shields, fancy training and fancy Mark III power armour, with all manner of customized VII Legion iconography. 

I'm a sucker for fancy weapons, and the Sergeant gets to carry an archeotech pistol, for those extra-fun encounters against the Warmaster's followers.

Lots of details on the shields - a bit of a mush under my brush, but not bad from a foot away.

Painting this lot was a bit of a different experience compared to other Imperial Fist marines, as there is relatively little yellow and mostly involved black armoured edge highlights - and with Mark III armour, there are lots of a lots of edge!. I don't really know that my brush skills were able to rise to the challenge here - in particular, I feel like the swords look just a bit boring...these days you see so many hobbyists achieving very cool effects on sci-fi sword blades, and while I stare at the how-to-videos, I just can't seem to summon the confidence to try any of these newer approaches - fancy-ish gold will have to do for this lot.

Ready for service on the walls of Terra...

Well, the defence of Terra will get a nice boost from this bunch. Lucky for the Warmaster's chosen, I have only finished five of them so far...but from everything I hear, five of them will cause plenty of damage, adding to the loyalist hopes (i.e. delusions) of holding Terra to the end. Thanks for reading, and watch for more VII Legion reinforcements soon!