Welcome, Templar

Having decided to start a White Templar army in response to the new Space Marine Codex in Warhammer 40K, I decided to also start this blog to talk about my White Templar army. I also have a green and black Space Marine army, a Tau army, a Dark Eldar army, and a Sisters of Battle army. I may mention those in passing. So if you are a fan of the White Templars, welcome. If you are coming to muse about them with me, welcome. If you PLAY them, I'd love to hear back from you.

So here's what I know about the White Templars after extensive research:

Games Workshop listed them as an official Space Marine Chapter.

Their armor is white with black pauldrons and chest emblems.

Their badge is a Maltese cross with elongated arms and then barred like a cross crosslet.

Their homeworld, as of October 4, 2008, is Sanctum.

Since they are not listed as being anyone's particular successor chapter, they can, in fact be almost anyone's within reason (for example, not Space Wolves). The temptation to say they are Black Templar successors is, of course, particularly strong both because of the word "Templars" and the white/black dichotomy. Who, more than a successor, to simply reverse the parent's color scheme? Yet, to me that provides an equally strong incentive to AVOID being a BT successor; because everyone expects it.

GW can always pick them up and change everything about them on me.

Fluff-wise, I'm debating what the word Sanctum invokes. It means both holy place and inviolable private retreat. I'm wanting to invoke the essence of the Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of St. John of Jerusalem of Rhodes and of Malta (Knights of Malta and/or Knights Hospitaller). To this end I'm thinking that unlike many chapters, the White Templars have a service ethic or hospital function in addition to their battle function.

Tactically, I don't know where I want to go with this. I kind of like the image of a bunch of flamers and meltas, but I already have a Salamander based army (the aforesaid black and green guys). I am thinking of being a drop pod army except that some of the stuff I have for this army would not be drop podable (like bikes). 'Course, I could paint my bikes green and black. But if I went w/ a White Scar theme (which is another option based on the name White), I'd want all my bikes and speeders in the White Templar Army. Or I could be boring and do a Index Astartes army flat out. Gives me the most versatility.

Dunno. What do you think?