Well, as the title vaguely suggests, i'm thinking of starting a BT-style army (that is to say, they use BT iconography and rules, but have a different colour scheme; this.)
However I don't want to have to spend 12 quid on the codex straight away, so i'd appreciate it if anyone out there with the codex could explain the differences in unit choices etc from the regular SM codex so I don't end up wasting money buying stuff I convert up and never get to use, cheers :).
PS: One thing I really want to know: Can Emperor's Champions take storm shields as part of their wargear, have a cool conversion idea in mind and would like to know if this is possible :).

I play BT (not well though :rolleyes: )
First of all no psykers no whirlwinds or Dev squads. You can't take separate scouts they are in a crusader squad just like a bray herd for BoC. ;)
The emperor's champion can't take any wargear <_< but he does have a 4= inv save in close combact so that can be represented by a storm shield :)
BAsically your playing assualty marines

Interesting, shame I can't use any devastators (new plastics are pretty cool), but the option to use the army as a regular marine army is always open (i've seen plenty of vanilla chapters use various forms of the BT symbol after all ;)), any other important things (or even advice for using BTs, i'd like to win the odd match every now and again, y'know :P), cheers.

1. Emperors champion is like a special character kinda, hes been summed up already. He can't take any extra gear but is very well geared already with a +2 strength power weapon, decent number of attacks and a 4+ ward

2. As opposed to marines, crusader squads (equivilent of tactical squads) work like beast herds. You have a minimum number of both scouts (neophytes) and marines (crusaders) to put in the squad, and then go from there. So you can flesh out the squad with neophyes to save some points.

3. No devestators, left over from the original list where it was made up for by tac squads getting plasma cannons.

4. You give an upgrade to the emperors champion that applies to the whole army, a "vow". One gives every model the preferred enemy ability (3+ to hit everything in h2h) but you have to always charge enemies within range. Another gives +1 strength but users strike at -1 initiative.

5. No psykers as was said.

6. Access to land raider crusaders as dedicated transports (meaning they dont take up a heavy support slot), but they're so expensive not many people take advantage of this to a large degree

7. The army has a special rule. Every time they take a casualty from shooting, they make an LD check (this rule replaces the normal rules for morale checks from shooting casualties), if they fail they fall back as normally, but if they pass instead they go foward another 2d6.