Black Templar Mini-Codex

[Shea]

So I've been reading the thread from our Brothers in Italy and some good questions were asked about what our identity is.  For me, I got into BTs back in 5th and still have the old, glorious, codex.  They came across as the guys out in the middle of nowhere, cut off from everyone, with only their utter faith in the Emperor to stand against the night.  The loyal knights in the wilderness doing what needed to be done so the citizens could sleep at night...

 

After many 8th edition games under my belt I'm feeling that I have to be, less than true, to that ideal in order to even be competitive.  I have to take all my named characters just to have something alive after getting Smite-spammed into the ground.  Our stratagem doesn't even come close to mitigating the loss of librarians. 

 

All my opinion obviously, but I decided to crack open my old codex and rewrite something that, I think, moves us back into a more fluffy context. Crusader Squads, Chaplains and LRC's are (or should be) what makes us BTs.  

 

Chapter Tactic: Righteous Fury

Hatred for the enemies of mankind burns bright within the heart of a Templar.  They have spent centuries training for the opportunity to close with and engage the heretic, the mutant and the xenos in close combat and slaughter them in the name of the Emperor.

 

Black Templar units with this tactic gain one additional attack during the fight phase in which they charged.  In addition, if the opponent does not have the IMPERIUM keyword any melee attacks that land on a natural 6 generate an additional attack with the same weapon.  These additional attacks cannot generate further attacks.

 

Troops:

Crusader Squad

• A Crusader Squad may take a Land Raider Crusader as a dedicated transport.
• A Sword Brother may take Melta Bombs for 5 pts.
• One Initiate may replace his boltgun with an item from the Heavy Weapons list, or a power sword, power axe, power maul, power fist or thunder hammer.

Wargear:

• Crusader Seals (10 pts):  Any Black Templar infantry unit, dreadnought or character may take Crusader Seals.  Units equipped with Crusader Seals may re-roll charges.
• Blessed Hull (10 pts): Blessed by the chanting of the Techmarines and their prayer servitors, adorned with spiritual icons of purity and anointed with sacred oils and unguents, the hull of the Land Raider Crusader is proof against the myriad weapons of the foes of Mankind.  Weapons are always considered one lower AP than normal (-3 AP becomes -2 AP) when attacking an equipped Land Raider Crusader.
• Chainsword (1 pt):  Black Templars maintain their signature close combat weapon to exacting standards for they know one day their lives will depend upon them.  For one point per model, the chainswords of a Crusader Squad may be upgraded to the following profile User/-1AP/1D.  All models in the same unit must be equipped with this upgrade if chosen.

Characters:

Black Templar Chaplain (6 PL, 100 pts)

NAME

Black Templar Chaplain

M  WS  BS   S   T   W   A   Ld   Sv

6"   2+   3+  4   4   4   4   9    3+

 

Wargear Options:

• This model may replace its bolt pistol with a boltgun, power fist or an item from the Pistols or Combi-weapons list.
• This model may take a jump pack (Power Rating +1). If it does, its Move characteristic is increased to 12” and it gains the Jump Pack and Fly keywords.

Abilities:

• And They Shall Know No Fear
• No Pity: Enemy units that are within 6” of a Black Templar Chaplain suffer -1 to Leadership.
• No Remorse:  You can re-roll to-hit rolls of a natural 1 in the Fight phase for friendly Black Templar units with 6” of this model.
• No Fear: All friendly Black Templar units with 6” of this model can use the Chaplain’s Leadership instead of their own.  Additionally, on any moral test of a natural 6 the unit automatically passes the test.
• Deny the Witch: A Black Templar Chaplain, through his extraordinary faith in the Emperor, may attempt to deny a psychic ability that manifests or effects a friendly unit within 12” on a 4+, once per turn.
• Rosarius: This model has a 4+ invulnerable save.

Black Templar Chaplain in Terminator Armor (7 PL, 125 pts)

NAME

Black Templar Chaplain in Terminator Armor

M  WS  BS   S   T   W   A   Ld   Sv

5"   2+   3+  4   5   4   4   9    2+

 

Wargear Options:

• This model may replace its storm bolter with an item from the Terminator Combi-weapons list.

Abilities:

• And They Shall Know No Fear
• No Pity: Enemy units that are within 6” of a Black Templar Chaplain suffer -1 to Leadership.
• No Remorse:  You can re-roll to-hit rolls of a natural 1 in the Fight phase for friendly Black Templar units with 6” of this model.
• No Fear: All friendly Black Templar units with 6” of this model can use the Chaplain’s Leadership instead of their own.  Additionally, on any moral test of a natural 6 the unit automatically passes the test.
• Deny the Witch: A Black Templar Chaplain, through his extraordinary faith in the Emperor, may attempt to deny a psychic ability that manifests or effects a friendly unit within 12” on a 4+, once per turn.
• Rosarius: This model has a 4+ invulnerable save.
• Teleport Strike: During deployment, you can set up this model in a teleportarium chamber instead of placing it on the battlefield.   At the end of any of your Movement phases this model can teleport into battle – set it up anywhere on the battlefield that is more than 9” away from any enemy models.

Chaplain Grimaldus (7 PL, 150pts)

NAME

Chaplain Grimaldus

M  WS  BS   S   T   W   A   Ld   Sv

6"   2+   3+  4   4   5   3   10    3+

 

Abilities:

• And They Shall Know No Fear
• No Pity: Enemy units that are within 6” of a Black Templar Chaplain suffer -1 to Leadership.
• No Remorse+:  You can re-roll failed to-hit in the Fight phase for friendly Black Templar units with 6” of this model.
• No Fear: All friendly Black Templar units with 6” of this model can use the Chaplain’s Leadership instead of their own.  Additionally, on any moral test of a natural 6 the unit automatically passes the test.
• Deny the Witch+: Chaplain Grimaldus, through his extraordinary faith in the Emperor, may attempt to deny a psychic ability that manifests or effects a friendly unit within 12” on a 4+, twice per turn.
• Hero of Helsreach: Any time Chaplain Grimaldus takes a wound, roll a die and on a natural 6 that wound is ignored.
• Rosarius: This model has a 4+ invulnerable save.

Edited December 11, 2017 by Shea

[Wargamer]

How about this:

 

Chapter Tactic: Abhor The Witch:

Whenever a Black Templar unit suffers 1 or more mortal wounds as the result of a psychic power, the number of mortal wounds suffered is reduced by 1.

 

This would reduce the chip-damage potential of psychic powers, but dedicated psychic attacks can still hurt them.

[Aegir_Einarsson]

Shea. Nice rules i like them:)

[Brother_Gneecapper]

Nice write up, it's clear you put some thought into it and didn't just slap some overpowered abilities onto us and called it good. I was actually taking a good long look at our Codex over the weekend, both for painting inspiration as well as ideas on how they could make us a more competitive force on the table top in 8th.

 

A couple of thoughts:

 

Chapter Tatics:

I like your Chapter Tactic, the +1 attack is fitting I think and the exploding 6 attacks would be a cool change from the Khorne +1 attack to make it a little bit more fun. Originally I had thought to keep the re-roll charges but add + 1 attack. I like your method more, though GW may see that as a bit too powerful. 

 

 

Psychic Defense:

We need it, sorely. I would say this is the most glaring weakness in the army right now given how strong and the amount of utility and damage that comes from the psychic phase.

 

Our codex mentions such is the hate for psykers that all Black Templar have mild psychic defense, in our old Codex our hero's were immune to lesser psychic powers and could only be affected by more powerful ones. Possibly have Black Templar be completely immune to smite? This may be considered too powerful and it is rumored that there are smite changes in the pipeline so it may not be needed if they limit the number of times it could be cast.

 

If they decide it's too strong to have the whole army smite immune how about just our hero's, vehicles and dreadnoughts (this would incorporate the blessed hull thing, which gives the fluff explanation for why vehicles aren't affected).

 

-OR-

 

I too think our characters (Chaplains in particular) should have the ability to Deny the witch. While I am 100% fine with us not getting psychic abilities and the power they confer I do believe something needs to be given to us to balance out completely skipping a phase of the game. I think that the 4+ is too powerful, that is nullifying any psychic power 50% of the time. The way Deny the Witch works for psychic armies I think would suit us just fine, roll 2d6 and try to beat their score. Give 1 Deny per Chaplain, 2 for Grimaldus and 2 for Helbrecht and 1 for the Emperor's Champion.

 

As it stands now Chaplains aren't being fielded very much as a whole, the Captain just has better overall functionality so this would serve to help bring Chaplains onto the field and give them additional utility in a Black Templar force which old Codex says that sometimes our Chaplains even lead a full blown crusade so it'd be quite fluffy. Maybe make it so if they're in range of relic servitors it becomes a 4+ sorta thing?

 

Crusader Seals:

I like this way for putting the re-roll to charges back in, it could be purchased per unit that will make use of it or left out completely. Another alternative would be to keep the re-roll charges as a chapter tactic and maybe make crusader seals give the +1 attack.

 

Crusader Squads:

- These like Assault Marines in general just suffer from not enough punch from a close combat unit, while the crusader squad currently reigns as the most versatile MSU marine squad. Giving them +1 attack would help them do their role in the assault phase. In general I feel that close combat units that have a pistol are suffering due to the pistol. Games-Workshop I think feels that a pistol is about equal to +1 attack in close combat since they can be shot in combat but in reality rarely do they come into play and units that have pistols seem to have less attacks than you'd expect to be effective.

 

Some other idea's I had for Crusader squads would be to bring back our fluffy side of mixed squads and have us actually incorporating Primaris into our squads like Neophytes. I don't think the introduction of Primaris would have BT suddenly completely overhauling their structure and training that has served them for thousands of years. Make it so that Primaris can be swapped freely into a Crusader squad provided the proper points cost has been paid for each model.  

 

Sword Brethren:

A unit similar to Vanguard Vets with a bit of additional flair (fearless in close combat, or can make a 6" consolidation) or maybe just something simple like can take Crusader Seals and a Holy Orb (hand grenade) or make them more like the unique units of other chapters. We had a named unit before like other chapters, it sucks to lose that and have it just lumped into Vanguard Vets even if they're functionally the same thing.

 

Land Raider Crusaders and Land Raiders:

I felt the LRC was expensive prior to the points increase on both of it's armaments. In general I think they need a point reduction or a 5+ invulnerable save, right now you spend nearly 350 or more points for a model that usually gets shot off the board first turn. A 25-50 Points reduction to the chasis itself would help alot. Another idea would be for the Blessed Hull upgrade to be purchasable for our LRC which would give it an invuln.

 

Holy Hand Grenade:

This should be brought back, it was one of the things that was uniquely us and it was fun and funny. Given our lack of psychic phase we are an army that also lacks the ability to dish out mortal wounds. Death Guard has already shown us the way to give grenades some more punch and to hand out mortal wounds in the process.

 

Once per game a model / unit armed with Holy hand grenade's may throw them in the shooting phase instead of shooting. Hit on normal ballistic skill causing d3 mortal wounds, d6 mortal wounds if the unit being attacked has 10+ wounds / models. 

 

 

Vows:

One thing I think they could add to us that would make us a bit different than any other army and allow for alot of cool customization that we used to have. There are a few different ways I think you could put them in each with their own pro's and con's

 

Reintroduce vows, have them replace the warlord trait for our army. Our commanding officer decides on his Vow for the coming battle and the soldiers follow in his stead.

 

Example Vows:

1.) +1 to wound in the fight phase but always attacks last.

2.) 6+ Invulnerable Save Army Wide + Chance to Deny Smite's with 1 dice (Sisters of battle) - (Can add may not use cover if thought too powerful)

3.) If a unit suffers casualties in the shooting phase at the end of the shooting phase the affected unit may advance d6 inches in a direction that ends it closer to the unit which shot it.

 

Emperor's Champion:

Bring back our Emperor Champion challenge, allow us if in the same scrum as a combat with a character for us to call out and fight that character like we used to. This was always one of my favorite things to do period, win or lose I'd always send my EC at the warlord to challenge him. You could even tie a buff / debuff to the challenge like +1 leadership army wide for the remainder of the game if he wins or -1 for the remainder if he loses.

 

Closing Thoughts:

 

The Black Templar are FAR from a Codex army, while I appreciate them lumping us into the Codex in terms of what we're able to access and use it removes almost all of our personality. Breaking them out into their own separate book again would bring that flavor back and would allow GW to charge us for yet another book. As it stands now we're an army which wants to prefer melee in a book clearly built for shooting and a psychicless force in a time when psychic powers dominate the game. This leaves us in a weird spot with a bit of an identity crisis in need of some love to make truly viable.

[Thrown Pommel]

So this post got me thinking about what the identity of the Black Templars is in the game.

 

I think that, among marines, Black Templars are (or should be) the premier footslogging/mechanized assault army. This is in contrast to the jump assault centric Blood angels and counter assault specialist Space Wolves. Black Templars should be really good at one thing: marching up the board to punch the xenos and the heretic in the face, maybe with a slight death wish! XD

 

Chapter Tactic: Righteous Zeal

 

-Black Templars infantry, dreadnoughts, bikes may re-roll failed charges.

 

-I honestly think this is a pretty good ability and can stay the way it is. I think it would be better to augment said ability with other additions.

 

Warlord Traits:

 

Abhor the Witch: warlord may deny the witch on a 4+ once per turn. Combined with our stratagem this could give us a potential two denies per turn. A welcome upgrade.

 

Accept any challenge: Re-roll hit and would rolls when in combat with a character. Perhaps very powerful, but also very limited in application.

 

Relics:

 

Holy Orb of Antioch: Used once per game. Target an enemy unit within 6". If hits, target takes d6 mortal wounds. If target is a Psyker, the target suffers perils of the warp.

 

Banner of the Templars (Somebody come up with a better name lol): Ancient only. +1 to hit in the fight phase for all units within 6" of bearer.

 

Cursader Helm: same as codex.

 

Stratagems!

 

Blessed Hull: Use when a Land Raider is targeted. 5+ FNP to ignore damage. 1CP

 

No Pity! No Remorse! No Fear!: Use when a Black Templars INFANTRY unit has made a successful charge into combat. Roll a d6 for every model in the Black Templars INFANTRY unit. For each 6+ the enemy locked in combat suffers a mortal wound. 1CP (I think this would be really fluffy for an army that is meant to be fueled by RIGHTEOUS ANGER lol and competitive to boot! Makes large crusader blobs worth it again!).

 

Champion of the Emperor: Select a Black Templars Character in the fight phase. Friendly units in the same combat as the character may re-roll to hit and to wound in the fight phase. 2CP

 

Righteous Indignation: Use when a unit suffers casualties in overwatch. That unit may charge on 3d6. 1CP

 

Purge the Unclean!: Use after a unit disembarks from a transport without the FLYER keyword. That unit may advance and charge. 1CP

 

Would be pretty cool as a supplement I think!

Edited December 13, 2017 by Thrown Pommel

[Sete]

Like your rules Shea. Good job.

[Schlitzaf]

I’d rather our strategem works off units with mixed armor saves to future proof it and highlight our iconic units

[Bjorn Firewalker]

Looks good, overall.

Banner of the Templars (Somebody come up with a better name lol)

How about "Standard of Sigismund" or "Sign of Righteous Zeal"?

Blessed Hull

This seems too Iron Hands-y. Best limit it to the Abilities of one Venerable Land Raider, which may be taken as a Chapter Relic. Naturally, this vehicular Relic needs a good name- "Grimaldus' Fist"? "Ark of the Eternal Crusade"?

Champion of the Emperor

As there's already a unit named the "Emperor's Champion," I don't think this Stratagem will be coherent (two Emperor's Champions on thr same battlefield at the same time?) useful- except as a means of replacing the Emperor's Champion, should he fall in battle. Naturally, the replacement Emperor's Champion gets the Black Sword in the next turn (see Grimaldus giving a field promotion to a Templar when the Emperor's Champion fell to the Orks attacking the Temple of the Emperor Ascendant, in Aaron Dembski-Bowden's Helsreach). Edited December 13, 2017 by Bjorn Firewalker