Open Play Black Templars for 9th Edition (Downloads)

[Brother Sidonius]

http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/index.php?app=downloads&module=display&section=screenshot&id=677

 

File Name: Open Play Black Templars for 9th Edition

File Submitter: Brother Sidonius

File Submitted: 03 Feb 2021

File Category: Warhammer 40,000

 

 

In this fan-made supplement you will find rules for Battle-forged armies that include Black Templars Detachments. These rules include Abilities, Stratagems, Litanies, Warlord Traits, Relics and Datasheets designed to be used alongside Codex: Space Marines. Together, these rules capture the character and fighting style of the Black Templars Crusades so that they can be played in your games of Warhammer 40,000 9th Edition.

 

The aim of this supplement is to not only capture the spirit of the Black Templars Chapter as they are portrayed in other Games Workshop publications but also maintain the streamlined game design of 9th Edition.

 

 

Click here to download this file

[SirJyo]

Wow, this is great, well balanced and thought out.

Knights of sigismund is fixed and our CT is flexible.

Positioning to make your rabid Templars hit what you want will be interesting.

 

Its fluffy as heck and a great rework of some classic rules.

I guess anything GW puts out soon won't be as true to the original material as this.

Edited February 3, 2021 by SirJyo

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

Thanks.

[Marshal Wolfhart]

Thanks for sharing your work! Immediate thoughts: Inquisitors should be exempt from the Abhor the Witch rule, and vows i feel should have a limitation, not only bonuses (eg suffer not: attack closest enemy unit on a failed morale, uphold the honor: can't benefit from cover, abhor the witch: must shoot/charge/attack psykers whenever possible,accept any challenge: cannot fall back from combat). Therefore maybe lose no pity? Anyways, i like these, and will try them if i get the chance!

[Medjugorje]

I really like this set. I hope GW will orient on the 3rd and 4th edition codex books too when the new supplement comes out.

[Brother Kraskor]

Thanks for sharing your work! Immediate thoughts: Inquisitors should be exempt from the Abhor the Witch rule, and vows i feel should have a limitation, not only bonuses (eg suffer not: attack closest enemy unit on a failed morale, uphold the honor: can't benefit from cover, abhor the witch: must shoot/charge/attack psykers whenever possible,accept any challenge: cannot fall back from combat). Therefore maybe lose no pity? Anyways, i like these, and will try them if i get the chance!

 

Yes agreed on limitations! Or maybe some VP penalty if a certain objective isn't achieved. 

 

Edit: I should say first and foremost lovely fluffy rules though!

Edited February 3, 2021 by Brother Kraskor

[Brother Sidonius]

Thanks for all the encouraging feedback guys! I haven't done anything like this before and wasn't sure how it would go so I'm really glad that you like it 

 

In response to Marshal Wolfhart's feedback, the Abhor the Witch rule was written specifically so that a psyker Inquisitor couldn't join a Black Templar detachment... but I agree that giving players the freedom to bring them if they want to is the way to go. I also want to add restrictions back to Vows but wanted to keep things simple to start. Be assured I'll add them in a future updates but no promises it'll be there in v0.4. 

 

Seeing how much feedback I've already gotten I thought I should quickly share the rough schedule I'm working off. If you don't see your ideas included straight away it's probably because it's going to be included in a later update.

 

Schedule:

v0.1 – Initial Draft.

v0.2 – Special Rules overhaul.

v0.3 – Special Rules refined. Public release.

v0.4 – Stratagems

v0.5 – Litanies

v0.6 – Warlord Traits

v0.7 – Relics

v0.8 – Datasheets, power level and points

v0.9 – Additional rules for Narrative and Matched play

v1.0 – Formatting

 

Thanks again everyone! Can't wait to hear how your games go 

[JimVandy85]

I like the rules you've come up with so far. Keep it up!

[Brother Sidonius]

Hi everyone! Just thought I'd let you all know that I've uploaded an update for my OP Black Templars rules. Sorry it took so long but the Stratagems took a while to write. We now have access to 23 Black Templars specific Stratagems, including some returning favourites and 4 that are Vow specific. I've also cleaned the rules up a bit with the omission of Kill Them All (which I kept forgetting about while playtesting) and rules from Codex: Space Marines. 

 

 I'm keen for some more feedback now that the project is making head way so let me know what you think! I'd also love to hear what you'd like to see the supplement include in the future :) 

 

Cheers!

[jaxom]

I have some feedback thoughts, but I'm not sure what you're looking for in terms of feedback; i.e. are you want to keep everything basically as it is, but are open to critique of individual portion's specifics or you are also okay with feedback that makes broader/structural changes?

[Brother Sidonius]

I'm fine with any and all feedback. The main aim of OP BT is to create rules that make the Black Templars fight like I imagine they do based on the lore that I grew up with (which is entirely  subjective) so I can't guarantee I'll implement all the feedback. But I'll definitely read it and take it on board so share away :) 

[jaxom]

I'd keep Righteous Zeal as it currently is due to it's presence in the Codex.

 

Abhor the Witch is too finicky. I like a rule that really pushes against any psykers in a soup containing BT or representing their intense suspicion. It may be easier to crib the rules for summary execution from commissars. Alternatively, remove it due to its overlap with the Vow of a very similar name.

 

Knights of Sigismund and Vows could be rolled into a single thing. I really think Vows, as the special BT thing, should be for BT only armies. You can have more power in the vows because of limited usage based on which Combat Doctrine is active. In addition, it opens up interesting unit, WLT, strat, relic options... especially if you like what I suggest next. Add two more vows, make each associated with a Combat Doctrine and then players choose which one they'll take for each Doctrine before a game starts. Then tweak the power of each vow appropriately. Personally, I think a weaker vow with no penalty is a better faction design option or tweak how the 'penalty' applies.

 

Knights of Sigismund: BT etc etc, choose one vow to be active during each Combat Doctrine.

 

Suffer Not the Unclean to Live - Tactical

• Add 2 to the number to attacks from flame weapons.
• Unmodified 6s to wound with flame weapons gain an additional -1 armor penetration (stacks with Combat Doctrine if assault weapon).

Uphold the Honor of the Emperor - Devastator

• Invul save is increased by 1 when not in cover. 5+ invul if unit didn't have one, when not in cover.
• Re-roll advances.

Abhor the Witch, Destroy the Witch - Assault

• Add 1 to Righteous Zeal rolls to ignore mortal wounds.
• Units with this rule can make Heroic Interventions as if they were characters against units with the PSYKER keyword. Character units can make 6" heroic interventions against units with the PSYKER keyword. Units with this rule can not disengage from PSYKER units and must consolidate towards the closest PSYKER unit.

Accept Any Challenge No Matter the Odds - Assault

• Add 1 to wound rolls with melee attacks against models with 5 or more wounds.
• Autopass morale, but cannot disengage while in Engagement range of an enemy unit.

Carry the Emperor's Will as a Torch - Devastator

• Melta weapons gain +6" range if heavy and +3" range if rapid fire, assault, or pistol.
• Bolt weapons ignore cover.

Be Bound to Your Brothers as Your Weapons are Bound to You - Tactical

• Increase the range of auras by 3" (stacks with similar abilities).
• If any models from the unit were destroyed in this or the previous turn add 1" to movement, pile-in, and consolidate until the end of the turn.

 

Devout Push - is the idea to use the pile-in to get into combat?

 

Massacre is a bit underwhelming. I get that it applies to the whole army, but the mechanics don't seem to live to a word like 'Massacre.' What about something like turning off ObSec (until end of next turn) on a unit that BT inflicted at least one casualty on? (And yes, I realize it's Red Rampage)

 

There is Only War - I get it, but it really defeats the purpose and intent of Combat Doctrines. Lower the CP cost, make it for a single unit. Or, keep the name and make it one of those 'choose a unit; it can re-roll a single hit roll and single wound roll this phase' strats.

 

Worthy of Dorn - "A fortification isn't cover if it's a castle!" Considering the relationship BT have to cover I recommend you make this about Overwatch. The BT unit with cover can use the Set to Defend option when using Overwatch even if the terrain does not have the Defensible keyword. If the terrain already has the Defensible keyword then the BT unit strikes first in combat.

 

Champion of Death - Needs to be bound to a unit or units; it's too powerful from a strategic perspective. Bind it to Marshells (Captains) and the Emperor's Champion and I think it's okay.

 

Duty Fulfilled - Split the effect in two. This one should be 0 CP and gain D3; have the other be something like "Cast Down Their Champions" and give the EC a -1 to enemy leadership aura.

 

Rip and Tear - Much memetic. I don't personally see the BT as savage and wouldn't include this, but for some there's not too much of a difference between savagery and ferocity. 

 

Shield of Rage - Up the cost to 2 CP. Choose a BT unit within Engagement range of an enemy unit. Ignore modifiers on this unit from psychic powers.

 

The Last Wall - Fun 9,000 years ago, but not really an appropriate mechanic for the table top. If you really want to keep it then I recommend it be 1 CP, only last a turn, and only work on aura-generating unit at a time.

 

Crusaders of the Emperor - Too much. You currently have no strats about disembarking from a transport and charging. May I recommend that here.

 

Tactical Insertion - In the chain of causality it may be better to remove Guilliman from the blerb. Also, not sure what's tactical about a concussive teleportation flare or land raider crusaders launching grenades. Just call the strat Hammerfell Tactics and change the blerb to be about loud noises and bright lights. 

[Medjugorje]

I would not take a stratagem bound to one vow. 

[Brother Sidonius]

Thanks for all the feedback jaxon! I do appreciate that you took the time to go through my ideas so thoroughly.

 

Your approach to keep GW's Righteous Zeal and replace our super doctrine with Vows is actually exactly what I did when started this project. Obviously I changed my approach.  v0.1 and v0.2 were really just my Supplement Wishlist and followed that exact approach but for v0.3 I whipped out my BT Codex and started working on rules that made me feel like I was playing 4th ed in 9th ed. I'm going to continue using the 4th ed codex for inspiration for these rules but if I do change my approach in future I'll definitely incorporate a lot of your ideas.

 

I especially like the addition of more Vows which I'd love to do later but, for the sake of simplicity, I'm going to stick with the original 4 for now. Only thing I disagree on is choosing multiple Vows for one game. I'd restrict it to one Vow with rules for one active doctrine.

 

Your critique of Abhor the Witch and Vow restrictions are also well received. Abhor the Witch is a tricky one because a lot of BT fans don't subscribe to the psyker hate in the old lore so I tried to write a rule that was a compromise between no allied psykers and heaps of allied psykers. A hard ban is more in spirit with 4th ed but a soft ban is nicer to new lore BT fans. Similarly, harsh Vow restrictions are more in spirit with 4th ed but I am going to do as you suggested and soften them as much as possible to improve balance. Might have to keep the -1 to hit for Suffer Not though.

 

There seems to be some misunderstandings with the stratagems so I'll reply to each critique briefly.

 

Devout Push - It's a stratagem from Index: BT and it does let you get into combat without charging. Checkout Implausible Nature on YouTube if you want to see the combos people are doing with it.

 

Massacre - Every Chapter Supplement has an equivalent Stratagem hence it's presence and 2CP cost. I won't change it's rules but I could rename it 

 

There Is Only War - It intentionally goes against the intent of doctrines. A number of BT players dislike it's association with Ultramarines (Combat Doctrines used to be their Chapter Tactic) so I wrote it for them. Originally it was exactly as you suggested, targeting one unit and costing 1CP but I think the community want the option to be Codex deviants.

 

Worthy of Dorn - it's just Fortified Positions from the IF supplement but I love the idea of making the BT unique from their parent chapter. I'll see what I can do!

 

Champion of Death - it's already restricted to a single model but that's probably still OP. I'll add more restrictions

 

Duty Fulfilled - Actually an Inquisition Stratagem so although it's really strong I think I'm going to keep it. I will restrict it to a character killed by the champ in close combat though

 

Rip and Tear - I also don't see them as savage but some fans do so I wrote it for them.

 

Shield of Rage - Probably is OP on second thoughts. Will keep play testing and try out those ideas.

 

The Last Wall - I really like it's lore so I'll going to keep trying to encourage Dorn Soup even if this Stratagem doesn't make the cut.

 

Crusaders of the Emperor - this one was actually the draft for Massacre which I forgot to delete. Oops!

 

Tactical Insertion - Maybe I'm just bitter that C:SM portrays Gulliman as the hero and Dorn as the bad guy in the second founding but I intentionally wrote that flavour text from the perspective of the IF which paints Gulliman in a negative light. If Gulliman fans REALLY don't like this alternate perspective I'll change it but I think it's a cool idea. The rules are identical to Shock and Awe from Index: BT but it also affects teleporting units. I sat on the fence on this one but barbed wire is a pain in the butt so I suppose I should pick a side.

 

Thanks again for all the feedback! :) 

 

(Apologies for the lack of quotes in my reply. Haven't figured out how to use them yet...)

[Brother Sidonius]

OP BT v0.7 UPDATE:

- Reworked rules. OP BT is now a true Supplement that adds rules to Codex: Space Marines rather than overhauling the entire faction.

- Vows that are more faithful to our 4th ed. Codex

- Re-balanced Stratagems

- Refined Litanies and a new Unmatched Zeal litany

- New Warlord traits

- New and improved Relics

 

Hi everyone,

I've just finished v0.7 of OP BT which includes significant improvements to the rules in the previous version as well as the addition of Litanies, Warlord traits and Relics. Unfortunately, I'm having difficulty accessing downloads so I can't upload it right now but I'll be sharing it as soon as I can!

 

In the mean time, I thought I'd post an update to let everyone know what's in the new version and that the project isn't dead. For the first few updates I threw the rules together over a weekend and I think that shows in their quality. For my next update, I decided to spend significantly more time play testing and trying out different approaches so that I could provide the community with a high quality product. I also went back and played 4th and 5th ed Black Templars which has been a lot of fun.

 

In the end I found that the funnest way to play Black Templars in 9th ed. was to have the rules in OP BT supplement those in Codex: Space Marines, which is to say that our Vows are no longer our Chapter Tactic but an additional ability similar to the Inner Circle ability for Dark Angels. However, unlike Inner Circle, our Vows do not make us objectively more powerful but include a restriction like in 4th edition to change the way they play. In 4th ed they augmented the way we played and when you made a list you typically built it around a specific Vow. I wanted to keep that in my rules for 9th ed. 

 

The other big change is my use of the KISS principle when reviewing the rules. The rules are now less cumbersome and there are less of them.

 

In my opinion, all these changes combined make OP BT more fun to play and I hope you'll think so too!

[Lord Raven 19]

Would it be worth thinking about vows being secondary objectives? Or would that not work?

[Brother Sidonius]

Would it be worth thinking about vows being secondary objectives? Or would that not work?

 

To that I say, "Why not have both?". In the old lore, the Black Templars would make vows before the battle which augmented the way they fought (eg. Uphold the Honour of the Emperor. A vow not to use cover and to trust in the emperor's protection instead) so I want to keep that in the rules but Vow specific secondaries would be awesome!

[Brother Sidonius]

Greetings Battle-brothers, I'm back with another update!

 

This one includes a re-imagining of some old school Black Templars units and the addition of Castellan Draco and Crusader Squads on Bikes. Of note is the distinct lack of Primaris in these datasheets, the reason being I've got a big issue with rules for Primaris from a game design perspective. But if you do play a Black Templars Primaris army, feel free to spend 5 pts/model to add the Primaris keyword to whatever units you want (other than Honoured Neophyte of course and Crusader Squads should only have it while there is an initiate in the squad) as well as an extra attack and wound so that you have the best datasheets in the game again (I'm not salty with you, just the GW top brass for making the rules teams write rules to sell models).

 

I also added rules for Custom Crusades so we can make use of successor Chapter Tactics and (because I can't help myself) our 6th edition Chapter Tactics. 9th edition moral rules almost let us Sweeping Advance our enemies thanks to Combat Attrition tests and when I realised I couldn't pass up the opportunity. Our Chapter Tactics also let us make us of Charge re-rolls now which I think would be an excellent change for GW to make.

 

The final big change I made was to our Knights of Sigismund super doctrine which now makes us fight like knights (Skilled Parries for everyone!).

 

This will be my last update until we see what happens with the prophesied GW Black Templars Supplement (sorry I didn't get around to adding Secondary Objectives or Crusade stuff!) so I hope you've all enjoyed watching this little project as much as I've enjoyed making it :)