"Accept any challenge no matter the odds!"
Black Templars Codex
Hello and welcome back to The Art of Caesura!
I'm sending loads of positivity your way, especially if you need it today!
Today we're changing gears a bit. I had meant for this post to come out last week, but that was before I had realized that I had neglected the poor Emberling.
So a few weeks ago now at this point, my beloved Black Templars (the army that I have played since 3rd edition of Warhammer 40k - which is now in its 10th edition!) received a revamp! New codex (which brought all new rules, new points, new style of play), new models, new dice, new Combat Patrol.
For someone like me, who historically has only got a game in every 6 months or so (that's about to change - tune back in next week!) and who has many (MANY) other hobby interests, the new rules are very exciting but also met with some trepidation of investing the time to relearn everything.
Well, I have started investing the time over the past week, I've been watching many videos, reading forums on FB, Discord, and Reddit and just reading the new codex and formulating my own thoughts.
I'm not a "power gamer" but I do like to know the good stuff that my army can do, so in this post I'm going to share some of my learnings. I will say that this post is gauged for those who have some understanding of current 40k and will likely be less interesting (or even nigh on incomprehensible to those of you, dear readers, who are here for the painting or other aspects of this blog), so don't feel bad clicking away - I'll see you guys next week!
For the gamers among us:
With this new codex, Black Templars have changed from being the most durable Space Marines (previously with army-wide Feel No Pains), to an army that is more geared around movement shenanigans. It is no secret to competitive players (unlike myself) that movement wins games. If you can outmanoeuvre your opponent, and get on to objectives that you can then deny them, you will win the game.
But this also raises the skill floor and ceiling for people playing Black Templars (BT). I (as a noob) used to just be able to push my dudes up the table, and rely on my big, durable units to survive until they pulverized the enemy in close combat. That play-style will be harder to pull-off now.
In a first for divergent Space Marine chapters, BT lose Oath of Moment as their army rule, and replace it with Templar Vows. The vow most people will take, "Accept any Challenge, no Matter the Odds", gives you +1 to wound in melee if your strength is equal to or less than their toughness. This is awesome; you're wounding other marines on 3s. Very good!
Detachments:
There are 3 detachments in the book. Each one is really laser focused around a certain element of BTs identity. None of them are super, ultra competitive, and power gamers will likely stick with Gladius; but they are fun and fluffy.
Companions of Vehemence (typoed as "Champions of Vehemence" in the app)
This is likely to be the best one; it loosely revolves around Chaplains (including our new Execrator - who gives advance and charge) which are very iconic for BT (and are models that I love!). As I mentioned before, it has loads of movement tricks which will make it challenging but rewarding to master. I have not spent a ton of time looking at this one yet.
Vindication Task Force
This is the worst one; all because it revolves around Ancients (banner-bearers) which are also quite thematic - imagine a whole panoply of banners scattered throughout your army (it always makes me think of that iconic intro cinematic for the original Dawn of War game). Anyway, in the game, Ancients suck. Like really suck. Even our brand new Crusader Ancient: awesome model, sucky rules.
So having a whole detachment focused around the crappiest of the crappy does not a strong detachment make.
Godhammer Assault Force
Now we're talking! In terms of power, this is probably pretty mid-level, but in terms of awesomeness it's...very awesome. It is all about transports and especially our beloved Land Raider. It really flexes into buffing things that get out of transports, so you have to be very cagey about keeping units in range so that they can hop in and out of transports for maximum impact.
It will suit a very aggressive style of play - relying on doing a ton of damage early and not dealing with attrition very well (once your transports have been destroyed, you basically lose access to all detachment rules.
One of the carries of this list will be the Black Templars Repulsor Executioner - which is mega good!
This is the detachment that I think I will end up playing most, which is funny because with the detachment that I've been using for the past 2 years (Righteous Crusaders) I ran "black tide" (loads of boots on the ground, with hardly any tanks) so this will be a huge departure for me.
Wrathful Procession
We also have access to Wrathful Procession (last Christmas' Grotmas detachment) it was previously seen as straight up worse than Righteous Crusaders, but with RC gone now, maybe it will see the light of day.
And then we have access to all of the "vanilla" detachments (Anvil Strike Force, Firestorm Assault, Gladius, Ironstorm Spearhead, Stormlance Task Force and Vanguard Spearhead). To be honest, and I feel a little dirty admitting it, I think I might play Gladius (for the first time ever!) for my first few games, just to get my head around the new Datasheets before I take the training wheels off and run one of the specific BT detachments above.
Datasheets:
On to those datasheets. There have been a few side-grades over the previous index sheets, but generally they've gotten stronger.
Let's look at a couple of examples:
This guy is an absolute monster in melee! He gets 8-10 attacks (depending on how many enemy units are close by) with WS 2+, S 5 and AP -2, 2 damage, with Lethal Hits and his whole unit crits on 5+! For 80 points? Yes please!
Castellan
An excellent support piece (especially when pared with the Marshal above). He gives his units re-roll 1s to hit or re-roll all hits if he passes a 6+ leadership test - we'll look at specific synergies below.
Woo, boy! This guy is AWESOME! The biggest change to him is that where he used to be an Epic Hero, he is now only pseudo one. What that means is that while you can still only field one, he can now have Enhancements baybeeeee!
The High Marshal of the Black Templars is almost as good as he was before. But a big nerf to him is an indirect one. He used to benefit from the Sword Bros special ability which gave either +1 attacks or damage, but now that this ability is gone, he also loses it. It's just that at 120 points he's a lot more expensive than a Marshal who does almost as much damage as him.
The Reclusiarch of the Black Templars, The Hero of Helsreach, has gotten a bit worse. He no longer gives Feel No Pain 5+ to his unit, instead he gives re-roll melee hits, and one of: +1 to advance and charge or +1 T or +1AP. The math states, that in terms of damage, re-roll hits and improving AP are among the best buffs.
Our beloved Sword Bros saw an upgrade to their power weapons - which are now all master-crafted and do Lethal Hits. Their special ability, however, is a bit worse - allowing them to Normal Move if an enemy falls back from them rather than give their unit +1 to attacks or damage that they used to have. Because this is a Normal Move, it would allow them to get back into transports, or move on to an objective, or in to cover etc - it's nice not having a restriction to move towards the closest enemy.
No longer having the "Primaris" prefix, as the old crusader squads have been retired, these guys lost an attack on their chain swords, but gained Sustained Hits. I think, according to math, it all comes out in the wash, and they've remained much the same.
That's a bit of a look at a bunch of the datasheets from Codex Supplement Black Templars. We'll dig into some of the synergies next week right here on The Art of Caesura!
Reading: Kane and Abel - Jeffry Archer
Watching:Alien Earth (2025)
Next Week:
Leagues away...
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