Why play black templars

Another tool in the Black Templars Psychic repitoire! This flat out negates the effects of an enemy Psychic Power on a nearby Core or Character unit allowing you to keep your key units free from enemy debuffs at critical moments. Can be used to target both Core and Character units Helbrecht himself is a good candidate!

This is a very useful Litany that allows a Core or Character unit to gain the effects of a different Templar Vow on top the one chosen at the start of the battle. A self-buffing Litany for the Chaplain, increasing his strength characteristic and providing an exploding hits bonus. It also allows the Chaplain to fight first. Chaplains are solid units in Black Templars and you can make some really nasty builds by stacking the Warlord Traits and adding Relics.

Black Templars players get 6 Warlord Traits to choose from. There are some nice options here including several which provide bonuses for nearby units too which is alway nice to see.

Grimaldus has this trait and can attempt two Deny the Witch tests. Grants an additional attack to the Warlord and allows them to fight first. This is also a great choice for the aforementioned Marshall or Chaplain remember they can take two Warlord Traits. Can be used to catch an opponent off guard and in combination with the Devout Push Stratagem to catapult a Character across the board! The first thing to state is that this book is packed full of Relics, with a total of 22 available for Matched Play and an additional 7 for Crusade.

One additional point to make here is that the Codex suggets you make use of the upcoming Black Templars Upgrade Frame to represent the different Relics found in this section. For those that enjoy hobbying and particular the Crusade system this is a great bonus and can really add some character to your army.

Great if you plan on making those turn 1 or 2 charges! Useful in certain situations and great choice for support characters who may be accompanying your units into dangerous firepower. I think this is my favourite Relic in the book and can already see it being taken on Chaplain Bikers or Marshalls in my lists. It has the amazing effect of reducing the damage characteristic of all incoming attacks against the bearer to 1!

Now we come to the Relic Bearers rules which allow each Black Templars Infantry and Bike unit excluding Characters to equip a unique Relic of their own. These Relics vary from providing individual bonuses to the model carrying it or the entire unit itself.

There are 8 to choose from, each with thier own points cost and you cannot duplicate them across your army. This is a cool Relic which allows you to mark an enemy unit for death at the start of the battle.

The unit bearing this Relic can then re-roll all hits and wounds in melee against that unit. A very thematic Secondary which could put your opponent on the back foot a bit. At the start of the game you pick one of your Characters to issue a challenge which your opponent must accept with one of their own.

It could cause your opponent to play in a more reserved manner with one of thier own units or risk forfeiting 15 victory points. Not the most simple of Secondaries to achieve in my opinion. Could be quite tricky to maximise the victory points from this objective depending on the opponent and mission. This is an interesting Secondary Objective that ties in with your chosen Templar Vow and has two components.

The progressive component can award you 4 victory points a round to a max of 12 if you manage to destroy more enemy units with melee attacks than the number of Black Templar units destroyed that round. The end game component awards an additional 3 victory points based on a condition that varies depending on what Templar Vow you chose.

I think depending on the Vow you choose this Secondary could be quite viable. Just before the Datasheets themselves there is a single page which provides a description of some of the unique Black Templars wargear and armoury options.

These rules allow you to arm such models in line with their new plastic miniatures. The High Marshall himself has crossed the Rubicon and has an amazing new model! On top of that he has a pretty amazing new set of rules too. Surprising cheap at Helbrecht has a comparible statline to Marneus Calgar but much much cheaper. He provides the usual Chapter Master buffs but also increases the strength of nearby Core units by 1. Then we get to his Sword of the High Marshalls which has two profiles which he has to choose from each time he makes an attack.

The Hero of Helsreach also returns with a great new miniature and great new new Datasheet. Grimaldus shares a similar statline to his regular Chaplain counterparts albeit with a better Crozius. His retinue of servitors also bestow some cool abilities on Grimaldus which are not impacted by the destruction of said servitors strangely enough. He gets re-rolls to hit and wound against Characters, fights first against Characters and has a boosted Heroic Intervention range.

An Iconic Black Templars unit give a Primaris refresh. These have the standard Primaris statline with the Neophytes having -1 Ld and Sv. This is your basic Firstborn version of the Crusader Squad.

This unit also has the Smokescreen keyword whilst it contains Neophytes allowing it to make use of the Smokescreen Stratagem. Not sure why this rule is missing from the Primaris Crusader Squad, perhaps they value their Primaris Neophytes better.

This Datasheet brings back memories of the trusty Veterans of old allowing you to build have a very flexible loadout in a single squad of up to 10 Primaries Sword Brothers. They each have the usual veteran statline with a whole raft of melee wargear options including Thunder Hammers and Lighting Claws.

I actually think the stock Astartes Chainsword is a great option for these guys, especially with the various Templar Vows and buffs that can be bestowed on them. Ultimately Crusader Squads are better than they were at the end of 8th edition but still more of a fluffy choice than a competitive one.

Vanguard Veterans are useful in any melee-focused Space Marine army, where arming them with a lightning claw and storm shield creates a durable melee unit that can be an absolute blender as they roll through with 4 attacks each on the charge.

Just be sure to have your Chapter Master give them re-rolls before they fly off. In Ben finished the year ranked 20 th in the ITC and so far this year is ranked 6 th — largely propelled by his success with his Black Templars. To date he has finished in the Iron Halo and Mid-Mo Maelstrom events at 2 nd and 3 rd respectively, and has a number of smaller event wins. We cannot think of anyone better qualified to discuss the faction and how they play right now.

High Marshal, take it away! Ben: High Marshal Cherwien self-proclaimed here to help you join the eternal crusade of the Black Templars against heretics and filthy xenos! With the release of the new Space Marine codex and the Black Templars Index they finally have their own complete set of rules and stratagems after years of being stuck at the back of Codex: Space Marines.

All these tools have allowed me to shape the list into a single vanguard detachment focused on precision strikes with loads of durability to take advantage of the 9 th edition GT mission set.

Before I dive into my list and what makes the faction tick, let us go over how the Black Templars function in this edition and how to best to use their different stratagems, warlord traits, and relics. In planning any list, I think the following should be strongly considered:. I also want to touch on a few finer points of the Black Templars that I think make them a dominant force.

I cannot stress enough how important and central Devout Push is for the Templars. I could go on and on but those are the big game turners I feel make the most mileage out of Devout Push.

Tenacious Assault and Vicious Riposte are also two very solid stratagems that can combo well with Devout Push. Vicious Riposte allows your big tough unit to take down hordes faster with mortal wound generation so as not to get stuck in and is also useful when dealing with something tough that has a lot of attacks.

Litany of Divine Protection, 4. Ben: The list is built on a single vanguard detachment that keys off two particularly important HQs that drive the functionality. The warlord is High Marshal Helbrect who provides the chapter master rerolls and carries the front-line commander trait for increased mobility. The second key is a Primaris Chaplain on bike with the Ancient Breviary relic and the Rites of Battle warlord trait hero of the chapter to unlock.

He can support any part of the battlefield with litanies and rights of war and is incredibly durable. He is the reason why I can shockingly avoid taking any troops in this list. With the chaplain able to zip around and give objective secured to anything, core or character, and coupled with the ability to devout push into any contesting unit with more melee-focused units I have plenty of board control without troops.

This makes the elites slot is by far the best role within any Black Templars list and I completely fill these in my lists. The last two units are by far the most important with an 8-man storm-and-board terminator squad and an 8-man vanguard vets squad with 5 claws and 3 power fists fist on the sarg.

In the fast attack slots I run a three man multi-melta attack bike squad and 5 plasma inceptors. Lastly a 6-man eradicator squad for more melta and a Whirlwind to round out against other melee matches using the Suppressive Fire stratagem. Click here to return to our larger guide on Codex Space Marines. If you have any questions or feedback, shoot us an email at contact goonhammer.

His stats are pretty ordinary for a Primaris Chaplain, as is his wargear — a regular plasma pistol and an artificer crozius, which is just an extra point of AP. So why do you take him?

There is a tension, however, that the BT litanies are probably less good for supporting a gunline than generic ones, and Grimaldus does now lock you out of having a Bike Master of Sanctity rolling around.

He can still amp up some more mobile units and fire them off to do some mischief, and his auras are really good, so overall seems strong, but there are probably other builds you try too. Two entries here now, because Crusaders come in both small and large varieties. To build a unit of these you have to take at least five Initiates, a Sword Brother and four Neophytes.

Sword Brethren are an odd unit. Ironically, the best use for these might be hiding behind a wall back in your deployment zone — they have the special Vow-sword Bladesmen ability, which lets them ignore the Passion of your vows, and come at a minimum unit size of 4 so are 88pts bare bones. That is narrowly cheaper than taking some Assault Intercessors, and they can still benefit from Cover when Uphold is active, so maaaaybe , but far from mandatory.

Otherwise, you can definitely set them up to be pretty effective volume attackers for Psalm of Remorseless Persecution , but there are plenty of other ways to achieve that.

As well as character options, the Datasheets section also includes the Black Templars Armoury, which enables you to take a multi-melta upgrade on Primaris vehicles i. Impulsors, Gladiators, and Repulsors. All the upgrades they have available mean that, more than other Marines, they can tinker with their units to make them particularly suited to specific targets, allowing them to send deadly thrusts into the midst of their opponents forces. Whether he makes it in competitive lists depends on whether that melee potential can be realised, but GW have at least had a very good go at making it worth trying, and in a rare bit of foresight his default Warlord trait is a good one, so you can even go ahead and make him your actual-factual Warlord if you want to without lumbering yourself with something pointless.

This is the exact kind of unit that I call completely wrong and everyone ends up running 30 of, but on paper they look like a bit of a nothing, with lacklustre offence and unremarkable defence. Ultimately, whether Black Templars light up the tournament scene depends on how much their extra stuff can juice the slightly underwhelming core that is Codex: Space Marines.

Templars players have had to be patient, but the wait was worth it — this supplement joins Sisters, Thousand Sons and Death Guard as a fantastic example of 9th Edition design trends done right. I do suspect that lists using Uphold the Honour of the Emperor are going to stand out, but there are other things you can do here, and real tradeoffs between the various decisions you have to make.

I realise Drukhari comparisons may put some peoples hackles up, but Drukhari upgrade and customisation energy on top of a slightly more modest suite of datasheets as the Marine codex provides is pretty much the sweet spot where fun and power intersect.

All-in-all, top marks! You have been warned. Infiltrators — Infiltrators — Crusaders with chainswords — This list is on the plan A of using Uphold, but against opponents with limited ranged threat would definitely consider switching to one of the other vows as appropriate, as the up-close threats all sport invulns. The list packs in a trio of hyper-deadly melee units, with the VanVets in particular planning to get souped up with Psalm to flatten almost everything, and each sporting a sergeant with a deadly D3 weapon to take down the nastiest stuff out there.

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