40k: Black Templar Rumors and Rumblings

Some Templar rumors have been floating around, and I felt that as a well known Black Templar blogger, giving my thoughts on them would be marginally appropriate.  So here goes, my thoughts following each item in orange.

Vow to do something good in 6th Edition

-          Phil Kelly is writing the Codex.

This could be a good thing (IG) or a bad thing (Tyranids).  Time will tell.   This WILL be a good thing.

-          More emphasis on the horde aspect of the army with lots of large units of Initiates and Neophytes.

If this is true, it’s an abject failure in the making, unless they make the units insanely cheap, and give them really good anti-tank weapons, like 4 meltaguns per 20 or something.  Unless 6^th Edition is radically different, the game is about maneuver and killing light mech.  Hordes of power armor with one special weapon do neither.

-          Emperors Champion is more in line with the company champion of the Grey Knights but is still 2 wounds. Gains preferred enemy against independent characters and monstrous creatures.

I take it that means we won’t be getting a preferred enemy vow, if this is true.  That will be sad.  We don’t have counter attack, or likely Furious Charge (since BA got that) so I’m not sure what useful USR the Templars will get to make them CC beasts.  If the answer is “you get cheaper dudes and more dudes = more attacks” I’ll be bummed.  More attacks are good, but efficient units are better.

-          Emperors Champion is more in line with the company champion of the Grey Knights but is still 2 wounds. Gains preferred enemy against independent characters and monstrous creatures.

Oh boy, I can’t wait to have a 20 man unit that completely fails when one Neophyte dies.  That will make my huge points investment useful.  Since when has rage been used on a competitive unit?

-          All the current special characters (ie: Helbrect and Grimaldius) will remain. Also I had heard of an mention of a special character who is like the greatest of all of the Emperor's Champions and the greatest warrior in the Black Templars. I had heard mention of a bike mounted special character with a lance like weapon but I cannot confirm this yet. "

The old special characters were boring, so them coming back is whatever.  Hopefully there is a reason to take them (hint: Helbrect makes Sword Brethren into Troops would be good).  The new special characters are no brainers.  The “epic” EC is an obvious idea, and the mounted “Questing Knight” character is also a good idea.  Hopefully their rules make them useable. 

-Sword Brethren are to get a special rule where when they are assaulted the enemy unit has to re-roll all* successful hits, at the expense of 1 attack. It's called "parry".

This doesn’t excite me much.  Genestealers and Incubi will still kill you.  Everything else you should be beating up.

-Land Raiders, when suffering a 5 or 6 on the damage chart* (so "wrecked" or "destroyed") gets one more turn where it rampage, think along the lines of the machine spirit going bezerk.

Better than nothing, but I’d prefer Blessed Hull that stops the melta bonus.

-No horses as far as I am aware, bikes would be the direction (if any at all) for riding knights.

Unless they reinvent the fluff (and I wouldn’t be against it if they did) the BT don’t have any bike “Questing Knight” uber unit.  Multi-wound Sword Brethren on bikes would be pretty fun.

That’s it for now.  Some of this stuff has me worried, but some of it has definite potential.  This codex can’t come soon enough to remove the bad taste of Necrons from my mouth.