Tactica: Black Templars 6th edition

[MuNsTeNbRaU]

Hello welcome to the new 6th edition Black Templar tactica. Hopefully this will help people who are existing sword brethren where they can add their ideas about how best to adapt to the new rule set and for neophytes who want to learn more about the army. Since Lord Malorne did a very good unit analysis some of the information will be copied across with a few changes made to it and since its so big it will put into a word document so people can download it so they do not just see a massive wall of text on the first page.

This post will be updated with new information about how templars are working in the new edition and what people will generally think of templars.

But to get the ball rolling what do people think of the changes to our army, i'm looking forward to some massive units of crusaders and chaplins and the changes to the T of attack bikes make them a bit better.

LINK TO TEMPLAR FAQ V1.1
(from a quick look most of it is just changes to wording since our codex is very old).

[MuNsTeNbRaU]

Currently we are talking about the HQ options for templars, starting with the vows got a couple of thoughts on which one is worth taking...

Crusader seals never seemed worth it before. Now I'm not so sure, since you brought up a valid point. However you do have to pay 2 points for each guy, in which case I would probably rather just take krak grenades for that. I don't know, can you give seals to just one guy?

Anyway yeah, starting from the top. The vows have really gotten a lot less useful; accept any challenge got neutered. rage is nice, but often doesn't come into play, however I still feel it's worth taking if you did take it. I feel like getting a huge weight on quantity of attacks can pull through for us at times. And I think assault terminators with this could be devastating. (IF you get the charge) I played a game against daemons today, got the charge with hammernators and was kind of wishing I hadn't taken abhor the witch. (daemons have no psykers, and also felt like the extra attacks could have put it into my favor) I'm going to experiment with chaplains, crusader squads and terminators on this vow in the near future.

The other vow I consider is abhor the witch; it's cheaper, and can give you a 5+ negate for those pesky new psyker rules. The consolidate in the beginning is meh, it's only good if you're going for assaults in which case just take accept any challenge. It's what I use usually, but like I said certain armies don't even have psykers and it ends up being useless. It's the safe bet, but won't get you much.

The other two vows are hardly worth mentioning, namely uphold the honor of the emperor being just really bad. (all infantry get 6+ inv but cannot benefit from cover) I think it's only 10 points but you're worse off taking it most the time.
Suffer not the unclean to live (+1 str -1 init) is ... interesting. I've thought about taking it, str 5 attacks would be good against tougher enemies, but losing the initiative 4 doesn't seem too good. Mostly because our HQs will now be I4. At 35 pts I believe it's not terrible but risky; you're gambling on which army you're fighting. Some it's good against, others it's gonna get you screwed.

I think I'd go for abhor the witch right now, but I expect to be favoring accept any challenge in the future. I'm using assault terminators a lot more and am liking the increase in durability, and learned today that crusader squads can still beat out things they can statistically kill, but probably need a character. Also because it's guaranteed to help you when you get a charge, whereas abhor the witch NEEDS enemy psykers and even then, you only get a chance to negate.

As for HQs, I would go marshals for now. Not sure on gear but I like giving him claws, AA and iron halo. Chaplains sound nice but I personally favor the army-wide Ld 10. I'm gonna be trying both for a while, gotta play more games...

suffer not the unclean to live is the best vow, by far.

1. most truly important psychic powers used are buffs;abhor the witch wont do much good.
2. uphold the honour is crap.
3. accept any challenge isnt realy useful; our proper cc units arent that much mobile, you wont be getting the charge that often.

4. suffer not the unclean:
-offers our marines the capability to wreck tanks in cc(DONT pay for kraks, just charge and do 2-3 str 5 attacks per dude on the vehicle's rear!)
-offers our marines the capability to damage MCs(MCs, unlike 4th ed, VERY rarely have a 2+ save; wounding them with weight of attacks on 5+ is great)
-does NOT reduce the initiative of our ICs and terminators: face it, our terminators and warlord will spam powerfists and thunderhammers, they will always be I1 anyways.
-it hurts our emperor's champion, but he sucks anyways due to ap3.

suffer not the unclean was the original "vow to take" when the codex came out. accept any challenge got better only fr some portion of 5th, that's all. suffer not has returned in its place.

[MuNsTeNbRaU]

(reserved for future updates not quite sure what for but think its worth doing again i think)

[MuNsTeNbRaU]

Think I will have one last one.

[Voss]

So... the big one. Rage instead of preferred enemy. Certainly makes assaulting nasty, but... seems like a loss overall.
Chaplains have a point now, however.

With the prevalence of psykers I can see a lot of folks shifting over to Abhor/Destroy for the extra move as well as the slightly better save.

[MuNsTeNbRaU]

yeah it is going to be harder to choose between taking a marshal for the leadership buff that i have gotten use to or the chaplain for sheer combat death.

[Voss]

So... artificer armour. Granted it is still almost the cost of terminator armour, but doesn't carry its drawbacks (or impose them on a non-terminator unit the IC has joined). Not entirely sure it is worthwhile for a marshall, but for a chaplain, it seems like a good choice since his weapon and invulnerable save are already paid for. Also, unlike some of the more recent books, the Reculsiarch does have the option to buy a power fist (or axe) to supplement his Crozius. Useful if you need to deal with low save enemies.

The other big thing about the Reclusiarch is, of course, the opportunity to have a Holy Relic in the army. Another bonus attack that would stack with Rage as well (nothing quite like basic marines with 5 attacks on the charge). And at least for the Reclusiarch's unit, subject to re-rolls from Litanies.

[Killgore]

Raging Terminators This will be rather spectacular no matter which flavour of Termie you run.

[IcedAnimals]

Losing prefered enemy sucks for my tactical shooting spam terminator lists. I was so excited to have all my terminator units running around with PE TH Missile launchers. With the changes to AP value against vehicles though I might switch back to my assault cannons. AP2 getting that bonus on the chart because of rending makes them better at dealing with vehicles I think.

With furious charge also nerfed to no longer grant that bonus ini I am even more deeply rooted in taking tank hunters as my bonus. oh! I don't have my book with me right now. But can chaplains take bikes?

[dangermouse425]

Chaplains can take any equipment from the BT armoury, which means they can take bikes at 30pts.

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[dangermouse425]

Units being unable to assault from a stationary vehicle is somewhat infuriating.
Does a CC foot horde work with BT?

The AAC vow change to Rage USR now make Chaplains worthy of consideration. How essential is the Ld buff from a Marshall?

It looks like we can finally make a half-decent CC army with BT!

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[Gimp]

Units being unable to assault from a stationary vehicle is somewhat infuriating.
Does a CC foot horde work with BT?

The AAC vow change to Rage USR now make Chaplains worthy of consideration. How essential is the Ld buff from a Marshall?

It looks like we can finally make a half-decent CC army with BT!

Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk 2

20 man squads foot slogging seem to be the way forward.
All you need is a Chaplin to make them fearless and give them preferred enemy and coupled with the Rage thats a good squad right there.

[Schismotive]

I haven't seen much of 6th ed, but it looks like being a templar just got a lot harder...

[Godswildcard]

Looking at Black Templars for a small army. Are Sword Brethren any good? I love the models, but I'm worried about the fact that no one mentions them at any time...

[Inquisitor Mikarovic]

Sword Brethren are far too high priced. Compare one with terminator honours (giving 2 attacks base) with a Wolf Guard. Substantially more points and no where near the customisability. I'm trying a small outflanking unit (infiltrate veteran ability), power sword, lightning claws, and aiming for devastator squads. It's STILL damn pricey. Until their points are put back into line I can't imagine Sword Brethren being a good buy.

Also, AAC, I think it's a bust unless you go Land Raiders. Sure, it stacks with a Chaplain now, but BOTH abilities (Chaplain's re-roll and Rage) NEED the charge. Without fleet, getting the charge seems about a 50-50 toss-up. Preferred Enemy always worked no matter who charged and what round of combat you're in. That's what I liked about it, especially as BTs are fearless and can drag opponents down over time. Suffer not the Unclean keeps it's punch over time, and with Power Axes being Unwieldy anyway, the -1 to initiative doesn't matter (as I read it you can't be Initiative 0). It doesn't stack with Furious charge, but you can swap that out for another ability, or save the points.

[Schismotive]

Yeah sword brethren were never useful, and sound about the same for 6th ed. I used to think about using them for a light outflank squad (similar to dominions but just much worse)

And yes I agree that losing preferred enemy really sucks. It makes our army almost unplayable as far as close combat is concerned; it's the only element we had to our advantage and with it gone I know I wont be able to stand up to any other cc armies. I would take re rolls to hit over just more attacks any day...

[Pyriel]

Marshal Pyriel reporting for duty! been some time, battle-brothers!

been almost 1 year of absense where i didnt play too many games(recovering from asurgery, meniscus tear. actualy hurt it again while "rolling", but doc says its not a tear, so I'll be fine), but I'm back now.

my two cents:
-our Troops are (and always were) crap. the loss of Prefered enemy will NOT hurt them, frankly in a competitive scene they died to cc anyway.no such thing as "i die MORE", there's just... "i die to cc, simple". we should probably use them as lasplas/mm bunkers.
-our Assault Temrinators are as badass as ever, if not more due to the power weapon nerf. Thunderhammer/Storm shield is the way to go. possibly no veteran skills to save points. just... "assault terminators with Rage".
-assault cannons are now more valuable than missile launchers due to fliers (more weight of fire to actualy HIT the damn things). i think I'm gonna play more cc-oriented this edition rather than gunline, so no shooty termies but assault ones, and two predators and a Venerable Dreadnought will do tankhunting duty-I will switch the TLLC to asscannon for that reason. weight of fire + new tankhunters=damage to fliers. the predator's loadout of autocannon/las might help in poducing some shots too.
-bikes and jump packs are... rather interesting. esp the option of an IC in one.

I will implement these changes and keep playtesting, see what units work etc.

one final note: the idea that Prefered enemy helped us in close combat is an ILLUSION.
with prefered enemy, a crusader squad was STILL a rather mediocre, and for its points horrible, assault unit.
with prefered enemy, a terminator squad was a good assault unit.

guess what: Terminators DONT NEED pref enemy to kick ****.

Pref enemy is a good thing to have, but we simply DONT HAVE the units to take advantage of it. sure, we could see some difference in 1-2 games after playing 10 games, but frankly, thats just luck. Pref enemy could not help us.no wonder most successful hardcore lists already used the suffer not the witch to live vow.(i have even lived in the era where pref enemy SUCKED and only granted hits on 3+, against non-ICs too, nobody took it)

pref enemy is not (and was not) our codex's niche. know what is?
-small 5-man las/plas troop squads.(MSU has always ruled)
-fearless in close combat (no extra wounds anymore in 6th!)
-blessed hull land raiders
-PotMS vehicles such as vindicators (hmmm... buffed by 6th ed, vindicators' guns were...)
-some of the best 3-wound chaplains!(and improved IC protection in 6th... interesting)
-mass-meltabomb/storm shield assault squads

courage. adapt and we shall prevail. in fact, the changes to scoring objectives MASSIVELY benefit assaultarmies (want the objective? GTFO of your transport!)

P.S. remember: characters on Bikes will be BIG this edition. and a Chaplain leading a bike squad, with T5(even against instant death!) , t. honours and powerfist can bring lots of pain. especialy if said Bike squad has Rage...

[dangermouse425]

The idea for using Sword Brethren as an outflanking squad is even less appealing now that outflankers can't assault on the turn they arrive in 6e. Aside from that, they're horrendously costed.

[Pyriel]

...well, the Sword Brethren could still operate as a melta/multimelta infiltrating/outflanking SHOOTING unit, without paying for t.honours and the like. just... i dont like it. why use more shooting units than we have to when we can now use assault units of bikes & chaplain(very improved unit),maybe even jumpers & chaplain, and th/ss terminators? plus, if you wanna use a shooty infantry unit, just use tankhunter shooty terminators that can still hurt stuff in cc.

[MuNsTeNbRaU]

could techmarines be a bit better? one with a full harness, storm shield and terminator honous is 10pts more than a marshal with power weapon, storm shield and honours. being able to try and repair hull pts on a 4+ seems good.