Dec 18, 2011
Hey there, Reece from www.FrontlineGaming.org to discuss a hot ticket topic: Black Templars and their place in the Competitive Meta.
Back when GW dropped the bomb that was the Black Templars/Deathwing (and yes, I said Deathwing, Dark Angels still stink) FAQ we saw a Renaissance of both armies, but particularly with Deathwing. That is probably due to the fact they are cheaper and easier to build, but I digress.
That FAQ made both armies viable again. Why doesn’t GW do this for other armies? I couldn’t say. But what I can say is that both of these old time books became competitive at the speed of FAQ.
I had a conversation with Darkwynn back when this happened, stating that Black Templars were now top tier. He disagreed…and has since played them to great effect in both the ETC, and recently winning the Feast of Blades—an invitational GT—with them. Dave Fay, a top notch tournament player from Southern California, has also been making waves with Black Templars. He made it to the finals of the Comikaze GT with his. I myself won Ard Boyz round 1 with a Black Templars list against some brutal IG and Grey Knight opponents and found them wanting in no area.
What makes them viable? The book as a whole is still out of whack with 5th ed, but they have a few key units and abilities that when utilized correctly, makes them easily capable of dealing with any other list.
First things first. The Emperor’s Champion. He is a great buy with just his basic kit, but army wide preferred enemy for 40pts? Wow. Yes please. That alone gives Black Templars a tremendous boost.
But that isn’t everything.
Righteous Zeal, a leadership check any time a unit of BTs takes one or more casualties, used to be a real down fall for Black Templars. With the changes to what a consolidation move is in 5th ed is, it really isn’t much now. They can now consolidate a fraction of an inch to effectively hold still if they do fail their check, or move the full distance rolled towards the enemy. It is only a benefit now for all intents and purposes.
Kill them All though, can still be a big factor as it causes you to occasionally not shoot at what you want to. This can be game changing, but taking a Marshall really helps to mitigate this as he grants all units his Leadership 10. Speaking of Marshals, he has access to the 4th ed style Armory, meaning you can build your own Marhsal to pretty impressive standards if you wish to. He can be given Eternal Warrior with an Adamantine Mantle, a bike, Storm Shield, etc. The Marshall brings a lot to a competitive Black Templars list.
Black Templars also get great deals on some units such as Land Speeder Typhoons, Ven Dreads, and Predators. Typhoons are a great buy at 90 points, which is what all other Marines pay, and at 70pts are amazing. Dave Fay runs 3 squads of 2-3, and these units are brutally good (I run 3 myself). With the ability to take on any targets on a mobile platform, Typhoons provide fire support and versatility.
Black Templars also get old school Venerable Dreadnoughts who have access to veteran abilities such as Tank Hunters. For 165 points, you can have a Ven Dread with a Missile Launcher and Twin Las Cannon plus tank hunters. That’s a Str10 and 9 shot every turn on a move and shoot platform. Nothing to shake a stick at.
They also get Predator Annihilators at the bargain basement price of 145 points. That’s 3 las cannons on an av13 chassis for 20 points less than standard marines. 3 of these and 3 Typhoons nets you a 120 point savings!
But, the real gem of this book is without doubt the Terminators. Their Assault Terminators can take veteran abilities for 3pts per model. For Assault Termies, this means Furious Assault, Preferred Enemy Lightening Claws and Thunder Hammers for only 43pts per model! Compare that with what any other Marine book has to pay to achieve the same result. They are also Feearless in combat, and break towards their enemy. That is a certifiable Deathstar unit.
But the real winner, in my eyes, is the dual Cylcone Missile Launcher, 5 man Tac Terminator squad with Tank Hunters. Holy Crap is this unit efficient. 265pts gets you arguably the best unit in the game. 4 move and shoot str 9 missiles or 4 frags, and 10 str5 Storm Bolter shots with 5 preferred enemy power fists (and don’t forget, Tank Hunters works in assault, too!). Wow. That is a unit that just adds so much to a list that it really is incredible.
It isn’t all sunshine and rainbows, though. The Black Templars have no Psyker defense (assuming everyone takes preferred enemy) and their troops struggle. The riddle to making Black Templars work, is overcoming their weaknesses in the Troops department.
There are several viable strategies. You can take the old school, 5-6 man Las Plas squads as they are cheap and provide some nice firepower. The downside, obviously, is that they are fragile and not very mobile.
You can put them in Rhinos to increase both their durability and mobility, but BT’s pay 50 pts per Rhino (but get x-tra armor for only 5pts). So, this begins to erode the savings you get on their underpriced items. I personally choose to go with the Twin Las Cannon Razorback, 5 man squad as this weighs in at 170pts per troop. This is only 20pts more than Space Wolves pay for the same unit, and 5pts more than Space Marines. Not too bad, and it provides a mobile scoring unit and more firepower with a unit that isn’t awful in HtH in a pinch.
The other choice is to take 10 man squads and kit them out for HtH a bit. Take 9, put them in a Rhino or Pod with the Emperor’s Champ, and you have a unit that is pretty good in assault, mobile and more durable for holding objectives.
Lastly, their Chaplains deserve mention. BT Chaplains are the old style type, that have a stat line on par with a modern Captain. They also grant the ability to always break towards the enemy of their choosing if they take a casualty, and they open up Cynobytes. Cynobytes are like Servitors, but they grant the ability to add 1” per model to the Righteous Zeal roll, meaning that your squads can break up to 9” towards the enemy! That makes foot Terminator units viable.
No matter which way you slice it, a truly competitive Templars unit will most likely be built from these elements. There are always exceptions to the rule, of course, but these are the bricks from which you can build a top tier Black Templars army and really surprise some people in the tournament scene.
pathtyphon
TastyTaste
Frank Austin
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I have been trying this myself lately, and I can’t make a list that competes with a vanilla marine list or a space wolves loganwing list.
What kind of list are you running? I might be able to give a few pointers if you are interested.
Jeez more grandstanding and over-stating of the facts by Reecius, who knew?
If BT were THE BEST codex around, why did Darkwynn get manhandled in an early round of that gt by a guard player? I’m not hating on Darkwynn or the BT codex, but it is not the be all end all, just like Deathwing post-faq isn’t either.
Some of the pros and cons of Darkwynns list is that people aren’t used to playing against both his codex and his army style, which can give him an advantage, or as proved by the example above he doesn’t have enough units to handle truly tough to beat armies. This is an army building choice, and part of the luck of the draw when you build dual rock lists.
One game proves nothing either way.
Haha, what? When do I grandstand or over state anything? I report things honestly as I see them, whether or not you agree is your opinion.
I neither stated nor inferred that they were the best army in the game.
But oh well, you are free to see things how you like, Mr. Random guy.
Thanks for reading my article and commenting, though!
Reece
I think it is funny that BT can go toe to toe with Blood Angels, Space Wolves and Grey Knights, now we are talking about them being over powered. Maybe BT are the answer to the Elite armies out there, but they struggle against some of the more shooty armies, such as IG and Mech-Dar (normal and dark). Great players play armies greatly, great armies get played by everyone.
I wouldn’t say they are overpowered at all, they have weaknesses, but in good hands and with a tough list, they are extremely powerful. And that last statement was ace, I will have to reuse that one!
Reece
Black Templars…BA, SW, GK or whatever else. I predict power shifts when the next edition comes out anyway.
For sure, I think that is a given.
Good players win with old Necron, Tyranid, Black Templar, Imperial Guard, Space Wolves, Grey Knights, Chaos Daemons, whatever.
I don’t get why people don’t realize that at top level tournament play, it’s the player. Tiers are only relevant to the average, and relevancy to the average is somewhat irrelevant in terms of balance arguments … b/c it’s getting above average in skill that will win you games far faster than trying to determine what a “Tier 1″ codex is.
You are right, Mr. MVB, but most people don’t get that. It is why people, including you yourself (if you are who I think you are) called me crazy when I said Footdar were viable way back when.
And now we see them performing extremely well at the highest levels of play. I am not in any way saying that is because of me, only that it is the player that matters, not the army. The army is the toolbox, and the BT toolbox has some exceptionally good tools in it that the good player can use to take on any other army out there.
Thanks for reading!
Footdar IS crazy! Haha
It’s important both to acknowledge that high levels of play are largely divorced from list (Aside from list not being absurd), but also not to ENCOURAGE very difficult or subpar lists/army-styles as being good when they are awful outside of the hands of a very good player.
Nuance and all that, what what.
I’m the Mr. MVB who called you cray cray for your footdar back in my more intemperate days, and who you shared some bourbon with at AdeptiCon 2011.
Oh and you cray cray for footdar dude.
<3,
MR. MVB
Haha, I figured you were he! And no worries, I just like to tease you about that. I agree with what you said, 100%. People get too hung up on what is or is not tier this or that, but at the same time, you say tier 1 and ears perk up. So hey, call me a sensationalist in my titles, but the data I present is accurate as I understand it to be.
Looking forward to NOVA! I hope no financial misshaps keep from coming this year.
I don’t think that’s true at all. Of course, neither do I really believe in “tiers” of codices- there’s basically just the good (most all of the 5E books), the limited-but-good (many of the older books, like Tau and BT that don’t have a lot of options but are still powerful), and the bad (stuff like Daemons, old Necrons, CSM, etc, that has very few or no advantages over its competitors.)
Lists _do_ matter. Some books _are_ bad. Can a good player still win with them? Sure, just like a good carpenter can build a house with substandard tools. He’d still do the job better if you gave him something good, though.
Righteous Zeal is still a morale check, so if you fail it you’re falling back. Not a huge deal, but it does mean you’re rolling Ld more than most Marines are.
I don’t generally hold with taking Accept Any Challenge for most BT armies because the “good” BT army these days is mostly all shooting, which means your points sunk on AAC don’t really help any. Abhor the Witch seems to be the best choice, since it has no downside and is cheap.
BT’s big advantages are 5man LasPlas (the old, 4E style kind) combined with Tank Hunter Cyclones, cheap Typoons, and reasonable Dakka Predators. Put them all together and you have an army with strong shooting, if not terribly high resilience. I’ve seen builds that play around with Razorbacks using Power of the Machine Spirit, but I’m not sold on it yet.
I don’t think that the TriLas Pred and Las/Missile Ven Dread are very impressive- you’re just paying too many points for it. 165 for a S9 and S10 shot? No thanks, my Terminators bring four S9 shots.
Likewise, the large squads of BT intended for combat are… just not that scary, whether on foot or mounted. Other armies are better at combat in most cases; BT can bring the AAC Assault Terminators with Furious Charge and Claws, but BA can do pretty much the same thing for cheaper and get FNP to boot. Better to take advantage of the codex’s still-undercosted stuff than focus on their nominal strength that doesn’t actually work anymore.
You make some good points, and I agree that focusing on the under-costed, and powerful units is the best strategy in most cases. I disagree though, that the assault termies are not scary. Against your average tournament list with MSU units, they are brutal. And at 43 points per model with FA and PE, they are pretty fantastic. Draigowing is the only common tournament list you would have to worry about, IMO. There are some less common units that will cause you trouble, but in the current meta, not much will scare you.
The problem, as with any hammer unit, lies in the delivery; you have to put them in a Land Raider to get them there, and in an environment full of Melta, Lances, and Railguns, that’s a risky prospect. It can work out, but I think it’s much more reliable to go the shooting route.
It’s also important to remember that 2+/5++ only goes so far- there are plenty of units that can pile on enough wounds (power weapon or regular) to cut your expensive unit down to size real fast. Plenty of times I’ve tied down a unit of Terminators with a mass of Gaunts and just soaked casualties to win by attrition.
I agree with the article. The new BT is strong. In the hands of good player, it was neigh unstoppable. My big brother conquer the recent local tourney with his BT defeating WE (my own), BA and SW with massacre on each game.
Damn BT was punching bag before but now they came back a lot stronger.
In a big way! They are very powerful, now.
I agree 100%. Black Templars got a ridiculous boost in efficiency with the recent update, and it still boggles my mind when people dismiss them like they did before the FAQ. Sure, 5th edition Black Templars pre-FAQ were mediocre at best, however the benefits they got far outweigh any cons they might still have.
As you mentioned, their Troops slots are where they suffer when you consider what else you’ll be throwing in the army. You need cheap, efficient scoring units, and that’s hard to do in an army that encourages you to throw 15 dudes in a Crusader. I think your idea of five vanilla dudes in a TL-Lascannon Razorback might work, though the 5-man Las/Plas in a Rhino might also be interesting as a sort of Las/Plas Razor imitation. It can stay still and fire two high strength, low AP shots at 24″ and 48″, or it can move up to 6″ and fire two Plasma shots up to 12″ from the hatch. Not too shabby for 170 points.
Yes, I think Templars will see a huge return at WargamesCon and Adepticon next year (unless 6th Edition is legal for use during Adepticon depending on the release date, etc). As for my local scene, unfortunately my 40k group doesn’t have a Black Templars player so we’re currently only able to theory-hammer games against such a list/army.
Keep it up Reccius, I’m lovin the articles (and your work on frontlinegaming.org).
I like bt a lot the only thing I dislike is playing against them. I am confident in my lists but my dice rolls are so horrid I fear even a 5 man cc squad of this army. Ig are a good army but I think a take all comers bt list can stand pretty good chance if they go toe to toe. Draigowing is scary only because there’s no anti psyker but there’s las plas razors and some unlucky rolls can I’d them pretty good. I’m not saying bt flatout are tier one but with proper luck and lists they hold their own in tournaments
Re: RICHEOUS ZEAL. You stated that if BT fail the Morale check regarding Richeous Zeal, that they could “consolidate a fraction of an inch to effectively remain still if they failed the check”. On page 23 of the BT Codex, Richeous Zeal, end of 3rd paragraph it says “Should the unit fail this morale check, it will fall back as normal.” I’m in no way a BT expert, but is your statement correct, I may certainly be missing something.