Black Templars Special Characters

8/24/2013

23 Comments

Helbrecht:

180 points
WS 6 instead of WS 5.
Once per game, you can give Hatred and Fleet to all friendly Black Templars in your army.
He has access to Honor Guard
All equipment is the same, including the Sword of Marshals. No mention of special Warlord Trait.

Grimaldus:

185 points
BS 4 instead of BS 5.
3 attacks instead of the 4 attacks he has now.
3 wounds instead of the 2.
"It Will Not Die" replaces "Only in Death Does Duty End".
All Black Templars units within 6" of Grimaldus gain Zealot.
All Black Templars units within 6" of Grimaldus's servitors gain 6+ invulnerable save.
Wargear the same.

The Emperor's Champion:

140 points
Same stat-line.
2+ armor save and 4+ invulnerable save at all times.
Same wargear
Black Sword is AP2 and Master Crafted
1H Stance: Causes Instant Death on roll of 6's to wound in CC.
2H Stance: Unwieldly and +2 Strength.
Now takes up a HQ slot, but is NOT mandatory inclusion.

In summary, if you're taking Black Tide, which seems to be what we're going to be more geared for...you absolutely must take Grimaldus. Period. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. He makes your Black Tide function, similar to how bad ass he was in 4th Edition. He also got a points reduction to help fit him in. EXCELLENT rules now.

Also, as a side note...Black Templars Chapter Traits are (Note, they get all of them):

Adamantium Will
Crusaders
Characters get re-rolls to hit and rending in challenges.

23 Comments

Marshal Laeroth (Admin) link

8/24/2013 12:27:03 pm

I'm thinking that the Emperor's Champion fits into all lists just fine. He's an excellent addition to a CC-oriented squad, as he gives much needed AP2 to the unit. He can also hack up MC's and other durable SC's in challenges if needed.

Helbrecht and Grimaldus...interesting now. Finally. Because they just screamed to be used before, but I could never validate it. Grimaldus seems to be the Black Tide HQ. If you're rolling like that, he's your guy for sure. If you're doing anything other than that (i.e. LR spam, Drop Pods, etc), then Helbrecht is the man because his "once per game" effects everyone in your army and can be a huge game changer in a critical turn. You always have your "DIE!" button available and it will cause your opponent to hesitate, or at the very least, cause him/her to think about it. It isn't reliant on proximity, which Grimaldus needs.

Nostok

8/24/2013 09:37:57 pm

I'm looking forward to actually painting up my special characters because they may actually get some table time now.

8/24/2013 09:40:16 pm

Actually

8/24/2013 10:29:39 pm

I actually have to buy Helbrecht now. I was hoping a reboot would give me the reason to do so. Though, he's sure as hell not being painted that fugly ass bronze. He can be black, like the rest of this brethren.

And I get the feeling that it'll be the rare list indeed that does NOT include one of our SC's from now on.

8/25/2013 06:37:35 am

Both my Grim. and H. are still in their shrinkwrap or clamshell. I was doing a basic NMM in my BT and well at the moment that is fine but doing Helbrecht worried me somewhat... I have not read much BT fluff recently but is their a reason for it being bronze I do not remember?

daredevil

8/24/2013 09:15:17 pm

Finally! I thought the crusaders and rerolls (in challenges) would be weird to keep apart especially since theyre so complimentary to one another! Now we can charge into hopeless situation crying "ACCEPT ANY CHALLENGE NO MATTER THE ODDS" with the rule always being on! Helbrecht looks like a MEQ cruncherwith the D3 additional hits and im assuming our characters get the one shot furious charge trait... although against other HQs hes quite lackluster but WS 6 is good! ^^

8/24/2013 09:17:37 pm

Furious charge trait meaning warlord trait... it was sword of the imperium if im not wrong! Champion of humanity wouldve been SOOOO much better!

8/24/2013 10:27:47 pm

Unfortunately, there was zero mention of Warlord Traits on Helbrecht. All of the other Chapter Masters got them though. I'm a little disappointed by that, but it isn't a huge deal.

8/24/2013 09:33:42 pm

So nice to see people being positive about the new book. Most other things I have read in comments on other sites have been really negative to inclusion in the new SM codex without first seeing rules. Really looking forward to seeing what else the coming month will bring us.

8/24/2013 10:38:19 pm

I think a lot of people's fears are at least slightly lessened. We could have been far worse off. Part of the problem, assuming this is the final copy of the codex, is that 40k Radio purposely left out clarifications of these rules so they could have more people listening to their show. That messes with their credibility big time.

In any case, yes...I'm looking forward to putting my nose the the grindstone and cranking out lists now. I'm honestly okay with what we got. Its definitely workable and gives us a competitive army that actually takes skill to play (HUGE thing for me). Not only that, the incredibly powerful Chapter Tactics (i.e. Ultramarines) aren't as powerful as we were led to believe, so there's also that. ;)

8/24/2013 10:46:20 pm

Not to mention we can ally in librarians (hopefully) and get a unit of storm speeder scouts to skirmish and distrat taking the heat off our main templar boys! (Im thinking raven guard chapter for the stealth on the speeder or imperial fist to keep up the dornian movement!)

Algesan

8/25/2013 01:57:37 am

Heh, even 3++ mentions that the AACNMTO rerolls should be army wide. Rending list wide wouldn't have been out of line either, especially with Helbrecht's mini-Waaagh! ability.

I think the rumor I picked up last week was a combination of having both Helbrecht and Grimaldus in a list. However, still heard that this is not the print version they are using.

<sigh> Now waiting to see if GW had any thoughts outside the Codex Astartes box on the units.

8/25/2013 06:44:22 am

It was really weird having the rumours for this... I think I prefer when we don't know and it just arrives. Because at the moment it feels like it is here but we don't have it. It has not helped that due to the calendar falling how it has this year the gap between August and September WD and releases has been 6 weeks.

8/24/2013 10:48:31 pm

And itll be a plus we can ally a cheap librarian and a few units of skirmishing ravenguard scouts in a storm speeder to make em slightly more survivable!

8/24/2013 10:50:20 pm

They made that note in the podcast...BT cannot have Librarians in the army list, including via allies. :/

8/25/2013 02:12:01 am

Well thats a bummer ._. But at leat we know Gw didnt file up on our fluff! And without a librarian's prescience id say wecan still pull off a competitive shooty army (im not gonna try besides the chainsword was why i became a templar!) Anyway we can also look into cheap ICs for our boys in black with 50 point techmarines! Note their servo harness doesnt work the way it was befoee but instead of filling a squad with neophytes replacing them with sevitors might be a good option to add PF attacks to a squad ;) roughly the same price too!

8/25/2013 06:52:12 am

Just read this on Nafka's site: http://natfka.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/some-things-to-know-about-space-marine.html

8/25/2013 06:53:02 am

Basically says pinch of salt be wary.

8/25/2013 10:16:17 pm

While I'm still hopeful that they have a play-test copy, I'm also realistic about the situation. They've put their reputation on the line for these rumors and if they turn out to be wrong, no one will put any stock into what they say again. Thus, I think that its safe to say that information is very close. Maybe a tweak or two here and there. We can't know for sure for a couple weeks yet.

Nathan

8/25/2013 06:45:55 pm

Honestly I'm not seeing how anyone would take the Emperor's Champion at that points value for anything other than fluff reasons. Easy to kill, not outstanding in close combat and expensive. If that is the official line on Hellbrect I'm a little underwhelmed. I've never played with Grimaldus so I have no real opinion there but it is nice he picked up the extra wound.

All in all I'll reserve final judgement until the book comes out but the world seems a little less bleak and there is maybe hope on the horizon!

8/25/2013 10:11:20 pm

I'm going to do a nice long analysis here in the next day or so on the EC, because there is a little "battle" going on regarding him on B&C. Which is all good and dandy, but I'm wasting material for IN! lol. I will say, though, that he is slightly over-costed for what he does. I don't think he's any easier to kill than he was before though and only took a very slight reduction in MEQ kill power losing the +2 strength when using 1H stance (unwieldy on 2H is lame), but the instant death is a nice touch. I do think that he has his place as a secondary HQ if you so desire one, but not essential fortunately.

As for Helbrecht and Grimaldus's stats, they did what I expected them to do and that was to bring them in line with similar SC's. Grimaldus had the stat-line of a 4th Edition Chaplain, which isn't terrible, but his attack count needed to be curbed a bit to bring into line with 5th/6th Edition codices. A bump in wounds is nice though. Helbrecht simply got his well-deserved WS he's needed for two editions. I don't think they should have given him the extra 5 points cost, but then he'd be REALLY cheap compared to the other SM SC's. Plus, the "DIE!" button is pretty sweet. Gives us some very nice possibilities. Not so much a fan of the Sword of Marshal's AP3, but...its good it still gives the D3 extra attacks. And having access to honor guard is nice too (though we'd have to scratch build their models). All in all, we got some stuffs.

Trignama

8/26/2013 08:43:12 am

ML, I think I disagree about using Helbrecht over Grim in a LRC list.

I base that that on the thought that Grim's bubble abilities will work even when in a transport, and giving 3 LRC's in a 2k list a 6++ is no joke. Plus, because of the size of our squads, it should be easy to keep all 3 squads in that 6++ bubble by spreading out the servitors accordinginly. The re-roll bubble since it is only on Grim will be challenging I admit, but you will get to extend it out to at least one squad (obviously Grim's squad will always have zealot). Plus I believe it to be superior simply because it is not a one time use, as long as you manage your squad distances, it is there all game.

Thoughts?

8/31/2013 03:45:34 pm

To be honest, because GW has ruled that aura's almost always extend out of vehicles, I would not be surprised that his bubbles will work the same way. The only concern is that there are no firepoints in a LRC, so that would prevent LOS to your other units...so I could see both ways. If they do rule it that way, Grim would be a decent addition to a LRC list. In a DP list, however, I just don't see you cramming all those DP's together being useful in most situations.

Black Templars Special Characters

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