Black Templars Fading Away?

[Bigred]

Retailers now reporting Black Templar kits unavailable for restocking...

Hmm, the plot thickens...

[AaronMint]

This may be to make them a store only product, like some other special kits... I doubt they will be discontinuing it or anything ... (figures crossed).
Perhaps we are the new 40k codex... (doubtful)

[TheAngryTemplar]

This happened a week or two ago. Everyone on B&C was rumbling about it. It all came back up, so some were just assuming they were reorganizing their product layout, or something like that...

Edit: Oops. read that wrong, thought you meant the GW site, not various retailers. The GW site did remove them for a short while, like I'd said, but this is different... Can't see it meaning anything big, though

[DarkLink]

I'll point out that BT are far from the only things being out of stock. Something's messed up with GW's supply chain in general atm, from what I've heard from some of the store owners I know.

[niclebel]

This just in: Sadly, no one gives a rat's *** about Black Templars.

[ElectricPaladin]

So, on the one hand, as a Blood Angels player, I totally get why Black Templars players would be really bummed if their codex were to disappear the Space Marines codex, with only a banner or a special character or something to establish some remnant of their former uniqueness.

On the other hand... dude, there are a lot of Space Marine codices: Black Templars, Blood Angels, Dark Angels, Grey Knights, and Space Wolves. Black space marines, red space marines, green space marines, grey space marines, and other grey space marines. Five codices. And the Imperium's side of the 40k universe also has the Imperial Guard and the Sisters of Battle. That's seven codices for one empire. The Tau, the Orks, and the Necrons get one codex each. The Eldar and Chaos have two.

While I don't know that the Black Templars are the best candidate for this sort of thing, I really do think that folding them back into the Space Marines codex would establish a good precedent. I think that paring down the number of codices would only improve the game.

Of course, I'm a minimalist when it comes to this sort of thing. In my mind, all the Imperium's forces should be folded into one extraordinarily large, but tightly-written codex. This would make it easier for the forces of the Imperium to do what they seem to do in the novels and fluff: support each other as the somewhat fractious parts of the same nation's military, with small squads of Astartes supported by the Imperial Guard's artillery and manpower, or the Sisters of Battle providing an elite daemon-hunting core to the Imperial Guard's massed infantry. It's true that the Allies rules let you do a lot of this, but I still think minimalism would be the way to go.

But I also know that I'm a weirdo.

[Deadlift]

I think it's accepted we're all weird ;)

I still think this may have something to do with why the Templars were lumped in with codex marines in the hobby section of rule book.

[AaronMint]

Then you will have the people who think all marines should be in one codex... Which would make it around 500 pages long...
Templar's are far more individual than DA or even BA...


This just in: Sadly, no one gives a rat's *** about Black Templars.

Then that is something that BT and your opinion on the matter have in common

[Deadlift]

Then you will have the people who think all marines should be in one codex... Which would make it around 500 pages long...
Templar's are far more individual than DA or even BA...


Yet the other variant marines have their own section in the rule book. BT don't

[Kirsten]

probably just converted everyone to making tau as fast as possible and run out of stuff :P

[sps62487]

I wouldn't mind Bringing back the Angel of Death codex and what not. it would only be 2-4 books for all space marine chapters :P

I don't really count grey knights as a marine book. They are a different category in my opinion.

[Dimitrios]

I've got to say that as the other SM codex have been rolling out Black Templar really are just a vanilla marine dex with a number of funky rules. There are no real unique units anymore (sadly) that are purely black Templar bar a number of HQ.

IMO BT are no more or less divergent than any of the first founding chapters and they have never seen the light of day codex wise. Iron Hands, Salamanders, Raven Guard etc would be better use of a bespoke codex than another second founding chapter...

[MajorWesJanson]

I've got to say that as the other SM codex have been rolling out Black Templar really are just a vanilla marine dex with a number of funky rules. There are no real unique units anymore (sadly) that are purely black Templar bar a number of HQ.

IMO BT are no more or less divergent than any of the first founding chapters and they have never seen the light of day codex wise. Iron Hands, Salamanders, Raven Guard etc would be better use of a bespoke codex than another second founding chapter...

If you compare the 4th edition SM and 4th Edition BT books, there are only a few differences- only the Crusader squad was actually different from the Vanilla book, BT just dropped scouts, devastators, and librarians from their list. They had a few special rules added, 4-5 pieces of unique wargear, and 3 SCs, but the rest was just name changes.

[bfmusashi]

It's not about what they are before an update, it's what they can be after. I'm certain there was a significant change between the current and previous codexs for Blood Angels etc. and I know there sure as shootin' was for my Grey Knights (I, I don't even know what to do with them now). What could the Templars get that would be nifty and not make them look like a Dark Angels spin off? What can they be beyond a handful of special rules?
Personally, I think crazy relic abuse time would be great. I want the Ark of the Emperor's Covenant. I want crazy Jewish things. I think a retcon making them use some kind of numerology based on the Emperor's true name the way they get around their hate of psykers would be worth exploring. There's tons of directions they could go in, maybe even explain why they're templars when they don't defend temples, but GW doesn't know what to do with them.
Shoot, they have a progenitor legion without a single character and they're angsty space cyborgs. How do you not sell angsty space cyborgs to 13 year olds? They swing chainsaws around space and shoot bullets made of rockets at 'bad guys' but feel bad because they weren't good enough to keep daddy around.

[magickbk]

Black Templars are sort of an odd situation amongst the "major" chapters in that they weren't that way to begin with. They were the cover art for 3rd Edition, and were a variant list in Armageddon before getting a full codex in 4th edition. As was mentioned here, there isn't a lot of difference between Templars and Codex chapters. Dark Angels, Blood Angels and the others have unique units and a lot of special rules, whereas Templars really only have 1 unit major unit difference, along with the special rules. I could see Templars being rolled back into Codex Space Marines if they intend to include the ability to field different chapters that only rely on FOC changes as opposed to full units. Crimson Fists, White Scars, Black Templars, and a number of others could be fielded in one Codex more easily than paring down Blood Angels or Dark Angels to fit there, IMO.

[gcsmith]

Black templars are the only Marine Codex which according to their fluff deserve a seperate codex. Blood Angels, Dark Angels and Space Wolves all follow the Codex Astartes, the book Codex Space Marines represents. Guess which named chapter doesn't? Oh wait, Black Templars. The Largest Chapter that's bordering on legion size and the chapter which is only non unique because GW gave their toys away.

[Kawauso]

...and Space Wolves all follow the Codex Astartes,

...What?

Space Wolves never, at any point, agreed to follow the Codex Astartes.

They split once to create a second founding chapter, and that's it.

They maintain 12 companies of well over 100 marines each, their initiates go straight into battle in power armour, they elevate veterans to the status of scouts, they have no dedicated apothecaries and they do plenty of other strange things like ride into battle on giant wolves.

They're just as codex-divergent as the Templars, if not more so.

But yes, the BA and DA are codex-adherent, and could feasibly be folded into the 'main' book...though -now- they have plenty of unique units so it seems an unlikely thing to do.

[DarkLink]

] Which would make it around 500 pages long...

No, it wouldn't. Other than Grey Knights, all of the variant chapters are much, much more similar than a lot of their fans are willing to admit. Insert 10 pages for the special characters, and do a clever job of merging, say, all the veterans into one single extremely flexible veteran unit, and same thing with all the different dreadnought variants, and you've got a book that's barely any longer than the current SM book as far as the rules and armylist is concerned. It's actually very easy to do, and frankly because the approach is designed to have very flexible unit entries not only can you make all of the currently existing chapters, but you can also get a lot more freedom in creating your own chapter as well.

[bfmusashi]

Black Templars are also liars. They agreed to be separated from the Imperial Fists as a chapter. Then they're all 'wuh? We never said that?'

[Galadren]

The Haterade is strong here. The bitterness of so many people crying about a non-codex adherent chapter like Black Templars having a book while their precious codex adherent chapters doesn't brings joy to my heart.

Black Templars will get their book. Cry more, noobs.

[Mr.Pickelz]

Space Wolves are about the most divergent "chapter" of the Astartes, as one can get while staying loyal. Templars are suppose to be similar, but they pull so much (weapons, vehicles, etc...) from their Imperial Fist bros. that they really aren't that far out of the Codex. Grey Knights and Space Wolves are imho, the only two who really need a separate book, both Blood and Dark Angels could be tossed into the Codex Marine book. In the 3rd Edition Main Rulebook, there were/are force appendixes that allowed someone to play with some of the "weirder" force orgs, such as Deathwing, Saim-Hann, or even an Armored IG Company (Leman Russ Tank for HQ's) With a simple paragraph these options were allowed to unfold by merely switching units from their previously stated positions (Heavy support, Fast Attack, etc...) and limiting unit selection. With today's Tech and know-how, a writer could utilize a longer/bigger section to go more in depth with the force differences, and even give wargear limitations and/or additions. This would open a lot of doors, and allow stuff like Genestealer Cults, Speed Freakz, etc... to make a comeback, and without the need for a separate book, or white dwarf compendium. This format would also work for Space Marines, however, this section would have to require a larger section of the book.

[Kawauso]

Something else that could work, I imagine, would be a massive 'main' SM codex to represent CA-adherent chapters.

Then one book that is essentially a bunch of 'mini-dexes' designed to alter and work in conjunction with the main SM book in order to represent a number of more unique chapters, i.e. BA, DA, SW, BT and their successors.

If I recall the old Space Wolf codex kind of worked that way in that it referenced a bunch of units to the SM codex and only contained the units unique to the wolves themselves. Been ages since I looked at it, though.



Ultimately though we know none of that's going to happen. GW are highly unlikely to get rid of the BT when they could expand the range the way they have with the other SM books. And that's fine. I like the various chapters. More kits in the vein of the Wolf Guard Terminators, Sanguinary Guard and Deathwing Command Squad will be awesome. It just does get tedious sometimes when marines dominate so much of the game...but they're the poster boys.
And I do love power armour, at least.

[White Tiger88]

I've got to say that as the other SM codex have been rolling out Black Templar really are just a vanilla marine dex with a number of funky rules. There are no real unique units anymore (sadly) that are purely black Templar bar a number of HQ.

IMO BT are no more or less divergent than any of the first founding chapters and they have never seen the light of day codex wise. Iron Hands, Salamanders, Raven Guard etc would be better use of a bespoke codex than another second founding chapter...

^This is exactly right........Instead of wasting paper on another marine book they could add a new race! (or at least catch up the remaining books!)

[Kawauso]

^This is exactly right........Instead of wasting paper on another marine book they could add a new race! (or at least catch up the remaining books!)

Thing is, this could have been said by and large about BA, SW and DA (especially BA and DA) before they received their updates. I don't see why Templar players should get the shaft, much as the amount of marine books in the game can get aggravating.

[GrauGeist]

Black Templars will get their book.

No, they won't, because there's no IP in their models for GW to protect. None. Zilch. Nada.

Black Templars are dead meat.

Which only makes sense, because I invested in them for my army. Dogs of War (still in denial). Fallen Angels. ROC:STD Grey Knights. Kroot Mercs.

[Deadlift]

Black templars are the only Marine Codex which according to their fluff deserve a seperate codex. Blood Angels, Dark Angels and Space Wolves all follow the Codex Astartes,

Explain this for me, because as far as my fluff fu and codex knowledge go these 3 chapters are play and are very different to a codex Astartes chapter. Hell I would argue the Iron Hands are more divergent than the Black Templars.

[OrksOrksOrks]

Where is my Codex: Blood Axe Clan??? They're so divergent from the regular Ork Klans, I can't possibly be expected to be creative and self limiting to make the army I want, I need rules to tell me not to take the units that wouldn't fit with the army I want.

[gcsmith]

Explain this for me, because as far as my fluff fu and codex knowledge go these 3 chapters are play and are very different to a codex Astartes chapter. Hell I would argue the Iron Hands are more divergent than the Black Templars.

Explain it? The SW and the BA and the DA all follow the Codex astartes, they all keep only around 1000 marines, I think a little bit more for the space wolves and follow it's tactical advice, IE they have scout companies, devastators etc.

Black Templars openly ignore the codex astartes, no scout companies, no devastators and no unit leaders. The veterans are all in veteran unit and that's that. They don't fight like a codex chapter at all. To put them in Codex space marines would be lazy and a slap in the fact to any Templar player, because then there was no point in us collecting our army.

By the way, what you think is their divergence from the Codex, for the BA, SW and DA, are very small differences. All Codex DA allows you to do is field the first company on it's own. Something Codex Space marines doesn't and yet the chapters can all do it, sometimes terminator assault is what's necessary if you look into the extended background of the game.

The only reason BT don't look so unique at the moment is because they took the Unique toys given to BT and gave them to all the other guys. Wouldn't exactly be hard to give BT some unique units. After all, we don't have a whole lot of Feudal knight stuff yet in 40k, at least not outside the BT.

[Kirsten]

all of this arguing about whether or not they need their own codex has been done over and over again, and none of it is relevant to the models not being currently available.

[gcsmith]

all of this arguing about whether or not they need their own codex has been done over and over again, and none of it is relevant to the models not being currently available.

Admittedly true, it doesn't matter since they would still keep the models. I don't see why they would suddenly scrap molds which have already been paid for and therefore make them money easily per sale.

[OrksOrksOrks]

Explain it? The SW and the BA and the DA all follow the Codex astartes, they all keep only around 1000 marines, I think a little bit more for the space wolves and follow it's tactical advice, IE they have scout companies, devastators etc.

Black Templars openly ignore the codex astartes, no scout companies, no devastators and no unit leaders. The veterans are all in veteran unit and that's that. They don't fight like a codex chapter at all. To put them in Codex space marines would be lazy and a slap in the fact to any Templar player, because then there was no point in us collecting our army.

By the way, what you think is their divergence from the Codex, for the BA, SW and DA, are very small differences. All Codex DA allows you to do is field the first company on it's own. Something Codex Space marines doesn't and yet the chapters can all do it, sometimes terminator assault is what's necessary if you look into the extended background of the game.

The only reason BT don't look so unique at the moment is because they took the Unique toys given to BT and gave them to all the other guys. Wouldn't exactly be hard to give BT some unique units. After all, we don't have a whole lot of Feudal knight stuff yet in 40k, at least not outside the BT.

Its like you've never even looked at the Space wolves, all thier units are unique except the vehicles. The BA have unique special rules and units to represent how they diverge, and its quite a bit, they're barely contained space vampires, always one step away from transforming into frothing, blood drinking loonies or going totally mad and thinking they're the Primarch and the battlefield is horus battle barge, so it has units and rules to represent tht fluff, and those armies are popular enough to warrant their own codex.

Yours isn't.

The Templars have one unique unit and some HQs, if you want to have a BT army, don't take Devs or scouts, swap your Sergeants CCW for a Bolter and there you go, mission accomplished.

The fact of the matter is, as of speaking, the UK site has BT units as a section of the Space Marine army, where all of those other chapters have thier own section.

You're not looking at this objectivly, you're passionate about your army and thats great, but its blinding you to the facts, the other armies you mentioned, although they follow the Codex Astartes (except SW, they're like the original non-codex chapter!), all differ in following it and have rules to represent that uniqueness, you obviously haven't looked into the other armies and are making snap judgements.
No one is saying they will scrap models, I don't doubt they will always be available, but given that they're in the Codex Space Marine section now, I'm sure we'll see them rolled into the new Codex Space Marines, I think we'll be seeing something very different and cool from the new C:SM when it shows up

[Denzark]

What are these 'unique toys' that I keep hearing the BT have had taken away?

[Mr Mystery]

And let's remember folks.....Black Templars going into the overall Marine codex is just a rumour, and let's face it, rumours have not been exactly reliable of recent days.

So relax!

[bfmusashi]

I think he's referring to the Land Raider Crusader. Maybe the idea of champions?

[Kawauso]

Explain it? The SW and the BA and the DA all follow the Codex astartes...


I know the topic of the thread has wandered back and forth since this post, and people do need to chill about this BT thing as it's just a rumour...



But again, man, the Space Wolves have -never- agreed to follow the Codex Astartes, and they never have. And their chapter has well over 1000 marines.

[DarkLink]

No, they won't, because there's no IP in their models for GW to protect. None. Zilch. Nada.


I don't know why you think that has anything to do with whether or not they'll get a codex.

[Iceman]

What are these 'unique toys' that I keep hearing the BT have had taken away?
The Land Raider Crusader primarily. Also, they were unusual in being able to swap out bolters for bolt pistol and chainsword for their Tactical Squads. Instead of Scouts, they had "neophytes" which essentially were scouts mixed in to the Tactical Squads allowing you to have fairly large (up to 15) bolt pistol and chainsword armed figures that made a pretty good close combat blob. Finally, there is a mandatory company champion HQ choice which does not count against your HQ FOC (this seems to have been incorporated into the other codexes as part of the company command squad). The rest of the differences can be handled simply by choosing not to take units like Devastators or Scout Bikes. Of course, they did have some interesting wargear like the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch (it was called something different).

[Power Klawz]

Having more than one SM codex just never made a lot of sense to me. I guess I just like to see things conform to recognizable patterns, but you just have a random smattering of chapters get their own codex for no apparent reason, and there's really no rationale to it other than "someone felt like writing a dark angels codex" or something.

Its just repackaging the same toys with, quite literally, a different paint job. Its so obviously lazy that it kind of pisses me off. Instead of developing new and unique model lines its just the skittles marine brigade.

That being said if you're going to try and sell the same model 15 different times under different auspices you should at least be thorough about it. That's the thing that really irks me. Like ok, you're trying to artificially elongate the shelf life of your product by creating new rules over and over again, why not take it to the hilt?

There should be an individual codex for ALL first founding chapters which details their successor chapters and any minor divergences between the original chapter and their successor. Every major craftworld eldar, eldar corsairs AND exodites should have their own codex. All the major ork clans should have codexes, all the major chaos marine legions from the heresy should have their own dex, hell different tau septs should probably get in on the action.

But instead of taking this thing to any logical conclusion they just decide to give everyone one codex, except for space marines who will receive between 3 and 6 each edition dependent on how many models are sold.

And don't even get me started on guard legions... you'd probably have to stop at one dex for each archetypical method of warfare.

Just such ridiculous over-representation for armies that are supposedly scarce and elite. Apparently the space wolves chapter has at most like 1500 dudes in it, I'm sure if you went to a tourney during their recent heyday you'd see at least twice that number represented in models. There's no real variety in this game and instead of coming up with new ideas they just repackage the same old stuff. Worrying about ANOTHER random space marine chapters is asinine.

[imperialpower]

@ Power Klawz- Space marines are popular and make GW a lot of money that is why we have multipul codecies for them, if Eldar made them as much money instead we would have different craftworld codecies as a business they are just cashing in on what sells.

[ElectricPaladin]

@ Power Klawz- Space marines are popular and make GW a lot of money that is why we have multipul codecies for them, if Eldar made them as much money instead we would have different craftworld codecies as a business they are just cashing in on what sells.

That doesn't make it a smart idea for the game in a long run. "Makes money right now" and "sets you up to make more money in the long run" are very different things.

[bfmusashi]

Space Wolves and Eldar were the first two codex books. Collapsing them back in to Space Marines would be a bit weird. Especially now that they wolf like smurfs smurf.

[GrauGeist]

I don't know why you think that has anything to do with whether or not they'll get a codex.

Protectable IP has *everything* to do with whether GW releases something. If GW can't protect the Chapter Heraldry, they won't print a Codex for it.

[gcsmith]

Protectable IP has *everything* to do with whether GW releases something. If GW can't protect the Chapter Heraldry, they won't print a Codex for it.

Since the already did print a BT codex, that's crap.

[Denzark]

OK, let me see about this 'exclusivity':

BT:
1. LR Crusader.
2. BP/CS Tac squads.
3. Neophytes in mobs up to 15.
4. Champion.
5. Erm, Helbrecht?

BA:
1. Fast vehicles.
2. Sang Priests.
3. Death Company.
4. Descent of Angels.
5. Black Rage.
6. Libby Dreads.
7. Sang Guard.
8. Baal Pred.

Space Wolves:

1. Grey Hunters.
2. Blood Claws.
3. Rune Priests.
4. Sagas.
5. Giant wolf riding marines.
6. Wulfen.
7. Acute Senses/Counter Attack.
8. No teleporting.
9. Wolf Guard leaders.
10. Wolf Scouts.


I can't arsed to do the same for DA, so now who is claiming BT are the most codex divergent chapter??? And I didn't even complete both lists for BA/SW???

[imperialpower]

That doesn't make it a smart idea for the game in a long run. "Makes money right now" and "sets you up to make more money in the long run" are very different things.

Just giving an answer to the statement Power Klawz made about seeing no sence in there been mulitpul marine codicies, I personally agree with you looking at it from a gaming perpective but then again GW have been running for a while now and make more money than I do so I couldn't comment on wether or not it is a bad bussiness model.

[OrksOrksOrks]

Why write a whole new codex for an army that can be represented with a few units in a codex?

[ElectricPaladin]

Why write a whole new codex for an army that can be represented with a few units in a codex?

This has been my question for years? Why do the Blood Angels need their own codex? I mean, I love my Blood Angels, but do they really need their own book? For Baal Predators, Death Company, Sanguinary Guard, and a few extra rules and options?

[GrauGeist]

Since the already did print a BT codex, that's crap.

Nope. The BT Codex was printed before the CHS lawsuit, which narrowed GW's protected IP to only those things which were actually created, versus stuff which was simply lifted wholesale from historical or generic elements. The Maltese Cross dates back centuries and is not something GW can copyright, regardless of the color scheme they use.

In the wake of the CHS lawsuit, GW will not publish such generic items, because it invites legally-protected 3rd party competition over generic iconography.

[Galadren]

OK, let me see about this 'exclusivity':

BT:
1. LR Crusader.
2. BP/CS Tac squads.
3. Neophytes in mobs up to 15.
4. Champion.
5. Erm, Helbrecht?

BA:
1. Fast vehicles.
2. Sang Priests.
3. Death Company.
4. Descent of Angels.
5. Black Rage.
6. Libby Dreads.
7. Sang Guard.
8. Baal Pred.

Space Wolves:

1. Grey Hunters.
2. Blood Claws.
3. Rune Priests.
4. Sagas.
5. Giant wolf riding marines.
6. Wulfen.
7. Acute Senses/Counter Attack.
8. No teleporting.
9. Wolf Guard leaders.
10. Wolf Scouts.


I can't arsed to do the same for DA, so now who is claiming BT are the most codex divergent chapter??? And I didn't even complete both lists for BA/SW???


Alright, so here's my question: how much of that existed before the 5th Edition updates for those chapters? How about Dark Angels from 4th to 6th? I mean I look at those lists and can take out at least half of it.

Now, I ask you: were Black Templars to get their own book what could be added to make them just as varied as those chapters?

[bfmusashi]

They've ended a whole product line because they didn't like it. What is clearly bothering certain parties is their little plastic army men will no longer be little special snowflakes.

[Asymmetrical Xeno]

Now, I ask you: were Black Templars to get their own book what could be added to make them just as varied as those chapters?

If you try and think from GW's perspective I could see them doing something similar/along the lines of this :
A siege tower on top of a rhino or land-raider, space marines riding armoured horses, obligatory flier, TDA sword brethren, a few finecast characters. Of course they'd likely be all duel-kits as well.

[Galadren]

If you try and think from GW's perspective I could see them doing something similar/along the lines of this :
A siege tower on top of a rhino or land-raider, space marines riding armoured horses, obligatory flier, TDA sword brethren, a few finecast characters. Of course they'd likely be all duel-kits as well.

Sure, maybe. All I'm saying is the people who are going "Black Templars don't have sh*t while my army has all of this awesome stuff that makes them special!" are forgetting about when their armies didn't have sh*t either.

[Asymmetrical Xeno]

Nah, I remember when Necrons only had 12 units/3 plastic kits. Pretty damn lucky the update gave them _nine_ new kits!

I personally fully expect BT will get 3-4 new kits, just like the other SM variants. I think they just look a bit odd now at current since they are the last marine army to get updated - and people seem to forget all the others used to be under SM on the GW website until they were updated too (I don't know why people point this out as if it's something new..).

[GrauGeist]

And I remember when Dogs of War had a full Army Book, a full complement of Special Characters and over 2 dozen well-sculpted DoW-specific Regiments of Renown (including the *very* old stuff) before disappearing into absolute nothingness...

If a huge, complete range like that can disappear, Black Templars can easily disappear, too.

[bobbothegobbo]

I think people are just getting carried away with crapping on 'yet another Marine Codex' ...

It really comes down to we're all just different sets of power armor, who react differently in combat.. Divergence is BS, its just arguing for the sake of arguing..
I saw before as well a feeble attempt of rebuttal saying that they're not being taken serious because they're a sub-section in the Space Marines area.. So was Dark Angels before they got the shiny new book..

Sagas for Wolves.. Vows for Templars.. Death Company.. rage marines who can take power weapons.. Basic Initiates.. can be rage marines with a single power weapon..
Regardless of what edition, Righteous Vengeance has always been cool, I don't care what anyone says.. Sword Brethren, cool idea, don't work nearly as well in more recent editions..

Everyone's armies are better than everyone elses and deserve special treatment.. The main thing is, people are comparing 5E books to a 4E one.. If BTs got a 5E book, you bet they'd be a hell of alot more "divergent" than they already are, they'd have even more goofy rules because it probably would have been another ward nightmare.. They WILL get a book eventually, and a brand new fantastic line of models like necrons did after sitting idle for so long as well, and people will whine about them like they used to, like when they'd consolidate into another combat from Righteous Vengeance, and were reviled like Grey Knights originally were in 5th. They won't be wiped out, and will certainly end up in the vanilla book if they are denied a separate book.

Ultimately we're all arguing over rumors and maybes.. So I for one will just wait it out a little bit longer.

[DarkLink]

In the wake of the CHS lawsuit, GW will not publish such generic items, because it invites legally-protected 3rd party competition over generic iconography.

I still don't see why you think that just because there's a theoretical possibility that someone might someday make a similar product and legally get away with it that GW will simply throw up its hands in defeat and walk away from a BT codex.

[Denzark]

Sure, maybe. All I'm saying is the people who are going "Black Templars don't have sh*t while my army has all of this awesome stuff that makes them special!" are forgetting about when their armies didn't have sh*t either.

Yes but the difference is that we are not progressing from a 'have nothing 3rd/4th ed codex' to a 6th ed codex. We are where we are now. People on this thread have claimed that the BT are the single most codex divergent chapter, I have shown that in CURRENT standings, it would appear from codex choices, that this isn't the case. The BT fluff may add a little further spice but how much is representable in terms of on the table top, is debatable - and it is variance on the table top (table top being what the codex serves) that will make having a separate codex nugatory or not.

Actually I am in favour of as many codexes as possible - but will take some significant proof to convince me that the BT are more different from codex marines to so as to require a separate codex, than are SW/BA/DA.

[eldargal]

The BT kits are probably just being re-packaged, there are a bunch of fantasy kits that have disappeared as well and there is no way they would all be being discontinued or replaced.

No need to have hysterics about the loss of a BT codex until there is something more solid than retail stock issues.

[Galadren]

Yes but the difference is that we are not progressing from a 'have nothing 3rd/4th ed codex' to a 6th ed codex. We are where we are now. People on this thread have claimed that the BT are the single most codex divergent chapter, I have shown that in CURRENT standings, it would appear from codex choices, that this isn't the case. The BT fluff may add a little further spice but how much is representable in terms of on the table top, is debatable - and it is variance on the table top (table top being what the codex serves) that will make having a separate codex nugatory or not.

Actually I am in favour of as many codexes as possible - but will take some significant proof to convince me that the BT are more different from codex marines to so as to require a separate codex, than are SW/BA/DA.

What kind of proof? Proof in both rules and fluff have been presented several times over. I won't say we're not more divergent than Space Wolves, because they're pretty divergent too, but both Blood Angels and Dark Angels follow the book written by Papa Smurf with a a couple of small differences (Death Company, Death Wing, Raven Wing, etc). At this point point having almost nothing in common with Ultramarines and other codex chapters isn't enough then I don't know what to tell you.

[DarkLink]

But in terms of actual rules how different are you? Not that much. Ooooh, no sergeants in your squads, and you call your scouts Neophytes and use them as meatshields. And you really like bolt pistol/ccw instead of bolters. It's not very hard to tweak the vanilla Marine unit entries and fully represent the BT as they currently exist in the rules.

[Brakkart]

Personally if Black Templars are to get a new Codex I'd rather they share it with a couple of the other Dorn chapters, namely the Imperial and Crimson Fists who have a shared heritage, are famously stubborn and just as iconic as the Templars. That would also free up a load of pages in the general Space Marine codex to allow it to better cover more than just the Ultramarines by moving Pedro, Lysander etc across to the Dorn chapters Codex. Wishlisting I know, but I think that would be a better solution than putting the Templar's into the generic Marine Codex.

[bfmusashi]

Oh I like that.

[DeadPanda]

Chuck in the Soul Drinkers to add a bit of spice and I would buy it ;)

[Power Klawz]

I really think that if they're interested in shoving another power armored 'dex into 6th edition that their time would be better spent detailing another first founding chapter and its successors, rather than focusing on some oddball successor chapter. Imperial fists would be great actually.

Why do all "codex" chapters have to be Ultramarine clones anyways?

Hell, technically speaking both the Dark Angels and Blood Angels are codex chapters, they just happen to diverge significantly in certain aspects. Aspects that would have never come to light had they not had a succession of detailed codices.

You could probably find a way to fold a lot of... whatever the hell it is that Templars do... into a Fists codex, plus bright yellow terminators.

Mostly bright yellow terminators.

(But srsly, I'd vote for Salamanders if you let me choose. I don't even care. Give me space marines riding dinosaurs and I will give you untold riches.)

[Denzark]

What kind of proof? Proof in both rules and fluff have been presented several times over. I won't say we're not more divergent than Space Wolves, because they're pretty divergent too, but both Blood Angels and Dark Angels follow the book written by Papa Smurf with a a couple of small differences (Death Company, Death Wing, Raven Wing, etc). At this point point having almost nothing in common with Ultramarines and other codex chapters isn't enough then I don't know what to tell you.


But in terms of actual rules how different are you? Not that much. Ooooh, no sergeants in your squads, and you call your scouts Neophytes and use them as meatshields. And you really like bolt pistol/ccw instead of bolters. It's not very hard to tweak the vanilla Marine unit entries and fully represent the BT as they currently exist in the rules.

Galadren - this...

[bfmusashi]

(But srsly, I'd vote for Salamanders if you let me choose. I don't even care. Give me space marines riding dinosaurs and I will give you untold riches.)

This right here is why the dream of Codex: Exodites will never die. (Hairmetal rifff) We're Space Elves on Dinosaurs Fighting Giant Robots From Maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaars! Printing money is what we doooooooooooooooooo!

[Power Klawz]

40k cold one knights need to be a thing.

Hell they could be a thing right now. I need to make that thing. I wonder if anyone would have issues with me using converted cold one knights as shining spears.

I just don't really know how one would explain the fact that they are turbo boosting on dinosaurs. Hrm.

[smokeynyc]

With the except of vehicles and HQ choices (I'm throwing techmarines in there), there is not a single unit from the BT codex in any of the other books. No sgt's (this is huge), righteous zeal, ARMY WIDE VOWS, special characters, not to mention that they don't even operate in squads fluffwise (literally just a big group of guys running with swords at the enemy). At least the space wolves have some semblance of organization, the templars don't even have companies.

[bfmusashi]

40k cold one knights need to be a thing.

Hell they could be a thing right now. I need to make that thing. I wonder if anyone would have issues with me using converted cold one knights as shining spears.

I just don't really know how one would explain the fact that they are turbo boosting on dinosaurs. Hrm.
If you can snag something like the old jump packs that are just turbines and stick those on the haunches I think it'd be killer rad. Let me know if you see a robot raptor somewhere as I've been wanting to make a Mogul Kamir for years.

[Starion]

Something else that could work, I imagine, would be a massive 'main' SM codex to represent CA-adherent chapters.

Then one book that is essentially a bunch of 'mini-dexes' designed to alter and work in conjunction with the main SM book in order to represent a number of more unique chapters, i.e. BA, DA, SW, BT and their successors.

If I recall the old Space Wolf codex kind of worked that way in that it referenced a bunch of units to the SM codex and only contained the units unique to the wolves themselves. Been ages since I looked at it, though.





Ok, I might be a tad late to the party, but, this ^^^^.
I've said since around 4th edition that GW should do two books for each faction; a base codex containing the meat of the faction, such as the current codices for Marines, Orks, Eldar etc, then a second book for each detailing "deviant" armies, such as BT, BA, DA and SW for the marines, the various craftworld for the Eldar, different regiments for IG (tank or arty regiments, Gaunt's Ghosts, that type of thing) Orkish clans...you get the picture, I'm sure.

[Galadren]

Galadren - this...

I actually had an entire response written up to that before you linked it. Then I decided to quit bashing my head against the wall and do something entertaining. I'm not going to convince you people, and really your opinions (or mine for that matter) don't mean jack sh*t. GW is going to do what GW is going to do and no amount of arguing on the internets is going to change that. So hate away, haters.

[OrksOrksOrks]

I actually had an entire response written up to that before you linked it. Then I decided to quit bashing my head against the wall and do something entertaining. I'm not going to convince you people, and really your opinions (or mine for that matter) don't mean jack sh*t. GW is going to do what GW is going to do and no amount of arguing on the internets is going to change that. So hate away, haters.

No one is hating on your army, you're the one getting mad about Space Barbies.

People are just calling you out on the massive amount of bull**** you were spreading.

[bfmusashi]

Whoa whoa whoa, I think you're mixing guys up OrksX3. He's not the guy who was saying Space Wolves followed the Codex Astartes.

[Galadren]

No one is hating on your army, you're the one getting mad about Space Barbies.

People are just calling you out on the massive amount of bull**** you were spreading.

And thank you for proving my point.

[DarkLink]

Well, you were the one who claimed that BT are a unique snowflake of a faction, and then got kind of bent out of shape when I pointed out that in terms of actual rules, there's virtually nothing that actually distinguishes them from vanilla Marines.

It's nice and all that you want your own codex for your own faction, regardless of how unique the rules to represent said faction is. I'm sure eldar players want a codex for each individual craftworld, too. Tau players would probably like a couple of codices to represent the various Tau castes and allies. Guard players I'm sure would love to see some of those Forgeworld guard army lists get promoted to legit codices. How about one for each of the different 'nid fleet/hivemind thingies?

Instead, we're stuck with like twelve virtually copy/pasted Marine books and like six non-Marine factions. So don't expect any sympathy from me or anyone else if you get your feelings hurt when not everyone wants another mostly identical Marine codex to clog up the release schedule.

[ElectricPaladin]

Tau players would probably like a couple of codices to represent the various Tau castes and allies.

Probably not the castes. The other castes don't really fight (with the exception of air caste pilots and combat vehicles, or in space). Even the tanks don't have earth caste pilots, although the are designed, built, and maintained by earth caste engineers. An earth caste codex would be pretty much Codex: Tau Civillians Who Run, Screaming, Until the Fire Caste Arrives to Save Them, while the air caste isn't viable outside of Battlefleet Gothic or Aeronautica Imperialis. And even most Tau players don't think that the septs are - at the time of this posting - distinctive enough to warrant separate codices. At most, variation to the FOC: this sept is fond of big guns so they get an extra Heavy Weapons slot at the expense of a Fast Attack slot, that one has lots of vespid so vespid are cheaper or something.

I do think that Tau players would love a codex that expanded the alien races available to the Tau. I mean, seriously... it's a huge empire with eight member races mentioned in the codex alone (Vespid, Kroot, Thraxians, Greet, Anthraxods, Brachyura, Nagi, and some Humans) and two more in Battlefleet Gothic, though I think they were left out of the newest codex (Demiurge and Nicassar), but all we have rules or models for are the Kroot and Vespid (and the Vespid suck) and the possibility to include humans (via IG or counts-as fire warriors). That's pretty lame. If the Tau got an additional codex, I would vote for it to be an alien allies codex.

At the moment, I'm mulling over how to use the Allies rules to do some counts-as alien allies for the Tau. I'm trying to decide which race's psykers would make the best stand-in for the Nicassar...

[Asymmetrical Xeno]

I would love an allies alien codex, might be the chance some of them would be non-humanoid and actually look alien too. Could take those kind of risks if they are only intended as a small allied supplement like that.

[ElectricPaladin]

I would love an allies alien codex, might be the chance some of them would be non-humanoid and actually look alien too. Could take those kind of risks if they are only intended as a small allied supplement like that.

I mean, GW won't do this because they've started to suck these days... but it might be interesting for GW to release the Tau Empire codex even though they don't plan to include the models, then write conversion guides to help us make our own versions (out of GW bits, of course).

[Galadren]

Well, you were the one who claimed that BT are a unique snowflake of a faction, and then got kind of bent out of shape when I pointed out that in terms of actual rules, there's virtually nothing that actually distinguishes them from vanilla Marines.

It's nice and all that you want your own codex for your own faction, regardless of how unique the rules to represent said faction is. I'm sure eldar players want a codex for each individual craftworld, too. Tau players would probably like a couple of codices to represent the various Tau castes and allies. Guard players I'm sure would love to see some of those Forgeworld guard army lists get promoted to legit codices. How about one for each of the different 'nid fleet/hivemind thingies?

Instead, we're stuck with like twelve virtually copy/pasted Marine books and like six non-Marine factions. So don't expect any sympathy from me or anyone else if you get your feelings hurt when not everyone wants another mostly identical Marine codex to clog up the release schedule.

Okay, let me break this down:

Fluff wise, Black Templars and Space Wolves are divergent chapters who I see as justified in having their own book. Fluff. And if I had to pick one chapter to get it's own codex it would be Space Wolves, hands down.

Rules wise, no, there's nothing that could not currently be done without a special character and unit entry in Codex Space Marines. And again, same for Blood Angels and Dark Angels before their Fifth and Sixth edition updates, respectively.

My question is this: why update them and not Black Templars? Why should my army I've played for the better part of a decade have the special honor of being subsumed back into C:SM? Honestly I would be fine condensing all of the Marine books into one book. But why just one for that special honor instead of getting the same treatment as the other codexes? Because you just want one less marine book?

[DarkLink]

I don't think GW will merge them in. I think any rumors or guesses about BT getting merged fall under the same category as all of the old combined Inquisition codex rumors before the GK codex came out, that is, pure speculation. And I personally certainly don't mind that any particular faction gets its own codex, though I'd rather have a more evenly distributed allocation of codices than we currently do. Though if I were to write all the codices myself, then I'd either rewrite the BA, BT, and DA codices to be much more unique like the SW or GK codices, or make one really big Marine codex. Personally, I prefer the mega Marine codex, because including such a wide scope of units into a single armylist would allow for an absurd range of options for the player. You could make any chapter you could ever desire, and I don't see any reason why you couldn't write the rules to avoid relegating any particular chapter to a mere footnote.

[Galadren]

I completely agree with everything you just said.

[gcsmith]

I don't think GW will merge them in. I think any rumors or guesses about BT getting merged fall under the same category as all of the old combined Inquisition codex rumors before the GK codex came out, that is, pure speculation. And I personally certainly don't mind that any particular faction gets its own codex, though I'd rather have a more evenly distributed allocation of codices than we currently do. Though if I were to write all the codices myself, then I'd either rewrite the BA, BT, and DA codices to be much more unique like the SW or GK codices, or make one really big Marine codex. Personally, I prefer the mega Marine codex, because including such a wide scope of units into a single armylist would allow for an absurd range of options for the player. You could make any chapter you could ever desire, and I don't see any reason why you couldn't write the rules to avoid relegating any particular chapter to a mere footnote.

Problem is, it's better for customers to have as many books as possible, since if a player only wants to play one army from the new mega marine book they have to pay the price for just having "Access" to units they will never use and have to lug it around everywhere.