Much Ado About Nothing?

As the new Space Marine Codex looms in the near future, both the internet and game shops seem to be buzzing with opinions.  The gaming community never seems to be short of opinions, which is appropriate given our passion for the hobby.  After all, many of us spend countless amounts of money and time adding to our collections, painting and refining our tactics and it would be strange for us to be apathetic about changes to the game.  But when a particularly extreme rant surfaced on Facebook, I decided to take a step back and look at whether our complaints have merit.

One of the main concerns I see amongst fellow Templar, is the fear that the Templar identity will be lost once we find ourselves brought back into the Codex Astartes.  Truthfully we've come to expect a lot since breaking out onto our own, and these expectations have only grown as the years have passed without an update.  Dedicated Templar players have ridden through the changing editions and FAQs, and I have no reason to believe that this will drastically change.  There will be a few players who pack up their toys and call it a day, there always are, but this update doesn't have to spell the end of an era.  

On the casual side of things, we shouldn't see too much of a change.  Any of the other various chapters out there seem to have no problem maintaining their identity.  In the world of casual gaming, identity isn't threatened here.  What I see as a possible boon here is the potential for list building.  With the overcosted Marines, Templar players were often forced to make choices between fluffy lists and lists that stood a chance against other marine armies (or even xenos armies).  I first became aware of how far the Templar codex had been left behind when running an instructional game against a new Ultramarine player.  In order to focus on the basics, I helped him build a list and then built the same list.  I found my list so outmatched, I doubt the game was even remotely as fun as it could have been.  With updated costs, the Templar players begin to shape a list that fits with the fluff that we all love.  

Further benefits to being rolled into the big Marine book is the amount of new toys.  I have to believe that I'm not the only Templar player salivating when I go to the game store and picture a Thunderfire Cannon in black.  There are a number of options that have come available over the last two editions and in one move the Templar are joining the 41st millennium.  

Now the move is hardly all positive and my biggest disappointments come in three main areas.  First, I am disappointed about having to buy two separate books to run my army, when one would have worked.  I'll look forward to bonus fluff, but it feels a little bit like a cash grab.  Secondly, I feel slightly cheated that another Marine codex received their own codex this year.  I have no problem with the Dark Angel codex, but it strikes me as odd that they would receive an independent codex while the Templar find themselves rolled.  This combined with how long the Templar went without an update, leaves me a little dissatisfied.  Now whether this feeling is justified or just a sense of self entitlement, who can say.  But what I am most sad about is the lack of new models.  With a new codex the Templar would have been guaranteed some special new toys.  I loved the update the Dark Angels received and I hoped to receive my own special sculpts.  With the current rumors, it seems that cool Templar models will stay in the realm of home-brew kit bashing.  

Above all we, and by that I mean "I", need to remember that everything we know is simply rumors.  Many of the rumors we have come from an early play test.  While I believe we have pretty accurate reports from this playtesting, changes occur.  As I was told by a former play tester, the end result can be drastically different.  I, for one, have given over my despair and look forward to forging some new crusades.

What are your thoughts on the upcoming Marine Codex? Are you optimistic or concerned?  And how do you think it will affect how competitive Templars?  Leave a comment below and thanks for reading!

Something Different

One of my favorite things to do in this hobby, is to rescue abused and unloved models from the internet and breath some new life into them.  This often means that I spend several hours hunched over a tub of simple greens scrubbing away with a toothbrush, but I love seeing these models back out onto the tabletop looking good.  I always have my eye out for these types of cheap lots and as a result I often end up with rather random models in my box.  As my abilities have changed and grown over the last year, I've spent the last few months working to prepare for a specific project.  The issue of world hunger and thirst has always struck a particular chord with me and I'm always looking for new avenues to tap to raise funds for those doing the amazing work for people in need, both in the US and worldwide.  With some of the changes and opportunities that have arisen in recent months, I decided to pursue a plan I had developed some time ago.  Utilizing some of the models I have acquired, I will be kit bashing, creating, and painting miniatures to sell, with the intention of raising money for groups fighting hunger and thirst.  I have several organizations I already work with and the majority of the money going towards these organizations.  To kick off and fund an Ork project, I am painting up an old metal Azreal model I ended up with.  The Azreal model itself needed some extra work and while it's drying and getting primed I opted to paint up the vassal carrying Azreal's helm.

This model, while offering no game advantage, is just awesome.  Had I not felt guilty about stealing Azreal's helm bearer I would have pressed him into service with the Eternal Crusade.  With this urge crushed, I got to work.

When I was looking for inspiration to paint this model, I first dropped by the Games Workshop site to see what the 'Eavy Metal team did.  While I usually like what the team does (heavy line highlighting aside), I found this model lackluster and odd.  Now I understand the need to not overshadow Azreal, while still having matching outfits (the Dark Angels are nothing if not snazzy dressers).  But I couldn't understand the bright red/orange wings.  Nothing says target this guy like a shining red target.  Even though the Astartes aren't the most subdued in their color choices I opted for something that felt a little more in line with their chapter.  I gave the wings the same bone coloring I would Deathwing Terminators, so that whoever ends up with this model will feel like they want to actually field this little guy.  The cloak will still end up matching Azrael, but I will be inverting the color choices.  The olive green cowl will match the layered cloak of Azreal.  By giving his cowl a different shade of color, but still keeping it in the green family to match the green armor, I believe it gives a great mini his due attention.  After all, being the guy who gets to chase Azreal across the battlefield with his helmet has to be some sort of honor.  

My biggest concern is the color of the lenses.  While I painted them red, I'm considering a change to blue.  What can't be seen as well in the photo (I need to invest in a new camera), is the shade of the armor.  I worked the armor up from black to dark green, with a subtle highlight.  A few more bits still require attention, like the laurels on the helm.

I'll be posting more about the Azreal project as I work on it and it gets closer to selling.  Thanks for reading and leave a comment below.

A Day of Dice

The 2500 pt event has come and gone, and the Templar acted decidedly mediocre.  Since this will be my last event with the current codex, I wanted to go out swinging.  The event was only an afternoon long and we each played two games, and each of us went home with a prize, the prize support was pretty good for a free event.

My first game was against an Ork player, and someone I've played against a number of times.  This was the first time I had faced against his Orks, as he normally runs Chaos Space Marines.  It should be noted that in previous weeks my opponent had been teasing me about using dice that didn't match my army.  When it came to purchasing dice I went with the cheapest option to spend more money on models.  When I arrived at the event, the Ork player walked up and and handed me two boxes of black dice and it seemed only right that my first outing with the dice be against him.  As you'll see here, the Ork player must have had an agreement with the dice giving him the win in the end.  But it was a thoughtful gift and I was pleased to see him go on to win the event.

Our first game was the Emperor's Will and we deployed in the strange angle deployment from the book.  Looking at his list, the Ork player brought a large number of vehicles and 2+ armor orks.  He opted to deploy and go first and lined a bunch of trucks up to rush around terrain and get into my deployment zone.  When I deployed, I set up my Land raider to create a choke point for his two battlewagons, the Land Raider and Assault Squad were assigned to deal with the battle wagons and I scattered my crusader missile squads around in terrain giving myself some lines of fire to support each other.  My two Rhinos were placed on the far side to keep them out of the main fighting in order for them to have a shot at running for the objective in the backfield.  The Lascannon squad camped on my home objective and manned the Icarus Lascannon and the Plasma Cannon squad set up to support all the missile squads.  I opted out of seizing the initiative and with night fighting in place, we began the game.

Turn 1 Orks
As expected, the Ork horde rushed forward snapping off a few shots as they came.  I think they killed one marine causing me to zeal forward, which gave me the exact movement I was planning on taking anyways.  So far so good.

Turn 1 Templar
I move up my Assault squad to face off against one battlewagon and the Land Raider Crusader moves up to block off the other and dumps out the command squad to attack.  My rhinos blasted around the edge to get into the backfield.  With the small movements done, I unloaded my all my heavy weapons.  For this event, I brought a ridiculous amount of missiles and at strength 8 I targeted the Ork trucks.  In the storm of missiles I only succeeded in glancing down two trucks!  My Land Raider unloaded into the Ork Battlewagon immobilizing it with the multi-melta.  With nothing else to do, the command squad followed suit and used its meltagun to snag an explosion damage result.  I had hoped to be able to charge the Ork warboss inside the battlewagon and could have benefitted from the bonuses from a charge, but had to settle for counterattack.  The Assault Squad darted forward to attack the other Battlewagon and used a meltabomb to blow apart the wagon, dumping out the weird boy and his squad.  It was a disappointing round of shooting for the Templar with a high number of 2s rolled leaving his vehicles free.  Thankfully I had spread out my marines with the intention of picking off the Orks as they piled out of wrecked vehicles.  This ended up blocking off the main paths to my objective and forced the Orks to fight their way through my marines.

Turn 2 Orks
Turn 2 for the Orks saw a lot of charges.  Both of the Ork fliers came zipping onto the battlefield and I took the opportunity to shoot the Icaraus Lascannon to target one of the Dakka jets.  The Lascannon missed leaving the flier unmolested and free to tear through my rhinos.  The Templar picked off a few as they charged in but for the most part the Orks fell into combat with few casualties.  My Emperor's Champion challenged the warboss and the two of them settled down to slug it out.  As the turn played out, the new black dice helped in slaughtering the Templar.  By the end of my turn I had only a couple marines left in each combat.  The squad with the Warboss stomped on most of the Command Squad and the Weird boy's squad chewed their way through the Assault Squad.

Turn 2 Templar
I was determined to put some of the hurt on the Ork army in my second turn and my Marshal and Shooty terminators came deepstriking into the Ork back field.  My Stormtalon failed to come in.  I shimmied back the Land Raider to drop some pressing Ork Trucks moving along the board edge, and with the vehicles mostly dealt with, my missiles opened up with a slew of Frag grenades.  Similar to my previous shooting phase, the missile shots did not go as planned.  Each missile and Plasma cannon shot tended to scatter.  A lot.  But the amusing aspect of the scatters was that they were scattering onto enemy models locked in combat.  It was funny the first time it scattered.  And as it happened time and time again, it seemed that no matter where I placed the template it would scatter towards the nearest combat.  Close combat saw more Templar dying with few Ork casualties.  What my Templar couldn't seem to deal with was the Nob Mega-armor.  Through all the combats, I only seemed to kill one nob.  It was almost laughable how little I could do in the close combat phases.

Turn 3 Orks
By turn three the Orks who weren't in combat were getting there.  The Templar, while losing models by the bucket, were somehow holding back the Green Tide where it counted.  Many Orks had been rerouted and were struggling to get to my back corner.  We both knew the center was about to break, the only question was when?  The Landraider was still running free causing problems.  But in the combat phase of Ork Turn 3 three things happened.  The TO announced that we would play through turn four.  The remaining Templar in the center crumbled and were overwhelmed.  The Ork player realized that there were no Ork scoring units within reach of his home objective.  He had successfully ham-stringed my rhino units keeping them from capturing the objective, but I was sitting on my own objective with line breaker and first blood.

Turn 3 Templar
The Stormtalon came flying in with a vengeance immediately scored three penetrating shots on one of the ork fliers.  But my excitement dropped as my opponent rolled three sixes for his jink save.  Hilariously, the flier was going to stick around.  I decided to shore up my defenses and shot up the orks creeping up on the defense line.  The Templar shooting phase went much better and the Ork squads were thinned out and made much more manageable.

Turn 4 Orks
As expected the Orks charged into the two squads behind the Aegis Defense Line.  But the most surprising event was the Weird Boy.  Calling up his ability, the Weird Boy found himself and the squad deep striking and landing right on top of the objective!  Combat ensued with the Templar stepping up and winning combat.  But the orks passed their leadership after the nob smacked some sense into the boyz.

Turn 4 Templar
I was going for broke on this turn.  My Land Raider had fallen foul of an Ork power klaw the turn before, so I dropped by Stormtalon into hover and maneuvered the flier and my remaining Land Speeder facing the Weird boy squad.  Both opened fire and shredded the squad down to one remaining nob.  And with the combats running down the game ended

Final Score
Orks 4 (Slay the Warlord, Objective)
Templar 2 (First Blood, Line Breaker)


Game 2 Black Templar vs Guard (Deathwatch Allies)

For this game the mission type was the Relic and the deployment was Dawn of War.  My opponent won the choice of sides and first deployment.  Going into this game, I thought capturing and holding the relic was going to be difficult.  In his list, my opponent brought quite a few problem units.  Two blob squads sat on either side of the table, while two squadrons of Leman Russ tanks with a squad of three Hydras sat in the center.  A rhino with five Deathwatch sat ready to surge forward towards the relic. The board had four seperate towers, two in each of out deployment zone.  In one tower, my oppenent placed his Devastator Squad and a Heavy Weapons team with missile launchers.  And a Heavy Weapons team with Lascannons sat in the other tower.  I set up my Land raider off center, away from the Leman Russ tanks, to try to get into the back field and keep the relic out of his backfield.  The two rhinos sat side by said further from the tanks and I hid my two Land Speeders behind buildings.  I counter deployed my Plasma Cannon to drop AP2 blasts on the Devastator Squad.  My missile squads were scattered around my deployment zone to deal with his Drop Pod Dreadnought, should it land in my deployment zone.  The Lascannon squad setup behind the Aegis Defense Line across from my opponent's tanks.

Turn 1 IG
My opponent attacked aggressively with his drop pod dread and landed it behind my line of troops.  To my surprise he ignored my Land Raider and instead focused on one of my rhinos.  He easily destroyed the vehicle and my squad spilled out.  All his heavy weapons poured fire into my various squads and most of my squads avoided any serious injury with my night fighting cover.  His rhino with Deathguard drove up and jumped out to claim the relic and one of the blob squads ran up to support the relic holders.

Turn 1 Templar
I moved my Land Speeders around to ensure that I had a backup Multi-Melta to fire at the Dreadnought and pushed my remaining rhino forward.  The Land Raider moved forward and took a Melta shot at the closest Leman Russ failing to do any significant damage.  The Command Squad inside, jumped out and arranged themselves to attack the blob squad.  The flamer fired but the rest of the squad held back to keep themselves within charge range.  The Assault Squad leapt forward out into no man's land to threaten the other blob squad and one of the Leman Russ Squadrons.  A few shots were taken at the Heavy Weapons teams and Devastator Squad, but only a couple wounds were delivered.  The first Land Speeder fired his Multi-melta and destroyed the Dreadnought.  Without anything else to shoot at, the other speeder fired at the drop pod.  I scored a glance and a weapon destroyed, which ended up helping me in the long range as the Drop Pod had a Deathwind Missile launcher, something I wasn't aware of until after the fact.  The Command Squad charged into the blob squad and began the long never ending battle.  The Emperor's Champion battled and killed a sergeant in a challenge and the attached Techpriest removed a couple of the Templar.

Turn 2 IG
The Leman Russes move up and lay down a torrent of fire into the Assault Squad.  The Assault Squad weathers the for a while, but eventually fell to the overwhelming "first rank fire, second rank fire" from the blob squad.  The Devastators focus on the other rhino and bring it to a grinding halt, without exploding the vehicle.  The Hydras take several potshots at the Land Raider but fail to do so much as scratch the paint.  The unit with the relic begin the slow trek back to their deployment zone, while the combat between the Command Squad and the blob squad continues.  The Emperor's Champion slays another sergeant, and the Command Squad continued to hack away at the IG.  Once again the Techpreist peels away a couple Templar with his Power fist and Power Axe.

Turn 2 Templar
Both the Stormtalon and the Terminators came in this round.  The Terminators scattered onto the far side of the building, taking them effectively out of the main action.  The Stormtalon, feeling especially productive, targets the Hydras and blows up two of them with a flurry of penetrating shots.  The remaining Hydra sat with only a single hull point remaining.  The Land Raider, concerned about the fleeing Deathwatch, moves forward and unloads his weapons on the squad.  The squad falls to an above average three rends from the assault cannon and all the fire from the Hurrican Bolters.  The ignored Plasma Cannon dropped a template directly on the Devastator Squad and Missile IG team killing the majority of them.  Both units break and flee towards their board edge, but stay in bounds.  The terminators, unhappy about their scatter, took out their fury on the nearest Lascannon IG squad leaving only a solitary wound on one Lascannon.  Everything else focused on the Leman Russes, but fail to keep pace with the rest of the army and the Leman Russes go free.  The Emperor's Champion kills yet another IG leader and all but the Chaplain and the Apothecary fall to the Tech priest.  At this point the blob squad is looking rather thin.

Turn 3 IG
The remaining Hydra turns and avenges his fallen brethren shooting down the Templar Stormtalon.  The far blob squad hurries over to tar pit the terminators hardly doing any damage but sacrificing soldiers to keep the Marshal out of the main battle.  A command squad joins the fight with the Chaplain and Emperor's Champion adding more bodies to soak up the Chaplain's attacks.  The Techpriest challenges the Emperor's Champion and Champion manages to make his invulnerable saves.  The Chaplain at this point has taken two wounds and with a single wound left stays, leaving only the Champion and the Chaplain.

Turn 3 Templar.  At this point the Land Raider is dueling with the Leman Russes and kills two of them from one Squadron, killing one with melta and getting a lucky penetration and explosion from the rending Assault Cannon.  What's left of the two rhino squads join the combat with the Champion and Chaplain and their added weight finally collapses the blob squad.  The Champion is slain from a power fist attack, the Techpriest flees, getting caught and held in combat with the Chaplain.  The other two squads bounce out and begin a run towards the relic.

Turn 4 IG
The Leman Russes and all remaining vehicles move forward and destroy the two rhino squads.  Making sure that neither of us can capture the relic.  The Chaplain survives combat but fails to wound the his opponent.

Turn 4 Templar
At this point winning is a long shot.  A remaining missile squad dashes forward into the enemy deployment zone to snag line breaker.  The Land Raider moves around a building and fires into the command squad hoping to dislodge my opponent's warlord.  The Land Raider forces a check but the command squad easily passes.  With only the Tech priest and Chaplain combat mattering we skipped the terminator combat.  The Chaplain dealt two quick wounds to the tech priest, who easily passes his armor save with a five and a six.  The Techpriest attacks back at initiative one and only manages to do one single wound.  With a final roll of four the Chaplain passes his armor save and the game ends in a tie.


All in all, it was a great day of wargaming.  Because Gencon is this week, there were a lot fewer players than usual, which probably influenced the fact that we all received prizes.  I ended up with a set of skull dice, which I was pleased with.  I've thought about picking some up, but have yet to do so and they'll make great wound and hull point markers.

As always, leave your questions and comments below.  Let me know what you think about the upcoming changes to the Templars.  And Thanks for Reading!

Fast Attack and Fortifications

Rounding out the exploration of my 2500 pt list, I have my Fast Attack and Fortification.  I played with this portion of the list quite a bit before deciding the final draft.  I had initially run a dreadnought in this list and he did well in the test game.  However, my Land Raider Crusader needed something to help pressure the other side of the board.  For this I thought my Fast Attack options would be best.

Land Speeders

As a Templar player I never leave home without my Land Speeders.  Cheap speeders are one of the benefits we have from an older codex.  With the points I had available I loaded out my speeders with Typhoon Missile Launchers and multi-melta.  Typhoon Land Speeders are deceptively vicious.  Far too often I have opponents who ignore my speeders for most of the game.  While it is relatively easy to pop a land speeder, I can flit around the back field wrecking vehicles and picking off infantry models while my opponent focuses on the Land Raider or other units.  I usually don't give my speeders a Multi-Melta.  If I find my speeders within melta range it's likely I won"t have that speeder for much longer.  But I had some extra points to play with and the added threat of melta gives me options should an opposing Land Raider or other vehicle get into my deployment zone.  I am running two of these Speeders independently of each other so each speeder can move around and create cross fire situations.

Stormtalon

I've been running a Stormtalon since the Templar received them in the Death from the Skies supplement, and have not been disappointed.  The only real issue I have with them is that I only own one.  The game I played last week against another Templar player saw him bringing three Stormtalons.  I thought one was good but three meant I could even ignore them for most of the game.  While a Stormtalon, at armor 11, needs some form of support, it will bring me some heavy weapon support.  I'll be running the Stormtalon loaded out with twin-linked Assault Cannon and a twin-linked Lascannon.  I have a lot of missiles in my list and wanted something extra to target armor 14 vehicles reliably.

Assault Squad

The trick with my Assault Squad is keeping them alive to get into combat and do their thing.  With 2500 pts I opted to give the entire squad Storm Shields.  A 3++ save means that my opponent will have to focus all their fire, or get extremely lucky, to bring down the squad before they get into combat.  This forces my oppenent to choose between firing at my Land Raider and firing at the Assault Squad.  For some extra oomf I'm giving the entire squad melta bombs and dropping in one power fist.  

Fortification

Our current meta around town has yet to see an over-abundance of fliers.  A few people enjoy deploying them, but we rarely see a player spamming necron fliers.  However, with the style of event, I am expecting to see more fliers than usual.  For this, and for supporting my Stormtalon, I will be running my Aegis Defense Line.  For my gun emplacement, I am taking the Icarus Lascannon.  While I  won't have all the shots of the quad gun, I pay less for a strength 9 shot.  I always place my Lascannon Crusader squad with my Icaraus Lascannon so when I don't have any fliers to shoot at I have the option to fire two str 9 shots at vehicles and units.  

So there's my list for the upcoming event.  If you have any ideas, questions or comments please post them below.  I'll be chiming in later on the Black Templar joining the main marine codex.  Thanks for reading!

Troop Choices

For this weekend's 2500 pt event at my local store. I set about planning my troop choices with something specific in mind.  Normally I like to bring a couple strong units, but for this event I decided to max out the amount of heavy weapons on my side of the board.  Since Templar currently lack the ability to take Devastator Squads, I thought it might be interesting to abuse the outdated rules of the Templar Codex.  For each of my Crusader Squads, I am running them as a minimal sized five man unit with a heavy weapon.  For survivability, most of the squads will be used to support each other.  With this in mind I've built my troop choices as one of three different types.


Couch Potato Knights

Two squads are going to be tasked with sitting in my back field holding home objectives and lobbing shots across the board.  One squad will be given a Lascannon and will be manning my Aegis Defense Line, while the other will be equipped with a Plasma Cannon.  Both units will also be equipped with standard bolters.  For both of these units, objective placement will be key.  If I'm facing Marines, I will be placing my mid-field objectives just outside of 24 inch range to keep them within hitting distance of my heavy weapons, yet still outside range of their Bolters.  The Lascannon squad will have an objective within reach, and will be tasked with targeting enemy armor pressing the objectives in the mid-field.  The Plasma Cannon squad will be nearby the other unit to provide support from infiltrating troops, yet be hunting mid-range infantry with its AP2 blast.  Should my Plasma Cannon blow itself up, I plan to keep the units close enough that the remaining marines could get in front of the Lascannon and provide a human screen.


Mid-field Champions

Four squads will be given Missile Launchers and sent out into the mid-field to hunt objectives and cause problems.  I tested this earlier this week and had some success.  I was able to get missiles planted on each side of the board, picking their targets.  The beauty of these units is that they're weak enough to not require immediate notice, but still have a bite to them.  By running four of these I increase the likelihood that the Missile Launchers are going to have an effect in determining how the mid-field fighting goes.  The goal of these squads is to force my opponent to react to my troops and give me some control over their movement.  By dictating even a portion of the board, it will free up my last two troops to move as they need to.


Crusaders
The last two squads will be acting as Templars ought to.  They are taking the fight to the enemy.  Both units will be placed in rhinos and and given a Bolt Pistol/Power Fist each, with Bolt Pistols/Close Combat Weapons for the rest of the squads.  By the time the rhinos ride into the enemy deployment zone, my two command squads and other trouble units should be engaging the more troublesome enemy units.  My hope is that at least one of the rhinos will escape direct attention and be free to hunker down in terrain and await late game objective grabs (or at least late game contesting).  I debated giving the squad a Power Sword instead of the Power Fists, but ultimately decided the ability to wreck vehicles and break 2+ armor would be more beneficial.

What do you think about my troops choices?  Leave a comment below and thanks for reading!

HQ

One of the great things about living in the area in which I live is the plethora of gaming hotspots.  The community here, extreme persons disregarded, is supportive and usual up for a game if you show yourself to be a fun opponent.  My favorite store to play at has begun to be especially intentional in its support of the 40k community over the course of this year and has held monthly events with interesting tables and rule sets.  Through these events I have met many great players and I always look forward to the next event.  This month's event is set for larger individual games at 2500 pts and is set to be built with double force organization in mind.  As I'm sure many of my opponents will do, I decided to take full advantage of the points and extra force slots.  I have a game scheduled for tomorrow to test my list and I'll be making final tweaks as the week goes on.  As I wrote this post, I realized just how long this post was shaping up to be.  To keep it manageable, I'll be breaking my army list up over several posts.

HQ

For this list I knew that I'd be taking a double force org list.  With this in mind I revisited some of my early lists for inspiration.  While I've only ever run a double force org in the one Apocalypse I've played, I did have a habit of doubling down on HQ choices for a period last fall.  I've never felt that the named characters in the codex to be a good representative of their points costs and even after a year of playing Templar, I still haven't purchased either of the characters.  And so I sat down to decide what roles I wanted my HQ's to fill.  It's no secret around my local game store that I love chaplains.  Both in the fluff and the benefits they offer squads in game, I always find myself dropping a chaplain into my lists.  Since I was planning on deep striking a unit of shooty Terminators with two assault cannons, I decided running them as a command squad with a Marshal would fit the role I had in mind for them.  The goal of this unit is to be a problem causing squad in the backfield targeting tanks and other priority targets.  I don't plan to spend much time charging this unit into close combat, but should they be charged I wanted to give a couple power swords to strike at initiative and free up the power fists to do their thing.  The Marshal is perfectly paired for this, while giving the entire board the ability to use his leadership.  The leadership bonus acts more as insurance to help against failing zeal tests, but his real purpose is to dice units that attempt to assault the squad.  As a command squad, I get a sergeant to accept challenges freeing the Marshal to inflict pain on the squad.

For my primary force I plan to run my usual Chaplain.  I always kit out my Chaplain and take full advantage of the old armory system.  Being able to give my Chaplain 2+ armor and Eternal Warrior is invaluable when high strength shots start flying around the board.  As I discovered last week, a Chaplain gets even better when you kit him out with a command squad and apothecary for Feel No Pain.  A 2+/4++ save can be intimidating enough and when combined with a squad for "Look Out Sir"s the risk of loosing your Warlord decreases immensely.  By adding Feel No Pain to the equation, the command squad becomes very difficult to roll over.  The biggest threat for the squad is travel.  I too bought into the internet hype that vehicles were dead in this edition.  What I have found in gameplay is very different.  The biggest risk I find in vehicles is giving away an early kill point for First Blood if a rhino finds itself in front of a battle cannon.  But the difference in losing a vehicle over troop models is a big difference maker.  In the time it takes my command squad to walk across the board, hugging terrain for protection and including zeal moves, I would probably lose two or three models if I'm lucky.  A squad of ten could handle the losses and keep the pressure on in assault, but anything smaller faces serious risk to necessary momentum.  While assault is still alive in 6th edition, I believe it is even more crucial than it was in fifth to maximize damage in first turn of the assault, since Templar will stay locked in combat until the opposing unit falls back or either squad is destroyed.  Placing the Chaplain and Command Squad in a Land Raider Crusader gets them across the table to where they need to go.  Like the Terminator Command Squad, the Reclusiarch squad will be hunting priority targets, usually scoring units.

For my required Emperor's Champion, I opted to take the anti-psyker vow.  I considered the vow giving my army Rage, but for the points the psyker vow was worth the risk.  If my opponent doesn't have any psykers, I'm only out twenty points.  With the amount of points available, it seems likely that armies who can take a psyker will.  To free up my Chaplain I will be running the Emperor's Champion with the Reclusiarch Command Squad.

As the week goes by, I will continue to go through my list.  Comment below with thoughts and opinions on this list and any improvements that could be made.  Thanks for reading!

The Command Squad Rides

Against all odds, I ended up with a completed command squad ready for my games last week.  I got three games in against some very competitive tournament players and had a ton of fun.  One special treat for me was playing against Black Templar.  I have never faced a Templar army, and it was an extra treat to see how a more competitive player would play.

My first two games were against Chaos Space Marines.   The goal of the first game was to see how a fully loaded out command squad would handle a less than ideal situation.  I've done this in the past and found it to be helpful in learning what upgrades to spring for and how the squad is best used.  I dropped the squad in a Land Raider Crusader and ran them straight at a squad of Chaos bikers with a Korne lord leading the way, with a pair of Maulerfiends backing them up.  I maneuvered up and dumped my guys out three inches away expecting to land some hurt on the bikers before the Maulerfiends came to back up the Chaos Lord.  And as became the trend for most of the game, I rolled two ones failing my three inch charge.  The game at this point began the downward trend to a mop up and with a little bit of flailing, lost the game by turn three with my only points being First Blood from a blown up Rhino.  Despite some really bad rolling, I was impressed by how much abuse the command squad took.  They tied up the bike squad the whole game and did their fair share of damage, beating most of the squad.

For our second game I reintroduced tactical planning for the command squad.  My opponent spread his forces across the long board edge and I opted for edge denial avoiding his Maulerfiends.  For this game it was my Techmarine's turn to bring a lackluster attitude to the battle.  But the command squad, shamed by the previous game, roared into the back field smashing all foes before them.  The game was going much better for my Templar this time around and I felt good about how I was playing tactually.  I had set up his Maulerfiends to run through a gauntlet of high strength weapons fire, but my dice abandoned me on turn three, seeing my landspeeder fail to wound with its multi-melta and a full Crusader Squad fail its zeal to run off the table after taking one casualty.  While I lost this game as well, it was nip and tuck until the end.  The close game combined with a fun opponent created the type of games I love to play.  The bad rolls on both sides were cause for laughter and both games were fun to play. 

My last game of the afternoon was a pleasant surprise.  Both of us showed up to play other people and happened to have time to play.  Going into the game I knew I had to move quick.  My opponent opted for fewer troops, running two Crusader Squads, to bring three Stormtalons and two Land Raider Crusaders.  I hadn't planned to play extra games and the army I had brought was by no means a take on all comers list.  I had no answer for his fliers and instead tried to get to the center, we were playing the relic mission, to counter his charge.  He wisely kept his troops penned up in his Land Raiders and our Land Raiders held a duel.  The Land Raider duel was one of the highlights of the game as we danced around each other's melta range.  I was able to crack open one of his Land Raiders and my Land Raider went down in flames when the Stormtalons came in from reserve.  My opponent was forced to drop all of his Stormtalons into hover to shoot up the command squad allowing my bikes and command squad to get into combat with them.  But my assault woes for the day continued as I failed to hit with my bikes.  By holding his troops inside the Land Raiders they were able to hide out from most of the fire frenzy winning the game in the end.

It was fun to see someone else running Black Templar, since I don't get to see them on the board often. And even more so since it was an experienced tournament player.  I learned a ton during the game and in our discussion after the game was over.  I look forward to facing him again, and we talked about both playing Templar in the event at our local store this Saturday.  I'll be doing other posts throughout this week as I prepare for the event.

My takeaway from the day was that a command squad is awesome.  I probably wouldn't take one in a game smaller than 1850, but they earn their points back if only to give my Chaplain Feel No Pain.  As I figured I would, I spent way too many points on the command squad.  The banner options we currently have offer too little to afford their points, especially since the squad can buy counterattack at three points a model.  This is a pity as I love the way my banner looks on the board.  Here's me hoping we get some great options for banners the way Dark Angels received the Banner of Devastation.  But the Command Squad forces my opponent to deal with them allowing other units the freedom to maneuver. The apothecary is an outright stud, between giving Feel No Pain to the unit and wounding on a four in close combat he earns his keep and then some.  The Command Squad only gets better with two special weapons.  I'm going to be playing with some combinations for these slots to see what will be most helpful to how I envision the unit being used.  And the cherry on top of the sundae of awesome is the Company Champion.  I modeled him with the Power Halberd to make use of the Power Axe stats, which mauls through just about anything.  I have more playtesting to do before I settle on exactly how I want to use them in competitive play, but I can only imagine the Command Squad will get better in the coming codex.  

Like a Champ

I'm still chipping away at my Command Squad and I'm afraid I won't have them completely finished for my game on friday.  I got busy last night on several other things, and didn't start painting until much later.  As a result, only the company champion ended up painted.  I was a little concerned about the amount of gold going on the model, but after dulling it down with washes I think it hit a good sheen to match the rest of the model.

One of the unexpected additions to the mini was the helm.  I had originally planned to place the maltese cross off center in white with red detailing; it was late and to my horror the cross looked terrible.  The only aspect I liked was how the white stood out against the black and gold.  So the rest of the helm ended up white and the accent stripe went on in the style of the pre-heresy imperial fists.  While I took the long way around, I still accidentally accomplished my end goal of making the helm into a focal point for the model.

An aspect of my painting that has come a long way since I started is my power weapon skills.  I've done a variety of styles from plain blue with flecked shades of light blue and white to a gradient style.  But, I think my favorite is the lightening effect.  I based my method on the tutorial from the blog From the Warp (one of my favorite places to go for beginner tutorials.  You can find the tutorial here: http://fromthewarp.blogspot.com/2009/09/power-swords-space-hulk-style.html  The large difference between what I did here was using two different washes, both nightshade and violet.  The nightshade first darkens both the blade and the lightening effect, and the violet adds color to the lightening to make it stand out.  Then it's simply picking out some spots with white and you're finished.

About the only thing missing from this guy is his basing and doing the script on the the scroll above his head and on the shield.  And while it seems unlikely that I'll be getting both my apothecary and sergeant finished tonight.  At least the majority of the squad will look good running with my Master of Sanctity and Emperor's Champion.