Black Templar inclusion part 2...

There are some key points to consider when looking at the reasons, effectiveness, and results of re-adding a Marine chapter that has had its own Codex.  Some of the biggest effects would be to the other divergent chapters -- the Space Wolves, Blood Angels, and Dark Angels -- that still have their own codexes.  Many non-divergent-chapter players have been calling for the reabsorbtion of these books into the greater whole.

Here are some points to consider about this being a trend instead of a single decision

Argument 1: BA/DA/SW aren't that much more divergent than BT, and thus should get absorbed as well.  Their new units should be open to everyone.

 

You want the special toys without playing the special army.  Marines already get special toys.  Thus, you want inclusion of special gameplay styles to make marines bigger.  To include all-terminator armies is foolish with grav-gun spam coming, but it has always been a specific DA privilege and style.  To take that away or to spread that out would be more of a loss than the BT getting access to MORE units than they had previously while still keeping their major unique play-style.

Argument 2: It was easy to fold BT into the new SM Codex, and it would be just as easy to fold other divergent groups in as well.

Notice that to justify the change, you had to add more in than the BT were given in the new book?  Their specific units clock in at two – the Champion and the Crusader squad – with maybe two pages of rules and specifics between both, including the rules for playing a straight BT.  BA would need 5-10.  DA before this codex would have needed fewer, but now with Black Knights and Deathwing Knights and landspeeder variants and mediocre flyers, they’d need just as many, including space to add in the stubborn/fearless armywide rules they’ve always had, as well as the points increase associated with those rules (because only the GK get things for free, the rest of us have to pay a surcharge).

More than that, look at the space that would be needed for the Space Wolves.  Long Fangs would need a section added to Devastators.  Blood Claws would be a unique unit.  Their specialized gear, their Wolf Guard, their HQ setup… each of these would take a page here or there to add and explain.  It would make the book needlessly complicated for everyone that wasn’t a Space Wolf player.

Adding one army took what? 4-5 pages total?  Adding three more – each with more needed material and more special characters and more special rules and more distinct units – would only add 6-12 pages each.  To the longest, most expensive codex ever published.  What’s 30 more pages?

Argument 3: The game fares better with more standardized army choices.

More standardization means more boring armies.  If you want to play DA, play DA instead of whining about how they special toys, especially since your army doesn’t have to deal with their limitations.  Or take them as allies.  If you want to play DA, but you also want stormbumblebees and stormgoldfish and thunderfire cannons and sternguard, then you don’t really want to play DA – so use some DA models with a different paint-scheme and play a later vanilla founding.  If you want a Crusading army, you could include fluff for your chapter of Space Sea Cucumbers to have crusading elements in it… which amounts to having one new special squad that doesn’t even (if you want the weapons options but not the neophytes) need to be different than an already-existing unit – a squad of Assault Marines sans jumppacks can go chainsword/bolter just as easily and do the same amount of damage in close combat. 

Argument 4: BT inclusion is the first of many steps that will ruin everything!  They really just want everyone to buy three $200 compendiums to be able to play!

I don’t like the BT inclusion in one regard, because I feel that it’s a step backward.  They were ignored, demoted, and finally absorbed.  If the same happens to the Sisters, you can be sure that the Sisters players will rejoice at having a better list that might be useable, even if it means having to buy the next edition of the GK codex. It’s better than getting Squatted, but it’s not as good as having created a book (even a supplement) that catered to Crusading Foundings. 

Write up the Black Templar as the flagship Crusading chapter, a guide to your own personal angry mob.  Then, include something interesting like new fluff for the Brazen Claws or the Howling Griffons where they needed to go on a crusade as penance for a failure to protect the Booger system from an Ork invasion.  Or resurrect the Black Dragons from the old Chapter Approved and give them some history leading to a penitent crusade thrust upon them by the Inquisition for having a corrupted geneseed.  More neat info for new undetailed chapters makes for more proud collectors.

It could even be a book that includes new rules for ship-to-ship combat, including how to set up a squad-game in the halls of a space cruiser (think Space Hulk for everyone).  Or it might be focused on a specific encounter where multiple crusades banded together in the Whingding System to purge the planet Noname of a chaos thingamajig that psykers were weak to, including the steps in a narrative campaign adaptable for other factions.  There are so many places of potential that a BT book or supplement could have had, and to reduce the number of balanced books only weakens the game as a whole.

Argument 5: but by including them in a new book, they wrecked my army!

“I miss the old rules” is a natural tendency.  When I started by BT army, I fielded two Crusaders in anything over 2000 points (because back then, BT were the only ones who could).  I included a command squad, then split the members up and had them join other groups – my Apothecary and Chaplain escorted my Assault team while the Techmarine rode a bike with the rest of the hard-hitting boys. 

I stopped playing them after they got their own codex, because I liked how I had them set up.  That, and I had already moved on to other armies and other play-styles, so it was hard for me to go back.  In reality, I would have had a ton of fun with them had I considered them the way I do now – I’d be playing them as my primary faction if I hadn’t given them to an old friend years ago. 

The same thing is true for the new codex – they will lose sword-brethren (which was apparently coming anyway, folding them into the Veterans category), but they functionally grew by being given access to new units.  Everything else is preserved.  As opposed to what will be lost by other more divergent chapters by inclusion – exclusivity. 

Had BT gotten their own splat, or their own full Codex, they would be a different army.  One way they would be different?  They’d be terrible in 6^th edition.  An army focused on assault that has few viable ranged options in an edition that buffed shooting will have a hard time winning… and that’s all that would have been heard from the BT online presence had they gotten a revamping of their old book.

Argument 6: But I want new toys!

Sometimes, I think the real reason people want a new codex is not for an update but on the off chance that their army of choice will become the new creep champion – that, like Necrons or GK or 5^th ed Marines or Tau (and how many are written by the same person?), they will jump to the head of the pack overnight.  That way, the player can have all the advantages of playing the newest shiniest cheesiest army while still keeping their self-respect (“I’ve been playing [insert army] since forever, so I’m better than the bandwagon-jumpers”).

You can’t have it both ways.  If you’re a cheez-monkey who switches armies monthly to min/max style, you’re not fun to play against in a casual game.  Period.  It doesn’t matter if you were playing that army back when they were mediocre, what you play now matters.

DA got new toys in the new edition.  Deathwing Knights are alright – better than fielding an entire squad of Stormshield/Thunderhammer Terminators.  But they are non-scoring units, have zero shooting capability, and aren’t all that special.  Black Knights got the same grenades that GK have had forever, plasma talons, and are one of the new new units worth using.  The two speeders have their uses, but are incredibly fragile (AV 10 and 2 HP), and get no jink vs tau shenanigans (ignore cover via markerlights).  The Nephilim and Dark Talon are perhaps the worst flyers in the game.

New toys aren’t always very good.

There you have it.  While there are some great arguments on either side of the mess, I have to say that there’s all too much indignation on the part of the people least affected by the changes.