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So I had a break for a month or two, and I came back to find a few scattered rumours about my oh-so favourite crusading Space Knights. I shall list these rumours.

1) There will be a new Black Templar codex at some point over the next year or so.
2) The Black Templar codex will be made redundant, and will be merged with future Space Marine codex(es). (OH GOD NO)
3) (Not really Black Templars as such) There will be a new plastic kit for Chaplains. (GOD EMPEROR LET IT BE SO)

I don't know if any of these are true, I pray to the Emperor that number 2 is not, but I just don't know, Dakka.

The as of yet lack of Helbrecht and Grimaldus finecast seems to support number 2, yet if they were really going through with this, why would they finecast the Emperor's Champion and Sword Brethren? But then why would they discontinue the Templar's upgrade sprue? That makes me has a sad.

I don't know what to think guys, I guess if anything will happen, It will happen when it does and I'll just have to be patient.

PS. I want my damn finecasted Helbrecht. On a lighter note the Emperor's Champion finecast I got was flawless, a perfect cast.

PPS. Don't ask me where I heard these rumours from, it was a mix of all the mainstream 40k forums, including Dakka. In fact I heard number 2 from the manager of my local GW store, which makes it even more unsettling.

They are supposed to be getting a codex revision next year. It is supposed to be out before 6th edition, but designed with 6th in mind. Of course the same was said about the current DA book, so best of luck there.

I have heard no rumors of the BT sprue being discontinued and I would highly doubt it.

There are a ton of models that aren't yet available in finecast. I'd sooner guess that they will be in a future wave or discontinued altogether then jump to the conclusion that the codex is being removed.

it is the general belife that models which havn't been given a Finecast release date are ones which are going to be released with a new army book.


none of the Necron or Ogre Kingdom models have been redone and all rumors are pointing to their release this year.



I assume the BT characters are in the same boat.


BTs, unlike DAs, would be fairly difficult to fold into the vanilla codex unless they brought Chapter Traits back(please please please...)

My guess, now I said GUESS, is that they will be released right after the Tau codex in sixth edition. The Tau codex will probably make many references to the Damocles crusade, and the bam the Templars show up.

Is there an expected release date on 6th ed? And is there any solid info on it? I've looked in the News and Rumors section, but didn't see it. I may have missed it though.

Jimsolo wrote:Is there an expected release date on 6th ed? And is there any solid info on it? I've looked in the News and Rumors section, but didn't see it. I may have missed it though.

I've heard nothing of the sort, and I'm just guessing that that will occur. My personal estimate is in two years, and that's only based upon last rule book updates, nothing solid at all.

Here are the 6th ed rules rumors that Blood of Kittens put up.


I personally don't belive much of it. its probably too soon for anything solid to show up.



Blood of Kittens wrote
"I was told in privacy but can’t vouch for the accuracy. Corrected some spelling errors from icq conversation:
>>I am really pissed! The recent shift in GW’s marketing strategy is only the beginning. The goal is to completely control every bit of information that is going out and make every advance sneak peek look like an accidental leak. Think of Apple and you know what they are trying to achieve. They simultaneously try to keep the internet crowd happy with some leaked bits here and there and the store crowded focused on the next release. Prepare for more of these infamous “you see one eighth of the miniature and should stand in awe” pictures. The restructured White Dwarf will be the only place for “official” news. The days when Games Days were a good source for exciting news are gone. No more seminars. Independent shop owners will get the info at the same time as the public. From autumn on product codes will be chiffres and retailers have to order bulk packages for new releases without knowing what is in it if they want to get the releases on the first day. If they want to buy the boxes individually they have to wait two weeks until GW releases the chiffres. Mail Orders won’t arrive on the day of release, they will be SENT on the day of release. So no more accidental early arrivals. If you want to buy a product on the day of release you have to go to a GW store or one of the shops that have bought the release package. There is no chance to get the products via an online store on time. The retail embargo for the southern hemisphere were initially planned for every single country, so no more exports from UK to continental Europa, but GW’s law division stopped this as it would have violated EU laws. So now they will introduce two boxes for every release with exactly the same content but different boxes. One is for the retail in a single country and comes at the standard wholesale price. The other box has all the necessary taxation and regulatory clearances for export. These boxes are virtually the same but GW is charging an extra fee for them. Online shops can choose to stop exports or accept a serious blow to their profit margins.
We, the gamers, are sitting on the receiving end of this dishonest policy once more. We are treated like children and that is exactly the goal of these changes. So here are some of their plans, as long as the info is available, to spoil some of their surprises:

* first 6th edition codexes, but release before or with rulebook, small release with single or two waves: Black Templars (1 waves: 2x plactic, 2x Finecast), Tau (1 wave: 3x plastic boxes, 4x Finecast), Necrons (2 waves)

* first real 6th edition codex: Codex Chaos Legions, really big release in three waves, doesn’t invalidate Codex Chaos Space Marines which gets extensive White Dwarf update as Codex Renegade Space Marines

* two starter sets, each with rules, dices, movement markers, mission booklet, one with Dark Angels and fitting scenery, the other with Black Legion and Chaos scenery. You can combine both to play the campaign or use one set alone to play a selection of dumbed down scenarios against every other force, first starter set that comes with a model for a well established special character

* 6th edition is finished rulewise for some time now, the overall goal is to fix some of the long time problems of the game system. Expect a lot more fundamental improvements than last edition. The rules were even more ambitious at some stage of development, but didn’t get approved as they were too far away from the established rules. The main designer left company and his successors brought the rules back in line with the existing codexes. The rules are nonetheless a bigger step forward than from 4th to 5th. Changes are so big that the next edition relies partial on erratas to fix old codexes. Development relied heavily on feedback of veteran playtesters. You can see some results of this new approach by the way the FAQs were handled in the last months. All codexes since Codex Tyranids were written with the new rules in mind, especially the new mission and reserve structure.

* The main design goals are: one book to rule them all, heroic characters, visceral combat, streamlined mechanism, cleaned up presentation and strategy before chance

* strong narrative focus on Chaos, perspective shifting from the Empire to the struggle between free races and the Warp

* the biggest rule changes:
- similar ballistic to hit chart as wound chart: compare BS to target’s speed and unit type. BS 3 hits moving infantry on 4+, but lightning fast jetbikes on 6+ and stationary tank on 2+… HUGE
- victory points are back, but with another twist: you get two victory points if an unit holds an objective for an entire game turn, if a scoring unit holds one, you get three and one if you destroy a squad leader or vehicle
- before the game there is a bidding contest for the opportunity of the first turn, if you bid more strategic points you can go first, but the enemy can spent these points on stratagems as in Cities of Death: 22 generic stratagems – for example for one point you can decide on night fighting or place an automatic gun, for four you can shift your reserves, most expensive stratagems are at 12 points and are really drastic, every unspent point can be used once a game for a reroll
- new turn sequence: prepare-movement-assault-shooting-consolidate
new phase “consolidate” phase for random movements, jetpack movements, pursuits, morale checks/effects and resolving shooting reactions
assault before shooting – big units are real roadblocks!<<

rideroftheerk · 1 day, 21 hours ago
Some more examples for the development doctrines
One rulebook for all:
- flyer rules are incorporated in the main rules
- narrative rule section that expands core rules: formations, super heavies, gaining experience
- modular rules, core rules can easily be expanded by narratives rules or another expansion set

Heroic characters:
- independent characters more powerful, armour save and invulnerable save at the same time
- squad leaders more important, no more 50% rallying threshold, unit can rally as long as squad leader lives
- independent characters can snipe

More visceral combat:
- standard cover only 5+ now, Feel No Pain (1) only on 5+
- slow slogging units very vulnerable
- some weapon types are specialized in taking out specific unit types and are incredible good at doing this (sniper vs. infantry without armour), but on the other hand ordnance vs flyer isn’t going to do much

streamlined:
- no more random movement at all
- 5 general types of psychic powers
- wound allocation like 4th edition on unit basis, but attacker can chose every 5th wound to go to a single model (sniper weapon every second wound)
- artillery is normal immobile vehicle squadron, crew has no other game purpose than to be a counter for rate of fire and attacks

clean up of combusted rules:
- there are tiers for most of the special rules. Instant Death (2) circumvents Eternal Warrior (1) for example. Feel No Pain (1) is 5+, Feel No Pain (2) is 4+ and Feel No Pain (3) is 3+. If no value is given, the special rule is tier 1.
- no more difference between leadership test and morale test
- terrain rules on a single page, true line of sight, non-vehicles models are ignored altogether, rules for special terrain like bunkers, ruins or deathworld mangroves in narrative rule section

less randomness, more strategic options:
- more elaborate reserve rules, can nominate turn of arrvial and has only small change to arrive earlier or later, or can intervene behind enemy lines, arrives randomly but can hinder enemy reserves, must be distributed evenly between turn two and three, later arrivals only randomly
-no more random game length
-no roll for first turn
-deep striking units more than 18” from enemy away don’t scatter, but landing in 6” is much more dangerous
- movement impairing effects from pinning weapons even if morale check is passed (if roll is above halved Ld), Fearless not immune to this, but only effected if rolled over full Ld"

These rules, I'm unsure if I believe them. Perhaps some of them may happen, like Grey Templar said it may be too soon for any of these.

There's a lot of rumours about the Templars. I haven't seen anyone who's been able to verify their claims though. Most of these unconfirmed rumors, however, seem to agree that there won't be a new BT Codex until 6th, the errata update seems to support this notion.

Nvs wrote:I have heard no rumors of the BT sprue being discontinued and I would highly doubt it.

On March 30th Tabletop Gaming published a list of products GW were rendering out of production.

Here it is.

Updated list of OOP GW figures
March 30th, 2011
A new list of figures have been marked as out-of-print by Games Workshop. This may actually mean that they are being removed to Direct Only status.

•46-25 Eldar Striking Scorpions
•46-27 Eldar Warp Spiders
•46-29 Eldar Rangers
•46-36 Eldar Warlock
•47-64 Techpriest Enginseer
•48-38 Space Marine Chaplain
•48-44 Space Marine Terminator Chaplain
•48-45 Space Marine Jump Pack Chaplain
•48-53 Space Marine Scout Sergeant Telion
•50-38 Orks In Mega Armour
•50-42 Ork Boss Snikrot
•55-12 Black Templars Chapter Upgrade
•85-43 Dark Elf Dreadlord
•95-11 Ogre Kingdoms Tyrant
•L03-35 Saruman And Grima

Now a fair few of those are being finecasted, namely the Jump Pack Chaplain, Rangers, Striking Scorpions. But the Upgrade kit was plastic already, so why that would be discontinued is beyond me. Of course there remains the possibility of it becoming direct order only.

smudgethekat wrote:
Now a fair few of those are being finecasted, namely the Jump Pack Chaplain, Rangers, Striking Scorpions. But the Upgrade kit was plastic already, so why that would be discontinued is beyond me. Of course there remains the possibility of it becoming direct order only.

They could be discontinuing it in order to create a BT box similar to the Death Company, DA Veterans and SW boxes. For some reason I've been bugged for quite a while that us Templars are the only ones that have to buy both a tac box and an upgrade sprue to get what we want...

AlmightyWalrus wrote:

smudgethekat wrote:
Now a fair few of those are being finecasted, namely the Jump Pack Chaplain, Rangers, Striking Scorpions. But the Upgrade kit was plastic already, so why that would be discontinued is beyond me. Of course there remains the possibility of it becoming direct order only.

They could be discontinuing it in order to create a BT box similar to the Death Company, DA Veterans and SW boxes. For some reason I've been bugged for quite a while that us Templars are the only ones that have to buy both a tac box and an upgrade sprue to get what we want...

You're not.

The DA do as well. DA Veteran box gives you enough parts to do 5 Marines, with some generic bits leftover. It's the upgrade sprue and Ravenwing Battleforce that were the hot ticket item for Dark Angels.

doesn't the DA box actually have all the parts for 5 marines, just no bases?

If I remember entirely 100% correctly it's a single Dark Angels upgrade sprue with the contents of the 'command' sprue from a Tactical Marine box(the Plasma Gun, Meltagun, Pistol Arms, etc).

It really isn't that great of a buy unless you're doing a few characters.

Thanks for the info Gray, but I don't think Blood of Kittens information is good. That just sounds...to far fetched to be believed.

I hope they don't change the BT codex for some time; my Logicians need the two-wound Techmarines with Stormshields.

I wouldn't put any faith in that second rumor, OP. Considering GW isn't letting anyone know about anything til about a week before it comes out, I wouldn't trust his rumor. Managers, redshirts, blackshirts, and so on are notoriously bad for rumors too, as they know as much as we do. Black Templars are too different to get rolled into the Marine codex, and I can't see GW discontinuing them altogether.

I'm curious what they will do for the BTs..

SW, BA, SM, and GKs pretty much cover all the bases in terms of playstyle for SMs.

Kanluwen wrote:

AlmightyWalrus wrote:

smudgethekat wrote:
Now a fair few of those are being finecasted, namely the Jump Pack Chaplain, Rangers, Striking Scorpions. But the Upgrade kit was plastic already, so why that would be discontinued is beyond me. Of course there remains the possibility of it becoming direct order only.

They could be discontinuing it in order to create a BT box similar to the Death Company, DA Veterans and SW boxes. For some reason I've been bugged for quite a while that us Templars are the only ones that have to buy both a tac box and an upgrade sprue to get what we want...

You're not.

The DA do as well. DA Veteran box gives you enough parts to do 5 Marines, with some generic bits leftover. It's the upgrade sprue and Ravenwing Battleforce that were the hot ticket item for Dark Angels.

That's the point. You get 5 marines out of the box. The Black Templars upgrade sprue doesn't contain any backplates and as such forces you to buy a normal tac box in addition to the stuff in the upgrade pack. The DA upgrade frame lets you build 5 marines straight out of the box without you having to buy an additional box.

BeefCakeSoup wrote:I'm curious what they will do for the BTs..

SW, BA, SM, and GKs pretty much cover all the bases in terms of playstyle for SMs.

Black Templars cover the foot horde playstyle very well, other than that there's a lot of toe-stepping with Space Wolves for being the choppy Marines.

AlmightyWalrus wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:

AlmightyWalrus wrote:

smudgethekat wrote:
Now a fair few of those are being finecasted, namely the Jump Pack Chaplain, Rangers, Striking Scorpions. But the Upgrade kit was plastic already, so why that would be discontinued is beyond me. Of course there remains the possibility of it becoming direct order only.

They could be discontinuing it in order to create a BT box similar to the Death Company, DA Veterans and SW boxes. For some reason I've been bugged for quite a while that us Templars are the only ones that have to buy both a tac box and an upgrade sprue to get what we want...

You're not.

The DA do as well. DA Veteran box gives you enough parts to do 5 Marines, with some generic bits leftover. It's the upgrade sprue and Ravenwing Battleforce that were the hot ticket item for Dark Angels.

That's the point. You get 5 marines out of the box. The Black Templars upgrade sprue doesn't contain any backplates and as such forces you to buy a normal tac box in addition to the stuff in the upgrade pack. The DA upgrade frame lets you build 5 marines straight out of the box without you having to buy an additional box.

Actually, no it doesn't.

The upgrade frame includes no bases.

And while the Black Templars upgrade sprue "doesn't contain any backplates", it also came with enough to do multiple tactical boxes and vehicles as well.

The DA upgrade sprue isn't as good a buy as it once was. For $20 you used to get 2x what was shown. Now you spend $15 and get 1x what is show.

On top of this, the upgrade sprue did not come with special weapons or bases so you would still need access to some bits to make a legitimate squad of marines.

They were always a better buy than the BT sprue though, but not really enough to do what you wanted with. It was only really convenient if your plan was to make a fully robed army so you get a lot of standard marines with just a bolter and backpack for cheap.

Now as for the 6th edition rumors, if they were completely fake and had no backing whatsoever, I would have expected to see the more reliable rumor mongers shoot them down long before their threads got to 30+ pages.

It's a safe bet that these, if not 100% accurate, are at the very least thing that were being play tested quite recently.

And I believe current rumor is summer/fall next year for 6th.

BT were supposed to be at the beginning of next year iirc from the most recent rumors. But I haven't been following the rumor threads as much since they aren't that involved for armies I play.

The DA rumors have me a bit bummed though as I'd start DA up if I were to play a marine army.

Kanluwen wrote:

AlmightyWalrus wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:

AlmightyWalrus wrote:

smudgethekat wrote:
Now a fair few of those are being finecasted, namely the Jump Pack Chaplain, Rangers, Striking Scorpions. But the Upgrade kit was plastic already, so why that would be discontinued is beyond me. Of course there remains the possibility of it becoming direct order only.

They could be discontinuing it in order to create a BT box similar to the Death Company, DA Veterans and SW boxes. For some reason I've been bugged for quite a while that us Templars are the only ones that have to buy both a tac box and an upgrade sprue to get what we want...

You're not.

The DA do as well. DA Veteran box gives you enough parts to do 5 Marines, with some generic bits leftover. It's the upgrade sprue and Ravenwing Battleforce that were the hot ticket item for Dark Angels.

That's the point. You get 5 marines out of the box. The Black Templars upgrade sprue doesn't contain any backplates and as such forces you to buy a normal tac box in addition to the stuff in the upgrade pack. The DA upgrade frame lets you build 5 marines straight out of the box without you having to buy an additional box.

Actually, no it doesn't.

The upgrade frame includes no bases.

And while the Black Templars upgrade sprue "doesn't contain any backplates", it also came with enough to do multiple tactical boxes and vehicles as well.

It's twice as expensive, gives you enough stuff to "upgrade" 5 tac marines and bling out vehicles and terminators. There's no bases in the BT box either. By comparison, the DA box contains everything needed to make 5 marines bar the bases, an assault cannon and a spare set of terminator legs, as well as some bling. The only thing really missing is the bases, which you can buy from GW's web page. I don't see any marine backplates for sale on GW's page...

From what I read the box gives you enough to update ten marines, with full shoulder pads, weapons, terminator shoulder pads and vehicle parts. It's 2 full sprues of the infantry stuff in a box. So, it's still okay...I'm probably going to pick a box up if I find one around 20 bucks.

timetowaste85 wrote:From what I read the box gives you enough to update ten marines, with full shoulder pads, weapons, terminator shoulder pads and vehicle parts. It's 2 full sprues of the infantry stuff in a box. So, it's still okay...I'm probably going to pick a box up if I find one around 20 bucks.

Just looking at what the web says there's nothing but the sprue image, which has enough for 5.

Wouldnt the FNP nerf Dark Eldar bad *again*

Jimsolo wrote:Thanks for the info Gray, but I don't think Blood of Kittens information is good. That just sounds...to far fetched to be believed.

thats what I think as well. its a little too radical.


the parts i find plausable is the integration of Flyers and multiple saves for characters.

The FNP is offset slightly by some of the changes to fast skimmers being more tough. Which is offset by them no longer getting cover saves, which is then offset by flickerfield.

So yea, DE will be an army to keep an eye on, but they'll likely be fine. And there's nothing to say they won't get FNP(3) also.

And like I said before, I think if the rules were total bunk someone would have said as much by now. There are a lot of people in the know around here and warseer who would have been able to write everything off.

Well you fellows have reassured me enough, I guess, as I said in my original post, I will have to wait and see.

Nvs wrote:The FNP is offset slightly by some of the changes to fast skimmers being more tough. Which is offset by them no longer getting cover saves, which is then offset by flickerfield.

So yea, DE will be an army to keep an eye on, but they'll likely be fine. And there's nothing to say they won't get FNP(3) also.

And like I said before, I think if the rules were total bunk someone would have said as much by now. There are a lot of people in the know around here and warseer who would have been able to write everything off.

A lot of people have said they're bunk.