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Hey guys,

So inspire by a couple of recent threads, I thought I'd give my take on a few things that need changing with regards to the Codex: Space Marines. I'll also be trying to at least give a reason why I made each change.

Chapter Tactics
Imperial Fists and Black Templars Chapter Tactics are the only two sets of Chapter Tactics I have a problem with.

Imperial Fists: Re-rolling wounds made against a Building is quite a useless Chapter Tactic on its own. Yes, you will have games where it is useful, but it is mostly useless. Replace it with the following:

Imperial Fists: ... In addition, you can re-roll one To Hit roll and one To Wound roll for Imperial Fists units when targeting a Vehicle or Building.

In one sense, they get less re-rolls, but this is made up for by the fact that you are more likely to be facing vehicles that you are to be targeting buildings. In all my years of playing 7th Edition, I only ever attacked a Building once, maybe twice. The rest of the time, attacking Building is not really a thing. This proposed change makes this part of the Chapter Tactics more relevant.

Black Templars: Though re-rolling charges is definitely thematic and an awesome Chapter Tactic, GW did a disservice to Black Templars by turning Abhor the Witch into a Strategem. Here are the changes I propose:

Black Templars: You can re-roll failed charge rolls for Black Templars units with this tactic (but you must re-roll both dice). Furthermore:
-- Any Psychic Power cast on a Black Templars unit with this tactic can attempt to deny the power on a D6 (succeeding on a 6+).
-- Any Psychic Power cast within 12" of a Black Templars Name Character unit with this tactic can attempt to deny the power on a D6 (succeeding on a 6+).
NB: These are classified as Deny the Witch rolls and cannot be improved under any circumstances.

The first point was originally part of their CT's and should never have been turned into a Strategem - it nerfed them too much. That being said, reintroducing this part of the Chapter Tactics and keeping the Strategem is - I think - thematically sound and fine rules-wise since you can only use the Strategem once per turn and the Black Templars have no psychic powers themselves. I'm not entirely sure about the second point, but it seems thematically sound to me, not to mention I think it helps to balance the fact that they are without psychic powers.

Now onto Black Templars themselves:
Now Black Templars do make use of all the shooty stuff in the codex, but I think that it is undeniable that they lean towards melee in a thematic sense.

High Marshal Helbrecht:

In 7th Edition, Helbrecht did not have access to Orbital Bombardment despite being the Chapter Master of the largest, most well known Fleet-Based Chapter of the Imperium. Now every Warlord (not just Chapter Masters) has access to it and it still feels underwhelming on Helbrecht. So I thought this would be a good opportunity to not only give a buff to Helbrecht that I think he is deserving of, but also re-introduce Scatter Dice (if only for this). So at a possible cost of slightly increased points, I'd like to see the following:

High Marshal Helbrecht can use the Orbital Bombardment Strategem even if he moved during the preceding Movement Phase. If he moved during the preceding Movement Phase, the selected point scatters a distance equal to half the distance he moved (rounding down to the closest inch) + D6". For example, if High Marshal Helbrecht moved 5" in the preceding Movement Phase and then uses Orbital Bombardment, the Bombardment Scatters (D6 + 2)". High Marshal Helbrecht cannot use Orbital Bombardment on the same turn he disembarks from a transport.

Allowing him to do this allows him to be a step above the rest of the Warlords using this for the aforementioned reason that he is the Chapter Master of the largest Fleet-Based Chapter of Space Marines, thus meaning he should be relatively experienced with its use. The restriction on its use with regards to disembarking is intended to prevent shenanigans such as Deep Striking him in via Drop Pod and then dropping Orbital Bombardment.

Crusader Squads:

Crusader Squads are kinda cool squads in which you can put a Special Weapon, a Heavy Weapon and a Combi-Weapon without requiring 10x Space Marines, but in melee they are still underwhelming. The volume of attacks that they can lay down is nice, but in my experience, volume of attacks is not wot worth it more often than not. 26x - 31x Chainsword Attacks against MEQ's or T5+ targets tends not to do much despite the fact that many people think they should by virtue of being so many attacks, and even against T4 targets and / or targets with a half-decent save they're not particularly good. You could argue that I should be using other units in melee if I'm running into these sorts of problems, but by the same token I could say that these are Black Templars: Specialists in melee and thus should be a bit more than what they are currently in the Codex.

I think having greater access to Power Weapons (specifically Power Swords) would be nice, thematic, and provide the Crusader Squads with the power they need to be relevant as a melee unit. Alternatively, they could have access to Chainswords that are better than their regular counterparts (e.g. AP -1 or something like that). I'm more partial to AP -1 Chainswords for Crusader Squads since allowing them access to more Power Swords allows them to start treading on the toes of units like Vanguard Veterans. I would suggest the regular +1 Attack on the Charge and/or when they are charged, but I don't think that increasing the volume of attacks is the best way to go here.

Land Raiders (All Variants):

On thing I have found is that getting a Land Raider of any type close to the combat is a good way to waste points as a general rule. To keep in keeping with the Black Templars theme without being too OP, I thought this change could help make Land Raiders more relevant and thematic for Black Templars (with a potential points increase if needed):

When a Land Raider (of any type) Falls Back from combat, it can shoot with all it's weapons as normal but its Ballistic Skill is 6+. This Ballistic Skill is unaffected by To Hit modifiers which improve Ballistic Skill and all weapons do not benefit from any re-rolls.

I feel like this could encourage the thematic elements of Black Templars. The un-improvable Ballistic Skill and no re-rolls at least helps to prevent this being OP as hell.

What are your thoughts on these changes?

..... Quite alot of Black Templar stuff in this post.

That being said. The Imperial fist Chapter tactic is quite underwelming, re-roll against something most people don't actually use is quite ineffecient (it is however fluffy as they are a siege chapter and are from a legion that specialized in siege defense)

The single re-roll sounds kinda meh. Rather people look at that as not really worth any time, rather i would say just give them either a re-roll to hit or to wound for both vehicles and Buildings, but just one so it's not too overpowerring compared to other chapter tactics, the ignore cover is still there.

As for the Black Templars, whoo boy.

Their chapter tactic should be re-roll charge with +1 atk or str (Probably Strength). Their abhor the witch as a stratagem is okay, adding it to their chapter tactic just feels too technical (Also... gotta keep in line with other Chapter tactics in the codex. Not too strong but not too weak, atm templars is just weak)

Adding Scatter to the high marshall just sounds too silly, basically it's saying that this guy can't really co ordinate with his fleet. Instead it should just be when he uses it, it should be 2D6 area to represent the big ass fleet he is leading (More ships means more area to hit)

Adding rules to a land raider specifically for only one army should not be a thing. It's either everyone gets it or no one gets it.

That said, the rule just feels like you wanted to patch the combat mechanics for the land raider specifically. If everyone could patch that rule then the rule has no meaning.

Being stuck in CC with a land raider is either a calculated risk or an unforeseen consequence of the players actions. This feels more like player awareness is the problem and not the fault of the vehicles rules.

That rule just patches a mechanic of the core game, which it doesn't need. So it's a pass for me