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Is it possible for two Emperor's Champions to turn up at the start of a new Black Templars crusade?

I was thinking of having a spin-off crusade from one of the larger ones occurring when two marines are simultaneously granted visions. One was to predict a great victory, the other predicts a catastrophic failure.

I don't think one crusade would have two Black Swords and two sets of the Armour of Faith. But I think the idea of two Marines having contradictory visions is a cool idea.

Maybe they could take out a timeshare on the gear...

I imagine that Black Templars standard way of dealing with that issue would be a duel, a crusade would not have two black swords and two armours of faith and contradicting visions would mean one of the two is wrong and best way to see who is right is to see who old emps supports... ie dueling time

what of two crusades joined up who both had champaions met though?

like at armageddon when 3 where combined to fight it.

Two merged crusades could do it...

Is there any known number of Black Swords and Armours of Faith in the whole BT army? There must be more than three, otherwise the BT would be very easy to keep track of, numbers-wise.

"Each Crusade nominally has an Emperor's Chaplain, but in practice there is one for every Fighting Company.. <snip> ..anointing him as the Emperor's Champion, he will be gifted the best weapons and armour in the force. Although the actual weapon and armour may change, these are always known as the Black Sword and Armour of Faith." ~ Codex Black Templars, page 15

My reading of that is that the Black Sword and Armour of Faith are whatever the guy chosen to Emperor's Champion is given, even if the supply situation is so desperate that's wielding a butterknife sprayed black.

Huh. Handy.

EC 1, predicting a win, gets the proper Sword, EC 2 gets shafted for being a downer, and gets a Relic Blade.

Yeah no there are only so many Black swords, as far as i know it's 6-10 and you won't have more EC's than that

GAdvance wrote:
Yeah no there are only so many Black swords, as far as i know it's 6-10 and you won't have more EC's than that

Got a source? 6-10 sounds specific.

Codex: Spess Mahreens say there's one for every crusade, each crusade is equivalent to a company, BT have roughly 3000 marines and ONE Champ arises each century or so. A Black Sword and Armour of faith goes with each crusade.

Probably 10 BS/AOF sets floating around.

rowboatjellyfanxiii wrote:
Codex: Spess Mahreens say there's one for every crusade, each crusade is equivalent to a company, BT have roughly 3000 marines and ONE Champ arises each century or so. A Black Sword and Armour of faith goes with each crusade.

Probably 10 BS/AOF sets floating around.

No they don't. Black Templars are only slightly over Codex, something around 1,200 to 1,500.

 Wyzilla wrote:

rowboatjellyfanxiii wrote:
Codex: Spess Mahreens say there's one for every crusade, each crusade is equivalent to a company, BT have roughly 3000 marines and ONE Champ arises each century or so. A Black Sword and Armour of faith goes with each crusade.

Probably 10 BS/AOF sets floating around.

No they don't. Black Templars are only slightly over Codex, something around 1,200 to 1,500.

The C:SM claims that they are around 1,000 and C:BT claims they could be up to 5-6,000.
I've never seen anything that says an EC is once-per-century, though.

I'll check the 6th Space Marine coddx in the morning bout it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Codex: Space Marines states there are 10 Black Swords in total on Page 118 "The Emperor's Champion".

One Black Sword goes with each Crusade, so 10 crusades at a time, from several battle brothers to several hundred in size.

 Selym wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:

rowboatjellyfanxiii wrote:
Codex: Spess Mahreens say there's one for every crusade, each crusade is equivalent to a company, BT have roughly 3000 marines and ONE Champ arises each century or so. A Black Sword and Armour of faith goes with each crusade.

Probably 10 BS/AOF sets floating around.

No they don't. Black Templars are only slightly over Codex, something around 1,200 to 1,500.

The C:SM claims that they are around 1,000 and C:BT claims they could be up to 5-6,000.
I've never seen anything that says an EC is once-per-century, though.

And C:BT and the information in it has been made irrelevant by two new Codices made for the BT's. GW has been changing their fluff so they're only slightly larger than codex for a while now.

Can we make GW's unhealthy obsession with the Codex non-cannon now?

This is one of those times i'm gonna say the codex is wrong and BT's are just hard to count so the idiot that wrote that bit about numbers just didn't know of the other 4-5 thousand Templars because they were to far away and busy crusading

I seem to recall reading that the BT liked to hide their numbers from the Inquisition so as to not kick up a fuss about it.
Maybe this is a sign it worked?

Bah, I don't like that retcon - I always thought one of the defining characteristics of the Black Templars was the holier-than-thou attitude that leads them to flout the codex rules.

Thems was good fluff.

"We expand the Empire, what are you lot all doing?" - BT to Codex Adherence

 Selym wrote:
Thems was good fluff.

"We expand the Empire, what are you lot all doing?" - BT to Codex Adherence

Well how do they know how many there is, spin off crusades, lost crusades and such.
5000+ could be true just very widespread.

I like to think that all crusades are ordered that if they lose contact with all other crusades, they must assume they are the only Templars left, and must repopulate.

That would be hilarious. Every so often, they all regroup at Terra so that Helbrecht can take stock, only to realise that the numbers have gone out of control, and sixteen different Inquisitors are chasing various groups of Templars

and at Inquisition HQ, Ok lets get this straight your all following them, you all have cases and all want to be hered at once,,,,,


someone pass the caffine, and make it strong its going to be a long day.....

I've always liked the fluff that the armour of faith and black sword isn't a specific weapon/design. I was in the past thinking of making a black templar army with a 'knights of the round' display model set, of 12 different champions with different weapon configurations. Axes, maces, spears etc... Then each with a different armour style/set. The mace guy would be in heavy gothic style armour etc.

 Selym wrote:
I seem to recall reading that the BT liked to hide their numbers from the Inquisition so as to not kick up a fuss about it.
Maybe this is a sign it worked?

No it isn't. Guy Haley even stated that it was GW's stooges who stated they were changing the Black Templar's numbers to make them appear more powerful than before. Black Templars having over three thousand Astartes is gone, just like how the Space Wolves are an abnormally large Chapter. The closest thing to ye olde Legions is the Dark Angels, although they never actually gather their numbers together for a single push.

 Wyzilla wrote:

 Selym wrote:
I seem to recall reading that the BT liked to hide their numbers from the Inquisition so as to not kick up a fuss about it.
Maybe this is a sign it worked?

No it isn't. Guy Haley even stated that it was GW's stooges who stated they were changing the Black Templar's numbers to make them appear more powerful than before. Black Templars having over three thousand Astartes is gone, just like how the Space Wolves are an abnormally large Chapter. The closest thing to ye olde Legions is the Dark Angels, although they never actually gather their numbers together for a single push.

Well, to be fair, DA is the most codex compliant chapter ever.
Except for the whole Ravenwing, Deathwing thing but they still follow the spirit of the law.
They just maintain a disturbingly close relationship with ALL of their successor chapters.
That plus the secrets and the fact that nobody can even get a hold of them when they need them doesn't really help.

I always preferred the 6000+ numbers for the templars.
3000+/1,200-1500 feels like they just nerfed BT cause they didn't want to take away the shine from certain other, far less interesting chapters.

 Mantorok wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:

 Selym wrote:
I seem to recall reading that the BT liked to hide their numbers from the Inquisition so as to not kick up a fuss about it.
Maybe this is a sign it worked?

No it isn't. Guy Haley even stated that it was GW's stooges who stated they were changing the Black Templar's numbers to make them appear more powerful than before. Black Templars having over three thousand Astartes is gone, just like how the Space Wolves are an abnormally large Chapter. The closest thing to ye olde Legions is the Dark Angels, although they never actually gather their numbers together for a single push.

Well, to be fair, DA is the most codex compliant chapter ever.
Except for the whole Ravenwing, Deathwing thing but they still follow the spirit of the law.
They just maintain a disturbingly close relationship with ALL of their successor chapters.
That plus the secrets and the fact that nobody can even get a hold of them when they need them doesn't really help.

I always preferred the 6000+ numbers for the templars.
3000+/1,200-1500 feels like they just nerfed BT cause they didn't want to take away the shine from certain other, far less interesting chapters.

Actually the reason for the change is to make the Black Templars fit with other space marine fluff. Instead of being Dorrito Marines, they now have apparently launched crusades consisting of a handful of squads yet slaughtered entire hordes of enemies.

 Wyzilla wrote:

Actually the reason for the change is to make the Black Templars fit with other space marine fluff. Instead of being Dorrito Marines, they now have apparently launched crusades consisting of a handful of squads yet slaughtered entire hordes of enemies.

Okay, see, now I'm torn.
The idea of only a few BT squads raging across the universe, wrecking armies is totally sick.
It makes your BT tabletop army feel like its own crusade, which is awesome.

However, doesn't that mess with the fluff surrounding Armageddon?
It lessens the impact brought by the BT, where 3 crusades only amount to 200 or so marines.

 Mantorok wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:

Actually the reason for the change is to make the Black Templars fit with other space marine fluff. Instead of being Dorrito Marines, they now have apparently launched crusades consisting of a handful of squads yet slaughtered entire hordes of enemies.

Okay, see, now I'm torn.
The idea of only a few BT squads raging across the universe, wrecking armies is totally sick.
It makes your BT tabletop army feel like its own crusade, which is awesome.

However, doesn't that mess with the fluff surrounding Armageddon?
It lessens the impact brought by the BT, where 3 crusades only amount to 200 or so marines.

-shrug-

It just means GW wants to spank the Black Templars maybe even further than the typical Astartes Chapter. "Look at us, we're so powerful only two hundred of us changed the course of the war".

 Wyzilla wrote:

 Mantorok wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:

Actually the reason for the change is to make the Black Templars fit with other space marine fluff. Instead of being Dorrito Marines, they now have apparently launched crusades consisting of a handful of squads yet slaughtered entire hordes of enemies.

Okay, see, now I'm torn.
The idea of only a few BT squads raging across the universe, wrecking armies is totally sick.
It makes your BT tabletop army feel like its own crusade, which is awesome.

However, doesn't that mess with the fluff surrounding Armageddon?
It lessens the impact brought by the BT, where 3 crusades only amount to 200 or so marines.

-shrug-

It just means GW wants to spank the Black Templars maybe even further than the typical Astartes Chapter. "Look at us, we're so powerful only two hundred of us changed the course of the war".

It is at this point that I can't tell if the intention was "Look at those Templars, doing badass stuff with just a few marines", or "Tha Codeks Astartes is tha bestest thing evar! It even made the Templars do stuff!"