Having looked over the physical aspects of the changes to the Black Templars, I'd have to say that the units came out about like I expected, which was a bit short of what should have happened. Mainly, ignoring the fluff aspects, it was to the good as far as cost of units, wargear options, etc.
1) It surprised me how many people on the Internet, even non-Black Templar players, agreed that rerolls to hit in CC should have been have been standard for all Black Templar models.
2) Expected fail on GW's part to correct the cost of the plasma pistol. Seriously, it was pegged at 15 points back when you could use it in CC (and it would be darn well worth it) for its S/AP. For the last two editions, it should have been dropped down to a more reasonable 10 points at the very least.
3) Keeping the ability to have a special & heavy weapon in a 5-man squad was a little surprise, the plasmagun going up to 15 points was not. The increase in PW/PF costs was also expected.
4) I think Marshal Laeroth is correct. By RAW, if you upgrade one Initiate to Sword Brother, then you can only have 9 Neophytes from the phrasing. I don't think that is the intention, but there it is.
5) As expected, no price break on the LRC, but the LRR does get a little break. The LRC should have shared that break, and I would have called it down to 225 each for base costs. GW missed the boat on not giving Black Templars a benefit to being the discoverers/inventors of the LRC by giving Crusader squads (+ICs) that total 16 models a serious price break on the LRC, say down to 175. "Oh you can take LRCs in your troop choices, that rocks soooo hard.", just doesn't cut it when it is still the same price as anyone else pays. Pretty much any Marine group can take some LRCs and shove troops into them by giving up HS choices. Sure, they lose HS slots, but at those prices who can afford much other HS for those slots or need more than 2-3 anyway?
6) Sword Brethren units becoming equivalent to Sternguard/Vanguard was expected and not a bad thing if GW had intended to be honest about upgrading the Templars while saving some effort by placing them in the same book.
7) The EC pretty much...stinks. Not bad, but overpriced.
Given the changes to fluff, the spurious "chapter tactics" and the fact that the above, where it is good, is all the good there is...GW drives yet another person away. I was chatting with my FLGS manager yesterday and after he thought about it, the few "serious" players they have left drop about $500 with each codex release, plus a bit from others who have that army. The owner (manager of the second store) is already discussing what to replace their GW product wall with because of declining sales overall. So the manager was happy to talk about me filling an empty game table on 40k game days with something else that others might want to start buying.
1) It surprised me how many people on the Internet, even non-Black Templar players, agreed that rerolls to hit in CC should have been have been standard for all Black Templar models.
2) Expected fail on GW's part to correct the cost of the plasma pistol. Seriously, it was pegged at 15 points back when you could use it in CC (and it would be darn well worth it) for its S/AP. For the last two editions, it should have been dropped down to a more reasonable 10 points at the very least.
3) Keeping the ability to have a special & heavy weapon in a 5-man squad was a little surprise, the plasmagun going up to 15 points was not. The increase in PW/PF costs was also expected.
4) I think Marshal Laeroth is correct. By RAW, if you upgrade one Initiate to Sword Brother, then you can only have 9 Neophytes from the phrasing. I don't think that is the intention, but there it is.
5) As expected, no price break on the LRC, but the LRR does get a little break. The LRC should have shared that break, and I would have called it down to 225 each for base costs. GW missed the boat on not giving Black Templars a benefit to being the discoverers/inventors of the LRC by giving Crusader squads (+ICs) that total 16 models a serious price break on the LRC, say down to 175. "Oh you can take LRCs in your troop choices, that rocks soooo hard.", just doesn't cut it when it is still the same price as anyone else pays. Pretty much any Marine group can take some LRCs and shove troops into them by giving up HS choices. Sure, they lose HS slots, but at those prices who can afford much other HS for those slots or need more than 2-3 anyway?
6) Sword Brethren units becoming equivalent to Sternguard/Vanguard was expected and not a bad thing if GW had intended to be honest about upgrading the Templars while saving some effort by placing them in the same book.
7) The EC pretty much...stinks. Not bad, but overpriced.
Given the changes to fluff, the spurious "chapter tactics" and the fact that the above, where it is good, is all the good there is...GW drives yet another person away. I was chatting with my FLGS manager yesterday and after he thought about it, the few "serious" players they have left drop about $500 with each codex release, plus a bit from others who have that army. The owner (manager of the second store) is already discussing what to replace their GW product wall with because of declining sales overall. So the manager was happy to talk about me filling an empty game table on 40k game days with something else that others might want to start buying.
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