I just got off a Space Marine high on stream, and man, I’m excited to write about the Emperors favorite boys. Except, these aren’t them. It’s Black Templar day!

The new detachment is all about infantry and mounted units. The detachment rule is called Zealous Litanies and lets you pick one of three Litanies to be active for mounted and infantry units in your army in the command phase. You can pick the same one repeatedly.

They are:

• Chorus of Relentless Hate: Add +2 Move and +1 Advance rolls
• Rite of Perfervid Wrath: +1 melee weapon strength
• Chant of Deathless Devotion: 5+ Invulnerable against ranged attacks

The idea of marines moving 8″ makes my heart warm and also very upset as 6 max sized Crusader Squads bum rush me.

Hell yeah. This is cool.

Enhancements

The enhancements are as simple as you’d expect a Black Templar army to be. Single minded: Go fast, eat ass, here’s a thousand dice. These either help you reach combat, hit harder in combat, disrupt combat, or some combination of that. They’re good.

Pyrebrand gives your unit stealth for 25 points. Stealth on a big blob of buddies has never been a bad thing. That’s a LOT of wounds to chew through and -1 won’t make it easy. Pretty exciting. A

Sacred Rage is a kick ass name and gives you a once per battle fight first for 30 points. It only takes one of these to make your opponent think twice before charging you. A+

Taramond’s Censer makes every enemy unit in engagement range of the bearer’s unit make a battle-shock at -1. This is fine. You can touch a lot of enemy units with the massive blobs this wants you to run. I don’t hate it, especially for 15 points. Throw it on some Reivers, might be super funny. B

Benediction of Fury: Give devastating wounds to a Chaplain model. For only 10 points, you find a way to fit this into your lists. Sometimes it’s that little bump you need. A

Stratagems

The stratagems are all like, crazy good? Out of nowhere? I’ll talk more about this in the final thoughts section.

Fuelled By Faith is a 5+ feel no paint against mortals. Armor of Contempt is here too. You know how I feel about them by now. Good in the right circumstances.

Castigate The Demagogues gives your unit precision. Holy shit. This is wild to put on a full squad. I don’t know what else to say beside holy shit. S+

Brute Fervour lets you re-roll 1’s to hit and ignore modifiers to weapon skill, hit rolls and wound rolls in the fight phase. Sometimes you need to say “Uhm, No. I am not -1 to wound.” A+

Relentless Momentum lets you fight within 3″ while in engagement range instead of having to be within an inch or base touch a guy whose base touching. More models can fight? In a melee army? Are you understanding how sick this is? A+

Voice of Devotion lets you give a different Litany to select unit the command phase. They don’t get both. This is just generically good. Sometimes you only need 1 unit to have the +1 strength bonus. I like it, and captains make this free, so. A+

Final Thoughts

Notice we have no expert this week. Message me if you know someone.

Anyways.

I’ve been hearing how this detachment isn’t good?

If you’re the person saying this, please answer my one question.

Are you fucked?

This is like, just generically so good dude. A lot of fun tools, cool flavor, and a lack of complexity in a way that benefits you.

Is it better than the index detachment? Probably not. But not by much? I’m really into this detachment and you should be too. I’ve decided that for you. I could talk about this all day.

I love it.

Please play it.

Tomorrows World Eaters. My discord has a bet for what the “Flow of Magic” ability is going to be called for them.

My guess is Flow of Testicular Torsion. Let me know your guess.