Editing Black Templars (section)

==About the Black Templars==
[[Image:Blacktempbeinbadass.jpg|thumb|left|"I came here to Purge Heretics and pray in chapels of the Emperor. And I don't see any Chapels."]]

The Black Templars have their origins date back to the first company of the [[Great Crusade]]-Era Imperial Fists, a group originally known as the [[Templar Brethren]]. They wore all-black armor and had black crosses on their right pauldron and shields. they were sworn to protect the Temple of Oaths (OK, the reality is that [[Forge World]] wanted to justify including Black Templars into [[Horus Heresy]]. They're really more Templar than Imperial Fist at this point already). Their Commander and First Captain of the Imperial Fists, [[Sigismund]], started the tradition of the Emperor's Champion, in which a Templar would challenge the enemy's champions to single combat. The Black Templar mentality was born during the [[Siege of Terra]], when Rogal Dorn allowed Sigismund to unleash himself in utter silence. After the Heresy had ended and [[Roboute Guilliman]] called for the [[Second Founding]], Sigismund took his Templar Brethren to found the Black Templars during which Dorn, gift the new chapter a Tier VIII ocean war cruiser, Cross of Dorn.

They express their [[Rage|fury]] through burning [[Codex Astartes|heretical texts]] (as kindling for the actual heretics), pwning [[furry|mutants]], [[Angry Marines|and skull fucking aliens]]. But you might say, "Isn't that what every other Spess Mehreen chapter does?" Well you'd be right, but they are the most proactive about it. While other chapters spend their time in cozy Fortress-Monastaries, sitting on giant reliquaries, and sending their lavish meal requests to serfs, the Black Templars take a slightly different approach to [[/tg/ Gets Shit Done|getting shit done]]. You'd be hard pressed to find any inactive Templars (except for [[Tankred]]), as they're typically too busy [[RIP AND TEAR|murdering things]], [[Chaplain|encouraging their brothers to murder things]], [[Marshal|or organizing murder from orbit]]. Celebrations on finishing one Crusade involve declaring a new Crusade, recruits are taken from all the planets they've been on then sent to join the fighting so that they never have to slow down and they usually fight by zerg rushing their enemies with hundreds (and sometimes thousands) of heavily power armoured super humans holding power weapons while screaming a litany of curses at the top of their superhuman lungs. Also unlike other Chapters, they don't have scout teams, as they think they're not righteously angry enough. Instead all new Neophytes (read: meatshields) are given some crap and schooled in the field by a fully appointed Marine (called an "Initiate").

The foundation of Black Templar tactics are based on Sigismund's <s>anger management issues</s> teachings rather than Rowboat Gorillman's stupid book. This involves a bias for close-quarters combat (since the best way to make sure your enemy is well and truly dead is to skullfuck him with a chainsword), and a focus on duelling and honour-bound vengeance for the fallen. To quote the 4E Codex: "In battle, the Black Templars continue to fight in the style of their founder, Sigismund, preferring close combat to ranged warfare. Face-to-face with the enemy, a Black Templar can earn glory and respect and be sure that his foe is truly vanquished, fighting with righteous fury and the noblest ideals of honour. This is further emphasized by the fanaticism of Black Templars battle brothers, whose righteous anger makes them loath to retreat before an enemy. They will drive towards the foe relentlessly, their own casualties only serving to spur them on faster, hungry for vengeance on the slayers of their brethren."

The codex also notes that the Black Templars use two specific tactics most often, fairly similar in the broad strokes to how other Space Marines fight. The first tactic is the classical "death from above", where a devastating orbital bombardment is followed by a rain of drop pods and Thunderhawks, aimed to destroy vital targets. The other tactic is referred to as the "armoured spearhead", used if the Black Templars can land heavy equipment. Then they'll use bikes and Land Speeders to range and launch probing assaults, finding them smashing through the weakest spot in the enemy defences with Land Raiders, Rhinos, Predators and Vindicators. These columns will then slash left and right, eliminating and quite likely encircling individual enemy strongpoints until nothing is left.

The Black Templars are '''THE''' largest loyalist ([[Derp|"codex following"]]) chapter, estimated to have at least over two thousand marines in their ranks. This is primarily because the Black Templars sometimes split their crusade fleets to achive different campaign goals and they're scattered throughout the galaxy so the correct number of Templars in active service is only known by [[Helbrecht]], himself High Marshal of the Black Templars. Unfortunately, they're unwilling to fight beside psykers except for Grey Knights, they got all buddy-buddy with them fairly quickly, enough so that they willingly shared the STCs for the [[Land Raider|Land Raider Crusader]] with them, mind-wipes not withstanding of course. They also have a fondness for holy worlds, making with all haste to prioritize their defence before anything else.

They are descended from the [[Imperial Fists]], but obviously got more of Dorn's angry [[Gene Seed|splooge]] than his [[Imperial Fists|patient splooge]]. They sometimes get to wear cool Crusader helms, which are at least ten times as [[Awesome|awesome]] as the [[beakie]]s' Corvus helms.

The new Space Marines codex has changed several things about the chapter. It now states they [[Red Scorpions|worship the Emperor]] [[Fire Angels|as a God]] like the larger Imperium and they [[Adulators|have close ties with the Ecclesiarchy]]. This also makes them good friends with the [[Sisters of Battle]], whom they regularly team up with and have several alliances with. Emperor pity the heretics who have to face both of these groups of zealous nutters at once.

Alternatively, you could choose to ignore the fluff in the new codex that says that they worship the Emperor, as it is wrong and demonstrates a clear Ward-like level of disregard for previous (and better) fluff as it also says that out of all Astartes chapters, only the Black Templars worship the Emperor. This contradicts several novels that say the chapters they revolve around worship him. The first that come to mind are James Swallows series on the Blood Angels. THEN there's the fact that Grimaldus, the Black Templars' High Chaplain (you know, guy who knows better than anyone else what they believe), said that they DO NOT worship him in ADB's sequel to Helsreach, Blood and Fire.

Besides, GW itself consistently holds that Space Marines do not worship the Emperor. GW lore even goes into details explaining that the Imperium accepts it as a quirk due to them being so physically and spiritually close to him that he only ''seems'' less divine to the Space Marines. The Inquisition and Ecclesiarchy don't like it, though. So, we have GW say "everything is canon" (In a multiple layers of reality due to Warp fuckery sort of way) and we have GW ''also'' saying that Space Marines do not worship the Emperor. Since they ''own'' Warhammer 40,000 we can safely say that Space Marines not worshiping the Emperor is the norm but there might be exceptions, a prominent example being the Blood Ravens from Dawn of War.

With the advent of the new Black Templar codex supplement, the Emprah worship seems to have been worked pretty well into their lore.

Regardless, they're utterly fanatical in enforcing the Emperor's will. Not what the Ecclesiarchy or Imperial Senate claims is his will, but his actual will. They refuse to work with (and often butcher) psykers because the Emperor said psykers and sorcery were no-nos. Logically, this means they would also respect his decree not to worship him and that he is not a god. [[Fail|The Black Templars were a Second Founding Chapter, so they would be fully aware of that.]] This was later retconned to specify that they only hate unsanctioned psykers as sanctioned psykers have the Emperor's approval. Even though technically only astropaths and Navigators do. Oh, and Grey Knights at the last second.

As a curious aside, the Chapter's "fuck the man" policy has lead them to collect some odd friends. They are the only known allies for a few chapters, including the [[Celestial Lions]], [[Libators]], and [[Star Phantoms]]. This is also reflected by their largely independent attitude regarding anything. During the Great Apostasy, the Templars led the attack on the Imperial Palace to arrest Goge Vandire.

In regards to the introduction of the new Primaris Marines Helbrecht was surprisingly open to them, ultimately seeing their value (They probably showed him pictures of The [[Bladeguard Veteran|Bladeguard Veterans]]) and even creating new crusades for the Primaris Greyshields. However some Marshals in the Chapter saw them as borderline heresy and loathe them to no end. One chaplain and a band of like-minded marines in the Angevin Crusade took this hatred to its logical conclusion by killing the entire Torchbearer Fleet (albeit at great cost and nearly breaking the crusader host as a whole). This includes all the Primaris Marines, [[Heresy|the Custodes escort]], any Marine who voted against such an action, and Marshal Angevin himself! They justified this by saying the Primaris were Cawl's creations and thus impure, meaning anyone who supported them was a heretic (even the Custodes and Guilliman). Let it be known that with enough blind zealotry, the Templars can damn near kill anything. Ultimately an investigation was ordered by Guilliman himself lead by an Imperial Fists Primaris who ultimately defeated the offending Castellan in combat and led the remains of the crusader host against the Word Bearers, of which only a single Neophyte survived (who in fact saved Guilliman's representative from the last of offending crusades Chaplain's after he tried to kill him for discovering what his comrades had done). For the sake of unity he kept the secret to himself as all the guilty were dead anyway but does show that while constantly valorized in most depictions of the Black Templars, their blind zealotry can be a real problem when its not being pointed at the right target and something Guilliman will have to keep an eye on in the future.

To play devil's advocate, there's a world of difference between obeying the Emperor's word and obeying what someone else says is the Emperor's word, especially when the Custodes have been hands-off for 10 millennia and not even Primarchs have been immune to treason and Heresy in the past. For the record, despite Cawl being the part of the Astartes/Primarch project (or not, since he was just a minor Tech-priest at the time of Heresy and GW had to invent some mighty bullshit to play around it), it is not the same as him having permission to do whatever. He does thanks to GW shilling him to the max, but in-universe it isn't crazy of individual marine units, entire chapters or the [[Adeptus Mechanicus]] as a whole to have suspicions.

On a side note apparently the Black Templars have a particularly high success rate in crossing the Rubicon Primaris. No one knows if it's due to divine intervention from the Emperor or maybe they're just too stubborn to die. Hell, the [[Death Spectres]] chapter literally die and will themselves back to life as part of becoming a Space Marine, so it is absolutely possible for the Black Templars.

From this page, especially their accomplishments, you might think they're better than everyone at what everyone else tries to do. You'd be right. But nobody has a problem with that because they're absolute badasses full of righteous anger for the Emprah. They are one of the only Chapters who fights like a mass-produced version of the Thunder Warriors would be expected to do: melee, basic tactics, and letting their armor and rapid support vehicles handle the rest. Instead of roleplaying as power armored Guardsmen like almost every other Chapter is obsessed with doing.

It's also worth mentioning that they succeed at a far larger expenditure of life. Remember that the Chapter is speculated to be somewhere close to five or six times the size of a codex compliant chapter. Then, recall that all of these marines are divided into three forces, consisting of multiple companies, each of which is wholly focused on one task, as opposed to a typical chapter's ten companies, which are usually focused on different tasks. Think about each crusade as its own chapter, that is constantly crusading at chapter strength (their numbers are unknown but logically are massive as they keep growing despite constantly crusading, but "massive" is relative with Space Marine numbers), with several companies all dedicated to doing one thing, compared to a standard chapter that divides many things between ten groups of roughly 100 marines.