Black Templars

The Black Templars are a Second Founding chapter derived from the Imperial Fists and their primarch, Rogal Dorn. Since this time, the Black Templars have been on the greatest and longest crusade the Imperium has ever known to prove their loyalty to the Emperor.

During Horus's attack on the Emperor's Palace, Rogal Dorn chose Sigismund as the Emperor's Champion, and Sigismund was given the best armour and weapons. He went forward to challenge the traitorous leaders in single combat, and triumphed over all he met on battle. After the Horus Heresy and the breakdown of the Imperial Fists into Codex chapters, Sigismund led the more zealous of the Imperial Fists as the Black Templar chapter and was elevated to the rank of first High Marshal of the Black Templars.

Black Templars place great emphasis on close combat prowess and honor. As such they can often be seen charging into suicidal situations to avenge fallen comrades, but this does not dispel the fact that such tactics indeed prove effective. By their doctrine, they abhor the traitor, the alien and the mutant. The latter trait means that Black Templars stand apart from most other chapters by eliminating Librarians from their organisation. The reason for this is that Librarians are psykers, and psykers are considered a mutant trait that must be kept apart from potential influence during battle. However, Black Templars do use non-combat psykers in other tasks that do not directly involve combat. These include Astropaths and Navigators.

Black Templar Marines set themselves apart from standard Codex doctrine by including neophytes in squads of fully initiated Marines to help teach them the ways of battle and the art of combat. Black Templars designed the Land Raider Crusader and were the first Space Marine chapter make use of it. Fitted with twin-linked assault cannons, Hurricane-pattern bolters (6 bolters linked to fire simultaneously) and a Multi-melta. The sponson mounted Hurricane-pattern bolters replace the lascannons normally found in standard Land Raiders and the subsequent removal of generators required to power the lascannons allow for greater capacity to hold larger Black Templar squads.

The Black Templars are also notorious for defying Codex doctrine that states that a chapter may only number 1000 battle brothers. This is partly due to the divided nature of the chapter, being spread out everywhere (similar to the Space Wolves on separate crusades and no one has thus been able to keep track of their exact numbers. However, it has been estimated that there may be several thousand Black Templars spread out around the galaxy - a force all but unstoppable if gathered at one place.