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Black Templars

2022-03-11T05:55:46Z

2607:FB90:381E:E17E:273A:BE40:C0F8:31F9: Undo revision 815273 by 2601:443:480:5DC0:0:0:0:C46C (talk) See the codex expansion. This information is accurate.

{{Infobox Spess Mahreen Chapter
|Name = Black Templars
|Heraldry = [[File:Blacktemplarslogo.png|250px]]
|Battle Cry = "No pity! No remorse! No fear!"
|Number =
|Founding = [[Second Founding]]
|Successors of = [[Imperial Fists]]
|Successor Chapters =
|Chapter Master = [[Helbrecht]]
|Primarch = [[Rogal Dorn]]
|Homeworld = ''[[Gloriana-class Battleship|Eternal Crusader]]'' (fleet-based)
|Specialty = Assault, close combat, cosplaying as neo-medieval Templar/Teutonic knights, anger
|Strength = Somewhere between one to six thousand if not more (Reports about their crusades are unsure and GW changes the number on a whim), likely the biggest chapter
|Allegiance = [[Imperium of Man]]
|Colours = Black with white [[Pauldrons|shoulder pads]]
}}
{{awesome}}

{{Topquote|I have dug my grave in this place and I will either triumph or I will die!|Reclusiarch Grimaldus, Hero of Helsreach}}

{{Topquote|WHERE IS YOUR GOD? OH YEAH, HE'S WITH ME NOW!!|Rare Black Templar war cry/motto}}

The '''Black Templars,''' also known as '''Absolute Lunatics''' (by Rogal Dorn), are a [[Second Founding]] [[Space Marine Chapter]] of the [[Imperial Fists]]. These [[Space Marines|Space Marines]] are as manly as the [[Manly Marines]] and as angry as the [[Angry Marines]]. They make a hobby of dressing up as the Knights Hospitaller and trolling the Inquisition with their larger-than-Codex-approved numbers. They're righteously angry for the [[God-Emperor of Mankind|Emperor]], they're usually close combat focused and their idea of a charge is a giant zerg rush of a hundred angry Crusaders who won't hesitate to skullfuck the nearest alien/mutant/heretic with their [[power weapon|power sword]] just because they look funny. [[Rip and Tear|Although they don't need swords that much...]]

The Black Templars and their iconography are of a mixture of the Knights Templar, Teutonic Knights and the Knights Hospitaller. Basically if you need someone's shit pushed in hard by a power armored fist, these are the guys you call.

Quite possibly the only Astartes heretics genuinely fear. Like "literally shat and pissed myself" fear. This fear is extended to Imperial allies, who the Templars have no problem weeding out those they see as weak in strength or faith with a polite bolt round to the head. So yeah, even the Imperium is afraid of these guys. Kinda explains why everyone in Helsreach was only moments away from shitting their pants every time they spoke to one of the Astartes.
As of 9th edition they are said to be heading [[Rip and Tear|towards the Octarius clusterfuck as well.]]

==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 in 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, and 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.

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, 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 worship the Emperor as a God like the larger Imperium and they 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.

<s>Shame the newer fluff decanonizes the old, but advancement is advancement.</s> Games Workshop says ''everything is canon'' so the debate is pointless. 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.

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.]]

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 Apostasty, the Templars led the attack on the Imperial Palace to arrest Goge Vandire. It is also hilariously been confirmed that while Helbrecht is a fucking pussy and just accepts Primary-sues, some Marshals in the Chapter see them as [[Awesome|borderline heresy and loathe them to no end.]]

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.

==Accomplishments==
[[File:Black-templar-shielding-guardsman.jpg|450px|thumb|right|[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JU2oDhff-kw "They are my bulwark against the terror"].]]
*Vowing to go on an Eternal Crusade as part of their deal during the Second Founding and [[awesome|keeping it going non-stop for 10,000 years without getting killed or so diminished they had to settle down to rebuild!]] (Which is a really impressive feat even for superhuman Astartes.) Although the [[Horus Heresy]] novels have revealed that Sigismund didn't start this voluntarily, he was ''exiled'' by [[Rogal Dorn]], and a lot of their more notable traits - like their absolute hatred of psykers - stems from Sigismund's [[butthurt]] over how he got exiled in the first place.
*Not forgetting about the Chaos Space Marines who fled into the Eye of Terror. When Abaddon and company first busted back out of the Eye of Terror, Sigismund was up in their business within the hour. And he nearly killed Abaddon and lost for bullshit reasons. Even so, the Chaos Marines had such deep respect for him that they returned his body and wargear totally unharmed.
*Taking back a hundred planets that were stolen by the [[Tau|blue space socialists]] after the Ultramarines realized the Tyranids were heading their way and prioritized stopping the all-devouring bugs over the bluies.
*Killing an alien psyker and accidentally blowing out ten billion astropaths in the process, <del>[[Derp|oops]]</del> [[Just As Planned|just as planned]]. To be fair, said psyker was too powerful to let live and the Black Templars didn’t know its power would explode (which implies this was not normal for psykers).
*Wiping out countless alien species and actually sparing one alien species that was worshiping "The Voice of the Emperor" when they got there. They only destroyed their temples just in case this voice wasn't [[Emperor|talking about who they thought it was.]] We can assume they spread some sort of teaching of Emperor-worship and possibly supervised the creation of new temples to the Emperor just to be sure. Or they were total dicks about it.
*Successfully capturing [[Cypher]]! Then they were [[Fallen_Angels#Ophidium_Gulf_Crusade_incident|forced at gunpoint to hand him off]] to the Dark Angels chapter [[Just As Planned|where he almost immediately escapes.]]
*The Second Siege of Terra! When some crazy ass High Lord of Terra named Goge Vandire [[Age of Apostasy|usurped all power in Imperium]], thinking that he can do everything he wants, he wiped out some Templar fortresses with orbital strikes and when they found out they got all righteous angry! Assisting '''[[Sebastian Thor]]''', the Templars gather around a thousand Crusaders and along with some other Chapters as well as the Martian techno-guard; the Black Templars, with all fury, wage a frakkin' second siege of Terra!

==Keeps==
As the Black Templars are too busy being useful, they feel no need to have a permanent Chapter monastery. Instead, they will throw a keep on every few worlds they pass by, they ''are'' Imperial Fist successors after all. In fairness, their flagship the ''Eternal Crusader'' is a gloriana class battleship. you know, the same class the Emperor Himself used as His flagship, so they don't really need a base beyond that.

Some fans have speculated that because of this, combined that they have been doing this for 10000 years, the Templars could have fuckhuge numbers of Marines. This is a retarded joke started by TTS that makes no sense. Not every Keep is staffed at all times. The 9th edition Supplement makes this fact abundantly clear.

When Keeps are staffed, they are commanded by a Castellan, who is responsible for the upkeep and defense of said Keep. He is also responsible for the recruitment of Aspirants into the chapter, who go through some of the most intense training of perhaps any chapter. By which we mean they are forced to fight each other, walk through traps in the dark, and throw their arm into a blazing fire while reciting fucking scripture, all while being [[Grimdark|indoctrinated into complete and unquestioning loyalty to "the will of the Emperor".]] Yeah, the Templars are absolute lunatics.

But how does one become an aspirant? It generally depends on the location of the Keep. On Death worlds, an aspirant might fill the back of some dangerous beast with swords and bring an offering. On other worlds, prospective warriors might be press ganged, or even kidnapped into service. Just to remind you that ADB's interpretation of the Black Templars can be full of shit.

To add further insult to Injury, the Templar's keeps serve no purpose defensively, or even to improve the lives of the people on the planet. They serve only the Black Templars interests.

Why no one has called out the Templars for leaving empty fortifications all across the galaxy that any genius could steal for themselves can only be called a miracle.

==Organization==
Since the Imperial Fists told [[Roboute_Guilliman|Papa Smurf]] to go fuck himself and his [[Codex Astartes|Codex]], the Black Templars have an organization different from Codex Chapters. They organize themselves into Fighting Companies, with much of it on the fly. Their ranks and positions include:

*'''[[High Marshal]]''': The Chapter Master of the Black Templars, who decides which Crusades the Black Templars will participate in, without bothering for an okay from the [[High Lords of Terra]]. [[Helbrecht]] serves as the current High Marshal. Interestingly enough, in their original Codex the High Marshal and regular Marshals typically do not go face to face with the enemy (to the point where Helbrecht never actually touched down in the Third War for Armageddon, he stayed in space dictating the orbital battle), [[Reasonable Marines|Marshals and High Marshals prefer to stay back assessing the battlefield]] and advising the various squads through their communicators about where they should strike and shoot to make the most out of their troops. The irony of such a rage-happy rip-and-tear Chapter having a reasonable and intelligent command style is not lost.
*'''[[Marshal]]''': The commander of a Crusade, a Marshal is equivalent to a Captain, they're the ones that lead the individual Crusades. When a Crusade is called and there is no Marshal to lead it a candidate is chosen from among the sword brethren and if the High Marshal thinks he is fit for the task appointed Marshal. There has only ever been one case of a candidate being rejected by the High Marshall. It is from the ranks of the Marshals that the new High Marshal is picked should he fall in battle.
*'''[[Emperor's Champion]]''': Before an undertaking usually during battle preparations, one of the Black Templars may have a vision granted by the Emperor. This knight will be declared by the [[Chaplain]]s to be the Emperor's Champion, as their founder Sigismund was ten millennia ago. He will be given the Black Sword and the Armour of Faith, and serve as an inspiration to the rest of the Crusading host. As with the first Emperor's Champion, Sigismund, it is the sole duty of those who bear the title to seek out and challenge any enemy champion the crusading force meets in battle. If he is killed before his mission is complete it is considered an ill omen indeed, though there is no requirement for ''every'' crusade to actually have one, the 8th edition codex says there is only ever one in the chapter at any given time. It is unknown what happens to the knight who is chosen after the completion of a Crusade as none have been shown to survive long enough for it to matter. Other chapters, most usually Imperial Fist's successors, occasionally have an Emperor's Champion who serves a similar purpose but without the artifacts.
*'''[[Castellan]]''': The lieutenants of the Marshal, a temporary position chosen by the Marshals (one guy cannot be everywhere) and who is a Castellan can vary depending on the current Crusade or even the current battle ([[Reasonable Marines|pick who's best to lead the current fight]]). The Castellans lead the Fighting Companies of a Crusade, and they're also chosen from the Sword Brethren.
*'''Sergeant''': The only Codex rank the Black Templars employ. Also from the Sword Brethren (notice a pattern, yet?).
*'''[[Sword Brethren]]''': Roughly analogous to Veterans in Codex Chapters, Sword Brethren are the senior battle brothers of the Marshal. They also get to use [[Terminator]] armour.
*'''[[Initiate]]s''': Rank and file battle-brothers. Marines (typically Neophytes) dying around them has a beneficial effect on Initiates, making them run harder into enemy gunfire for reasons unknown and oft-speculated upon.
*'''[[Black Templar Neophyte|Neophytes]]''': While most Chapters have their neophytes serve in some sort of recon force, the Black Templars have their new Space Marines join the Crusade at the front lines and hit the ground running. Given that this has worked for ten thousand years, they may be onto something. Every Neophyte is assigned to an Initiate who is to train and tutor them. The Neophyte serves as the apprentice to the Initiate, sort of like Jedi in [[Star Wars]] but the Neophyte gets smacked if they even dare bitch about sand. They are also quite useful to Initiates to use as shields (literally) in battle.

===Chapter Strength===
[[Image:Praykillburn.jpg|400px|thumb|right|It's a lot like this, really.]]
Despite being a Codex Chapter (well, they're a Codex Chapter as of the newest Codex), they basically just cherry pick whatever they want from it. In particular, they're exploiting a loophole in the Codex Astartes that says a Crusading Chapter can go above the limit of 1,000 Marines, because they don't have a Fortress Monastery, a disastrous campaign or Warp mishap could destroy the entire Chapter if not for this stipulation. The Black Templars, however, take this to mean "have as many Marines as you want!" Seeing as they have multiple Crusades at once, they must be the best Marines around. Seeing as every other Crusading Chapter has roughly a thousand Marines (usually less). Guess that's what happens when you genuinely embrace righteous fury and unleash it upon the alien, the mutant, and the heretic.

However, it's not actually clear how many Marines they actually ''have.'' Some [[neckbeards]] (both fanboys and bitter opponents) exaggerate the actual numbers, referring to them as [[First Founding#Legions in 40k|legion strength]] and/or believing that their numbers are figuratively ''without limit'' and end up with ridiculously high guesses. Given the vagaries of in-universe time due to warp phenomena and the inevitable depletion of assets due to the nature of their work, as well as the fact that they have shit record keeping due to a complete lack of [[Librarian]]s, the actual number of active Templars would be in constant flux.

In ''Blood and Fire,'' Grimaldus mentions that they typically have dozens of Crusades going on at any point in time; [[Deathwatch (RPG)|other sources]] tell us that the Black Templars as an entire Chapter actually consist of a total of three '''"primary"''' Crusade fleets from which all other fighting companies are split from and deployed on their own '''"secondary"''' Crusades when necessary. This coincides with the original codex, which said that there were usually no more than three Crusades at any given time but that they can stretch themselves according to necessity, and states that in one exceptional case there were up to fourteen Crusades operating in the Segmentum Solar during the Treachery of Dalmark.

If we were to base the numbers off the estimate in the back of the 4th edition Codex: Black Templars, the deployment map totals greater than 6000 marines, with several of those Crusades routinely exceeding 500 marines. But when you factor in normal redeployment over the years that number isn't very helpful as many of those Crusades were finished by the time others arose. When you consider it like that, [[Blood Angels|many]] [[Minotaurs|other]] [[Dark Angels|chapters]] have deployed en masse over the years and would also generate a similar deployment map. Furthermore, only a handful of Crusades numbered relatively close to one thousand, with only Armageddon passing it, with 1,232 Marines total and even that number was questioned (?) by the author; for this campaign, High Marshal [[Helbrecht]] was said to have mustered three crusades.

So we can either take it as written in the Order of Battle that the three crusades represent the "normal" three crusades and hence the entire chapter, giving us an absolute ''minimum'' of over 1000 marines, or we can assume that the three crusades are not the primary crusades at all, which still doesn't give us much of an indication of the chapter size, leaving us at square one.

To make things even more confusing, each Crusade will be accompanied by a '''Black Sword''' and a set of the Armour of Faith, to be used by the Emperor's Champion. The 4E codex said that every Crusade and fighting company would have its own Champion, but the 6E Codex and the newer novels changed this older fluff and said that there could only be a ''single'' Champion in the entire Chapter at any given time, and that only a handful arise every century. Plus, there are only ten Black Swords in the Chapter and they are held by the Chaplains, just in case they find the Champion within their Crusade. This implies that there can only be ten Crusades active at any one time; hence, if the three Crusades at Armageddon, taken to be around 1,232, are three-tenths of the Chapter's overall size, the Black Templars have around 4,000 marines.

However, the novel ''Eternal Crusader'' flat-out says that the whole Chapter could gather together on the [[Battle-barge|Eternal Crusader]] itself and barely tax the capabilities of the vessel, and that ''"the mere'"'' 200 marines of Helbrecht's Crusade, which constituted one fifth of the Black Templars' total forces, meant that the vessel was mostly empty, making them far more Chapter sized. The book also shows High Marshal Helbrecht purposefully exaggerating the size of his contingent at Armageddon from 400 marines to 900 in order to gain overall command of the Astartes forces that had arrived ''(many Chapters had brought a lot more men than the Templars, and would have had more right to overall command)''. Helbrecht would later leave Armageddon briefly to muster [[A Game of Pretend|"more"]] Black Templars ''(but only bringing the number up to what he promised)'', so it is easy to see how the size of his contingent would be misleading to an outside observer.

The old Codex also suggested somewhere between 5000-6000 ''"if certain accounts are to be believed"'' which places a level of uncertainty on the number, and if you consider the above statement would sound reasonable if you took Helbrecht at his word about the availability to Black Templar soldiers and could easily show how the Administratum has been misled into thinking the Templars are much larger than they actually are. [[Aaron Dembski-Bowden|A-D-B]] also suggested about 6000 in an offhand comment; therefore, it is currently our highest reasonable upper limit without resorting to guesses.

Also, Chapters in general have a habit of seconding Marines to "Honor Companies" which are basically autonomous companies or ones dedicated to certain tasks or seconded to other forces. The Codex allows for an infinite number of honor companies as they aren't within the Chapter's chain of command and are essentially their own miniature Chapter (though probably cannot get their own recruits). Chapters commonly use this to totally circumvent the recruitment restrictions. Which of course means the number of Astartes actually in the galaxy is impossible to know even if every Chapter had exactly a thousand Marines and there were exactly a thousand Chapters there could actually be a quadrillion fuck tons of Marines for all we know.

----
[https://guyhaley.wordpress.com/2014/07/11/im-baaaacccckkk/#comment-5779 The author of ''Eternal Crusader'' later acknowledged on his blog that the Black Templars could have maintained extreme numbers in the past, but that the overall strength of the Chapter was reduced to a thousand (more or less) as result of a corporate decision by GW, not just of the codex authors.] Heresy!

It is perhaps best to repeat the Black Library's own take on the fluff: 40k is in the fucking dark ages and everything written down could be a legend, propaganda, an event that happened, or a rumor based on a real event. Any guess as to the number of Marines in the Black Templars is just that, a guess, and a book offers only the author's point of view, or what he wants you to think, or he himself is a fabrications.

8th Edition still maintains the information confusion over the Black Templar's actual numbers, just like before. While the Imperial Index states that ''"each Black Templars battle-fleet contains thousands of warriors."'' The actual Space Marine Codex states that "''the size of each can vary from several battle-brothers to several hundred"'' and though it also says there is no fixed number of Crusades.

The latest fluff from ''Psychic Awakening: Faith and Fury'' gives the throwaway line that ''"each of the crusades is comprised of thousands of space marines"'' without substantiating how many crusades there actually are. There are are still only nine Black Swords in existence ''(Guilliman destroyed one to defeat Skarbrand during the events of Rise of the Primarch)''. So one could infer that there are anywhere between two and nine crusades at most, and their arrangement can change fluidly, just as mentioned above. Of course, since "thousands" of Astartes per crusade would still mean that at minimum there are four thousand Black Templars in the Chapter as that is the only way for the bare minimum of "crusades" plural and "thousands" for each.

...Not much seems to have changed, fanboys and opponents can believe what they want.

==On Psykers==
{{topquote|WHAT HAVE THE PSYKERS EVER DONE FOR US?!" "Navigation." "What?" "...The navigators are psykers." "Oh, yeah, that's true." "And the astropaths." "Yes, them as well. Warp travel and communications, I'll grant the psykers are pretty good at that." "And the Grey Knights." "WELL OF COURSE the Grey Knights. We'd be in a right mess without them now wouldn't we. But apart from the navigators, astropaths, and grey knights, WHAT HAVE THE PSYKERS EVER DONE FOR US?!|Brother Regulus addressing his squad}}

For most of their history the Black Templars didn't have any Librarians. This was generally thought as a pretty simple fact, they hate all forms of witches. They even have a special rule call "Abhor the Witch". That was until 6th edition when it was more explicitly stated that they had no real compunction against Astropaths and Navigators, since they were the only people who knew how to drive the massive Crusading fleets (pure undadulterated HOLY RAGE!! can't steer a ship through the Warp after all). Of course, this was always true since the BT always accepted those psykers that the Emperor himself had sanctioned (although they watched them closely), which includes Astropaths, Navigators and (surprise, surprise) the Grey Knights. Which invalidates the logic of the following paragraph.

According to the GW apologists, the major difference between their codex and 6E is their opinion on other psykers: In previous works, it was made pretty clear that they wouldn't suffer the witch no matter who they were (except for the aforementioned groups the Emperor sanctioned personally), and as such literally couldn't ally with any other psyker-using force except for the Grey Knights (and even then, it was AoC (Note: "AoC" is a 6th Ed construct)). Come the 6E Codex however, suddenly all their hatred for every psyker was scaled back to merely just being a hatred to all enemy psykers. Some may call this fluff-rape and all that in their neckbearded [[RAGE]], but others realize that setting up tons of restrictions would ultimately serve to cripple the Templars and ultimately just kept things easier by just generalizing it, to say nothing of the fact that the Emperor himself was a psyker. Not to mention the whole organization of sanctioned psykers used by the Imperium. Those guys were permitted to operate by...uh...someone, right? If it was the Imperial Senate, then they speak with the Emperor's voice, so the Black Templars can suck it. If it was literally anyone else with that kind of authority then it would be someone even closer to the Emperor in authority than merely his voice. So, the general hatred of psykers just isn't feasible anyway.

So it was changed. The Black Templars hatred is only towards alien and rogue psykers and that they have great respect for the ones in the fleet (and don't go bugfuck nuts, which is no mean feat for a mortal psyker). So why no Librarians? There are three <s>theories</s> hypothesis in the codex:

*They still enforce the Edict of Nikaea. Considered most likely, given their [[Crunch|special rule]] "Abhor the Witch!"
*A gene-seed defect.
*They lost them during The Howling.

A small part of it likely has to do with their recruiting process. Since they recruit from the worlds they Crusade on, and they spend a decent amount of time purging renegade psykers, there probably aren't any psykers left for them to recruit and they're not likely to recruit Psykers found by somebody else. It still doesn't explain why they've never had a recorded incident of latent Psykers awakening once they've been recruited.

Rather hilariously, the Black Templars are not even certain why they don't have Librarians; because the Librarius usually maintains the records of the chapter, the Templars have allowed their understanding of history to fall into decay. For the time being, they have come to the conclusion that the loss of the Librarius is simply part of the Emperor's grand design, and should he see fit to bless them with Librarians again they would gladly use them.

Given how the Warp (and 40K in general) works as a genuine Clap Your Hands If You Believe setting, it could be that the Black Templar's own hatred of psykers causes any psykers or latent psykers they didn't realize were such to either become non-psykers or simply inactive/latent and remain that way.

To add to all the confusion above, the newest Codex says that the Black Templars flat out hate all psykers, and treat their navigators and Astropaths as little more than dignified slaves, throwing another wrench into the whole fucking situation.

==Notable members==
*''[[Sigismund]]'': First Chapter Master/Soul brother who made the chapter when Dorn broke the Legion up.
*''High Marshal [[Helbrecht]]'': Their current Chapter Master. Gets fucked up by Imotekh the Stormlord who proceeds to take his arm as a trophy. Helbrecht then manages to destroy his entire fucking flagship as retaliation. Currently on <s>a manhunt for [[Ghazghkull Mag Uruk Thraka]] alongside [[Commissar Yarrick]]</s> Crusade to drive Chaos away from some Shrine Worlds.
*''Chaplain [[Grimaldus]]'': THE most badass [[Chaplain]] in the entire Godsdamn Imperium, with the possible exception of [[Lemartes]]. He fought the biggest Ork WAAAGH in history on a very old temple that had relics and artifacts that were sacred to the Imperium. The battle only ended after the temple collapsed and buried every Ork and Marine under the rubble. But since Grimaldus was too badass to die, he crawled out of the temple with a few relics he managed to save. And besides the guy has the word [[Grimdark|grim]] in his fucking name! How can he not be badass? The main caveat about his description is in his depiction in the book Helsreach, featuring Grimaldus' service in Armageddon leading up to his title as "Hero of Helsreach", where we learn he is equally skilled at tantrum-throwing/sulking, as he is kicking lots of ork ass. But to be fair, this isn't the Grimaldus we know and love as first. Helsreach is about him manning up under constant pressure, him finding he has to stop feeling like he has to be his old boss's bitch all the time and learning to be the butch. He does manage to man up and becomes the badass we all know and love (by the end of things, like, the very last second before a cathedral falls on him and knocks him out and not a second sooner). Plus, he had the stones to do it all WITHOUT A [[ROSARIUS]].
*''[[Tankred]]'': He who endures. Also is partial to bitches.
*''High Marshal Ludoldus'': A previous High Marshal notable for having led the Templars during two Crusades that were separated by over 2000 years, specifically the Vinculus Crusade (833.M41) and the Jerulas Crusade (645.M39). Considering that he was already High Marshall by the time of Vinculus, one can only conclude that Ludoldus was FUCKING OLD... and totally blows [[Dante]] out of the water as the guy even has ''old'' in his fucking name. Or you know warp shenanigans.
*''Castellan Draco'': notable role in the Vinculus crusade, notably in killing Inquisitor Lord Vinculus after he got possessed, but not after his own losses; that is, he got buried in rubble after lacing the cult's massive fortress with explosives. For his valiant efforts, he got his lost parts replaced with bionics, a relic suit of armour and Lord Vinculus' sword. Declared Excommunicate Traitoris in IF supplement, becoming the first SM special character with a model who turned traitor in 40k. Well, "turn traitor" according to the Inquisition who just lost a Lord Inquisitor to him and embarrassing the entire Inquisition with such a reveal.
* ''High Marshal Bohemond'': Led the Chapter during the War of the Beast.
* ''Marshal Magneric'' See Tankred above imagine if he was in command of his own Crusade. Unlike most dreadnoughts he still kept his name and rank and rarely slept which made him into a crazy fanatic (and implied to be the source of the religious zeal) spends most of his days hunting his old BFF Warsmith Kalkator until Orks of The Beast showed up.

==Daily Rituals of a Black Templar==
Think [[Angry Marines]] but with less copious cursing.
* 03:50: Morning Call to Prayer: Initiates awaken their respective Neophytes from their comfortable slumber on bare stone floors. This often involves buckets of ice water, vox-casters playing hymns with the volume control knob broken off, or a power armor shod foot up the ass depending on the Initiate in question. Complaints that this awakening occurred ten minutes prior to scheduled reveille are met with readmistration of the waking aid.
* 04:00: Morning Prayer: Neophytes are berated for their perceived failings by their responsible Initiates, who are in turn berated by the Sword Brethren, the Sword Brethren by the Castellans, up to the Marshal who berates the entire Fleet then swears a solemn vow to an icon of the Emperor that they will do better and prove themselves worthy by stabbing heretics in the throat with their swords. Tactics may also be discussed and orders of battle issued, assuming they involve rushing headlong at the enemy.
* 05:00: Morning Firing Rites: The Initiates school their apprentices on the art of shooting xenos in the face while simultaneously swinging a chainsword. This shooting preferably occurs while rushing across the active firing range in order to close with the target and hit it with the bolt pistol if possible.
* 07:00: Morning Battle Practice: Initiates inform their neophytes that if they are done being cowardly whelps they may now avail themselves of a sword with which to stab shit.
* 11:55: Milk and cookies break. Any neophytes stupid enough to drink milk or eat cookies in front of their Initiate gets their meal pushed in their noses and eyeballs respectively. Things get interesting if they dipped their cookies in their milk.
* 12:00: Midday Prayer: Neophytes are told how poorly they did during the morning exercises, any sense of pride or joy is rooted out. The Marshal leads the Fleet in prayer and promises the Emperor they will kill more things even more righteously this afternoon.
* 13:00: Midday Meal: The chapter serfs provide cold cuts for the Brothers' enjoyment. Lunchmeat is usually collected by the serfs following each battle and stored in the ships' freezers. Naturally, Neophytes do not get something to eat yet as the Initiates insult them for even assuming they get to eat. The Neophytes soon learn that the Emperor has a sense of humor when the Initiates are informed that only Sword Brethren on up are allowed to eat.
* 13:15: Tactical Indoctrination: Locations of the vital organs and blood vessels of xenos species that may be encountered on the current Crusade and the weak spots of Daemons are reviewed, occasionally an Initiate will cuff his Neophyte on the back of the head and reiterate "Yes that, you stab that retard." Other tactics may also be discussed as long as they involve inserting blades into things.
* 14:00: Afternoon Battle Practice: Initiates attempt to kill their Neophyte with a power sword. If the Neophyte is not dead in four hours he passes muster.
* 18:00: Evening Firing Rites: Neophytes are instructed in how to operate heavy and specialty weaponry dropped by their responsible Initiate when he abandons it so that he may swing his sword with both hands to better kill shit or is eaten by a monstrous creature which he bravely <s>(read:stupidly)</s> (read:RIGHTEOUSLY) tried to skullfuck in CQC.
* 20:00: Evening Prayer: After short session of critique and berating, the Emperors' Champion leads a sermon about how awesome the [[God-Emperor of Mankind|Emprah]] is and how much He wants them to bifurcate/decapitate the current heretics/mutants/xenos they are fighting with power weapons.
* 21:00: Evening Meal: A feast is served by the chapter serfs. Alcohol and anything that has a pleasant taste will not be consumed as the Emperor looks down on those that enjoy life. No hamburger, no cheeseburgers, no french fries, no milkshakes, no potato chips; you will drink water distilled from the Fleet's waste/reactor AND LIKE IT!
* 21:30: Night-fighting/zero-gravity exercises: Initiates instruct their charges on stabbing things by the glow of a power sword and how to fight in a zero-gravity environment without jump packs (stab foe, use corpse as a springboard to assault another foe, repeat).
* 23:15: Wargear Maintenance: Initiates encourage Neophytes to keep weapons in proper working order with phrases like, "Sharpen your shit you incompetent bastard" as the Emperor reserves great disdain for those that kill heretics with dull blades.
* 23:45: Free time: The Initiate is free to challenge his Neophyte to a short duel. Wounds heal better during sleep anyway.
* 00:00 Rest period: The Initiate sees his Neophyte off to bed, with one last punch to the face to help him fall asleep. The Sword Brethren then punch the Initiates in the face before they retire for rest period.

Note that this constitutes a day off for a Black Templar. A working day will involve 23 hours of rushing monstrous creatures with melee weapons. Neophytes are expected to pull bullet sponge duty so the Initiate is not distracted by little things like enemy gunfire (and that their spilled blood will allow the Initiates to glide on the ground to their enemy faster) as seen here:

===Black Templar Combat Training===
Brother-Initiate Teuton McTemplar: "Neophyte, get your ass over here and hold my Lascannon while I charge that [[Carnifex]] with my Power Fist!"

Neophyte Hans Wolfgang: "But sir I have not yet earned my power armour and a Lascannon weighs 100 kilos..."

Brother-Initiate Teuton McTemplar: "You are going to pick up that spotlight and burn some fucking xenos, and you are going to like it!"

Note: It would be nice if this could happen, but in reality, you can only arm Neophytes with shotguns or bolt pistols with CCWs, though you were able to arm an initiate with both a Lascannon and a Power Fist in their original codex. Hilariously too you could go completely overboard and have one marine armed with a Power fist, three bolt pistols (or two bolt pistols and a bolter), a Chainsword, a Power Weapon, a Heavy Bolter, a Missile Launcher (or a Multi-Melta), a Lascannon, and a Plasma Cannon [[Obliterators|ALL AT THE SAME TIME]] (though while funny is still a terrible thing to put on the battlefield as he can still only fire one per turn, pistols notwithstanding). Talk about a jack of all trades...

==See Also==
*[[Warhammer 40,000/Tactics/Black Templar|Tactics/Black Templar]]
*Their [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lrs9nIITQk| theme] by [[HMKids]].
*Also their [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0TzUNti3rY| theme] by Andrew W.K.
*Their [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WyAEBux88hw| '''ONE TRUE ULTIMATE THEME] by [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqGKtkZ8-MlAeTVL0fFAMnw| StringStorm].
*An [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GaUi8Dv73hA| accurate representation] of their daily lives
*[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUplioG2DC4| The unofficial animated version of Helsreach.]
*Their thoughts on [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrJVZZLv2GE| furfags. ]
*Their continued campaign against the [https://youtu.be/j02V_34PXZg| furfags. ]
*[https://youtu.be/4uqKyofFfm0| The Black Templars deep strike some furries.]
*[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afpn6skCDhA&feature=youtu.be&ab_channel=Flashgitz| Glorious part 2]
*[https://youtu.be/JU2oDhff-kw| Black Templar, also featuring an Inceptor looking awesome and guardsmen holding the line.]

==Gallery==
<gallery>
Image:Templar Terminator.jpg|Actually pretty nice guys, once you get to know them.
Image:1206768954856.jpg|They also like to sing.
Image:howdoipurge.png
Image:bffs.jpg|'''Purging with my Kin!
Image:Imheretopurgehereticsandchewbubblegumandimalloutofbubblegum.jpg|Look at them hips.
Image:Black templar terminator by deadxcross.jpg|When you want to purge as much Heretics and Xenos as possible.
Image:A not so Little Sister by DeadXCross.jpg|They can even inspire zealots of their own.
Image:PURGINGWITHMYKIN.gif|The Black Templars' name does not corelate to the other Second Founding Imperial Fists because [https://youtu.be/0Vh_N8CpcL0?t=1208 they are absolute lunatics]
Image:WH40K_-_Black_Templar.jpg|Impaled with Extreme Prejudice!
</gallery>

{{Black-Templars}}
{{Template:Marines-Official}}

Nazi

2022-03-11T03:07:39Z

2607:FB90:381E:E17E:273A:BE40:C0F8:31F9: Undo revision 815261 by A Walrus (talk) Cope and seethe. We all have been watching your covert edits. You're not clever

{{Topquote|I have in this War a burning private grudge—which would probably make me a better soldier at 49 than I was at 22: against that ruddy little ignoramus Adolf Hitler (for the odd thing about demonic inspiration and impetus is that it in no way enhances the purely intellectual stature: it chiefly affects the mere will). Ruining, perverting, misapplying, and making for ever accursed, that noble northern spirit, a supreme contribution to Europe, which I have ever loved, and tried to present in its true light.|[[J.R.R. Tolkien]], being a boss}}
{{Topquote|1=[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHFtbSZ3KRE YOU UTTER FOOL! GERMAN SCIENCE IS THE FINEST IN ZE WORLD!!!]|2=[[JoJo's Bizarre Adventure|Stroheim, an over the top Nazi and the first Guile]]}}

[[File:Nazi.png|frameless|center]]

[[Image:Nazi uniforms.gif|thumb|right|150px|[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L21dPTqSjpQ God''damn'' it, Nazis! Why are you so fashionable, you ''evil fucking bastards''?!]]]
'''Nazi''' is the commonly used shorthand version of ''Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei'' (National Socialist German Workers' Party), a political party which took over Germany <s>for 1,000 years</s> from 1933 to 1945. It also refers to people who belonged to said party, their ideology, and their regime in Germany during said period of time. Led by Adolf Hitler, the Nazi Party emerged from the uncertainty and political upheaval due to the Red Scare, the end of the German Empire after the Great War, myths, promoted by the army, that the military had been on the cusp of victory before being "stabbed in the back" by the civil government, resentment at unfair conditions imposed by Treaty of Versailles, economic uncertainties due to the Stock Market crash of 1929, German ethnic nationalism, a desire to blame things on scapegoats, and a belief in militarism popular among many returning veterans. They were also aided by their invention of modern campaigning and propaganda, wide-spread dissatisfaction with the status quo, the strategic seizure of the political positions that controlled the police force, the intimidation or murder of political opponents and journalists using glorified street thugs, and more dumb luck than anyone has any right to have, let alone a bunch of genocidal [[Racial Holy War|loons]].

==Overview==
[[File:German_Bratwurst.gif|right|thumb|Historically Accurate(if you consider checzia polish)]]
The Nazis' initial success can be attributed to the image of glorious economic recovery, part of which they accomplished by keeping Germany's economy running during The Great Depression. They presented this to the rest of the world, making many people believe the little mustachioed guy couldn't be that crazy since he'd made his country recover brilliantly in very little time. And while Germany did indeed recover, the whole thing was helped and held upright by [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mefo_bills MEFO bills]: basically a Ponzi scheme that allowed the government to loan money on the sly through a front company about metallurgy research (the ''Metallurgische Forschungsgesellschaft'', or MEFO in short). This allowed them to work at a much higher level of debt flotation than allowed by international regulation, and the idea was to pay back the loans with seized gold and valuables from Jews at first, and then directly from conquered nations after the war went on, since even [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_bond state created debt bonds] are exactly that: debt, credit, which is trust. Eventually the creditor will want something in exchange (or at the very least get his investment back) or the debtor's credibility will be shattered, stopping the money flow.

To give you a clearer idea of what happened: You are defeated and poor, but are fuming for revenge. To keep you down, your victorious neighbors don't lend you a dime to produce guns and make sure your already meager income is only spent on debt and basic necessities. So what do you do? You decide to spend money in the form of credit, raise the debt higher and higher (making the rest of the world believe you are rich), and keep the charade until the debt becomes irrelevant(who needs to pay the creditor he will declare war on?). So you make up a credit card called Mefocard ("MEtallurgische FOrschungsgesellschaft" - Metallurgy R&D sounds civilian and peaceful, so the world markets play along), borrow even more wildly to look opulent, and to create weapons on the sly promise that you'll pay the debt back... Then attempt to kill the lenders and subjugate their families to share the debt you have. It was simply a continent wide, all-or-nothing robbery attempt even wilder than WW1's trench-fighting Imperial duel.

The Ponzi schemes weren't limited to national/corporate level shenanigans, but extended to the German people as well. The famous Beetle was developed to be a cheap family car (hence “volkswagen”, or “people’s car”), and a part of selling the German public on the idea of an idyllic, cheap-but-cheerful family life, along with things like state-sponsored vacation villages. An elaborate layaway scheme allowed average German families to give the government a few Reichsmark a day in exchange for the promise of a new Beetle and a seaside vacation package. However, all that money actually went into rebuilding the German military, and war began before any of the promises had to be delivered on. Because the [[Tzeentch|illusion of a better future and hope is always easier]] than just taxing the population directly. And, lastly, the Holocaust itself was also an important pillar of the German economy, especially when the war started in earnest; Jewish(and other undesirables', particularly Slavic intelligentsia) property and land was being confiscated on a scale never before seen or even thought of in how vast it was, not even their dead bodies were safe. Glasses were taken apart and reused for scopes or similar, hair being used as fabrics for the textile industry, gold teeth molten down by the millions. Massive amounts of gold, hard currency and other valuable things like works of art stolen from Jewish museums, synagogues, households and bank accounts(hence keeping up the Mefo bill's token payments to creditors). They even had to pay for their own transit into the death camps, which would almost be hilarious, if it wasn't so unbelievably evil.

They were also fantastic proponents of lies and propaganda, ranging from race theory (fake archeology was a particular favorite), to manufactured pretexts for war (the trigger for invading Poland was an obvious false-flag operation- something Japan used 2 years previously), to simply overstating their successes. For example, the old line that goes "say what you want about them, but the Nazis/Hitler did make the trains run on time"? They didn't. Train service was as bad or worse under fascist leadership as it had been immediately before their rise to power. But they realized that they only had to ''say'' the trains were running on time, and strongarm anyone inside Germany who dared to publicly disagree. Doubly funny is that it was ''Mussolini'''s Italy that had trains running on time, and even then, it was because of pre-fascism era personnel improving it.

Needless to say, this situation was the reason why the scenario of not waging war (like in Hearts of Iron or some alternate reality stories) simply wasn't a realistic option. Despite their multiple annexations of territory, the Nazis couldn't sustain their charade without the influx of riches, heavy machinery (they stripped Poland to the bone, even grabbing civilian factories' machinery, bolts, nuts and even metallic building materials like Dothraki on meth, of which the latter was true) and material from other conquered territories to pay the MEFO bills. So they soon mobilized their armies and launched a war of expansion on the rest of the world, starting with Poland. (The question is still open among historians as whether they annexed and plundered enough reserves with Czechoslovakia to keep the charade up "peacefully" long enough to let their Red "ally" make the opening move instead, but that's a discussion for another place and time.)

Their goal (next to getting gold and industrial materials to pay the enormous gambling debt of an empire) was to impose their militaristic Social Darwinist ideology across Europe, outlaw any dissenting school of thought, enslave all the "sub-human" Slavs (after starving to death more than half of them to make room for German settlers in accordance to Generalplan Ost and re-branding the young ones with German names), and exterminate any "undesirables" (Jews, Roma, homosexuals, etc) on which they blamed all their problems because they felt that they were superhumans without any flaws. Any problem which they suffered had to be the fault of some subversive "other" from outside who tried to cause the Master Race misery according to a Nazi philosophy of believing all ethnicities are a hivemind loyal to themselves and they all collectively fight over resources, therefore "weaker" races resort to social corruption(LGBT, Porn, discouraging women from reproducing) of the glorious German master race to get ahead of them. But due to some severe strategic fuck ups from Hitler <s>who often overruled his military leadership</s> and his generals (the situation is nuanced; basically there was mutual mistrust and both sides fucked up, but after the war the generals used Hitler as a scapegoat; the history is written by the living), Germany ended up in a three-way war with the Soviet Union (who provided blood), Great Britain (military intelligence, enough naval force projection to strangle all Axis naval trade and pure fucking grit) & the United States (more armaments than you can possibly dream of with an extra helping on top), while their only nearby allies such as Romania (The dudes keeping the European oil fields), Hungary (some light tanks and cavalry) & Italy (...more of a liability than bonus,so...) surrendered during the middle years of the war, and resource-starved Japan could do little more than be a distraction.

While Germany may have had some areas of technological/industrial advantage (at least initially, and this is often overstated), by the end of the war they struggled with the lack of many strategic resources and dislocation of production lines and reverted to some crude and/or outlandish solutions like using potato alcohol for V-2 rockets and meth-filled chocolate bars for Eastern Front troopers (when they decided to use the logistic volume for ammo rather than thick clothes which they '''had''' but decided to workaround with untested drugs-typical Hitlerite solution-). Severely wrong decisions in material designs like "flying wing" aircrafts sans fuselage, multi-charge megacannons and retardedly big tanks that wasted more engineering effort than several divisions of tanks and infantry, along with a chronic shortage of secure oil other than a trickle from Romania, there was no hope of repulsing both the Western Allies and the Soviet Union at the same time; thus the Nazi regime finally met its end when the allies marched into Berlin and Hitler {{*BLAM*}}med himself along with his mad-as-a-hatter common-law wife. While their hate-wagon managed to go far and temporarily overrun most of Europe, it simply had too much war to fight on multiple fronts, a lack of effective strategic planning in the form of Hitler and his cronies, and the fact that most powerful nations of the time opposed them either because they cherished their political freedoms, saw their economies fail, or simply were on the Nazi "to-exterminate" list.

So with all that baggage, how the hell did they manage to conquer most of Europe?

Two words: operational flexibility. Or "knockout artistry", whichever you prefer. In early half of the war, the German military operated on a principle they called "mission tactics" (auftragstaktik). The field commanders were given clear end state goals (such as: secure this location by such and such time), and then given free rein in HOW they accomplished the goal. Left to their own devices, the German commanders in the field were creative and flexible, using everything they had at their disposal and making high risk, high reward maneuvers. They also entered the war with radios in every tank and the best close air support in the world (at the time).

The French and British had stronger tanks, excellent defensive positions, and equivalent numbers, but it didn't matter. The allies were expecting a war where both sides show up and shoot at each other, while the Germans decided that moving fast and causing lines to simply collapse was much easier than actually engaging forces and destroying them. One French general famously spent several days celebrating his promotion to the role of leading the defense, only to finally arrive at his command center and find the Germans one river away from Paris.

The German army did its best work when their commanders were allowed to make the most out of their situation and assets, and only started to suffer when they were micromanaged and squandered in operations that didn't play to their advantages in mobility.

===Wunderkind===

Hate them as much as you like, the Nazis were still Germans, which means they were wicked smart; in essence they min-maxed, putting all their culture points into "pure evil" and "mad genius", with nothing left for common sense. Under the Nazis, German industry developed and produced the first practical axial flow turbine engines and with them the first jets. They built rockets to (then) unheard of sizes able to throw useful masses up to high suborbital altitude; if they'd wanted to, they could have put a man in space almost twenty years before the Russians did. Engineers such as Kurt Tank, Wernher von Braun, Kurt Diebner, and Konrad Zuse were given generous backing to their projects; most German scientists had long careers in their fields after the Reich fell. The industry minister who oversaw these projects was Albert Speer. Speer was an architect and a bit of a futurist mastermind; he was basically a darker version of Walt Disney, willing to overlook the moral failings of Nazism as long as it let him build magnificent, efficient cities.

==Nazi Portrayals in Fiction==

Nazis are portrayed as an over the top wacky military who like leading extermination wars against the Jews (and other people) and build secret bases on the moon, under water, or some other silly place. Their technology is frequently exaggerated with [[Dieselpunk|laser weapons, armored suits, giant robots, walking tanks, and/or Robo-Hitler]]. Some vidya portrayals even goes so far as to put it all together in a big ball of [[LOLWUT]] and add a touch of magical [[Lovecraft]]ian shit because Nazi propaganda had a weird love for the occult.

Varying opinions on the perceived Nazi character allows them to be looked at from varying points of view, developing their character all the more. Take the [[Imperium of Man]], for example, which tends to blend German-fascist iconography with Soviet politics and a Roman-Catholic aesthetic sense. Some will say that the Imperium's a nuthouse since they're willing to allow an Inquisitor to turn an entire hive spire into a towering inferno if he so happens to find a single heretic in{{*BLAM*}} {{BLAM|SPEAKING ILL OF THE IMPERIUM IS EXTRA HERESY.}}

Others will say that the Imperium's just being pragmatic, and such an action is justifiable as the Imperium is constantly beset by merciless foes who will not think twice to bring them down, making their methods for survival cruel but necessary. Which, given the fact that daemons really do exist and can corrupt entire planets in a short amount of time and rape every corrupted soul forever and ever, is pretty justifiable. Even the Imperium's xenophobia is justifiable given how nearly [[Orks|all]] the [[Necrons|major]] [[Tyranids|races]] pretty much want to wipe everyone else out or [[Dark Eldar|enslave them to be tortured to death as sustenance]].

But that doesn't change the fact that these reasons are often just used as an excuse to torture and kill anyone who's even s{{BLAM}}

Funnily enough the idea of Nazi Germany being an advanced, sophisticated war machine has been re-evaluated in recent years to be considered a fictional version of the German army spoken as truth. Closer examination of the war has shown that while advanced tactics and technology were used the actual moment by moment commanding (WITH exceptions of course) wasn't especially fantastic, but relied on one-trick, all or nothing ponies like demoralizing the target country into surrender; it's one thing to knock out France on the brink of communist civil war or roughshod into Poland, taking over Russia another. Plus the same logistic issue that ended up as the Wehrmacht's undoing during the Russian campaign had been happening since day one, the Third Reich thinking that once the Russians were beaten back to Arkangelsk-Astrakhan line they'd roll over and collapse, emphasis on THINKING, PRESUMING which should spell "Doom" by day one. It just wasn't readily apparent previously because campaigns were often over fast enough that it didn't really matter. We're talking about a Army that refused to upgrade their paratroopers with steerable parachutes (which is WAY more important for a paratrooper then you would think)! Plus one can't ignore the fact most countries successfully invaded were either very minor powers or horribly horribly mismanaged or technologically stunted as far as the military was concerned. The view of the Wehrmacht as a mechanized force has also been reevaluated in recent years. We think of the German military as a mechanized juggernaut, but a lot of that was those same biographies mentioned above and below. About 20% of the German army was mechanized. The majority of the army that invaded the USSR during operation Barbarossa walked in, and their supplies were pulled by horses. They didn't have anything like the insane levels of mechanization found in some of their enemies. Even the USSR, with American aid at first, and panic-driven manufacturing later, outproduced the Wehrmacht around 43 in supply trucks.

This view of German as this massive intimidating force was mostly put in place by German general biographies (Maybe you've heard of this before. "If Hitler just listened to his generals...") and the fact perpetuating the myths benefited both Germany and America. Germany gets to feel like the war was a fair fight and all failings can be blamed on that funny Austrian guy (not in small part due to Nazi officials wanting to clear their names after the war, most of which continued to work in the West German government way into the 60s and 70s, with one of them, Kurt Georg Kiesinger, even rising to the office of Chancellor in 1966. And that's just the civilian side. The first generation of Generals of the Bundeswehr were exclusively recruited from Wehrmacht and SS officiers, many of them War Criminals, where the allies just looked the other way because they thought they were assets), while America convinces the public that Germany could be a impressive threat. Even against a certain group of communists over the border...

===Impact on Fantasy===

In terms of military personnel, the Germans had hands down one of the best armies of the time, well disciplined and well trained with experienced mid-level officers; this combined with borderline insane levels of morale at the start of the war due to years of giving the middle finger to the war-weary western nations which capitulated to their demands combined with revanchism of WW1, and turned the German into an unholy Juggernaut. The Germans were known to have some of the best armored tanks in the war, their small arms far outstripped the guns Europe had at the time, and they were pioneers in many advanced technologies during their time that have become well known today, like jet engines, cruise missile systems, fully automatic rifles (even with battery-run night scopes around '44), stealth craft, and many others. Tactics-wise, their eagerness to experiment with encirclement and mobile warfare whereas the Allies stagnated in Great War formations of firing lines gave them an incredible headstart and utterly broke the back of French armies and shocking the whole world; even Hitler expected a million Germans to die in the French war, yet France capitulated in weeks.

This, combined with their infamous cruelty have spawned the Nazi-esque villain template where the villains are both powerful and [[Eldrad|gigantic dicks]] to everyone else, making them completely despicable. This is because if the villain is significantly weaker than the protagonist of the setting, most people will still feel a few grains of sympathy towards the former or make them a laughing stock. But, when you make the villain both an enormous asshole and just as or more powerful than the protagonist, all bets are off and he's fair game.

Of course, the weaknesses of Nazism also need to be taken into account, in that a lot of their supposedly superior technology turned out to be highly unstable or otherwise impractical (such as behemoth tank designs that would have wasted immense resources better spent on dozens of more reasonable tanks), and would frequently be outclassed and definitely outnumbered by Allied designs once the latter got their shit together. This was even true at the start of the war: British Matilda II's were all but immune to German tank fire (from the early Panzers, before the later Tigers), and a column of them almost stopped Rommel at the Battle of Arras. Add poorly managed industry and the fact that supplies at times were delivered by horse (which was not actually that atypical, since only America and early war Britain were that ridiculously mechanized), and you have a faction that is the epitome of [[Chaos Space Marines|style over substance]]. This really bit them in the ass later when the Allies, [[Imperial Guard|focusing on production and strategy over science fiction and "tactics"]], managed to get a leg up the Third Reich, and battle-hardened Allied soldiers became the top dogs without question. To illustrate, by 1945 the typical American INFANTRY division could expect to have as many tanks as a Nazi armored division, and an American armored division could simply zerg-rush their Nazi counterpart (and hell, the Panzer divisions frequently operated at less than half strength, even since the beginning of Barbarossa, let alone after having the country incinerated by firebombing and supply lines fucked by pissed off partisans who understandably did not want to leave the mass murder unanswered).

In fiction, expect the Nazi villains to eventually have their technology and logistics outclassed (FPS and RTS games like Call of Duty, Warfront: Turning Point or Company of Heroes), made irrelevant via gimmicks (Sniper Elite, Commandos, Velvet Assassin) or at least stolen and turned against them (Wolfenstein), and the hardened heroes to turn Nazi soldiers into cannon fodder.

Nazis are the progenitors of all acceptable targets where human bad guys are concerned. Be it in vidya games or movies, nobody has a problem with Nazis getting gunned down by the hundreds by the heroes, and they don't even have to resort to the dehumanizing full helmets that most other villain goons have to wear to make slaughtering them okay.

A more comedic take on Nazis in fiction owes to wartime cartoons, where the soldiers and Nazi command are all bumbling idiots, with comedy brought to you by Walt Disney and Warner Bros. Hitler today has essentially been turned into a punchline with all the gags centered around him, which is kinda awesome when you think about it, as dictators that wish to be feared would never want to be remembered as a joke, just watch any Downfall movie parody (Bruno Ganz's excellent performance in particular has become memetic for having Hitler rant about random things or meta rants about how he was reduced to a joke). The one exception would be Göring, who was on drugs since the Beer Hall Putsch and was so narcissistic that people making jokes about him sitting on his belly for dinner and taking baths in admirals uniforms were considered signs of popularity by him. Every other high level Nazi, especially Himmler (A failed chicken farmer who spent his last resort field command in 1944 sleeping until noon, eating, drinking jacking off and getting massages from a man) a secluded wagon and Goebbels (who basically created all the modern populist tactics of dictators and was born crippled on account of a deformed leg, making him the most obviously hypocritical big name Nazi), took jokes at their expense only slightly better than Hitler did. So joke away and spit in the memory of fools who bled the world dry.

===Examples===
*The [[Skaven]] from [[Warhammer Fantasy]] and later [[Age of Sigmar]] borrow many Nazi-esque elements, which in turn makes them the most vile and evil race in the World That Was... Only it's taken to its logical extreme, as with many things Warhammer. Nazis had a hatred for what they believed was untermenschen and believed the "Aryan" race was most pure, while the Skaven hate all other living things, including their own race, with each individual believing only themselves to be worth anything. Pack in some advanced Wunderwaffen, magical nuclear power in the form of Warpstone and chemical weapons as well and you have a solid, if over-the-top, Nazi fantasy faction.

*The [[Imperium]], to the point where they're commonly described as "Catholic '''Space-Nazis'''". Complete with gratuitous use of Nazi imagery, a doctine of racial purity and absolute hatred for the "untermenschen" (mutants, psykers, and xenos), rising to power as part of a miraculous socio-economic recovery in the wake of a catastrophe ([[Age of Strife]]/[[Great Crusade]]), a "glorious rebirth" myth harkening back to a lost golden age [[Dark Age of Technology]], numerous military structures with parallel chains of command that are all at each other's throat due to a culture-wide policy of social Darwinism, an army run by absolute fanatics with horrendously inefficient war machines they barely understand, an SS analogue in the form of the [[Adepta Sororitas]] (who coincidentally tend to be depicted as fair-haired, though skin color varies and not all orders dye their hair white). Not to mention the Imperium's justification for xenocide is almost word-for-word the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stab-in-the-back_myth| stab-in-the-back-myth]] the Nazis used to try and justify their treatment of Jews and the Holocaust, only replace "Aryan" with "human" and "Jew" with "xenos".

*Thalmor from the Elder Scrolls: Skyrim is a fantasy equivalent of NSDAP, with robes completely ripping off SS uniforms, racism, genocide of "impure elves" and religious persecution of an enemy people in a conquered realm.

*The most extensive take on the theme of Space Nazis would be the Helghast from ''Killzone'', where the people of Helgan see the ISA as Imperialist gits who forced them out of their planet for refusing their rule. Although by Shadow Fall, they become akin to Communist East Germans, being filled with political radicals and separated by a wall and all.

*If you have a fantasy/sci-fi world, it will almost certainly have some sort of Nazi analogue floating around. At the same time, Nazis also figure into a lot of [[Alternate History|alternate history]] fiction: Nazis invading England, Nazis invading America, Nazis successfully conquering the USSR, Nazis getting the Bomb first, Nazis creating an army of mutant uber-troopers, Nazis on the Moon, Nazis using occult powers to summon demons to aid them, Nazi zombies, all of these have been done. The Nazi obsession in alternate history is largely due to the fact that we consider them evil (for the right reasons), and our modern world is the result of an Allied victory. A Nazi victory, to us, is just unthinkable.

==Nazis and [[/tg/]]==
Long ago, /tg/ realized something that most competent GMs have: Nazis represent a great liberating force for any GM, for they represent a force that any player need not feel any remorse over resorting to violence against, because Nazis are the textbook template for villains in most settings. They desire world domination, see themselves as the apex species and view most others with utter contempt, wanton disregard for common life, have an industry primarily geared towards war, are the most powerful warmongers, and they have that evil-yet-sublime aesthetic to their armies. Nazis are a modern setting variant of using [[slavery|slavers]] as your enemy in a fantasy game: they have little to no redeeming values, so they're great enemy fodder.

The association gives the players a motivation and creates the understanding that these people are Completely Evil™, allowing the GM to focus on other aspects of the story. Indeed, one can get similar results by simply providing details that lead us to conclude that any group you are facing off against are this universe's version of Nazis. That said, that same context makes using Nazis a double-edged sword, and a lazy GM (or author, script writer, or whatever; this is hardly unique to roleplaying) can royally screw up if one uses them incorrectly. Used incorrectly, Nazis become a kitten-eating one-dimensional caricature of villains descended into self-parody, which ''can'' work if the world is built for it. Kitten-eating Nazis work best in "goofy" settings where it's fully possible, and indeed expected for the final boss to be Hitler himself riding a cyborg dinosaur, but in a setting trying to take itself seriously, such flat villains do just that - fall flat and fail to incite the proper emotional reaction. Remember that the '''key''' to successful Nazi use is that emotional reaction. That exportation of real world baggage is the point, perhaps the sole point to use Nazis over some other villain. Nazis have the additional problem of not even needing to be exaggerated that much to make the worst of them into something like this. So care must be taken when one plays the Nazi card, or it will come off as trite.

Entire stretches of [[d20 Modern|d20 Past]] are shown various ways to implement ''Indiana Jones''-style Nazis into any campaign during the early 1900s, and [[Savage Worlds]] has an entire supplement devoted to thwarting Nazi super-soldier plans during WWII. More clever GMs can do even more interesting things with it, such as backing up the savagery of the Nazis with [[Fist of the North Star|a humanizing element to make them more understandable, even if antagonists]], whilst another interesting setting, proposed for [[GURPS]], starts the players off ''as'' Nazis and has them turn against their former comrades as the movement becomes harder and harder to justify. It's also worth remembering that Nazis can be used for comedy as well; they ''ARE'' Germans after all, and when they're not conquering the world they're prancing around in lederhosen, drinking beer from steins and boots, and churning out hardcore bdsm pornography. All of these lead to some pretty great storytelling, just so long as the GM knows how to play them correctly and prevent them from becoming a wackier version of an [[Ork]].

...And then you have [[Racial Holy War|this bullshit]], which misses the point entirely and renders us all stupider for the knowledge of its existence.

==Nazi Gear, Weapons, and Vehicles==
If you decide to use Nazis as your bad guys at tonight's game, the link below is a brief run down of basic information on Nazi equipment. If you're planning to play them as protagonists, either make sure it's either just a historically neutral such as a combat oriented Axis and Allies game, or [[JoJo's Bizarre Adventure|well written with an enemy that rivals or]] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Domination ''surpasses'' their evil], or you're likely playing [[Racial Holy War]] and should thoroughly reconsider your life choices.

''Main Article: [[Nazi Equipment]]''

== See Also ==
* [[/pol/]]: Having fanatical adherents who would ironically be the first to be exterminated for being physically frail weebs or obese neckbeards.
* The [[Skaven]], who play straight some of the Nazi tropes like the concept of the Master Race and seeing all the other races as inferior "things".
* [[SJW]]: The Nazi is their Bogeyman, to the point of [[FAIL|getting innocent people fucked over on the pretense of being one while the actual evil fucks get away with it.]]

[[Category:History]][[Category:Not related]][[Category:Pure Evil]]