The question of black eyes...

I was flipping through my black templars codex and was looking at some of the HQ's... Upon reflecting on the mixed blessing of having an armory, I began to ponder the different usages of a marshall in a black templar army. His primary benefit seems to be the army-wide LD10 which is priceless since BT units have a standard LD8. But then I looked at his wargear and noticed he doesn't come with any close combat weapons- this got me thinking.

So what if I had JUST ENOUGH points to field a marshall with his standard wargear? I'm essentially paying 80 points for three wounds in power armor (with some other exceptions of course)... But what happens when he gets into close combat? Can he get into close combat? Typically you need a close combat weapon (which isn't a problem as almost every model has SOME kind of close combat weapon- knives, pistols, etc). But the marshall has none.

Me and Josh sat down and seriously gave this more thought than it required and came to the conclusion that he MUST be able to get into close combat, and rather than dealing FATAL wounds he simply gives other models black eyes- rendering them useless for the rest of the battle (who wants blind ally's?!). But then the question of whether he can sweep a squad or not arises- and if he does, how do you explain that? He gives 3 models black eyes, the opposing squad leaves because they no longer wish to stab wildly at Chuck Lidell's descendant, and run from combat only to be caught by the ravening weaponless marshall and forced into the woods? Anti climatic and unheard-of in the grim bloody future.

So what really happens?

Is it really contingient on having a close combat weapon?

Dire avengers, for example, do not have a ccw. They have an Avenger Catapult(storm bolter) and that is it.

He does karate kicks, this has been explained in countless internet threads.

omg...so the high marshall is like the 40k chuck norris?!

No, the Emperor is Chuck Norris.... and he's not on the throne, that is just a dummy. He actually beat Horus and became a god. It's a really big secret.

Yea, we have to switch out the corpse with a fresh victim and age him using 100 Psykers each day...

1,000, actually. 100 wouldn't be so bad.

Well, even then 1,000 psykers is whatever for the imperium, since it is a form of mutation- the psykers that are sacrificed probably have other deformations. The inquisition liked to kill two stones with one bird.

Wait...

'Cept for Librarians, because.. You know, when Marines are mutants, that's okay.

Unless you're a Black Templar.

How about the butt of your bolter. Or Bolt pistol to the face...by a genetically enhance human. A fist covered in power armor can hurt a bit as well.