All,

Long time fan of the great and expansive universe that is Warhammer 40k. Especially the fluff and pomp that is the Tactical Dreadnaught Armor.

Most of the forums I've read state that Terminators are not worth the points based primarily on two skeins of thought.

1. Termies Dont Dish da damages
2. Fall under concentrated fire just as easily as normal Tactical Squads (and far more expensive)

SOO!!! My thoughts were to open a thread and see what we can do to help out these loyal terminators. I know the suggestions are going to be rife with critique, ninjas, pirates and hats made from derrieres but please understand I believe they are an amazing bit of fluff and fun and would like them to be not overpowered but worth their points.

What are your suggestions!!!!!!!!!!!!!?

Here are my thoughts :::

On the offense
(authors note : I see Terminators and Bastions of Defense. A defensive line that holds under the most grueling punishment. I don't see them as a massive bring the pain unit. Again with the fluff!!)

1. Increase the Number of Heavy/Special Weapon slots (best equipped men in the Asartes....with stormbolters...) (not going lie....I'm an Assault Cannon crazy person)
2. Uh....No idea here

On the defense!!!
(authors note I see a huge problem with Terminator viability based on overwhelming low strength attacks : so here are my thoughts on what could be done to help)

1. Terminator Armor Increases Toughness (+1T or +2T)
only problem I see with this is the damn marks of Nurgle you delicious bloated heathens!
2. Increase Invul save to 4+
3. If they fail the armor save they get a special Terminator Feel No pain (cannot be combined with FnP) of 5+ or 6+ (NOTE armor save not invul save)
4. Make their 2+ armor only penetrable by AP1
a. They are supposed to be able to survive plasma furnaces and ninja monkey attacks.
5. Lower Base Points
6. Multiple Wounds

Please take my thoughts with a grain of salt. I am not saying every item I have stated should included in the retrofit but just a list of ideas that might bring Terminators back into a bit more play).

Once again I'm not looking for overpowered, Just something to give me a reason to use them instead of a 10 man Tac + Dev Squad or Sternguard or Dreadnaughts or Orange Creamcicles.

Thank you for your time,

I think making a special circumstance for them and make their save a 3+ on 2d6 and their invo a 5+ also on 2d6.
It would slow things down as you'd have to roll each one separately, but if combined with something like only S5 or above weapons can pen their armour then you'd be rolling a lot less saves for them.
That way they'll be near on indestructible and you can leave their mediocre damage output as it is because buffing both would make them way to OP

I'd say let them also take their invul save on top their armour save.

I think simple solutions are best.

Just lower their cost a bit.

Maybe something like 30pts for LC Terminators, 35 for standard terminators and 40 for TH/SS termies. Ideally, it's the sort of thing you'd use playtesting to fine-tune... yeah...

Anyway, it might also be nice to give their storm bolters a little buff - e.g. AP4 or an extra shot. Just something to give them a little bit more bite.

As to the other suggestions, I don't think we should change the way armour and/or invulnerable saves work. It's just messy, creates a lot of controversy and is very messy design.

 mekugi wrote:
I think making a special circumstance for them and make their save a 3+ on 2d6 and their invo a 5+ also on 2d6.
It would slow things down as you'd have to roll each one separately, but if combined with something like only S5 or above weapons can pen their armour then you'd be rolling a lot less saves for them.
That way they'll be near on indestructible and you can leave their mediocre damage output as it is because buffing both would make them way to OP

That is how it was done in 2nd. It was not bad then when a 2k game maybe had 30-40 models on the table.
Now it is much different. Imagine making 30-40 Save a Turn now a days.

Terminators my also be dropping in price. Wolf Guard Terminators are now 33ppm as are Grey Knight Terminators. The problem is until the Blood Angels come out we will not know for sure that is the trend.

They are not actually lower in price. It is just you can take different weapon options base. If you went all powerfist and stormbolters it actually comes out to 5 points more in the SW book and the same in the GK book if you sub in hammers for PF.

Many of these suggestions are OP as hell. I think being able to build them how you want like these new types plus a slight reduction in price would actually make them rather good. It does not sound like it is going to change though.

I think simply changing them to armor only able to pierce completely is AP1 would be a very good option. Increasing toughness by a single point wouldn't be bad either. T6 Nurgle Terminators would be incredible. Just bump up the cost of the Mark on that specific unit and problem solved. Make it 8-11pts per model to make the player REALLY pay for them. No other buffs, no other points change. It would make them contenders but force players to build a list around them, not just add them in willy-nilly as an afterthought.

 SharkoutofWata wrote:
I think simply changing them to armor only able to pierce completely is AP1 would be a very good option. Increasing toughness by a single point wouldn't be bad either. T6 Nurgle Terminators would be incredible. Just bump up the cost of the Mark on that specific unit and problem solved. Make it 8-11pts per model to make the player REALLY pay for them. No other buffs, no other points change. It would make them contenders but force players to build a list around them, not just add them in willy-nilly as an afterthought.

Thus making anti-terminator weapons like plasma almost completely useless. There simply isn't a lot of AP1 in most armies, so Terminators would be very unbalanced, able to trash certain armies and be trashed by others.

Correct, keeping them in line with the fluff. But how is that any different now? There are some armies that have an abundance of AP2 guns, Marines and Dark/Eldar, and some that have next to none, or sometimes flat out none. Orks and Tyranids. So Terminators can still trash certain armies as they are now.

Forcing the easyier kill using the real anti-tank weapons makes sense. Other than that, sheer weight of fire as it is now and hope for some 1s. Plasma should be used as Marine killers or Nob killers, not Terminator killers. Terminators should be gods on the table for 200+ points considering the Land Raider is not much more expensive...

 SharkoutofWata wrote:
Correct, keeping them in line with the fluff. But how is that any different now? There are some armies that have an abundance of AP2 guns, Marines and Dark/Eldar, and some that have next to none, or sometimes flat out none. Orks and Tyranids. So Terminators can still trash certain armies as they are now.

Forcing the easyier kill using the real anti-tank weapons makes sense. Other than that, sheer weight of fire as it is now and hope for some 1s. Plasma should be used as Marine killers or Nob killers, not Terminator killers. Terminators should be gods on the table for 200+ points considering the Land Raider is not much more expensive...

But those armies that don't have an abundance of AP2 tend to have an abundance of killy combat units that drown Terminators in attacks, so that is offset.

Making them only killable by AP1 would mean that, as a Space Marine player, I would have almost literally nothing to kill Terminators with other than boltguns.

I think the thing that kills terminators is weight of fire. AP2 weapons are great, but you can't always get them where you need them. It is also basically the way everyone kills hammer/shield terminators. Again being able to take any upgrade you want combining assault and standard termies into one unit would let you do that, while having a slight price reduction would let you not feel as big a lose for someone dying.

Increasing their Toughness or negating weapon saves would have a cascading effect on their survivability while not really doing what is intended. Plasma will still kill them easily and so will stray shots. Also now what about obliterators or centurions? Why take them now if they die so easily. Do they get a durability increase? Then all the terminator armor characters get a buff as well. It goes on an on.

The only survivability upgrade, I would be okay with is a feel no pain +6. It lets you survive stray lasgun hits that get through a little better as well as the occasional plasma hit. It doesn't negate plasma and does nothing verse high power weapons like melta. But that might require a point increase.

Let them perform sweeping advances. Not being able to do this significantly hurts their effectiveness in close combat.

Let them take 2 heavy weapons per 5 models. Storm Bolters don't scare anyone, they need some teeth for ranged combat.

Eliminate the distinction between tactical and assault terminators, and give them true flexibility in choosing wargear. Basically, something like how Deathwing and Chaos Terminators work now - able to customize their loadout to accomplish specific tasks, or to do things like make a shield wall of 3 hammernators protecting two dude with Cyclone Missile Launchers. The other SM elite choices have extreme flexibility when choosing wargear, there's no reason Terminators shouldn't.

Beyond that... they probably need a 4++ invul to counter the AP2 spam that is so prevalent in the game. Another option would be to give them FNP - that would significantly boost their survival against small arms and S7, while still leaving them very vulnerable to S8+ weapons (as they should be). What's sad about their current state is that they're not particularly strong against small arms fire, considering how much you pay for them.

 BrotherOfBone wrote:

But those armies that don't have an abundance of AP2 tend to have an abundance of killy combat units that drown Terminators in attacks, so that is offset.

Making them only killable by AP1 would mean that, as a Space Marine player, I would have almost literally nothing to kill Terminators with other than boltguns.

Boltguns, Assault Cannons, Heavy Bolters, anything that's about volume of fire. Plasma is still a Marine killer, and I'm not saying to do the same to Obliterators or Centurians, but Terminators need a hard hitting update to bring them back to the days when plasma guns were few and far between. Making Melta be the new Plasma isn't a bad option in my book. I'm also a Marine player and I think the idea of a Land Raider AND Terminators being top priority threats against me (I don't field Terminators for fluff reasons) would make for a fun and difficult game. The whole point is that the ultimate of wargear plate armor should be ridiculously powerful. Make it worth the cost it is instead of lowering the cost and cheapening the concept of Terminator plate.

A point could be made for getting rid of the Invulnerable and adding in either a 4+ or 5+ FNP roll without a toughness boost. It doesn't follow the game fluff format of Feel no Pain, but it means that Plasma can be shrugged off after it ignores the armor, but an Instant Death weapon, so S8 or higher, is an outright kill. Because double strength means that there is no FNP roll, correct? I might be misremembering.

artemis8 wrote:
All,

Long time fan of the great and expansive universe that is Warhammer 40k. Especially the fluff and pomp that is the Tactical Dreadnaught Armor.

Most of the forums I've read state that Terminators are not worth the points based primarily on two skeins of thought.

1. Termies Dont Dish da damages
2. Fall under concentrated fire just as easily as normal Tactical Squads (and far more expensive)

SOO!!! My thoughts were to open a thread and see what we can do to help out these loyal terminators. I know the suggestions are going to be rife with critique, ninjas, pirates and hats made from derrieres but please understand I believe they are an amazing bit of fluff and fun and would like them to be not overpowered but worth their points.

What are your suggestions!!!!!!!!!!!!!?

Here are my thoughts :::

On the offense
(authors note : I see Terminators and Bastions of Defense. A defensive line that holds under the most grueling punishment. I don't see them as a massive bring the pain unit. Again with the fluff!!)

1. Increase the Number of Heavy/Special Weapon slots (best equipped men in the Asartes....with stormbolters...) (not going lie....I'm an Assault Cannon crazy person)
2. Uh....No idea here

On the defense!!!
(authors note I see a huge problem with Terminator viability based on overwhelming low strength attacks : so here are my thoughts on what could be done to help)

1. Terminator Armor Increases Toughness (+1T or +2T)
only problem I see with this is the damn marks of Nurgle you delicious bloated heathens!
2. Increase Invul save to 4+
3. If they fail the armor save they get a special Terminator Feel No pain (cannot be combined with FnP) of 5+ or 6+ (NOTE armor save not invul save)
4. Make their 2+ armor only penetrable by AP1
a. They are supposed to be able to survive plasma furnaces and ninja monkey attacks.
5. Lower Base Points
6. Multiple Wounds

Please take my thoughts with a grain of salt. I am not saying every item I have stated should included in the retrofit but just a list of ideas that might bring Terminators back into a bit more play).

Once again I'm not looking for overpowered, Just something to give me a reason to use them instead of a 10 man Tac + Dev Squad or Sternguard or Dreadnaughts or Orange Creamcicles.

Thank you for your time,

How did you come up with so many ideas? I think you made them up yourself and it is pretty impressive. In the last two or so months, dakka has seen this thread, and this thread, and some of the other big forums have seen this thread, and [url=http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/293268-on-terminators-and-their-relevance/]this thread, and since you are starting your own thread, you must have your own original ideas and/or not seen those threads.

My next question is why are they all the same? I mean, they all seem like people want to be able to drive faster and you have a horse and buggy, and people in all of these threads, without variation, come up with the same things like putting more horses on the horse and buggy and inventing a better whip to whip the horses and make them go faster. Also you want to make a discman cd player that doesn't skip and has really small CDs.

You know what happened in those situations, is that somebody invented the model T Ford (who was that guy?) and somebody invented the iPod, so the horse and buggy and the minidisc player were made totally obsolete, and why the heck can't somebody do that with the imaginary set of numbers that are the Terminator rules? Why do people, different people than the last time, keep saying they want to tack on 1+ save, extra cyclone launchers, 6+ fnp, +1 toughness?

I think these ideas are really stupid. I don't think I'm talking about you at all, I think you are tossing out random ideas in complete good faith. I think it is a definition of a weak idea to just add more stuff in a linear fashion.

This is going to repeat stuff that I have said in some of those other threads, but I think it is an iPod to a discman and that is generally considered a success for the iPod.

All marines could use better shooting. All power armor, all of it, all artificer armor and terminator armor gets First Rank Fire, Second Rank Fire that applies to bolters and is permanent. That means terminators are better at shooting.

All space marines, all of them, get 5+ fnp. That's powerful, it's overpowered. You get a save against plasma, you get immunity to small arms. Whatever. As a bonus to terminators, it means that having s8 powerfists is way better than having a regular power sword, because it ignores FNP. ALSO, since marines are fnp, people are going to start taking s8 guns, which are things like Battle Cannons and Krak Missiles that don't ignore terminator armor. Terminators win more than marines do from this stuff.

That is so powerful that everything needs to be recosted, and even if it does put marines up to 25 points per model, it will still be unbalanced and it's terrible. How are you going to pay for all these buffs? Well, you don't increase their points. You change power armor, regular power armor, to 4+. You get an FNP save against everything below s8, and you can massacre people with bolter fire, so what are you so worried about? It's much better this way. This also means, for terminators, that people forget about taking plasma guns, because they can take ap4 guns like autocannons, eldar plasma missiles, and heavy bolters. It's a good idea. It also means that you can change artificer armor from 2+ to 3+, which decreases the amount of 2+ armor in the world, and you can put the riptide down to 3+ while you're at it, and you can give chaos chosen 3+/6++ chaos armor to make them better than regular chaos troops.

None of these changes are specific to terminators, yet they both give terminators more things directly and they increase the value of both 2+ saves and s8 weapons. This is way better than just adding things at random to see if your carriage will go faster.

Then for changes that are more specifically about terminators, you change storm bolters to rapid-fire, twin-linked, and ap4. You also make terminator armor able to count storm bolters and combi-bolters as melee weapons, so that they have some incentive to use things other than power/chainfists and thunder hammers.

You've increased the terminators ability to survive massed ap- fire, to survive ap2 fire, to shoot things to death with storm bolters, to do things in close combat that other models can't, and to differentiate themselves from things like honor guard or centurions. And I am not even saying this is a really good idea, or like that I'm obsessed with it to the point that nothing else is better, I just want to hear something other than adding +1 to a part of the profile.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh, yeah. I'm giving Terminators a lot of extra stuff, up there, and unlike PA marines I'm not nerfing any of them in exchange. The important control for super-termies is partly to follow the background. You have to limit the squad size to five. Terminators in the background come in squads of five, and a full Terminator company has had 20 squads of five terminators in, AFAIK, every codex that has bothered to be specific about it. I think if you do know of background that has ten terminators per squad, that doesn't address the dozen sources that say they are always five man squads. It also makes more sense from a Space Hulk perspective, because ten would be way too cumbersome in tight tunnels.

nedTCM wrote:Increasing their Toughness or negating weapon saves would have a cascading effect on their survivability while not really doing what is intended. Plasma will still kill them easily and so will stray shots. Also now what about obliterators or centurions? Why take them now if they die so easily. Do they get a durability increase? Then all the terminator armor characters get a buff as well. It goes on an on.

I think that you have to open up room for other changes. You'd think everything would need an increase, but if marines are 4+ and 5+ fnp, then you can do things with cents like move them to 3+ or T4. You'll also see more high S guns to ignore FNP, so maybe more instant death.

The only survivability upgrade, I would be okay with is a feel no pain +6. It lets you survive stray lasgun hits that get through a little better as well as the occasional plasma hit. It doesn't negate plasma and does nothing verse high power weapons like melta. But that might require a point increase.

hm. So, Dark Eldar have very good access to FNP. There is also a strong sentiment from ork players that they would rather replace the 6+ armor save on boyz with a 6+ FNP on all orks. They get the same save for the most part, but it allows a saving throw against bolters, pulse weapons, et al. If you use FNP more commonly, you open up an additional design space that takes away the absolute value of low ap, but is also moderated by the remaining value of low ap.

DanielBeaver wrote:Let them perform sweeping advances. Not being able to do this significantly hurts their effectiveness in close combat.

It's supposed to, innit?

Eliminate the distinction between tactical and assault terminators, and give them true flexibility in choosing wargear. Basically, something like how Deathwing and Chaos Terminators work now - able to customize their loadout to accomplish specific tasks, or to do things like make a shield wall of 3 hammernators protecting two dude with Cyclone Missile Launchers. The other SM elite choices have extreme flexibility when choosing wargear, there's no reason Terminators shouldn't.

There is actually a very real reason that they do not. There is no background, practically, that supports separate squads of "assault terminators" and regular "terminators." However, while chaos terminators come in a single box, and wolf guard terminators come in a single box, waaay back when GW started selling boxes instead of just blisters, there were too many metal parts to put all the close combat bits and all the shooting bits together in one box. Ever since then, there have been separate squads in the codex, even though it is not mentioned very much by background. For official rules, that's how it goes.

I'd prefer them to be together in one squad, but c'est la vie. The two heavies per squad seems crazy to me. Maybe if one is a heavy flamer only and the other is a choice of cannon or missile.

All,

Wow awesome responses! I should give a bit of background on this.

First Question!!!! : How do Space Marines give Every Model FnP?

I am a huge Termie fan. I started with the Space Hulk Video game. The 486 version OH YEAH!!!! 3.5inch floppy disk for the WIN!

I love the fluff and I love the lore.

Therefore when I decided to get back into Warhammer 40k I decided to shelve my Eldar and Grab da Termies!

I've been reading the book and the codex and the forums like a crazy person. Trying to figure out how I can use Termies and as many Termies as I can!!!!

In my reading however I noticed that Terminators while they are able to shrug off a fair amount of fire, they still will die too easily compared to other units. And that is my question how can they be better but not op.

In my lists I'm actually taking Sternguards over terminators based on Suitability AND Destructive output. Point for Point Sternguard are just plain better. In a Drop-pod they are a surgical killer that WRECKS whatever they land next to, unless you are the awesome dice roller I am.

So why take Terminators? If a Sternguard or Tactical Marine squad has better suitability and damage output, what are Terminators for. Why is the only viable Terminator with a StormShield and Thunderhamma?

My thoughts are based on the idea that so many forums and so many thoughts seem to point at Termintors not being worth their points, and that is the issue I want to look into.

This should be your elite choice process

I want Sternguard
I want Terminators
I want Dreadnaughts
I want everything!!! give it to me nao!

You should never say in any choice that it's not worth the points (unless you're uber list tailoring)

All great thoughts and ideas. Keep em coming peoples!!!!

Thank you,

artemis8 wrote:

First Question!!!! : How to Space Marines give Every Model FnP?

Iron hands chapter tactics. 6+ free fnp for everyone.

I like adding in extra slots for heavy weapons - 2 out of every 5. Also a points reduction. As we saw with the new GK dex, they went down to 165 and i can only see that happening with new books from now on... maybe?

But I'd also like to see two game mechanics changes that would improve them:

1) change cover rules to reduce the number of incoming hits. So instead of gaining a cover save, cover means that the shooting unit fires at BS 3 or 2 depending on the type of cover.

2) grant units that deep strike the above cover save on the turn they arrive - afterall, if they suddenly appear out of nowhere, why would a unit be ready to fire at them? I'm going for the same principle as overwatch here - units would be shooting from the hip.

These two changes would help to reduce the amount of incoming fire and mass firepower is clearly the issue for them. The deep strike cover save would also help overcome their mobility issues as you'll be more inclined to deep strike them.

I think undoing the nerfing of vehicles that was 6th ed is probably the best thing for bringing terminators back from the brink.

Effective vehicles mean less plasma weapons that can kill two or more terminators at a time and more anti-tank which generally kills one terminator at a time. It also gives those big guns something else to focus on.

Better vehicles means that landraiders, stormravens and stormwolves, all of them terminator carriers, can deliver those terminators where they need to be with a higher degree of success.

7th has done some of this and I think that smart play can deal the rest.

First off, clutter the table with terrain. Even Tactical terminators are assault units, not shooting units. Lots of terrain keeps your enemy from being able to concentrate fire effectively and takes the edge off ranged AP 2. Both effects keep your terminators alive longer.

Second, don't put all your eggs in one basket. If you have a deathstar of terminators and special characters, you bet your ass every gun in the army is going to pour fire into it to get rid ofit as fast as they can . Instead you should use multiple units that pose imminent threat to your opponent. Either he has to choose which unit he kills or he has to divide his fire and risk leaving both units alive. This could be as simple as just having two terminator units instead of one big one, or something more exotic (is Thunderwolves for SpaceWolves, Dreadknights for GreyKnights, Bikers or Centurions for SM, Bikers for DA).

The point is, things are not as dark for Terms as they were an edition ago and there are options out there to help.

Now if I was actually rewriting Terminator rules I'd probably give them a similar treatment to Chaos Marines/Grey Knights/Space Wolves and start them with Power Weapons and a price discount. Lightning Claws/Power Fists/Thunderhammers would be upgrades only. I'd probably provide more ranged weapon options, probably picked by chapter, like Dark Angels with Plasma Cannons, Salamanders with Multi-Meltas, Iron Hands with Gravcannons, Imperial Fists with Heavy bolters.

- Reduce the cost to 35pts would be a good start.
- Let 2 models take Heavy Weapons per 5 in the squad
- Allow them to take Combi-Weapons or even Special Issue Ammunition, and can replace their Power Fist for a Power Weapon.
- Reintroduction of Terminator Command Squads

This thread I made a while ago has some good suggestions.

 SharkoutofWata wrote:
I think simply changing them to armor only able to pierce completely is AP1 would be a very good option.

No. Just no.

That's exactly what invulnerable saves are for. We don't need some bull that lets terminators ignore the rules.

 ColdSadHungry wrote:
I like adding in extra slots for heavy weapons - 2 out of every 5.

I think it would be nicer if their basic weapons were actually useful. The game is already unfortunately biased towards basic men being little more than ablative wounds for the special weapons guys.

 ColdSadHungry wrote:

1) change cover rules to reduce the number of incoming hits. So instead of gaining a cover save, cover means that the shooting unit fires at BS 3 or 2 depending on the type of cover.

Sure, if you're happy to rebalance every single unit around this mechanic.

Jefffar wrote:
I think undoing the nerfing of vehicles that was 6th ed is probably the best thing for bringing terminators back from the brink.

Effective vehicles mean less plasma weapons that can kill two or more terminators at a time and more anti-tank which generally kills one terminator at a time. It also gives those big guns something else to focus on.

Are you thinking of going back towards what vehicles were like in 5th? Where most squads took meltas over plasma.

Jefffar wrote:

Now if I was actually rewriting Terminator rules I'd probably give them a similar treatment to Chaos Marines/Grey Knights/Space Wolves and start them with Power Weapons and a price discount. Lightning Claws/Power Fists/Thunderhammers would be upgrades only. I'd probably provide more ranged weapon options, probably picked by chapter, like Dark Angels with Plasma Cannons, Salamanders with Multi-Meltas, Iron Hands with Gravcannons, Imperial Fists with Heavy bolters.

That could be interesting.

Vipod,

If vehicles are common enough and durable enough that Plasma is no longer adequate against them, I'd expect that Meltas would make a comeback as the weapon of choice for those that can take both. Certainly some armies can spam enough Melta in their army that there is only a moderate reduction in their firepower against TEQs and MCs, but aside from those, you'd see a lot of armies losing a considerable chunk of terminator killing power and having to prioritize that firepower between terminators and other threats. End result is fewer terminators dying.

Jefffar wrote:
If vehicles are common enough and durable that Plasma is no longer adequate against them, I'd expect that Meltas would make a comeback as the weapon of choice for those that can take both. Certainly some armies can spam enough Melta in their army that there is only a moderate reduction in their firepower against TEQs and MCs, but aside from those, you'd see a lot of armies losing a considerable chunk of terminator killing power and having to prioritize that firepower between terminators and other threats. End result is fewer terminators dying.

I don't disagree, I'm just curious as to what changes you'd like to see implemented, to make vehicles more durable.

I was wondering if you'd like to go back to 5th, because that was the edition that seemed to have the most vehicles.

I think 7th took us a lot of the way there. Especially now that you have vehicles with objective secured around.

The Serpant Shield and resultant spam of such made penetration an unreliable kill mechanic however, which makes Meltas slightly less desirable as a result. Until something breaks Serpant Spam or a penetrating Melta shot kills a vehicle 50% of the time, plasma will still rule because it does the job.

Jefffar wrote:

The Serpant Shield and resultant spam of such made penetration an unreliable kill mechanic however, which makes Meltas slightly less desirable as a result. Until something breaks Serpant Spam or a penetrating Melta shot kills a vehicle 50% of the time, plasma will still rule because it does the job.

To be fair, Wave Serpents are something most people would like to see removed from the game. I'm not sure they should set the standard on that front.

 vipoid wrote:
To be fair, Wave Serpents are something most people would like to see removed from the game. I'm not sure they should set the standard on that front.

But they are a part of the game at the moment, so they factor into the plans of players, especially competative ones.

Until better anti-vehicle than plasma is needed, plasma will dominate the game, reducing the effectiveness of Terminators considerably.

One could always work at breaking your local Meta apart to force an abandonment of Plasma. Land Raiders do this pretty nicely, so do the Necrons (Gotta penetrate AV-13 to knock them down to AV-11 and Plasma can't do that).

I sometimes wonder if people realize the door that was oppened when the Tau lost their ability to spam Strength 10 shots. I know I went from being easily able to blow up Land raiders on the first turn to having to wait for a deep strike fusion team or piranha squadron to get close on turn two or three. Suddenly that Land raider full of terminators stopped dying in its deployment zone and got a good two feet onto my side of the table before I could pop it if I was lucky.

I really think the Meta is heading for a correction that will swing in favour of vehicles, but because nobody is really trying it at the moment, nobody has figured it out. When it does happen though, a lot more players are going to have to make hard choices about the ratio of Plasma to Melta in their lists.

I always thought that Terminators should get an extra wound but upon reflection I think Terminator armour should act the same way as Irdium Armour for Tau and increase T by 1, not overly obsurd and gives people a reason to take a terminator captain instead of artificer armour

artemis8 wrote:1. Termies Dont Dish da damages
2. Fall under concentrated fire just as easily as normal Tactical Squads (and far more expensive)

What are your suggestions!!!!!!!!!!!!!?

1.) Stop pretending that terminators can single-handedly destroy everything, and instead understand that they're a support unit that works best when integrated with the rest of the stuff on the table.

2.) Stop pretending that terminators can shrug off your entire opponent's killing power by themselves (and as a result deepstriking them in front of everything unsupported).

Voila. Terminator problems solved, and we didn't even need to change a single rule.

 Ailaros wrote:

artemis8 wrote:1. Termies Dont Dish da damages
2. Fall under concentrated fire just as easily as normal Tactical Squads (and far more expensive)

What are your suggestions!!!!!!!!!!!!!?

1.) Stop pretending that terminators can single-handedly destroy everything, and instead understand that they're a support unit that works best when integrated with the rest of the stuff on the table.

2.) Stop pretending that terminators can shrug off your entire opponent's killing power by themselves (and as a result deepstriking them in front of everything unsupported).

Voila. Terminator problems solved, and we didn't even need to change a single rule.

Them still being overpriced for what they do is 'problem solved'?

As for an actual answer, make them Toughness 5 and call it a day

WrentheFaceless wrote:Them still being overpriced for what they do is 'problem solved'?

They're not overpriced. There isn't a problem in the first place that needs solving.

Agreed with Ailaros. Terminators, as they exist, are perfectly fine. They are expensive, not overpriced. There's considerable difference between those two things.

If you wanted to say what they're good at is too narrow of focus to regularly justify that expense (which still doesn't mean overpriced), I'd also agree with that.

That being said, my nostalgia vision of 40k points at 2nd edition (I've been playing 40k since the day Rogue Trader came out). I'm actually in favor of returning Terminators to those halcyon days when they were goddam nightmares even though I only play AGAINST them. It's just one of those things I wish were still in the game, despite it only making my games harder to win.

To wit, a modern Terminator would be as tough as a 2nd edition Terminator if it had Feel No Pain (4+). They were really tough back then. This would require a points increase, which I can provide the exact math on depending on how you rate durability, because, as I stated, modern Terminators are already appropriately priced.

If they get a price increase then it might be ok, but really I'd rather not see Terminators get FNP or a toughness boost.

As in, it shouldn't be that hard to kill them with massed-fire. We already have plenty of units that are immune or virtually immune to basic weapon - to the point where most units are effectively a couple of guys with special weapons, and a lot of ablative wounds.

If we're going to start making elite infantry virtually immune to small arms fire as well, then could we introduce some kind of concentrate-fire rule that allows massed small-arms-fire to do something to vehicles and MCs?

Perhaps we reduce the model count needed to field a squad and buff those remaining models to be even MORE durable?

Basically make them Paladins that Grey Knights have? 2 wound 40 ppm 3 models minimum for a squad, every 5 gets 2 special weapons?

What would you do with the Paladins then? Make them 3 wounds?

Terminators are at the point where any buff to their T or W stats would require a points increase. I get why people say they are overpriced right now, but its not by much, maybe 5 points or so. A T or W boost or FNP would make them underpriced by 5 to 10 points easily and require a correction.

What's killing terminators is the current meta puts a lot of platforms that are good at killing terminators in play. Once things swing around to lots of stuff that plasma and massed fire are really bad at killing (ie high AV vehicles) we'll see an opportunity for terminators to be really scary again.

In the meantime, good tactics and lots of terrain will get your terminators to where they can do real damage.

Wow so many great responses!!!!!

I'm not pretending Terminators are the Catch All. They are surgical to be sure but I see there primary attribute - TDA - being diminished in both style and efficacy.
They are bad mama jamma Armored Infantry. But alas there are other units that can do an almost equitable or better job at absorbing fire.

Insert squad of Jink'ing bikes. Having a 4++ or even a 3++ cover save *Again I know there is a difference between invul and cover* not to mention +1T karawr *damn Nurgle Bikers...soooo jealous
Drop Pod full of Tacs/Stern that run into cover
Or the Legion of The Damned - smexi

In my studies and thought experiments and perusing of forums I've come across these statements time and time again.

"Terminators, nah to pricey"
"Terminators, love the fluff always disappointed in production"
"Terminators, why would I use them"
"Termies in *Insert Specific Scenario here* work but blank does it cheaper, better, faster, sexier" *Damn you walmart!!!!*

Shouldn't there be a question as to why is this the primary reaction?

"You're not using them exactly right" - This is a common response to all those who have a problem with a unit and therefore I believe inconsequential in this ideology.

My ideology starts and ends with " Why are terminators not being chosen!?" (not why are they being used poorly )

They are amazing in fluff lore and looks!!!!

So my thought in this thread was to say....

"What small change could be made to Termies to make them more appealing and not glossed or skipped over?"

not OP not like the good ole days. Dear god I loved my CC exarchs that could wreck!!! And the days of yor when Assault Cannons DS'ing into your backfield was not only a thing to be feared but horrifying like a vortex grenade bike suicide!

Refining my ideology I found that I believe Terminators are Bastions of Defense and Stoicism therefore my primary thought was not make them platforms of god damage but defensive structures. Take and Hold, the Emperor wills it be done kinda bad monkey ball elites.

Again I'm looking for ideas on small changes not re-write the history of the world part I.

So think, instead of "Artemis8 is a bastard and too sexy, or you're just not using it right"

"Are Termies used in my club? If not why? "If why is too expensive for use what change would make them appealing"

Loved everyone and their feedback!

I'm liking the skein on toughness. Centurions and Bikes get it

Peace!

Well the interesting thing is that for GK termies are in a good place, but that is because of the wargear we have and the fact they are troops.

Power weapons, stormbolters, and deep strike are standard for the PAGK, when you upgrade them to Termies you are paying for Relentless, 2+, 5++, +1 attack for 13 points.

The things that kill them are weight of fire and the abundance of plasma. What people say about plasma being good for glancing hits and doubling down as anti-TEQ is true. One way of shifting it away would be increasing vehicles durability so plasma isn't the superior jack of all trades. Force melta or lance to become more prevalent. Or you could reduce Plasma's Str which I think would be a horrible idea.

Make their stormbolters rapid fire x 2. Basically double a bolter, so 2 shots at 24" (as normal) and 4 shots at 12"

This would be only for terminator storm bolters, the stable weapon platform nature of the armor allows the increased fire rate compared to normal power armor where even a marine would struggle with the kick back of storm bolter at full auto.

Terminators are not fine. There is very little they can do that can justify their price.

I find that it really depends on their use on how well they do.
Deep-Striking Tactical Terminators: Deep Striking them into the middle of the enemy is one way to get them killed off, but you are most likely just using the rest of the Squad to get the Assault Cannon in range to take down a priority Target.
Deep-Striking Assault Terminators: With a good mix of Thunder Hammers and Lighting Claws o5 just Thunder Hammers is just a good way to draw fire, but you probably wont last till next turn, but everything firing at them is not firing at your.
Mechanized Tactical Terminators: Weather out of a Land Raider or Stormraven [Or Stormwolf] is a good way to get that Assault Cannon in Range.
Mechanized Assault Terminators: One of the Best way to get them into Assault.
Drop Pod Terminators [It is good to be a Space Wolf]: Probably the best way to Get your Terminators where they need to be on Turn 1.
Foot Tactical Terminators: Just take the Cyclone Missile Launcher and they make a great objective Holder. {For Dark Angels the Plasma Cannon]

The other use is how you put them on your list.
One 5 Model Terminator Squad: Looks cool, but is just a bullet Magnet.
Two 5 Model Terminator Squads: Helps split the incoming fire. One trick is to take one Full 10 model Squad and split off the two Assault Cannons in one Combat Squad and the Sargent in the other. This gives you one with a lot of fire power and another to Assault with. The same trick works with 3 Terminator Squads all at a full 10 Man Squads all Combat Squads.

As for increasing their firepower, just make Storm Bolters a Volley weapon. Though that would screw everyone else.
If you think FNP is the answer, look at Dark Angels or Iron Hands, how much has that work out.

The 33ppm model in the new Codex's has made a big difference and may be the way they are going. We will have a better idea though when the Blood Angels come out if that is the way they are going.

The one way I'd see terminators changing is how they take their save. One of the best ways I've seen the armor described is in Black Crusade. That "invulnerable" save isnt some energy field that stops rounds with mystical space magic. Its just that the armour is just that tough. The way I'd see them working is somewhat like how high ballistic skills work. They lose their invulnerable save (the stock ones at least), and they instead become effectively "BS 7" armour save. They get their 2+ save and if they fail, they get a re-roll that works on 5+. For weapons whose AP would noramlly deny them their armor save, they just don't get that "extra" 5+.

So, a 10 strong tactical squad opens up on 5 chaos terminators, one has a grav gun, assume they are all in rapid fire range, and didnt move. So of the 18 bolter shots, lets say 12 hit, and 2 of the grav shots land. both grav wound because the terminators have a 2+ save technically, and 6 bolters get through. The two grav wounds are AP2, so they just take their regular 2+, one fails because dice hate you. Then for the bolter hits, you roll 2 's. You then take your TDA re-roll, and pass one of them. That's two termies down total. Not great, but not bad.

The real issue my little idea has always generated is when other invulnerable saves are taken into account. Since they always get that 2+, no matter what, that 4++ from iron halos and 3++ from storm shields becomes rather irrelevant. I have a few ideas on how this could work, but none of them balance particularly well for what is often a 40 point model. My first thought is that the ++ save acts as a modifier for their "bonus" save, but when AP2/1 weapons come into play, this part get ignored. The one way I came to counter-act this would make TDA overly complicated in a game already wrought with complicated things to begin with. Trying to explain it mechanically is tricky, so an example works best. A captain takes terminater armour, and opts for th/ss combo. The SS improves his "second" save to a 3+ (the SS gives their TDA save a +2 modifier now, and his halo gives +1). He gets shot with a plasma pistol, and it hurts presumably. But he has armor initially designed to walk int he stuff. That AP2 shot (and an other) simply reduce his TDA save by 1. So he does 2+/4+, A meltagun is scary. It gives a -2 modifier, so he would be 2+/5+. Things that "allow no saves of any kind"... well, sorry Cap' that/those wound(s) happen.

I realize that this can lead to some fairly degenerate combinations. Having endurance cast on a unit of IH TH/SS terminators with good old CM superbroke can lead to some issues. an entire unit of 2+/3+/4+FNP will be a royal pain in the butt to remove. But then again that person has sunk ~ 750 points on one unit, it should be tough to kill.

As for offense... I have no clue.

This has come up time and time again but the solution still holds. You can fix them in the following ways:


reduce standard point cost to 37 points.
make the Storm shield+Hammer upgrade 3 points.
allow tac termies to take heavy weapon per 3 guys (not counting serg).
allow the serg to use any power weapon.
give them +1 FNP
unlock Multi-melta's and grav cannons (no amp) for Tac termies
unlock melta bombs for assault termies

They are overpriced. 35 points base would be more reasonable, 30 points for terminators without powerfists.
28 points of tac marines takes just as much to kill as 40 points of terminators.The only exception to this rule is ap3 weapons.

Definitely give them 2 heavy weapons per 5 men. Also, reduce the cost of said weapons by 5 points each.
Again, lets look at tac marines as a comparison. tac marines can take a special weapon for every 5 men, the cost to unlock this weapon choice therefore 70 points. Terminators pay 200 points for the same privilege.
Another issue is ranged damage output. Shooting terminators are plain bad when compared to tac marines. At long range, for their points cost, they are outgunned nearly 3:1, at close range the difference is a staggering 6:1 ratio in firepower.
A current Terminator squad with assault cannon will cost 220 points. With these changes, a terminator squad with 2 assault cannons would cost 205 points. Nothing overpowered, but a good and needed increase in firepower per point.

Combi-weapons would certainly be welcome, to give the squad a greater range of purposes over normal marines, and also to further improve their poor damage output.

Squad-wide special rule upgrades would also be a nice addition. Like the old BT codex, being able to purchase things like tank hunter, hatred, etc
All of these above changes would help make the terminators more efficient for their points, and also give them a greater degree of flexibility. .

Deepstriking terminators could use a little help. I believe the ultramarines terminator formation has the right idea. Let the terminators move/run after they deepstrike, and then still shoot. This will allow them to spread out a little once they land, to prevent pie plate interceptor from being so powerful against them.

With regards to survivability, I think terminator armour should give something more to characters, to make it more competitive when compared to bikes. Currently, bikes are simply better in practically every way than terminator armour. Maybe give EW for characters in terminator armour or something?

For normal terminator squads I don't feel that an increase in survivability is needed. If it was, I would advocate a simple FNP save to terminators, rather than messing with the fundamental mechanics of the game.

T5, 4++, 2w, 2 specs per 5 man, 40ppm

 Las wrote:
T5, 4++, 2w, 2 specs per 5 man, 40ppm

That's quite an increase in survivability. 3 times more survivable in fact. Where would this leave centurions?

 Big Blind Bill wrote:

 Las wrote:
T5, 4++, 2w, 2 specs per 5 man, 40ppm

That's quite an increase in survivability. 3 times more survivable in fact. Where would this leave centurions?

That is why I like minimal changes like points changes and I am even leery of that much.
Look at grey Knight Strike Squads if it was not for the 33ppm model Terminators they would look great. They are really good, but the Termies are just to cheap compared to them.

Honestly if they had access to a grav cannon or grav guns they would be worth it. Deepstrike and grav is a nice combo.

 Big Blind Bill wrote:

 Las wrote:
T5, 4++, 2w, 2 specs per 5 man, 40ppm

That's quite an increase in survivability. 3 times more survivable in fact. Where would this leave centurions?

Centurions as an assault unit sucks anyway, they are used for their shooting and they have superior range half the time to the AP2 that primarily kills the termies. I think its fair, especially because they mostly still MURDER termies with Grav. I don't think I would give them the 2 specs per 5 man though, with two wounds I think it makes up for not having a second special weapon. Maybe just make that 4++ just a 4++ to shooting.

artemis8 wrote:
First Question!!!! : How do Space Marines give Every Model FnP?

It's the proposed rules forum.

This should be your elite choice process

I want Sternguard
I want Terminators
I want Dreadnaughts
I want everything!!! give it to me nao!

Correct

vipoid wrote:

 ColdSadHungry wrote:
I like adding in extra slots for heavy weapons - 2 out of every 5.

I think it would be nicer if their basic weapons were actually useful. The game is already unfortunately biased towards basic men being little more than ablative wounds for the special weapons guys.

This is a problem for most units. Ideally the game rules would be a bit different to address it.

Jefffar wrote:
I think undoing the nerfing of vehicles that was 6th ed is probably the best thing for bringing terminators back from the brink.

Effective vehicles mean less plasma weapons that can kill two or more terminators at a time and more anti-tank which generally kills one terminator at a time. It also gives those big guns something else to focus on.

Are you thinking of going back towards what vehicles were like in 5th? Where most squads took meltas over plasma.

it is depressing that this is the choice in the first place.

Jefffar wrote:

Now if I was actually rewriting Terminator rules I'd probably give them a similar treatment to Chaos Marines/Grey Knights/Space Wolves and start them with Power Weapons and a price discount. Lightning Claws/Power Fists/Thunderhammers would be upgrades only.

but

the reason that they make options the way they do, like the lightning claws etc, is that the terminator box that they sell has those options.

dunno

A simple answer I have is that shooty Terminators should have the option to have two heavy weapons at 5 men.

Either double up the weapons, or even just "Cyclone + other heavy weapon"

artemis8 wrote:"You're not using them exactly right" - This is a common response to all those who have a problem with a unit and therefore I believe inconsequential in this ideology.

How a player uses a unit is irrelevant in a strategy game?

artemis8 wrote:They are bad mama jamma Armored Infantry. But alas there are other units that can do an almost equitable or better job at absorbing fire.

That's not the point of terminators. Terminators aren't invincible units that slog through everything. They are elite units that have just enough extra armor for them to get the job done.

They're not a horde unit, and they're not an MC. You have to think of terminators more like a strange version of sternguard or a dreadnought.

artemis8 wrote:"Terminators, nah to pricey"
"Terminators, love the fluff always disappointed in production"
"Terminators, why would I use them"
"Termies in *Insert Specific Scenario here* work but blank does it cheaper, better, faster, sexier" *Damn you walmart!!!!*

Shouldn't there be a question as to why is this the primary reaction?

Since when was popular opinion a determiner of truth. Terminators are a tough unit to get the most out of. Because most people don't doesn't mean they're necessarily bad.

artemis8 wrote:"What small change could be made to Termies to make them more appealing and not glossed or skipped over?"

Make them W10 and cost -25 points apiece. You'd get plenty of people taking them then.

Once again, lack of popularity isn't a problem for terminators, it just means they're less popular, nothing more.

The best way to approach terminators is to set up a challenge where you take a squad of terminators with an assault cannon, and a squad of anything else with whatever single loadout you like that make them of equal points value. Then run them both through a gauntlet of a bunch of very different kinds of units.

You'll find that there are things that work better against some targets than terminators, but against most target types, the terminators will beat whatever else you're comparing them too.

They're an elites choice. They exist to be flexible and not be outright bad against very much. Thinking of them as just a durability or just a firepower unit misses the point of terminators entirely.

You'll find that there are things that work better against some targets than terminators, but against most target types, the terminators will beat whatever else you're comparing them too.

Sorry but this is not true. What are you basing this on? Can you give any examples to support your case?

Terminators lose out to pretty much everything most of the time. Use the maths to compare them to regular tac marines in a range of situations and the differences are very clear, and very clearly not in favour of the terminators.

The only time terminators shine over regular marines is against ap3 firepower. Besides this one niche (as ap3 is one of the most uncommon ap values), terminators are worse at dealing damage, recieving damage, transport options, and points cost.

The most painful break from fluff to table thing I find about termies is how easy they drop to common fire. T+1 should definitely become a staple ability of TDA. Another option is to make them squadrons of 1 hp av 11 walkers with their crux/shield save. Watching my friend's big terminator squads lay down to auto gun fire is like watching ultramarine libbies summoning daemons.

Storm bolters also suck out loud...so there's that too.

2 wounds could make a decent replacement for the 1 T. Either of them would buff the armor against small arms without affecting how well anti tank hurts them...since it like...should. Any s8+ anti tank would still ice a base per wound.

StarHunter25 wrote:

So, a 10 strong tactical squad opens up on 5 chaos terminators ... That's two termies down total. Not great, but not bad.

Then they fail their morale test and run like scared little girls... because chaos marines

JubbJubbz, that's another topic entirely which I have much personal bias involved. Astartes who have lived for hundreds/thousands of years in a demi-dimension of unimaginable horror need a magic stick to keep them from being scawwed of the big scawwy wiptide.

Excellent Responses!

To Ailaros - Forgive the misspelling if there is one - I agree how you use a unit is HIGHLY relevant to strategery games. The ideology I'm touting currently is:

"They are not being chosen in the first place"
"Being overlooked"
"Under Appreciated"

You are completely correct how you use a unit and it's properties can place a significant damper or Crux Terminus on the viability of a unit/model/sammich
My ideology and purpose on this thread was to make them enticing Like 1919 root beer! Address the lack of choice not :: "You're not using them incorrectly based on certain scenarios or ideological understanding of Terminators"

In further response if you read the fluff, pomp and circumstance of TDA - They ARE supposed to weather the toughest fire. They really are supposed to slog through the storm and shadow of the valley of death to their objective (which from reading should never be a tar pit squad. Go for MC's, Vehicles, Characters named Jim). From hails of bolters to infamous brightlances and poorly aimed peanut butter sammiches. This is fluffed as THE armor, THE infamy, THE rock. Even Artificer Armor which gives us the awesome 2+ still can't shake a stick at the 5+ smexy that is the invulnerable TDA (from a single piece of wargear).

Yet they can die to a lasgun?

Should they be absolutely Invulnerable? Hell no, I'd hate to have to fight that, and I would be ashamed to use it.

But when you look at other armies and even other chapters Armor and Invul/Cover Saves(They are different I know). Terminators have been left untouched in egregious fashion.

Wraiths have a 3++
Bikes can Jinkles for a 2++ git oft mah lawn!
Legion of the Dammed 3++ smexi

Technically those units can weather MORE fire than Terminators with the abundance of AP2 weaponry (as I've read more abundant than AP3? Still reading)

On a great note!!! My club and I are looking into some of the proposed rules and are going to try out some in the following weeks to see what makes those Termies not OP but smooth and sexy

This week :

+1T

1hp 11av walkers - Interesting when dealing with characters.....


Thank you again all for your continued banter!!! Keep it coming

Updated :: Reason ADHD

Rather than adding +1 T, all weapons/users of strength 5 and below have their Str value reduced by 1 when firing or in making attacks in CC against terminator armour.

examples would be boltguns and space marines in CC would be strength 3 when firing upon terminator armour.

Yeah waves of plasma would still be a problem, but it should be for them, if centurions and wraithguard fall to plasma then so should termies for game balance sake, but it should take a horrendous amount of lasguns to put down a termie squad in one turn considering the terminators overall damage output rather than being a squad consisting of mostly ablative wounds for an assault cannon for example.

It also would not make space marine characters immune to instant death with certain weapons that bumping the T value of the user would. I mean, you think the iron hands chapter master was scary before, how about surrounding him with a bodyguard of T5 2+ 5++ save when his T value is also increased and then having that unit transported in a IWND landraider for even safer delivery of the chapter master. Add in a Dark angels librarian on a bike with a PFG trailing that land raider to make sure it can deliver it's cargo...

That's probably a problem with chapter tactics, not with terminator armor or toughness bonuses.

AV11 1 hp?

I like the idea of exploding termies.

Or weapon destroyed. Wouldn't it be awesome if a Terminator had his Stormbolter shot out of his hand Western style?

More like AV 12, otherwise the Plasma gun remains effectively the same if not better because no to-wound

AV12 is getting into MBT area, so it might be a tad much.

I'd always believe that TDA should have 2 wounds, point increase to 40-45 points a model is fine for me for space wolves, but TDA units aren't as good as they used to. The only good thing that my TDA guys have done is taking down an Avatar. No toughness or any buffs, adding wounds and toughness.

For the suggest AP1 rule, maybe AP2 4++ and AP1 5++.

I love TDA, the big brother that help out, that's how I saw but now I have my bigger PA guys protecting them.

I was also specifically targeting AV12 because that puts the Termies out of all standard troop weapons. Probably is too much.

Just say weapons not above a certain Str can't hurt them and call it a day I guess. Question is where is that now.

Well, there is the problem. Maybe something like all weapons S5 or under have to re-roll successful to-wound rolls once. That would make it hard for all the current basic infantry weapons to hurt them. Having S6 do this would be bad however, because that gets rid of an entire race's heavy armour killing weapons (tau).

 TheCustomLime wrote:
Or weapon destroyed. Wouldn't it be awesome if a Terminator had his Stormbolter shot out of his hand Western style?

Weapon destroyed would mean dead termie anywayz. 1 HP. But it's like when falling down, he first drops the gun and cinematically dies.

Oh, and termie wrecks and craters all around the battlefield. Deathwing would be hilarious!

Hmmm I'm wondering if resist to Str 5 and lower is too much...

Str 4 is easier to balance... but then we get the Necron and Tau troops staying the same and everyone being less efficent... It wouldn't really affect the Eldar because of their psuedo-rending.

Hey
I didn't read much about close combat.
Yet once they're engaged, they're either unimpressive (claws/power sword) or hit last and run the risk of being hacked to bits before lifting a fist.
A special rule allowing Termies to hit at normal initiative with Powerfists/ThHammers?

Does the relentless rule do that? If so that would be pretty good.

Initiative power fists would be too much. Termies can allready perform backflips - i think it's enough for their agility.

And the problem does not lie in close combat. The problem lies with their durability per point cost cause you pay for the gear you won't use with your dead before striking models - power fists. I like the way space wolves and grey knights went. The way of CSM You pay less for less gear. If you want that power fists - buy them exclusively. Termies with fists will cost more than they are now but the thing is that the squad will overall be cheaper and more versatile with maces, and swords.

endlesswaltz123 wrote:
Rather than adding +1 T, all weapons/users of strength 5 and below have their Str value reduced by 1 when firing or in making attacks in CC against

So... +1T, but in a more convoluted manner. Genius.

 vipoid wrote:

endlesswaltz123 wrote:
Rather than adding +1 T, all weapons/users of strength 5 and below have their Str value reduced by 1 when firing or in making attacks in CC against

So... +1T, but in a more convoluted manner. Genius.

It's not, though. A Chapter Master wtih T5 doesn't melt instantly if he gets hit by a lascannon, whereas one with the above suggested rule does.


One thing that hasn't been mentioned yet, which I firmly believe is one of the biggest weaknesses of Space Marine in general, but especially Terminators. They're very, very vulnerable to a bad rolling streak. Due to the small amount of wounds, only a handful of saves need to fail in order to wipe the entire unit out. For example, let's take a unit of 30 Boyz (without a Nob for simplicity). Such a unit is, on average, as durable to bolter fire as a unit of Terminators, the difference being that the odds of wiping the entire Ork unit out in one go is much less than the equivalent for the Terminators (and that's not going into what cover would do in this case).

Sure, there's an equivalent chance that the Terminators will simply bounce off small-arms fire all day, which the Boyz obviously won't, but the mere risk of losing the entire unit to some stray Heavy Bolter shots limits the unit's efficiency.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

It's not, though. A Chapter Master wtih T5 doesn't melt instantly if he gets hit by a lascannon, whereas one with the above suggested rule does.

Still not worth making convoluted rules for.


Regardless, haven't GKs already perfectly demonstrated that a point-decrease is all that's needed to make terminators competitive? I mean, they didn't get T5, FNP or any of this nonsense about rolling 2d6 for saves or any such, and yet they're now taken a lot.

 vipoid wrote:


Regardless, haven't GKs already perfectly demonstrated that a point-decrease is all that's needed to make terminators competitive? I mean, they didn't get T5, FNP or any of this nonsense about rolling 2d6 for saves or any such, and yet they're now taken a lot.

They're the only decent Troops Choice in that Codex though. They also have Hammerhand, Force Weapons and Psycannons, so they're not a perfect comparsion.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

They're the only decent Troops Choice in that Codex though. They also have Hammerhand, Force Weapons and Psycannons, so they're not a perfect comparsion.

I think they're better than 'decent'.

Also, do you think hammerhand and force weapons are better than Power Fists or Thunderhammers?

 vipoid wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

They're the only decent Troops Choice in that Codex though. They also have Hammerhand, Force Weapons and Psycannons, so they're not a perfect comparsion.

I think they're better than 'decent'.

Also, do you think hammerhand and force weapons are better than Power Fists or Thunderhammers?

When one considers that they're also Psykers, and thus contributes to the psychic phase, yes. Absolutely.

IMHO, the problem is that there's too much AP2 going around and too little AP3. Survivability goes up drasticly from a 4+ save to a 3+ save but increases little when going up to a 2+ save.

Would it be bad if some AP2 weapons (like Plasma) turned into AP3?

 Hansisaf wrote:
IMHO, the problem is that there's too much AP2 going around and too little AP3. Survivability goes up drasticly from a 4+ save to a 3+ save but increases little when going up to a 2+ save.

Would it be bad if some AP2 weapons (like Plasma) turned into AP3?

I feel that would kill plasma dead. Firstly because it makes the downside a lot harsher, second because it cripples its anti-vehicle capability, third because it cripples its ability to kill a lot of the more troublesome MCs, and finally because it cripples its ability to kill terminators.

Also, the problem is that AP3 just isn't as useful generally. In most cases 3+ saves can just be killed with weight of fire - rather than requiring any dedicated weapons. This isn't the case for a lot of 2+ save units.

Wow such great responses! And people are being cordial OH NOES the interwebs has broken!

We tried the walker scheme it was awesome!!!

Game Rules were Standard Maelstrom with 6 objectives per Table using Objective Cards

My goal was to use the Terms and Sternguard and Legion with Heavy Support to mess up the Objectives near the Enemy and Pod or slog to the objectives on my sides.

1st Game DS'd into back field with 10 Termies (combat into two squads, PFs and 2 Assault cannons total). Survived a straight ridiculous amount of standard Guardsmen fire (lost one to a heavy bolter squad). Then served up some sexy with destruction of vehicles and specific targets. All in all interesting

2nd Game DS'd into back field against Eldar. Ripped apart two Grav Platforms. First shot from an AP2 weapon blew up 1...then the ENTIRE SQUAD bad rolls and hilarious!!!! Like the old barrage weapons or firecrackers bam.... BAM.... BAM! BAM BAM

3rd Game DS'd into backfield against Tyranids - Got swamped by Hormagaunts who wanted to puddle them into useless-ness. Good tactic + Luck on the Leadership (Thank god he wasn't playing demons double 1's TWICE!!!) - Survived two Carnifex charges though to tear them apart.

All in all an INCREASE in toughness but the tons of new rules and treatment as a walker was interesting and confusing at times (We all had to do research on walker squadrons). Good but complicated solution

Those I fought against were surprised at the change. Terminators were not just insta dying on the table. (Unless kitted for Invul TH/SS)

Tyranid player didn't change tactics at all till he found out his gaunts (20+ the baby maker making more) would only Tar pit not destroy (Pulled in the Carnies (a ranged one as well as a H-t-H one) Btw Termies exploding killed many gaunts!

NOTE : In every battle except the Eldar - Entire Squad was wiped out
NOTE : Every battle Sternguard or Legion of the Dammed was also DS'd or Podded in the Same turn (Gunship was watching the Tactical Pod)
NOTE: All terminator saves were rolled three times (taking first for game, but noting others for discussion later over 1919 root beer, to get a feel for average other rolls to indicate toughness of new change)

Haven't tried the +1T - I'll be playing some skirmishes with more people and let you guys know. We're looking into 10 + good games with each rule (weeding out bad ones that didn't display the correct ideology or dedicated lists - Fought an all vehicle Siam Haim Army - SOOOO many strength 6 shots..... cheese for the win.

Current List

HQ - Tiguris - warlord
HQ - ML2 Librarian in Terminator Armor Force stave
Do you think I like Psykers? Naw

4 Tactical Squads - 2 Assorted Heavies :: 2 In Pods with flamers/plasma homer

1 10 Man Terminator Squad - 2 Assault Cannons

1 Legion of the Dammed Full melta - Heavy Flamer

1 Sternguard Full Pod with Meltas and Combi Plasma

1 Predator - Lascannon Pattern
1 Predator - Lascannon Turret Auto sponson

1 Assault GunShip - Skyhammer Missiles

Not a complete list by far - As I'm still painting my army and borrowing/proxy what I can.

Crazy thing to note. Entrenched units fear Legion of the Dammed + Sternguard. Good lord - Entrenched guard ignored them. Bad Idea. Lictor died assaulting Sternguard before combat. Sexy rolls to be sure.

Keep up the good discussions people!!!!!!

Take care,

Changing to an av11 walker makes terminators much less durable vs s6+ ap4 or worse. Actually, something like a scatter laser will kill more terminators than tactical marines.

Give it AV WITH an armor save of some kind then?

The rules we're using with walker squadrons are

AV 11 all around
Invul is 5++

So far we're seeing the high ap/high strength weapons - like scatter lasers and heavy bolters killing them quite a bit.

Thank you,

The Hammernators are currently allright at the moment.

The massive "but" lies in the shooting terminator squads; they are terrible due to lack of decent wargear options and lousy survivability. Changing the 5++ into 4++ is disputable, but I'd change the unit like this:

Terminator Sergeant may take items from Terminator Weapons and/or Special Issue Wargear lists.

I see no way this addendum would break the unit in overall, or change the internal/outer balance dramatically. It would just bring the shooting terminators to the 7th edition level, and actually playable. I am deeply disappointed, that if I ever wish to field terminators in my games and actually do something else than look cool and die, I must take the melee option - thanks to the GW's notorious way to spread AP2 gear like candy, and lousy 5+ invulnerable save.

Still great discussions!

We finished a weekend warrior of 7 more games as walkers and it was horrible! AV11 5++ dies way to easily to Tau, Necrons like CANDY! Imp Guard and Scatter lasers melt them along with heavy bolters.

All in all an overall toughness increase it was not.

This week/weekend we're going to try a simple +1 Toughness! (Treating it like a chariot) Slow ass chariot.... (by Chariot just a template applied to stats and saves)

We're going to have the benefit of a couple good players willing to help with this including

Grey Knights

Chaos (Nurge + several other legions) Main interest is how Nurgle will affect the +1T on the Terms

Spacewolves

I'll keep you posted on how we do the things we do!

Thank you,

All,

Couple more games down!

We here in the Imperium of the George were able to run quite a few games. We were able to run several games which included TDA armors up down left and right.

The +1 Toughness created a massive change in TDA Armor to die to Str 5 or less and of course stayed roughly the same with ST6+ and ap 3+

The biggest contention we had was an issue with "Terminator Like armor" ie Obliterators - This was housed at unless it says TDA or Terminator Armor it isnt affected by the new ruling.

Nurgle had a GREAT showing we were able to play 4 + games with TONS of Terminators and in the end couple games Bikes.

The Terminators T6 had the same Toughness as Nurgle bikes. This seemed initially rough against mob armies but in the end the lack of an always available invul was not so much fun.

All in all it was an amazing change to the Toughness of the Terminators without changing their viability against the massive weapons of the game.


We'll be playing more games this weekend and trying out the following next week ::

+2T will be the name of the game. GAAAAH T7 Nurglnators

Thank you,

More games down!!!!

It was epic. We played 7ish more games this weekend using Nurgle and Loyalists to check on the Terminator Progress!

+ 1T

So far many people like the new changes. No auto death to lasguns barrages any more. We did another test and had 3 Sets of 10 Terminators walk from Max Troop weapon range, while firing, against troops from IG, SM, Chaos. They had MUCH more defense than before. The Nurglenators were Tough but still not as tough as I thought they would be. They could survive a HAIL of bullets and even a beat stick hero (for a few turns), but in the end dropped as easy as other Terms due to the fact that heavy weapons as of now are currently not being affected by our rule test. Did not know you paid through the NOSE for that Mark of Nurgle.

Anyway!!!!! More games more games more games to play

This week we'll be starting

+2T Biggest issue with this I see is Chaos could cheese this pretty bad.

Thank you for your time,

artemis8 wrote:
More games down!!!!

It was epic. We played 7ish more games this weekend using Nurgle and Loyalists to check on the Terminator Progress!

+ 1T

So far many people like the new changes. No auto death to lasguns barrages any more. We did another test and had 3 Sets of 10 Terminators walk from Max Troop weapon range, while firing, against troops from IG, SM, Chaos. They had MUCH more defense than before. The Nurglenators were Tough but still not as tough as I thought they would be. They could survive a HAIL of bullets and even a beat stick hero (for a few turns), but in the end dropped as easy as other Terms due to the fact that heavy weapons as of now are currently not being affected by our rule test. Did not know you paid through the NOSE for that Mark of Nurgle.

Anyway!!!!! More games more games more games to play

This week we'll be starting

+2T Biggest issue with this I see is Chaos could cheese this pretty bad.

Thank you for your time,

Good to know my preferred method of fixing Terminators works, and works well.

What about giving them two wounds and it will not die? that would make them a lot harder to kill, but they would still die to things like battle cannon shots and other high strength or instant death weapons.

Wy don't you use centurions than? You've got mellee cunturions with 2 wounds and t5.

becuse i play dark angels, we do not have centurions. as someone who plays an all terminator army, i would say that there are four things that would make terminators more viable.

1. increase their WS and BS by +1. terminators are supposed to be the elite of the elite, and the longest serving veterans in the chapter

2. give them 1+ toughness, terminator armor was originally used to safely enter the plasma core of starships.

3. give them two wounds and IWND. as i said before, terminator armor is incredibly tough, and also comes with many life support systems that even regular power armor lacks.

4. decrease their point cost. a 5 man squad of terminators with not upgrades should cost only a little bit more than a bare bones squad of sternguard

I'd really rather terminators didn't end up with 2 wounds and IWND and/or extra toughness. There's been enough power creep already.

A cost reduction would certainly make sense - since most other SM stuff has been made cheaper.

 OnlyWar wrote:
becuse i play dark angels, we do not have centurions. as someone who plays an all terminator army, i would say that there are four things that would make terminators more viable.

1. increase their WS and BS by +1. terminators are supposed to be the elite of the elite, and the longest serving veterans in the chapter

2. give them 1+ toughness, terminator armor was originally used to safely enter the plasma core of starships.

3. give them two wounds and IWND. as i said before, terminator armor is incredibly tough, and also comes with many life support systems that even regular power armor lacks.

4. decrease their point cost. a 5 man squad of terminators with not upgrades should cost only a little bit more than a bare bones squad of sternguard

Ah yeah, here is my chance to ask a new person this question. Why don't you post things that are probably original, instead of things that are very obvious and probably have been suggested before? Like, if you acknowledged that the basic formula of +1 to a stat, reduction of points cost, etc, has some real basic attributes, you could probably discuss something really interesting; for instance the OP's actual experience playtesting some of your bullet points.

Just reply, I guess, since that will be a fairly significant data point by itself.

+1T is fine because they exist in the game. Deathwing Knights (and that Space Wolf formation version of DW Knights that is just better for no cost) and Nurgle Terminators haven't broken the game. A Space Marine on a bike should not be tougher than a Terminator. I'd like to see it on Obliterators and other "Not-Terminators", though. +2T is probably too much. A Toughness increase also means that there's an actual reason to take Terminator armour over artificer armour.

One suggestion for preventing character abuse - what if characters in Terminator armour receive the Toughness increase, but only if they are already below T5? I'm not sure if Abaddon or Typhus should be allowed to bypass this due to their Mark of Nurgle, mostly because they don't really need it.

If you do want to go with +2T, perhaps changing the MoN on Terminators from +1T to Feel No Pain (+?) would be better. This might be worth considering for the aforementioned Deathwing Knights and Space Wolf Shieldbrothers formation, as well as Grey Knights, who really don't need the buff.

I'd like to see storm bolters go to Salvo 2/4 with an appropriate buff to combi-bolters so the Chaos Terminators don't lose out. Perhaps Terminators could fire Assault/Rapid Fire weapons twice, instead? An increase in BS would increase their firepower too, though, so that might be enough.

good luck with that.

 Frozen Ocean wrote:
+1T is fine because they exist in the game. Deathwing Knights (and that Space Wolf formation version of DW Knights that is just better for no cost) and Nurgle Terminators haven't broken the game.

In the case of the former, the +1T isn't permanent. They only get it when they're in base contact with 2 or more other deathwing knights. So, they have to bunch together, and can easily lose the bonus if they lose some members or enter combat. Also, they are much more limited in terms of weapons - carrying only power mauls, rather than fists or thunder hammers.

Using this as an excuse to give all terminators +1T seems dubious at best.

 Frozen Ocean wrote:
A Space Marine on a bike should not be tougher than a Terminator

Agreed. So, let's just end the stupidity of bikes giving marines T5. They already confer plenty of bonuses in Relentless, Jink, HoW, speed etc., and the extra toughness is neither necessary nor fluffy.

The biggest problem with Terminators is the all-or-nothing save system makes it difficult to accurately price things with 2+ saves and AP2 guns. Terminators were pretty good at their present price back in 4e when AP2 guns either had to eat Gets Hot! rolls that didn't allow armour saves on the firer or forced the user to get uncomfortably close to a Terminator unit; nowadays with Suncannons and Ion Accelerators and Exocrines and Psychic Shriek consequence-free ways to kill Terminators from half the table away are fairly common.

That said I'm not here to propose giving Terminators two Wounds, T5, and 4++ saves, that would be silly. All I want is a standard ordinary powerfist/storm bolter Terminator to cost 35pts, with a 5pt upgrade to hammer/shield, and the option to take two upgrade guns at current prices regardless of squad size.

Frozen Ocean wrote:An increase in BS would increase their firepower too, though, so that might be enough.

When you are talking about bolt guns in a squad, specifically twin-linked bolt guns in a squad, bs5 had might as well not have happened.

Frozen Ocean wrote:Perhaps Terminators could fire Assault/Rapid Fire weapons twice, instead?

only for bolt guns (and las guns?) one hopes, or combi plasma is really silly. Combi-gravs firing twice per turn would, I guess, be the most logical thing to use against... riptides.

vipoid wrote:

 Frozen Ocean wrote:
+1T is fine because they exist in the game. Deathwing Knights (and that Space Wolf formation version of DW Knights that is just better for no cost) and Nurgle Terminators haven't broken the game.

In the case of the former, the +1T isn't permanent. They only get it when they're in base contact with 2 or more other deathwing knights. So, they have to bunch together, and can easily lose the bonus if they lose some members or enter combat. Also, they are much more limited in terms of weapons - carrying only power mauls, rather than fists or thunder hammers.

Using this as an excuse to give all terminators +1T seems dubious at best.

I think the excuse is that most armor (carapace?) doesn't do anything to prevent your bones and spine from being snapped if you are flattened by an s7 ap6 hit that doesn't ever touch your skin. TDA seems to provide some rigidity to the limbs and the spine that other things don't.

vipoid wrote:

 Frozen Ocean wrote:
A Space Marine on a bike should not be tougher than a Terminator

Agreed. So, let's just end the stupidity of bikes giving marines T5. They already confer plenty of bonuses in Relentless, Jink, HoW, speed etc., and the extra toughness is neither necessary nor fluffy.

I think increasing their Ballistic Skill and Toughness by one is probably the way to go. These guys are the most elite troops in the army. They should not have the same basic stat line as a veteran sergeant. Otherwise a five point reduction per marine. If not both of these things.

Veteran sergeants are almost always former Terminators.

?

Make storm bolters rapid fire! I guess that would change a lot more than just terminators, but it makes deep-striking in your unit to chew up an infantry squad or a light vehicle more reliable. As for defensive upgrades, I see Grey Knight terminators as a good example - an extra wound makes a big difference without being totally borked.

 vipoid wrote:

 Frozen Ocean wrote:
+1T is fine because they exist in the game. Deathwing Knights (and that Space Wolf formation version of DW Knights that is just better for no cost) and Nurgle Terminators haven't broken the game.

In the case of the former, the +1T isn't permanent. They only get it when they're in base contact with 2 or more other deathwing knights. So, they have to bunch together, and can easily lose the bonus if they lose some members or enter combat. Also, they are much more limited in terms of weapons - carrying only power mauls, rather than fists or thunder hammers.

Using this as an excuse to give all terminators +1T seems dubious at best.

Nurgle Terminators and Arjac's Shield Brothers (while admittedly stupid) still haven't broken the game. And judging by the playtest results in this thread, it being a common Terminator trait doesn't either.

 vipoid wrote:

 Frozen Ocean wrote:
A Space Marine on a bike should not be tougher than a Terminator

Agreed. So, let's just end the stupidity of bikes giving marines T5. They already confer plenty of bonuses in Relentless, Jink, HoW, speed etc., and the extra toughness is neither necessary nor fluffy.

They've been this way for a long time and, while good, they really don't need a nerf, especially not just so they can make Terminators look better.

 Frozen Ocean wrote:

Nurgle Terminators and Arjac's Shield Brothers (while admittedly stupid) still haven't broken the game. And judging by the playtest results in this thread, it being a common Terminator trait doesn't either.

Is 'haven't broken the game' really the best measure of whether a particular trait is a good idea?

I mean, MoN may not have broken the game, but it certainly broke the CSM book by being miles ahead of the other marks in terms of power level.

 Frozen Ocean wrote:

They've been this way for a long time and, while good, they really don't need a nerf, especially not just so they can make Terminators look better.

That it's not new doesn't make it in any way necessary either. Especially since the recent editions have added yet more buffs to bikes.

Sorry, but bikes have received far too many buffs, alongside significant point drops, that make them too good for their cost.

Maths was never my strong point but I tried to do numbers to see how Terminators actually hold up against small arms fire which is the exact type of fire you would expect them to hold up against.

formula = (shots * hit chance * wound chance * failed save)

10 Marines Rapid Firing Bolters

VS Terminators @ 40 points each:
20 * 2/3 * 1/2 * 1/6 = 1.11111 Dead Terminators
40 * 1.111111 = 44.444 points damage done

VS Marines @ 14 points each
20 * 2/3 * 1/2 * 1/3 = 2.22222 Dead Marines
14 * 2.22222 = 31.111 points damage done

VS Ork Boyz @ 6 points each
20 * 2/3 * 1/2 = 6.666666667 Dead Orks
6 * 6.666666667 = 40 points damage done



10 Guardsmen Rapid Firing Lasguns

VS Terminators @ 40 points each:
20 * 1/2 * 1/3 * 1/6 =0.555555556 Dead Terminators
40 * 0.555555556= 22.22222222 points damage done

VS Marines@ 14 points each:
20 * 1/2 * 1/3 * 1/3 =1.111111111 Dead Marines
14 * 0.555555556= 15.55555556 points damage done

VS Orks Boyz @ 6 points each:
20 * 1/2 * 1/3 * 5/6 =2.777777778 Dead Boyz
6 * 2.777777778= 16.66666667points damage done


For cost Terminators are more fragile against small arms fire than both Marines and Ork Boyz. (I don't trust my maths but I think it's all right)

Math checking out here. So Terminators are more fragile than regular Space Marines, and if a Storm Bolter is worth about a bolter and a half Terminators are putting out half the firepower per point as Tactical Marines before upgrade guns are factored in, then the reason must lie in the power fists (which make Terminators do around three times as much damage per point as Tactical Marines before the Initiative problem is factored in).

The problem is that 40k today is won on the strength of your guns, not on the strength of your power fists.

Any weapon attacking them with an AP of 4 or higher (5 or 6) they can re-roll their armour save.

0.185185185 would die from a full squad of bolters rapid firing though there would be special/heavy weapons in the squad presumably as well so I think it would go a long way towards not having them ruined by mass of fire, they could be a pain in combat granted if the opponent is only rocking CCW's, but to be honest for the damage output termies actually put out for their points, having the enemy have to actually bring there big guns out to counter them is exactly what they should be doing fluff wise and on the table top.

And of course against weapons like power weapons, they would still only get the 1 2+ save, so it would sort of make power swords worth it against them in a strange way, especially of the termies are rocking powerfists or thunder hammers and their enemy can still bring weight of attacks with those power swords.

endlesswaltz123 wrote:
Any weapon attacking them with an AP of 4 or higher (5 or 6) they can re-roll their armour save.

0.185185185 would die from a full squad of bolters rapid firing though there would be special/heavy weapons in the squad presumably as well so I think it would go a long way towards not having them ruined by mass of fire, they could be a pain in combat granted if the opponent is only rocking CCW's, but to be honest for the damage output termies actually put out for their points, having the enemy have to actually bring there big guns out to counter them is exactly what they should be doing fluff wise and on the table top.

And of course against weapons like power weapons, they would still only get the 1 2+ save, so it would sort of make power swords worth it against them in a strange way, especially of the termies are rocking powerfists or thunder hammers and their enemy can still bring weight of attacks with those power swords.

Because Lasguns and Bolters aren't quite useless enough at the moment.

Bolters and lasguns aren't meant to be taking out terminators, or riptides or whatever else for that matter. That's one of the reasons the game can actually be such a joke at times weapons can be too diverse and thus capable. Cheap weapons like lasguns and bolters can be more powerful in a lot of ways than the one guy with the plasma gun in the squad, as it's so easy and cheap to bring so many of them.

Bolters should be amazing at taking out GEQ, lasguns should be average at killing GEQ's, and should give MEQ's trouble with weight of fire, but like I said, TEQ's require your big guns or your specialised weaponry, and well, if you are crying that your 30 bog standard marines can't take out a termie squad in 1 round of shooting, maybe you should bring a plasma gun or grav gun or two.

endlesswaltz123 wrote:
Bolters and lasguns aren't meant to be taking out terminators, or riptides or whatever else for that matter. That's one of the reasons the game can actually be such a joke at times weapons can be too diverse and thus capable. Cheap weapons like lasguns and bolters can be more powerful in a lot of ways than the one guy with the plasma gun in the squad, as there are just so many of them.

They're not meant to take out riptides, but they should be able to take out terminators with sufficient numbers.

Currently, it takes 36 lasgun shots to take out a terminator. That is not unreasonable.

What you're asking is for it to take 216 shots to take out a single terminator. Even in rapid fire range and with FRFSRF, that's 360pts of guardsmen to take out a single 40pt infantry model. And that's optimal conditions. If you're not in rapid fire and don't have FRFSRF, then you'll need over 1000pts of guardsmen.

1080pts of guardsmen. To kill 1 40pt infantry model. Can you really not see how utterly ridiculous that would be?

Are you planning to increase the cost of terminators to 120+ points?

If not, then this is an awful idea.

endlesswaltz123 wrote:

Bolters should be amazing at taking out GEQ, lasguns should be average at killing GEQ's, and have should give MEQ's trouble with weight of fire, but like I said, TEQ's require your big guns or your specialised weaponry, and well, if you are crying that your 30 bog standard marines can't take out a termie squad in 1 round of shooting, maybe you should bring a plasma gun or grav gun or two.

Sorry, no. I'm sure it's nice to imagine terminators as these invincible monoliths, but that doesn't work in a game. Especially for a model that costs a measly 40pts, and sometimes even less.

If you want that kind if survivability, you'd better be prepared to pay heavily for it.

With a guard army, even with these rules, are your A) seriously scared of the damage output of that one terminator squad to throw everything at it in 1 turn? and B) do you not think you couldn't still take out said terminator squad in one turn?

It's only lasguns and heavy bolters that will be nerved by the rule, everything else kills them exactly the same as they do now.

endlesswaltz123 wrote:
With a guard army, even with these rules, are your A) seriously scared of the damage output of that one terminator squad to throw everything at it in 1 turn?

Well, with the rule you're suggesting, I'd have to throw every lasgun at it just to kill a single one.

endlesswaltz123 wrote:
and B) do you not think you couldn't still take out said terminator squad in one turn?

The rule you're suggesting is basically invalidating all of the following:
- Lasguns
- Laspistols
- Bolters
- Bolt Pistol
- Emperor's Benediction
- Heavy Bolters
- Autocannons
- Exterminator Autocannons
- Hydra Autocannons
- Taurox Battle Cannon
- Flamers
- Heavy Flamers
- Multilasers
- Eradicator Nova Cannon
- Grenadier Gauntlets
- Heavy Stubber
- Inferno Cannon
- Multiple Rocket Pod
- Taurox Gatling Cannon
- Punisher Gatling Cannon
- Ripper Gun
- Shotgun
- Storm Bolter
- Mortars
- Stormshard Mortars

Amazingly, when you strip all those out, many of my armies wouldn't have a huge amount of firepower left over to kill terminators. Let alone in one turn. Especially if I wanted to take out vehicles - since you're basically creating infantry that are virtually immune to any weapons that aren't anti-tank rounds.

I've no idea how a Necron player would deal with them, since they have very little AP2 at the best of times.

Actually, yeah I admit my mistake there. For some reason I was thinking Autocannons and the like would be fine as they are ST7, when obviously my rule states it's AP4 and above so they would be nerfed... Had a long day. My bad.

Honestly the combination of broadly-available AP2 Large Blasts are a bigger problem for Terminator durability than not being able to hold up to lasgun/bolter-fire. If I were to suggest a minor rules change that didn't require rebalancing everything else pumping the base Inv to 4+ and leaving them at the current cost wouldn't be a bad suggestion.

As if all that small arms fire is coming from a couple of models. Simple positioning will save your termies from half of the opponent's fire unless you're deepstriking somewhere in the open 1' away from the bunched up blob without support on your part.

endlesswaltz123 wrote:
Actually, yeah I admit my mistake there. For some reason I was thinking Autocannons and the like would be fine as they are ST7, when obviously my rule states it's AP4 and above so they would be nerfed... Had a long day. My bad.

No worries.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
Honestly the combination of broadly-available AP2 Large Blasts are a bigger problem for Terminator durability than not being able to hold up to lasgun/bolter-fire. If I were to suggest a minor rules change that didn't require rebalancing everything else pumping the base Inv to 4+ and leaving them at the current cost wouldn't be a bad suggestion.

That could work.

Though, I wonder if our attention should actually be focussed elsewhere - like on rebalancing the units that actually produce these AP2 large blasts.

 vipoid wrote:

endlesswaltz123 wrote:
With a guard army, even with these rules, are your A) seriously scared of the damage output of that one terminator squad to throw everything at it in 1 turn?

Well, with the rule you're suggesting, I'd have to throw every lasgun at it just to kill a single one.

endlesswaltz123 wrote:
and B) do you not think you couldn't still take out said terminator squad in one turn?

The rule you're suggesting is basically invalidating all of the following:
- Lasguns
- Laspistols
- Bolters
- Bolt Pistol
- Emperor's Benediction
- Heavy Bolters
- Autocannons
- Exterminator Autocannons
- Hydra Autocannons
- Taurox Battle Cannon
- Flamers
- Heavy Flamers
- Multilasers
- Eradicator Nova Cannon
- Grenadier Gauntlets
- Heavy Stubber
- Inferno Cannon
- Multiple Rocket Pod
- Taurox Gatling Cannon
- Punisher Gatling Cannon
- Ripper Gun
- Shotgun
- Storm Bolter
- Mortars
- Stormshard Mortars

Amazingly, when you strip all those out, many of my armies wouldn't have a huge amount of firepower left over to kill terminators. Let alone in one turn. Especially if I wanted to take out vehicles - since you're basically creating infantry that are virtually immune to any weapons that aren't anti-tank rounds.

I've no idea how a Necron player would deal with them, since they have very little AP2 at the best of times.

Couldn't one simply add modify the rule to "rerolls vs. AP4 or worse and S6 or worse"? It gets a bit clunky, but it gets the point across: you want anti-tank weapons because they're essentially walking tanks. There'd still be atuocannons and other anti-tank weapons like that (Necrons could still use their heavy stuff to take them out) while still increasing survivability against standard anti-horde weapons.

Plus, there's still the ever-ubiquitous plasma gun, which would still murder Terminators as usual.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

Couldn't one simply add modify the rule to "rerolls vs. AP4 or worse and S6 or worse"?

What you've written isn't fixing the problem - you're just giving them rerolls against any AP3 weapons that aren't S7 or higher.

You could perhaps write it better so that they only get rerolls if the weapon is <S7 and >AP3 but, as you say, it's getting really clunky and unintuitive.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
It gets a bit clunky, but it gets the point across: you want anti-tank weapons because they're essentially walking tanks.

But that's the problem - terminators *aren't* walking tanks. You have Dreadnaughts and Dreadknights for that.

If you want to make terminators walking tanks, you can't keep them as 40pt infantry models. You'd have to change their concept entirely and make them more like monstrous creatures or walkers (i.e. single, expensive models - not units of infantry). Otherwise, you're just adding far too much resilience and further devaluing infantry units that are already suffering.

The other aspect is that lasguns, bolters and similar weapons are not good at the moment. They're basically irrelevant against MCs, and can't even touch most vehicles (and this, I'll remind you, in an edition when armies can be comprised of nothing but vehicles and MCs). They've also remained unchanged whilst other weapons/units escalate around them - making them even more superfluous and frequently of little use other than ablative wounds for special weapons. Infantry, when people bother including it at all, are one of the few units that bolters and lasguns can actually do something against. So, please understand why I'm not eager to see terminators basically get free immunity to those and other weapons.

Put simply, 40k does not need more escalation. It does not need to make basic weapons even more worthless - 6th and 7th edition has already done an excellent job on both counts. What we need is more stability and fewer units with stupidly powerful weapons.

I'm certainly not able to support this with any of the in-depth maths that have been showing up in the thread, but the idea of a 2+/4++ seems like an OK compromise yeah? I mean T5 is nice, but that seems like a pretty impressive stat boost (then again a +1 invulnerable save may be too). The chances of saving out of the Ap2/1 nastiness increased to a 50/50, opposed to the 1/3. Then again, like I said, I don't have the maths to really support this outside from my experience with the game.

I think the weapon options should vary dependent on chapter tactics/codexes...but that's just my desire for a more in-depth fluffy reason.

Well, one possible problem with the 2+/4+ is that not all terminators are struggling at the moment - if you see what I mean.

e.g. GK terminators are currently very good, and buffing their save to 4++ (which they can then increase to 3++ via a psychic power) could easily make them too good.

Perhaps a simple price drop on some of the other terminators would be better? That would then put them more in line with both the aforementioned GK terminators, and also marine infantry units in general (most of which went down in price in 6th, whilst terminators did not).

So I tested my idea from a while back. Didn't realize that when put into practice a 6 strong unit of khorne
terminators could potentially weather that much fire. Four dakka banner'd DA tac squads managed to kill
one before I assaulted turn three.
I can only imagine how, say, a unit of deathknights in b2b with a DW command squad with an apothecary.
And on my 'invulnerable save issue, I just figure giving models in terminator armor a rule like the following;

Tactical Dreadnought Armour: Models in Terminator Armour do not take invulnerable saves. Instead if they failed an armour
They may take an additional save that succeeds on a 5+ . If a weapon's AP value would bypass their save, they do not take the additional save.
Note; if the model/unit receives an invulnerable save from an outside source,use its value as the re-roll, and it may always be t
used.

 vipoid wrote:
making them even more superfluous and frequently of little use other than ablative wounds for special weapons. Infantry, when people bother including it at all, are one of the few units that bolters and lasguns can actually do something against. So, please understand why I'm not eager to see terminators basically get free immunity to those and other weapons.

Put simply, 40k does not need more escalation. It does not need to make basic weapons even more worthless - 6th and 7th edition has already done an excellent job on both counts. What we need is more stability and fewer units with stupidly powerful weapons.

Small arms have always been pretty much ablative wounds, to imperial armies. That's sort of a problem with the rules, not the army lists.

One of the uses of Terminators is as platforms for powerful small arms and as being helpful in small-arms firefights. Such things don't exist. but that isn't TDA's fault.

pelicaniforce wrote:
Small arms have always been pretty much ablative wounds, to imperial armies. That's sort of a problem with the rules, not the army lists.

And you don't extinguish a fire by pouring petrol on it.

 vipoid wrote:

pelicaniforce wrote:
Small arms have always been pretty much ablative wounds, to imperial armies. That's sort of a problem with the rules, not the army lists.

And you don't extinguish a fire by pouring petrol on it.

Actually some people would.
I just wish I meant figuratively and/or metaphorically.

 Ond Angel wrote:

Actually some people would.
I just wish I meant figuratively and/or metaphorically.

I recall a story about two mechanics attempting to extinguish a flare in a tank of petrol.

It turned out about as well as you'd expect...

 vipoid wrote:

 Ond Angel wrote:

Actually some people would.
I just wish I meant figuratively and/or metaphorically.

I recall a story about two mechanics attempting to extinguish a flare in a tank of petrol.

It turned out about as well as you'd expect...

The flare was in the petrol, or they tried to extinguish it by placing it in petrol...?

 Ond Angel wrote:

The flare was in the petrol, or they tried to extinguish it by placing it in petrol...?

They tried to extinguish it by putting it in the petrol.

If I remember correctly, they were trying to replicate something they'd seen on TV - where someone had extinguished a cigar in a glass of diesel.

Apparently they didn't realised that petrol is easier to ignite, that flares burn hotter than cigars, and that flares have their own oxygen source - so can still burn when submerged.

 vipoid wrote:

 Ond Angel wrote:

The flare was in the petrol, or they tried to extinguish it by placing it in petrol...?

They tried to extinguish it by putting it in the petrol.

If I remember correctly, they were trying to replicate something they'd seen on TV - where someone had extinguished a cigar in a glass of diesel.

Apparently they didn't realised that petrol is easier to ignite, that flares burn hotter than cigars, and that flares have their own oxygen source - so can still burn when submerged.

Edit:
To keep on topic, I feel a simple points cost brings most Terminators in line.
My Fandex uses 5 point cheaper TH/SS Terminators, and they seem to do their points worth now. (25+ pts goes a long way)

 vipoid wrote:

pelicaniforce wrote:
Small arms have always been pretty much ablative wounds, to imperial armies. That's sort of a problem with the rules, not the army lists.

And you don't extinguish a fire by pouring petrol on it.

I didn't say anything good about re-rolls, I think they're a terrible idea. If I say anything on this topic it's to increase the use of ap4, often useless against TDA, at the expense of both ap2 and massed fire.

I'd really prefer Guard to be useful as little five- or four- model combat squads, because lasgunners have become more than just ablative wounds, but instead here we are trying to establish that actually 2+ saves are not too weak.

I don't know if anyone else has said an idea to this but why not let them just get a re-roll on their armor/ but at 2 worse if they fail it?

2+ turns into a 2+/4+Re-roll/4++(3++ from ss)

It will reduce failed saves from high volume by roughly half while at the same time not really buffing ts/ss combo since their survivle rate would be the same as non ss/th from high volume.

Or apply the same idea but only on Str 4 or less weapons but that might get a little cumbersome.

This can also help with artifice armor that doesn't have any invul save like SG from blodo angels (but their codex is coming up soon so who knows)

 Anpu42 wrote:

 mekugi wrote:
I think making a special circumstance for them and make their save a 3+ on 2d6 and their invo a 5+ also on 2d6.
It would slow things down as you'd have to roll each one separately, but if combined with something like only S5 or above weapons can pen their armour then you'd be rolling a lot less saves for them.
That way they'll be near on indestructible and you can leave their mediocre damage output as it is because buffing both would make them way to OP

That is how it was done in 2nd. It was not bad then when a 2k game maybe had 30-40 models on the table.
Now it is much different. Imagine making 30-40 Save a Turn now a days.

Terminators my also be dropping in price. Wolf Guard Terminators are now 33ppm as are Grey Knight Terminators. The problem is until the Blood Angels come out we will not know for sure that is the trend.

Wolf Guard Termies have been 33 pts/model since their 5th edition codex, not sure about anything before that. The whole point of it is to have them cheaper for more versatility with Space Wolf Termies; it was just the matter of paying 18 points per wolf guard then 15 per for Termi armour.

Yes WG terminators start at 33 points but start with a power weapon. To upgrade them to a power fist makes them cost 43 points. TH/SS Wolf Guard are 58 points each. So are twin Wolf Claw, but on the other hand they are +1 Strength over normal terminators.

Flexibility and versatility come at a price.

 vipoid wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:
Honestly the combination of broadly-available AP2 Large Blasts are a bigger problem for Terminator durability than not being able to hold up to lasgun/bolter-fire. If I were to suggest a minor rules change that didn't require rebalancing everything else pumping the base Inv to 4+ and leaving them at the current cost wouldn't be a bad suggestion.

That could work.

Though, I wonder if our attention should actually be focussed elsewhere - like on rebalancing the units that actually produce these AP2 large blasts.

The problem is that the underlying issue here is how 40k handles armour saves (all-or-nothing instead of WHFB's more sensible penalty system), if we were to fix that a lot of issues that come out in edge-case situations like the narrow band of balance between too good and too expensive for Terminators and the waste of paper that is 6+ armour saves would up and vanish.

I love me 6+ saves in mellee, vs mob rule and explosions. 1/6 is definitely better than nothing.

Maybe it's a little late to the party, by which I mean "I hope this doesn't count as threadromancy", but what about making TDA -1 to the AP of weapons firing at them when taking saves?
AP1 still ignores TDA, anything AP3 or worse still won't matter, and AP2 is not-so-problematic.
Rending would still work, as that isn't a weapon.
For the sake of mixed units it won't matter, since only the model taking a save in TDA gets it, not his PA buds.

4+ Invul would be be a fair buff to them. Unfortunately it would unbalance any weapon loudouts that include a storm shield. I wouldn't exchange a storm bolter for an increase of 4++ to 3++. And making Storm Shields 2++ would be OP.

Allowing invul save in addition to regular save is an excellent idea.

How about the storm shield is a 3++ and finally counts as a CCW? It would have its own niche again.

 Quickjager wrote:
How about the storm shield is a 3++ and finally counts as a CCW? It would have its own niche again.

That would be great, but do you think it would make lightning claws unviable?

Mmm yes most likely, but lightning claws have always been dubious at best a slight point point drop would balance it out again.

Making storm shields count as a CCW is a great idea!

Sincerely, Thunderwolf Cavalry.

Thunderhammers are also specialist weapons, so TWC isn't so strong still unless they load up on Power Axes, in which case if they didn't die to your Initiative you were probably dead anyway.

Frost Swords become a nice option to compliment a counts as CCW storm shield for a Thunderwolf. Wound MEQs on a 2+ and ignore their armour without dropping initiative. Rending and volume of attacks will combine to deliver wounds through 2±

If the Terminators were that pointless, people wouldn't bring that much plasma and other AP2.

Because there's clearly no other units in the game with a 2+ save and average to above average toughness. None whatsoever. People only bring plasma to deal with termies.

Not to mention the lengthy discussion that could be had about opportunity costs of special weapons and why melta/plasma are as prevalent as they are.

I don't believe that terminators are underpowered.
Overcosted, yeah.
And the fact that they cannot make sweeping advances is the killer for me...
If they could they'd actually stand a chance (although this only really applies to Nurgle Termis: Imperials should have T5 too, they just die waaaaay to easily as is).

Terminators are only good for making obliterators.

Or meganobz. But termies are a bit small for both of them.

I think making Storm Shields a STR: User, AP -, Specialist Weapon for Terminators would be pretty cool. Only stuff in TDA would be able to use them in that way.

My proposed way to fix Tactical Terminators is to make Assault Cannons their base weapon, but keep their cost the same.

The problem with Terminators today is that they're worse point-for-point than Tactical Marines until you get them into melee, and 7e is pretty focused on the shooting part of the game. Terminators could stand having a way to drop the power fists and get a cost reduction, a way to get more heavy weapons in a squad of five, and/or a buff to storm bolters; they're mostly reasonable, but their damage output isn't sufficient to see them on the table today.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 casvalremdeikun wrote:
I think making Storm Shields a STR: User, AP -, Specialist Weapon for Terminators would be pretty cool. Only stuff in TDA would be able to use them in that way.

My proposed way to fix Tactical Terminators is to make Assault Cannons their base weapon, but keep their cost the same.

That would be silly. 100% Assault Cannons at 45ppm, now...


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Jefffar wrote:
Yes WG terminators start at 33 points but start with a power weapon. To upgrade them to a power fist makes them cost 43 points. TH/SS Wolf Guard are 58 points each. So are twin Wolf Claw, but on the other hand they are +1 Strength over normal terminators.

Flexibility and versatility come at a price.

I don't know about you but I would love 30-ish PPM Deathwing that came with power swords and left me with the option to upgrade some with fists/LC/THSS.

CSM are 33 and they don't have ATSKNF and CT. I think it's a reasonable price when you have all that goodies.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
The problem with Terminators today is that they're worse point-for-point than Tactical Marines until you get them into melee, and 7e is pretty focused on the shooting part of the game. Terminators could stand having a way to drop the power fists and get a cost reduction, a way to get more heavy weapons in a squad of five, and/or a buff to storm bolters; they're mostly reasonable, but their damage output isn't sufficient to see them on the table today.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 casvalremdeikun wrote:
I think making Storm Shields a STR: User, AP -, Specialist Weapon for Terminators would be pretty cool. Only stuff in TDA would be able to use them in that way.

My proposed way to fix Tactical Terminators is to make Assault Cannons their base weapon, but keep their cost the same.

That would be silly. 100% Assault Cannons at 45ppm, now...

That would put them at 225 pts per squad. Too expensive.

 casvalremdeikun wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:
The problem with Terminators today is that they're worse point-for-point than Tactical Marines until you get them into melee, and 7e is pretty focused on the shooting part of the game. Terminators could stand having a way to drop the power fists and get a cost reduction, a way to get more heavy weapons in a squad of five, and/or a buff to storm bolters; they're mostly reasonable, but their damage output isn't sufficient to see them on the table today.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 casvalremdeikun wrote:
I think making Storm Shields a STR: User, AP -, Specialist Weapon for Terminators would be pretty cool. Only stuff in TDA would be able to use them in that way.

My proposed way to fix Tactical Terminators is to make Assault Cannons their base weapon, but keep their cost the same.

That would be silly. 100% Assault Cannons at 45ppm, now...

That would put them at 225 pts per squad. Too expensive.

Wait, a unit of 5 Terminators with 5 Assault Cannons at 225 points would be too expensive how, exactly?

225 for five assault cannons is about on par with units in the Eldar codex. That would mean they might be too cheap.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 casvalremdeikun wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:
The problem with Terminators today is that they're worse point-for-point than Tactical Marines until you get them into melee, and 7e is pretty focused on the shooting part of the game. Terminators could stand having a way to drop the power fists and get a cost reduction, a way to get more heavy weapons in a squad of five, and/or a buff to storm bolters; they're mostly reasonable, but their damage output isn't sufficient to see them on the table today.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 casvalremdeikun wrote:
I think making Storm Shields a STR: User, AP -, Specialist Weapon for Terminators would be pretty cool. Only stuff in TDA would be able to use them in that way.

My proposed way to fix Tactical Terminators is to make Assault Cannons their base weapon, but keep their cost the same.

That would be silly. 100% Assault Cannons at 45ppm, now...

That would put them at 225 pts per squad. Too expensive.

Wait, a unit of 5 Terminators with 5 Assault Cannons at 225 points would be too expensive how, exactly?

I am absolutely serious. Take a similarly equipped and costed unit and compare. A five man unit of sanguinary guard with four power fists, angelus Bolters, and one sword encarmine comes in at 205 points, 5 points more than the basic 200 point Terminator squad.

The Terminator squad has 5 24" Str4 AP5, Assault 2 Storm Bolters, the Sanguinary Guard has 5 12" Str4 AP4, Assault 2 Angelus Bolters. So while the Terminators have more range, Sanguinary Guard have more penetration. The Power Fists are a draw since same Str. The Sword Encarmine vs the Power Sword goes to the SE since master crafted. The Sanguinary Guard also have more choices for weapons.

Their stats are basically the same except the Terminators have a 5++. So advantage Terminators. But the Sanguinary Guard have jump packs so they are much more mobile.

So for the low low price of -5 points, a little range and a 5++, the Terminators give up some AP on their Bolters, a Master crafted Power Sword, and a ton of mobility.

I don't think giving them more penetrating power and rending would be too much of a trade for reduced mobility and no MC on the sergeant.

Simplest fix is just give them a 1+ armor save. Still fails on a one but only penetrable by AP1 and they still have the invul. For their current points quite balanced.

 casvalremdeikun wrote:

I'd not mind facing assault cannon termintaors with my SAG meganobz. For no point cost ofc.

 casvalremdeikun wrote:
I am absolutely serious. Take a similarly equipped and costed unit and compare. A five man unit of sanguinary guard with four power fists, angelus Bolters, and one sword encarmine comes in at 205 points, 5 points more than the basic 200 point Terminator squad.

The Terminator squad has 5 24" Str4 AP5, Assault 2 Storm Bolters, the Sanguinary Guard has 5 12" Str4 AP4, Assault 2 Angelus Bolters. So while the Terminators have more range, Sanguinary Guard have more penetration. The Power Fists are a draw since same Str. The Sword Encarmine vs the Power Sword goes to the SE since master crafted. The Sanguinary Guard also have more choices for weapons.

Their stats are basically the same except the Terminators have a 5++. So advantage Terminators. But the Sanguinary Guard have jump packs so they are much more mobile.

So for the low low price of -5 points, a little range and a 5++, the Terminators give up some AP on their Bolters, a Master crafted Power Sword, and a ton of mobility.

I don't think giving them more penetrating power and rending would be too much of a trade for reduced mobility and no MC on the sergeant.

(Emphasis mine)

Um, no they don't. The Terminators have 5 Assault Cannons - for a total of 20 S6 AP4 Rending shots.

 buddha wrote:
Simplest fix is just give them a 1+ armor save. Still fails on a one but only penetrable by AP1 and they still have the invul. For their current points quite balanced.

I could have sworn I read that the Emperor had an armor save of 1+. Armor saves of 1+ do not fail from rolling 1 ever and can only be hurt by ap1 weapons. So even if you caused a wound, he would auto save unless it was AP1 and he had to roll an invul save or a cover save.

 vipoid wrote:

 casvalremdeikun wrote:
I am absolutely serious. Take a similarly equipped and costed unit and compare. A five man unit of sanguinary guard with four power fists, angelus Bolters, and one sword encarmine comes in at 205 points, 5 points more than the basic 200 point Terminator squad.

The Terminator squad has 5 24" Str4 AP5, Assault 2 Storm Bolters, the Sanguinary Guard has 5 12" Str4 AP4, Assault 2 Angelus Bolters. So while the Terminators have more range, Sanguinary Guard have more penetration. The Power Fists are a draw since same Str. The Sword Encarmine vs the Power Sword goes to the SE since master crafted. The Sanguinary Guard also have more choices for weapons.

Their stats are basically the same except the Terminators have a 5++. So advantage Terminators. But the Sanguinary Guard have jump packs so they are much more mobile.

So for the low low price of -5 points, a little range and a 5++, the Terminators give up some AP on their Bolters, a Master crafted Power Sword, and a ton of mobility.

I don't think giving them more penetrating power and rending would be too much of a trade for reduced mobility and no MC on the sergeant.

(Emphasis mine)

Um, no they don't. The Terminators have 5 Assault Cannons - for a total of 20 S6 AP4 Rending shots.

I was illustrating how things are now as to why giving Terminators a hefty boost is warranted. The increase from 10 Str 4 AP5 shots to 20 Str 6 AP4 Rending shots is in exchange for their poor mobility, and worse choice of weapons. Maybe raise their points to 42 pts per model, but not any higher than that.

 Filch wrote:

 buddha wrote:
Simplest fix is just give them a 1+ armor save. Still fails on a one but only penetrable by AP1 and they still have the invul. For their current points quite balanced.

I could have sworn I read that the Emperor had an armor save of 1+. Armor saves of 1+ do not fail from rolling 1 ever and can only be hurt by ap1 weapons. So even if you caused a wound, he would auto save unless it was AP1 and he had to roll an invul save or a cover save.

That would be a homebrew rule, as there is no armour save of 1+ in 40K.
A natural roll of 1 is always a fail on Armour Saves (and a small number of other things).

 casvalremdeikun wrote:
I was illustrating how things are now as to why giving Terminators a hefty boost is warranted. The increase from 10 Str 4 AP5 shots to 20 Str 6 AP4 Rending shots is in exchange for their poor mobility, and worse choice of weapons. Maybe raise their points to 42 pts per model, but not any higher than that.

A reasonable boost is warranted, but giving them all assault cannons is still deserving of a 5pt increase.

In addition to doubling your shots, S6 AP4 Rending is miles better than S4 AP5 - there are just so many more targets you can threaten. As it stands, you're basically limited to softening up infantry a little before you get to them. With this change, you can mow down infantry, kill MCs, obliterate light vehicles, threaten fliers, etc. And, even with supposed poor mobility, they still have a 30" threat range. That's the same as a Pask Punisher - which has 20 S5 Rending shots with no AP, and is considered incredibly good. Sorry, but you're really undervaluing having an entire unit of Assault Cannons.

As it stands, they're a melee unit with a bit of shooting. This would turn them into an incredibly strong ranged unit, but with no reduction in melee power either.

I suppose having them cost as much as THSS Terminators wouldn't be the end of the world. 45 pts isn't unreasonable.

I'm against the AP1 only rule, as terminators are exactly the desired target of plasma weapons, and that would only give too much of an advantage to meltas (who already are dominant in the current meta).

I'd either make them all waaay cheaper, or make their stormbolters much killier: give them Sternguard ammo, for example!

I don't think that Casvalremdeikun is completly out of his mind with his Assault Cannon idea. At 40 points a model, maybe a bit crazy, but at 45 points a model, and maybe a reduction to melee ability, I think it should be workable and satisfy my Gatling fetish .

The point is, the way I play, I may want Terminators as the durable anchor of my shooty army, and the way that they're currently configured, that isn't a possibility. Assault cannons are perfect for this, I think, as they provide a good balance of anti-infantry and light vehicle destruction.

The Eldar would still smoke these terminators, so why the hell not?

When I came into 40k in the mid 90s i recall terminators being pretty scary. If we brought them back where they should be, I think +3 toughness would fix it because:

That would make S3 weapon spam put back into its place and reinforce the reason why terminator armour is even labelled as 'tactical dreadnought armour'
Still give plasma a decent chance to kill.
Lascannons can still take them down with ease.

The storm bolter could do with an extra shot as discussed earlier, but I think giving assault cannons as standard would be the wrong solution, -termies' main problem is their underwhelming durability, not firepower.

Rewriting the armour piercing and save mechanic would do termies justice without making them broken. Save modifiers worked quite well in 2nd, instead of the "all or nothing" AP system. Here's something I came up on a D10 based system I'm trying to write:

Super Heavy armour (terminator, mega mrmour) 2+ save
Reinforced Heavy (artificer) 3+
Heavy (power, heavy aspect) 4+
Medium (carapace, tau, ork 'eavy armour, aspect, tough chitin) 6+
Light (flak, mesh, medium chitin) 8+
Basic (ork vests, light chitin) 9+

Save Modifiers:
bolter -1
heavy bolter -2
autocannon -3
plasma -4
krak missile -4
melta -6
lascannon -6

 thegreatchimp wrote:

Super Heavy armour (terminator, mega mrmour) 2+ save
Reinforced Heavy (artificer) 3+
Heavy (power, heavy aspect) 4+
Medium (carapace, tau, ork 'eavy armour, aspect, tough chitin) 6+
Light (flak, mesh, medium chitin) 8+
Basic (ork vests, light chitin) 9+

Save Modifiers:
bolter -1
heavy bolter -2
autocannon -3
plasma -4
krak missile -4
melta -6
lascannon -6

d6 will be the current ap system and d6 dice, d10 will be the proposed one.
Chance to die from a wound caused by:

A shoota
d6 - 16% d10 - 10%

A bolter
d6 - 16% d10 - 20%

Heavy bolter
d6 - 16% d10 - 30%

Autocannon
d6 - 16% d10 - 40%

Plasma
d6 - 67% (invul) d10 - 50%

Krak missile
d6 - 16% d10 - 50%

Melta, Lascannon
d6 - 66% d10 - 70%


The introduced system will reduce the durability of 2+ save against all but plasmaguns and no-ap weapons.

 thegreatchimp wrote:
The storm bolter could do with an extra shot as discussed earlier, but I think giving assault cannons as standard would be the wrong solution, -termies' main problem is their underwhelming durability, not firepower.

Rewriting the armour piercing and save mechanic would do termies justice without making them broken. Save modifiers worked quite well in 2nd, instead of the "all or nothing" AP system. Here's something I came up on a D10 based system I'm trying to write:

Super Heavy armour (terminator, mega mrmour) 2+ save
Reinforced Heavy (artificer) 3+
Heavy (power, heavy aspect) 4+
Medium (carapace, tau, ork 'eavy armour, aspect, tough chitin) 6+
Light (flak, mesh, medium chitin) 8+
Basic (ork vests, light chitin) 9+

Save Modifiers:
bolter -1
heavy bolter -2
autocannon -3
plasma -4
krak missile -4
melta -6
lascannon -6

I did something similar for Aegis (linked to in my sig if anyone's curious), I rescaled stats so it takes a jump of two points to change the value needed to wound by one, then Terminators got T6 as opposed to T5 for regular Space Marines and a 1+ armour save (auto-pass unless someone's got at least -1 worth of AP, so it's immune to lasguns and most unupgraded melee but it's 2+ against most small arms and progressively worse against heavier guns), plus a 5+ Ward save (Inv taken in addition to armour more like Fantasy) and cover as a to-hit modifier so there's some point in heavily armoured folks making use of it. They've been appropriately terrifying in the few test games they've shown up in.

The IG player says thanks for making the lasgun even more irelevant.

Yeah, I don't understand this fascination people seem to have about making infantry immune to lasguns.

What else are we supposed to shoot them at?

 vipoid wrote:
Yeah, I don't understand this fascination people seem to have about making infantry immune to lasguns.

What else are we supposed to shoot them at?

Who said anything about making infantry immune to lasguns? The point here is about making Terminators immune to lasguns. (I put the option to run Guardsmen with hellguns (which do have armour penetration and can affect Terminators) on non-conscript squads into my Guard rules to compensate; the point is that you shouldn't be able to kill the heaviest armour in the game by poking it enough, not that poking it enough isn't the solution to some things)

 AnomanderRake wrote:
Who said anything about making infantry immune to lasguns? The point here is about making Terminators immune to lasguns.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but terminators are de facto infantry.

 vipoid wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:
Who said anything about making infantry immune to lasguns? The point here is about making Terminators immune to lasguns.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but terminators are de facto infantry.

Big heavy infantry typically not deployed in large numbers, but yes. I made the heaviest possible infantry armour class in the most heavily-armoured Codex immune to a third of the Guard's possible small arms options in this ruleset.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

Big heavy infantry typically not deployed in large numbers, but yes. I made the heaviest possible infantry armour class in the most heavily-armoured Codex immune to a third of the Guard's possible small arms options in this ruleset.

But why is this necessary or balanced?

At the very least, why are you just making them immune to lasguns - and not bolters, Pulse Rifles and similar weapons?

 vipoid wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:

Big heavy infantry typically not deployed in large numbers, but yes. I made the heaviest possible infantry armour class in the most heavily-armoured Codex immune to a third of the Guard's possible small arms options in this ruleset.

But why is this necessary or balanced?

At the very least, why are you just making them immune to lasguns - and not bolters, Pulse Rifles and similar weapons?

If you click on the Project Blog link in my signature and scroll down a bit there are some design goals listed there; I don't want to get into a long speech but this particular mathematical situation is a result of trying to make the range of model stats wider and to make different small arms matter instead of requiring escalation to more and better special/heavy weapons to get anything done.

To answer your second question Terminators are more resilient to bolters and pulse rifles than they would be in 40k (though not immune), and Codexes don't have one single small arm that everyone uses all the time. It's possible in Aegis to field a viable Guard army with zero lasguns (using hellguns, hot-shot lasguns, and shotguns instead). 'Light' small arms (autoguns, lasguns, Eldar lasblasters, fleshborers) are supposed to be skirmisher weapons; they tend to have better range and more shots than 'heavy' small arms (bolters, hellguns, shuriken catapults, pulse rifles) but they don't hit as hard.

Before you ask I'm trying to design the core rules to reward TAC lists instead of GW"s current skew-lists-win approach; an army of all Terminators is certainly possible, but it'd be slow, toothless outside close range, and easily whittled down by heavier armaments (consider that with the save modifier system a Terminator only has a 3+ save against most factions' machine gun equivalents (heavy bolters, shuriken cannons, burst cannons, and the like)).

The problem is not that Terminator armor is bad, it is that AP is to good, across the board.

There are far to many weapons that ignore armor of far to many units. More of the "basic" infantry weapons need to have the AP worsened by at least 1. High AP weapons need to cost more.

The game, in general, needs to have the points costs balanced better than the "it felt right" method of pointing models.

 megatrons2nd wrote:
The problem is not that Terminator armor is bad, it is that AP is to good, across the board.

There are far to many weapons that ignore armor of far to many units. More of the "basic" infantry weapons need to have the AP worsened by at least 1. High AP weapons need to cost more.

The game, in general, needs to have the points costs balanced better than the "it felt right" method of pointing models.

The issue is the all-or-nothing AP system. 2+ armour either ignores five in six shots or it takes them all, which makes it nigh-impossible to accurately price since depending on the situation it's either godly or irrelevant, this makes AP2 as a result nigh-impossible to accurately price.

I think GW's other decisions also play a factor.

In 7th:

- Vehicles have become incredibly durable, and nothing with AP3 or worse can explode them.

- MCs have been getting tougher and tougher since 6th - and we now have cheap Dreadknights, Wraithknights and Riptides floating around.

- IKs exist and can form armies with no infantry whatsoever.

- Super Heavies are allowed in normal games.


Basically, GW has virtually demanded that every army max out on anti-tank weapons. And, unfortunately, these also tend to be very good against terminators (which didn't even receive a price-drop).

If you want fewer AP2 weapons in the game, perhaps we should also look at some of the stuff that necessitates the inclusion of AP1/2 weapons.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 megatrons2nd wrote:
The problem is not that Terminator armor is bad, it is that AP is to good, across the board.

There are far to many weapons that ignore armor of far to many units. More of the "basic" infantry weapons need to have the AP worsened by at least 1. High AP weapons need to cost more.

The game, in general, needs to have the points costs balanced better than the "it felt right" method of pointing models.

The issue is the all-or-nothing AP system. 2+ armour either ignores five in six shots or it takes them all, which makes it nigh-impossible to accurately price since depending on the situation it's either godly or irrelevant, this makes AP2 as a result nigh-impossible to accurately price.

Not necessarily so. I know that Sv 6+ costs 1 point in the minds of GW. I also know that upgrading Sv 5+ to save 4+ costs 15 (unless it changed in the most recent codex) points in the mind of GW. Thus the cost of an AP 4 weapon that has no further changes to it's stats should also cost 15 points more than it's predecessor. The issue is that they can't figure out that a 14 point marine is better than a 20+ point guardsman in carapace armor. You can balance an item if there is a system in place to balance them, if you are using a sliding scale and gut feeling that changes at every edition and between armies than it is impossible to balance. No system is perfect, but if there is no system then it is impossible.

The all or nothing AP system should be the easiest to balance because it is very predictable. A ruff idea for costing it using my own numbers:

AP/Save/cost
-/-/-
6/6/1
5/5/5
4/4/10
3/3/15
2/2/20

Of course these are not perfect, but the armor efficiency does get better, maybe use an exponential growth instead, but it is possible to balance it.

Stick 5 TH/SS in a redeemer and something that gives them FNP (master Harath Shen works amazing)

 koooaei wrote:

The introduced system will reduce the durability of 2+ save against all but plasmaguns and no-ap weapons.

Hmm, yeah, I hadn't crunched the numbers on it, I see what you mean. I'd have to reduce some of those save modifiers by a point.

 megatrons2nd wrote:
The problem is not that Terminator armor is bad, it is that AP is to good, across the board.

There are far to many weapons that ignore armor of far to many units. More of the "basic" infantry weapons need to have the AP worsened by at least 1. High AP weapons need to cost more.

The game, in general, needs to have the points costs balanced better than the "it felt right" method of pointing models.

I have issues with the AP system too and miss 2nd edition at times. Having a modifier system allowed for some very interesting distinctions between infantry types.

As for what you propose, imo, just making AP weapons worse won't really fix the issue. If anything, fixing the more exotic armours, like terminator armour, would be easiest by extending the ap scale downward (less re-engineering). Terminator armour could perhaps go into the realm of 1+ save (remember a 1 always fails) and that way it helps lighten the AP issue it has.

Im more in favor granting a toughness bonus to armour rather than exclusively relying on AP. I see terminators as T7 dudes who should be able to rain on the parade of greater demons.

T5 makes sense, T7 is ridiculous. Way too tough.

the best way would be to up squad sizes and lower the prices. 15 to a squad sounds right by me and a drop to 30ppm

now we will start price jacking plasmas and ap2 ranged weapons and weapons platforms.

another idea would be to completely rewrite their statline, what terminators is/does and their standard weapons loadout and weapons options.

the unfortunate reality is that terminators are a relic of days gone by and the terminators as a whole havent evolved as a unit while the game has evolved and changed around them. and no matter how you tweak them some units, armies, codecies will be on the bottom and the unfortunate reality is someone will be on the bottom thats the nature of games (and life) theres someone on the bottom of the totem pole we cant all be the top

im thinking these changes must give them one focus and one purpose, dont joe average them. and same goes for gk terminators and csm terminators. and dont emerge from your fortress of solitude until things make sense and they can work. if you want them to be cc beast make them beast. if your making them ranged warriors make them ranged warriors. and if you try to do too much at once your just going to fall flat on your face again long before models hit the table

maybe do away with terminators as a whole and instead make the terminator a dedicated CC monster and replace chaos termites with a better mutilator chaos terminators easily convert to mutilators anyway and the idea of an army (gk) with cc beast troops choices would be incredible.

one idea would be to give them a twin linked grav gun as a base weapon replacing the storm bolter, and change the powerfist for a chainfist base. now their dedicated tank killers that can maul other heavy infantry as well. its a heck of a better idea than the way they are now and we can all agree their bloody awful and something extreme has to be done to make them worthwhile again, and every day something doesnt happen for them the problem simply becomes more dire. and lowering their prices isnt enough.

Honestly I don't think the survivability issue will be resolved until GW does something to seriously nerf high AP shooting...which I don't see happening anytime soon.

The only real places you can address the issues with Terminators are either through making them shootier, or reducing price. I'm not a huge fan of reducing the price since it encourages taking more of them, which doesn't feel right given how rare they're supposed to be.

I think the "assault cannon on every Terminator" idea goes to far though. IMO a option list like this would help:

1. One Terminator in the squad may upgrade to have a Cyclone Missile Launcher.
2. For every 5 Terminators, you may have 1 of the following: Assault Cannon, Heavy Flamer.
3. At the beginning of the game, select a ammo type from the Sternguard special ammunition list. For the rest of the game the Terminators may use this ammo type, but the profile changes from Rapid Fire to Assault 2.

Giving them 2 heavy weapons at 5 man, and 3 at 10 gives them quite a bit more offensive punch. I'm fine with the idea that you'd have to buy two 5 man squads rather than combat squadding a 10 man squad to get a second Cyclone, especially since it'd mean having to take another sergeant with a power sword rather than getting another power fist/chainfist. The specialty ammo makes their storm bolters more lethal without playing around with the actual storm bolter rules. They don't get all the ammo options at any given time because I didn't want to take too much away from Sternguard.

If simply being on a motorcycle can increase the Toughness of a model by +1, I see no reason why 'Tactical Dreadnought Armor' shouldn't give the same benefit. For me, the main gripe is how easy mass fire from crap weapons can still cause mass casualties to 40ppm units. They're crap weapons for reasons, lasguns, shootas, anything S3 should have a hell of a time even causing enough wounds to really make Terminators worry a little. The easiest way to decrease the amount of wounds caused would be to increase the Terminators toughness. I believe even just a +1 to a T5 would help out tremendously. It'll make S3 weapons wound on 6's, and run-of-the-mill S4 infantry weapons wound on 5's, which would effectively reduce the number of wounds caused, but only by 16%, not gamebreaking by any means.

Either that or change the 5++ to a 5+ FNP for an extra 33% chance to save a 40ppm with 1 wound

steelreign wrote:
If simply being on a motorcycle can increase the Toughness of a model by +1, I see no reason why 'Tactical Dreadnought Armor' shouldn't give the same benefit.

I think that's the wrong way round, tbh.

Having motorbikes increase a model's toughness is really stupid and needs to stop. It was nonsensical enough when they were still subject to ID at their old toughness - but now a Chapter Master riding a bike can just casually shrug off battle cannon wounds.

 Ailaros wrote:

WrentheFaceless wrote:Them still being overpriced for what they do is 'problem solved'?

They're not overpriced. There isn't a problem in the first place that needs solving.

LOL terms aren't over priced...come on man. That's just funny.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 vipoid wrote:

steelreign wrote:
If simply being on a motorcycle can increase the Toughness of a model by +1, I see no reason why 'Tactical Dreadnought Armor' shouldn't give the same benefit.

I think that's the wrong way round, tbh.

Having motorbikes increase a model's toughness is really stupid and needs to stop. It was nonsensical enough when they were still subject to ID at their old toughness - but now a Chapter Master riding a bike can just casually shrug off battle cannon wounds.

It has been this way for like...ever...

Terminators are some of the most overcosted units in the game. They are paying for quintuple power fist HTH power, and this is rarely necessary.

steelreign wrote:
I believe even just a +1 to a T5 would help out tremendously. It'll make S3 weapons wound on 6's, and run-of-the-mill S4 infantry weapons wound on 5's, which would effectively reduce the number of wounds caused, but only by 16%, not gamebreaking by any means.

Either that or change the 5++ to a 5+ FNP for an extra 33% chance to save a 40ppm with 1 wound

Well, math side-bar, but t5 reduces the number of wounds from s4 by 33%. If you shoot a marine six times and wound three times, then shoot a t5 marine six times and wound twice, you have scored is 33% fewer wounds, which is much more significant. Percentage points are different than percentages.

Here's the thing, if I wound your marine with a multi-melta, or if I wound him with a lascannon or a bright lance, I need you to remove him from the game. Multi-wound characters need to see a little bit of hazard from those things.

I'm very in favor of FNP for all marines though, TDA, PA, and scout armored.

pelicaniforce wrote:

steelreign wrote:
I believe even just a +1 to a T5 would help out tremendously. It'll make S3 weapons wound on 6's, and run-of-the-mill S4 infantry weapons wound on 5's, which would effectively reduce the number of wounds caused, but only by 16%, not gamebreaking by any means.

Either that or change the 5++ to a 5+ FNP for an extra 33% chance to save a 40ppm with 1 wound

Well, math side-bar, but t5 reduces the number of wounds from s4 by 33%. If you shoot a marine six times and wound three times, then shoot a t5 marine six times and wound twice, you have scored is 33% fewer wounds, which is much more significant. Percentage points are different than percentages.

Here's the thing, if I wound your marine with a multi-melta, or if I wound him with a lascannon or a bright lance, I need you to remove him from the game. Multi-wound characters need to see a little bit of hazard from those things.

I'm very in favor of FNP for all marines though, TDA, PA, and scout armored.

I think along similar lines to you on all marines getting fnp 6+ like iron hands do now.
I think fixing termies is actually a little more complex then lowering their cost, giving better stat lines, changing weapon profiles, ect. In part because there is an issue with many of these things all over the SM codexes, but few units get hit with several of the issues all at once like termies do.
I think term armor should give +1 toughness and allow assault the turn they deepstrike in (you can take a formation to get run and shoot). I would get rid of the two different kinds of terminators and merge their weapon options.
I would start the unit at 3 models.
I would say with these rules termies would cost about 30-33 pts/model for the power weapon/stormbolter version.
I would make storm bolters salvo 2/3.
To change out a power weapon for a lightning claw would be free. to upgrade from either of those to a power fist would be 5 points. to upgrade to a chainfist or thunder hammer would be another 5 points on top of the powerfist.
to change out a storm bolter for a combi-bolter, storm shield, or lightning claw is 5 points
for every 5 models in the squad two models may replace a storm bolter for a melta gun for 5 points,or replace a storm bolter for a heavy flamer, grav gun, or plasma gun for 10 points, or replace a storm bolter for an assault cannon for 15 points, or take take a cyclone missile launcher for 20 points.
Sergeants would also be able to change their weapons based on this list.
A power fist/storm bolter termie would be 35-38 points under these rules, a twin lightning claws termie would be the same.
Thunder hammer and storm shield termies would be 40-43 points.
twin lightning claws would give shred.

I am leaning towards the 33 mark for terminators under these rules to the terminator armor. with terminator armor as is, id put them around 28-30 points for a power weapon storm bolter models.

Honestly I think allowing Termies the ability just to reroll their armor save would solve a large part of the problem. Maybe adding a +1 T on top of that would be overkill, maybe not.

Mostly they just need to be more reasonably priced. Grey Knight Terminators and Paladins are solid units, they're not spectacular and they're still a little overpriced, but if you dropped them a few points per model more and made the upgrades just a touch cheaper then they'd both be very good. Do the same for vanilla Terminators and they'd be much better. Though a big part of the issue with vanilla SM Terminators is they're so inflexible. If you could mix and match shooting with assault, that alone is a significant improvement. Otherwise, you're either stuck with a unit with mediocre ranged firepower that's too fragile due to the abundance of AP2, too expensive since they come with overpriced powerfists, or a melee unit that has trouble actually reaching melee. If Terminators were like 30pts base and you could mix and match THSSs with heavy weapons, they would probably see the table.

 DarkLink wrote:
Mostly they just need to be more reasonably priced. Grey Knight Terminators and Paladins are solid units, they're not spectacular and they're still a little overpriced, but if you dropped them a few points per model more and made the upgrades just a touch cheaper then they'd both be very good. Do the same for vanilla Terminators and they'd be much better. Though a big part of the issue with vanilla SM Terminators is they're so inflexible. If you could mix and match shooting with assault, that alone is a significant improvement. Otherwise, you're either stuck with a unit with mediocre ranged firepower that's too fragile due to the abundance of AP2, too expensive since they come with overpriced powerfists, or a melee unit that has trouble actually reaching melee. If Terminators were like 30pts base and you could mix and match THSSs with heavy weapons, they would probably see the table.

The main problem I see with this approach, is that reducing price isn't the greatest way to accurately present something from the fiction. If we go in purely a mechanical mind set (like reducing points) rather than from more of a lore consideration, than the game will have more potential to lose its appeal.

There are so many competing ideas on how to make the 'game' rather than how it should look like from lore. I mean look at space marines: only a million of them or so in the galaxy and most SM players suffer casualties as bad as the imperial guard. At that rate, I don't see chapters replenishing their loses with the usual 10+ year neophyte process. Heck, space marines are meant to be quite the bastion on the world they land on, turning the course of a war (containing possibly billions of combatants) in their favor. I just don't see that at all happening with the way the rules have been since rogue trader.

I understand the sales reasons for them never ever being represented the 'real' way (lower model count = less sales) but for those who really do care about playing the game for how it should be, then look to tailoring your own codex (there are probably ones already out there - related to the whole art scale space marine stuff) and then offer to play them with your friends. I think most people fun to play with would be okay with it.

Just from the mechanical perspective, the toughness increase, FnP and armour save rerolls are all excellent ideas (from others in this thread).

Strap hurricane bolters on their back like cml but make it free. Problem solved! Also allow them to shoot storm bolter at the same time.
Oh, and change their stat line
Or just call them Dakkinators!
WS1 BS4 S1 T4 W1 I1 A1 Ld9 Sv2+
War gear:

No close combat weapons
2 storm bolters so 1 in each hand.
1 Hurricane bolter on their back

Special rules:
all the usual combat squad and atsknf
A special rule to allow them to shoot all guns.

38 ppm

kveldulf wrote:

I understand the sales reasons for them never ever being represented the 'real' way (lower model count = less sales) but for those who really do care about playing the game for how it should be, then look to tailoring your own codex (there are probably ones already out there - related to the whole art scale space marine stuff) and then offer to play them with your friends. I think most people fun to play with would be okay with it.

Just from the mechanical perspective, the toughness increase, FnP and armour save rerolls are all excellent ideas (from others in this thread).

I don't think any of the truescalers' threads I've read have ever referenced using fandexes, and none of the "fluff marine" fandex threads I have read have ever been by truescalers. Huh.

From the perspective of using housErules with people, I think that FNP is the best and rerolls are the worse, because of the ability to outright and explicitly negate FNP, whereas there are not many ways to deny them rerolls.

You're right that I think "most people fun to play with" would be down with whatever is fun.

 ionusx wrote:
the best way would be to up squad sizes and lower the prices. 15 to a squad sounds right by me and a drop to 30ppm

If you're fielding fifteen Terminators in a squad, even at 30ppm, something has gone horribly wrong.