Am I the only one that doesn't understand why loyalist Terminators have elected to use Storm Bolters when Combi-Bolters are better in every way for Terminators? Is this another case of Loyalists being idiots?

They're meant to pretty much be the same thing iirc, just rules wise stormbolters suck and should have a higher rate of fire with a shorter range to show a slight loss in accuracy for the nice jump in rate of fire.

Not a case of loyalists being idiots, just a case of rules changing over time to no longer accurately reflect the fluff. Rapid fire weapons got better, and assault weapons didn't.

 insaniak wrote:
Not a case of loyalists being idiots, just a case of rules changing over time to no longer accurately reflect the fluff. Rapid fire weapons got better, and assault weapons didn't.

Maybe if Storm Bolters counted as Specialist CC weapons with Str User AP -, they would be worth it.

It's not a case of loyalists being stupid. It's a case of the fluff of storm bolters doesn't match the crunch

 casvalremdeikun wrote:
Maybe if Storm Bolters counted as Specialist CC weapons with Str User AP -, they would be worth it.

Wouldn't make a lot of sense, though.

Just bumping them up a shot would be more fitting. They should be better than a combi-bolter, but not by that much.

 insaniak wrote:

 casvalremdeikun wrote:
Maybe if Storm Bolters counted as Specialist CC weapons with Str User AP -, they would be worth it.

Wouldn't make a lot of sense, though.

Just bumping them up a shot would be more fitting. They should be better than a combi-bolter, but not by that much.

A combi-bolter is basically two bolters grafted together. A storm bolter would have less redundant systems and be more compact and efficient. So an extra shot would make sense. It would off-set the twin-linked, sort of.

 casvalremdeikun wrote:
Am I the only one that doesn't understand why loyalist Terminators have elected to use Storm Bolters when Combi-Bolters are better in every way for Terminators? Is this another case of Loyalists being idiots?

Because game mechanics aren't static over multiple editions. When Terminators were first created, these weapons functioned differently than they do now, there was no "assualt" or "rapid fire" type, and Storm bolters were very good indeed in RT and 2nd edition. Through edition changes and variances in game mechanics, unit value, etc, these things have changed.

If you can get a copy of the 2E Wargear book, that'll give you a better idea of what these weapons really should look like next to one another.

If anything SB should probably be salvo 2/4 or 3/5 something like that

That wouldn't be terrible. It would buff Storm Bolters considerably.

Yeh, probably drop to like 18" or some other balancer for things like Rhinos who would suddenly have 8-10 shots from the two they can take tho...

That's the tricky thing about them, they need the buff but they're used so widely as they are at the moment. For rhinos it could be as simple as reducing it to just the pintlemounted, but then you unintentionally give it a very slight hit to its durability. Not as much as before really.

Giving them Salvo is dangerous, considering Relentless and all.

True, it does mean you'd never see them on a non-relentless platform. But I think it would be an ok buff. You might see PF/SB terminators again.

It used to be a pretty good trade off. Stormbolters were potentially better at 12.1 - 24", and combi bolters were better at 1" - 12"

But, rapid fire weapons have changed over time and the lines have blurred a little bit more.

The worst part about making any changes to the Storm Bolter is that it increases the strength of the Rhino and Drop Pod and the 5 pt vehicle upgrade. Not by a lot, but it is still there. Hence why I wanted to give it some CC capability since it removes the vehicle aspect of things.

Buffed to be producing 4-5 shots per Model?

While the Storm Bolter is meant to have a higher rate of fire then the standard Bolter, that number of Shots is usually reserved for weapon systems that produce "rotating barrels to prevent from over-heating" rates of fire. This assault weapon should be able to easily produce rates of fire on par with single barrelled machine guns. Thus there is no reason to conclude the Game Mechanics should grant it a higher number of Shots then that already granted to the default "machine gun" type weapon systems in this game: 3. It better fits the concept of a smaller, more compact, machine gun designed to be used in tight corridors that could trip up a longer barrelled machine gun that the Storm Bolter appears designed to fill. Even Metal Storm systems would have trouble justifying why they should have that many Shots.

Personally:
They are Terminators, the most heavy of the heavy infantry produced by the Imperium of Man... I have no problem with them having Heavy Bolters as their default weapon.

 casvalremdeikun wrote:
The worst part about making any changes to the Storm Bolter is that it increases the strength of the Rhino and Drop Pod and the 5 pt vehicle upgrade. Not by a lot, but it is still there. Hence why I wanted to give it some CC capability since it removes the vehicle aspect of things.

Maybe people would take Rhinos if they had some moderate firepower. I doubt buffing Storm bolters is gonna make Rhinos overpowered.

 Grey Templar wrote:

 casvalremdeikun wrote:
The worst part about making any changes to the Storm Bolter is that it increases the strength of the Rhino and Drop Pod and the 5 pt vehicle upgrade. Not by a lot, but it is still there. Hence why I wanted to give it some CC capability since it removes the vehicle aspect of things.

Maybe people would take Rhinos if they had some moderate firepower. I doubt buffing Storm bolters is gonna make Rhinos overpowered.

Hey, I take Rhinos! I almost always get some okay usage out of them too. However, I agree, having an extra shot would be nice. 2/4 Salvo would probably be just fine.

2/4 sounds good really, but really it's very delicate to change storm bolters due to their wide spread.

 n0t_u wrote:
2/4 sounds good really, but really it's very delicate to change storm bolters due to their wide spread.

Besides Terminators and vehicles they are included on, who even uses Storm Bolters?

I think Salvo 2/4 would be a good change for Storm Bolters, means terminator squads can put out a decent amount of dakka (combined with their heavy weapon). Might give me reason to actually buy PF/SB termies

 n0t_u wrote:
2/4 sounds good really, but really it's very delicate to change storm bolters due to their wide spread.

But thanks to some stupid wording on salvo weapons on anything other than relentless platforms your only going to get 2 shots at 12" on the move. Stormbolters were nice on standard infantry models because 2 shots at 24" moving or not gave them a good threat range where the Heavy Bolter had to always stand still.

The easier answer would be to leave stormbolters the same and just give terminators a different ranged weapon like the heavy bolter, since this seems to be the only place where anyone complains about stormbolters.

Marines can already get enough S4 shots. Giving it more shots as is won't make anyone want to take it.

The best way to make it appealing is S5.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Marines can already get enough S4 shots. Giving it more shots as is won't make anyone want to take it.

The best way to make it appealing is S5.

Str5 AP5 or Str5 AP4?

the biggest problem is that the storm bolter on table acts more like a bolter than a heavy bolter which is a weapon it has a lot more in common with, however if they make changes rhino's are now fast options in armies like blood angels and that means storm bolter spam on the cheap becomes a thing.

it also requires them to actually correct the shirt they write, which they havent done since the chum famine of 59

I am still unable to see why a Storm Bolter should produce more Shots then a Heavy Bolter, let alone the same number of shots as a boltgun hailed as a Relic.
Still say to just give Terminators Heavy Bolters though, the point cost doesn't even need to change because it would at least be 10 points we can account for.

JinxDragon wrote:
I am still unable to see why a Storm Bolter should produce more Shots then a Heavy Bolter, let alone the same number of shots as a boltgun hailed as a Relic.
Still say to just give Terminators Heavy Bolters though, the point cost doesn't even need to change because it would at least be 10 points we can account for.

I wouldn't disagree with that. I used to be in favor of them getting Assault Cannons base...

Any problems with Rhino's isn't associated really with their firepower, they're not supposed to be particularly well armed, they're APC's not IFV's. And people still do take Rhinos, however their greatest problem is that you cannot assault out of them at all, which greatly devalues the role and the point to taking larger squads, while the Razorback allows you to get the extra heavy weapons firepower that taking a larger squad offers, but without having to make the full investment in a larger squad, making it the more optimal choice in most instances as a result.

There's nothing wrong with the Rhino, there's a problem with a core rule mechanic.

Lets also not forget that Storm Bolters are on things other than Rhinos as well, do we really need to see drop pod armies get an additional squad or two's worth of bolter shots?

Storm Bolters just don't have any business being 4 or 5 shot guns, even in their heyday, they didn't have that much firepower, that's getting into numbers of dice typically reserved for very high RoF weapons or banks of multiple weapons.

Part of what made Storm Bolters pretty solid in older edtiions like 2E were things that the current game doesn't really bother with anymore. Between ASM's and Terminator armor having a Targeter that gave a to-hit bonus, such that they had a higher average wound output than they do now, but largely the same wound output potential against heavy infantry, but were only slightly better against things like Guardsmen than they are now. If you double (or more) the number of shots, you just get an insanely high damage output per gun relative to what they're supposed to be.

A 5 shot Storm Bolter would roughly equate to the damage output of a Twin-Linked Heavy Bolter against most infantry. You'd basically turn rhino's into Razorbacks, and likewise dramatically overgun Drop Pods.

 Jayden63 wrote:
Stormbolters were potentially better at 12.1 - 24", and combi bolters were better at 1" - 12"

But, rapid fire weapons have changed over time and the lines have blurred a little bit more.

Err, this is exactly how it works now.

I have storm bolters being able to fire as heavy 3, but cannot be fired that way for snapshots. Helped the grey knights significantly because their alternate weapons are all salvo or heavy (aside from the flamer) it lets them hold ground effectively.

Edit: I made combi-bolters count as a ccw also, the chaos termies have giant chainsaw blades on the things for crying out loud!

 casvalremdeikun wrote:

 n0t_u wrote:
2/4 sounds good really, but really it's very delicate to change storm bolters due to their wide spread.

Besides Terminators and vehicles they are included on, who even uses Storm Bolters?

Sisters

 Peregrine wrote:

 Jayden63 wrote:
Stormbolters were potentially better at 12.1 - 24", and combi bolters were better at 1" - 12"

But, rapid fire weapons have changed over time and the lines have blurred a little bit more.

Err, this is exactly how it works now.

So then I'm confused as to what the OP is actually questioning. Since Stormbolters are still the superior weapon at 12+" How are combi-bolters somehow superior in every way to stormbolters? To use the OPs phrasing. Id have assumed something changed in the rapid fire weapon rules.

 n0t_u wrote:

 casvalremdeikun wrote:

 n0t_u wrote:
2/4 sounds good really, but really it's very delicate to change storm bolters due to their wide spread.

Besides Terminators and vehicles they are included on, who even uses Storm Bolters?

Sisters

I am not familiar with Sisters since, well, no one I have ever met plays them.

Our group just made stormbolters Assault 3 @ 12" and still Assault 2 up to 24". Seems to help without contributing to the arms race.

That is a good idea. It does seem like 2 bolters strapped together should be able to produce more shots than a single bolter at close range.

Storm bolters are better with 12-24"?

 amanita wrote:
Our group just made stormbolters Assault 3 @ 12" and still Assault 2 up to 24". Seems to help without contributing to the arms race.

This seems like a good shout if you ask me (Or maybe strength 5). People who would like storm bolters to go salvo, I would like to draw your attention to Grey Knights, whose entire army uses them! Going salvo would push people even further away from the power armoured variants than they already are (Not to mention prevent them from shooting and charging).

Lythrandire Biehrellian wrote:
Edit: I made combi-bolters count as a ccw also, the chaos termies have giant chainsaw blades on the things for crying out loud!

So true.

Regarding the Storm Bolter vs. Combi-Bolter matter, I agree it's come to a point where the rules have simply deviated from the fluff. However, the fact that nowadays combi-bolters work better on terminators than storm bolters has also some sense to me: Combi-Bolters are meant to be archaic weapons, but in the 40k context many times "archaic" actually means better design and more efficiency, thanks to all that technological regression the Imperium has supposedly suffered since the days of the Great Crusade. So Chaos Terminators having more efficient shooting weapons than loyalists is not that bad, specially considering they do not have access to more recent cookies like storm shields.

Ignoring terminators for a minute: If storm bolters were A3, S4, AP5, Rending, and 5 points, I'd give one to every sergeant.

 casvalremdeikun wrote:

JinxDragon wrote:
I am still unable to see why a Storm Bolter should produce more Shots then a Heavy Bolter, let alone the same number of shots as a boltgun hailed as a Relic.
Still say to just give Terminators Heavy Bolters though, the point cost doesn't even need to change because it would at least be 10 points we can account for.

I wouldn't disagree with that. I used to be in favor of them getting Assault Cannons base...

I still am in favour of Assault Cannons as the base weapon

S5 Storm Bolters where a thing back when GK had Psybolts, didn't make too much of a difference.

 casvalremdeikun wrote:

JinxDragon wrote:
I am still unable to see why a Storm Bolter should produce more Shots then a Heavy Bolter, let alone the same number of shots as a boltgun hailed as a Relic.
Still say to just give Terminators Heavy Bolters though, the point cost doesn't even need to change because it would at least be 10 points we can account for.

I wouldn't disagree with that. I used to be in favor of them getting Assault Cannons base...

Assault cannons should be 10 points each and available to every terminator in a squad

/FU Eldar Bikers!

 Draco wrote:
Storm bolters are better with 12-24"?

They get two shots at that range, while the combi gets one TL’d shot. Not a huge advantage, but you have the potential of two hits.

Back in 3rd, SBs were a good way of getting mobile bolter fire. Rapid fire weapons could only fire once out to 12” on the move. (Standing still they could double-tap at 12, or one shot at max range). So while the stats have remained constant over the years, rapid fire was boosted every edition for a while, narrowing the gap between the two guns.

 kronk wrote:

 casvalremdeikun wrote:

JinxDragon wrote:
I am still unable to see why a Storm Bolter should produce more Shots then a Heavy Bolter, let alone the same number of shots as a boltgun hailed as a Relic.
Still say to just give Terminators Heavy Bolters though, the point cost doesn't even need to change because it would at least be 10 points we can account for.

I wouldn't disagree with that. I used to be in favor of them getting Assault Cannons base...

Assault cannons should be 10 points each and available to every terminator in a squad

/FU Eldar Bikers!

I don't know if this would even put them on the level of the bikers.
About double the cost, less mobile, but tougher, less effective range....

Maybe if for 40 points they came with Assault cannons and chaos marines got combi weapons for 30 points, they'd be alright.
I'm not sure to do with assault termies. Maybe give them FNP?

Assault Terminators: 2 wounds.

BAM! Instantly relevant again.

And the loyalists are indeed stupid.

 casvalremdeikun wrote:

 n0t_u wrote:

 casvalremdeikun wrote:

 n0t_u wrote:
2/4 sounds good really, but really it's very delicate to change storm bolters due to their wide spread.

Besides Terminators and vehicles they are included on, who even uses Storm Bolters?

Sisters

I am not familiar with Sisters since, well, no one I have ever met plays them.

They trick you into getting a sister with one each time you got the 10 box, which made it more of a 9 box.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 kronk wrote:
Assault Terminators: 2 wounds.

BAM! Instantly relevant again.

All termies 2 wounds.
Also let the tactical sergeant take a fist like the rest of the squad.

 casvalremdeikun wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Marines can already get enough S4 shots. Giving it more shots as is won't make anyone want to take it.

The best way to make it appealing is S5.

Str5 AP5 or Str5 AP4?

S5 AP5

Terminator armour by default should give 2+ reroll able armour save. Invulnerable taken as normal.

That way point for point they are better at killing the units they were intended to fight.

Edit: I would add mega armoured ork armour to the reroll able 2+ armour category as well.

While I do agree SBs need something, I'm hesitant to give them S5. That would push Heavy Bolters even further out from their already measly position.

Storm bolters and combinations bolters are fine, the problem is the ease at which terminators die to small arms fire, which fluffwise should not be the case.

Terminators are not an ideal unit choice to kill scat bikes, but they should be able to weather the fire well which a 2+ rerollable save would give them.

 jreilly89 wrote:
While I do agree SBs need something, I'm hesitant to give them S5. That would push Heavy Bolters even further out from their already measly position.

 Konrax wrote:
Storm bolters and combinations bolters are fine, the problem is the ease at which terminators die to small arms fire, which fluffwise should not be the case.

Terminators are not an ideal unit choice to kill scat bikes, but they should be able to weather the fire well which a 2+ rerollable save would give them.

Storm Bolters are FAR from fine. They don't fulfill any actual purpose. Nobody actually buys them for any reason other than to help ward off Weapon Destroyed results in certain vehicles; you ever see a Sisters player take them over the Flamer or Melta, after all? Of course not. Any army with access to the Storm Bolter already gets enough S4 shots elsewhere, so why spend 5 points for ONE MORE outside of 12"? On top of that, the Storm Bolter is supposed to be the middle ground for three Bolter types here:

Bolter
S4 AP5 Rapid Fire 24"

Storm Bolter
S5 AP5 Assault 2 24"

Heavy Bolter
S5 AP4 Heavy 3 36"

That's a better natural progression anyway.

I play csm, we haven't gotten a new gun since second edition.

Storm bolters get a buff then combi bolters should get one as well.

Tbh they aren't horrible weapons, what I would prefer to see is heavy bolters given a buff and salvo so they are worth the extra points compared to a storm bolter.

Storm Bolters aren't really meant to be a mid-way point between a Heavy Bolter and Storm Bolter, they're a Bolter that's vomiting more ammunition downrange than a normal bolter. Increasing their Strength doesn't really seem appropriate in that light, they're very much described as basically two bolters stuck together (and in fact, the CSM Terminators TL-bolter was originally treated identically in 2E.

Perhaps they should just be treated as such? If they really need a a boost, just treat TL-bolters & Storm Bolters as Assault 2, Twin-Linked. That would probably best reflect what they really are.

 Konrax wrote:
Terminator armour by default should give 2+ reroll able armour save. Invulnerable taken as normal.

That way point for point they are better at killing the units they were intended to fight.

Please no, you might as well just effectively say "immune to anything that isn't AP2", and that's not good for game balance nor represents what they're supposed to be. Even at their height of "resiliency" in 2E, they weren't that hard to kill.

With the sheer amount of ap2 weapons in this game I really doubt it would be that big of a deal.

And point for point regular space marines are better than terminators in a fire fight.

Amanita,
I toyed with the idea of putting forth Rapid Fire 2 as a solution, which would produce the same 3 Shots at 1/2 Range but that was problematic as the loss of Assault could change how non-Terminator Units handle Stormbolters...
Your suggestion of giving 'range increments' to Stormbolters may be a better solution, and president has already been set in the new Tau Codex.

Kronk,
I am in favour of giving all Terminators 2 Wounds, there are other 1 Wound Models that suddenly become 2 Wounds if they are put into battle-suit like armour. Terminators are meant to be quite survivable, not a point sink because so many weapon systems exist to take out the heaviest of infantry armours, and an additional wound could make all the difference in that regard. I also agree with the option to take Assault Cannons and even Heavy Flamers on any of regular Terminators, with reduced costs for both of these options. A Unit with 5-10 Models worth 35 points each should be a Unit I am worried over, not something I can easily avoid the fire power of while I picking them off with weight of fire and/or plasma over the course of a turn or two....

 Konrax wrote:
With the sheer amount of ap2 weapons in this game I really doubt it would be that big of a deal.

And point for point regular space marines are better than terminators in a fire fight.

Not every army is Eldar, running around with a gazillion AP2 weapons, particularly ranged options. There's neither a good balance nor fluff argument that their save should only have a 1-in-36 chance to fail, especially at the scale 40k is played at.

 Vaktathi wrote:

 Konrax wrote:
With the sheer amount of ap2 weapons in this game I really doubt it would be that big of a deal.

And point for point regular space marines are better than terminators in a fire fight.

Not every army is Eldar, running around with a gazillion AP2 weapons, particularly ranged options. There's neither a good balance nor fluff argument that their save should only have a 1-in-36 chance to fail, especially at the scale 40k is played at.

There is fluff in the first couple HH books about a single unit of terminators walking across a bridge with hundreds of lasguns being fired at them and suffering no casualties.

In TT terms that would not work at all as all the terminators would be flooded with saves they couldn't possibly even hope saving.

Others did give them +1 wound, which would kind of be even better since many ap2 weapons wouldn't be able to kill them in a single shot.

 Vaktathi wrote:

 Konrax wrote:
With the sheer amount of ap2 weapons in this game I really doubt it would be that big of a deal.

And point for point regular space marines are better than terminators in a fire fight.

Not every army is Eldar, running around with a gazillion AP2 weapons, particularly ranged options. There's neither a good balance nor fluff argument that their save should only have a 1-in-36 chance to fail, especially at the scale 40k is played at.

Eldar don't specialize in AP2, they specialize in "save 100 wounds! Can't? I guess you're dead".

 Konrax wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:

 Konrax wrote:
With the sheer amount of ap2 weapons in this game I really doubt it would be that big of a deal.

And point for point regular space marines are better than terminators in a fire fight.

Not every army is Eldar, running around with a gazillion AP2 weapons, particularly ranged options. There's neither a good balance nor fluff argument that their save should only have a 1-in-36 chance to fail, especially at the scale 40k is played at.

There is fluff in the first couple HH books about a single unit of terminators walking across a bridge with hundreds of lasguns being fired at them and suffering no casualties.

You can probably find an example of just about anything at this point, but in general, Terminator armor is not fully proof against all non AP2 weapons. Bolters have been shown to kill Terminators, as have Krak missiles, claws, battlecannons, heavy bolters, power swords, etc, all of which are non-AP2 as well.

In TT terms that would not work at all as all the terminators would be flooded with saves they couldn't possibly even hope saving.

It's not much of a game if they can't really be hurt.

Others did give them +1 wound, which would kind of be even better since many ap2 weapons wouldn't be able to kill them in a single shot.

And then we've got entire squads of mini-characters again, and the game has lots of problems with those, particularly once you start getting "look out sir" rolls going. If they're going to get W2, they shouldn't stay 35pts either (units like Obliterators aren't paying 40pts each just for their guns).

Martel732 wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:

 Konrax wrote:
With the sheer amount of ap2 weapons in this game I really doubt it would be that big of a deal.

And point for point regular space marines are better than terminators in a fire fight.

Not every army is Eldar, running around with a gazillion AP2 weapons, particularly ranged options. There's neither a good balance nor fluff argument that their save should only have a 1-in-36 chance to fail, especially at the scale 40k is played at.

Eldar don't specialize in AP2, they specialize in "save 100 wounds! Can't? I guess you're dead".

It's not like they can't do both. I mean, they can pack in gobs of S6 shooting *and* two dozen AP2 guns in most lists

Termainators are just so asymmetrical as to not be useful. Big expensive defenses, with no offense. This makes them a garbage unit no matter how you shuffle the deck chairs on the Titanic that is the Stormbolter. The game has move so far beyond S4 shooting it's unrecognizable from when the stormbolter was conceived. Without gauss or bladestorm, s4 shooting is a total joke.

 Vaktathi wrote:

 Konrax wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:

 Konrax wrote:
With the sheer amount of ap2 weapons in this game I really doubt it would be that big of a deal.

And point for point regular space marines are better than terminators in a fire fight.

Not every army is Eldar, running around with a gazillion AP2 weapons, particularly ranged options. There's neither a good balance nor fluff argument that their save should only have a 1-in-36 chance to fail, especially at the scale 40k is played at.

There is fluff in the first couple HH books about a single unit of terminators walking across a bridge with hundreds of lasguns being fired at them and suffering no casualties.

You can probably find an example of just about anything at this point, but in general, Terminator armor is not fully proof against all non AP2 weapons. Bolters have been shown to kill Terminators, as have Krak missiles, claws, battlecannons, heavy bolters, power swords, etc, all of which are non-AP2 as well.

In TT terms that would not work at all as all the terminators would be flooded with saves they couldn't possibly even hope saving.

It's not much of a game if they can't really be hurt.

Others did give them +1 wound, which would kind of be even better since many ap2 weapons wouldn't be able to kill them in a single shot.

And then we've got entire squads of mini-characters again, and the game has lots of problems with those, particularly once you start getting "look out sir" rolls going. If they're going to get W2, they shouldn't stay 35pts either (units like Obliterators aren't paying 40pts each just for their guns).

Martel732 wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:

 Konrax wrote:
With the sheer amount of ap2 weapons in this game I really doubt it would be that big of a deal.

And point for point regular space marines are better than terminators in a fire fight.

Not every army is Eldar, running around with a gazillion AP2 weapons, particularly ranged options. There's neither a good balance nor fluff argument that their save should only have a 1-in-36 chance to fail, especially at the scale 40k is played at.

Eldar don't specialize in AP2, they specialize in "save 100 wounds! Can't? I guess you're dead".

It's not like they can't do both. I mean, they can pack in gobs of S6 shooting *and* two dozen AP2 guns in most lists

With the risk of hijacking this thread about how to fix terminators, the only other option would be to reduce the cost of terminators which I personally am not a fan of because... They shouldn't feel like a cheap heavy elite soldier to me.

It just sounds wrong, terminators aside from melee are one of the poorest dps range choices you can make, their real advantage is melee and their toughness. Storm shields are good because 3+ is actually decent, but suffer from the same volume of fire weakness.

Rerollable armour save would actually make it better than just taking artificer on a hero as well since they usually have a better than 5++ anyways.

In all honesty I would like to see a few units with 2+ rerollable armour saves because with the amount of damage scaling this game has I think it would help.

I vote for making heavy bolters salvo 2/3 instead of buffing either storm bolters or combi ones

More S4 shots is useless. And people would say they should cost more. Doubly useless.

At this stage of the arms race, the first measure towards turning Terminators into something truly useful would be giving them two wounds. It would make them double as durable against things like Plasma weapons and equivalents. Also the Storm Shields should be nerfed to grant +2 to Invul save instead of a flat out 3++, such a nerf would not only make sense overall, but Termies would likely be the only ones not affected by it since they would retain the 3++ save in combination with the Iron Halo.

Personally, I wouldn't change much more beyond that. The problem is not really with the Terminators themselves, but with how crazy the arms race has raged in the last 10 years. Terminators however have remained mostly the same as they were in 3rd edition, when the game was much less packed with AP2 than today, and small Rapid Fire weapons were more limited at providing the mass volume of shots that makes Terminators statistically inviable today.

As with the "space marine" concept, I think it's more a matter of swinging the nerfbat heavily with many other things rather than giving crazy buffs to the Termies. Won't happen though, at least while GW is in charge of the game. They have to sell more Centurions and other grimderp stuff.

The biggest problem methinks is simply that the scale of the game has runaway on itself. Terminators are fearsome heavy assault infantry, but are ultimately infantry nonetheless. When the game is now factoring in strategic bombers, Godzilla sized creatures, single units that put out more mid-strength firepower than entire 5E IG gunlines would, and units that are basically composed entirely of "ultra-HQ" equivalent units (e.g. TWC deathstars), it becomes difficult to reasonably differentiate units without turning them into something they're not.

More and more I think that infantry squads in general just need to be abstracted essentially as a single entity if the game's scale is going to stay the way it is or continue to escalate. Micromanaging each individual infantryman's save or their handheld weapons when there's stuff like I previously mentioned floating about the board is simply far too granular for what is necessary.

 Vaktathi wrote:
The biggest problem methinks is simply that the scale of the game has runaway on itself. Terminators are fearsome heavy assault infantry, but are ultimately infantry nonetheless. When the game is now factoring in strategic bombers, Godzilla sized creatures, single units that put out more mid-strength firepower than entire 5E IG gunlines would, and units that are basically composed entirely of "ultra-HQ" equivalent units (e.g. TWC deathstars), it becomes difficult to reasonably differentiate units without turning them into something they're not.

More and more I think that infantry squads in general just need to be abstracted essentially as a single entity if the game's scale is going to stay the way it is or continue to escalate. Micromanaging each individual infantryman's save or their handheld weapons when there's stuff like I previously mentioned floating about the board is simply far too granular for what is necessary.

But by terminator "fluff" they're supposed to be able to survive strat bombers and Godzilla. I guess.

Terminators weren't particularly worth taking in the first place though. The scale of the game hasn't exactly changed that.

Terminators, give 'em T5, 2W, S5 AP 5 Storm Bolters w/ Salvo 2/3 or something.

BAM! Instantly takeable.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Terminators weren't particularly worth taking in the first place though. The scale of the game hasn't exactly changed that.

They were in previous editions. I was *very* fond of CSM terminators in late 4th/early 5th and found them to be quite effective. I remember Terminator squads in 4th being solid, if not spectacular, options.

Martel732 wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
The biggest problem methinks is simply that the scale of the game has runaway on itself. Terminators are fearsome heavy assault infantry, but are ultimately infantry nonetheless. When the game is now factoring in strategic bombers, Godzilla sized creatures, single units that put out more mid-strength firepower than entire 5E IG gunlines would, and units that are basically composed entirely of "ultra-HQ" equivalent units (e.g. TWC deathstars), it becomes difficult to reasonably differentiate units without turning them into something they're not.

More and more I think that infantry squads in general just need to be abstracted essentially as a single entity if the game's scale is going to stay the way it is or continue to escalate. Micromanaging each individual infantryman's save or their handheld weapons when there's stuff like I previously mentioned floating about the board is simply far too granular for what is necessary.

But by terminator "fluff" they're supposed to be able to survive strat bombers and Godzilla. I guess.

They're really intended for boarding actions or to break open a defensive fortification, not enduring open pitched battle against strategic weapons, ultra heavy artillery, massed tank formations, monsters like Wraithknights and Heirophants, etc. They *can* hurt such things, but in just about every iteration of 40k, be it 2E, Epic, etc, Terminators die only very slightly less easy than normal infantry against these kinds of things.

rowboatjellyfanxiii wrote:
Terminators, give 'em T5, 2W, S5 AP 5 Storm Bolters w/ Salvo 2/3 or something.

BAM! Instantly takeable.

They'd still be centurions with popguns. Trash. Centurions with grav cannons would still be much better.

Martel732 wrote:

rowboatjellyfanxiii wrote:
Terminators, give 'em T5, 2W, S5 AP 5 Storm Bolters w/ Salvo 2/3 or something.

BAM! Instantly takeable.

They'd still be centurions with popguns. Trash. Centurions with grav cannons would still be much better.

Centurions I think are a big part of the problem with GW's inflation and scale issues. They're "Terminators...but better!" and cut into both what Terminators were there for and what Dreadnoughts were supposed to be, and just overall were a very shortsighted and hamfisted creation.

But they're still in the game, and so pretty much any "fixed" terminator is a centurion with a pop gun. That's why my fix gives them assault cannons instead of extra defenses. Because GMCs aren't immune to rending and so terminators would have some place in the meta.

Centurions were a direct result of Chaos having something nice, and the imperials needing to have it too.

 Konrax wrote:
Centurions were a direct result of Chaos having something nice, and the imperials needing to have it too.

I seriously doubt this. Timmy's spess mahreens were getting tabled by Taudar. The funny part is that you have to bolt on invisibility for even centurions to survive against those armies.

More power creep is not the answer.


Make termites cheaper, or give them a "terminator bolter" which has a bit of a kick.


I've always preferred combi bolters, only because they work better when deep striking.

 welshhoppo wrote:
More power creep is not the answer.


Make termites cheaper, or give them a "terminator bolter" which has a bit of a kick.


I've always preferred combi bolters, only because they work better when deep striking.

More power creep is absolutely the answer. Until everything has crept up to where it has actual utility in the way the game is actually played. That means taking on scatbikes and WKs. If your unit can't do that, it's garbage in practice. Why do you think the Tau got D missiles? Because S10 railguns are popguns against WKs.

"Bolter" and "kick" in the same sentence is an oxymoron. Heavy bolters are god awful now in 7th. This makes all weaker bolters even worse.

Martel732 wrote:

 Konrax wrote:
Centurions were a direct result of Chaos having something nice, and the imperials needing to have it too.

I seriously doubt this. Timmy's spess mahreens were getting tabled by Taudar. The funny part is that you have to bolt on invisibility for even centurions to survive against those armies.

Oblits came around in 4th and I remember specifically SM players making a big stink about me fielding them, saying they were so op and that they should have an equivalent unit. Then centurions showed up.

Multi wound terminator heavy weapon unit... Can be used to describe either one of them.

Although my own personal experience isn't enough to say with certainty that they did come from oblits, if you look at the track record between SM and Chaos, anything Chaos gets SM get something better.

Marines had no oblit equivalent in 5th.

Centurions have a different stat line than terminators as well.

I'm still not seeing this.

Martel732 wrote:
Marines had no oblit equivalent in 5th.

Centurions have a different stat line than terminators as well.

I'm still not seeing this.

I never said they came in 5th.

And nurgle oblits have the exact same stat line just not fearless and centurions have no invuln save.

Martel732 wrote:
Marines had no oblit equivalent in 5th.

Centurions have a different stat line than terminators as well.

I'm still not seeing this.

Considering their Grav Cannons virtually outperform anything an Obliterator can get out of his ass, you could say that Centurions are Obliterators + Terminators but better (and bigger) than both, in every single kind of way.

BTW I could swear Oblits were already featured in the 3.5 chaos dex (0-1 except for Iron Warriors), although their current model aesthetic dates from 4th/5th if I'm not mistaken.

Martel732 wrote:

 welshhoppo wrote:
More power creep is not the answer.


Make termites cheaper, or give them a "terminator bolter" which has a bit of a kick.


I've always preferred combi bolters, only because they work better when deep striking.

More power creep is absolutely the answer. Until everything has crept up to where it has actual utility in the way the game is actually played. That means taking on scatbikes and WKs. If your unit can't do that, it's garbage in practice. Why do you think the Tau got D missiles? Because S10 railguns are popguns against WKs.

"Bolter" and "kick" in the same sentence is an oxymoron. Heavy bolters are god awful now in 7th. This makes all weaker bolters even worse.

Except the whole reason we are at this situation is because of the stupid amounts of power creep to get people to play with the new toys.

Most people go on about how Terminators were good in second edition. Even in third, but they aren't good now because everything else has run ahead.

If GW actually kept everything in check instead of running off like a five year old on a sugar high, it would all be different.

I would just give them storm bolter compatible special ammo. Let them cost around 30 points and they are fine.

 welshhoppo wrote:

Martel732 wrote:

 welshhoppo wrote:
More power creep is not the answer.


Make termites cheaper, or give them a "terminator bolter" which has a bit of a kick.


I've always preferred combi bolters, only because they work better when deep striking.

More power creep is absolutely the answer. Until everything has crept up to where it has actual utility in the way the game is actually played. That means taking on scatbikes and WKs. If your unit can't do that, it's garbage in practice. Why do you think the Tau got D missiles? Because S10 railguns are popguns against WKs.

"Bolter" and "kick" in the same sentence is an oxymoron. Heavy bolters are god awful now in 7th. This makes all weaker bolters even worse.

Except the whole reason we are at this situation is because of the stupid amounts of power creep to get people to play with the new toys.

Most people go on about how Terminators were good in second edition. Even in third, but they aren't good now because everything else has run ahead.

If GW actually kept everything in check instead of running off like a five year old on a sugar high, it would all be different.

Most people would be wrong. Terminators were not good in 2nd. At least, not loyalist ones. Only chaos, because they had access to far superior weapons. They were terrible in third because plasma was made AP 2 and terminators got no save against it at all.

 welshhoppo wrote:
More power creep is not the answer.


Make termites cheaper, or give them a "terminator bolter" which has a bit of a kick.


I've always preferred combi bolters, only because they work better when deep striking.

Buffing Storm Bolters really isn't adding to power creep, if only because nobody wants to take Storm Bolters in the first place...

 welshhoppo wrote:

Martel732 wrote:

 welshhoppo wrote:
More power creep is not the answer.


Make termites cheaper, or give them a "terminator bolter" which has a bit of a kick.


I've always preferred combi bolters, only because they work better when deep striking.

More power creep is absolutely the answer. Until everything has crept up to where it has actual utility in the way the game is actually played. That means taking on scatbikes and WKs. If your unit can't do that, it's garbage in practice. Why do you think the Tau got D missiles? Because S10 railguns are popguns against WKs.

"Bolter" and "kick" in the same sentence is an oxymoron. Heavy bolters are god awful now in 7th. This makes all weaker bolters even worse.

Except the whole reason we are at this situation is because of the stupid amounts of power creep to get people to play with the new toys.

Most people go on about how Terminators were good in second edition. Even in third, but they aren't good now because everything else has run ahead.

If GW actually kept everything in check instead of running off like a five year old on a sugar high, it would all be different.

Unless you have a time machine, we have to play with the hand we've got, not the one we wish to have. As is, power creep is real, and has been out of the gates rampaging for a while now. Damage done. At this point, pulling up the things lagging behind is probably more efficient than trying to push all the creep back inside pandora's box.

Game Workshop needs to work on this from both sides:
Stop handing out more powerful toys with each Codex release, more so those already gifted
Strengthen weakened Units, or drop them outright if something better has already come along
Sadly this 'arms race' is something Marketing would love to keep around, on the belief it generates more sales as people jump from most powerful to most powerful.

Terminators are iconic, however, so they have to be given a useful position in an Army as they can't be dropped outright....

 casvalremdeikun wrote:
Am I the only one that doesn't understand why loyalist Termins aators have elected to use Storm Bolters when Combi-Bolters are better in every way for Terminators? Is this another case of Loyalists being idiots?

Combi-bolters are better? Then I must have missed something.
I guess you mean combi-weapon which allow a single use of a specific shot like melta gun, plasma gun, or flamer.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Have a look into 30k. There are no storm bolters yet.

Both equally garbage weapons to have on a 35-40pt model in the age of scatter bikes.

Buffing Terminator/Storm Bolters stats is not the way to - nerfing everything is imo. There's too much low AP weapons in the game, which affect not just Terminators but a whole heap of other things. Maybe the following ideas?

* Bladestorm on Shuriken Weapons becomes AP3
* All multishot AP2 weapons in general see a 5-10pt increase across the board, regardless of codex
* Grav gets nerfed to AP-, but gets AP2 on a To Wound of 6.

 GoonBandito wrote:
Buffing Terminator/Storm Bolters stats is not the way to - nerfing everything is imo. There's too much low AP weapons in the game, which affect not just Terminators but a whole heap of other things. Maybe the following ideas?

* Bladestorm on Shuriken Weapons becomes AP3
* All multishot AP2 weapons in general see a 5-10pt increase across the board, regardless of codex
* Grav gets nerfed to AP-, but gets AP2 on a To Wound of 6.

I agree with this guy, he shares my world view.

 GoonBandito wrote:
Buffing Terminator/Storm Bolters stats is not the way to - nerfing everything is imo. There's too much low AP weapons in the game, which affect not just Terminators but a whole heap of other things. Maybe the following ideas?

* Bladestorm on Shuriken Weapons becomes AP3
* All multishot AP2 weapons in general see a 5-10pt increase across the board, regardless of codex
* Grav gets nerfed to AP-, but gets AP2 on a To Wound of 6.

This would be the real way to fix a lot of problems with these units.

Maybe 8th edition, or age of Emperor afterwards.

 GoonBandito wrote:
Buffing Terminator/Storm Bolters stats is not the way to - nerfing everything is imo. There's too much low AP weapons in the game, which affect not just Terminators but a whole heap of other things. Maybe the following ideas?

* Bladestorm on Shuriken Weapons becomes AP3
* All multishot AP2 weapons in general see a 5-10pt increase across the board, regardless of codex
* Grav gets nerfed to AP-, but gets AP2 on a To Wound of 6.

You people continuously miss the point.
Even if you did all that, why would I take Terminators? They still wouldn't be good...

Well if you nerf everything, then they might actually be useful as they wouldn't be playing in a game of "who can bring the biggest gun."

When has GW ever pushed nerfs like are being proposed? Only once: 2nd ed to 3rd ed.

Martel732 wrote:
When has GW ever pushed nerfs like are being proposed? Only once: 2nd ed to 3rd ed.

All power weapons not being ap 2 in 6th edition.

They already made the change for melee, now ranged needs the same thing.

If you changed all of those ap 2 situations, terminators still die to small arms fire.

Lythrandire Biehrellian wrote:
If you changed all of those ap 2 situations, terminators still die to small arms fire.

One of the problems with terminators is that they die to both big guns (AP2) and small arms (roll those ones) If they were a little more resistant to one/both, they might be a little more viable. As it is now, pretty much everything is good against them. I guess they are good vs. Small volumes of high S, non-AP2 fire. Not a lot of that out there.

 welshhoppo wrote:
Well if you nerf everything, then they might actually be useful as they wouldn't be playing in a game of "who can bring the biggest gun."

Incorrect. They still don't carry firepower themselves, and won't earn their points back.

The cut from 40 to 35 was a step in the right direction, but it leads the question to what they're doing I cannot get elsewhere. It naturally leads to why Storm Bolters are terrible weapons and need a minor buff. Seeing as we can get more Bolter shots elsewhere for less points, why not just bump the weapon to S5? It still wouldn't make people want to take them as an upgrade, but at least you end up hating Tactical Terminators less.

 Vaktathi wrote:

More and more I think that infantry squads in general just need to be abstracted essentially as a single entity if the game's scale is going to stay the way it is or continue to escalate. Micromanaging each individual infantryman's save or their handheld weapons when there's stuff like I previously mentioned floating about the board is simply far too granular for what is necessary.

So you mean just bite the bullet and use the Epic rules with 28mm models?

I would personally rather see a buff to terminator armour and not to storm bolters.

Heavy bolter should be salvo so someone might actually take it occasionally.

Without more firepower, there is no change to terminator armor that would make me use them.

Martel732 wrote:
Without more firepower, there is no change to terminator armor that would make me use them.

If you gave them better firepower they would just be centurion lite.

Give them 2+ rerolling failed armour saves built in and I bet they would be a lot more viable as a back field deep strike unit that would cause lots of problems for heavy weapons teams and objective campers.

Meh. I'd pass still. Stormbolters suck that hard.

If the game had better assault rules. You're looking at thirty S8 AP2 attacks. Nothing to be sniffed at.

 Konrax wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Without more firepower, there is no change to terminator armor that would make me use them.

If you gave them better firepower they would just be centurion lite.

Give them 2+ rerolling failed armour saves built in and I bet they would be a lot more viable as a back field deep strike unit that would cause lots of problems for heavy weapons teams and objective campers.

Except it wouldn't cause problems because we're ignoring that Terminators aren't dangerous. All that does is makes me ignore 10 S4 shots on my backfield. Big deal.

I have a friend whom uses Terminators very well with a Librarian Conclave buffing them with Invisibility.

Still, thats about the only thing which works though.

 master of ordinance wrote:
I have a friend whom uses Terminators very well with a Librarian Conclave buffing them with Invisibility.

Still, thats about the only thing which works though.

I have Tzeentch terminators I play and I try to buff them with invis and endurance and they can be very meaty with that. Of course their range is a joke but they plow forward and melee crush quite well.

 master of ordinance wrote:
I have a friend whom uses Terminators very well with a Librarian Conclave buffing them with Invisibility.

Still, thats about the only thing which works though.

EVERYTHING is good with Invisibility because Invisibility is stupidly written.

You can't say a unit is useful based off that. It's pretty lazy.

 master of ordinance wrote:
I have a friend whom uses Terminators very well with a Librarian Conclave buffing them with Invisibility.

Still, thats about the only thing which works though.

He'd be much better off making grav cents invisible.

 Vaktathi wrote:
The biggest problem methinks is simply that the scale of the game has runaway on itself. Terminators are fearsome heavy assault infantry, but are ultimately infantry nonetheless. When the game is now factoring in strategic bombers, Godzilla sized creatures, single units that put out more mid-strength firepower than entire 5E IG gunlines would, and units that are basically composed entirely of "ultra-HQ" equivalent units (e.g. TWC deathstars), it becomes difficult to reasonably differentiate units without turning them into something they're not.

More and more I think that infantry squads in general just need to be abstracted essentially as a single entity if the game's scale is going to stay the way it is or continue to escalate. Micromanaging each individual infantryman's save or their handheld weapons when there's stuff like I previously mentioned floating about the board is simply far too granular for what is necessary.

The game used to be about infantry fighting infantry with a very few tanks with no need to worry about gargantuan creatures, and I think there is no reason with the addition of GCs that the rules shouldn't give infantry the ability to stay useful as separate models. The shooting rules themselves should just allow them to cause multiple wounds with one shot or do extra damage to tanks, native to the unit without any special rules. If hypothetically you were playing this as a cooperative or single player game, it would be more fun to be infantry trying to survive or kill a pack of riptides, Knights and wraith knights than to be the monster that has to trample a bunch of puny infantry.

Of course terminators are terrible. It's not even important anymore to kill the infantry that they fail to be good at killing. So you have to buff infantry so that terminators have something to kill again and so that terminators will also get this buffs. Yes, you do have to continue the cycle of buffs until it is complete, no, you cannot nerf things into being balanced, because the large models make this a different game than it was. And the rules then also need to be different.

Sheesh, sorry guys, I was just making an observation!

Its the rage coming from the diconnect between terminator fluff and terminator tt reality.

Eh, I can understand that. I feel the same way about the LRBT and variants.

There's different storm bolters too. The Marine-portable ones are more like pistols, especially the Terminator ones in a Terminator fist, whereas the vehicle mounted ones are significantly bigger and we all know bigger is better in 40k.

Maybe the Terminator ones should have a higher rate of fire? I now its not much but it is better than nothing.

 master of ordinance wrote:
Maybe the Terminator ones should have a higher rate of fire? I now its not much but it is better than nothing.

Make them 2/4 Salvo
All bolters have Shred.
H. Bolters become 3/5 Salvo

I think that'd fix bolters.


Then again, I think IG should have a rule that if another squad has already fired at a target using lasguns, all other squads get to re-roll 1's to hit since they benefit from the laser pointers

I dunno about Bolters having Shred, but it would at least give them character.

In the RPG they do have a rule similar to shred.

My main issue is that, fluff wise, they should be better at hitting vehicles, but Rending on everyone is kinda ridiculous.

At the D6 level it IS pretty hard to represent the Bolter as a fearsome weapon.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
My main issue is that, fluff wise, they should be better at hitting vehicles, but Rending on everyone is kinda ridiculous.

At the D6 level it IS pretty hard to represent the Bolter as a fearsome weapon.

As someone who plays the TT-RPG, I don't get the idea that bolters are effective against tanks (though tanks in the fluff seem crazy durable compared to the table top). I always get the impression that bolters are decimating all but the most heavily armored infantry, decimating orks, cultists, and demons with horrific wounds.
Hence shred.
Usually it seems that marines are scrambling to attach a melta bomb or use a heavy weapon when a tank rolls into town.

Rending I think is fine for eldar weapons. They are described as a storm of sharp metal being fired at rapid velocities. I can imagine them hitting perfectly and just shredding through armor, but normally not being very effective against heavy armor.

I'll readily agree that the D6 system is rough to work with. I prefer the 2d6 system used in WMH, and really wish 40k would move to it.

I think d20 would be awesome myself.

 Konrax wrote:
I think d20 would be awesome myself.

I dunno, I'm a little against the d20 system.
Have you ever played 5e dnd? The bounded accuracy of the system means that the d20 is huge, and combat can swing wildly towards one side or another based on die rolls. Advantage/Disadvantage become some of the best status effects in the game, since it lets you re-roll a d20.

The 2d6 system produces a nice bell curve. You can assume you'll most likely get a 6-8, but you can go for 4-5 and 9-10 in a pinch, especially if you get to re-roll 1 die (Imagine if TL allowed you to re-roll 1 die in a 2d6...it would be good but not game breaking).
I do think stats should go from 1-20 however.

A defense stat would help with agile troops too. It would make them vulnerable to blast weapons while still being strong against weapons like plasmaguns. Terminators, for example, could have terrible defense but Tank levels of armor.
Honestly, if someone converted 40k to the WMH system I would play nothing but that all day every day. Some stuff would change (boosting) but it would be so good.

Say something like this for a stat line
Guardsmen;
WS 4, BS 4, S 3, T 3, I 3, Defense 10, Armor 11
Las guns 1 shot at 24, 2 shots at 12".
Las guns have Str 4
Knives have str 1 (So total str 4).
Guardsmen have 1 wound.
Guardsmen are 4 points.

Marines.
WS 6, BS 6, S 5, T 5, I 4, Defense 11, Armor 13
Bolters are the same RoF as las guns.
Bolters are Str 5, +1 Str against infantry models
Knives are str 1 (So Str 6 total).
Marines have 4 wounds.
Marines are 16 points.

So a guardsmen needs to roll a 7 to hit a marine, and a 10 to wound a marine (and you must cause 4 wounds to kill a marine, but a roll of 11 causes 2, 12 causes 3).
A marine needs to roll a 4 to hit a guardsmen, and a 6 to kill a guardsmen.

Things like plasmaguns would get a rule like Str 10, Armor piercing (Against infantry, +2 Str), so a plasma gun can one shot a marine but overkills a guardmen.
Melta guns, if under 6", double the amount of wounds caused to tanks.
Tanks would have armor values in the 13-18 range, with 12-25 wounds.

Obviously this is a first pass, but I think the game could work.

I like your ideas, 40k in general needs a facelift.

My biggest gripe is the I go you go turn sequence that emphasizes imbalances inherent in the game.

My friends and I play a version very similar to bolt action and its amazing how not a big deal going first is. The damage done is nicely distributed and it is fairly consistent.

It works amazingly well for FFA as well, last weekend we had a 5 player 1000pt battle with capture the relic as the mission. It was great fun and felt much more dynamic and strategic than any standard 40k game I ever played.

 Konrax wrote:
I like your ideas, 40k in general needs a facelift.

My biggest gripe is the I go you go turn sequence that emphasizes imbalances inherent in the game.

My friends and I play a version very similar to bolt action and its amazing how not a big deal going first is. The damage done is nicely distributed and it is fairly consistent.

It works amazingly well for FFA as well, last weekend we had a 5 player 1000pt battle with capture the relic as the mission. It was great fun and felt much more dynamic and strategic than any standard 40k game I ever played.

I'll have to admit, even in WMH certain factions get a huge benefit for going first (though recently these casters were nerfed). I'm not sure how to solve it, because I enjoy the IGOUGO system at its core. It does have issues though.
I believe you'd have to add a benefit for going second. Like...2nd player gets to place 2 pieces of terrain for every 1 the attacker may place. I think this would represent the defenders being in a location that is defensible and the attackers only have a small impact on where the fight happens.

Then have warlord traits (that isn't random) allow removal of terrain, or moving them so many inches. Special characters can move/remove terrain after deployment but before first turn.
Because this is 40k the person removing terrain must yell "CREEEEEED" whenever they do so.
I think you'd still need to cut the range of most weapons by about a 1/3rd or a 1/4th. This would help assault since they don't take as much firepower on the way in.
Also, every unit has movement values as part of the stat line again. Running doubles movement, charging adds Init to movement (Orks would have a rule where charging doubles their init value or something, to represent how ferocious they are on the charge but if they are caught by surprise they can be killed in mass).

 Vaktathi wrote:

 casvalremdeikun wrote:
Am I the only one that doesn't understand why loyalist Terminators have elected to use Storm Bolters when Combi-Bolters are better in every way for Terminators? Is this another case of Loyalists being idiots?

Because game mechanics aren't static over multiple editions. When Terminators were first created, these weapons functioned differently than they do now, there was no "assualt" or "rapid fire" type, and Storm bolters were very good indeed in RT and 2nd edition. Through edition changes and variances in game mechanics, unit value, etc, these things have changed.

If you can get a copy of the 2E Wargear book, that'll give you a better idea of what these weapons really should look like next to one another.

Amen. I remember how awesome storm bolters were back in 2E. They were THE basic gun to take if you could.
http://www.kerlin.de/pic/antik_40k/downloads/Warhammer-40k-Battle-Bible-1-51.pdf

I'm a little lost here... how are Storm Bolters worse than combi-bolters?

Aren't the Storm 2 shots at 24" vs 1 shot at 24"? Even with the twinlink on a MEQ the storm delivers more wounds than the combi, 0.66 wounds from the storm vs 0.44 on the combi.

On 12" and less the combi does 0.88 wounds vs the same 0.66 wounds from the storm. The difference is 0.22 more when beyond 12" and 0.22 when less than 12". I'd say they are equal. Unless you are referring to being able to purchase for extra point combi-weapons that remove the TL but makes it better to tackle certain situations you may face during the game.

 Lord Yayula wrote:
I'm a little lost here... how are Storm Bolters worse than combi-bolters?

Aren't the Storm 2 shots at 24" vs 1 shot at 24"? Even with the twinlink on a MEQ the storm delivers more wounds than the combi, 0.66 wounds from the storm vs 0.44 on the combi.

On 12" and less the combi does 0.88 wounds vs the same 0.66 wounds from the storm. The difference is 0.22 more when beyond 12" and 0.22 when less than 12". I'd say they are equal. Unless you are referring to being able to purchase for extra point combi-weapons that remove the TL but makes it better to tackle certain situations you may face during the game.

It's entirely the last part. Have a (cheaper) unit armed with combi pgs or flamers isn't horrible (not great but not bad) but arming them with just storm bolters and an assault cannon is criminal.
There are few situations where a bolter is a good choice over a combi weapon.

Honestly, I think 40k went downhill when they decided to use a set AP value for each weapon and a fixed armor save. There are SO many AP1/AP2 weaponry out there now that slow, expensive, elite units like Terminators are null and void now. They used to be a 3+ save on 2D6. How awesome was that? It really made people fear Terminators, even if you shot them with a weapon with a -3 save modifier.

You get back to save modifiers on weapons instead of a set AP value, and using multiple dice for saves and you've got yourself a game. This fixed 'D6' system of 16.6% variances is crappy, VERY VERY crappy.

steelreign wrote:
Honestly, I think 40k went downhill when they decided to use a set AP value for each weapon and a fixed armor save. There are SO many AP1/AP2 weaponry out there now that slow, expensive, elite units like Terminators are null and void now. They used to be a 3+ save on 2D6. How awesome was that? It really made people fear Terminators, even if you shot them with a weapon with a -3 save modifier.

You get back to save modifiers on weapons instead of a set AP value, and using multiple dice for saves and you've got yourself a game. This fixed 'D6' system of 16.6% variances is crappy, VERY VERY crappy.

Have an exalt for that.
I too feel that armour saves should be modified by the AP of the shot hitting you as opposed too an all or nothing blast.

steelreign wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:

 casvalremdeikun wrote:
Am I the only one that doesn't understand why loyalist Terminators have elected to use Storm Bolters when Combi-Bolters are better in every way for Terminators? Is this another case of Loyalists being idiots?

Because game mechanics aren't static over multiple editions. When Terminators were first created, these weapons functioned differently than they do now, there was no "assualt" or "rapid fire" type, and Storm bolters were very good indeed in RT and 2nd edition. Through edition changes and variances in game mechanics, unit value, etc, these things have changed.

If you can get a copy of the 2E Wargear book, that'll give you a better idea of what these weapons really should look like next to one another.

Amen. I remember how awesome storm bolters were back in 2E. They were THE basic gun to take if you could.
http://www.kerlin.de/pic/antik_40k/downloads/Warhammer-40k-Battle-Bible-1-51.pdf

They were crap. Try again.

Martel732 wrote:

steelreign wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:

 casvalremdeikun wrote:
Am I the only one that doesn't understand why loyalist Terminators have elected to use Storm Bolters when Combi-Bolters are better in every way for Terminators? Is this another case of Loyalists being idiots?

Because game mechanics aren't static over multiple editions. When Terminators were first created, these weapons functioned differently than they do now, there was no "assualt" or "rapid fire" type, and Storm bolters were very good indeed in RT and 2nd edition. Through edition changes and variances in game mechanics, unit value, etc, these things have changed.

If you can get a copy of the 2E Wargear book, that'll give you a better idea of what these weapons really should look like next to one another.

Amen. I remember how awesome storm bolters were back in 2E. They were THE basic gun to take if you could.
http://www.kerlin.de/pic/antik_40k/downloads/Warhammer-40k-Battle-Bible-1-51.pdf

They were crap. Try again.

They where rapid fire. It was possible, with some luck, to mow down every single model within range with a single Stormbolter.
(BTW this was when Rapid Fire meant that every time you hit and wounded a target you got to fire again at another target [or the same one if it had not died] within a certain distance of the last target)

They didn't do that in 2nd ed. They had a single sustained fire die.

I agree with those disliking the 'all or nothing' quality of Armour Piercing Rules....
One of my possible methods to 'fix' the defensiveness capabilities of Terminators would be to change the Armour Save system to match that of a standard Characteristic Test.

This involves granting every Model an Armour Value between 1 and 10, with 10 being the best value possible. The Armour Piercing Value of the weapon would then become a modifier to this Characteristic Test, making it a lot harder to roll a Result lower then the targeted Value. This change would make it so a weapon with an Armour Piercing value of 2 is more likely to punch through an Armour Save of 4 then a Weapon with a Armour Piercing value of 1, as higher Armour Piercing values are a harsher penalty on the resulting tests.

Then I would take it a step further by removing the 'Rolls of 6 are always a failure, Rolls of 1 are always a success' clause for Characteristic Tests involving Armour Saves.

While this makes it possible that Weapons with high Armour Piercing Values are still capable of negating the Armour entirely, rolling lower then 2 is impossible with a +2 modifier, it also creates the opposite outcome. It is entirely possible for Armour to have a value high enough that weapons with low Armour Piercing values are incapable of ever getting through said Armour. The most likely Unit to benefit from this change would be Terminators, as I fathom Terminator Armour would be around an 8 on this new system. Terminators will no longer need to fear cheap basic troop choices capable of large amounts of Armour Piercing - shots, which seems to be a large gripe against them.

As per the last topic on this subject, I strongly believe Terminators need a survival increase more than their weapons need an upgrade. Even with better combi-bolters, let's be honest... we'd still never use them. They're supposed to be an elite unit and they're just not there. Infantry in general are kind of worthless in 40k unless they have heavy weapons, mobility for point capture, or for fighting other infantry. But we're in an age of big stompy mecha things. They're what the game is about now. Flyers, giant robots, speedy (jet)bikes, psykers, and artillery support.

Termies as a troop-slaughtering unit lack the heavy weapons to do so (only heavy flamer/autocannon/melee) and even with ANY of these proposed upgrades for storm bolters, termies would still be ineffective for their point cost. Masses of troops with 1 wound each at least take TIME for the important models to shred away so they have a purpose in an objective game. Yet Termies can't even do that right. They deep strike out of thin air and should be annihilating whatever is in front of them, and back in 2nd/3rd edition they could, but now everything in front of them is scarier than they are.

Their purpose as a unit needs to be rethought. If they're going to be so expensive as an armored platform, then it should be an armored heavy weapons platform with better survival. They require access to high dps shooty weapons (the short range ones preferably so havocs still have a purpose) and they need better toughness or re-rolls for armor. They'd still be killable by the weapons intended to face them, and that's something I think we've lost in editions post-3rd. We're no longer staring down vehicles we have no hope of destroying, we're no longer seeing terminators and obliterators as some of the scariest things on the table, even our Monstrous Creatures can no longer wade into the midst of a pack of infantry to slaughter them because almost everyone has free krak grenades or some type of Rending. Our units are more VULNERABLE now than they ever have been before with costs remaining the same or getting higher while more lethal options exist in this mad arms race.

The game is too massive to fix this vulnerability problem but for Termies there's lots of ways to approach it. Pick one and go with it, they need the ability to survive against more than they do currently or this is all pointless. Likewise, there are plenty of heavy weapons that exist that they should be able to take that could bump them up a few points on the lethality meter. Termies, like Havocs, should be a blank platform meant to be upgraded but we need the options to make upgrading them worth it. In a game with super heavies and flyers and blobs of 30 things attacking you 100+ times, offense and defense need a HUGE hike. The popularity of Centurions are just an example of how irrelevant termies are now because better stuff exists that invalidates them.

Why not both?

Make Storm Bolters Salvo2/4 and Terminator armor automatically grants the wearer +1W and +1T. And make all Terminators WS and BS5.

I'm just worried that giving them both 2 wounds and T5 would make them into just another version of Centurions.

Nah, they'd fill a different role. You could take them in 10 man units for starters so they'd be better in melee.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Why not both?

Make Storm Bolters Salvo2/4 and Terminator armor automatically grants the wearer +1W and +1T. And make all Terminators WS and BS5.

Termies are already basically double-strength infantry except in the case of Wounds. Doing this would make them more than double even in survival so combined with their other bonuses they'd cost even more than they currently do. The objective is also not to invalidate troops, which should always be the cheapest and most efficient option for large numbers of wounds and shots, not Terminators.

More toughness is good, re-rollable armor saves are good, and more skill is good. The reason these are okay is because if something capable of demolishing a terminator hits the field, it should. Having 5 toughness by default would mean only strength 10 stuff can instant death them... that's basically only Smash attacks and Gargantuans. It would also give Blood Angels and Dark Angels a huge edge with anti-terminator terminators. So if they're going to be tough, they should keep the 1 Wound and get wrecked by monstrous creatures swinging a bunch of times, yet still able to wreck them if shooting heavy weapons or using Storm Shields. We've already seen what 2 wound terminators can do back with Thousand Sons in 3.5 and it made troops (and just about every other kind of infantry) useless because every list should be running three full squads of terminators.

Troops are already mostly useless in many armies. They're taken because they can, and occasionally as cheap ablative wounds for a couple special or heavy weapons. There are few troops choices which are compelling by themselves, ironically Terminators are ok when they fill the troops slot.

I also think as they sit, giving them the OPTION of taking 5x Powerfists would greatly help. GK Terminators are outstanding for their point costs, mainly because you're not forced to take 5x unweildy powerfists that probably wont even see the first round of assault anyway.

steelreign wrote:
I also think as they sit, giving them the OPTION of taking 5x Powerfists would greatly help.

Something of a loyalist problem as Chaos Terminators come default equipped with Power Weapons. We actually have to pay if we want fist upgrades. Though this doesn't exactly solve the unwieldy problem since we're given Power Axes in the box...

I think Arkaine has actually cracked it... Game Workshop's sense of 'balance' is to ensure everything can be easily killed by anything else!
With the obvious exception of a few Models that Marketing wants to sell more of....

JinxDragon wrote:
I think Arkaine has actually cracked it... Game Workshop's sense of 'balance' is to ensure everything can be easily killed by anything else!
With the obvious exception of a few Models that Marketing wants to sell more of....

Ding ding ding. With each edition, the stuff that looks strong on paper is the stuff they want to sell. Vehicles, MCs, flyers, fortifications, super-heavies, and over time every one of them gets nerfed to the point that most armies can easily destroy them. Maybe one day even the Wraithknight will be balanced.

Arkaine wrote:even with better combi-bolters, let's be honest... we'd still never use them. They're supposed to be an elite unit and they're just not there. Infantry in general are kind of worthless in 40k unless they have heavy weapons, mobility for point capture,

You identify the problem as infantry bad, so it is strange that you then have seven paragraphs that don't solve for infantry bad. Everything else has something infantry don't, but infantry have nothing that something else doesn't.

Giving terminators more durability just makes them a bigger pile of nothing for presumably more pts. Storm bolters are awfulbat any rof and assault sucks.

Well, if you made them tougher, then the “survive until they can get into CC” things gets easier. They are still on the slow side, but if things want to run away from them, that had it’s advantages tactically.

Tougher terminators would get a lot more use of out their powerfists. Offensively, tactical terminators are just about the same as thunderhammer ones. They lack concussive, but get the option for chainfists. It’s the durability advantage of the SSs that make the TH/SS much more viable then the tacs. Make base TDA tougher, and they might see use.

 Nevelon wrote:
Well, if you made them tougher, then the “survive until they can get into CC” things gets easier. They are still on the slow side, but if things want to run away from them, that had it’s advantages tactically.

Tougher terminators would get a lot more use of out their powerfists. Offensively, tactical terminators are just about the same as thunderhammer ones. They lack concussive, but get the option for chainfists. It’s the durability advantage of the SSs that make the TH/SS much more viable then the tacs. Make base TDA tougher, and they might see use.

No matter how tough they are, a turn of no output after deep striking is unacceptable in 7th. Units that run away one turn, can always return after the terminator squad is crippled.

pelicaniforce wrote:

Arkaine wrote:even with better combi-bolters, let's be honest... we'd still never use them. They're supposed to be an elite unit and they're just not there. Infantry in general are kind of worthless in 40k unless they have heavy weapons, mobility for point capture,

You identify the problem as infantry bad, so it is strange that you then have seven paragraphs that don't solve for infantry bad. Everything else has something infantry don't, but infantry have nothing that something else doesn't.

You're searching for the thesis in the opening paragraph. Don't. That's a college paper standard, not a universal one. The closing arguments are legal precedence. Infantry being bad is but a symptom.

I have given this a lot of thought in recent months, and the balanced answer I believe is +1 toughness for wearing terminator armour and Storm bolters being assault 3. No point changes necessary.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
My other idea was to make combi-bolters actually two bolters in one weapon. Ie 2 shots at 24" and 4 shots at 12". Not twin-linked. Makes them balanced with the storm bolter so chaos don't get left in the dust again.

 Kavish wrote:
I have given this a lot of thought in recent months, and the balanced answer I believe is +1 toughness for wearing terminator armour and Storm bolters being assault 3. No point changes necessary.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
My other idea was to make combi-bolters actually two bolters in one weapon. Ie 2 shots at 24" and 4 shots at 12". Not twin-linked. Makes them balanced with the storm bolter so chaos don't get left in the dust again.

Still S4 shooting with no special rules. Useless.

Martel732 wrote:

 Kavish wrote:
I have given this a lot of thought in recent months, and the balanced answer I believe is +1 toughness for wearing terminator armour and Storm bolters being assault 3. No point changes necessary.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
My other idea was to make combi-bolters actually two bolters in one weapon. Ie 2 shots at 24" and 4 shots at 12". Not twin-linked. Makes them balanced with the storm bolter so chaos don't get left in the dust again.

Still S4 shooting with no special rules. Useless.

Not at all. You'd be surprised how often I make important kills with bolt weapons. You just need lots of shots.

But you can get "lots of shots" elsewhere in the codex though. Tactical Marines and Sternguard are still going to throw out more Bolter shots for the points.

Storm Bolters need more to differentiate them than just "more shots".

 Kavish wrote:

Martel732 wrote:

 Kavish wrote:
I have given this a lot of thought in recent months, and the balanced answer I believe is +1 toughness for wearing terminator armour and Storm bolters being assault 3. No point changes necessary.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
My other idea was to make combi-bolters actually two bolters in one weapon. Ie 2 shots at 24" and 4 shots at 12". Not twin-linked. Makes them balanced with the storm bolter so chaos don't get left in the dust again.

Still S4 shooting with no special rules. Useless.

Not at all. You'd be surprised how often I make important kills with bolt weapons. You just need lots of shots.

Then your opponents are using terrible units. Against most power units in the game, bolters are t-totally useless.

Martel732 wrote:


Still S4 shooting with no special rules. Useless.

And with this statement right here, you have summed up how GW has screwed over the game beyond fixing.

Its too bad too, terminators are such an iconic unit of the game. Its too bad that they can't be bothered to be fielded because of everything better that has come along.

Combat reflex
When wearing Terminator armor and equipped with Storm bolter.

When assaulting perform a twin linked overwatch with only Storm bolters (No modifiers) add SB hits to a succesful charge, failed charge discards the SB hits.

When being assaulted perform a twin linked overwatch with only Storm bolters, remove casualties measure if charge fails. (other weapons performs a norma loverwatch)

When being shoot at perform a twin linked overwatch with only Storm bolters.

If a friendly unit is being Charged/fired upon perform a twin linked overwatch with only Storm bolters against the attacking enemy model/unit.

First use of combat reflex comes at no penalty subsequent uses requires passing a leadership test which is reduced by one per use (for purpouses of using Combat reflex).

Would increase the utility of Terminators with Storm bolters without actually improving Storm bolters or Terminators survival without price changes.

 Jayden63 wrote:

Martel732 wrote:


Still S4 shooting with no special rules. Useless.

And with this statement right here, you have summed up how GW has screwed over the game beyond fixing.

Its too bad too, terminators are such an iconic unit of the game. Its too bad that they can't be bothered to be fielded because of everything better that has come along.

You'll get no argument from me. But terminators have never been good because of GW's incompetence at mathematics. No, not even in 2nd unless you were Chaos. And that's because of the weapon choices, not the armor. They still died like slime to massed shuriken weapons, etc. There is a real upper boundary on how good a T4 W1 model can be.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Bishop F Gantry wrote:
Combat reflex
When wearing Terminator armor and equipped with Storm bolter.

When assaulting perform a twin linked overwatch with only Storm bolters (No modifiers) add SB hits to a succesful charge, failed charge discards the SB hits.

When being assaulted perform a twin linked overwatch with only Storm bolters, remove casualties measure if charge fails. (other weapons performs a norma loverwatch)

When being shoot at perform a twin linked overwatch with only Storm bolters.

If a friendly unit is being Charged/fired upon perform a twin linked overwatch with only Storm bolters against the attacking enemy model/unit.

First use of combat reflex comes at no penalty subsequent uses requires passing a leadership test which is reduced by one per use (for purpouses of using Combat reflex).

Would increase the utility of Terminators with Storm bolters without actually improving Storm bolters or Terminators survival without price changes.

Still useless because its still just storm bolter. The stat line on the storm bolter is too gakky for anyone to care. Quit trying to make the storm bolter good on a 30+ point model. It's in the same game as the scatterbike, you can't do it.

Bishop F Gantry wrote:
Combat reflex
When wearing Terminator armor and equipped with Storm bolter.

When assaulting perform a twin linked overwatch with only Storm bolters (No modifiers) add SB hits to a succesful charge, failed charge discards the SB hits.

When being assaulted perform a twin linked overwatch with only Storm bolters, remove casualties measure if charge fails. (other weapons performs a norma loverwatch)

When being shoot at perform a twin linked overwatch with only Storm bolters.

If a friendly unit is being Charged/fired upon perform a twin linked overwatch with only Storm bolters against the attacking enemy model/unit.

First use of combat reflex comes at no penalty subsequent uses requires passing a leadership test which is reduced by one per use (for purpouses of using Combat reflex).

Would increase the utility of Terminators with Storm bolters without actually improving Storm bolters or Terminators survival without price changes.

I can see that rule being really good if you also get a psychic power that forces your opponent to forget about 18" of the range on a scatter laser and also replaces gargantuan creatures or av13 walkers with t3 creatures. Still not game breaking, but powerful in friendly or narrative games.

Is that last sentence the most boring cliche that people ever use in these threads?


The only way to make any kind of s4 including storm bolters good is to get people to take infantry competitively, and the only way to do that is to change the rules to allow them to reliably kill MCs, GCs, super heavies, and wraith-style stuff. Only when kabalites, guardians, basic marines, etc are good for something will storm bolters have something worth killing, and only after that can they even be worth buffing.