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Here are some thoughts I had on Terminators that I think would fit better with their backgrounds and overall superiority to regular SMs.
Current Terminators:
WS BS S T W I A Ld Sv
4 4 4 4 1 4 2 9 2+

Proposed Changes:
WS BS S T W I A Ld Sv
5 5 5 5 1 4 2 9 2+

The added points in WS and BS should reflect their elite and veteran status. They should be more skilled than the average SM, seeing as how they have won Terminators honors and they have centuries of service under their belt. The added S and T points should reflect the added power of the Tactical Dreadnought armor. Agree or Disagree?

I think just giving Terminators 2 Wounds is all they really need.

Those are MONSTER stat increases. It would increase their cost by a good 33% if not 50% and make them unplayable due to unit cost.

Just adding a point of WS makes a Grey Knight Terminator 6 more points than a standard Termie, so increasing all those other stats would be too expensive.

Mattlov wrote:I think just giving Terminators 2 Wounds is all they really need.

Those are MONSTER stat increases. It would increase their cost by a good 33% if not 50% and make them unplayable due to unit cost.

Just adding a point of WS makes a Grey Knight Terminator 6 more points than a standard Termie, so increasing all those other stats would be too expensive.

Agreed.

I reckon they either need 1 wound or the Feel No Pain special rule. Reason? Orc Nobs are as good, if not better, than termis for the price, and are much more flexible. Yeah, their armor saves are worse, but they're stronger, have more attacks, 2 wounds, and lots of special rules that make them monsters.

Yeah, maybe a bit ambitious in the proposed changes, but I do think that you are right on the wounds. Their armor is vastly superior to the standard SM and should receive some bonus other than a better save. I think a second wound and/or feel no pain would be a worthy change instead.

JEB_Stuart wrote:

The added points in WS and BS should reflect their elite and veteran status. They should be more skilled than the average SM, seeing as how they have won Terminators honors and they have centuries of service under their belt. The added S and T points should reflect the added power of the Tactical Dreadnought armor. Agree or Disagree?

Just because theyre technically supposed to be more skilled than regular marines doesn't justify the stat increase imo. Because its only possible for a stat to go from 0-10, its impossible to represent subtle skill changes like (for example) a space marine veteran having a better WS than a space marine scout.

Think about the strength difference between a space marine, fully kitted out in his strength enhancing power armour, & with all the natural genetically engineered strength, & a regular imperial guardsman. That is a massive strength difference; even a very fit guardsmen in his prime & at the peak of his ability can't even come close to the lowliest tactical marine. Yet in game terms, their strengths are only one number apart on the statline.

the scale length of the statlines doesnt accomodate subtle attribute changes like the difference between a terminator's WS & a tactical marine's WS.

Terminator Squad - 45 points/model.
WS4 BS4 S4 T4(5) W2 I4 A2 Ld9 Sv2+/5+

That's the way we've been using them for over 5 years now. They work wonders, and the weakness of Terminators (dying to small arms fire like Lasguns and ShuriCats) is almost completely negated whilst they still die instantly to S8+ weapons (which they should do).

somecallmeJack:

I figured that single point changes in game stats represented single orders of magnitude so that:

WS1
1
WS2
10
WS3
100
WS4
1000
etc

re: the OP: It would certainly make them more powerful...not sure what a fair price point for them that good would be though.

I'd rather like it if the various veteran units had increased WS and BS like they did in 2nd edition (IIRC), they do in the IG just not for marines. Sternguard with BS5, Vanguard with WS5, Termies with both...good fun

Jack

I like the ideas coming in, there are great things to be said about all of them. Keep 'em comin!

I too thought it was a bit odd that the finest and most revered marines in the chapter benefited from just a better save.

I suggest a BS of 5 for shooty terminators and a WS of 5 for assault terminators, for a points increase of 5 for the former and 10 for the latter.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

H.B.M.C. wrote:, and the weakness of Terminators (dying to small arms fire like Lasguns and ShuriCats)

It takes 36 lasguns to kill a single terminator, i would not call that a weakness. Their weakness is plasma weapons.

Plasma weapons should kill them.

Look, I'm not coming from a Theoryhammer-based "what if" situation - this is the way we've been playing for over half a decade. Terminators work, they are dangerous, they are tough, but they are counter-a-ble. It works.

no way, no s5/t5, and definitely no two wounds. Theyre not nobz lol

Nurglitch wrote:somecallmeJack:

I figured that single point changes in game stats represented single orders of magnitude so that:

WS1
1
WS2
10
WS3
100
WS4
1000
etc

I wouldnt go so far as to assign a value to it, but thats pretty much the lines along which I was thinking.

I'm with HBMC on this one. They don't need to be changed.

from a gaming point of view, there are too many broken/overpowered units as it is, terminators do what they do well & arent invincible, they dont need a buff.

from a fluff/game mechanics point of view, yes, they are supposed to be the best the marines have to offer, but the the scale we use to represent attributes isnt accurate enough to reflect the difference between a marine & a veteran marine in terms of WS, BS, S & T.

somecallmeJack wrote:I'm with HBMC on this one. They don't need to be changed.

Actually I did propose a change:

WS4 BS4 S4 T4(5) W2 I4 A2 Ld9 Sv2+/5+(I)
45 points per model.

T4(5) and W2 makes them viable units.

I've always been in favor of T4(5). Two wounds seems like a little much, but if they work out well than that's good.

Terminators need weaknesses. Everything needs weaknesses. I'd much rather have a terminator's weakness be AP2 weaponry than small arms.

Two wounds works perfectly. It means a Plasma Gun decimates the squad half as fast, so a single Plasma Spam doesn't gut the squad, but things that should be one-shotting them (like Lascannons) still do.

H.B.M.C. wrote:

somecallmeJack wrote:I'm with HBMC on this one. They don't need to be changed.

Actually I did propose a change:

WS4 BS4 S4 T4(5) W2 I4 A2 Ld9 Sv2+/5+(I)
45 points per model.

T4(5) and W2 makes them viable units.

oops! my bad

H.B.M.C. wrote:Two wounds works perfectly. It means a Plasma Gun decimates the squad half as fast, so a single Plasma Spam doesn't gut the squad, but things that should be one-shotting them (like Lascannons) still do.

What about meltaguns though? They already seem to have taken the place of plasma guns in most situations, I'd be worried that giving terminators two wounds would take away one of the few big advantages plasma has over melta.

(Then again, I don't know how the weapons compare in your ruleset.)

Terminators haven't been worth their points cost since the moment 3rd Ed debuted. In fact the paltry stop-gap measure of giving them a 5+(I) save was only invented after they received so many complaints that Terminators were dying too much.

The other thing it comes down to is cost vs fragility (or 'Fragility Ratios' as is so often said in our group). If a Terminator is going to cost twice as much as a Marine, then he should be as capable as two Marines. W1 does not allow for this.

Someone made the comment that they're not Nobz. Damn right they're not Nobz, they're mother-fething TERMINATORS, some of the hardest troops in the galaxy - they should be better than Nobz. Why can a slightly bigger-than-normal Ork take twice as much Bolter damage than a Genetically Enhanced Superhuman encased in the toughest armour known to man?

This goes all the way back to 3rd Ed and GW's unwillingness to change anything. They created the simplistic AP system, and then assigned a slightly better save (but otherwise the same profile as Marines) to Terminators. The Terminators were also three times the price of a Marine (15 vs 45) yet they were not three times as effective. When the AP system collided with the overpriced and underpowered Terminators, Terminators dropped off the scene of the game for being overpriced Plasma-bait. After many complaints, as I said, the 5+(I) stop-gap was introduced.

The the problem remained - Terminators with 1 wound were just too vulnerable. If a lucky Bolter got them, bang, dead Termy. For the same cost you could get three Marines that needed 3 Bolter wounds to kill. This was carried forward until we reach the insane situation we have now with the only Termies on the field almost always being Assault Termies with 3+(I) Storm Shields.

Another benefit to T4(5) W2 is that it puts the law of averages back in the favour of the Terminator. One of the biggest jokes with Termies is that their most dangerous opponent was the Lasgun-wielding Guardsman, as you'd roll nothing but 1's when facing them. With the improved profile a Terminator cannot be killed by a single Lasgun shot, or a single Bolter shot - it requires concentrated firepower. A few Plasma Gun shots are good for whittling down their numbers, and Lascannons and the like are good for knocking them out (just like in 2nd Ed, where you'd need dedicated anti-tank weapons to fight Terminators - and so it should be!).

Now, I can see what you're saying from a 5th Ed context with Meltas vs Plasmas, but I have to say that that doesn't concern me, not just because we have our own ruleset, but because that's the fault of the 5th Ed rules and not a problem specifically related to Terminators. The (many) failings of 5th Ed, the vehicle rules being one of the three biggest offenders (the other two being KPs and True LOS that isn't really True LOS), create a metagame where Meltas are required. Vehicles are so tough now, that you need to swing the law of averages in your favour (by taking weapons that score an average of 15 for their penetration and get bonuses on the damage chart). If a by-product of that and the proposed change is that Terminators also require Meltaguns to truly destroy, then, again, good. You should require anti-tank weapons to take on Terminators.

I really like your suggestions for the different stats for Termies. Yeah, I agree that mine were way big, but yours are fair and they more accurately represent the Termie background. Terminators should be able to go toe to toe with anything up to a MC, Dread, WB, etc. and at least stand a fighting chance. As is right now, GSs with rending can take out an entire Terminator squad, if they are lucky enough, before the Termies can even so much as spit back. I am constantly frustrated with terminators being so expensive, yet dying so easily in comparison to what they should be.

H.B.M.C., correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't you say that some of the more powerful weapons in your ruleset also lowered armor saves?

Things that are S8 and above... or S7. Might just be S8. Some things also have the High Impact rule to represent that they're either good at killing things despite armour (Hellhound, cooks you alive even if it doesn't penetrate your armour) or are slightly better at busting armour even if they don't automaticaly cut right through it (Autocannon). It helps to get rid of some of the weird situations that stem from the AP system (Battlecannon wipes out a unit of Marines yet Terminators hardly notice it - that sort've thing).

So a Krak Missile or Battle Cannon round in our rules would force a 3+ save on a Terminator.

That doesn't impact on the W2 part though. We had that in place long before High Impact came along. The fact that it allowed some of the bigger-yet-still-AP3 weapons to have a bigger effect on Terminators was more of a happy accident.

Ah, cool.

It's interesting to see them ending up more in line with vehicles in terms of what you need to kill them. I was never a big fan of the way a basilisk was more dangerous to a dreadnought than a terminator.

Heh. In our rules Dreads and other Walkers all have T and W values, rather than Armour Values.

Sentinel = T4(5) W2 Sv4+
War Walker = T4(5) W2 Sv4+/5+(I)
Killer Kan = T5 W2 Sv3+
Ork Dread/Marine Dread/Wraithlord/Chaos Dread = T8 W3 Sv3+

The rules allow for Dreads to be killed in a single shot, but it's difficult (based on the Strength of the weapon).

Are the revisited rules on your forums or the blog? I found some downloads in the forums, but they're all from late '07/early '08. Are there any newer versions?

Why can a slightly bigger-than-normal Ork take twice as much Bolter damage than a Genetically Enhanced Superhuman encased in the toughest armour known to man?

^^ so you know a decapitated ork can have his head attached to another orks body and it will take root ... >.>

Id say thats tougher than some pink tinkan boyz that are nothing without their armor lol. No way should termys get 2 wounds ever, or t5, mabye fnp.

Nobz are tougher than sissy marines that have to hide behind 4" of ceramite and plasteel, same way they laugh at meganobz (when they cant hear of course ... >.> )

Ok maybe a extra T and the 2wound's i mean, it's a War vet in a small walking tank, should be a tad more stronger than the regular's right?

For as much as I hate terminators I think the extra wound, BS, WS, and S are definitely warranted, but their cost should go up exponentially. If they were S5 they'd all of a sudden have S10 power fists which would munch on anything and everything, and against walkers they would destroy. That's far too much power for a squad of models. Just imagine 3 fist attacks x 10 hitting on 4's or 3's if they were assaulting regular MEQ's. They'd have to go up to 60 per model if you had that sort of power I think.

That's exactly why we didn't increase their Strength. We did originally, S4(5), so they'd be S9 with their Fists, but it through off the balance for everything else:

S5 Lightning Claws, S6 w/Furious Charge.
S7 Nemesis Weapons.

The BS/WS thing has changed over time. For several years we've kept them at WS4/BS4, but recently we added a few other units to the Marine lineup - Sternguard Veteran Tactical Squads, Vanguard Veteran Assault Squads and Hearthguard Veteran Devastator Squads. Sternguard Sergeants are WS5/BS5, Vanguard Sergeants are WS5 and Hearthguard Sergeants are BS5. So we've gone and made the Terminator Sergeants WS5/BS5, but the regular guys stay as is.

RustyKnight wrote:Are the revisited rules on your forums or the blog? I found some downloads in the forums, but they're all from late '07/early '08. Are there any newer versions?

Hmm... lemme check my HD...

Ok, the one attached is the latest version of the rulebook thus far. There's really not a lot left to do to it as the rules themselves are pretty solid and have been tested over and over and over again across over a hundred games (which is, like, 200 times what GW does).


And, for clarity's sake, where it says 'Draft 12', that's the 12th draft of Version 0.3.0.