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Post your opinion of terminator close combat squads here, and wether they'd be better with lightning claws or a thunder hammer and a storm shield.

TH/SS

Claws I like a bit more. Fairer for its price.

I like a mixture. I run 3 TH/SS and 2 LC with furious charge with my BT

I love my 5 TH/SS Termies with Lysander and a Land Raider.

Land Raiders are definitely the way to go, can assault when they disembark, and no chance of deep strike mishap.
I usually use 3 claws 2 TH/SS.

Coolyo294 wrote:I love my 5 TH/SS Termies with Lysander and a Land Raider.

But what does Lysander add to the unit aside from more attacks? Attach him to Sternguard or tactical Terminators if you want his abilities to be useful.

I just painted a squad of em, but I haven't gotten any use of them yet.

Im a fan of lightning claws mainly because of their appearance but they serve me well.

I like the mixture. However, you can't beat the TH/SS for survivability.

Brother SRM wrote:

Coolyo294 wrote:I love my 5 TH/SS Termies with Lysander and a Land Raider.

But what does Lysander add to the unit aside from more attacks? Attach him to Sternguard or tactical Terminators if you want his abilities to be useful.

I just painted a squad of em, but I haven't gotten any use of them yet.

He gives the army stubborn. A lot of times thats enough of a bonus I don't care about bolter drill.

When I run them I use 3/TH/SS and 2 claws.

Black Templar Assault terminators with furious charge.

Doing it right for the Emperor since November 2005.

Veldrain wrote:
He gives the army stubborn. A lot of times thats enough of a bonus I don't care about bolter drill.

When I run them I use 3/TH/SS and 2 claws.

I usually run Pedro for the Sternguard bonuses and attack bubble, stubborn has always been kind of a secondary thing for me.

th/ss is the clear winner. th/ss stays top tier no matter what you're up against. even grey knights with halbred will still get bashed in the face by th/ss

TH/SS terminators are probably the best terminator variant, especially BA TH/SS terminators that are able to be accompanied by sanguinary priests. GK terminators are probably a close second as whilst they do not have 3++ saves (only 4++), that are super customisable and flexible.

As I side note, I personally I dislike the way TH/SS terminators changed how assault units operate in 5th (if it wasn’t as good/cost effective as TH/SS, you didn’t take it). I tend to distance myself from unbalanced units which is why if I was a loyalist player, I’d be more partial to lightning claw terminators (especially when they have access to chaplain, null zone or furious charge).

kronk wrote:Black Templar Assault terminators with furious charge.

Doing it right for the Emperor since November 2005.

This, with Accept Any Challenge and LC's. A five man squad lays down 20 Int 5 Str5, reroll to hit and wound power weapon attacks, and have terminator armour. There is little that can stand up to that in hand to hand. Make them an eight man squad in a LRC, maybe with a couple of TH/SS for can opening, and you have yourself a deathstar right there .

Brother SRM wrote:

Coolyo294 wrote:I love my 5 TH/SS Termies with Lysander and a Land Raider.

But what does Lysander add to the unit aside from more attacks? Attach him to Sternguard or tactical Terminators if you want his abilities to be useful.

I just painted a squad of em, but I haven't gotten any use of them yet.

This is why I don't use Lysander. It infuriates me that he is useless at range, and the primary bennie that he gives to his squad is useless in melee. It seems to me like I'm always squandering some of his points.

I prefer Vulkan and Thunder Hammer/Storm Shield terminators. The master-crafted feature has saved my bacon more times than I can count, and on the off-chance that your opponent has AP 2 weaponry, I'd prefer my invulnerable save to be a 3-up rather than a 5-up. A power blob that gets wiped out by a single nasty blast makes baby Jesus cry.

It's pointless to consider, really.They're both as good as the other. Same points cost, same amount of efficiency, and both look cool as. If you want to take swarms in combat (Like orks, nids, etc) then LC all the way. If you want to bust open tanks then go for TH/SS. or, you could split it down the middle and take TH/SS with LC termies.

Since I play Blood Angels I love having 3 TH/SS Terminators with 2 Lightning Claw Terminators since it gives me S5 I5 LC's when a priest is nearby!

Jimsolo wrote:
This is why I don't use Lysander. It infuriates me that he is useless at range, and the primary bennie that he gives to his squad is useless in melee. It seems to me like I'm always squandering some of his points.

I prefer Vulkan and Thunder Hammer/Storm Shield terminators. The master-crafted feature has saved my bacon more times than I can count, and on the off-chance that your opponent has AP 2 weaponry, I'd prefer my invulnerable save to be a 3-up rather than a 5-up. A power blob that gets wiped out by a single nasty blast makes baby Jesus cry.

I've done well using him with Tactical Terminators, shooting as I close the distance, then getting into close combat. It makes for a big, easy to avoid unit, but once they get into hand to hand they ruin whatever they touch.

Hellwolf wrote:It's pointless to consider, really.They're both as good as the other.

They're not, though.

A TH (nearly) always wounds on a .844 (2+). A LC wounds T3 on a .88 and T4 on .75. They both wound roughly the same amount, which means the only advantage to the LCs is +1A while the TH gets to put much more serious wounds on T5+, is a very credible offensive weapon against vehicles, and has the special stun rule for vehicles, MCs and ICs.

... and turns your 5++ into a 3++ making you literally twice as survivable against things that ignore armor saves.

I love LCs, but they're really not any better for also being quite a bit worse. The only army I'd consider taking them on are CSM terminators, who don't have access to storm shields, except even then I wouldn't because it removes your ability to take combi-weapons, which are pretty much THE reason to take CSM terminators.

Ailaros wrote:"They're not, though.

A TH (nearly) always wounds on a .844 (2+). A LC wounds T3 on a .88 and T4 on .75. They both wound roughly the same amount, which means the only advantage to the LCs is +1A while the TH gets to put much more serious wounds on T5+, is a very credible offensive weapon against vehicles, and has the special stun rule for vehicles, MCs and ICs."

Remember though that LCs can always reroll to wound which makes up for the lower strength against T4 or lower. IMO, LCs are great against other terminators, nobs, essentially anything that you need to get through armor saves. On the charge, LCs will have 4A compared to TH/SS will have 3A. Of course, I love my TH/SS for MCs, ICs, and having the last say against infantry. Personally I take a mix and I think they balance each other out.

For my Vanilla marines I usually run 3 TH/SS and 2 LC. This is in a Pedro list and he keeps the Terminators in his attack bubble(LCs=5 attacks on the charge )

Civilcheese wrote:Remember though that LCs can always reroll to wound which makes up for the lower strength against T4 or lower.

No.

It.

Doesn't.

Wounding on 2+ is .844

Rerolling 5+ is .88, virtually the same.

Rerolling 4+ is only .75. That's worse.

The only time the LC is substantially better per attack is against T2 targets, against which there aren't all that many.

The only benefit in general is that it gets +1A. That's what gives it the extra killing power. Specifically, it makes it only roughly 33% more killy against Marines, while much less killy against anything else. And you don't get the storm shield.

Ailaros

TH+SS gives 0.844 wounds
The LC with the extra attack give 1.125 wounds against MEQ's, not 0.75. 3/2=1.5 1.5/2=0.75 0.75/2 (re-roll) gives an extra 0.375 equalizing to a total of 1.125 instead of your 0.75

Brother SRM wrote:

Coolyo294 wrote:I love my 5 TH/SS Termies with Lysander and a Land Raider.

But what does Lysander add to the unit aside from more attacks? Attach him to Sternguard or tactical Terminators if you want his abilities to be useful.

I just painted a squad of em, but I haven't gotten any use of them yet.

Lysander is a hard beatstick with 3 str 10 attacks, 4 wounds and EW. That's a nice addition to a squad of a bunch of other hard beatsticks. I don't take him for bolter drill or stubborn, I take him because he stood toe to toe with a DP and Bloodthirster in the same game for me. Force multipliers are awesome, but forming a centerpiece for a death star that chews faces is pretty nice too.

beigeknight wrote:
Lysander is a hard beatstick with 3 str 10 attacks, 4 wounds and EW. That's a nice addition to a squad of a bunch of other hard beatsticks. I don't take him for bolter drill or stubborn, I take him because he stood toe to toe with a DP and Bloodthirster in the same game for me. Force multipliers are awesome, but forming a centerpiece for a death star that chews faces is pretty nice too.

Think about it though: What's that squad going to charge that will survive that many thunder hammer attacks anyway? Most of the time you're not even going to need Lysander's attacks because whatever you hit will be dead already. If you're sinking lots of points into TH/SS terminators, you've gotta roll with Vulkan for the master-crafting!

Civilcheese wrote:
Remember though that LCs can always reroll to wound which makes up for the lower strength against T4 or lower. IMO, LCs are great against other terminators, nobs, essentially anything that you need to get through armor saves.

Lightning claws aren't very good against nobs. They can allocate those wounds around like nobody's business, and they have two each. Thunderhammers DEMOLISH nobs, since they instant kill them and ignore their armor.

For the record, I like lightning claws but don't take very many. I have them so when my Terminators charge something, they can get a kill or two before the hammers come down. I run 3 LC Terminators in my full size assault squad.

TH/SS because they get the invul. in cc.

Ailaros wrote:

Civilcheese wrote:Remember though that LCs can always reroll to wound which makes up for the lower strength against T4 or lower.

No.

It.

Doesn't.

Wounding on 2+ is .844

Rerolling 5+ is .88, virtually the same.

Rerolling 4+ is only .75. That's worse.

The only time the LC is substantially better per attack is against T2 targets, against which there aren't all that many.

The only benefit in general is that it gets +1A. That's what gives it the extra killing power. Specifically, it makes it only roughly 33% more killy against Marines, while much less killy against anything else. And you don't get the storm shield.

The Crusader wrote:Ailaros

TH+SS gives 0.844 wounds
The LC with the extra attack give 1.125 wounds against MEQ's, not 0.75. 3/2=1.5 1.5/2=0.75 0.75/2 (re-roll) gives an extra 0.375 equalizing to a total of 1.125 instead of your 0.75

Eventually, all threads become Mathammer!!

After running 5 TH/SS Termies in a bunch of games I've felt that all 5 guys hitting last just hurts a bit too much. Now I run 3 TH/SS and 2 LC so I get the 8 LC attacks off at I4 and then finish them off with the 9 TH attacks.

Feldmarshal Goehring wrote:Eventually, all threads become Mathammer!!

Well, that's what statistics is good for. Clearing up misconceptions. In this case the math shows us that LCs are only a little better against a small range of targets while the THs are e lot better against a bigger range of targets. Throw on the storm shields, and there's a (lot of) good reason(s) why people take the THSS instead of LCs. If you need experience to play out what the numbers already tell us, fine, but math saves a lot of hassle.

Does the math presented here take into account possible losses before the TH strikes can be made? I'm pretty sure a Termie unit of 3 TH/SS and 2 LC will beat one with 5 TH/SS. ESPECIALLY if there is a Librarian with Null Zone near by.