Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Hi all,
I am of the opinion that 40 points for Space Marine Terminators is way too much for what they bring right now. What's a house rule that could be used to make them closer to the nigh-unstoppable image they have in the fluff while balancing the game? I was thinking maybe an extra wound (all those backup systems that TDA would bound to include) or an extra point of toughness would do this and make them worth it for 40 ppm.

Again. Heh. They weren't good to begin with.

As always I propose S5 Storm Bolters, two Heavy Weapons per five dudes, LC guys start off at 30 points and the TH/SS is then a 5 point upgrade. Then Land Raiders get a severe price cut; I'm talking them being 180-200 points.

This idea comes up quite often, and I can advise this after reading so many suggestions.

- Storm Bolters stay S4 but get a boost to firepower, perhaps Assault 3 or even Salvo 4/2

- Heavy weapons are available to 2/5 guys, at a price cut by 5-10 points.

- Access to other wargear such as Special Issue Ammo.

- May take a number of additional rules befitting their Veteran status, for example they can take one of the following rules: Preferred Enemy, Furious Charge, Fearless and Monster/Tank Hunter.

I'd prefer classic units like terminators to stay as they are and the rest of the units in the game be toned down a bit as codexes roll out. Start turning back power creep until terminators, tac squads and dreadnoughts are viable as they are

If not, I'd suggest a 4++ for terminator armour. That would mean chaos terminators with the mark of tzeentch function the same way as storm shields, albeit without having to lose a weapon so requiring a points increase.

Give terminators a power field that allows them to reroll saves against shooting attacks but the reroll is only a 5+ save.

I would probably agree with the +1 wound. Termies are (IMO) quite weak atm. Small units of infantry can shoot them dead before they reach combat to use their v powerful CC attacks, so a LR is the only real option atm of giving them protection on their journey across the battlefield (an extra 220 pts). That's what I think anyway

 Snake Tortoise wrote:
I'd prefer classic units like terminators to stay as they are and the rest of the units in the game be toned down a bit as codexes roll out. Start turning back power creep until terminators, tac squads and dreadnoughts are viable as they are

If not, I'd suggest a 4++ for terminator armour. That would mean chaos terminators with the mark of tzeentch function the same way as storm shields, albeit without having to lose a weapon so requiring a points increase.

Those units aren't viable in the first place, so why should everyone else have to be as weak as they are?

Loyalist terminators were good for one edition. That means they were never a great unit.

 Vankraken wrote:
Give terminators a power field that allows them to reroll saves against shooting attacks but the reroll is only a 5+ save.

Alternatively...

Tactical Dreadnought Armor wrote:When a model in Tactical Dreadnought Armor is being fired at by a weapon that still allows an armor save, the firing unit has to reroll successful To Hit and To Wound rolls.

This represents the shots bouncing off the ceramite plating or the power field(take your pick).

Rules like this could also be applied to things like Wraithguard/Wraithblades, Bullgryn, etc.

There's also the option of giving them a 1+ save, which would work like a 2+ save except that it can be taken against Ap2 weapons, reducing the damage caused by plasma-spam.

Give them feel no pain, and shave 10 points off per model. Then they at least get a 5+ and 5+ vs plasma.

There is no solution under the D6 system. A big reason is that there is no mathematical space for the storm bolter. They'd be viable with all assault cannons, but short of that, straight up garbage.

You know most of them aren't actually 40pts anymore, right? Vanilla-book Terminators are 35pts, GK/Wolf Guard/CSM Terminators are 33pts. The only Terminators that are actually still 40pts are Deathwing (who have extra rules) and Blood Angels (who are behind-schedule and overpriced).

Terminators have the jack-of-all-trades problem, they're either stuck paying for power fists on a shooty unit or storm bolters on a melee unit. Assault Terminators get worse melee weapons than Tactical Terminators for the same price and lose the storm bolters out of it. When the 4e SW/CSM books and the 5e GK book rolled around they decided 30pts for a Terminator with a power weapon was close to a reasonable starting point, I'm not entirely convinced it's enough but it's far from wrong. Start regular Terminators at 30pts with a power weapon and storm bolter, start Terminators+ (Wolf Guard, Grey Knights, Deathwing) at 33pts with a power weapon or equivalent and storm bolter. Leave power fists and the like as upgrades.

At that pricepoint a set of minor improvements (Salvo 2/3 on storm bolters/combi-bolters, 4++, two upgrade guns per five) would be reasonable, but if you want to open the two-Wounds can of worms they're going to have to cost more.

Deathwing don't have enough extra rules to justify a 40 point price tag.

They need

-2 wounds
-Shunt teleporter like grey knight interceptors
-Strength 5 Storm Bolters
-1 in 3 terminators can take a heavy weapon

Adjust cost appropriately.

I miss their 2nd ed saving throw = 3+ on 2D6. Of course, that was when we had save modifiers instead of AP values. It wouldn't work now.

For those who don't know, instead of AP3 = you get no save at 3+ or worse and full save at 2+ or better, each weapon had a save modifier. So a lascannon had -6, so most things didn't get a save, but the terminators 3+ on 2D6 became 9+ on 2D6. For reference, bolters were -1, so marines would get a 4+ save, not 3+ (and termies a 4+ on 2D6).

Good times

 Brutus_Apex wrote:
-2 wounds

I reckon increasing their Toughness Characteristic to 5 and leaving their Wounds Characteristic at 1 is more representative of Terminators since all they are is essentially Tactical Marines in Terminator Armour.

 Brutus_Apex wrote:
-Shunt teleporter like grey knight interceptors

I'm not familiar with this feature so I have no comment on it (perks of not playing GK's ever).

 Brutus_Apex wrote:
-Strength 5 Storm Bolters

I've always been a bit iffy about this, but it's the lesser of the evils in terms of "Fixing" Storm Bolters.

 Brutus_Apex wrote:
-1 in 3 terminators can take a heavy weapon

I would also introduce something similar for the Assault Terminators if anyone can think of an equivalent for them.

 Brutus_Apex wrote:
Adjust cost appropriately.

With the above changes: 40 - 45 Points per Model would be reasonable.

A shunt is a once per game, 30" move. You cannot assault after it.

Reroll failed armour saves. More tanky, still same ways to deal with them effectively. Their stormbolters I guess could be salvo 3/5.

 n0t_u wrote:
Reroll failed armour saves. More tanky, still same ways to deal with them effectively. Their stormbolters I guess could be salvo 3/5.

You're not serious? At 5 shots they'd be better than Heavy Bolters.

JNAProductions wrote:A shunt is a once per game, 30" move. You cannot assault after it.

Can you shoot any or all Ranged Weapons after this 30" Move? If so, that's incredibly powerful (unless of course you're firing Snapshots only).

n0t_u wrote:Reroll failed armour saves. More tanky, still same ways to deal with them effectively. Their stormbolters I guess could be salvo 3/5.

That's way too powerful. WAAAAAAAY too powerful. Rerolling 2+ Armour Saves? Yeah OK..... No. An Storm Bolters Being Salvo 3/5? They're not a Heavy Weapon - They're a weapon you can fire with one hand! Making them Salvo anything makes no sense.

You can shoot after Shunting.

 IllumiNini wrote:

JNAProductions wrote:A shunt is a once per game, 30" move. You cannot assault after it.

Can you shoot any or all Ranged Weapons after this 30" Move? If so, that's incredibly powerful (unless of course you're firing Snapshots only).

n0t_u wrote:Reroll failed armour saves. More tanky, still same ways to deal with them effectively. Their stormbolters I guess could be salvo 3/5.

That's way too powerful. WAAAAAAAY too powerful. Rerolling 2+ Armour Saves? Yeah OK..... No. An Storm Bolters Being Salvo 3/5? They're not a Heavy Weapon - They're a weapon you can fire with one hand! Making them Salvo anything makes no sense.

Rerolling 2+ armour saves on 40ppm models which are dealt with with ap2 and 1 weaponry. Imo works better to their strengths than giving them a better invulnerable. And salvo is more to do with more than just termies, termies have relentless basically it would be more for other models as well as I think it'd be less accurate on the move due to the way it works.

 IllumiNini wrote:

JNAProductions wrote:A shunt is a once per game, 30" move. You cannot assault after it.

Can you shoot any or all Ranged Weapons after this 30" Move? If so, that's incredibly powerful (unless of course you're firing Snapshots only).

n0t_u wrote:Reroll failed armour saves. More tanky, still same ways to deal with them effectively. Their stormbolters I guess could be salvo 3/5.

That's way too powerful. WAAAAAAAY too powerful. Rerolling 2+ Armour Saves? Yeah OK..... No. An Storm Bolters Being Salvo 3/5? They're not a Heavy Weapon - They're a weapon you can fire with one hand! Making them Salvo anything makes no sense.

That sounds pretty tame to me. It's not the way I'd fix them, but I wouldn't group them with riptides and canoptek wraiths with those changes. For the armor, the goal should be that ap2 becomes more important against them. Currently you can still efficiently engage them with any weapon, because 6 wounds from anything kills a dude. For guys whose point of pride is their armor, along with their price point, dying to one in six lasgun wounds is pathetic. Dying to one in thirty six is quite a step up, but they still drop 2/3 of the time to ap2. And if you don't have ap2 for them, then you didn't bring a balanced force to fight them.

As for the storm bolters, they're bolter shots. Even at 5 shots a piece the squad kills less than 3 tactical marines. You WAAAAAY overestimate how good bolter shots are.

You also make PAGK much worse and literally everyone deciding to make Stormbolters Salvo for the sake of it forget this.

They get use of Relentless from their fething Heavy Weapons. The issue is that they can't take a lot of them.

Then some version of salvo that doesn't halve the range?

With the arrival and popularity of grav weaponry terminators are total crap. Actually anything relying on a terminator like save e.g Dreadknights dies to grav regardless of toughness so I don't think a Toughness buff will benefit them a lot

What I think they need is a mechanic similar to 2nd edition but with the mathematics limitations of the D6 and how AP now works this isn't possible either. So we are left with a secondary save in the form of FNP. This should be available against ranged attacks only since AP2 melee weapons are quite balanced.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
You also make PAGK much worse and literally everyone deciding to make Stormbolters Salvo for the sake of it forget this.

They get use of Relentless from their fething Heavy Weapons. The issue is that they can't take a lot of them.

The short answer would be to distinguish PAGK wrist stormbolters from Terminator stormbolters. The longer answer would be to permit charging after firing Salvo weapons. A better fix for PAGK would be bringing psybolt back on top of either of those.

I am a fan of Termie armour giving +1 wound. All other suggestions seem to take away what makes certain armies "special" like giving the Shunt move or giving them FnP (which some units have access to already)
Storm bolters are fine considering they are not mean to be a power house weapon option, just as regular bolters are for Tac marines. If you want Termies to be more shooty, I'd go with the 2 per 5 heavy weapons option.

If Termie armour (all Termie armour) gave +1 wound, then regular Termies would easily be worth their cost and characters that buy Termie armour (usually for the price of a whole actual Ternimator) would also be worth it. You could also do this via an Errata in the same way they did Dreadnaught's +2 attacks, or even in the 8th ed BRB.
GK Paladins would actually be worth their cost now as they would have 3 wounds total.

I really think that +1 wound is the most logical change as:
A) it's easier to track than any special rule added that may add extra rolls or be forgotten
B) it accounts for the added bulk of the model
C) it instantly makes Termies more survivable without changing how the function overall.

-

 Galef wrote:
I am a fan of Termie armour giving +1 wound. All other suggestions seem to take away what makes certain armies "special" like giving the Shunt move or giving them FnP (which some units have access to already)
Storm bolters are fine considering they are not mean to be a power house weapon option, just as regular bolters are for Tac marines. If you want Termies to be more shooty, I'd go with the 2 per 5 heavy weapons option.

If Termie armour (all Termie armour) gave +1 wound, then regular Termies would easily be worth their cost and characters that buy Termie armour (usually for the price of a whole actual Ternimator) would also be worth it. You could also do this via an Errata in the same way they did Dreadnaught's +2 attacks, or even in the 8th ed BRB.
GK Paladins would actually be worth their cost now as they would have 3 wounds total.

I really think that +1 wound is the most logical change as:
A) it's easier to track than any special rule added that may add extra rolls or be forgotten
B) it accounts for the added bulk of the model
C) it instantly makes Termies more survivable without changing how the function overall.

-

So what to do MANZ get? 3 wounds? Survivability is not the real issue. Lack of utility is. No one giving a feth about stormbolters is the real problem here. Lightning claw terminators are pretty bad, too.