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So throughout all of my tournament experience I've battled along playing CSM's, of a sort of Night Lord variant. I'm extremely excited about the new codex, but the warband tax brings Terminators back in the picture.

I've always thought they were underpowered, and that Mutilators and Oblige did the same thing, but better. Termies only have one wound, and while there's a lot of weapon options, they turn into a pretty big point sink. Coupled with the fact that there is so much AP2 death running around, what have y'all been using them for, and have they been effective?

3 man unit, combi-plazma. Pray for good deepstrike or leave them to score the backlines. Not good but passable all in all.

I think there are a lot of possibilities for bigger units of terminator s now. Astral grimoire for movement, and there are various ways to boost invulnerable saves or cover saves or invisibility or fnp for more survival.

Captyn_Bob wrote:
I think there are a lot of possibilities for bigger units of terminator s now. Astral grimoire for movement, and there are various ways to boost invulnerable saves or cover saves or invisibility or fnp for more survival.

I tend to agree, Terminators come with good saves and CC weapons stock, plus the cheap option for Combis. I think there are more ways now than ever to capitalize on them. I have 10 of the 2nd Ed. Metals that I'm looking to field in some form or another.

I wish Chaos had access to Teleport Homers though. I'm on the lookout for DS reliability options.

I strictly follow units of 4 dudes all with Combi-Plasma. Doesn't have too big a footprint, and not too expensive as a suicide unit. With Death Guard it became significantly better.

As of now, theyre decent doing a suicide drop as a requirement for a Chaos Warband. I rather drop 115, 130 (with marks) than sinking points into possessed or chosen.

 Nightlord1987 wrote:
As of now, theyre decent doing a suicide drop as a requirement for a Chaos Warband. I rather drop 115, 130 (with marks) than sinking points into possessed or chosen.

possessed and chosen can do suicide walks.

Captyn_Bob wrote:
I think there are a lot of possibilities for bigger units of terminator s now. Astral grimoire for movement, and there are various ways to boost invulnerable saves or cover saves or invisibility or fnp for more survival.

This is my thought with WE, just made this squad (attached)

Its a massive lot of pts:
Chaos Lord 197
MoK, VoTLW, Terminator Armour, Sigil, Tailsman of Burning Blood
Lightning Claw, Chainfist

7 Chaos Terminators 274
MoK, VoTLW, Combi-Bolters, Power Weapons
2x Chain Fists, 2x Combi Meltas

But that's a lot of s9 armourbane and they all fearless.

2d6 before the game starts
9" move
2d6 + 3" charge (with a re-roll)

if get first turn thats what an average 29" (total epic failure minimum of 16"!, blood for the blood god epic max of 36").

If don't get first turn they prob boned or you can get them to cover or heck even DS them.

It's prob not gonna work but its 8 guys, khorne is happy and more importantly its prob gonna be hella fun when it does work.

Gotta also remember you can't ignore such a unit even if you go first over them and if you take them out my DP, bikes and marines are 2d6 closer too and present a threat.

Love it.

There are a couple of ways of making them more survivable, tho whenever I try I never have points left after the butcherhorde.

Attach a night Lord for stealth, and have a screening unit for a 4+ cover
Sorceror for invisibility/shrouding. And alpha for mindviel.
None of these are sensible ideas haha.

Chaos termies are arguably much better than their loyalist counterparts. They are cheaper, have many more options, and come stock with a power weapon (of your choice!!!)

Pysker powers, marks and blessings, make them extremely versatile. Their relative low point costs makes them able to be taken in sufficent numbers to pose a great threat and be effective. You can easily take 6 of these guys with no uprgrades and it'll make your opponet uneasy to see them.

Kit them out, with power axes, sword or if youre feeling sassy, power lances. Give them Sorceror or a Chaos Lord, throw them in a landraider and there are few units other than dedicated melee that will beat them.

Or if you want to keep their points below 300, skip the land raider, take a six man squad plus a Chaos lord and have them bullrush an enemy position. Though, I recommend a land raider.

Chaos termies are better cause you can take fewer and equip every single one with a discounted combi-plazma/melta. So, the common way of running them is 3 with a matching combi-weapon. Deepstrike and hope for the best. They will likely perform around mediocre like all termies tend to but they won't be an overly huge investment which is good.

Combi meltas, chainfists, mark of tzeentch, astral grimoire. Backed up by sorcerers fishing for endurance, warp fate or invisibility.

True death star potential.

If only you could get grimoire on unmarked sorcs, WE termies would rock.

But otherwise, you need a 2-d bunker-squad which will take away from termie deathstar.

Unfortunately, MoT won't do much for termies. The offence is gona be meh. And as you're rolling a magic deathstar, survivability won't be such a huge issue with all those buffs. But the damage output will.

On the other hand, you could probably just use it once on 1-st turn. After WE 2d6 non-scout move, 15" grimoire jump and 2d6+3" charge - potentially with distance re-rolls, they WILL get to combat. Get in some jumppack BL sorconclave dudes for invis and other stuff. You won't even need combi-weapons. On the other hand, a bunch of s7/8 ap2/1 shots and than a charge with a ton of s6 ap2 axe and s9 fist attacks would be hilarious.

Man i need to run that, really.

What if you mix in abaddon? Hes got damage output, and can hang with tzeentch. He even comes with his own super terminators.

Abaddon could be decent if he was cheaper. And he still wiffs vs invis. Kharn is way more preferable for any csm deathstar if you could overcome the marks problem.

I've been running Abaddon with the Bringers of Despair since the original Black Legion supplement came out. For +6 points a model, they gain +1 BS and WS. MoN, combi-weapons, and a mix of power axes and mauls makes a extremely tough unit that's hard to kill.

I also ran them with MoS and IoE in a 9 man squad for a while. When I did, I swapped out the mauls and axes for swords and lightning claws. Did not seem as effective.

With the new Black Legion rules, you get the ability to deep strike turn one guaranteed. I am looking forward to seeing what I can do with them.

Back to termie deathstar. I see a problem vs gravspam if you don't get 1-st turn.

 koooaei wrote:
Back to termie deathstar. I see a problem vs gravspam if you don't get 1-st turn.

Black Legion in general are screwed if you don't go first. They promote extremely aggressive lists, but if your opponent somehow survives or seizes, you fold faster than you can twirl your evil moustache.

Black legion can get set up for turn 1 deep strike tho.

That way you guarantee a chance to get your psychic defences up. (Except for extreme interceptor).
No scatter mitigation is a problem but you can be careful.

How do chaos termies compare to scarab occult which is better and why? pros and cons please.

Scarab occult
Pros
Natural fearless
Ap3 guns.
Decent heavy weapons
Look banging

Cons
Expensive.
Have to take tzeentch sorcerer without spell familiar that you probably didn't want.
No options for melee.

Terminators

Pros
Melee weapon options.
Bring your own sorceror.
not massive amount of points.
Combi weapons.

Cons
No fearless
Normal combi bolsters
Normal heavy flamer. No missiles

 koooaei wrote:
Back to termie deathstar. I see a problem vs gravspam if you don't get 1-st turn.

You should totally deep strike your termy deathstar.

Captyn_Bob wrote:
Scarab occult
Pros
Natural fearless
Ap3 guns.
Decent heavy weapons
Look banging

Cons
Expensive.
Have to take tzeentch sorcerer without spell familiar that you probably didn't want.
No options for melee.

Terminators

Pros
Melee weapon options.
Bring your own sorceror.
not massive amount of points.
Combi weapons.

Cons
No fearless
Normal combi bolsters
Normal heavy flamer. No missiles

No option as in chain swords or nothing? no anti tank seems the main problem to me.

Stock power swords. Sorcerer gets force stave and can take a power sword. No other options.

It's very unfortunate they get a formation to shoot twice, yet are armed with combis.

Terminator Annihilation Force is alright, especially with a Lord/Sorc with Burning Brand of Skalathrax.

What's the brand do?

S4/AP3 torrent flamer...with soulblaze, which you get to shoot twice in a TAF. And if you'Re SUUUUUUUUPER lucky with a gift, you can upgrade to to S5.

Martel732 wrote:
What's the brand do?

As Roknar mentioned, it's a S4 AP 3 Torrent Flamer. Since the TAF lets you make a free shooting attack against a "marked" unit once you do DS in, you could nominate one unit of Scatpacks, DS in and shoot it immediately, and if you survive Interceptor, you have the option to shoot a second unit. RAW, you could combine with Gate of Infinity for another shot if you were feeling goofy.

Some other notable shooty toys include the Eye of Night (Black Legion get a Turn 1 Deep Strike, so you could basically mess up a parking lot or chip wounds off a Knight before it could get its Shields up. Pricey though and useless against many "no vehicle" stuff), Hydra's Teeth (with your Terminator's Combi-Bolter, you're basically a wannabe Wyvern), Shriekwave (fry some Broadsides before they get Interceptor off), or Coruscator (weaker than the other options, but it does let your have a Terminator Captain/Sorcerer with a Pistol).

I was thinking about what to do against targets for combi-meltas. But I guess you can torrent flame a different target. That's pretty good.