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Wyldhunt wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
That's not necessarily true. Let's say marines are now T5 and plasma guns are still S7 for argument's sake. So the plasma gun still wounds around 80% of the time, but now the terminator gets a 2+ vs the plasma wound because we have changed plasma to AP 3! I would keep terminators 2+ on a D10, giving them a 90% save. Going form 83% save to 90% helps show the near immunity to small arms.

It wouldn't be a straight conversion, either. I'm not sure what all exactly would change, but I would try to keep the current AP system with maybe a tweak for AP equal to armor.

"Assault cannon spam doesn't really accomplish this."

That just makes them functional in the current system. There is no way to model them properly in the current system. That's my entire point.

Ahhh. I see. I don't think that the d10 is a bad way to go. Your idea would probably work. It just seems like a very labor-intensive way to go about things. If you're looking to make terminators harder to wound and to give them armor saves against AP2 weapons, you could do something like:

* Change toughness to 5 OR give all enemy weapons a -1 to their to-wound rolls.
* Give them 1+ armor saves. As per the current RAW rules, this would still fail on a 1, but they'd get the save against AP2.

The -1 to-wound thing would require a the addition of a simple-to-resolve special rule (which bad because of rules bloat), but it's still a lot less to write and memorize than rewriting the statline for everything in the game.

I'd still like to rewrite, though, because having functional armor ranges from 2+ to around 8+ will provide for a great deal of unit AND weapon variety. Aspect armor can be different from carapace armor and both are different than power armor etc. Remember, terminators have a two-fold problem. Their durability is not great, and neither is their shooting.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 HANZERtank wrote:
Taking some ideas from paraih gear from horus heresy and the eldar formation from death masque.

Terminator armour (from any codex) gains an additional save that can be taken along with any other save. This includes armour, invuln, fnp, cover, etc. This is a 4+ save. However this save can only be used against attacks with a str of 5 or less. Against any attack higher than str5 it is reduced to a 6+.

This gives them doubled survival against massed small arms and helps to give a small bit of resistance to bigger guns.

Another idea I was thinking is that it was originally designed to survive inside plasma reactors. Maybe give them a rule that means plasma based weapons can never remove their armour saves, only reduce.

This is all much more easily modeled with a D10 system. You are having to do lots of system hacking because the D6 has squeezed out the terminator.

Martel732 wrote:

Wyldhunt wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
That's not necessarily true. Let's say marines are now T5 and plasma guns are still S7 for argument's sake. So the plasma gun still wounds around 80% of the time, but now the terminator gets a 2+ vs the plasma wound because we have changed plasma to AP 3! I would keep terminators 2+ on a D10, giving them a 90% save. Going form 83% save to 90% helps show the near immunity to small arms.

It wouldn't be a straight conversion, either. I'm not sure what all exactly would change, but I would try to keep the current AP system with maybe a tweak for AP equal to armor.

"Assault cannon spam doesn't really accomplish this."

That just makes them functional in the current system. There is no way to model them properly in the current system. That's my entire point.

Ahhh. I see. I don't think that the d10 is a bad way to go. Your idea would probably work. It just seems like a very labor-intensive way to go about things. If you're looking to make terminators harder to wound and to give them armor saves against AP2 weapons, you could do something like:

* Change toughness to 5 OR give all enemy weapons a -1 to their to-wound rolls.
* Give them 1+ armor saves. As per the current RAW rules, this would still fail on a 1, but they'd get the save against AP2.

The -1 to-wound thing would require a the addition of a simple-to-resolve special rule (which bad because of rules bloat), but it's still a lot less to write and memorize than rewriting the statline for everything in the game.

I'd still like to rewrite, though, because having functional armor ranges from 2+ to around 8+ will provide for a great deal of unit AND weapon variety. Aspect armor can be different from carapace armor and both are different than power armor etc. Remember, terminators have a two-fold problem. Their durability is not great, and neither is their shooting.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 HANZERtank wrote:
Taking some ideas from paraih gear from horus heresy and the eldar formation from death masque.

Terminator armour (from any codex) gains an additional save that can be taken along with any other save. This includes armour, invuln, fnp, cover, etc. This is a 4+ save. However this save can only be used against attacks with a str of 5 or less. Against any attack higher than str5 it is reduced to a 6+.

This gives them doubled survival against massed small arms and helps to give a small bit of resistance to bigger guns.

Another idea I was thinking is that it was originally designed to survive inside plasma reactors. Maybe give them a rule that means plasma based weapons can never remove their armour saves, only reduce.

This is all much more easily modeled with a D10 system. You are having to do lots of system hacking because the D6 has squeezed out the terminator.

I don't personally share your desire for detailed variety in armor (or statlines for that matter). Having some acknowledgment of the difference between aspect armor and carapace armor or between ork, marine, and guardsman strength scores would be nice, but I feel an abstract "4+" works reasonably well. More variety would be neat, but it's not very high on my personal wishlist. I think I'd be a lot more excited about/open to it if we were talking about a system for a game that doesn't already exist. I kind of see it as both interesting and unnecessary. You do you though. I'd be interested in seeing what values you chose to assign to things.

To use an awkward analogy, switching to a d10 system is sort of like putting a lightbulb fixture into a house. It's not a bad idea and can be done pretty easily while you're building the house. Once the house is already built however, you're probably better off plugging in a lamp than tearing down the room and redoing all the wiring.

But 4+ is the cut off for useful armor in 40K. So there are three armor types: 2+, 3+, 4+. Kinda boring and makes for unimaginative weapon systems and decisions.

GW: "Heavy bolters are too good vs Eldar! Give them more 3+ armor, so there can be even MOAR power armor in the game!"

 HANZERtank wrote:
Taking some ideas from paraih gear from horus heresy and the eldar formation from death masque.

Terminator armour (from any codex) gains an additional save that can be taken along with any other save. This includes armour, invuln, fnp, cover, etc. This is a 4+ save. However this save can only be used against attacks with a str of 5 or less. Against any attack higher than str5 it is reduced to a 6+.

This gives them doubled survival against massed small arms and helps to give a small bit of resistance to bigger guns.

Another idea I was thinking is that it was originally designed to survive inside plasma reactors. Maybe give them a rule that means plasma based weapons can never remove their armour saves, only reduce.

I very much like the 4+ VS small arms idea. Basically a ward save for very rare and especially durable units like terminators. The plasma thing is cool, but I think the list of things that terminator armor is meant to be proof against would be a very long one if we went that route. You'd be adding in flamers, poison, maybe certain flesh bane weapons, etc. to that list. ^_^;

The more I think about it, the more I like the idea of a flat "-1 to all to-wound rolls against models in terminator armor." It means that even the biggest of weapons would have at least a 33% chance of failing to get through the armor (before saves), and it would reduce the number of wounds generated by small arms fire significantly.

But this doesn't help a unit like sanguinary guard who are in the exact same situation as terminators. 2+ infantry are bad in general.

Also terminators would still suffer from poor firepower and ap 2 prevalence. And look how much text the fix involves. And a mechanic that nothing else has.

Why not make them like 3ed thousand sons weapons less then str 5 did not work vs them

I will say this in some army's they all ready are a pain to kill

Which lists?

Martel732 wrote:
But this doesn't help a unit like sanguinary guard who are in the exact same situation as terminators. 2+ infantry are bad in general.

Also terminators would still suffer from poor firepower and ap 2 prevalence. And look how much text the fix involves. And a mechanic that nothing else has.

You know, sanguinary guard have all the makings of a half-decent assault unit. Their save is good (even if it's weak in the meta), they're fast with various options for deepstriking relatively reliably (if that's your thing), and they hit reasonably hard in melee. Considering they're less iconic and less directly comparable to other units than terminators, I think you could probably "fix" them by lowering their price tag to something reasonable for the current meta. What are they? 50 points apiece base? Drop that down to about 30, and I think you have something reasonably durable, fast, and powerful for its cost. I don't normally go for the "just make it cheaper" approach, but I think it's a neat, reasonable solution for a unit that isn't innately bad so much as it's just bad for its points like SG. They fit their fluff reasonably well.

Terminators would suffer less from AP2 prevalence with my suggested changes (which I'm not married too; they're spitballs) if they're taking fewer wounds in general. Adding the 4+ ward save to the mix wouldn't hurt either. Sure, a lascannon would still kill a guy pretty reliably, but it took a lascannon to kill him. As for the amount of text the rule uses, it seems like it would fit reasonably snugly into the terminator wargear section of the armory. Pin on a sentence to the effect of...

"To-wound rolls made against a model in terminator armor suffer a -1 penalty. This penalty also applies when rolling to wound against units clad exclusively in terminator armor." Someone could probably trim that down further. Not too bad for a piece of wargear that appears in about half the major codices out there.

The problem is with all 2+ infantry, though. You are hacking in a fix for a specific source of 2+ save, but all others are just terrible.

Sanguinary guard are already 33 pts a model, but just get destroyed by any real CC unit, so I'm really just buying a bully unit. I can get much cheaper bully units.

Remember that every MC in the game completely ignores all armor AND strike on initiative. I would change this drastically in a D10 system. MCs go a long way to making both terminators and 2+ infantry in general useless.

How many units are we going to reduce in price or hack in new rules to before it's better to just rewrite.

As I look more and more at Terminators and their derivatives (partly from the comments so far, thanks for everyone chiming in), I see that the Terminator "design niche" is really messed up.

1) These guys are supposed to be walking tanks, but are susceptible to small-arms fire.

2) They are capable of packing man-portable or light vehicle ranged weapons (and fire it on the move) but are saddled with anti-infantry weapons that have not even paced well with the increasing scale of ranged firepower

3) In melee, they are armed in a manner they can terrorize vehicles (but not walkers), but are unlikely to survive to be of use against MC's or infantry.

4) Though they can quickly arrive to an engagement, but are either shortly vulnerable doing so or have to pay a premium to be near-immediately useful. Re-positioning them once deployed can be painfully slow.

In short, they have options that should make them excel at being resilient and striking hard, but when put to play their drawbacks overshadow their usefulness and actually get in the way of performing their job - which is neither tankhunter, infantry killer or objective taker/holder.

Hence my desire to realign everything in a D10 system. I can build in a niche for every unit much easier when there is more than three types of effective armor. I can tell you now, the Tau ion accelerator is not going to penetrate terminator armor, but the hammerhead and rail rifles will.

My basic design philosophy will be that only single shot weapons will be AP 2 or AP 1. I've also heavily leaning towards the mechanic in which if a weapon matches target armor, like AP 2 vs 2+, that shot halves armor effectiveness rounded down. So AP 2 causes 2+ to still get a 7+ roll to save. Only AP 1 and AP 0 will completely penetrate terminators.

With storm bolters, it's going to take a lot more thinking, and a lot more unit conversion to see where bolt weapons need to be to make sense. Currently, they are an embarrassment.

Another thought that struck me:

I beleive that the following units "started" all in the same design space, to fill the same basic role - Superheavy Infantry. I also thing they should be more or less equivilant, in their own way:

1 - (Chaos) Space Marine Terminators - should be "All arounders"/ general purpose
2 - Mega-Armor Orc Nobz - orc mirrors of Terminators, though a bit more melee focused
3 - Eldar Wraithguard/blade - more lithe (higher Init and Move), but more fragile (lower T?)
4 - Tau Crisis Suit - better ranged (longer weapon ranges, jet packs)

I think Terminators (and probably MANZ) have been neglected and allowed to fall out of their design space, while at least the Eldar have been pushed to a "too good" position. Tau *seem* like the only one on target for their design space, if not a notch above.

Terminators have rarely been in their dezign space. Realize that in their glory days of 2nd they were still easy to dakka down or penetrate.

Yeah, I'm beginning to realize that while terminators have a great model asthetic and are fluffy they've had a messed up design that 40K can't disguise or hide any more.

While going D10 might fix the issues, I'm wondering if the following ideas might correct their issues D6-wise (no idea on points cost effects):

1) Armor becomes 1+ (Still only save on 2+, but now resiliant to AP 2 weapons)
2) They can reroll missed Armor saves (Infantry weapons go from 1 in 6 chance to wreck them to 1 in 36)
3) All models can take a Heavy Weapon
4) Slow and Purposeful removes Unwieldy from Power Fist so that Terminators strike at Init in hand-to-hand (would likely have to expand this to Vehicle Walkers and anything with Relentless as well - it makes sense to me though; if Heavy can be mitigated, why can't Unwieldy?)
5) Options for Jump Packs (Hammer of Wrath - yes please?) or on-board Teleportation (possibly One Use only?).

You can't just give them a 1+ save because that makes the point of TH/SS Terminators useless.

Storm Shield still has its uses (will help against AP 1 attacks). Just give the Thunderhammer Instant Death?

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
You can't just give them a 1+ save because that makes the point of TH/SS Terminators useless.

Again, we are trapped by the D6 system. AP 2 is a necessary evil and there is no mathematical space for any other armor type. Agreed, 1+ armor is a no-go in the current game. However, in the D10 system, AP 1 and 0 would still exist, so TH/SS terminators still have a purpose. Additionally, the storm shield would be superior to the halved 2+ save in the case of AP 2 as well. Storm shield would probably be a 4++ invulnerable save on a D10. Maybe 5++ depending.

Allowing the reroll of failed armor saves overshoots the mark imo. 90% save rate vs small arms is about right. 1 in 36 is only a 2.7% failure rate, which is almost four times more durable than the 90% save! That's too much!


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Stormonu wrote:
Storm Shield still has its uses (will help against AP 1 attacks). Just give the Thunderhammer Instant Death?

You are making way too many changes to try to make a *single* unit viable. We still haven't addressed MANZ, sanguinary guard, or broadsides. Instant death has nothing to do with AP, btw.

Don't feel bad, it's just another data point supporting my hypothesis that there is no good fix for terminators in the current system.

To address the original question, I don't like the idea of jump Terminators, it feels intrinsically wrong.
I do however agree that they need to be improved and couldn't agree more with Martel that the d10 system is the way to do it. It would give a wider scope of options when giving models and weapons their stats and reduce the need for so many special rules. Which in turn would speed up the game. Personally I'd argue you could keep going up the scale on the size of the dice but that would be splitting hairs.
And the argument Martel makes with regards to plasma weapons is spot on. (terminator armour being 2+ on a d10, plasma weaponry being ap3)
This system could be taken further with Terminators. A standard Space Marine would now hit on say 4+ on a d10, but the more elite Terminators could hit on 3+. The d6 simply doesn't allow enough variation and too many units get shoehorned into the same level

Martel732 wrote:


You are making way too many changes to try to make a *single* unit viable. We still haven't addressed MANZ, sanguinary guard, or broadsides. Instant death has nothing to do with AP, btw.

Don't feel bad, it's just another data point supporting my hypothesis that there is no good fix for terminators in the current system.

I'm doing work on my own complete revamp of the entire game system, so in the end Terminators won't be the only one touched; I'm just working on what will fix them here, though I'm tangently interested in the fallout this will create for other units. I'm trying to stay within the confines of a D6 system, as that is what my offshoot system will use - though it uses a different AP system (such as AP 2 becomes AP +4, turning a 2+ armor save into a 6+ armor save, for example; this allows me to give Terminators a 1+ save in my system without breaking things).

Also, I'm aware the TH modification has no effect on AP - it's a lateral move; an AP 2 weapon with Instant Death makes it a very nice monster hunter, whout the evils giving it, say AP 1 would cause - making it a too-tempting choice to smash absolutely everything)

I think tyranid players are going to strenuously object. My idea for the d10 system is to get rid of instant death completely.

Giving Thunder Hammers ID is stupidly good and quite frankly steps on the toes of equipment that Deathwatch have.

I kind of don't care what Deathwatch have, but ID on any staple weapon is too good in general.

Well as much as it would be cool, the idea of a D10 system is to far fetched from being iplimented at this point, and honestly trying to gear it toward that is just none productive. We need to work with the tools we have which is a D 6 system.

So what can we do in our D6 system to fix the issue?

We have 3 problems
survivability
Firepower
Lack of engagement

So lets go down the list and address each issue one at a time.

survivability; what can we do to make them more resilient with the current meta, with the amount of AP2 on the field, and ease of access to it, the 2 ups get turned into a 5+ really easily.

 Backspacehacker wrote:
Well as much as it would be cool, the idea of a D10 system is to far fetched from being iplimented at this point, and honestly trying to gear it toward that is just none productive. We need to work with the tools we have which is a D 6 system.

So what can we do in our D6 system to fix the issue?

We have 3 problems
survivability
Firepower
Lack of engagement

So lets go down the list and address each issue one at a time.

survivability; what can we do to make them more resilient with the current meta, with the amount of AP2 on the field, and ease of access to it, the 2 ups get turned into a 5+ really easily.

Without D10, it can't be done. Fixing terminators in the D6 system is even more far-fetched. No matter what you do, you can't can overcome interceptor ion accelerators and remain a sane unit.

you can

"terminator teleporter"

Terminators have the deep strike rule, in addition due to the blinding light and concussive burst of the terminators arrival via deep strike, they are not subject to the interceptor rule or any similar rules.

 Formosa wrote:
you can

"terminator teleporter"

Terminators have the deep strike rule, in addition due to the blinding light and concussive burst of the terminators arrival via deep strike, they are not subject to the interceptor rule or any similar rules.

So they shoot you on their real turn? So much better. Because everyone is so terrified of terminator shooting ability.

Martel732 wrote:

 Backspacehacker wrote:
Well as much as it would be cool, the idea of a D10 system is to far fetched from being iplimented at this point, and honestly trying to gear it toward that is just none productive. We need to work with the tools we have which is a D 6 system.

So what can we do in our D6 system to fix the issue?

We have 3 problems
survivability
Firepower
Lack of engagement

So lets go down the list and address each issue one at a time.

survivability; what can we do to make them more resilient with the current meta, with the amount of AP2 on the field, and ease of access to it, the 2 ups get turned into a 5+ really easily.

Without D10, it can't be done. Fixing terminators in the D6 system is even more far-fetched. No matter what you do, you can't can overcome interceptor ion accelerators and remain a sane unit.

Well if thats the case, then i mean this is no rude way, but if you dont believe it can be fixed, stop saying we cant so that people who do want to can come up with viable solutions.

With that said, survivability, what would give them a better chance? A T increase or a wound increase, personally i would vote for a 2 wound each model. Still is going to leave them susceptible to insta death, but still not loosing models right and left on the turn they drop in.

 Backspacehacker wrote:

Martel732 wrote:

 Backspacehacker wrote:
Well as much as it would be cool, the idea of a D10 system is to far fetched from being iplimented at this point, and honestly trying to gear it toward that is just none productive. We need to work with the tools we have which is a D 6 system.

So what can we do in our D6 system to fix the issue?

We have 3 problems
survivability
Firepower
Lack of engagement

So lets go down the list and address each issue one at a time.

survivability; what can we do to make them more resilient with the current meta, with the amount of AP2 on the field, and ease of access to it, the 2 ups get turned into a 5+ really easily.

Without D10, it can't be done. Fixing terminators in the D6 system is even more far-fetched. No matter what you do, you can't can overcome interceptor ion accelerators and remain a sane unit.

Well if thats the case, then i mean this is no rude way, but if you dont believe it can be fixed, stop saying we cant so that people who do want to can come up with viable solutions.

With that said, survivability, what would give them a better chance? A T increase or a wound increase, personally i would vote for a 2 wound each model. Still is going to leave them susceptible to insta death, but still not loosing models right and left on the turn they drop in.

I'm saying this because there has been 20+ threads about this. You're going to have to give MANZ more wounds at a minimum if you do this. And then centurions are going to need more wounds as well. And maybe things like TWC. There is no mathematical space.

Even if you changed them to centurion durability, their guns would still be far inferior, so again, they'd get no use and step on many, many toes.

Martel732 wrote:

 Backspacehacker wrote:

Martel732 wrote:

 Backspacehacker wrote:
Well as much as it would be cool, the idea of a D10 system is to far fetched from being iplimented at this point, and honestly trying to gear it toward that is just none productive. We need to work with the tools we have which is a D 6 system.

So what can we do in our D6 system to fix the issue?

We have 3 problems
survivability
Firepower
Lack of engagement

So lets go down the list and address each issue one at a time.

survivability; what can we do to make them more resilient with the current meta, with the amount of AP2 on the field, and ease of access to it, the 2 ups get turned into a 5+ really easily.

Without D10, it can't be done. Fixing terminators in the D6 system is even more far-fetched. No matter what you do, you can't can overcome interceptor ion accelerators and remain a sane unit.

Well if thats the case, then i mean this is no rude way, but if you dont believe it can be fixed, stop saying we cant so that people who do want to can come up with viable solutions.

With that said, survivability, what would give them a better chance? A T increase or a wound increase, personally i would vote for a 2 wound each model. Still is going to leave them susceptible to insta death, but still not loosing models right and left on the turn they drop in.

I'm saying this because there has been 20+ threads about this. You're going to have to give MANZ more wounds at a minimum if you do this. And then centurions are going to need more wounds as well. And maybe things like TWC.

I understand that, but thats not the conversation thats happening yet. We are still talking about terminators, so again, not trying to be an arse, but unless you have actual help other then, cant do that, or make it d10, your not helping.

My suggestion from the start has been make terminators baseline 200 points, giving them a 2 wounds each, fluff wise, and game waise this helps them survive more, that way on turns they drop in, they are going going to be loosing 2 or 3 models before they can charge in, where they really shine.

Other then simply, this wont work, or go to D10 or, need to adjust other models does anyone have an actual suggestion, criticism or suggestion to this idea.

Martel732 wrote:

 Formosa wrote:
you can

"terminator teleporter"

Terminators have the deep strike rule, in addition due to the blinding light and concussive burst of the terminators arrival via deep strike, they are not subject to the interceptor rule or any similar rules.

So they shoot you on their real turn? So much better. Because everyone is so terrified of terminator shooting ability.

yep, no interceptor though, and that was the point being made, that you cant make interceptor immunity without making termies OP