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One thing to note is that a Vulkan army should probably stick to the hammers so as to make the best possible use of its weapon upgrades.

Fetterkey wrote:One thing to note is that a Vulkan army should probably stick to the hammers so as to make the best possible use of its weapon upgrades.

I think this is the Vulkan fallacy. Just because you can make every weapon, both ranged and close combat, benefit from his special rules doesn't mean its the best course of action. While it makes the TH terminators hittier, it doesn't actually negate any of their weaknesses against higher initiative troops and massed attacks. Mathematically, they are not stronger than a mixed squad against similiar opponents. 6 Vulkan Terminators kill the same amount of Orc Boyz as 2 LC and 4 standard TH terminators on the charge. A mixed squad of 2 LC and 4 Vulkaned THs would actually achieve more kills on average than 6 mastercrafted thunder hammers (10-11 versus 8-9).

If you are taking Vulkan, you are paying a large points cost and forfeiting one of your best rules in order to maximize the effect of certain weapons. To make this worth it, you have to go for those weapons whenever possible, and indeed build your entire army around Vulkan and his rules.

Fetterkey wrote:If you are taking Vulkan, you are paying a large points cost and forfeiting one of your best rules in order to maximize the effect of certain weapons. To make this worth it, you have to go for those weapons whenever possible, and indeed build your entire army around Vulkan and his rules.

Again, I disagree. I think is a fallacy that makes Vulkan lists susceptible to close combat armies and makes them almost one dimensional. A Vulkan list that incorporates missile launchers in tac squads to add a little long range punch rather than multi-meltas is much more balanced because it adds both anti-tank and anti-infantry that can be fired outside of short and extremely short range. There are also certain land speeder builds where a MM or HF is optional, such as the Typhoon.

For assault terminators specifically, a Salamander assault terminator squad is mathematically better when it has a mix of LCs and master crafted Thunder hammers than when it has purely Thunder hammers.

Do you have to build your list around Vulkan when you field him? Absolutely. Losing combat tactics makes that essential. Does that mean you have to throw all the principles of balanced list building out the window and commit to being effective only inside 24 inches? Absolutely not!

While I agree that many vulkan lists can do better with some ranged firepower in them (especially ranged anti-infantry), putting missile launchers in tac squads is a really poor way to do that.

Predators or Typhoon speeders is a decent way to do it, or rifleman dreads.

Tac squads are too expensive and too generally inefficient to be bothering with things like a single missile launcher.

But, on the TH vs. Lightning Claw front: terminators are not generally for going against the basic troops of your enemies. You already have plenty of tools in the marine army, and in the vulkan army especially, for fighting basic units: flamers in tac squads, bolters, heavy flamers on land speeders, etc.

You need TH/SS terminators because they are one of the few elite CC units that can go up against other elite CC units and almost always come out on top.

If you're fighting a fortuned avatar, you don't want even a single LC terminator to weaken your chances in CC.

If you're fighting nob bikers, you want every thunderhammer you can get to cause those ID wounds.

Also, using all THs increases your units capability when multi-charging vehicles or monstrous creatures.

If you've ever faced the IC AV12-spam-army-of-doom, you know that the only reliable way of getting rid of that much armor in one game is to be able to multi-charge vehicles successfully.

Putting lightning claws in your terminator squads weakens them for their most important roles, even if it does make them statistically better for fighting things like ork boyz.

willydstyle wrote:If you're fighting nob bikers, you want every thunderhammer you can get to cause those ID wounds.

Ok 10 Lighting claw vs 10 TH + SS

against nobs.
First assaulting the nobs
LC Attacks 40 60/216 so good expetation of 11wounds (depending on wound allocation 1-5 dead orks and 5-9 orks striking back)

TH Attacks 30 (I'm being nice and giving all the orks power claws) 315/648 = 14.6 dead orks

the nobs assaulting
LC Attacks 30 60/216 so good expetation of 8.3 wounds (depending on wound allocation 0-4 dead orks)

TH Attacks 20 (I'm being nice and giving all the orks power claws) 315/648 = 9.7 dead orks

We got a winner against Nobs ^_^

PanzerLeader wrote:

Fetterkey wrote:If you are taking Vulkan, you are paying a large points cost and forfeiting one of your best rules in order to maximize the effect of certain weapons. To make this worth it, you have to go for those weapons whenever possible, and indeed build your entire army around Vulkan and his rules.

Again, I disagree. I think is a fallacy that makes Vulkan lists susceptible to close combat armies and makes them almost one dimensional. A Vulkan list that incorporates missile launchers in tac squads to add a little long range punch rather than multi-meltas is much more balanced because it adds both anti-tank and anti-infantry that can be fired outside of short and extremely short range. There are also certain land speeder builds where a MM or HF is optional, such as the Typhoon.

Vulkan armies may seem one-dimensional because they are much less complex than standard Marine armies. This isn't necessarily bad-- it makes them easier to use, for one thing-- but it does mean that your list isn't going to be the most exciting or varied thing in the world. It also means that your choices are going to be different. Long range anti-tank weapons are important to building a balanced force, but when you have a double LR assault terminator blitz army, you're not exactly focusing on building a balanced force.

Ronin wrote:

Da-Rock wrote:
If you fight other really slow armies then TH/SS are ok, but that 3+ Inv is only in close combat and not from shooting.

Where does it say that? SS gives you 3++ against anything. Or rather, it doesnt say that the SS' inv save is only for CC.

Oops! I play Black Templar and didn't realize they changed more then the save value - we have 4+ Inv with CC only. We get the re-roll to hit also which makes LCs way more valuable.

Per the current Space Marine codex, Storm Shields provide a 3+ Invulnerable save to the model in both CC and against Shooting attacks. Lightning Claws re-roll to wound and are power weapons.

I agree with willydstyle -- a LC Terminator may add flexibility to the unit, but the Thunderhammer helps more with the intended role of high-toughness and vehicle killing. Since I play against Marines and Tyranids most often, I find that when I get that charge, I just want to make sure every single attack is the highest strength possible. Str4 vs T6 sucks, even with a re-roll. Str8 is just dominating, and 2+/3++ is great protection.

GeneralRetreat wrote:Per the current Space Marine codex, Storm Shields provide a 3+ Invulnerable save to the model in both CC and against Shooting attacks. Lightning Claws re-roll to wound and are power weapons.

I agree with willydstyle -- a LC Terminator may add flexibility to the unit, but the Thunderhammer helps more with the intended role of high-toughness and vehicle killing. Since I play against Marines and Tyranids most often, I find that when I get that charge, I just want to make sure every single attack is the highest strength possible. Str4 vs T6 sucks, even with a re-roll. Str8 is just dominating, and 2+/3++ is great protection.

Well, lets do the easy thing---check the math.

Hive Tyrant vs. 6 TH/SS terminators

HT throws 5 attacks, 3.3 hit, 2.73 wound, 0.91 dead terminators
5 Terminators swing, 15 attacks, 7.5 hits, 6.225 wounds, 5.16 failed 6++, dead HT

Hive Tyrant vs. 2 LC, 4 TH/SS terminators

HT throws 5 attacks, 3.3 hit, 2.73 wound, 0.91 dead terminators
2 LC swing (assuming the Marine put all invuls on the 3++), 8 attacks, 4 hits, 1.12 wounds, 0.92 failed invuls
3 TH swing, 9 attacks, 4.5 hits, 3.73 wounds, 3.1 failed invuls, dead HT

Statistically, a mixed squad should achieve the same success as a pure TH squad versus a HT. But I have to agree---the pure TH squad will dish out much more pain on average to big, multi-wound units (a full wound more on a HT in this case). As with everything else, it depends on what your list needs and what you expect to fight. In an all comers list for a tournament or a fixed-list league, I definately recommend taking a mixed squad.

But also don't forget that we've been discussing things in the context of a vulkan army.

Mastercrafting the THs skews the math a bit, because sometimes a TH will miss once and get one reroll, and sometimes it will miss twice and still only get one reroll, but it does make them significantly better.

Not really. The OP is asking about an assault squad in an Iron Hands army. Fetterkey raised the point about Vulkan terminators. It does skew the math a little, but its tough to account for without breaking it down to an individual level. You basically have to assume 2.25 hits per terminator instead of 1.5, which would make for up to 4 extra hits for the squad as a whole. Kinda funky to do it that way though because your assuming every model will roll the same and it doesn't account for the raw probabilities as cleanly.

When you StatHammer, you have to use base values like this. The fact that the Vulkan buff will affect the comparison is understood.