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 MajorStoffer wrote:

That being said, I find tactical terminators lackluster. They've got "meh" shooting, and "meh" close combat, and are viable only really due to their durability, though TH/SS termies are better with their 3++. Storm bolters are inconsequential for the most part, assault cannons are overpriced for what they do, and power fists can wreck face, but they go last, and stand a 50/50 chance of hitting most of the time anyways.

How are tactical termies 'meh' in CC? Against 90% of the foes they are just as effective as the hammer-terminators.

I agree, how are tac terminators weaker in CC than assault terminators? They hit exactly as hard, they're just not as resilient. If you're not facing Ap2, they're significantly better thanks to relentless.

And everybody in the squad gets a S8 power fist. How many other units in the game can throw down that many S8 Ap2 weapons into a single squad?

I mean, a 5-man tactical terminator squad is choppier than a bloodthirster.

So fair enough I've maybe been using them incorrectly. I usually field 5-7 GKT's with a brotherhood banner, heavy incinerator, and nemesis force weapons. I give them psybolt ammunition and make the Justicars weapon mastercrafted.

My tactic is too deepstrike next to a held objective, close in and kill the holding troops. As GKT's are troops they can then claim the obj, but this never seems to work. Are they more of an all or nothing force, as in the bulk of the GK army should be terminators.

As for GK's being a ranged force, I'm not so sure about that. The max range of most of the GK stuff (apart from henchmen and vehicles) is 24" even the psycannons and psilancers of the purgation squads. If your opponent has Devastator squads they can simply deploy over 24" and use they 36+" range of Lascannons, heavy bolters and plasma cannons.

I only find that for all the talk about how OP they are, I get absolutely trounced all the time.

 Jingles wrote:
So fair enough I've maybe been using them incorrectly. I usually field 5-7 GKT's with a brotherhood banner, heavy incinerator, and nemesis force weapons. I give them psybolt ammunition and make the Justicars weapon mastercrafted.

My tactic is too deepstrike next to a held objective, close in and kill the holding troops. As GKT's are troops they can then claim the obj, but this never seems to work. Are they more of an all or nothing force, as in the bulk of the GK army should be terminators.

As for GK's being a ranged force, I'm not so sure about that. The max range of most of the GK stuff (apart from henchmen and vehicles) is 24" even the psycannons and psilancers of the purgation squads. If your opponent has Devastator squads they can simply deploy over 24" and use they 36+" range of Lascannons, heavy bolters and plasma cannons.

I only find that for all the talk about how OP they are, I get absolutely trounced all the time.

That's to much on the terminators (Mastercrafted and banner is not neccessary on a deepstriker)

Jingles wrote:So fair enough I've maybe been using them incorrectly. I usually field 5-7 GKT's with a brotherhood banner, heavy incinerator, and nemesis force weapons. I give them psybolt ammunition and make the Justicars weapon mastercrafted.

I don't see the word "psycannon" used once.

Jingles wrote:My tactic is too deepstrike...

I'm not so sure about that. The max range of most of the GK stuff (apart from henchmen and vehicles) is 24"

But if you're deepstriking, then the 24" range of their guns shouldn't be a problem.

My Noise marine army had a real tough time against CC terminators, which are prolific in my FLGS, until the new Chaos codex dropped and I allied in Seekers and Daemonettes on the cheap. That solved that problem quite nicely, now everyone brings more long range to deal with it.

 Ailaros wrote:

Jingles wrote:So fair enough I've maybe been using them incorrectly. I usually field 5-7 GKT's with a brotherhood banner, heavy incinerator, and nemesis force weapons. I give them psybolt ammunition and make the Justicars weapon mastercrafted.

I don't see the word "psycannon" used once.

Indeed, we have successfully identified the problem.

If you arn't taking a psycannon when you can you are doing it wrong.

Another issue with the single 5-7 squad is that unless you have some way to delay your reserves, there's a 66% chance they are coming in right around your opponent's second turn. If you're GK, that also usually means most of his/her army is still alive at that point. If you drop 5-7 death-dealing models near your opponent's deployment zone, they will get target priority and they will die. Like any unit, Termies used like that will need to be supported by either a bigger target or distraction.

I dread giving my wife the Deathwing army I am working on, if I am going to be playing my Eldar army. 25 Terminators? She'd slaughter me worse than usual!

When I complained about the range I was more refering to other units that would soften up the enemy for the Termies to advance on, but yeah the too early deep strike is a major problem. Along with squad by squad deepstrike.

The Only Reason I don't use Psycannons is because I use the old school metal models pre re-release, they came in squads of 5 (4 stormbolters and an incinerator). I merely never got round to buying one of the new box sets.

I shall remedy this.

In a vacuum TH/SS terminators are awesome. IF your opponent obligingly stays stationary and pigheadedly insists on holding ground.... While the crappy tactical termies are not as awesome at CC and not as awesome at firepower as say sternguard. They are a median and should be able to own any TH/SS termies... If not sitting still or approaching TH/SS termies it should be able to average about 1 dead per turn... (5 vs 5) Shoot them up with massed firepower and your awesome stormshields will be used to carry you off the battlefield...

Now if you use the simple tactic as shoot what is nastier in HTH and bash what is nastier shooting, termies beat assault termies every time. If you want the mindless, I can't shoot therefore I must charge approach, then play them.

Termmies of all types are pure awesome, you just need to know where, how and when to use them. I'd give several of my plasma vet squads and their dogs for my Guard to have accesses to termmie armour saves on Oggs

 greyknight12 wrote:
Another issue with the single 5-7 squad is that unless you have some way to delay your reserves, there's a 66% chance they are coming in right around your opponent's second turn. If you're GK, that also usually means most of his/her army is still alive at that point. If you drop 5-7 death-dealing models near your opponent's deployment zone, they will get target priority and they will die. Like any unit, Termies used like that will need to be supported by either a bigger target or distraction.

I have been owned everytime I deepstrike in terminators. 1. Tight pack makes shooting generally a bad idea.
2. Inaccurate drops lessen the effect of lead to catastrophic results. 3. Miss a reinforcement roll and you lose a big chunk of your force for 1/3 of the game.

March them across the board, spaced out. With 24" range, the enemy will not like you with massed terminator... With GK, back them up with Psi-AC dreadnoughts.... taking 12 S8 shots every turn should make the heavy stuff ignore your terminators until these are dealt with. Or... deep strike (shunt not reserver) in a baby-carrier and let that absorb their fire.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
The other thing is don't make your GK 100% the same... 1 with Thunder Hammer, 1 with Stave, 1 with Halberd at least... You need to be able to affect AC 2.

Whilst running Deathwing recently I'm not all that impressed with the stormbolters. They don't really pump out a lot of shots and it's a fairly weak weapon, about 4 wounds with 6 of them firing against most troops. I've found they really want to be in combat so they cannot get shot at to be forced to take saves.

Terminator's are one end of the scale. Either no saves, but a metric ton of models, or 2+ saves with a handfull of models. Their wargear is also comparitively better, but I will have to admit, their shooting is not as good as a unit of comparitively the same points, due to the lack of volume of fire. But, that's the drawback of being much more resillient than said unit.

DAaddict wrote:

 greyknight12 wrote:
Another issue with the single 5-7 squad is that unless you have some way to delay your reserves, there's a 66% chance they are coming in right around your opponent's second turn. If you're GK, that also usually means most of his/her army is still alive at that point. If you drop 5-7 death-dealing models near your opponent's deployment zone, they will get target priority and they will die. Like any unit, Termies used like that will need to be supported by either a bigger target or distraction.

I have been owned everytime I deepstrike in terminators. 1. Tight pack makes shooting generally a bad idea.
2. Inaccurate drops lessen the effect of lead to catastrophic results. 3. Miss a reinforcement roll and you lose a big chunk of your force for 1/3 of the game.

March them across the board, spaced out. With 24" range, the enemy will not like you with massed terminator... With GK, back them up with Psi-AC dreadnoughts.... taking 12 S8 shots every turn should make the heavy stuff ignore your terminators until these are dealt with. Or... deep strike (shunt not reserver) in a baby-carrier and let that absorb their fire.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
The other thing is don't make your GK 100% the same... 1 with Thunder Hammer, 1 with Stave, 1 with Halberd at least... You need to be able to affect AC 2.

What is AC 2?

And loadout doesn't matter anymore. It used to matter because of Wound Allocation, but now thats completely gone.

Also, if you really wanted, you could take mordrak for GK. He lets your terminators make a pre-game scout move, right?

I think AC means SV

as in 2+ SV (Or he means you need AP 2).

 Ailaros wrote:
Also, if you really wanted, you could take mordrak for GK. He lets your terminators make a pre-game scout move, right?

Any Grandmaster can do that. Mordrak can make a Turn 1 Deep Strike.

All Grandmasters, including Mordrak, have Grand Strategy. Which allows to give D3 units a special rule, Scout is one of them. But the other options are more useful overall. Rerolling 1s to wound, Counter Attack, or Scoring.

Load out does matter - not for wound allocation but he wants to be able to affect as many things as possible.

Halberds for initiative.
TH for affecting termies.
Maul for high strength at initiative and great saving throw.
Swords for the 4++ save.

GKTs can't take Mauls. All NFW are unusual force weapons.

And if playing against Terminators, the best way to do it is to stay back and shoot. Not assault.


Generally, I take a single Daemonhammer and then a 50/50 mix of swords and halberds.

Well, the point is that if you footslog your paladins, and give them scout, you can pretty much right in your opponent's face on turns one and two, and you don't have to undergo the vagaries of deepstriking to do it.

GK Terminators are pretty useless against any half skilled opponent.

Lets take my usual match up, Dark Angels are the most regular. Tons of Plasma all over the place, a vindicator or two and a devestator squad with Las Cannons. Its a good list it does well in tournaments and GK Terminators do not have enough utility and to many weaknesses in applying their strengths to justify their points.

In 6th I think Grey Knights have become quite a difficult codex to use against skilled opponents, every point has to be used well and there is no room for waste or things that aren't pulling their weight because the units aren't cheap. Not to different from 5th but they were a little better using that rule set and it made all the difference.

If you think that you are sorely mistaken. Grey Knight Terminators are second only to Wolf Guard in power.

GKs have all the utility they need with Psycannons. They are that good.

GKT are beasts in the hands of a competent player. My prefered loadout is 1 Hammer per 5-models, max Psycannons, with one 10-man GKT squad sporting a Staff and a Banner (I run two 10-man GKT squads in my Ghostwing), and all the rest with Halberds. Recently I've been experiementing with 2 Hammers per 5, which almost defeats the purpose of activating the NFWs.

On Mordrak, the purchased Ghosts have Halberds with one sporting a Banner. The 2nd HQ is a Librarian with a Staff and Teleport Homer.

The reason for the 1-in-5 Hammers is so that I always have a Hammer available if I decide to combat squad the unit. The reason for the Banners is due to fighting 'Nids and their Shadow in the Warp ability. Also, the extra attacks are worth the price tag. The Staves are used to tank in CC, as every wound dealt can be assigned to the Staff holder until a bad roll occurs, which has a very strong chance of bouncing every wound dealt. The Homer is useful due to Mordraks "First to the Fray" ability, which allows me to place Mordrak and Company exactly where I want them 1st turn, with the 10-man tricked out GKT squad following on 2nd turn (Psychic Communion). The other GKT squad will generally babysit objectives as needed, providing mid-range fire in support. In higher point games, I add in a squad of GKSS and/or GKISS, sometimes a Stormraven, and occasionally I'll swap out the 2nd GKT squad for the GKSS and/or GKIS, etc.

All in all, the games I lose are the ones where my opponent either makes less mistakes than I do, or their army vastly outnumbers mine and wins on objectives. TDA are a lot harder to kill in-game than in a MathHammer vacuum, as deployment, spacing, terrain, and luck of the dice can midigate most counters to a TEQ army. And a game between good players is always something to behold!

SJ

 Grey Templar wrote:
If you think that you are sorely mistaken. Grey Knight Terminators are second only to Wolf Guard in power.

GKs have all the utility they need with Psycannons. They are that good.

Really?

Then just pray to god that you don't meet a GK storm raven.

It's this one huge vulnerability that, imho, makes them no longer 'as' useful as they used to be. It's a huge weakness they have little defense against.

O'man, terminators have a weakness. They must be terribad!!!

Well, it does point to something. Terminators DO have real weaknesses, but it always seems like people who run them ignore this fact.

I've wiped out more than my fair share of terminator squads, but that's because they're almost always thrown at me unsupported. Not only is there nothing more pressing to shoot at, but my opponents have often not yet destroyed my anti-terminator weapons before they get a chance to fire at their terminators.

They may be one of the better units in the game unsupported, but that doesn't mean you should get all shocked and alarmed when, unsupported, they get butchered.

But that's the problem. Deepstrike rules means you don't get a choice when they turn up. They might turn up in turn 2 or turn 4. In turn 2 you simply haven't had the chance to soften up the enemy. Granted you can take a comms relay or a mystic to give you a -1/+1 modifier to the roll. But it's still a matter of chance.

On a similar note, What's everyones view of Paladins. At twice the cost of a Terminator these guys break the bank in my opinion. Especially if you take them with Draigo. A squad of 5 (with apothecary) and Draigo to give Troop choice comes to about 700 points for 6 models. I know they are tough and soak up fire but the impact of having 25% of a 2k point army summed up is a big gamble.