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 casvalremdeikun wrote:
I am debating running a squad of Tactical Terminators instead of Honour Guard with Pedro Kantor. Tactical Terminators mesh pretty well with Pedro. Their saves are pretty similar and they have equal range weaponry. Toss a squad in a Land Raider Crusader or Redeemer with Pedro, enjoy the +1 Attack and rerolling 1s on the Storm Bolters. Is it optimal, not really, but it is more survivable than Honour Guard, and the models cost the same. Honour Guard put out more at-initiative attacks by virtue of having two close combat weapons, but the Terminators do lay down some ranged fire, even if it is just Storm Bolters.

I think Honour Guard would be a better choice if you are looking for a cc bodyguard.

1. They are cheaper. 5 terminators are 175 point, 5 HG are only 135 point.
2. They both have T4 2+ armor. The only difference is terminator has 5++, but HG is cheaper, you can get more body, and also can embark more in the LR.
3. HG comes with pistol, PW, and boltgun. They don't have relentless, but it is still good to have a boltgun when there is no enemy in charge range.
4. Power fist is a good weapon, but HG has more attack and you can have mix PW type to better handling different target.
5. HG can sweep advance, which terminators can't.

Terminators are not bad. The problem with them is there are units that can do their job better and cheaper.

 koooaei wrote:

That's centurions.

Centurions have the statline Terminators should have. They should also strike at initiative (Terminator Armor should ignore Unwieldy).


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MadCamel wrote:

 casvalremdeikun wrote:
I am debating running a squad of Tactical Terminators instead of Honour Guard with Pedro Kantor. Tactical Terminators mesh pretty well with Pedro. Their saves are pretty similar and they have equal range weaponry. Toss a squad in a Land Raider Crusader or Redeemer with Pedro, enjoy the +1 Attack and rerolling 1s on the Storm Bolters. Is it optimal, not really, but it is more survivable than Honour Guard, and the models cost the same. Honour Guard put out more at-initiative attacks by virtue of having two close combat weapons, but the Terminators do lay down some ranged fire, even if it is just Storm Bolters.

I think Honour Guard would be a better choice if you are looking for a cc bodyguard.

1. They are cheaper. 5 terminators are 175 point, 5 HG are only 135 point.
2. They both have T4 2+ armor. The only difference is terminator has 5++, but HG is cheaper, you can get more body, and also can embark more in the LR.
3. HG comes with pistol, PW, and boltgun. They don't have relentless, but it is still good to have a boltgun when there is no enemy in charge range.
4. Power fist is a good weapon, but HG has more attack and you can have mix PW type to better handling different target.
5. HG can sweep advance, which terminators can't.

Terminators are not bad. The problem with them is there are units that can do their job better and cheaper.

I currently have Honour Guard slotted (2 Power Swords, 2 Power Mauls, and the Champion with a Power Sword). The Power Mauls will help Pedro out since they will it give Concussive, so he can punch stuff out. I am not too happy with the models I have for my Honour Guard as of right now (lots of converted stuff). I may end up replacing them with a Vanguard Veteran squad and giving them the Power Weapons I am currently running.

I just hate not running Terminators, since they actually look pretty cool, IMO. I don't even have any Tactical Terminators to run, I was thinking of getting some. My other escort is my 3 Hammer/2 Claw Terminator Assault Squad, but I dislike the lack of ranged capability.

 Spacewolfoddballz wrote:

 koooaei wrote:
+2?
t7 ajax and nurgle termies is a bit ott
even carnifex is t6

I'm fine with +1 T termies though.

why not +1 T with 2 wounds... i think back in the old days they had 2 wounds but its been a long time cant remember anymore lol.

Those were the old Chaos Thousand Son Cult Terminators

The Kremlin wrote:
Has anyone tried a big unit with Armenneus Valthax?

OK, so you're paying quite the tax for Valthax, but sure you can build an army that'll use a backfield repairer/conversion beamer. The big unit can then drop on any locator beacons you might have (scout list?), and sit on an objective poisoning stuff to death. OK, costly, but 10 2+/5++ models takes at least a bit of shifting.

Probably in the "not quite viable for competition, but could be great fun in more casual play" area, but hey, perhaps I'm underestimating it?

I did this recently for a list building run. Take an Iron Hands CM (from Clan Raukaan) Deathstar with a Teleport homer, and throw Valthex in a Sniper Scout squad for a cheap retinue. You then make a CM from Astral Claws with a Bike because their CT benefit from it. Then you just kinda spam Bikers. It can be decent to run (I did so once!) but it isn't necessarily great. Terminators are still not great for those points, but the Hellfire makes them MUCH better.

Though it's true that tac termies have never really been reliable, I've used them with telehomer scouts in low points games with some success.

Don't get me wrong, though. They're not that competitive (though as a caveat, I actually had them do quite okay as a substitute for TH termies in a little experiment against tau, but it required land raider support and a bunch of other things).

But yeah, if you're meta's not super competitive, have fun with them. Or even if it's competitive, have fun with them (just be aware they probably won't do to well).

They were competitive when you could take two assault cannons in a five man squad.

 Dozer Blades wrote:
They were competitive when you could take two assault cannons in a five man squad.

Even that is a pretty weak, imo.

 Anpu42 wrote:

 Spacewolfoddballz wrote:

 koooaei wrote:
+2?
t7 ajax and nurgle termies is a bit ott
even carnifex is t6

I'm fine with +1 T termies though.

why not +1 T with 2 wounds... i think back in the old days they had 2 wounds but its been a long time cant remember anymore lol.

Those were the old Chaos Thousand Son Cult Terminators

I am showing my age i guess .

I did not realize that Centurions were that statline cause i never played against them nor had the newer codex with them in it.. ... interesting

I'm thinking of testing out: "A model with Terminator armor re-rolls all saves"

This would make them able to handle the most usual way of them dying: just plain old dakka.

ilporogue wrote:
I'm thinking of testing out: "A model with Terminator armor re-rolls all saves"

This would make them able to handle the most usual way of them dying: just plain old dakka.

That would help a lot vs scatterbikes, I agree. But they'd still be very ignorable because their offense/pt is awful.

Martel732 wrote:

ilporogue wrote:
I'm thinking of testing out: "A model with Terminator armor re-rolls all saves"

This would make them able to handle the most usual way of them dying: just plain old dakka.

That would help a lot vs scatterbikes, I agree. But they'd still be very ignorable because their offense/pt is awful.

I'm not trying to make them Scatbike 2.0. I'd just like to see them as a "valuable" inclusion in a codex. Especially the hammernators would be the (nigh) immovable object that they should be with 2+/3++ re-rollable. They could stand against knights and such for a while in case the Knight player can't roll a six for a turn or two.

Ignorability depends a lot with who you are going against. Suprisingly a lot of mobile armies tend to be able to ignore non-fleet infantry 95% of the time. But that's a bigger flaw in the system than just the good old terminators.

ilporogue wrote:

Martel732 wrote:

ilporogue wrote:
I'm thinking of testing out: "A model with Terminator armor re-rolls all saves"

This would make them able to handle the most usual way of them dying: just plain old dakka.

That would help a lot vs scatterbikes, I agree. But they'd still be very ignorable because their offense/pt is awful.

I'm not trying to make them Scatbike 2.0. I'd just like to see them as a "valuable" inclusion in a codex. Especially the hammernators would be the (nigh) immovable object that they should be with 2+/3++ re-rollable. They could stand against knights and such for a while in case the Knight player can't roll a six for a turn or two.

Ignorability depends a lot with who you are going against. Suprisingly a lot of mobile armies tend to be able to ignore non-fleet infantry 95% of the time. But that's a bigger flaw in the system than just the good old terminators.

But terminators are expensive, and so you are paying a premium to be ignored. That basically means I will never take them.

I'm finding that the only time I would consider using termies is 1.5k at the bare minimum and even then. It takes too much points to make them somewhat useable.
I HATE using them as termicides. They are supposed to be your super bad ass veterans that are hard to come by and then you just throw them to the wolves.
If you field a unit of ten though, they start becoming something. But that something better have at least a land raider and some other buffs, like marks/icons or psychic support and some crazy lord or so. Then they start working, but it takes so much stuff that they still aren't points efficient.


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Hammernators are still rightly feared in normal lists. 2+/3++ is a bitch to crack, plus they usually sit in a land raider, which isn't exactly made of paper either.
Those are fine. Tactical Termies and Chaos termies have it a lot harder, and I'd say tacticals are even worse off than chaos termies. As much as I personally dread it, at least those can be used as throw away units.

Still viable? They were not to start with. Viable now? Not really, but they took a small step in the right direction.

They still suffer from:
- Low durability per point
- Low number of heavy weapons
- slow
- expensive transports
- Low ranged damage output (worse than their equivalent cost in tac marines)
- T4 in a Str6 spam world

Think of any unit that is considered 'good', and compare their short comings to terminators' to give yourself a comparison.

"Hammernators are still rightly feared in normal lists. 2+/3++ is a bitch to crack, plus they usually sit in a land raider, which isn't exactly made of paper either. "

I don't fear them. Putting them in a LR just makes it an even more inefficient unit.

Martel732 wrote:
"Hammernators are still rightly feared in normal lists. 2+/3++ is a bitch to crack, plus they usually sit in a land raider, which isn't exactly made of paper either. "

I don't fear them. Putting them in a LR just makes it an even more inefficient unit.

What's inefficient about Hammernators?

I know they're not the greatest CC unit, but they aren't something to be ignored either.

Martel732 wrote:

 Dozer Blades wrote:
They were competitive when you could take two assault cannons in a five man squad.

Even that is a pretty weak, imo.

It was very strong in the context of fourth edition when sm could spam assault cannons much like gk spammed the psycannons in fifth edition.

 GangstaMuffin24 wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
"Hammernators are still rightly feared in normal lists. 2+/3++ is a bitch to crack, plus they usually sit in a land raider, which isn't exactly made of paper either. "

I don't fear them. Putting them in a LR just makes it an even more inefficient unit.

What's inefficient about Hammernators?

I know they're not the greatest CC unit, but they aren't something to be ignored either.

Martel doesn't like terminators. /Thread.

In all seriousness they can be largely ignored due to some rather serious shortcomings.
They are slow.
They are fragile for their points cost.
They can not sweeping advance.
Fairly low damage output vs tarpits.

Perhaps 'ignore' is the wrong word to use. Assault terminators are fairly easy to manipulate or whittle down. Blocking their path, feeding them tarpits, or waiting for them to break a squad and then wipe them in the following shooting phase are all viable tactics.

In a 1vs1 faceoff vs other melee powerhouses, TH/SS terminators do ok. However in the larger context of an overall game, they do not stand up to the utility, speed, and/or cheapness that other melee picks like IH chapter master on bike, TWC or flesh hounds.

 GangstaMuffin24 wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
"Hammernators are still rightly feared in normal lists. 2+/3++ is a bitch to crack, plus they usually sit in a land raider, which isn't exactly made of paper either. "

I don't fear them. Putting them in a LR just makes it an even more inefficient unit.

What's inefficient about Hammernators?

I know they're not the greatest CC unit, but they aren't something to be ignored either.

There is a subtle difference between “effectiveness” and “efficient”. Can TH/SS kill things? Can they soak damage? Their ability to do what they are supposed to do determines weather they are an effective unit. Are they worth the points you spend on them? That’s what decides how efficient they are.

TH/SS terminators are as close to an effective unit you are going to find when talking about TDA guys. They can dish out some pain, don’t immediately die when you drop an AP2 pie plate on them, and can generally make a good showing for themselves. They still die to massed small-arms fire, so aren’t quite as resilient as they are made out to be in the fluff. They also have problems getting into CC, being slow. So we have a unit that can work, but has some drawbacks. They are very expensive for what you get, which makes the unit effective, but somewhat inefficient.

Now putting them in a LR fixes most of their problems. You keep the small arms off until you are in CC, and are a lot more mobile so you can get stuck in sooner, and against something you want to kill. Now your TH/SS have next to no drawbacks, and you’ve got a big old box of pain on the table, ready to wreck things. The problem is that box costs ~500 points. You are taking one inefficient unit, putting it inside another, and then working that into your list. What else could you be taking for those points? Sternguard? TFCs? Bikes? An IK? More warm bodies then your opponent can kill in 7 turns?

It’s effective, not efficient.

(Lots of fun and looks cool though, which is why I still field mine from time to time )

TDA armor and the benefits it confers is just too overpriced for the way the game is played now.

"They are slow.
They are fragile for their points cost.
They can not sweeping advance.
Fairly low damage output vs tarpits."

This pretty much sums it up.


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 Nevelon wrote:

 GangstaMuffin24 wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
"Hammernators are still rightly feared in normal lists. 2+/3++ is a bitch to crack, plus they usually sit in a land raider, which isn't exactly made of paper either. "

I don't fear them. Putting them in a LR just makes it an even more inefficient unit.

What's inefficient about Hammernators?

I know they're not the greatest CC unit, but they aren't something to be ignored either.

There is a subtle difference between “effectiveness” and “efficient”. Can TH/SS kill things? Can they soak damage? Their ability to do what they are supposed to do determines weather they are an effective unit. Are they worth the points you spend on them? That’s what decides how efficient they are.

TH/SS terminators are as close to an effective unit you are going to find when talking about TDA guys. They can dish out some pain, don’t immediately die when you drop an AP2 pie plate on them, and can generally make a good showing for themselves. They still die to massed small-arms fire, so aren’t quite as resilient as they are made out to be in the fluff. They also have problems getting into CC, being slow. So we have a unit that can work, but has some drawbacks. They are very expensive for what you get, which makes the unit effective, but somewhat inefficient.

Now putting them in a LR fixes most of their problems. You keep the small arms off until you are in CC, and are a lot more mobile so you can get stuck in sooner, and against something you want to kill. Now your TH/SS have next to no drawbacks, and you’ve got a big old box of pain on the table, ready to wreck things. The problem is that box costs ~500 points. You are taking one inefficient unit, putting it inside another, and then working that into your list. What else could you be taking for those points? Sternguard? TFCs? Bikes? An IK? More warm bodies then your opponent can kill in 7 turns?

It’s effective, not efficient.

(Lots of fun and looks cool though, which is why I still field mine from time to time )

You have a 500 pt doorstop if your LR rolls a "1" going over a bush. Such a power unit, let me tell you.

"Martel doesn't like terminators. /Thread. "

Damn straight. And it pisses me off, because they've been bad basically forever for loyalists.

I agree, same for cent stars. You scatter off the table? *Poof*
Utterly worthless.

Assault termies were good in 5th ed with a vulcan. Ever since have been crap. GK terms are decent because they can take a psycannon/have force weapons/can be bosted to 4++ with sanct/and are only 32 points. Still though - they only work in a GK army because everything has 2+ saves and melting terms with your plasmas/gravs just means you aren't melting dreadknights with your plasmas/gravs.

Still though - even with GK terms - you only take them because you have to.

I always thought termies shuold have some "thick armor" rule that let them reroll their armor save but on a 4+ instead of 2+....

The points cost decrease for codex astartes termies make them more effective than last edition...

I do agree that termies are still priced too high for their in game effect. I also agree with Big Blind Bill's list of what is wrong with termies. It essentially sums up the problems with the unit pretty well.

IMO termies would be fixed if they either 1) could take heavy weapons/combi weapons on every model with the current price or 2) where at least another 5 pts cheaper.

However having said all of that I have actually gotten some decent use out of termies recently in context to the dark angels RW/DW lists. I take them as an objective clearing unit to DS on beacons and flame a unit off an objective and then charge anything left. This is definitely a different can of worms than the question in this thread though as I only have 1 "regular" termie in the unit.

I was sad to see DW take more of a sidegrade - or possibly step back, rather than being buffed in any reasonable sense.
And to make it worse it happened at the same time as RW receiving even more buffs to make them even more competitive lol.

"What's that Ravenwing? You want a 2+ re-rollable cover save? Great Idea! Urgh DW, we'll take a few points off a model, but then increase TH/SS by the same amount, can't do anything too game breaking now can we."

DW in the new codex:

-Lost PFG
-Lost DW vehicle landraiders
(these 2 changes effectively removed the only slightly viable pure DW strategy).
-No more turn 1/2 auto deepstrike.
-No longer unlockable troops
(to make a DW army therefore you must use the special formation, buuuuuuut.....)
-New formation makes it impossible to run a DW only army, due to forcing all squads to deepstrike (there are YMDC threads at the moment concerning this rule and landraiders).
-Major nerf to smite mode on the DW knights, though an increase to ap3 on normal attacks. (Not worth it imo, but this is a personal choice).
- Increase in TH/SS price by 5 points.

What did they get in return?
-Belial gets +1 attack/
-Base terminators reduced by 4 points (so a TH/SS terminator is now 1 point more expensive).
-Deathwing knights are now 1 point cheaper, but base cost for 5 is the same.
-The knight sergeant's flail now has fleshbane.
-Venerable dreadnoughts got +2 attacks.
-DW formations can be lead by a cheaper non-named character now.
- Shoot and run, or run and shoot on deepstrike.

Some nice little changes there, but did we really need to lose so much to 'balance' them out?

When you consider RW are getting 2+ re-rollable cover saves, landspeeder squads with stealth, shrouded strafing run and interceptor, more spammable black knights and a flexible formation the DW changes really pale in comparison.

A year ago I would have laughed if someone had told me GW was planning on nerfing the DW in the next codex.

Rant over/

GW could easily make them worth their points but for now they are not viable.

 Dozer Blades wrote:
GW could easily make them worth their points but for now they are not viable.

Go look at the buff terminator thread in the proposed rules section. It is NOT easy.

Big Blind Bill wrote:-Lost PFG
-Lost DW vehicle landraiders
(these 2 changes effectively removed the only slightly viable pure DW strategy).

It really wasn't viable anymore. Even with a 4+ invulnerable AV14. The amount of haywire/D weapons and score as you go missions had pretty much killed this strategy. I had been having some degree of luck with a mixed wing approach but for the most part the only codex DW could fight even remotely on an even footing was CSM, and only then if they didn't use IA13 which put them on par with every other codex.

At least now mixed wing is actually about even with the average and ravenwing and green wing can be made to actually be top tier.

Big Blind Bill wrote:-No more turn 1/2 auto deepstrike.

Turn 1 DS is the only rule I am really sad they lost. I also just cannot understand why GW removed it when they had been giving it out more and more.

Big Blind Bill wrote:-No longer unlockable troops
(to make a DW army therefore you must use the special formation, buuuuuuut.....)

I am actually okay with this and thought it was obvious this would happen. The game is going away from this as the unlockable troops were almost universally better than the basic troops even with ridiculously expensive characters like azzy doing the unlocking. At least now the troops get ObjSec to try and balance it out.

Big Blind Bill wrote:-New formation makes it impossible to run a DW only army, due to forcing all squads to deepstrike (there are YMDC threads at the moment concerning this rule and landraiders).

You can field a few drop pod venerable dreads to come on turn 1. Admittedly not great but not terrible either.

I am not sure how I feel about this. I have ~50 deathwing terminators so of course I want to field them but I honestly cannot think of a valid reason fluff wise to field a deathwing army without any ravenwing, scouts, IG, fotifications, etc. to start on the battlefield. The only reasoning I can come up with is the DW are so stupid they commit almost a third of their terminator armour to a mission without bothering to verify their target or scout the area at all. DW armies have always felt like an incredibly stupid way to fight to me, despite being a dark angels mostly deathwing player for almost 20 years.

On the other hand mixed wing actually got a lot better both because ravenwing got massively better but also because the deathwing is cheaper overall and can come down when you want in the game. This gives you a chance to get beacons where they are needed and kill off some of the interceptor riptides.

This all may be a mute point though as it will depend what forgeworld decides to give DW. The right forgeworld units getting labeled DW could actually see DW fixed.

Big Blind Bill wrote:-Major nerf to smite mode on the DW knights, though an increase to ap3 on normal attacks. (Not worth it imo, but this is a personal choice).

I agree that the new deathwing knights are worse due to the changes. The old knights were decent because they almost never saw more than a single melee combat and thus being amazing for 1 round of melee was fine as they were too slow to get another one. Now they little more than a tarpit and cannot take on the big boys like wraith and imperial knights anymore.

Big Blind Bill wrote:- Increase in TH/SS price by 5 points.

This change is the most ironic one to me. If they wouldn't have done this IMO the TH/SS termies would have been about right in terms of cost to effect ratio and would have actually been a semi competitive choice.

Big Blind Bill wrote:What did they get in return?
-Belial gets +1 attack/
-Base terminators reduced by 4 points (so a TH/SS terminator is now 1 point more expensive).
-Deathwing knights are now 1 point cheaper, but base cost for 5 is the same.
-The knight sergeant's flail now has fleshbane.
-Venerable dreadnoughts got +2 attacks.
-DW formations can be lead by a cheaper non-named character now.
- Shoot and run, or run and shoot on deepstrike.

Some nice little changes there, but did we really need to lose so much to 'balance' them out?

When you consider RW are getting 2+ re-rollable cover saves, landspeeder squads with stealth, shrouded strafing run and interceptor, more spammable black knights and a flexible formation the DW changes really pale in comparison.

One of the things that RW lacks and needs help with is a hard hitting melee threat (or really in general ignores cover, though melee does work for this).

I have been toying around with taking deathwing as my objective cleaners to deal with melee threats my black knights are not up to and to in general clog up potions of the table. Melee also tends to be the fastest way to deal with high cover save units.


[note the following is not aimed at any individual just some sarcasm due to the general internet's typical sky is falling approach]
I also am not of the opinion like many are that spamming maximum black knights is a winning strategy. I prefer a more balanced approach with some grav and melta weapons mixed in and perhaps something that can deal with a credible melee threat with a 2+ cover save. I am also not convinced that you can win a game bunched up around 1-2 bubbles and continuously jinking for rerollable 2+ cover save, I have a crazy idea that you have to score more than 1 objective. Also I seem to encounter melee threats on par or better than black knights pretty often, like; wraithknights, imperial knights, daemon princes, greater daemons, maulerfiends, spawn stars, etc. and thus I occasionally have to shoot at better than BS 1 to get KPs or not get killed in melee where my jink save doesn't seem to work. Also every now and then someone shoots me with an ignore cover weapon, like a heldrake baleflamer or ignore cover IG ordered shots.

It really wasn't viable anymore. Even with a 4+ invulnerable AV14. The amount of haywire/D weapons and score as you go missions had pretty much killed this strategy

For pure DW it was the best of what we had. Str D/Haywire are still much less common than all the other counters for terminators out there, making at least some match ups playable.

This all may be a mute point though as it will depend what forgeworld decides to give DW. The right forgeworld units getting labeled DW could actually see DW fixed.

I don't know what you are expecting tbh. FW already provided the spartan, some dreadnoughts, and the cerastus. I don't think they will be releasing anything new for DA, and certainly not DW, a long time.
Besides this, terminators are fundamentally bad and even new additions or force multipliers are still going to have to work with the terrible base foundation of 40 point T4 models.

One of the things that RW lacks and needs help with is a hard hitting melee threat

I disagree with this. Black knights offer a hard hitting melee force that is much more point efficient than DW. The best in the codex imo. When you consider that a landraider is needed to get a DW squad reliably into cc, you could take around 12 or more black knights for the same cost.

Hit and run + HoW attacks is also a potent combination for RW.

The problem with ravenwing melee units is no staying power.

Anything with ap3 will wreck even the knights potentialally before they get to hit.

For such an expensive unit you die really easily.