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I am going to buy a box of something tomorrow I would like to fill up my last elite slot.

I love Termie fluff stuff but They have disappointed me on the table before.

I run a Venerable dread and an Ironclad at the moment would Termies be worth it?

Also is there another great option for marine elites that I am missing?

Do you have any Assault Terminators? you should have at least 5 TH/SS in your collection. most balanced choice and are really solid.

Tactical Terminators have a bad reputation because most people don't use them properly. Most people put them in harms way when they should be far from any real action peppering away with Storm bolters and Clyclone missile launchers. if your marines are shooty then these guys are good choice.

Sternguard are great for special weapon spamming. they can all have 1 shot specials and 2 can have the real thing. 2 heavy flamers and 8 combi-flamers can toast anything and the Special ammo is icing on the cake. potentially scoring with Pedro Kantor.

LOTD are best left alone.

i agree with templar there...id go with th/ss termies. they have a better overall survival rate and can deal with things better than a dread can

Dreads are not that great for CSM or SM IMO. They are good for BA though due to Blood Talons.

G

Probably agree with the majority here.. Go for the terminators, you already have the two Dreadnoughts, and terminators are a bit more versatile in the range of ways they can be used and outfitted.

If you have the patience for it, just magnetise them and swap equipment for whatever role you need them for in that particular battle, or just go for TH/SS

Whats the rest of your list look like? Buying stuff for the sake of buying stuff can burn up alot of money fast unless you have cash to burn. That said there's nothing stopping you from running the two dreads you already have as any dread in the book with a little bit of converting. I run 3 twin-linked auto-cannon regular dreads in my list and for that particular list i can say they work really well at what i want them to do which is pop light transports, kill monstrous creatures and put the hurt on infantry if i have nothing better to shoot at. Also the models i use are a regular dreadnought, venerable dreadnought, and an ironclad dreadnought with all the auto cannons from forge world. If you need more accurate high strength shooting 2X twin-linked auto-cannon dreads are really good for their points and since its twin linked you don't need to pay extra for the venerable's extra BS.

If you need more assault TH/SS terminators are one of the best things in the SM codex but you really got to think about how they're going get into assault since they don't move very fast on their own reliably. Before you pay for new terminators you should stop and think about if you should try to fit a land raider, librarian with gate of infinity, shrike to give them fleet or a locater beacon on some unit or drop pod to actually get them into assault since they can be easily avoided/fed suicide units by many armies unless you have a plan.

Overall i would use the models you have to proxy different builds with the dreads or terminators against friends with a couple diffrent armies to see what works best for your playing style/list before shelling out more cash for somewhat pricey models.


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Oh and sternguard can work pretty well in some builds too but i think its harder to drop a unit into a list and call it a day, they can take extra heavy weapons pretty cheaply and put extra razorbacks into your elite slots if your trying to run alot of razors. If your running them i think you should really build the list around them. Fortunately they're the easiest to represent in game if you have some extra marines you can just add a bunch of purity seals and tada!

The only experience I personally have with them is running them in a drop pod and taking combi-meltas and combi-flammers and i found that while they do kill a tank or two if their combat squaded on occasion its easy for an experienced player to guard against by spacing out, staying in reserve or putting infantry buffers around important vehicles and even in the best case scenario are pricey for what they do which is kill a tank/MC then immediately die the next turn.

Vanguard
terminators. without a doubt. there isnt much in this game that terminators, properly kitted out (and in sufficient numbers), cant handle.
AF

remember, terminators are not very useful without a land raider for them to ride in, unless they are shooty, but there are better options in the codex for shooting than shooty termies.

why do you need a land raider? they deep strike.
agree there are better shooting options.

deep striking is not reliable for many reasons...

1) the earliest they can assault is turn 3... while in a raider, a 1st turn assault is possible.

2) when they deep strike, they only have a 12" thread radius from where they land. Most enemies can move their valuable units away from there, or move bubble wrap units into place to absorb their charge.

3) when they deep strike, they are just asking to be focus fired down, because they are a critical target. even 2+/3+ saves will fall to focused fire.

4) deep striking assumes your taking a very offensive posture with your marines... something I don't always recommend. If you have no plan B, like using your terminators for a counter charge unit instead of an offensive unit, your pidgeonholed into either using your entire army as an assault force, or loosing 200 points of terminators. They are not very effective if you start them on foot and walk them up the field, either, because of their lack of fleet and low overall movement potential.

5) a land raider with lascannons and a multimelta packs more firepower than a devastator squad... for less points. (10 man dev squad with MM, 2x LC, +HB costs 270 pts... a LR w/ MM costs 260). Not that devastators are an effective use of points, but as far as heavy support options for firepower, there are worse options than a land raider. The ability to split accurate lascannon fire is also a benefit. Your not sacrificing anything by taking a raider, because it also adds a good deal of fire support to your army.

honors
land raiders arent reliable either. not in a world of vakrye riding melta vets termicide vulkan drop pod armies etc etc. deep striking delivers the terminators. whatever happens after that.... happens.
AF

Yeah deep striking delivers the terminators, but assault terminators spend their first turn getting their thunderhammers out of the overhead storage lockers, and chatting to the hot stewardess in the drop pod. All the while every nearby gun points towards them and takes a few shots. At least with a LR they get to attack as soon as they get out.

well termicide and vulkan drop pods can be beaten by just holding your raider in reserve and going second... and against guard with vendettas... well their overpowered anyway, and unless your playing a maximum overdrive style marine list, with asstons of firepower, your going to loose no matter what you do.