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I usually play in the 1,500 range and bring 5 Assault Terminator and a Land Raider.

It's a massive investment (450-460 pts) and quite a gamble.

Sometimes, it really pays off... the other guys is ill-equipped to deal with Armor 14 and the LR and Termie dominate the game, all but winning it by themselves. I've had the Terminators them kill 2 Deff Dread, 1 Big Mek, 4 Mega Nobz and Gazhkull (sp?) while the LR destroyed a Battle Wagon and burned tons of Boyz (it was a Redeemer) in 1 game for example.

At other times thought, it fail completly... the other guy has a lot of anti-tank or simply gets lucky with 1 Las Cannon... not to mention that while Terminators are really mean on paper, rolling 1s can always happen... so yeah, when the 'Terminator Spearhead' fails, I'm usually dead in the water.

I keep thinking I need to drop the whole thing and just get more troops out and this is a sentiment that's echoed by many of the people who beat me - Basically more experienced players seem to think it's a huge point sink and to be fair, opponents against whom it works great are often not all that good to begin with...

I want to give it a shot, but I'm so used to having them that I'm having trouble figuring out what to use to replace them. They've been the foundation of my army for several months now and I almost feel 'naked' when I design a list without them.

So... here are my 2 main problems, hopefully some of you guys can address my issue and help me figure out how to change my tactics...

1 - HQ Choice.

I usually put my HQ in with the Terminator, he's the 6th man in the Land Raider. This add even more striking power to the group and also allows me to have my tactical squad inside Rhinos... Everytime I don't bring the LR, I need to combat squad a Tactical Squad so that the HQ can go in a rhino with 5 of em and leave 5 behind... usually, the 5 guys left behind end up not doing much (easy kill point or easily removed from an objective).

2 - How do you deal with other Elites?

Pretty simple, but what the hell do you do against Monstrous Creatures, Daemon Princes, squad of Banshees (with Doom), Death Companies - the list goes on - without Assault Terminators? Short of C'tans and very bad rolls (I've rolled 4 1 on 10 wounds once, boy did that suck), the Assault Terminators have a good to very good chance of taking out anything sent their way.

From my experience so far, Assault Marines are really worth it and while Space Marine shooting in general is quite accurate, it lacks the mass necessary to stop those truly powerful units.

So what do you do exactly? Seems like a dumb question, but while Tactical Marines are solid all around units, there's always something the other armies can do to make them their bitches.... still, what more experienced players are telling me is that I should just load on Tact Squad and go crazy... and I guess I just don't get it.

Sternguard can generally take care of other elites. Wound MC's on a 2+ with hellfire, deny MEQ's armor saves with vengeance, shoot 30" and deny 4+ armor saves with kraken, and deny GEQ's from taking cover saves while ignoring their armor with dragonfire. If supported by an assault squad it could do nasty things. Double tap with the sternguard and have the assault squad clean up.

Sternguard are Great, and then take Kantor as your HQ, this allows them to be scoring and makes your units stubbron, which in my expereince is the best CC buff in the game for holding out a turn for back up. It really depends on the rest of you list, throw that up here and we can help you flesh it out.

I have a terrible obsession with Plasma Weapons.

My Tacs are loaded with Plasma guns, combi Plasma and Plasma Cannons. They eat up MEQs and MCs... prodvided you dont have bad luck. A better thing is that they aren't elite at all.

I have the same problem as you... inversely, I just can't make terminators work. They usually die most of the time due to volume of fire. I experienced losing 2 Assault Termies from FRFSRF Lasguns, that experience made me lose hope over terminators =/.

I have proxied legion of the damned a few times instead of relying on terminators. They have been iffy enouugh I havn't bought the real unit yet.

Their 3+ invuln save is as good as a storm shield against heavy stuff. But not having a 2+ armor save means a hail of small arms fire still hurts.

I tend to use them same as tactical termies, drop them about midfield and pick a target each time. They can still lay down a wall of bolts and their special weapons have more variety to them.

Slow and Purposefull is not that big a downside. Sure, sometimes you snake eyes on their movement but at midfield they are generally where I need them to be.

I have had mixed success with them. Against IG and an Eldar force they were bolt gun spitting rocks that refused to go down. Against Orcs they got eaten alive twice, first by a full unit of stormboys, then a mob of thirty slugga boys and PK Nob. But seriously, most anything gets overwhelmed by orcs unless they have backup around.

Remember, they ARE NOT space marines. They can't combat squad, do not have ATSKNF, and don't have combat tactics.

Your example is a big reason why I don't like Death Star units. At 1500 points a third of your army can be taken out of the game turn 1 depending on the opponent. I used to play Deathwing with 2 Landraiders at 1500 points and got tired of the army for this reason. It was rock, paper scissors 40k. Can your opponent take out a LR? Chances are they can. Many armies can say easily. If not, then you wreck. Too boring.

At 2000 points the setup you have is ok, but at 1500 there is just so much else to take. Drop podding Stern guard seem like a good choice to add to your force. Combi meltas are nice to get a free tank or MC kill. You could also add either MM attack bikes or MM/HF speeders for some fast anti tank and big guy as well as anti-horde. If you take the bikes you can give your HQ a bike and relic blade to add some punch to the squad and act as mini daemon prince. Another choice would be to run the termies as a shooting squad with either a cyclone missile launcher or assault cannon and add a Librarian to the unit and GOI around the board. The nice thing about marines is the fact that there are many options. You just need to figure out what works for you and the synergy between the units. Still, dropping that 450 points will give you plenty of room to do it.

Veldrain, LoTD don't need ATSKNF, they are fearless iirc.

Fearless is actually a bit of a Detriment to the Legion of the Damned. If they get beaten in close combat, they take even more saves. With only a 3++, every failed save HURTS.

Ya, but they still can't be sweeping advanced. 3+ sure beats a 5 or 6+ though!

Tarkhand
I think you're on the right track. While jumping the badguys with Land Raider termies can be really ugly, in the long term all you're doing is teaching them the value of a few well placed multi melta shots. Raider rush is a good intermediate level tactic but you will want to move past it...

As for what to replace it with that depends alot on what particular variety of astartes you're playing. The main challenge is to deliver the pain with a unit that can't be deprived of its mobility the way assault terminators in a land raider can.

For blue marines command squads on bikes decked out with weapon options are almost (not quite) the equivalent of assault terminators. If you throw in khan for furious charge or a chaplain for preferred enemy they can get pretty ugly. if everyone has a flame thrower their pre-charge shooting can be so devastating that the assault is a mop up. Large terminator squads using gate of infinity to jump around the board can be pretty good too. It's really terrifying to alot of people to watch 10 terminators and an IC jump two feet across the board in one turn. It messes with their head

For blood angels I recommend normal assault marines with chaplains and sanguinary priests. You can load up on the power weapon attacks on the independent characters and the shear volume of init 5 str 5 attacks can come out to be about the same as a mass of power weapon attacks. Sanguinary Guard can work too but they're a much riskier play.

For space wolves thunderwolf calvary are easily a stronger option. They're harder to get rid of than the terminators, have better mobility, hit about as hard, and can help you deliver up to 4 wolf lords right to the heart of the enemy. IMO a good space wolf army could easily be 4 squads of grey hunters w/ meltas in razor backs w/ heavy flamers and the rest wolf lords on thunder wolf mounts and thunderwolf squads.

AF

For those saying know my list would help with advice, here's what I got...

A typical list for me would be:

HQ

Terminator Librarian

Troop

Tactical Squad (Rhino, PF, Melta Gun, Plasma Cannon) X 2

5 Scouts (CC, PF)

Elite

5 Assault Terminator (dedicated Land Raider Redeemer with Multi-Melta)

Dreadnought (Dedicated Drop Pod)

Fast

Land Speeder Storm (with heavy flamer)

Heavy

Dakka Predator


Basic strategy is to have the LSS/Scout and Drop Pod/Dreadnought attacks on turn 1 and blow stuff up while the rest of my army move forward the fight, with the Predator providing support mainly by trying to break light transport (like rhinos) or shooting long range supports (like Lootas, etc).



Points may not be flush at 1,500, I'm just going off the top of my head here.

Stuff I have that gets swapped out when I feel like it:
- A Vindicator
- 5 Terminator (assault on black reach)
- Another Tactical Squad (with rhino)
- Pedro Kantor
- A Space Marine Captain
- 5 Assault Marine

The Assault Marine Sarge, Tactical Sarge and two of my Terminators are magnetised to allow for weapon swaps (PW, PF or Assault Cannon, HF for the Termies, etc)

Stuff I still have to build:
- 5 more assault marine
- 5 more scouts
- 5 more Terminators (I took the special weapon out for my termies, but I haven't assembled them yet).
- 1 Land Speeder
- 10 Tactical Marine (which I intend to bling up to make into Sternguards instead, in order to play around with Mr. Kantor).

I like my Land Raider full of Terminators... I use a Godhammer Pattern with a multi-melta and keep it back to support my gunline with long range shooting while setting up for a really nasty counter charge.

Use it as a way to supplement your army and screen it from Rail Cannons and Drop Pods and it will never fail you.

If you dont want the termies than for your other elites you need to figure out if you want a close combat army, or a distance based one

You should get more tacticals.

JSK-Fox wrote:You should get more tacticals.

Very much not this, 20 tacticals and 5 scouts is enough at 1500pts.

AbaddonFidelis wrote:Tarkhand
I think you're on the right track. While jumping the badguys with Land Raider termies can be really ugly, in the long term all you're doing is teaching them the value of a few well placed multi melta shots. Raider rush is a good intermediate level tactic but you will want to move past it...

As for what to replace it with that depends alot on what particular variety of astartes you're playing. The main challenge is to deliver the pain with a unit that can't be deprived of its mobility the way assault terminators in a land raider can.

For blue marines command squads on bikes decked out with weapon options are almost (not quite) the equivalent of assault terminators. If you throw in khan for furious charge or a chaplain for preferred enemy they can get pretty ugly. if everyone has a flame thrower their pre-charge shooting can be so devastating that the assault is a mop up. Large terminator squads using gate of infinity to jump around the board can be pretty good too. It's really terrifying to alot of people to watch 10 terminators and an IC jump two feet across the board in one turn. It messes with their head

For blood angels I recommend normal assault marines with chaplains and sanguinary priests. You can load up on the power weapon attacks on the independent characters and the shear volume of init 5 str 5 attacks can come out to be about the same as a mass of power weapon attacks. Sanguinary Guard can work too but they're a much riskier play.

For space wolves thunderwolf calvary are easily a stronger option. They're harder to get rid of than the terminators, have better mobility, hit about as hard, and can help you deliver up to 4 wolf lords right to the heart of the enemy. IMO a good space wolf army could easily be 4 squads of grey hunters w/ meltas in razor backs w/ heavy flamers and the rest wolf lords on thunder wolf mounts and thunderwolf squads.

AF

These are pretty bad suggestions, gating Termies scream "Shoot me with blasts and stay 12" away". The Command Squad with a Captain can pack a punch but costs just as much as Termie Squad and a LR so he would be using the "death star" type of tactic. And while they cant loose thier mobility they can rather easily loose the Apot. A Bike Command Squad would also require that the army itself is centered around Bikes which it appears that his army isnt.

As for the SW, he doesnt want his 460 pt unit anymore since its too much of a hit or miss unit and your advice is to replace it with a 1200pts unit instead?

Ted
he said he was tired of getting his land raider shot out from under him. All of my suggestions answered that concern.

Yes teleporting termies scream shoot me. Ideally everything in the army will scream shoot me. Threatening things is good not bad. Your guys are going to get shot at don't be a pussy.

The bikes are abou as expensive as the lr that's true. Look you have to pay for quality what can I say. You can't get tn 5 feel no pain power weapon storm shield preferred enemy flame thrower 18" charge marines on the cheap. Does that really surprise you?

Thunderwolves are not a hit or miss unit. They are a hit unit.

Death star units are where it's at. If op wants to find a better deathstar than the termies I can help. If he wants to play a bunch of troops then I'd discourage it. Especially for blue marines their troops are garbage.
AF

Yes teleporting termies scream shoot me. Ideally everything in the army will scream shoot me. Threatening things is good not bad. Your guys are going to get shot at don't be a pussy.

Really? Giving out good advice and then getting called that... sure you are getting shot, but you are not serving your units on a sliver platter...or bending over and asking the opponent to deliver...unless you like that kind of stuff.

If you run something as big and nasty its a pych job to. Take your termie/land raider death star, for example, if you run an assault squad, led by a chaplin with pack. Your death star will take fire, and if it is, Many many people underestimate the punch that the chappy and Asquad pack, expecially when they pick their spot and hit some softer unit because they were overlooked.

Well, I bit the bullet.

I went with this list:

HQ

Mr. Pedro Kantor

Troops

Tactical Squad (Rhino, PF, Melta Gun, Plasma Cannon) X 2

Tactical Squad (Rhino, PF, Plasma Gun, Plasma Cannon) [Would have gone with Meltagun, but I only have 2 and I hate not being WYISWYG]

5 Scouts (CC, PF)

Elite

Dreadnought (Replaced Stormbolter with Heavy Flamer, Dedicated Drop Pod)

Fast

Land Speeder Storm (with heavy flamer)

Heavy

Vindicator (with the shovel)

Tri-Las Predator

And I'm now 3 win in 3 games... against Blood Angel, Chaos Space Marine and Tau respectively. The Blood Angel and Tau I usually beat anyway, but the Chaos Space Marine guy? Heh, I'm now 2W-7L-2D against him... so a win against him is pretty damn telling to me. Especially since it was a sound beating.

Still, I'm not a big fan of the Tri-Las Predator... I'm thinking of dropping him to a Dakka Pred and 'upgrade' 1 of my Tactical Squad to a 9man Sternguard groups... they will still be scoring and this way I won't have to combat Squad in order to have Pedro in a Rhino. My math shows me that a 9 man Sternguard Squad + PF/Rhino is worth 285 points... my plasma gun Tact is worth 245... so after downgrading the Tri-Las Pred into a Dakka Pred, I still have 40 points to play with here... going 8 Combi weapon maybe a bit overkill tho... but heh, I guess I could upgrade Dreadnaught to Iron Clad or something.

the stern guard are way better than the tacticals, definitely try to upgrade them.... since they're both scoring..... since that removes the main reason to take tacticals it seems like you'd just want to do the bare bones minimum to fill the troops part of the FOC.

A Death Star unit is doubtless going to draw a lot of fire; this can easily be turned to your advantage. After you've drawn your opponent into throwing everything at that Land Raider, you have a predictable target to fling drop-pod Sternguard or Assault Squads at.