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Is it me but are termies a waste of money, for 200 points you only get five models, which mean if you engage a much larger unit in cc the odds are stacked against you,

Ok the saves are good 2+ and a 4+ invulnerable but is still vulnerable to mass attacks and a few unlucky die roles

It might just be that i gave never played a game where they didnt get wiped out. If any one an tell me any good tactics for using termies that could change my opinion I would apreciate it.

The most powerful termies are SS/TH termies with a few lightning claws mixed in. Say 3 TH and 2 Lightning claws.

The SS makes them very hard to kill, even low ap weapons struggle to kill them. The reason for this is that normally low ap weapons such as plasma are high in strength and low in ap, but low in rate of fire. As such the ability of SS termies to survive these hits makes them hard to kill. Not to mention the high strength thunder hammers will instant death things and wound monsterous creatures, whilst surviving the armour ignoring attacks they put out.

The lightning claws mixed in give a nasty armour ignoring punch that strikes at init 4 and improves damage output.

In short, they're not easy to kill by any means. Small arms fire is needed in huge amounts to defeat their 2+ save (so large amounts that they draw too much fire and allow the rest of the army to do whatever it likes) and low ap weaponry that bypassed their 2+ save can then be stopped with a 3++. Then in combat they have a nasty damage output as well.


That being said, they normally need a land raider or stormraven to ride in (and are often attached to a chaplain or librarian to improve their damage output even further) which makes them very expensive. However, for 200 points, they are well worth it. When going on 500-600 they are too expensive to be used that well in 1500 points in my opinion. But, in games like Killpoints or Capture the bases they present a threat that has to be dealt with. They will either camp their base and prevent you from taking it, or come for your base. In killpoints they will kill anything they touch (except a ctan) and so need to be dealt with.

As a result they have ups and downs; hard to kill but an obvious target. Nasty in damage but expensive in points. Ultimately, like anything in 40k, they work best in conjunction with a strong list, and not simply thought about on their own.

What kind of terminators are you talking here?

Mike257 wrote:Ok the saves are good 2+ and a 4+ invulnerable

Termies have 5+ invulnerable standard.

Nemesis Force Swords on Grey Knights, Mark of Tzeentch, and things like Iron Halos can up that to 4++, Storm Shields give you 3++, and Nemesis Warding Staves give 2++ in combat.

terminators of all kinds are good.


TH/SS are nearly indestructable due to a 2+ 3++, but lack ranged attacks.


Tactical Terminators are an excellent shooty unit. 2+ armor is normally good enough as there are few units with sufficient AP2 to kill them. Clyclone missile launchers are the primary reason to take them. 10 terminators can put out 4 Krak missiles on a target, or 4 Frag blasts and 20 stormbolter shots.

Deathwing and Wolfguard are basically the same as the 2 above, just mixed.


GKTs are slightly different. they are shooty with some nasty CC tricks. Stormbolters and Psycannons can rip anything apart at range while Swords mean a 4+ invuln(which can prove annoying against any power attacks) in CC. Falchions and Halberds sacrifice the 4+ invuln for a stronger CC attack(+2I or +2A) Deamonhammers give you the ability to tackle vehicles of any kind in CC.

Termies just aren't something you can drop in a list and call it a day. Properly supported they can be very good and can be used as the your main assault unit in a mid-field army or as counter-assault unit in a more shooty army. They hurt bad when they jump out of a land raider and smack you but its easy to shoot them off the board if they have to walk the whole way there or teleport in with no assistance.

TH/SS termies rock!

Now if your talking BASIC terminators... they suck lol

They do suck! I was just looking at a all GK terminator list with 52 models at 2500 points, if I ran a 100+ modek purifier GKSS list, it wouldn't even be close.

they require a different set of tactics.


GKTs are a primarily shooty army. the 2+ save makes up for the loss in bodies.



and Tactical terminators don't suck. they fulfill a different role that people often overlook. 10 Terminators with 2 Clyclone missile launchers can mow down just about anything.

Basic termies dont suck at all! You need to keep in mind what you expect them to do, and who you expect to face.

For example, for 230 you can have either 5 termies with a cyclone or 10 tacs, missile/flamer/fist/rhino. The tac's are scoring, but have half the missiles, 1/5th the fists, and the same survivability to small arms. At long range the termies have more bolter shots, but at short range where the tac's get more bolter shots they cant assault.

At some point try 10 termies with 2 cyclones in place of the more popular 5 THSS termies in a land raider. About the same points, but versus the ever popular meltaspam the 10 tac termies are superior.

Saying terminators are bad outside of a context is just wrong wrong wrong.

-They are good with Shrike.
-Super cheap chaos temrinators with special weaponds deepstriking and homing in on marks.
- Thunder hammer/storm Shields
- Wolf Guard shenanigans/wound alocation in a landraider or a drop pod list.
- Wolf guard in temrinator armour with a wolf banner. Reroll saves of 1.
- Blood angels with furius charge lightning claws.
- Blood angels space hulk models will winn you best armie competisions.
- Dark templars with furius charge and prefered enemy.
- Dark templars with 2 cyclone and tank hunter.
- GK I6 insaneness.
- GK palladins with 2 psycannons vs a big target.
- Dark Angels amasing all around CC squad with cyclone missile launcher and DS first round! (Onto that scouting bike squad.)
- VS missile spam you rather want Terminators then 3+, although the same can not be sead vs small arms fire. (although palladins are better for the later.
- Terminators are an iconic troop choise that looks all kinds of awsome.


Terminators bad in the wrong list? Certanly.
Terminators bad? Hardly.

Now stop trolling.

I drop my 5 SB/PF termies in the back field to destroy enemy big guns/wreck feth back there. They are the AOBR termies, so that explains the crappy loadout.

They usually destroy a squad or two and a big gun of sorts, clearing the field for my tac to capture as much as they can.

When I am running 50 man IG blobs, however, I can destroy a 5 man terminator squad in 1 round of shooting if lucky, 1+ combat if not. 150 lasgun shots plus 60 CC attacks just math hammer them to death, especially when I have power weapons.

-cgmckenzie

As BA player i do field mine either as 4LC/1TH/SS+TDA Priest + TDA Lib (my fav death star) or simple 5TH/SS+TDA Priest. The second mentioned, can take a lot of punishment even from small arms fire ... deadly for MC's and vehicles (str 9 on charge, moreover very durable)

~BT

I got my TH/SS termies just because "oooh, those look cool" in the first place. They have never dissapointed me. My usual opponents hate them. They are one of the best units you can get if backed up properly. If you use them alone without any back up... not gonna work.

I have never played with the shooty versions but what I can tell by their equipment they certainly are not bad. They can be used to destroy pretty much anything. But as usual without back up they too will die fast.

I personally have always found my Terminators to be lackluster in my Vulkan lists. They're a huge point sink for what they do, and often don't have the attacks to handle common threats. Usually a few will die before you even get to swing and *poof*, you spent almost 500 points on the unit and their transport.

BUT, and this is a pretty important 'but', Terminators are incredibly popular in my metagame, and the prevalence of low-AV spam and 2+ saves popular with GK, Space Marines, Deathwing, etc. has forced me to include a ton of AP2 weaponry. If you aren't prepared to handle Terminators, they'll walk all over you.

Im sort of tempted by shooty assault terminators , less 'all or nothing' play, more all rounder with punch and staying power
with 1500 + armies cc terminators might find a more target rich environment , the distance to the nearest enemy units being less the more of them there are on the table


i have a sneaky feeling that cc terminators can just be left rampaging around in your rear while you close down on what few troops the terminator player has left on the field...sort of swapping ends with your enemy lol

basically running away from the cc terminators by advancing all your units into the enemies weakened midfield , sort of battle o'cannae tactic




bottom line , if they are on the table and not on your team , you are going to be thinking about them ... and thinking about them a lot

Mastercrafted Psycannons on Paladins do a pretty ridiculous amount of damage, not to mention all the stormbolter shots coming along with it.

TH/SS terminators are absurdly hard to kill.

As a BA player I run my tactical termies with a sanguinary priest and I have a vicious 11 model anchor that can absorb a lot of fire and dish out serious pain as well.

I usually walk onto the board (depending on my opponent) to take advantage of cover and avoid pie plates.

They are slow but just try to ignore them.

Back Templars terminators of all vareities are awesome! 4 tank hunter kraks per turn without having to pay for 10 termies? Yes please! FC assault terminators with lightning claws, with one or two TH/SS guys for walkers and AP, is also really powerful, although it more or less requires an LR to work.

You have to play test stuff to see how you like it. My son and I did some play testing the other day, and a group of five WG termmies totally tore up a whole unit of 10 GH. Grab some regular models and play them as TDA. I'm willing to bet you will like what you see.

Ive played a few games with my termies and never had problems. one game lost 2 early due to terrible dice on one and the next game didnt loose a man just running standard termies wit a heavy flamer. the heavy flamer wrecks horde armies like my buddies IG. then the rest try to finish off with storm bolters and if all else fails rain death in CC with PF