Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Chaos Terminators are about as cheap as they get at 31 points a pop. However, you lose a great deal of what makes loyalist terminators so great. ATSKNF. Powerfists. Storm Bolters. Cyclone Missile Launchers. Thunderhammers and Storm Shields.

If you expect your terminators to be 2+/3++ then chaos terminators probably aren't for you. However, if you're looking for flexibility in your units then I think terminators can add a lot to your chaos list.

What marks is everyone giving their Terminators? I see the benefit of Slaanesh for their Icon and Khorne if you want to be close combat. Tzeentch is good too as a constant 4++ that is available, but if you're gunned down by bolters you'll never use this. Nurgle is... different because as cool as T5 is you're not getting ID'd, you don't have FNP and anything that is going to ignore your armor save is, for the most part, going to wound on a 2+ anyway.

Right now I'm looking at:

10 Terminators
2 Reaper Autocannons
8 Combi weapons
MoS
IoE

That's 10 I5 Terminators with FNP for 80 points more than a regular squad of Terminators. The price would go down by 25 points if you did MoK with the IoW. It would go down by 20 pionts if you did MoN. It would go down by 5 points if you took the IoV instead. However, I wanted to give Abbadon FNP and I thought this would be a pretty tough squad to be in.

Run em bare bones man. Flamers at most, and ignore marks.

They are good when they are cheap. Once you start throwing on a bunch of glitter on them, they get very pricy and cost prohibitive.

I usually go unmarked, they just get too expensive. I always run them as either suicide squads or as counter assault walkers.

The deathstar just isnt going to do much.


As you have it, with abby, that is 750 points. Other than 2 twinlinked autocannons it has very limited range. It cant do much outside of 12" and it is painfully slow. Your enemy will ignore it.

Or they wont. Str8 denys FNP and AP2 denies your armor save. There are a lot of weapons with range that will mince your 750 points. There are similarly lots of combat units that will shred this.

I feel that the Terminators are used best when Deep Striking. I think they need to be in larger units and I think that the Mark of Khorne is probably the best choice. Part of my reasoning is that charges are uncertain things in 6E and a LOT of points get killed over the course of a 5 game tourney becasue of failed charges. Khornate Terminators just don't miss charges very often. Any survivability upgrades they miss out on by not taking another choice can be somewhat compensated for by intelligent delivery and target saturation. Those are forms of defense as surely as a save is.

So if i am looking for my personal best chance of making people pay, i go khorns on the Terminators. Not because i dont see virtue in the other options. i really do. But because i just think that a failed charge is a bigger deal than losing one extra termi to shooting.

Would it be okay to do 30 Terminators with Abbadon? I'd run some min squads of CSM in rhinos with some Obliterators for support.

Abbaddon
10 Terminators
10 Terminators
10 Terminators
5 CSM in a rhino
5 CSM in a rhino
3 Obliterators
1 Obliterator
1 Obliterator

I think that you really do need to take into account their cheapness if you want CSM Terminators to work for you. If you upgrade them so that they cost like loyalist terminators they'll perform like them -- and Loyalist terminators aren't in that good of a place right now.

You want to abuse the fact that they are 31 points for a 2+ save. I'd run a 10 man block with no special weapons, expect maybe a few combi-plasma/melta or something. I'd keep them unmarked, or potentially MoK them and possibly, possibly, MoN. MoN is great in that it makes them a lot more survivable against small arms fire, but the problem is that they then become about as expensive as Loyalist terminators, and again, cheapness is the way to go here, at least as I see it now. I wouldn't do MoS, as generally the rule is power axes for them rather than anything else (cheap AP2 is big), so I bonuses don't help. The FnP banner is nice, but again, you're making expensive terminators when your main advantage is that you get probably the cheapest TDA dudes in the whole game.

I'd then find a way to make them fearless (i.e. put a Lord with them).

I don't like Reaper Autocannons much anymore -- it's too many points for something you can get cheaper by just getting MoN autocannon Havocs.

The reason you don't see a lot of loyalist terminator lists is simply because 2+ saves at 40 points is still a bit too expensive, even with the nerf to power weapons. 2+ saves are twice as good as 3+ saves, but when you get a tactical marine for 13-15 points, two of those is much less than a single loyalist terminator, so against everything except the heldrake, marines are more survivable than terminators (and people aren't taking tacticals much these days either). A CSM Terminator for 31 points is right at that point where it's about equal to two 3+ save dudes in cost, and it has the 5++ to help out a bit, and you get the power weapon and TL bolter in the bargain.

I agree with running them naked for the most part.
Add combi's if you're deepstriking in or MoK if you're giving them a Land Raider.

Power weapon mix is mauls and axes and with maybe a fist in there.

This. The axes are great, but with the sudden rise of Eldar and Tau, a power maul or two couldn't hurt.

 Musashi363 wrote:
This. The axes are great, but with the sudden rise of Eldar and Tau, a power maul or two couldn't hurt.

the mauls have always been great. Adding damage against AV, MCs, ID T3, striking at init 4, or sometimes 5 and increasing damage output through strength gain.

Terminators dont need AP3, and if they do. Single LCs arent terrible

I like mauls to compensate for not having free Krak grenades. I'd be more likely to bring a power fist if people were actively using walkers more often

I've ran mine as a 3 pack suicide deep strikers w/ melta to kill something big and scary or Nurgled up/assault based in a raider w/ Typhus for a big ugly beat stick.

What makes CSM terminators so neat, as you note, is that they're cheap. What REALLY makes them neat, though, is that for the same price (well, depending on the codex), you can take terminators with combi-weapons. A CML or two is laughably bad compared to what 10 combi-meltas or plasmas can do on the drop.

Once you've gotten to there, I think there still is room for marks. MoT is going to be infuriating to shoot plasma at, and they can make their bolters soulblaze, which does help them out in the anti-horde game. Likewise, MoS and MoN help with durability against different weapon types, and the +I or Fear help with hordes. Really, it's not too much cost to help make them that more durable, and fill their role better. I mean, you're spending 10% to make lasguns HALF as good with MoN (and bolters only two thirds as good).

However, I like me my doubling down with the mark of khorne. The 4 attacks apiece on the charge is also going to make you better against hordes, and marines... and, well... everything. You sacrifice a damage upgrade and a durability upgrade for two damage upgrades. The idea is that you either lose an extra guy or two, but make up his damage with the extra attacks, or you don't, and then you get to straight do more damage.

Plus, those combi-weapons are great, but after that you're sort of stuck with close combat, which isn't bad, by any means... but it's not truly great. Not in the way than an extra 10 power axe attacks on the charge can make them.

I run a squad of five with combi-weapons and MoS/IoE to accompany my MoS lord. Cheap enough to be aggressive with while still enough of a threat that my opponent has to devote significant resource to stopping.