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Why everyone use Terminators with Land Raider (and Stormraven)? Terminator armor can make deep strike and go wherever they want. Is it not reliable?

 Freakazoitt wrote:
Why everyone use Terminators with Land Raider (and Stormraven)? Terminator armor can make deep strike and go wherever they want. Is it not reliable?

In short, no. It's not reliable. Scatter + Mishap makes it a significantly more risky prospect than rolling up in a Land Raider. Coupled with the fact that you can't assault after deep striking, and most terminators are built for assault, being stuck in the open is much less safe than hiding inside a Land Raider or Stormraven for a turn.

Also, u're in a fancy lil cluster and vulnerable even to basic flamers not to mention ap2 blasts that are so common nowadayz and some of them have interceptors. Still, i think that assault termies can be used this way just to frighten off the opponent and eat some fire. Though, such use is quite situational and works only when you allready have something frightening nearby.
And u're pretty dependant on reserve rolls but that's an issue with a stormraven also.

My summary of reasons it doesn't happen very often.

1) Deep Strike is random and that scares players who'd rather everything is under their control.

2) After a Deep Strike your unit is generally in range of every weapon your opponent has and is nicely stacked for blasts and templates. This is even worse now that Tau have a habit of tossing St 8, AP2 large blasts around with interceptor, possibly removing the terminators before their (weak) shooting has a chance to do anything.

3) Terminator shooting is generally weak, so they lose little hiding inside a transport until it's time to strike.

4) Land Raiders and Storm Ravens also bring notable firepower to the board, somewhat offsetting their points investment.

Now, this is not applicable to all terminators, for example, the Space Wolves Wolf Guard Terminators don't have their own deepstrike option, requiring a Drop Pod to do so. This actually is a better option than the usual deepstrike because it allows the Wolf Guard to spread out a bit before the big blasts start happening. The fact that every Wolfguard can take a combi-weapon also provides impressive capability for that first shooting phase after landing. Finally, using the drop pods makes the arrival of the Wolf Guard terminators less random and less prone to mishap. It also avoids the possibility of that 500 point combination of terminators and land raider get stranded in the deployment zone by a high powered weapon strike in the first turn (as I've done once or twice to my friends with Tau).

Still, for standard terminators, the advantages of Stormraven or Landraider generally outweigh the disadvantadges of using them, so that will typically be the way they arrive.