Terminators and Eighth Edition.

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**the_scotsman**

Gary_1986 wrote:
How about just stating that Terminator doesn't suffer debuffs against AP weapons? So, their 2+ save applies across the board unless the weapons AP is 3 or higher their armour save value. So AP3 still renders their armour useless (what used to be AP2 weapons, like Las cannons) but nothing short of the absolute most brutal weapons do, and even then still get their 5+ Crux Terminatus invulnerable save.

It would mean in the example I gave, the Necrons would four Immortals against a Terminator but it would retain its 2+ armour save and multiple wounds (I'd still make a case to increase this to 3). At least then the slow, cumbersome Terminator MIGHT make it into close combat where it'll junk the Necrons. But as it is now, there is no real chance the Terminator can win unless it has STELLAR luck with rolls.

I'm having a little sortie against a Necron force this weekend, and he is bringing a squad of Immortals opposite the Knight Terminators I field. I am thinking the sole hope I have is Deep Strike and get into combat with them, or at least close enough to be able to rapid fire storm bolters. See I'm thinking of fielding a Brother Captain, a pair of Strike Squads, Terminators, Interceptors and Purgation Squad.

It's gonna be first 40K Eighth Edition for either of us so I expect it to be reasonable. I think if I can get into close combat I'm sorted because the Terminators will mince his Warriors and Immortals, as will generic Strike Squads thanks to those Nemesis weapons. Its being shot at I'm concerned about. All of his guns have an AP value, so the best save I'm looking at is a 4+ for Marines, 3+ for Terminators and most of the ranged weapons Knights field have no AP value. Granted Storm Bolters will put down a fair bit of fire at close range.

So I'll see how the Terminators fare.

I'm confused - why do you keep saying that the terminator is like lumbering across the board here? Wouldn't the terminator either A, stand at 24" in cover and use bolter drill to shoot 4 shots per turn at the Immortals or B, deep strike in right next to them to try and get to melee combat?

What's an immortal do - 15ppm for 2 shots S5 Ap- D1 at 24", right? so 1 term vs 3 immortals would be them having a 50/50 chance of dealing 1 wound per turn to the terminator, and the terminator would have about a 50/50 chance of killing an immortal per turn. That's not great odds to fight at range, but it would still take 4 turns for the immortals to kill him at full strength. If he deep strikes in, he might get in the first turn, and he's likely to get in the second.

**Martel732**

I dont think you would have fared any better.

**fraser1191**

Insectum7 wrote:
Martel732 wrote:

Except terminators cost a fortune and eldar could spam the gak out of -3. How many 6+ can you make? Not enough. Terminators didn't work primarily because of their cost and the cost of their screens. As I said, marines were losing their entire army by turn 2 consistently in my group. If pulsa rokkit spam, sometimes the marines didn't get to do much of anything other than shoot a few orks.

In your group.

Honestly I would have loved to have played in your group for all of 8th up till the new codex. The only time I wasn't tabled on turn 2 with marines was when I played Admech

**Martel732**

In 2nd ed?

**craggy**

The problem with small model count, elite armies is that you don't buy many models.

**Blackie**

Terminators just suffer from having too much competitiion for their role. Imperium can have 300+ datasheets, so if you want tough elites that hit hard just take custodes. SW have wulfen, etc... If you want shooty termies, well, there are even more units that do the same job.

It's basically the same issue that ork units like nobz or warbikers have: there's other stuff that does the same things but more efficiently, period, even if they aren't really trash, like terminators.

**Karol**

Yes, but that is for regular marines. A regular marine player can decide that terminators don't work, so he is just going to have to use intercessors or scouts as his infantry.

**The Newman**

Karol wrote:
Yes, but that is for regular marines. A regular marine player can decide that terminators don't work, so he is just going to have to use intercessors or scouts as his infantry.

A regular Marine player who decides Terminators don't work isn't going to replace them with Intercessors or Scouts. He's going to look at Aggressors or Centurions, unless all he's after is deep striking onto objectives turn 2 for scenario play. Then he might look at Reivers since they do that job for half the points.

**vipoid**

Regarding damage, might it help to have a Stratagem similar to the new Unyielding Chitin Stratagem for Tyranids?

Basically, when someone shoots at a unit of Terminators, you could pay 1CP to reduce all damage to them by 1 (to a minimum of 1) for the rest of the phase.

**Martel732**

Nah, just treat D:2 as D:1. Leave higher damage alone.

**The Deer Hunter**

The problem of Terminators is that they cannot have rules that might overshadow Primaris, so GW keep them subpar.

GW well know how to do good and powerful rules and give them to primaris units, discounting a handful of points on top of that.
Primaris must be sold, not oldmarines.

**fraser1191**

The Deer Hunter wrote:
The problem of Terminators is that they cannot have rules that might overshadow Primaris, so GW keep them subpar.

GW well know how to do good and powerful rules and give them to primaris units, discounting a handful of points on top of that.
Primaris must be sold, not oldmarines.

Yeah I keep forgetting Primaris existed before 8th

**Aash**

I think the problem with terminators is Centurions. I've always thought that the terminators should have the statline the centurions have got. It means that they don't really have any room to improve the terminators because they would have too much overlap with Centurions.

**Tibs Ironblood**

Chaos Terminators seem pretty alright. 23 points base and 26 points for their cheapest loadout isn't too terrible.

**NurglesR0T**

The Deer Hunter wrote:
The problem of Terminators is that they cannot have rules that might overshadow Primaris, so GW keep them subpar.

GW well know how to do good and powerful rules and give them to primaris units, discounting a handful of points on top of that.
Primaris must be sold, not oldmarines.

Until the eventual Primaris Terminators are released replacing normal termies entirely. (comes fully equipped with a semi latin trademarkable name as well!)

**bullyboy**

Terminators got better with Shock Assault, then immediately got worse with what doctrines do to them (not what they do with it). -1 and -2AP bolters. They have no chance.

Just have them ignore -1 or -2AP (so basically unmodified 2+ save vs those weapons) and then when -3 kicks in, they go to their 5+ invuln. In which case, just get rid of invuln and state that they ignore -1 and -2AP. Hvy weapons should punch through, and will do so. Massed lower AP fire will also do the trick.

In that respect, are Salamanders players even using Terminators? I'm holding out that Deathwing get some love in next PA book, mostly from strats, but ust getting to use Transhuman Physiology on Deathwing Knights looks fun.

**Gary_1986**

To be fair, I just had first game of Eighth Edition this afternoon.

Knights vs. Necrons. It went better than I hoped it would to be fair. I was worried about his Immortals and their -2AP but in the grand scheme of things the Immortals didn't accomplish much, I had a good game with dice. Deep Striking Terminators is 100% the direction to go, once I was in Close Combat it was game over to be fair.

I had a flick through his Chapter Approved 2019 book and the Knight point reductions helped a ton. Meant I could field another HQ and two Razorbacks, which earned their keep twice over.

**thepowerfulwill**

They arent as good as they used to be, but I love them so much I camt help using them.

**Roknar**

thepowerfulwill wrote:
They arent as good as they used to be, but I love them so much I camt help using them.

this ^^^
The Terminator design is so iconic and awesome. I even went out of my way to make a banner despite not intending to actually use any in game terms.
I will go out of my way to try and include them somehow.

**Gary_1986**

To be fair, the Terminators were incredibly effective paired with Sanctuary. 2+ with 4+ invulnerable was rather useful and I didn't fail the roll to do it once.

See since it's first game in an age I took a fair few different powers, kept Strike Squads down to as small as possible to accomplish that. Hammerhand is a useful power too.

When boosted with Hammerhand the teleporter squad was rather useful at killing his FLAYED ONES.

Haven't tried Vortex or Gate mind, but I was surprised how much the PSYCHIC powers boosted the overall potential and those Nemesis Force Weapons are brutal against multi-wound enemies.

**Insectum7**

Roknar wrote:
thepowerfulwill wrote:
They arent as good as they used to be, but I love them so much I camt help using them.

this ^^^
The Terminator design is so iconic and awesome. I even went out of my way to make a banner despite not intending to actually use any in game terms.
I will go out of my way to try and include them somehow.

It is true, they are supremely iconic and cool and it hurts to not take them.

**the_scotsman**

I think at this point if I was bringing gk, it'd be terminators over strikes. I'd bring a small force with an HQ and a large troop squad and add them in to my inquisition army. Captain gets the retool charges wl trait, and they get both sanctuary and hammerhand, making sure to have a couple of warding staves in the squad to get a 3++ with sanctuary.

**NinthMusketeer**

If I played terminators it would be to do it while playing stoned* which is to say any pretense of taking the game seriously would be thrown out the window.

*Don't worry its legal here.

**The Newman**

NinthMusketeer wrote:
If I played terminators it would be to do it while playing stoned* which is to say any pretense of taking the game seriously would be thrown out the window.

*Don't worry its legal here.

I hear Congress is trying to legalize it at the federal level, which is all I'm going to say about it so I don't go off on a rant.

I honestly think if you're taking 40k seriously on any level you're probably doing it wrong. The point is to have fun after all, and if you can't laugh at having your army blown of the table by turn two you're not going to be having fun.

**Togusa**

BaconCatBug wrote:
Terminators are bad because 2 Damage weapons are so prevalent.

It's to the point where having 2 wounds actually makes you LESS durable than having 1 wound.
If Terminators had a 1+ save or 3 wounds they would be viable.

I run 2 squads of 5 in my Black Legion force and have no problem with them. They're fantastic for parking on Objectives from DS or using as a scaple to axe some powerful pain in my ass.

**Gary_1986**

the_scotsman wrote:
I think at this point if I was bringing gk, it'd be terminators over strikes. I'd bring a small force with an HQ and a large troop squad and add them in to my inquisition army. Captain gets the retool charges wl trait, and they get both sanctuary and hammerhand, making sure to have a couple of warding staves in the squad to get a 3++ with sanctuary.

The problem I found when making the list was, with the Chapter Approved point revisions we can get two Strikes for one Terminator. Almost the entire Knight army can Deep Strike, the Strike Squad would have more Storm Bolter fire however it wouldn't be able to use that on the move as effectively, and that Crux Terminatus save boosted with Sanctuary is something worth considering, makes making a save 16% or so more probable.

I do however prefer the look of Terminators, so I take them most games and I love their ability to fire on the move.

**Elbows**

While it wouldn't address much about Terminators lack of survivability, you could take a page from 2nd edition and allow their Deep Strike to cost points. Meaning you could knock X points off a model if you were planning on deploying it on the ground or in a Land Raider. Pay extra points if you wanted to put them into Deep Strike.

**Gary_1986**

That's an option mind, but I think it Deep Strike is an integral part of what Terminators are, it encourages people to use Deep Strike.

**Slayer-Fan123**

thepowerfulwill wrote:
They arent as good as they used to be, but I love them so much I camt help using them.

They aren't as good as they used to be? Sure, if you can't do math.

**Elbows**

Gary_1986 wrote:
That's an option mind, but I think it Deep Strike is an integral part of what Terminators are, it encourages people to use Deep Strike.

Sure, but it's also completely wasted if you don't use it...and I'd imagine some tiny amount of their value is predicated on their ability to Deep Strike. Picture it as paying for jump packs for your assault marines...or not, if you want them on foot (for some reason). I don't think it's a magic solution, but it's something.