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Good morning everyone,

I just want to gather thoughts about our beloved although way overcosted Terminators. My plan was to add a squad of Assault Termies with one Chaplain in TDA Armor. They look amazing, are fluffy and would perfectly fit for my Deathwatch.

But I know the issues Termies are facing and that's why I want some advice from people who actually play them. Which payload do you use in your squad? How effective are Lightning Claws? Do you always have to use a LR to get them into combat? And most important, are they cost-effective in a way you can play them casually without shooting yourself in the knee?

Lightning claws are something you should only use in large numbers if you know the other guy's fielding lots of cheap models; such as a Chaos player using big bricks of cultists (or big bricks of chaos space marines if for some inexplicable reason he wants 20 man CSM bricks), Ork green tides, Tyranid Endless Swarm/Skyblight Swarm focused lists (or really any of the formations that ask for hueg numbers of gants), Necron warrior bricks, Kroot konga lines, guard blob etc. The loss of damage versus vehicles, instant death capacity, and reduced capacity to keelhaul most MCs isn't worth the boost to killing chaff and fodder.

OK. I was sure so much AP3 attacks would be great but my usual opponent is Eldar who plays shooty. I want a Termie squad but I can perfectly see the moment when my guys will destroy one surprised unit and then die to overwhelming retaliation fire.

What could make the Termies not a single-shot pistol? And about the Land Raider?

Depending on what I'm facing I send in 2 thunder hammers with 3 lightning claws against hordes/MEQ, 5 thunder hammers against MC, 5 LC against weak horde units. I love the feeling of seeing LC with a chaplin. Something about zealot and shred on AP3 makes me warm inside.

The best terminator delivery platform would be either the land raider crusader or the Spartan Assault tank. Though a word of warning on the spartan, it costs you a pretty penny in terms of points and you should ask yourself if you really need a full assault terminator squad and an IC delivered all at once. The base land raider with its twin lascannons and heavy bolters doesn't have the dakka or transport capacity to be a good terminator delivery platform.

Against Eldar, you want to win assault obviously, but not wipe them in your own turn or else they'll get a free round of shooting. This means you want to limit the number of terminators you take per unit so as not to curbstomp them. However, the Eldar don't really have a lot of targets that are particularly great for Terminators; they don't field blobs of chaff nor do they really have any assault units you'd want to tie down with your termies outside of banshees and swordwraiths (scorpions rely on weight of attacks and the exarch's at initiative power fist, neither of which care about your armor and the former doesn't care about your invuln either and axewraiths are damn near a mirror match for hammernators, only they can get fortune which more than makes up for their inferior saves) though I suppose you could use hammernators to try and tie down a wraithknight or beat down wraithlords. Though the former requires catching something that can move 12 inches and jump another six every turn and the second requires anyone to ever actually use wraithlords.

I played a nurgle list with 2 flying DPs and 2 GUOs in a few weeks back. My squad of mostly hammers where almost the only useful squad in my list. they took down a DP and a GUO. I lost badly, but salvaged some pride for the Emperor.

I think you need a mix of hammers and claws. The stormshields for the invulnerable save, and the claws to cut through hordes. You have to estimate what you are likely to face.

They are already expensive. I struggle with the extra cost of a Land Raider, which is also overcosted. Though, it's a challenge to reach melee without one.

I find Land Raider Redeemer to be the best option (personally) because with the God Hammer pattern I'm I want it to be staying back causing damage non stop. The Crusader has all that extra room for more units but I don't find it to be as effective against MEQ which is what I normally drive my Terminators to face anyway. So the LRR gives me AP3 flamers which are great for denying cover saves, armor and pop the hatch and voila you have 6 terminators saying hello.
I used to field DWK with an interrogator chaplain with MoR for an expensive beatstick (650 points-ish)

Thanks guys. Your responses are effective but a bit depressing :(
It's sure that Eldar are offering few targets and a LR is a massive fire magnet, especially for D weapons.

My friend usually field one DSing WK and one or two squad of Wraiths. The WK is horrible because he always appears in my back to shoot my tanks to death. Assuming I'll use termies to destroy him, they would fight one turn, suffer some losses and then become way more useless for the rest of the turn.

This unit seems like a pretty bad option, as I understand?

Yes and no. The unit is awesome but expensive. The problem with the WK (I faced one today) is that it can potentially pop your LR before it does anything and getting a unit on the WK in combat is fairly difficult (not impossible) which faction of SM do you play?

It's not really a faction, it's the Deathwatch. I play them only in casual games as they have no 7th Ed rules, just some material related to older editions and the Damnos Warzone Apocalypse formation.

When I do play them, they are allied to my IG and I usually use them in drop pods to take down MC and WK with graviton fire. My and my friends have agreed to consider their Chapter Tactics as being Preferred Enemy (Xenos). For this reason, Assault Termies would be deadly in CC, even though PE is a little redundant with Zealot but whatever.

I use 5 men, 3 hammers, 2 claws. Almost always in my LR. Which is a classic phobos with the TLLCs. I enjoyed the last codex when I could run my chaplain with them in the tank, but that was short lived. I like the mix of weapons. You run the shields out front, and have the claws to deal with anything troop related. Or just try to get some wounds in at initiative. Not everything needs the hammer. The extra attack and shred helps keep the fickle dice gods at bay so you don’t get a whole turn of “whiff” as you just suck out.

I’ve not fielded them on foot in ages. The LR is the one I have (I bought it before the LRR/C came out) and it works. It’s a jack of all trades tank, rather then a pure taxi. As an Ultramarine, that appeals to me. But it keep the fire off them, gets them where they need to go, and puts out some fire of its own.

They are expensive, but generally get the job done. Or at least take a giant chunk out of something so you might have a chance mopping it up. I do play in a reasonably laid back meta, so it’s not a wall of AP2 out there for me. There is enough that you need to watch out and be careful though.

Thanks for advice. I've saw that a LR can be a huge middle finger to any unwary enemy and I'd love to torn some Eldar into pieces sometimes, as I am always shooting at them and fearing they come closer.

But those D-weapons

My usual opponent field 1 WK, 2WS with Dragons or Wraithguards and a squadron of Fire Prisms. That's heavy AT firepower and it laughs at AV14. I could very much weaken this with allied Leman Russ and artillery but it will certainly not be enough.

 RazgrizOne wrote:
Thanks for advice. I've saw that a LR can be a huge middle finger to any unwary enemy and I'd love to torn some Eldar into pieces sometimes, as I am always shooting at them and fearing they come closer.

But those D-weapons

My usual opponent field 1 WK, 2WS with Dragons or Wraithguards and a squadron of Fire Prisms. That's heavy AT firepower and it laughs at AV14. I could very much weaken this with allied Leman Russ and artillery but it will certainly not be enough.

If your main problem was with meltas, the spartan assault tank's ceramite shielding would throw them through a loop. But there's not really much you can do to avoid death by D with a vehicle without forcing an Eldar opponent to pick and choose who gets the D shoved up somewhere unpleasant.

If your main problem was with meltas, the spartan assault tank's ceramite shielding would throw them through a loop. But there's not really much you can do to avoid death by D with a vehicle without forcing an Eldar opponent to pick and choose who gets the D shoved up somewhere unpleasant.

Too bad. I have to admit I expected the fact that Termies would be irrelevant against such lists. I will buy them only for the love of collecting then.

I can't really weigh in on this discussion too well, as Deathwing can use strategies vanilla marines can't, such as having an assault cannon in with hammers, or being able to charge turn 2, or having reliable DS capabilities.

One thing I can say, either go big on the terminators or don't bring any. Either have some in a land raider for delivery, or have enough that your opponent can't just focus fire on a single squad. A single squad of terminators trudging along is a prime target, and falls fast to massed fire. There's just not that much they can do when they take 50 shots from infantry, and even my DW knights with higher toughness and SS still fall to things like lasguns and bolters.

If I had to take an ideal squad though, it'd be 3 TH/SS and 2 with claws (in my case one of those claws having a CML, can vanilla marines do that?) just to cover your bases. All I can say is there's nothing worse than getting in against a dreadnought or wraithlord and only having claws though. This is what termies specialize against, not being able to hurt them because of claws is a real pain. There are better things to deal with swarms than claw termies, like dev squads / TFC / assault marines.... heck, even just tacs can do a mediocre job against hordes because they're so much cheaper and can take flamers.

The games where I faced a S weapon I noticed that it's really good against vehicles and models with tons of wounds because of that ability of ruining someone's day with a 6. So when I know that I'll be dealing with any S weapon I just avoid bringing expensive single units/vehicles and that's why I would always recommend against bringing in a LR to those fights. There are times where I'm sure you can use terrain and avoid LOS long enough to get close enough and deliver your payload. With Terminators I use them as an aggressive distraction unit. I want the enemy to focus on them. They are there to cause sheer grief and die in glory to the Emperor. As such I use them against things that would make my opponent frustrated. Units that are weaker but don't have a lot of fire power (so no head long runs into a billion tau guns), or backfield scoring units. As a WK can move so fast, I typically don't charge them. I do charge the Wraithguard with my shields in the front and can reliably kill them off due to the shred/AP3. Based on what you face I'd recommend 3 TH, 2 LC. The TH can soak up the shots and the LC can do damage (but not too much damage to avoid leaving you open to shooting on your opponents turn). It would also help with wounding since you say you have PE.

Now the tricky part. If you want to use a LR make sure you're playing with a TON of cover. If it's an open field you're letting the opponent strip you down before you can get close.
Deep striking is a risky gambit as you can't charge and there's always a chance something bad happens but it's the cheapest way to get someone someplace you need them. So if you DS run someplace behind LOS and force the enemy to come to you.

This is not happening in a vacuum. Your other units should be using the distraction brought by these guys to be shooting the ever loving heck out of your opponents.

I used these tactics against Necron, Tau, Eldar and especially chaos to great success.

The games where I faced a S weapon

I did not know S : weapons but it seems to be pretty great. I must be some kind of lasgun to make enemy laugh at it haha.

I used these tactics against Necron, Tau, Eldar and especially chaos to great success.

No seriously, many thanks for the advice Inkubas, it's very interesting! I usually play in open field but there are ways to hide somewhere If I really want to.

A Land Raider can do short work off his tanks and my Leman Russes and artillery should do the trick against the rest of his armour. 2 TTLCs are always a good choice I guess, more than Reedemer and FW variants isn't it?

And what about the Termie Chaplain? Maybe too costly and not so useful? His S6 can be great to tear through Eldar but its a 110p model still.

Anyway, its sheer awesomeness can't be handled!

A tactic I was actually having reasonable luck with was to take a caestus assault ram, start it on the table turn 1 on a landing pad, and essentially ram a unit of 10 assault termies down my opponent's throat. TH/SS tend to be the best as they are durable and can engage hard targets. Against hordes you can usually multi charge a bunch of units and break most of them. A cool trick you can play with this unit is to put a cheap character in it with hit and run. Then you can bounce out of combats at the end of your opponent's turn to gain movement and multi charge a bunch of units. The unit causes absolute havok in games.

TBH though this is seriously overpriced for what you get. The caestus assault ram is a good unit but the terminators are just so over costed that they rarely make their value back.

This tactic also works with assault centurions.

Well. This is the most brutal tactic one has proposed since the beginning of the thread. And I have to confess that I love it.

I've checked Caestus Assault Rams a few weeks ago and I did not even remember that it was an Assault vehicule. Then isn't that a little bit violent (because coming from FW) since 'm playing casual games?

I said that but my friend usually DS his WK in my line, which is not really fair either.

Chaplains are great force multipliers for melee units. If you are fielding a transport with the space to hold him, it’s worth bringing him along. His buffs might not be as impressive as a librarian, but you don’t need to deal with him blowing his own head off, or some pointy eared freak on the other side of the table shutting you down. Just pure, re-roll granting, anger and hatred. Plus the TDA chaplain is among the best minis GW has ever made.

I cannot imagine anyone is going to complain too loudly if you bring 10 assault terminators. There is still a lot of counters to this after all and in 7ed maelstorm castling up isn't really a great strategy anyways. This was brutal in 6ed though as many players liked gunlines so I could smash their gunline to bits.

Plus the TDA chaplain is among the best minis GW has ever made.

True. I have seen some conversions with Lightning claws and it was freakin amazing. Do Chaplains sometimes toss their Crozius Arcanum to fight with other CC weapons? Seems not really fluffy but anyway it's awesome.

There is still a lot of counters to this after all and in 7ed maelstorm castling up isn't really a great strategy anyways. This was brutal in 6ed though as many players liked gunlines so I could smash their gunline to bits.

Even in maelstrom it can be very interesting to have a fast and hard-hitting counter-attack unit. Jetbikes could actually be surprised with that, even if they would probably shoot down one Termie with their BS1 Scatlas.

I love assault terminators and have been working on several ways to make them effective. Here are the fruits of my labor so far.

Addition 1: Sanguinary Priest. Gives BA termies FNP and +1 weapon skill. Awesome as FNP really helps any point-heavy 1-wound model.

Addition 2: Inquisitor with the Liber hereticus. The Liber hereticus allows the unit he is with (with a succesful ld10 test) scout on turn 1. And if you use Scout in a dedicated transport (Land Raider) you move 12" So a landraider that scouts 12" before turn 1 with an assault unit is always a good thing.

Addition 3: Cypher. Now this guy is full of special rules. Infiltrate, as above with scout, but now with infiltrate. However there has been some debate on if independent characters with infiltrate can confer it to the unit they are with so make sure to read over those rules and maybe explain it to your opponent before hand. But otherwise you are looking at infiltrating terminators, with or without a land raider. Also, he gives the terminators shroud. So even if they are facing something with ap2, you may still benefit from a 2+ cover save. Also Cypher has hit and run, and is awesome in close combat and can shoot even after running.

Addition 4: Ministorum Priests from the Astra Militarum codex. These guys are independent characters and have some awesome abilities. They have 3 hymns that they can pull of in close combat. 1 allows you to reroll failed armor or invuln saves. HOLY CRAP 2+ REROLLABLE?!?! yep. or even the 3+ reroll if you need it. The other hymn allows you to reroll all failed to wounds. Again since you are looking at Thunder hammers, it would be another 2+ rerollable. It also gives the Termies Zealot, so rerolling failed to hit in the first round and fearless. These guys are a steal for how cheap they are as HQs, but if you want to play as a bound army you'd need an Astra Militarum allied detachment.

If we combine these then the points for the unit will really start to add up, but you will be looking at a pretty tough unit. And this is all without any psychic powers, which I could see providing a big boost as well.

Sanguinary Priest
Cypher
Ministorum Priest
6 terminators, 4 w/ TH/SS
Land Raider Crusader w/ a MM
755 points

Infiltrated LRC. assault vehicle, so 2nd turn charge. Before the charge you will get Cyphers 4 BS 10 shots. so 2 str4ap5 shots and 2 str7ap2 shots. Then in combat you will get Cyphers WS7 attacks. That's 5 attacks at WS7. 3 str4 ap5 and 2 str7 ap2. priests get their attacks, which are whatever, but then the lightning claws come in, 8 WS5 attacks, rerolling all misses, and with shred rerolling all failed to wound. The thunder hammers though. 12 WS5 attacks at str8 ap2 rerolling all misses.
And with the ministorum priest they will all hopefully be rerolling any failed armor or invuln saves.Then at the end of combat on the enemy turn (if theyre still alive) youve got hit and run so you can move on to something else if you need to, or charge again.

I can honestly say that as a Dark Angel player I have never thought of using Cypher with any combination of terminators.

 RazgrizOne wrote:
Even in maelstrom it can be very interesting to have a fast and hard-hitting counter-attack unit. Jetbikes could actually be surprised with that, even if they would probably shot down one Termie with their BS1 Scatlas.

The problem with this strategy is that with proper spacing you will catch 1-3 units with that first charge (smart players will just screen or disperse their army). After the first charge the opponent can re-position and leave you terminator unit needing to either foot slog or reembark on the caestus. What this adds up to is that ~600 pts in terminators and transport is very hard to justify to eat a couple of 135 pts jetbike units or 150 pts in IG infantry. It does however work about as well as assault terminators are going to work. One of the best parts of this is the new multi charge rules don't require you to stay in unit cohesion. So you can get a massive number of units engaged if your opponent is not careful. This also tends to keep wraithknights and imperial knights off your front lawn for a turn or two.

Icculus, your additions 2 & 4 really appeal me. An inquisitor would actually fit perfectly for my Deathwatch theme and the idea of scouting a big bad Land Raider is so unlikely that it becomes delightful.

For the priest, it goes well as my theme are hardened vets serving under an Ordo Xenos inquisitor. This fluffy bubblewrap allows pretty nice builds yours. I should try it sometimes!

Seems these guys are actually much better than TAC Termies.

I always go 3-2 between TH/SS and Claws. And always in a Land Raider Crusader.

They aren't as great as they used to be, but they still get the job done.

I come back after some SM codex investigations;

Termies are fluffy but have many constraints, even with a LR. I just found out a transport can't disembark its passengers after moving more than 6'' ! I'm afraid it' will severely reduce my chances to catch some Eldars in a charge. And this not-that-much deathstar is costly, just like it was said many times before.

So I thought about swapping for Vets with jetpacks ; they are cheaper, can move pretty fast and take advantage of cover as they are smaller models than a massive LR.

What do you think? And what about sticking them in Stormraven? It's a 200ppm beast and it's suffering from the 6'' restriction but still, it's an assault vehicule. I don't know...

Hmmm
How about this (for BA)
4 LC termies,1 with banner,1 TH+SS
1 stormraven with twin linked plasma cannons
1 termie librarian
1 sang priest (with angels wing jump pack and teleport homer)

Hope to get blood boil psychic power
Deep strike the sang priest around where you want the termies
Flat out move the stormraven OVER (very important) the sang priest
Do skies of fury with termies next to/very near sang priest
Because it follows the rules of deep strike,you dont scatter
Bam termies+librarian are in
Cast Quickening on termies (to deter people from assaulting them
Cast Blood boil on nearest unit (hope its a weak one)
Dakka with termies
POTMS/snap fire with plasma cannons
Dakka with sang priest?
Assault next turn

Assault next turn

Sounds dangerous to pop up in the middle on the enemy lines and wait one turn before eventually assault an unwary unit. My Eldars enemy are fast and dakka unfortunately =/

No thoughts about the Vets?