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Greetings!

I am struggling with deciding on the best load out for my chaos termies. I have five of them supported with a lord and sorcerer. Buying more is not an option but I have plenty of bits to support most options save power swords and combi plasmas. I've gathered that the combi plama is the most popular choice for fire power but thats out for me, combi melta or flamer only, unless I can find the bits on ebay. I thought that combi flamers with a heavy flamer and power fists were a good set up for the points but with a combi melta for the champ its still close to 300 pts. Any suggestions on builds that are popular or work? I should add that I play a chaos undivided renegade warband, so no chaos marks either.
Thanks in advance for any input.

How competitive are you wanting to be? Terminators aren't in a very good spot right now

Keep in mind WYSIWYG is no longer enforced by the core rules. So if you want to run plasma but model melta's, well there is nothing against the rules. That said some hold outs will exist and probably require you to use WYSIWYG. If you chose to follow this rule then lets get into the advice.

It depends on what your army is lacking. There is no optimal loadout as melta and flamers do very different things. If your meta contains lots of high T models then melta may be a good choice. With todays meta anti horde firepower is generally always useful. Keep in mind flamers are overpriced atm be it combi or otherwise, but so is melta. How I loaded out my Night Lords terminators follows....I took combi flamers with power fists. This way you spread out your threat levels. Its pricey, but so are terminators. Your chaos legion or warband rules will also dictate how you want to load them out.
For Night Lords, World Eaters, Renegades and EC you want to get them into assault range asap so melta and flamers compliment this. For Alpha Legion, Black Legion and Word Bearers you want combi-plasma and Iron Warriors are in the middle of both.

Termicide has fallen out of fashion but I find it still works, you just need to drop in on a unit or model worth more points than your terminators while still being possible to kill with 5 melta shots + powerfist charge. Marking Khorne when possible is ideal for termicide. Otherwise Slanny is your go to mark for non termicide.

I am not a high end tourney player. So take my advice as such. I have used termicide with my night lords to great effect and Ive also seen them fail hard and give away a large amount of points. All in all terminators are a sub-optimal choice due to the meta so it is kinda a moot issue.

Poweraxe with combibolters will keep them cheap. You can field 10 for 380 points in that configuration.

Thanks for the help y’all. I’m going with flamer/power axe, with a hvy flamer and upgrades in champ. With icon it’s 261 for five, not as low as I’d hoped. I realize that termies are not top tier this edition, but they are so iconic and I like the idea of them. The models I have are the models I have I work with, buying a lot of new kits is not an option.

Side note, the combi- bolters they come with can be converted to plasma if you have plasma pistol bits laying around. I also saved on power swords by using the bayonets as cc weapons and putting grenades or tentacles in the other arm.

I run mine as Khorne with Combi-Plasma and Power fists.

Combi-Flamers are a big no-no cause if you don't get warptime off or it gets denied then you just wasted 300pts. I used to run Power Axes but they lack any real kick - not enough attacks to worry infantry and not strong enough to worry tanks.
Combi-Plasma gives you anti-elites and anti-tank options and has basically automatic rapid fire when you deep strike. Fists have the -1 to hit which is a down side but prescience can reverse that and despite it's downsides it's way better than the other options. Khorne allows access to the Icon of Wrath so you make you sure you make it into CC, you either go that or Slaanesh for the double shot stratagem.

Now to address two points you made:
Combi Plasma out - There are bitz sites where you can grab a combi-plasma part for under a pound each, get 5, saw your combi-bolters in half and you have working combi-plasmas!

Marks of Chaos out - Renegades can still take marks of chaos and it doesn't matter if your lord or sorcerer has a different mark to the unit, they will still interact the same.

 mrhappyface wrote:
I run mine as Khorne with Combi-Plasma and Power fists.

Combi-Flamers are a big no-no cause if you don't get warptime off or it gets denied then you just wasted 300pts. I used to run Power Axes but they lack any real kick - not enough attacks to worry infantry and not strong enough to worry tanks.
Combi-Plasma gives you anti-elites and anti-tank options and has basically automatic rapid fire when you deep strike. Fists have the -1 to hit which is a down side but prescience can reverse that and despite it's downsides it's way better than the other options. Khorne allows access to the Icon of Wrath so you make you sure you make it into CC, you either go that or Slaanesh for the double shot stratagem.

Now to address two points you made:
Combi Plasma out - There are bitz sites where you can grab a combi-plasma part for under a pound each, get 5, saw your combi-bolters in half and you have working combi-plasmas!

Marks of Chaos out - Renegades can still take marks of chaos and it doesn't matter if your lord or sorcerer has a different mark to the unit, they will still interact the same.

He cant run plasma. That is kinda the point of the thread. And while combi-flamers are not optimal in any fashion they are the cheapest option and in circumstances get work done on hordes. IMHO I would only go combi flamers if you have power fists as your melee option. And you dont NEED warptime, it helps greatly, but you dont need it. Actually, everyone needs warptime .

Table wrote:
He cant run plasma. That is kinda the point of the thread. And while combi-flamers are not optimal in any fashion they are the cheapest option and in circumstances get work done on hordes. IMHO I would only go combi flamers if you have power fists as your melee option. And you dont NEED warptime, it helps greatly, but you dont need it. Actually, everyone needs warptime .

He said he can't use combi-plasma because it doesn't come in the terminator kit and he doesn't want to spend through the roof for a set of combi-plasmas, I was suggesting a cheap way to get them.

You do need warptime with flamers because if you deepstrike in then they are out of range (9" deepstrike, 7" range), not a problem that plasma has. And whilst combi-flamer is good for hordes, if you're sending your Termies after hordes then you're wasting 300pts.

I gotta say I'd go with combi-bolters before combi-flamers. I'd also go with a cheap close-combat weapon, since with power fists they're very expensive and now hitting on 4+'s (aaaand they cannot benefit from "Death to the False Emperor" when using Power Fists - something I found out after making mine before 8th edition).

My terminator squad is fun but if I had to do it again I'd probably start with all combi-bolters and power axes. Getting 4 shots at 12" is likely even more reliable than flamers (and 1/5th the cost) - and you can use it all after deep striking (where Flamers become useless unless you manage warptime).

Terminators aren't amazing full-stop...but if you're going to use them I'd definitely go as cheap as possible. None of their upgrades are particularly potent (even Combi-Plasma is strong but even more expensive).

Thanks for the insight everyone.
Wow Death to false Emperah doesn't work with power fusts huh? Bummer...not much middle ground on melee. Thanks for pointing out little things like flamers having a range now and the ruling on power fists, I have not had a game since fifth edition and am trying to get back in it. I am a personal wysiwyg freak but I'm ok with others using proxies. I have pretty serious fluff built up around this warband and they are strictly "chaos undivided" save for the daemon prince and daemons, which will probably be nurgle. So no marked troops. If I was to use combi-plasmas I would just use combi meltas and proxy them. No reason for me to ruin great models with my lamentable modeling ability. I think I am just going to go totally the other way, chainfists and combi meltas all around! So if I'm arming with combi bolters the autocannon is the best hvy choice? Might want to soften the enemy up when all I have are chainaxes.

Indeed. DTFE triggers on a hit roll of 6+, so -1 to hit will never be better than a 5 so you can't trigger the ability (common mistake I see a lot of youtubers make too). On the other side of the coin though, with hit modifiers like the power Prescience you can trigger the ability on a roll of a 5+ as you add one to the result to get that 6+

combi meltas on everyone will be hugely expensive but would be a devastating alpha if you can pull off a few hits to ensure an elite unit or vehicle deleted if you roll high. The D6 nature of meltas can make them quite lacklustre when you roll a 1 for the damage. - also don't expect them to still be around the turn after though.

As renegades per the legion rules flamers are good for bikers (though not strictly better than black legion imo) or raptors that don't bother deep striking to a lesser extent. There is some merit if you take flamers on terminators that way if you fail first turn charge you can advance flame and charge 2nd turn if the enemy doesn't charge you or advance out of range and you don't mind only shooting bolters first turn.

If you were willing to use Alpha legion stratagem flaminators could work very well. Before the game starts put a bunch of termies 9.1" from the enemy screening chaff. If you get first turn take a 5" step forward and commence the flame and bolter fire then charge any crisps that remain! If you get 2nd turn the opponent might shoot terminators instead of rear targets like predators that don't get the -1hit bonus.

I really wanted to use renegades but with slaaneshi daemons being so undersupported and daemon engines not being legion traited I couldn't find enough reason to go stabby.