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Been brainstorming a Deathwatch list and using pure Deathwatch I was thinking a unit of 5 terminators with power fist and bolters could be an excellent anti tank unit, paired with a chaplain dropping from a corvus??

I've seen allot of people say terminators aren't great this edition but it seems like quite a good unit to me.

The problem here is getting them into melee in the first place. If you drop them from a Corvus they don't have to make a 9" charge sure, but you still have to get it there safe, and if your opponent knows you've tied up over a quarter of your list in one model you better believe they will throw everything at it!

Anyway, the main issue with Termies is their cost to damage output ratio. Something like 50pts model and you really don't get much for that.

Anti-tank how exactly? Bolters are not anti-tank weapons and their fists have the problem of actually having to get to their target and even then they are not amazing. Two attacks each hitting on fours (re-rolling and +1 attack from sergeant) will land you around 7 hits lets say. That's 3.5 wounds against a Leman Russ resulting in an average of 6-8 wounds. You won't even kill it. Against t7 yeah you should 100-0 it, but again you have to get there which is the problem. They're likely going to get shot coming in, statistically fail their charge (even with a 1CP re-roll), get shot to pieces leaving a skeleton crew of guys to walk around and do nothing as all high value targets out move them.

If we do put them in the Corvus as you suggest then we largely get rid of the getting there problem, but now run the risk of said corvus going down which is very dangerous for valuable models like terminators. They are also in a expensive model so this is a beefy chunk of your army that even if it gets into combat with a vehicle (somehow not getting shot down or bogged down by chaff) it will maybe kill it then be shot to pieces by everything else.

The sad bottom line is that they are just not cost efficient for what they do and require too much support to get them to where they need to be and even when they are there they are just going to get shot down after they fail to pay for their points.

They're really expensive, move 5", and making a 9" charge (assuming you cleared out the screens on the vehicles) is far from automatic.

You need the Corvus, but you also need the Corvus carrying an expensive Terminator unit to not get shut down on its way in. And that's hard.

And then even if you make it fist is not that good antitank weapon...few attacks, -1 to hit...even t7 has good chance of surviving

I find lascannons off Razorbacks or Blackstars and scattered frag cannons in line squads are the only anti-tank in a pure Deathwatch army that's close to cost-effective, and even then it isn't enough to handle armour-spam. Pure Deathwatch doesn't really work past about 1,250-1,500pts because you straight-up can't handle armour-spam.

If you want to toss a squad in a Blackstar as anti-tank bringing a standard Veteran squad with heavy thunderhammers on the sergeant/Blackshield is going to do more damage more cheaply.

I put the deathwatch behind a knight and use Russes and Armigers for AT.

I considered running a vet squad with missile launchers and missile armed terminators, but it was SOOOO expensive.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
I find lascannons off Razorbacks or Blackstars and scattered frag cannons in line squads are the only anti-tank in a pure Deathwatch army that's close to cost-effective, and even then it isn't enough to handle armour-spam. Pure Deathwatch doesn't really work past about 1,250-1,500pts because you straight-up can't handle armour-spam.

If you want to toss a squad in a Blackstar as anti-tank bringing a standard Veteran squad with heavy thunderhammers on the sergeant/Blackshield is going to do more damage more cheaply.

Yeah that's what I'm thinking, I'm building a pure Deathwatch 1750 list, I've got a corvus and love the model do will be using it. I think a squad of vets with combi meltas and thunder hammers dropping from the corvus is going to be my little suicide bomb while letting primaris blobs and venerable dreads with missile launchers sit at the back and light them up.

One cyclone launcher isn’t going to do much, would be better off deepstriking thunder hammers behind the tanks

I've had some mild success in putting two cyclone Terminators in a couple Veteran squads, one with a storm shield. They can take the hit for the squad when needed.

FW is what DW needs for anti tank. Xiphon or Lev or Mortis all plug big holes in our list.