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Would it be feesable to make a game mode or alternative specialist game where terminators arent terrible. I mean besides space hulk? Doing it in regular 40k is simply impossible; mega units like knights, riptides, and primarchs pretty much make it impossible to ever make them good and if that wasnt bad enough their cost vs that of just massed gunfire is horribly one sided or even just things equal to plasma guns en masse which have basically become a default gun statline for some armies.

so i ask you, could you ever cut the game down to where they arent awful?

Advanced Space Crusade & Shadow War had options where you could bring in Terminators (as did Betrayal At Calth and Deathwatch: Overkill), and they weren't any worse than you'd see in Space Hulk.

GW could make them viable for Kill Team (as a sort of one-man-army), but I don't think they ever will. I imagine they'd also be decent in Blackstone Fortress (if you can have a robot player in that game, Terminator should be easy as pie).

And that's, I think, where they would really shine - you'd have to make a game mode where the "one-man-army" is a viable option as well as something opponents wouldn't mind facing. Better for a players-vs-environment than a Player-vs-player.

Terminators have the same problems as ninjas - if you make them a solo operative, they can be made unstoppable. But the more you get to field at one time, the easier they tend to be to kill.

You're better off just playing games without TITANIC units, it makes the game orders of magnitude better.

 BaconCatBug wrote:
You're better off just playing games without TITANIC units, it makes the game orders of magnitude better.

I'd go further than that, and look at a format closer to 2nd ed 40k.

Play something like 1k to 1250 points (which in 2nd money is about 2k now). No LoW. Restrict models over 9 wounds to something like 3 per army.

Probably wants a tad more nuance than that, but you get the idea. More infantry focused, far fewer heavy weapons (why bother taking so many when your opponent won't have many vehicles).

Zone mortalis! Close quarters fighting meaning all their weapons are useful. No massive units with huge guns and hard to bring mass weight of fire to bear due to LOS.

This plus it's really thematic to use them there.

Downside is there are no official rules, I have made some homebrew ones which work really well if your interested let me know.

Terminators will never be a thing like in 2nd. Case closed.

I hope your wrong most of GK army is in termintor armor and that is including almost all of their HQ

 Strg Alt wrote:
Terminators will never be a thing like in 2nd. Case closed.

they were okay in 5.5 after the faq's and erratas

I think you could make 3 terminators work in 100 pts of KT. Maybe even 4.

Most games I play have large numbers of upgrade weapons. Missile Launchers, Plasma, that sort of thing.

Termies are awesome against “grunts” but my meta has few grunts. We all seem to gravitate towards making killy teams so I think Termies would mesh well in my meta.

If you’re using a lot of lasguns and bolters... Termies will be amazeballs. But ‘roun’ he-ah, they’d be MEQ with a storm bolter and a +1 save. So basically two Marines with bolters standings beside each other (24 pts) plus a Power Fist (3 points) plus a 2+ save (4 points) = 31 points.

Multiply by 0.75 due to being single model, more susceptible to multi-damage weapons and lesser board control. Roughly 23 points each in Kill Team, plus an Assault Cannon or heavy Flamer at about 5 points... a 4-man Termie Team would be 97 points? I’d take a crack at it.

 Stux wrote:

 BaconCatBug wrote:
You're better off just playing games without TITANIC units, it makes the game orders of magnitude better.

I'd go further than that, and look at a format closer to 2nd ed 40k.

Play something like 1k to 1250 points (which in 2nd money is about 2k now). No LoW. Restrict models over 9 wounds to something like 3 per army.

Probably wants a tad more nuance than that, but you get the idea. More infantry focused, far fewer heavy weapons (why bother taking so many when your opponent won't have many vehicles).

1k akin to 2nd ed's 2k was true maybe in like 3rd ed. With all the point drops(marines almost 1/3 of what they costed in 2nd ed...), expensive vehicles and characters...In 2nd ed single leman russ was fearful force and lone dreadnoughts were power to behold.

Good times though. 2nd ed battle sized were much more appropriate for 28mm models. Now you would need serious upping of board sizes but that' not feasible so we end up with overcrammed boards :-/

 ionusx wrote:
Would it be feesable to make a game mode or alternative specialist game where terminators arent terrible. I mean besides space hulk? Doing it in regular 40k is simply impossible; mega units like knights, riptides, and primarchs pretty much make it impossible to ever make them good and if that wasnt bad enough their cost vs that of just massed gunfire is horribly one sided or even just things equal to plasma guns en masse which have basically become a default gun statline for some armies.

so i ask you, could you ever cut the game down to where they arent awful?

Making terminators toughness 5 would be the simple fix.

Needing strength 10 to get 2+ to wound and most basic small arms needing 5+ would be a decent boost to their survivability.

You could probably even make them toughness 6 and power armour toughness 5 and it would fix space marines as a whole.

 Strg Alt wrote:
Terminators will never be a thing like in 2nd. Case closed.

If making a Terminator-focused ruleset or scenario, I think I'd look at close quarters actions, something close to if not exactly Space Hulk. Limited LOS to bring heavy weapons to bear, short distances to let the lumbering hard bois bring their short ranged heavy weapons to bear, and plenty of choke points to help manage their limited numbers against hordes of punier foes. As in Space Hulk, movement, individual model facing and action economy would be of vital importance.

edited by ingtaer

I would like to point out that in the recent LVO a list with 10 terminators had a really good showing, so things don't look so grim.

After the buffs and especially with BBolters, terminators are no longer a joke unit. They can be made to work in competitive lists.
Sure they will not work at the top tables of big events, but honestly 90% of the models doesn't.

If GW ever does a 40k version of Underworlds, where each warband has a set composition and individual choice comes to play in deck building and strategy, a trio or pair of terminators would be a fine pick as one of the boxes (I believe the Stormcast team in Underworlds has only three models, for example).

I think the current Kill Team could definitely handle terminators with a small points increase from the standard 100 or just by using Commanders. However, GW has historically been frightened that 2+ saves are too much for Kill Team so I kinda doubt that will happen. That saves me a lot of money since if GW did allow terminators in Kill Team, I would get a box for every faction I don't already have ones for (mostly Gray Knights and Thousand Sons).

I didn't get enough games in to know for sure, but Heralds of Ruin's 7th edition Kill Team rules allowed terminators. I can't remember if they were really good, but I think they were. I remember HoR Kill Team being a really good rules set. Crunchier than the current GW Kill Team game and with more unit selection. Arguably a better game overall. I would probably break it out if I was looking for something a little more involved than the current Kill Team rules.

Terminators do better in Zone Mortalis-style play (highly restricted line of sight, no indirect-fire weapons, highly restricted vehicles/monsters).

 Agamemnon2 wrote:
If GW ever does a 40k version of Underworlds

I would so LOVE to see Underworlds in 40K and Kill Team in AoS. I think both would be awesome! Here's to hoping!

SG


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Spoletta wrote:
I would like to point out that in the recent LVO a list with 10 terminators had a really good showing, so things don't look so grim.

Which chapter were these Terminators from?

Thanks

SG

 Agamemnon2 wrote:

 Strg Alt wrote:
Terminators will never be a thing like in 2nd. Case closed.

If making a Terminator-focused ruleset or scenario, I think I'd look at close quarters actions, something close to if not exactly Space Hulk. Limited LOS to bring heavy weapons to bear, short distances to let the lumbering hard bois bring their short ranged heavy weapons to bear, and plenty of choke points to help manage their limited numbers against hordes of punier foes. As in Space Hulk, movement, individual model facing and action economy would be of vital importance.

edited by ingtaer

So you want to reinvent Space Hulk?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 ionusx wrote:

 Strg Alt wrote:
Terminators will never be a thing like in 2nd. Case closed.

they were okay in 5.5 after the faq's and erratas

They need their 3+ save on 2D6 back like in 2nd. Anything else won´t matter much. They are wearing tactical dreadnought armour after all.

We had a local community fix prior to Chapter Approved 2018 and the Beta Bolter rule.

We reduced all non-Character terminators by 8 points, and provided them with three wounds instead of two. Made a world of difference. We've removed that since they got a points drop and beta bolters (though we'll reconsider adjusting them later). Everyone owned them and no one took them, even in casual games, so we mixed it up a bit.

I think to make them (or any Marine units) feel like the fluff you'll need a separate game. We're working on a less-limited version of Space Hulk as well, providing for developing squads of terminators in a variety of environments with all sorts of opponents, etc.

 Strg Alt wrote:

 Agamemnon2 wrote:

 Strg Alt wrote:
Terminators will never be a thing like in 2nd. Case closed.

If making a Terminator-focused ruleset or scenario, I think I'd look at close quarters actions, something close to if not exactly Space Hulk. Limited LOS to bring heavy weapons to bear, short distances to let the lumbering hard bois bring their short ranged heavy weapons to bear, and plenty of choke points to help manage their limited numbers against hordes of punier foes. As in Space Hulk, movement, individual model facing and action economy would be of vital importance.

edited by ingtaer

So you want to reinvent Space Hulk?

There's worse things in the world than Space Hulk with more opponent variety than just Genestealers.

 Agamemnon2 wrote:

 Strg Alt wrote:

 Agamemnon2 wrote:

 Strg Alt wrote:
Terminators will never be a thing like in 2nd. Case closed.

If making a Terminator-focused ruleset or scenario, I think I'd look at close quarters actions, something close to if not exactly Space Hulk. Limited LOS to bring heavy weapons to bear, short distances to let the lumbering hard bois bring their short ranged heavy weapons to bear, and plenty of choke points to help manage their limited numbers against hordes of punier foes. As in Space Hulk, movement, individual model facing and action economy would be of vital importance.

edited by ingtaer

So you want to reinvent Space Hulk?

There's worse things in the world than Space Hulk with more opponent variety than just Genestealers.

At that point, the best option is probably homebrew rules for Terminators in Kill Team, as already suggested. Arena maybe.

 ServiceGames wrote:
Automatically Appended Next Post:

Spoletta wrote:
I would like to point out that in the recent LVO a list with 10 terminators had a really good showing, so things don't look so grim.

Which chapter were these Terminators from?

Thanks

SG

I'm looking, and I haven't found one with ten but I've seen a LVO Sororitas/Knights/Deathwatch soup list with five Terminators spread amongst the Deathwatch Kill-Teams. They're actually a surprisingly attractive choice with the drop from 39pts/model in the Codex to 31pts/model in the Index with sword/SB.

 BaconCatBug wrote:
You're better off just playing games without TITANIC units, it makes the game orders of magnitude better.

Outside of YMDC, you and I seem to have many opinions in common.

Coupled with the recent changes to termies, they can be a lot more viable.

 greatbigtree wrote:
Termies are awesome against “grunts” but my meta has few grunts. We all seem to gravitate towards making killy teams so I think Termies would mesh well in my meta.

People point this out but then nobody says to increase the power ratio of grunts in games. You could make everything no on a 40mm base or smaller have -1 to hit vs infantry in cover. You could give infantry, weak as they are, a phase of overwatch shooting in their opponents’ turn at -1 bs. You could give them a consolidation move every turn they don’t fail a Ld check on their opponent’s turn. You could give them +d3 D if they’re within half range of a tank and didn’t move. Space marines still field terminators in battles that aren’t zone mortalis, they’re good against grunts, so you should just make grunts more common and more valuable targets in big games that have titans.