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I want to field a bunch of Cataphractii, like 30 to 40 or more. What Legions lend themselves to this? I know Imperial Fists can do storm shields but I'm not sure if that's the route I'd like to go. For one, yellow, and for two, shield + fist looks dumb and the Cataphractii box doesn't have hammers.

Iron Hands, that would make them tougher right? World Eaters or Blood Angels or similar would be better at punching.

Any thoughts from those who've run lots of terminators in a 30k force?

Sub question: Is 3k the normal points value? Or is 2k and smaller also common?

Sons of Horus have Justaerian Terminators in Cataphractii plate as their special unit and a RoW centered around Terminators.

There's also a Deathwing RoW that lets you bring Terminators as Troops.

Right now, SoH with justairan RoW,
Deathwing RoW
Or ultra marines and just take max squad of Fulminators because holy crap they are OP.

1st Legion is I think a reasonable choice for maxed out termies. We don't have any terminator specific rules, but our Hexagrammaton special rules and weapons lend themselves well to terminators and character beatsticks.
Stormwing 1+ to hit with combi-bolters
Deathwing 1+ to hit with swords
Dreadwing reduces the strength of incoming Flame/Plasma/Volkite/Phosphex & Posion weapons by 1.
All very useful for terminators.

The Knights Cenobium make for a great feth-gak-up-unit with plasma flamers and murderous striking greatswords as standard. And are greatly enhanced when accompanied by a Primus Medicae and Praetor/Melee Consul

The one issue I can see with generic Terminators in general is their lack of long range firepower, being geared towards short range firefights and melee. Some of the Legion specific termies are different in terms of long range firepower (Ultramarines and Iron Warriors are the ones that come to mind.) if you're aiming for a sit back and shoot type army.

The main issue though with the aforementioned Deathwing RoW (The Unbroken Vow) is that it doesn't grant you the Line subtype, yet it's bonuses focus around being near (and ostensibly controlling) Objectives. A secondary "downside" is that it locks all your units into being Deathwing. Which means to to get the most out of them you need to equip them with power swords to make the most of the 1+ to hit. So until such time as GW sees fit to FAQ it to grant Line to the Terminators/Veterans, Pride of the Legion is still a better choice for an Objective focused Terminator army.

I know Imperial Fists can do storm shields but I'm not sure if that's the route I'd like to go.

With the recently released Legacies of the Dark Age PDF, you can now take Indomitus Termies again. They can take both TH/SS and you aren't required to paint them yellow.

Sub question: Is 3k the normal points value? Or is 2k and smaller also common?

It will really depend on the local scene. Plenty of places play 3k as standard and 1.0 rules certainly lent themselves well to 3k battles. But it you don't want the hassle of Primarchs (and who does!) then 2k is an attractive option.

Imperial Fists being able to take storm shields on termies should proably also be mentioned

There's also IWs and Tyrant Siege termies. And the one from the article with the hammers, I guess.

 Snrub wrote:
A secondary "downside" is that it locks all your units into being Deathwing.

No, it doesn't. It only locks the units that are shifted to being Troops(Cataphractii, Tartaros, and Veterans) and your Warlord into being Deathwing. You can still bring non-Deathwing units and nothing is stopping you from bringing other units with Line.

 ph34r wrote:
I want to field a bunch of Cataphractii, like 30 to 40 or more. What Legions lend themselves to this? I know Imperial Fists can do storm shields but I'm not sure if that's the route I'd like to go. For one, yellow, and for two, shield + fist looks dumb and the Cataphractii box doesn't have hammers.

Iron Hands, that would make them tougher right? World Eaters or Blood Angels or similar would be better at punching.

Any thoughts from those who've run lots of terminators in a 30k force?

Sub question: Is 3k the normal points value? Or is 2k and smaller also common?

Technically, if you got a very big wallet and don't want to go with the obvious candidates you could go for AL.

Laernean terminators are in cataphracti, come with "it will not die", have fronttroops type and volkite weaponry aswell as power axes. Also +1 to hit against other legion of your choice.

So you could, field 30 of these for about 500 pts / squad for the heavy weapon options.
Then you could also staple in some Primus medicae in cataphractii.
And add in a command cataphracti squad.

loads of cataphractii, with it will not die, and potentially feel no pain, however you will need landraiders for transport, and AT and you should still field 2 troop squads, probably tacs.

Night Lords: Take the Pride of the Legion RoW, this makes Cataphractii (and Tartaros) terminator squads Troops and gives them Line, while making all other terminators troops as well. Take Sevatar as your warlord, this gives ALL terminators the Deep Strike rule, and on the turn that they arrive on the board, they all gain Preferred Enemy (EVERYTHING). But just for that turn, so you have to make it count.

How about non-special terminators, aka things that can be built right from-the-box of cataphractii? I get that each legion, almost at least, has their own special great terminator unit. A lot of those look really cool. I do wonder what might be a good home for the plain old regular cataphractii bretheren.

 ph34r wrote:
How about non-special terminators, aka things that can be built right from-the-box of cataphractii? I get that each legion, almost at least, has their own special great terminator unit. A lot of those look really cool. I do wonder what might be a good home for the plain old regular cataphractii bretheren.

Eh, dealers choice at that point. If you want real tough ones, IH are scary as hell.

 ph34r wrote:
How about non-special terminators, aka things that can be built right from-the-box of cataphractii? I get that each legion, almost at least, has their own special great terminator unit. A lot of those look really cool. I do wonder what might be a good home for the plain old regular cataphractii bretheren.

Well, you then get basically with pride of the legion only 3 Frontline counting ones, which may be iffy overall to hold objectives.

But as stated you basically can pick any legion of your chosing, but the build then is kinda dictated for all of them:

1 Praetor (cataphractii),
4-5 Cataphractii command squad. Proteus
1-2 Primus Medica Centurion in cataphractii armor.

Troops:
Frontline 10 Cataphractii
Frontline 5 Cataphractii Proteus.

Heavy Support:
Land raider spartan, for the big squad.

IH would be a natural choice for the added durability, but such a list will have problems when they run into a tac legio list simply due board controll issues, another problem will be dreadnoughts, depending upon your loadout and theirs.
Mobile lists will have a field day against you.

Technically you could avoid a big squad of frontline Cataphractii and instead run multiple small ones but long range devastating firepower you will not really have.

Not sure about now with 2.0, but in 1.0 my buddy ran 70 terminators in his Death Guard list. Seemed really cool!