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Martel732 wrote:

 Pouncey wrote:
When I saw people talking about Tactical Terminators and Land Raiders being useless rather than extraordinarily powerful but too pricy for most lists.

This has largely always been true, though. I'm told terminators were viable in 4th, but they sure weren't in 3rd or 5th.

That is because they were able to take two assault Cannons in a squad. Other than that, stock was and is still useless.

Which I do think is a point that needs to be brought up in this conversation. Power creep is one thing, but sometimes units or codices are non-functional. Take Terminators for example. I've seen many people on this specific forum complain about how Grav hurts Terminators, but it isn't like it WAS Grav that made them bad.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Martel732 wrote:

 Pouncey wrote:
When I saw people talking about Tactical Terminators and Land Raiders being useless rather than extraordinarily powerful but too pricy for most lists.

This has largely always been true, though. I'm told terminators were viable in 4th, but they sure weren't in 3rd or 5th.

That is because they were able to take two assault Cannons in a squad. Other than that, stock was and is still useless.

Which I do think is a point that needs to be brought up in this conversation. Power creep is one thing, but sometimes units or codices are non-functional. Take Terminators for example. I've seen many people on this specific forum complain about how Grav hurts Terminators, but it isn't like it WAS Grav that made them bad.

I think it would be fair to say they were bad competitively before, but became bad even in relatively friendly play as time went on. Up until Grav, special weapons options for defeating 2+ armor with Imperial armies were 2 shots with Gets Hot, or 1 safer and shorter ranged shot, but now it's potentially 3 shots with mid-range between the two options, and it's available on gobs of stuff and often on Relentless platforms, and that's not even counting the cannons. That said, it's only part of a general trend, Eldar getting BS4 and pseuodo-rending on everything, increased availability of AP2 to most armies in general, etc.

 Vaktathi wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Martel732 wrote:

 Pouncey wrote:
When I saw people talking about Tactical Terminators and Land Raiders being useless rather than extraordinarily powerful but too pricy for most lists.

This has largely always been true, though. I'm told terminators were viable in 4th, but they sure weren't in 3rd or 5th.

That is because they were able to take two assault Cannons in a squad. Other than that, stock was and is still useless.

Which I do think is a point that needs to be brought up in this conversation. Power creep is one thing, but sometimes units or codices are non-functional. Take Terminators for example. I've seen many people on this specific forum complain about how Grav hurts Terminators, but it isn't like it WAS Grav that made them bad.

I think it would be fair to say they were bad competitively before, but became bad even in relatively friendly play as time went on. Up until Grav, special weapons options for defeating 2+ armor with Imperial armies were 2 shots with Gets Hot, or 1 safer and shorter ranged shot, but now it's potentially 3 shots with mid-range between the two options, and it's available on gobs of stuff and often on Relentless platforms, and that's not even counting the cannons. That said, it's only part of a general trend, Eldar getting BS4 and pseuodo-rending on everything, increased availability of AP2 to most armies in general, etc.

I remember when Terminators were given their 5+ save in 3rd because even the devs realized that they were too fragile for their points.

nobody wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Martel732 wrote:

 Pouncey wrote:
When I saw people talking about Tactical Terminators and Land Raiders being useless rather than extraordinarily powerful but too pricy for most lists.

This has largely always been true, though. I'm told terminators were viable in 4th, but they sure weren't in 3rd or 5th.

That is because they were able to take two assault Cannons in a squad. Other than that, stock was and is still useless.

Which I do think is a point that needs to be brought up in this conversation. Power creep is one thing, but sometimes units or codices are non-functional. Take Terminators for example. I've seen many people on this specific forum complain about how Grav hurts Terminators, but it isn't like it WAS Grav that made them bad.

I think it would be fair to say they were bad competitively before, but became bad even in relatively friendly play as time went on. Up until Grav, special weapons options for defeating 2+ armor with Imperial armies were 2 shots with Gets Hot, or 1 safer and shorter ranged shot, but now it's potentially 3 shots with mid-range between the two options, and it's available on gobs of stuff and often on Relentless platforms, and that's not even counting the cannons. That said, it's only part of a general trend, Eldar getting BS4 and pseuodo-rending on everything, increased availability of AP2 to most armies in general, etc.

I remember when Terminators were given their 5+ save in 3rd because even the devs realized that they were too fragile for their points.

My brother hates that rule. We played a game of 3rd a few months ago and he was lamenting how my Termies stuck around far longer than they should have.

Hit my buddy with 3 skyhammers. He wasn't ready. This was in response to his formations abuse, now we have a standing rule that we have to take a CAD at minimum before other shinanigans.

 Vaktathi wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Martel732 wrote:

 Pouncey wrote:
When I saw people talking about Tactical Terminators and Land Raiders being useless rather than extraordinarily powerful but too pricy for most lists.

This has largely always been true, though. I'm told terminators were viable in 4th, but they sure weren't in 3rd or 5th.

That is because they were able to take two assault Cannons in a squad. Other than that, stock was and is still useless.

Which I do think is a point that needs to be brought up in this conversation. Power creep is one thing, but sometimes units or codices are non-functional. Take Terminators for example. I've seen many people on this specific forum complain about how Grav hurts Terminators, but it isn't like it WAS Grav that made them bad.

I think it would be fair to say they were bad competitively before, but became bad even in relatively friendly play as time went on. Up until Grav, special weapons options for defeating 2+ armor with Imperial armies were 2 shots with Gets Hot, or 1 safer and shorter ranged shot, but now it's potentially 3 shots with mid-range between the two options, and it's available on gobs of stuff and often on Relentless platforms, and that's not even counting the cannons. That said, it's only part of a general trend, Eldar getting BS4 and pseuodo-rending on everything, increased availability of AP2 to most armies in general, etc.

They were garbage in casual play as well. They were merely bought and used because they're iconic. So even trying to defend them in that manner is doing more justice than actually deserved.

Plasma was plentiful enough in 3rd ed. Late 3rd had 3 shot starcannons. Loyalist terminators have never lived up to their billing.

I wanst saying they were great, only that they could be "ok" in some friendly games, and I got a lot of use out of 2+/5++ chaos termis through late 4th up to early 6th (when Icons no longer functioned as teleport homers).

Fair enough.

Something a lot of people seem to forget is that, while AP2 guns are a lot more common these days, AP2 Melee weapons used to be all over the place, because any Power Weapon automatically cut through armor.

Time was, I could kill a whole squad of Terminators by charging a unit of Burna Boyz out of a truck, no problem. They didn't get overwatch, so the only guy who could get attacks was the captain - 2 attacks, 1 hit, half a wound - I have 11.5 Burnas ready to hit back, which would easily eliminate them. That's a shooty unit with offhand close combat ability, wiping out a dedicated assault squad without taking any casualties.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, there has been power creep since I started playing in mid-5th. Every codex that came out was better than the last, at least at my LGS. Dark Eldar came out and was the new hot stuff. I remember when Blood Angels came out, and everyone was terrified of how much better they were to regular Space Marines - Then, Space Wolves got their new codex, and not only were Grey Hunters a point cheaper than Tactical Marines, but they had free Special Weapons, more attacks, counter-attack, and could take 2 special weapons instead of 1 and a heavy - Almost universally better for most armies at the time.
(On top of which, a Wolf Lord on a Thunderwolf with Saga of the Bear was Chapter Master Smashfather v1, Rune Priests with Jaws of the World Wolf were pretty much the definition of cheese, and that 4+ psychic denial bubble was the most overpowered thing since sliced bread.)

EDIT: Oh, I almost forgot about Long Fangs. More weapons were available compared to Devestators, which was reasonable enough since they couldn't take body shields, but they COULD attach a Terminator body to the squad and use him to tank shots. Plus, their missile launchers were just straight-up cheaper than anyone elses, they had Split Fire, and if you really wanted the extra dakka you could give that Terminator a CML, giving you a crazy 7 Missile Launcher shots for less than 250 points - Back when Missile Launchers were still good.

Missile launchers were never good after 2nd ed.

They weren't bad weapons in 4E given that they could kill AV14 with glances and pens were way harsher in general, they were more popular than autocannons at the time, and the AP3 mattered more back then. In 5th they were great for SW's because they could get tons of them with split fire capability for an absurdly low price. Though yeah, they havent been particularly stellar options for most armies for many years.

Not being able to engage 2+ armor has ALWAYS been a killer for me. And the pathetic nature of the small blast template. Lascannons all the way since 3rd.

The big issue with Lascannons was that they were like 35pts apiece where ML's could be 15 or 20 and you could take plasma guns for AP2 for 10pts, Lascannons were stupid expensive before late 4th/early 5th for most armies (and is also when Plasma got bumped to 15pts).

But the range was $$. I think I mostly brought them on tanks, though. I just stopped using devastators.

Martel732 wrote:
But the range was $$. I think I mostly brought them on tanks, though. I just stopped using devastators.

I only ever recall MLs being used regularly in some of the early 5th edition Multi-Long-Fangs SW lists. Never saw much of them otherwise.

@OP: I became acutely aware of imbalances between codices when I first started (in 5th). At the time, my friend was running the shiny new SWs with their 15pt tacticals and free BP/CCW and 'nades. I, on the other hand, was running the old 3rd or 4th edition Black Templars codex (back when they had their own book), with my 16 point tacticals that could only have BP/CCW or Bolter, and had to pay 1ppm for frags, and 2ppm for kraks.

Always hilarious to see the supposedly "most numerous chapter" get constantly outnumbered in every battle...

As for power creep itself... I became most aware of that after having suffered with the old BTs for a while (against primarily new SWs, 4th ed Daemons, and Eldar), and then deciding to try out GKs since the new book was coming out. Hoooo boy, did that turn things around immediately. I remember testing the Warp Quake build against my friend's Daemons and almost tabling him before the first turn was over. We basically saw the writing on the wall then, and honestly most of them stopped playing - and I slowly started transitioning to Specialist Games. After 6th dropped though, things seemed to settle until TauDar showed up. Now it's just nonsense left and right.

Yeah before SWs were able to spam missiles with splitfire, it was mostly Las/Plas, to the point that it became a meme.

 Vaktathi wrote:
I wanst saying they were great, only that they could be "ok" in some friendly games, and I got a lot of use out of 2+/5++ chaos termis through late 4th up to early 6th (when Icons no longer functioned as teleport homers).

That's because Chaos Terminators were always at worst mediocre, and are now actually superb thanks to the TL supplement.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Mostly these types of threads are about fixing Loyalist Terminators, not Wolves or Chaos. Blood Angels and Dark Angels have equally garbage Terminators, with the biggest insult being Deathwing because they're definitely not worth 40 points each.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
I wanst saying they were great, only that they could be "ok" in some friendly games, and I got a lot of use out of 2+/5++ chaos termis through late 4th up to early 6th (when Icons no longer functioned as teleport homers).

That's because Chaos Terminators were always at worst mediocre, and are now actually superb thanks to the TL supplement.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Mostly these types of threads are about fixing Loyalist Terminators, not Wolves or Chaos. Blood Angels and Dark Angels have equally garbage Terminators, with the biggest insult being Deathwing because they're definitely not worth 40 points each.

Honestly, Space Wolf terminators are vastly, vastly worse than Loyalist - For only 2 points less, we lose a Power Fist and just get a Power Weapon. Our TH/SS loadout is only a few points more than the Vanilla counterpart, and it's nice that we can technically vary Assault and Tactical Terminators in one squad, but those Tactical Terminators are absolute garbage by any standard, especially in an army that also includes Wulfen and Thunderwolf Cavalry.

Waaaghpower wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
I wanst saying they were great, only that they could be "ok" in some friendly games, and I got a lot of use out of 2+/5++ chaos termis through late 4th up to early 6th (when Icons no longer functioned as teleport homers).

That's because Chaos Terminators were always at worst mediocre, and are now actually superb thanks to the TL supplement.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Mostly these types of threads are about fixing Loyalist Terminators, not Wolves or Chaos. Blood Angels and Dark Angels have equally garbage Terminators, with the biggest insult being Deathwing because they're definitely not worth 40 points each.

Honestly, Space Wolf terminators are vastly, vastly worse than Loyalist - For only 2 points less, we lose a Power Fist and just get a Power Weapon. Our TH/SS loadout is only a few points more than the Vanilla counterpart, and it's nice that we can technically vary Assault and Tactical Terminators in one squad, but those Tactical Terminators are absolute garbage by any standard, especially in an army that also includes Wulfen and Thunderwolf Cavalry.

Absolutely incorrect.

You need to treat them like Chaos Terminators. You don't NEED a Power Fist on every guy when you can strike at S6 anyway with the Frost Axe. Who cares about shooting when you can take Combi-Weapons on top of having Homers?

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Waaaghpower wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
I wanst saying they were great, only that they could be "ok" in some friendly games, and I got a lot of use out of 2+/5++ chaos termis through late 4th up to early 6th (when Icons no longer functioned as teleport homers).

That's because Chaos Terminators were always at worst mediocre, and are now actually superb thanks to the TL supplement.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Mostly these types of threads are about fixing Loyalist Terminators, not Wolves or Chaos. Blood Angels and Dark Angels have equally garbage Terminators, with the biggest insult being Deathwing because they're definitely not worth 40 points each.

Honestly, Space Wolf terminators are vastly, vastly worse than Loyalist - For only 2 points less, we lose a Power Fist and just get a Power Weapon. Our TH/SS loadout is only a few points more than the Vanilla counterpart, and it's nice that we can technically vary Assault and Tactical Terminators in one squad, but those Tactical Terminators are absolute garbage by any standard, especially in an army that also includes Wulfen and Thunderwolf Cavalry.

Absolutely incorrect.

You need to treat them like Chaos Terminators. You don't NEED a Power Fist on every guy when you can strike at S6 anyway with the Frost Axe. Who cares about shooting when you can take Combi-Weapons on top of having Homers?

That Frost Axe still costs 5 points, meaning that they cost 38 points - 3 points more than Loyalists, for 2 less Strength.
And what's the point of Combi-weapon spam on them? I do not want to spend 38 points apiece to get what amounts to a one-off Plasmagun or Meltagun. It's a nifty trick, sure, but not a particularly *good* one since I can spam special-weapon fire from a ton of different sources, I don't need Wolf Guard to do that.

Waaaghpower wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Waaaghpower wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
I wanst saying they were great, only that they could be "ok" in some friendly games, and I got a lot of use out of 2+/5++ chaos termis through late 4th up to early 6th (when Icons no longer functioned as teleport homers).

That's because Chaos Terminators were always at worst mediocre, and are now actually superb thanks to the TL supplement.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Mostly these types of threads are about fixing Loyalist Terminators, not Wolves or Chaos. Blood Angels and Dark Angels have equally garbage Terminators, with the biggest insult being Deathwing because they're definitely not worth 40 points each.

Honestly, Space Wolf terminators are vastly, vastly worse than Loyalist - For only 2 points less, we lose a Power Fist and just get a Power Weapon. Our TH/SS loadout is only a few points more than the Vanilla counterpart, and it's nice that we can technically vary Assault and Tactical Terminators in one squad, but those Tactical Terminators are absolute garbage by any standard, especially in an army that also includes Wulfen and Thunderwolf Cavalry.

Absolutely incorrect.

You need to treat them like Chaos Terminators. You don't NEED a Power Fist on every guy when you can strike at S6 anyway with the Frost Axe. Who cares about shooting when you can take Combi-Weapons on top of having Homers?

That Frost Axe still costs 5 points, meaning that they cost 38 points - 3 points more than Loyalists, for 2 less Strength.
And what's the point of Combi-weapon spam on them? I do not want to spend 38 points apiece to get what amounts to a one-off Plasmagun or Meltagun. It's a nifty trick, sure, but not a particularly *good* one since I can spam special-weapon fire from a ton of different sources, I don't need Wolf Guard to do that.

Didn't realize you had to pay for Frost Weapons. However, everything else still stands. It is a minimal investment to utterly kill a target.

And what Special Weapon spam? From Grey Hunters?

Waaaghpower wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Waaaghpower wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
I wanst saying they were great, only that they could be "ok" in some friendly games, and I got a lot of use out of 2+/5++ chaos termis through late 4th up to early 6th (when Icons no longer functioned as teleport homers).

That's because Chaos Terminators were always at worst mediocre, and are now actually superb thanks to the TL supplement.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Mostly these types of threads are about fixing Loyalist Terminators, not Wolves or Chaos. Blood Angels and Dark Angels have equally garbage Terminators, with the biggest insult being Deathwing because they're definitely not worth 40 points each.

Honestly, Space Wolf terminators are vastly, vastly worse than Loyalist - For only 2 points less, we lose a Power Fist and just get a Power Weapon. Our TH/SS loadout is only a few points more than the Vanilla counterpart, and it's nice that we can technically vary Assault and Tactical Terminators in one squad, but those Tactical Terminators are absolute garbage by any standard, especially in an army that also includes Wulfen and Thunderwolf Cavalry.

Absolutely incorrect.

You need to treat them like Chaos Terminators. You don't NEED a Power Fist on every guy when you can strike at S6 anyway with the Frost Axe. Who cares about shooting when you can take Combi-Weapons on top of having Homers?

That Frost Axe still costs 5 points, meaning that they cost 38 points - 3 points more than Loyalists, for 2 less Strength.
And what's the point of Combi-weapon spam on them? I do not want to spend 38 points apiece to get what amounts to a one-off Plasmagun or Meltagun. It's a nifty trick, sure, but not a particularly *good* one since I can spam special-weapon fire from a ton of different sources, I don't need Wolf Guard to do that.

Combi-weapons are really limited use to Space Wolves, there's a grand total of two unique formations they're worthwhile in.
Thunderstrike Formation - Twin-linked on arrival.
With a Divination Rune Priest - Re-rolls to hit.

If they were based on Bolt Pistols or Grey Hunters could get them they might see more use. But once the Wolf Guard have fired them they're now the equivalent of a really expensive Grey Hunter pack.

Anything on foot is too slow to keep up with Space Wolves playstyle these days but Termies feel it twice over because their classic transport option the Land Raider is one of the first things targeted for destruction.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Waaaghpower wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Waaaghpower wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
I wanst saying they were great, only that they could be "ok" in some friendly games, and I got a lot of use out of 2+/5++ chaos termis through late 4th up to early 6th (when Icons no longer functioned as teleport homers).

That's because Chaos Terminators were always at worst mediocre, and are now actually superb thanks to the TL supplement.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Mostly these types of threads are about fixing Loyalist Terminators, not Wolves or Chaos. Blood Angels and Dark Angels have equally garbage Terminators, with the biggest insult being Deathwing because they're definitely not worth 40 points each.

Honestly, Space Wolf terminators are vastly, vastly worse than Loyalist - For only 2 points less, we lose a Power Fist and just get a Power Weapon. Our TH/SS loadout is only a few points more than the Vanilla counterpart, and it's nice that we can technically vary Assault and Tactical Terminators in one squad, but those Tactical Terminators are absolute garbage by any standard, especially in an army that also includes Wulfen and Thunderwolf Cavalry.

Absolutely incorrect.

You need to treat them like Chaos Terminators. You don't NEED a Power Fist on every guy when you can strike at S6 anyway with the Frost Axe. Who cares about shooting when you can take Combi-Weapons on top of having Homers?

That Frost Axe still costs 5 points, meaning that they cost 38 points - 3 points more than Loyalists, for 2 less Strength.
And what's the point of Combi-weapon spam on them? I do not want to spend 38 points apiece to get what amounts to a one-off Plasmagun or Meltagun. It's a nifty trick, sure, but not a particularly *good* one since I can spam special-weapon fire from a ton of different sources, I don't need Wolf Guard to do that.

Didn't realize you had to pay for Frost Weapons. However, everything else still stands. It is a minimal investment to utterly kill a target.

And what Special Weapon spam? From Grey Hunters?

Well, regular Wolf Guard can spam combi-weapons for only 28ppm instead of 38, and since we're comparing to Loyalists, Command Squads can bring five actual Special Weapons for super cheap.

Being able to do something marginally better than the rest of the Space Wolves codex doesn't really matter when other codices can do the same thing far, far better.

Waaaghpower wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Waaaghpower wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Waaaghpower wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
I wanst saying they were great, only that they could be "ok" in some friendly games, and I got a lot of use out of 2+/5++ chaos termis through late 4th up to early 6th (when Icons no longer functioned as teleport homers).

That's because Chaos Terminators were always at worst mediocre, and are now actually superb thanks to the TL supplement.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Mostly these types of threads are about fixing Loyalist Terminators, not Wolves or Chaos. Blood Angels and Dark Angels have equally garbage Terminators, with the biggest insult being Deathwing because they're definitely not worth 40 points each.

Honestly, Space Wolf terminators are vastly, vastly worse than Loyalist - For only 2 points less, we lose a Power Fist and just get a Power Weapon. Our TH/SS loadout is only a few points more than the Vanilla counterpart, and it's nice that we can technically vary Assault and Tactical Terminators in one squad, but those Tactical Terminators are absolute garbage by any standard, especially in an army that also includes Wulfen and Thunderwolf Cavalry.

Absolutely incorrect.

You need to treat them like Chaos Terminators. You don't NEED a Power Fist on every guy when you can strike at S6 anyway with the Frost Axe. Who cares about shooting when you can take Combi-Weapons on top of having Homers?

That Frost Axe still costs 5 points, meaning that they cost 38 points - 3 points more than Loyalists, for 2 less Strength.
And what's the point of Combi-weapon spam on them? I do not want to spend 38 points apiece to get what amounts to a one-off Plasmagun or Meltagun. It's a nifty trick, sure, but not a particularly *good* one since I can spam special-weapon fire from a ton of different sources, I don't need Wolf Guard to do that.

Didn't realize you had to pay for Frost Weapons. However, everything else still stands. It is a minimal investment to utterly kill a target.

And what Special Weapon spam? From Grey Hunters?

Well, regular Wolf Guard can spam combi-weapons for only 28ppm instead of 38, and since we're comparing to Loyalists, Command Squads can bring five actual Special Weapons for super cheap.

Being able to do something marginally better than the rest of the Space Wolves codex doesn't really matter when other codices can do the same thing far, far better.

Regular Wolf Guard need to spend an extra 35 points for a Drop Pod so don't pretend they're cheaper. Space Wolves also don't have command squads so I'm not sure why you even bring that up.

@Slayer Fan, did you read my whole post?
Where I said that being able to do things marginally better than other Space Wolves still isn't good when other codices can do the exact same thing far better?
You quoted my whole post, but judging by your response you either skipped half of it or simply chose to ignore the half that you couldn't easily respond to.

Also: 5 Wolf Guard with Combi Weapons in a Drop Pod is 175 points, 5 Termies with Combi Weapons is 190. I don't have to pretend, because they are literally cheaper.
Since those Termies are extremely liable to mishap, while the Wolf Guard can reliably drop anywhere that they want to, I'm gonna go with the Wolf Guard any day.

Waaaghpower wrote:
@Slayer Fan, did you read my whole post?
Where I said that being able to do things marginally better than other Space Wolves still isn't good when other codices can do the exact same thing far better?
You quoted my whole post, but judging by your response you either skipped half of it or simply chose to ignore the half that you couldn't easily respond to.

Also: 5 Wolf Guard with Combi Weapons in a Drop Pod is 175 points, 5 Termies with Combi Weapons is 190. I don't have to pretend, because they are literally cheaper.
Since those Termies are extremely liable to mishap, while the Wolf Guard can reliably drop anywhere that they want to, I'm gonna go with the Wolf Guard any day.

It's an honest trade off though.
Both will trigger EWO responses or Deathmarks, only one has a hope in hell of surviving them.