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Title says it all. Bang for buck, strike squads pump out twice as much dakka as terminators. What's the point of termies?

fire heavy and rending psycannon, 2+,5++. using the swords give you a 4++ in close combat. Really depends on what you see as good for your list building and local meta. see lots of heldrakes with ap3 flamers? have termies with 2+ armor. i like using only one group of them but they serve their purpose.

Strike squads are just regular marines. Yeah, they have an assault 2 bolter instead of a rapid fire 2 bolter, and they have power weapons they're not going to get a whole heck of a lot of use of, but otherwise, that's it. Expensive, but really nothing special.

Terminators, on the other hand, get all of the benefits of being terminators, most notably much better armor. This means everything from better force concentration to holding objectives better. Then on top of that, you get access to more better weapons - 2x psycannons in a 5-man squad, for example, and those close combat weapons, though still rarely used, have all been upgraded to nemesis weapons.

But the real icing on the cake to me is that GKTs can take Thawn. A deepstriking scoring unit in terminator armor that keeps getting back up after you kill him. Strategic gold.

Heldrakes.

Heldrakes love expensive marines.

Because watching Thawn contest an objective all game after dying over and over again is hilarious?

Strike Squad marines do only one thing good, and that's shooting. But every GK unit can do that, but they can also do melee. Which Strike Squads can't due to their NFW options being overpriced. Swords are nothing special on power armor, but do something for Terminator armor.

2+ armor cuts the wounds taken against shooting in half vs 3+ armor. Not to mention it improves survivability by an infinite amount against AP3. You also gain a 5+ invun save, which is a major increase against anything that's AP2.

Then you can also always fire your Psycannons in heavy mode. That's a big deal.

Something that hasn't *really* been touched on yet - "free" Deepstriking, on a survivable Troops unit. That's pretty damn handy when it comes to objectives.

Strike Squads have the Deep Strike rule.

Tac marines have drop pods.

Add the cost of the pod to any marine squad that can take them, and deepstriking hardly looks free.

Terminators are cheaper. Literally all there is to it.

 Ailaros wrote:
Tac marines have drop pods.

Add the cost of the pod to any marine squad that can take them, and deepstriking hardly looks free.

What do Tac marines have to do with this?

We're talking about Strike Squads and GK terminators. Both of which come with Deep Strike.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Evileyes wrote:
Terminators are cheaper. Literally all there is to it.

Are we talking $ here?

Terminators are cheaper in dollar terms for a given points value. That said the strike squads can take twice as many psycannons for the same points. (10 strikes versus 5 terminators) Like strikes terminators only get one psycannon per five men.

That said, I'd only take terminators because I started playing in 2nd edition where the only Grey Knights were terminators.

For nearly every other reason though, take strikes.

Yeah I think I'll stick to Strike Squads. I really don't see much AP3 in my meta, other than power swords - it's usually AP1/2.

Grey knights are too expensive to just have power armor unless they''re purifiers, terminator are vastly more survivable, get more out of upgrades, and can take thrawn. Although here I usually see draigowing, purifier spam, or henchmen lists, or a combination in big games.

 BryllCream wrote:
Yeah I think I'll stick to Strike Squads. I really don't see much AP3 in my meta, other than power swords - it's usually AP1/2.

I don't really see how that shifts the balance in favor of PA GK.

 Griddlelol wrote:

 BryllCream wrote:
Yeah I think I'll stick to Strike Squads. I really don't see much AP3 in my meta, other than power swords - it's usually AP1/2.

I don't really see how that shifts the balance in favor of PA GK.

Well terminators are 25% more survivable than PA GK, with the same damage output, for about twice the price. The only way they'd be worthwhile is if Ifaced a lot of AP3, or if they could take storm shields for a 3++, since 5++ isn't that big a deal since cover is easy to get.

 Grey Templar wrote:

 Ailaros wrote:
Tac marines have drop pods.

Add the cost of the pod to any marine squad that can take them, and deepstriking hardly looks free.

What do Tac marines have to do with this?

We're talking about Strike Squads and GK terminators. Both of which come with Deep Strike.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Evileyes wrote:
Terminators are cheaper. Literally all there is to it.

Are we talking $ here?

Yep, in money. A strike squad costs just as much in money terms as a terminator squad, and the terminator squad just looks...better xD

 BryllCream wrote:


Well terminators are 25% more survivable

Against ap2 and better. What about all the other stuff? Like ap4 or worse? What about being relentless which certainly affects their damage output from psycannons? What about their deepstriking ability or the way they consider cover completely irrelevant?

I'd have 100% PA GKs if my meta didn't have a nice amount of heldrakes in it.

 BryllCream wrote:

 Griddlelol wrote:

 BryllCream wrote:
Yeah I think I'll stick to Strike Squads. I really don't see much AP3 in my meta, other than power swords - it's usually AP1/2.

I don't really see how that shifts the balance in favor of PA GK.

Well terminators are 25% more survivable than PA GK, with the same damage output, for about twice the price. The only way they'd be worthwhile is if Ifaced a lot of AP3, or if they could take storm shields for a 3++, since 5++ isn't that big a deal since cover is easy to get.

25%? 2+ is exactly twice as good as 3+. (one chance to fail against two chances to fail on a roll.)

And if you keep the swords on the termies, they are 4++ in close combat. A 5 man squad can fire 8 shots of rending psycannon even when moving about.
I run a lot of Strike Squads, but only because my troop choices usually aren't my bruisers. If they were, I'd run termies all day erry day.

Personally, I'd rather have pods for dropping. I have, incredibly, never rolled a hit when deepstriking. (I know, it's one chance in three, right? It's incredible.)

 LValx wrote:
Heldrakes.

Heldrakes love expensive marines.

Absolutely, Helldrakes eat regular Marines alive. This gives you a good reason to run Termies.

 BryllCream wrote:
Yeah I think I'll stick to Strike Squads. I really don't see much AP3 in my meta, other than power swords - it's usually AP1/2.

a strange meta where missile launchers, rokkitz, heldrakes, basilisks and LRBT do not exist. Please I want to play there too.

I think if you don't have a ton of Heldrakes, PA is the way to go. Strike Squads pack much, much more firepower than Terminators. I also find the 2+ save to be a bit overrated. Most armies can deal with Terminators just fine in 6th due to the recent codices having more firepower than before (Crons, GK, DA, Tau).

Exergy wrote:

 BryllCream wrote:
Yeah I think I'll stick to Strike Squads. I really don't see much AP3 in my meta, other than power swords - it's usually AP1/2.

a strange meta where missile launchers, rokkitz, heldrakes, basilisks and LRBT do not exist. Please I want to play there too.

There are no LRBT or Basilisks because the only IG army is mine. There are a few missile launchers but they can shoot at MEQ all day long if they want to. Rather they shoot at a strike squad than a dreadnaught with autocannons/psybolt ammo.

Griddlelol wrote:

 BryllCream wrote:


Well terminators are 25% more survivable

Against ap2 and better. What about all the other stuff? Like ap4 or worse?

Termies are 25% more survivable than MEQ. marines have a 4/6 chance of saving, terminators have a 5/6 chance of saving, that's a 25% increase in survivability.

Can also assume at least 5+ cover at all times for my strike squad so 5++ isn't that helpful outside of CC...which I don't want them to be.

 Purifier wrote:

25%? 2+ is exactly twice as good as 3+. (one chance to fail against two chances to fail on a roll.)

And if you keep the swords on the termies, they are 4++ in close combat. A 5 man squad can fire 8 shots of rending psycannon even when moving about.
I run a lot of Strike Squads, but only because my troop choices usually aren't my bruisers. If they were, I'd run termies all day erry day.

Personally, I'd rather have pods for dropping. I have, incredibly, never rolled a hit when deepstriking. (I know, it's one chance in three, right? It's incredible.)

Terminators cost exactly twice as much as strike squads, so for a given points value they have half the firepower. Against non-AP3 weapons they have exactly the same survival rate (where save is balanced by number of wounds) and against AP2 they have about the same survival rate (if the strikes can find cover) and terminators cannot have two psycannons at five men. Paladin can, terminators cannot. The only clear advantage is survival against AP3 shots, and whilst there are a number of those (including the ever annoying Helldrake) the advantages of the strikes mean that terminators would really only be taken for fluff reasons.

Grey Knights don't have drop pods.

How quickly people have forgotten about Durp Quake now that it can't auto-bone and entire army roughly 50% of the time...
Quake is still great at keeping enemy deep strikers the hell away from you, and it's range is huge.

Strikes are also the cheapest Knight option, meaning GK's can go for model count, which is very dangerous for a lot of armies due to basic marines being fairly resilient in general, Storm Bolters putting out twice the firepower you'd normally expect from marines.
Strikes also make the best use of the Psybolt upgrade, because of their cheaper cost when compared to the other Knight units. (and mass BS4/S5 shooting is insanely good!)

Taking at least a pair of 10-man Strikes to sit back with your Psyflemen and other support units while your Termies and other front liners rush the enemy makes for a difficult game for most opponents who haven't gone 100% shooty-as-hell-gunline.

I always run a unit of Termies in my GK Army, and it's always a 10-man squad w/ psybolts and psycannons. This makes for a big scary unit that my opponent either focuses everything on or runs away from all game. Either way, that opens up options for me. I will advocate for Termies all day long, but I also think the Strike squads are fantastic. At some point I intend to get enough strikers to try a "strike squad spam" army. But why take Termies?

1. They're frickin Terminators. Nuff said.
2. Relentless Psycannons. Dakka dakka.
3. Versatility. Free wargear selection between Sword (+1 to invul save), Halberd (+2 Init), or Hammer (splat)
4. ability to kill just about anything with #3 above. They have the survivability to last until either Hammerhand gives them the strength to take stuff down, or activating Force Weapons inst-gibs that 4 wound creature or HQ that thought he'd stroll in and beat face.

When I ran my GK's I'd do a 10 man Termie squad, or 5 man if the points were on the lower side. With the weapon loadouts available to them, they're guaranteed to last a while and tie up multiple weaker units, or beatstick that MC that rolled Ironarm.

Of course, I always had strikes running around doing similar things. I've used Coteaz with a squad and covered a flank from deepstrikers and outflankers; it's hilarious watching a unit walk on the board only to have your opponent remove most/all of them almost right after.

Sorry, in what world is a 2+ save 25% more durable than a 3+ save?

(5/6)/(4/6) = 1.25
(4/6)/(5/6) = 0.8

Depends which way you want to throw the maths but it's either 20% or 25%.