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So, after the 6th edition Dark Angels codex came out, I tried to play Deathwing under the impression that an army of 2+ armor saves was good; turns out I was wrong. I never played DA much before, but to me it seems that the only thing that separates Deathwing now from before is that the Cyclone Missile Launcher fires two missiles instead of one (which in my opinion was the coolest thing in the 6th edition DA codex) and that Deathwing weapons are twin-linked after dropping down. Their durability does not justify their points cost, but for being a unit intended for nasty alpha strikes, only their heavy weapons do any relevant damage, and taking one requires you to take a 200pt squad of terminators to use it.

Suggestions:

1. Make Storm Bolters Salvo 2/4. Better anti-horde, which is something I was under the impression Terminators were originally intended for. For a weapon that's supposed to fire a lot of shots, it's exactly like a bolter at 12", which is carried by a standard marine for 13pts, compared to a Deathwing termie for 44pts. That's super lame.

2. Allow Deathwing Terminators to be taken in squads of 3-10. In some small way this would help with their durability, as they're a little more difficult to focus down being split up into smaller units. They're also more tactically flexible this way.

3. Allow one heavy weapon for every 3 Terminators, rather than 5. Chaos termicide units come to mind. Termicide units are useful because they're cheap; despite still having power fists by default, it'd be less of a points investment to take units of 3 instead of 5.

4. A friend of mine suggested that Terminator armor grants 5+ FNP in addition to a 2+/5++. It would certainly help with tanking AP2 fire, although this would be a general rule for terminator armor, so applying it would be less practical.

Stormbolters definitely need the salvo buff, right now they are actually worse within 12" than chaos' combi-bolters. Grey Knights can simply be given a different "wrist mounted bolter" that works like the current stormbolter. Also allowing 2 heavy weapons in a five man unit would a big improvement.


The other 2 big problems with terminators are cost and survivability. Back when point costs were dropped, basic tacticals got a larger relative cost reduction than terminators did, leaving terminators overcosted relative to most units. The other problem is the huge amount of AP2 shooting that was created in 6th edition. Right when 6th was released most melee AP2 was removed or made unwieldy, but then a huge amount of AP2 shooting was added or made much cheaper in the later codexes. This isn't an issue you can fix by changin terminators alone and is a problem created by GW's design team.

Im not sure if giving them 1+ armor would be too much or not. (Remember, a 1 always fails.) It would make them only really scared of meltas at range. They would still die to 1 in 6 lasgun wounds though...which just seems a bit too weak.

I don't really know what to do to save termies at this point, other than dropping their points significantly. Maybe each termie could have a void shield?

At this point Termies pretty much need to weather the present edition before 7e comes along and pokes the meta back towards assaultier strategies. In the short term a 4+ native Inv and Salvo 2/4 bolters would go a long way towards making them playable; I'm hesitant to permit two heavy weapons on a five man squad due to lack of precedent anywhere that's not a book written by Matt Ward.

The main issue of the deathwing is that is very vulnerable to mass small arms fire and close combat attacks. I doubt giving the terminators more fire power will fix this. However, the fire power of a deathwing unit is laughable, so they need a storm bolter/heavy weapon boost anyways.

I don't agree with making the storm bolter a 2/4 salvo weapon. The reason for this is that terminators are supposed to assault (hence the name storm bolter) and punishing units for moving and firing would break that theme.

In my own custom DA codex, I happened already to incorporate 1 heavy weapon per third deathwing terminator, but looking at this post made me also change the storm bolter to 18" range and assault 4.

If you want you can check the codex here (PDF):

https://mega.co.nz/#!tRICGLRJ!OOIhlkSRzKz2abXxLvPaIuYqcmInmb9WgwBwum1gRPo

flodihn wrote:
The main issue of the deathwing is that is very vulnerable to mass small arms fire and close combat attacks. I doubt giving the terminators more fire power will fix this. However, the fire power of a deathwing unit is laughable, so they need a storm bolter/heavy weapon boost anyways.

I don't agree with making the storm bolter a 2/4 salvo weapon. The reason for this is that terminators are supposed to assault (hence the name storm bolter) and punishing units for moving and firing would break that theme.

In my own custom DA codex, I happened already to incorporate 1 heavy weapon per third deathwing terminator, but looking at this post made me also change the storm bolter to 18" range and assault 4.

If you want you can check the codex here (PDF):

https://mega.co.nz/#!tRICGLRJ!OOIhlkSRzKz2abXxLvPaIuYqcmInmb9WgwBwum1gRPo

Terminators are relentless, so they can move, fire salvo at the better profile and still assault.

In the fluff, stormbolters are basically two bolters stuck together that even marines in power armour have trouble controlling with two hands. However, on the tabletop they are not that much better than regular bolters (and worse than the "out-dated" combi-bolter used by chaos) and are primary used by units that don't need an assault weapon to charge after shooting. Sisters of Battle even run around firing them like they were bolt pistols, not that stormbolters are currently worth taking as a special weapon. Salvo 2/4 would allow for the stormbolter to be a legitimate special weapon that works exactly like it does in the fluff, and helps fix several units.

I would have thought giving them an extra wound would solve most issues as the main complaint is that they die to easily to low st low ap fire and every causality hurts a DW player.

I think the best way would be to give deathwing the ability to charge after ds. It would instantly move deathwing from mildly better than sm termies, to omg wtf grade potent. Melee terminators would become scarier than phone calls from your girl while she's at the free clinic

If it's good enough to make me chuckle it's good enough for an exalt :-)

 ionusx wrote:
I think the best way would be to give deathwing the ability to charge after ds. It would instantly move deathwing from mildly better than sm termies, to omg wtf grade potent. Melee terminators would become scarier than phone calls from your girl while she's at the free clinic

In older version of the game, units could do that and it caused massed imbalance due to gunline armies being charged on turn one. I think charge on the same turn as deepstrike would make deathwing too powerful. It would also remove the tactical element of deepstriking your forces in a good position to avoid enemy fire, if they could charge right away you would just teleport anywhere close to the enemy.

I think most of the problems you're citing are generic problems for terminators not just deathwing. As far as your suggestion 1) Terminators to me aren't anti anything. They are defensive neigh indestructible infantry. Tarpitting is and should be a good answer to termis so I don't think they need an increase in the ability to handle hordes.

Suggestions 2) and 3) deal with the same issue. All this would do is relegate terminators to MSU special/heavy weapon drops like chaos' termicide. This is bad. Its really frustrating to try to use csm termi's for anything else. Termis are supposed to be hard to remove anchor points in the battle field, not disposable chaff.

Suggestion 4) addresses their survivability, but what is really the issue is their survivability vs their point cost. I think a point cost reduction for terminators in general is due. You're paying 3 times a marine and getting the durability of twice a marine in an ideal scenario. I think a pts reduction would largely address most terminator problems.

One of their main problems is that they don't cause target saturation.

Orks cause target saturation by making your heavy weapons near useless in a battle, just because the best you could hope for is to kill a 6 point ork.

Most vehicles can cause it because any of your basic infantry guns won't be able to hurt the armor.

Terminators get the WORST of both worlds. They can die to strength 1 blowdarts, so all enemy firepower is valid against them. At the same time, they're crazy expensive, so heavy weapons firing at them are actually doing a good job paying for themselves. If you have all terminators, the opponent literally has no chance of making an inefficient shooting attack. 6 wounds by any ap3+ weapons or 1.5 ap1-2 wounds are efficient, given how expensive the terminators were. The only ones that a marginally inefficient to the point where they don't immediately pay for themselves in one kill are big ap3 blasts.

To sum up:
-Any game where your opponent ALWAYS makes efficient targeting choices is going to be a LOT harder to win.

-Deathwing makes almost ALL his attacks efficient.

BA's sanguinary guard have the same issue.