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Well I was sifting through my friend's dark angel codex and came upon an interesting army build ( in my head, that is).

It is first turn multiple small units of terminators+command squad ( with standard for the FNP ) with Belial. Belial and command squad deep strike at the exact desired location, and a lot of termies follow his locator beacon.

And here comes the question, I vaguely recall a multitude of posts about how this is a really bad tactic, but can't exactly remember the cons of it. So anyone here know what they were?

Because after the initial deep strike with a lot of twin linked split fire action, you have multiple squads of troops that are really hard to kill blocking the enemy. The only negative aspect I see is that you have to endure one round of shooting - but that is where the 2+/3++ with FNP come into play.

So again, does anyone remember the cons?

The cons? How about a plasma cannon.
The general problem with terminators is that for their cost they are less survivable than your basic marines. You're only hope is to land in enough density to overwhelm your opponents firepower.

-Matt

Well how many plasma cannons does one have on average? Also, it's a blast - hence it scatters 2/3 of the time. And on top of that, you place a hammernator closest to the enemy lines. So standing in the path of that on target plasma ( in that 1/3 case ) is a 3++ with FNP.

I know it majorly goes down to whether the plasma cannon shot scatters or no, but odds are in the termies' favor. Even more so cause they are clustered together, reducing the scatter distance will have lesser effect.

You fire bolters at Assault Terminators and Plasma at those without it. Even Flamers can do very solid damage to them.

Why is it that everyone always assumes the opposing army is the one with exactly the best weapons to counter it?

But I get what you are saying, and that is those termies won't survive an ounce of that one shooting phase...

My friend plays deathwing and let me tell you: You do not. I repeat - do not - try this against eldar. Shurikan pseudo-rending will clean you up real quick.

Belac Ynnead wrote:
My friend plays deathwing and let me tell you: You do not. I repeat - do not - try this against eldar. Shurikan pseudo-rending will clean you up real quick.

Yeah, there are two "issues" for Terminator heavy lists, one is buckets of Plasma, the other is volume of fire....rolling 20+ save a turn will get real old fast...so you'll need to be a little carefull about who you land next too...

Not to mention plain old bad luck.

You will roll 1s, and every time you do for a save, that's a bigger chunk of your force gone than practically every other army.

I love the idea of Termies, either as a themed force or just as a unit, but I've seen them focused down too many times to consider them objectively good. (Doesn't stop me wheeling them out regularly when I play Marines though)

It's not about Plasma Cannons to be honest. Marine costs 16 pts and Terminator costs 40 (correct me if I'm wrong, not an Imperial player ). They are twice as diffcult to kill against small arms fire but more than twice costly.
We all now that in present meta MEQ isn't as tough as it used to be. So why would TEQ be? It's even worse if you also take into account players still arming their soldiers with plasma weapons (relic of the 6th ed when MCs ruled).
Also faster armies (usually) are more competitive than slower ones. But that only matters when it comes to Tournaments. If you're talking about friendly games in LGS or smth like that than just play what you think gives you most fun.

Well, Terminator heavy armies are too costly for what they can achieve.

I played a Terminator heavy army in the 4th edition when rending was on the roll to hit, not to would. Hello assault cannon.
This was a rather good army when supported well (Hello Landspeeders).
But these days, such armies have a damage output which is too low and Termies are not very survivable if facing volume of fire.

macexor wrote:
It's not about Plasma Cannons to be honest. Marine costs 16 pts and Terminator costs 40 (correct me if I'm wrong, not an Imperial player ). They are twice as diffcult to kill against small arms fire but more than twice costly.
We all now that in present meta MEQ isn't as tough as it used to be. So why would TEQ be? It's even worse if you also take into account players still arming their soldiers with plasma weapons (relic of the 6th ed when MCs ruled).
Also faster armies (usually) are more competitive than slower ones. But that only matters when it comes to Tournaments. If you're talking about friendly games in LGS or smth like that than just play what you think gives you most fun.

Marines are now 14 ppm which even further supports your point. At the OP.... Well... we're not assuming the opponents have the perfect weapons. Plasma Cannons are common in many Imperial Armies. Flamers are used everywhere and high RoF weapons are in every army.

 Feasible wrote:

macexor wrote:
It's not about Plasma Cannons to be honest. Marine costs 16 pts and Terminator costs 40 (correct me if I'm wrong, not an Imperial player ). They are twice as diffcult to kill against small arms fire but more than twice costly.
We all now that in present meta MEQ isn't as tough as it used to be. So why would TEQ be? It's even worse if you also take into account players still arming their soldiers with plasma weapons (relic of the 6th ed when MCs ruled).
Also faster armies (usually) are more competitive than slower ones. But that only matters when it comes to Tournaments. If you're talking about friendly games in LGS or smth like that than just play what you think gives you most fun.

Marines are now 14 ppm which even further supports your point. At the OP.... Well... we're not assuming the opponents have the perfect weapons. Plasma Cannons are common in many Imperial Armies. Flamers are used everywhere and high RoF weapons are in every army.

Worse yet, if they don't have the plasma/flamers/high volume of fire, they most likely have the ability to take you on in hand to hand, and you just landed where?

-Matt

ThulsaDoom wrote:
Why is it that everyone always assumes the opposing army is the one with exactly the best weapons to counter it?

But I get what you are saying, and that is those termies won't survive an ounce of that one shooting phase...

Termies aren't actually bad. They just lack offense for their cost. And that's a big issue. And why GK are the only army that can actually get away with having a very low model count at 1750/1850 points. GK units have a respectable offense in addition to being very hard to kill.

Ha, I wish GK MEQ had some unique survivability feature. No, my 20+pt marines die just as easily as your 14 point marines, their power weapons notwithstanding. I suppose the difference is that GK have built in distractions (dreadknights) and cannon fodder (henchmen) but their meq is no more durable than regular meq.

EDIT: on the subject of terminators though - at what price point do they become economical for you guys? We've said that they're twice as durable as a regular marine under the right conditions - should a terminator cost 28 points base? Make it a round 30? That seems pretty powerful to me.

Belac Ynnead wrote:
Ha, I wish GK MEQ had some unique survivability feature. No, my 20+pt marines die just as easily as your 14 point marines, their power weapons notwithstanding. I suppose the difference is that GK have built in distractions (dreadknights) and cannon fodder (henchmen) but their meq is no more durable than regular meq.

EDIT: on the subject of terminators though - at what price point do they become economical for you guys? We've said that they're twice as durable as a regular marine under the right conditions - should a terminator cost 28 points base? Make it a round 30? That seems pretty powerful to me.

Well, 40 pts is simply too much in the current meta. In the 4th ed, you got more milage out of them (as described above).
If it would be 30 pts or so, one could seriously think about a Terminator army.

Keep in mind other termies squads cannot use Belial's beacon on the turn he arrives, they must wait for the following turn to avoid scatter.