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I am in the middle of painting some shooty terminators and am having trouble thinking of how to use them efficiently.

I will be running a group of 5 with one chainfist and assault cannon with a (i know I know, I think its cool though) chapter master in terminator armour with primarchs wrath and shield eternal.

I know how silly this sounds, but the point is I've never used terminators before and was seeing if there were any insights. I will be playing my friend in a few weeks. His army is quite typically 2 vindicators, 2 tac squads in rhinos, 2 land speeders, librarian in terminator armour, dev squad, and sometimes a rifle dread.

I kind of want to deep strike them. For an army I can use at least 1 unit of anything in the codex except a predator and assault terminators oh and a redeemer or the other variant.
Should I put them in the lascannon raider?

Am I just like super hosed in wanting to use this expensive unit?

We will play either 1500 or 1000 points.

Thanks.

Umm well they're not going to be terribly effective, but if you're not playing in a hugely-competitive setting then consider deep striking them behind enemy lines to draw fire off your advancing units. Then if they survive, assault the biggest thing nearby.

Or if you have a Land Raider, use that to move the unit up. Hammernators would probably be best though.

if you use the Assault Cannon you should deep strike them then because of its shorter range. personally i prefer the cyclone missle launcher, 48 inch range, 2 shot, and you can still fire ur storm bolter.

If you plan on using this unit with ur tooled up Chapter Master then id advise putting him in from of the unit and have him tank the high power shots (AP1 AP2) while LOSing the bolter/las regulat shots to the Termies, it would make the unit much more survivable.

Dakka terminators are basically a rich man's sternguard. They are basically a flanking unit that doubles as a suicide mc/vehicle /isolated hq killer

Imo the only army who should field them without taking double ml's (devestator support fire) or double flamers (salamanders), is dark angels (twin linked). Terminators with guns is like giving tau fire warriors melee weapons. It's too useless for words to express.

I would use them for hordes of Orks and such, teleport them into the thick of a horde of infantry, or place them in a Landraider to scoot them to trouble spots. I think they hold out well against loads of infatnry, the Landraider will support them against vehicles, plus it has a few anti-infatnry weapons on board too. Like ionusx said he's right on. Kill HQ's etc. Heavy flamer or ten man Squad with two assault cannons... drool...

If you wanna use tac termies, you definately wanna run them in an army that can make them objective secured.


Deathwing (dark angels codex) is your best bet.

You can run 2 5 man squads with an assault cannon and use the deathwing assault rule to deep strike in automatically on turn 1 or 2. They will also be twin-linked that turn. Its some decently durable objective secured that puts out nice firepower and forces your opponent to react (potentially throwing his plans out the window).


Allying in normal space marines or just bringing a second CAD lets you cover the rest of your needs.

Keep in mind a TDA Chapter Master with Primarch's Wrath and a storm shield (normal or relic) is pretty much defenseless in melee since you're out of slots for weapons. Could suck a bit if he gets challenged out after the squad sergeant bites it.

A word on what not to do with them: Don't go after serious assault units. Use them as a bully unit against Tac squads, light armor if it gets to close, the assault cannon can do miracles and is expensive so keep it shooting at something every turn.

As brought up above, this will be a "for fun" unit, don't expect miracles from them.

If you're gonna deep strike them I would suggest some pods with beacons for wave #1 for a safe arrival from reserve. Sentinels of Terra codex gives them a nice boost for TL at half-range.

About the CM: keep a power-weapon on him. If you go with the Primarch's Wrath then a basic power-sword/maul will do. and will keep him on the cheap. The SE/Primarch's Wrath combo is expensive and easy to tarpit, rendering him useless. If you absolutely want the SE (understandably), then drop the Primarch's Wrath and give him a PW of your choice (hammer works well).

I'm gonna be honest. You are probably hosed against this opponent.

Shooty Terminators are not great. Their damage output is mediocre and comparable to tactical marines, their resilience is as well.

About the only thing they have going for them are the powerfists if they get into close combat, but just about anything that'd charge them is most likely going to wipe out a decent chunk before they get to swing.

Also keep in mind that Vindicators (at least pre-grav guns) were the premier anti-Terminator unit for Space Marines, and he's running two.

Well, I'd use them to hold the centre with two assault cannons or cml's.
Add Lysander to tank wounds and you have a more durable unit.

Here's how I'd use them.

Basically, tactical terminators are the crowning achievement of versatility in the versatility codex. With storm bolters and assault cannons, and Sv2+/5++, there's an awful lot they can beat in a shootout, and Sv2+/5++ and a giant pile of powerfists, there's an awful lot they can beat in close combat as well.

Yes, there are things that are better at shooting than them, and are better at close combat, but there's very, very little that's better at both simultaneously. If you use versatility correctly - playing your relative strengths against relative weaknesses - there's a lot they can handle, and being able to line that up is made a lot easier by the fact that they can deepstrike.

So long as you don't run them up against obvious hard counters, or throw them up against way more points than they cost, terminators can do, well, pretty much anything. Which is sort of the point.

Two words: proper support.

If you drop them or run them in without backup to force the enemy to split their fire, the until will be destroyed. With the proper backup units (pod dreads/Sternguard/assault marines) they will live long enough to do damage in cc and short range shooting.

 Ailaros wrote:
Here's how I'd use them.

Basically, tactical terminators are the crowning achievement of versatility in the versatility codex. With storm bolters and assault cannons, and Sv2+/5++, there's an awful lot they can beat in a shootout, and Sv2+/5++ and a giant pile of powerfists, there's an awful lot they can beat in close combat as well.

Yes, there are things that are better at shooting than them, and are better at close combat, but there's very, very little that's better at both simultaneously. If you use versatility correctly - playing your relative strengths against relative weaknesses - there's a lot they can handle, and being able to line that up is made a lot easier by the fact that they can deepstrike.

So long as you don't run them up against obvious hard counters, or throw them up against way more points than they cost, terminators can do, well, pretty much anything. Which is sort of the point.

This. While I'd certainly rather run Assault Termies, Shooty Termies are still scary if they go up against basic units and have a decent chance to survive or destroy pretty much anything.

I kinda wish Terminators could take Plasma Guns...I mean, what is this whole combi nonsense? The bloody TDA could easily incorporate one. It just seems silly that for something to be an elite choice for pretty much everyone, can't perform elite tasks and be dedicated to anti HI or a mix of HI and AV piercing.

 GoliothOnline wrote:
I kinda wish Terminators could take Plasma Guns...I mean, what is this whole combi nonsense? The bloody TDA could easily incorporate one. It just seems silly that for something to be an elite choice for pretty much everyone, can't perform elite tasks and be dedicated to anti HI or a mix of HI and AV piercing.

well, DW get plasma cannons (which, for me, always seem to work well, if not better than Assault cannons, for cheaper)

 raiden wrote:

 GoliothOnline wrote:
I kinda wish Terminators could take Plasma Guns...I mean, what is this whole combi nonsense? The bloody TDA could easily incorporate one. It just seems silly that for something to be an elite choice for pretty much everyone, can't perform elite tasks and be dedicated to anti HI or a mix of HI and AV piercing.

well, DW get plasma cannons (which, for me, always seem to work well, if not better than Assault cannons, for cheaper)

See, I love Plasma Cannons, but playing Chaos I get pigeon holed into using my Terminators are drop-down expendables. 110 points gets me 3 bare terminators with Combi-Plasma / Melta / Flamers, but after that they just sit there shooting off Combi-Bolters =/ Which royally sucks and is one of the reasons I went from having 20 Terminators to 10 (And soon, only 6) Selling them off to other Chaos players in our local area simply because of how *Useless* they are in comparison to every other choice we have now. If they could take, Plasma Guns, Melta Guns or even Plasma Cannons, Heck, the little buggers should by all rights (And for fluff reasons) be able to take Ectoplasma Cannons. I love Reaper Autocannons, but aside from murdering swaths of Orks / Conscripts they really don't provide anything tactically beneficial to the army, especially for their point cost.

I guess I'm just a little jaded with CSM ever since I started playing Daemons, (Master race, for Chaos that is) As they just tend to do everything better, with a lot less downsides. The only REAL downside was from their updated Codex removing EW and the nerf Fiends / Bloodcrushers. And the fact they have no real transports. But that is a whole new mess of nonsense.

You use them in any way you want in casual friendly games. You don't use them in semi competitive or competitive games as GW refuses to fix their point cost.