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Hey gang,

I have a 2000 point Thousand Sons CSM list and in the elite spot I had two Chaos Dreadnoughts (hellbrutes) that were sitting pretty nicely. Then I started to wonder if I needed a deep striking disruption unit. I have a pair of Heldrakes, but I thought about taking out the Dreadnoughts for a unit of Terminators.

They didn't swap evenly, so I dropped a model here and added some upgrades there, and came up with this for the terminators. I was just wondering if this made sense, or if it was potentially a dumb idea. Thanks in advance.

Terminator Champ
Combi Bolter, Powerfist

5x Terminators with Chainfist 1x Autocannon 1x Heavy Flamer

All have MoT

Thanks

I love the look of the reaper AUTOCANNON, but it is terrible for its cost. Usually, chaos termies that are deepstrking are kept cheap with a small footprint since they can scatter everywhere. Depending on the role you want them to play.

Anti armor 3 terms, motz if you want, chain fist, 2 power mauls and 3 combi meltas
Anti horde 3 terms, 3 combi flamers, power mauls
Anti terminators 3 terms, 3 combiplasma, 3 power axes votlw

If you're doing 3man teams, doing Marks or other upgrades is questionable. I usually do one of the extremes: Either

3 Terminators with Combi-Meltas
Cheap and chearful

Or

10 Terminators: 2 Reaper Autocannons, 2 Combi-melta, MoN, 2 Chainfist

If you make a deepstriking unit too expensive, you're sinking too many points into a suicide role.

I agree. If you're going to take a large unit, take a Land Raider transport. I wouldn't take a Power fist on the Champion due to challenges and the higher cost of purchasing from the wargear page rather than the unit. Usually, the Champion dies before the upgraded Terminators.

Heads up, you cannot have both a heavy flamer and reaper autocannon. Says one model may replace bolter with one of the following.

And I agree with Aurelian that you should put any fancy weapons on models that are not the champion.

Deepstriking 5 isn't a bad idea, loyalists do it all the time and it can be quite effective.
The thing is we have the capability to DS them in units of 3, which loyalists CAN'T do. And as you've heard ours are cheaper and have cheaper upgrade options, not to mention more variety.
So that's why the inclination is to go with small units.

Combi weapons are definitely worth their price and make a DS terminator squad immediately effective instead of having to wait through a turn of enemy shooting to do their job.

There is also the Option of taking a Chaos Sorcerer in Terminator armour, Focusing in Sanctic for GoI , Hammer Hand or Sanctuary.

Any one of those is great for your Terminators, especially Hammer Hand if you give them Power Mauls.

It can get expensive but having a unit with a 2+ 4++ or 2+ 4++ T5, or 2+ 3++ , or 2+ 4++ 5++ FNP is pretty amazing.

Also, ST6 Lighting Claws is pretty amazing.

Not to mention you get Vortex.

Another option is to deepstrike helbrutes using formation rules.

 koooaei wrote:
Another option is to deepstrike helbrutes using formation rules.

I concur, I'd use Helbrutes in formation in that role. Currently I use Termis mostly to add ablative wounds to an HQ choice.

When I use them regularly I either deep strike them with combi-melta or plasma gun or use them with PF or TC in a Land Raider. Especially the latter was kinda underwhelming and I had much better results with a deep strike Mayhem Pack.

 doctor_doom wrote:

All have MoT

Always give them Mark of Nurgle.

T5 vs T4 instead of a 4++ vs 5++ is always better.

Don't be fooled by the powers of Tzeentch.

Cool. Thanks for all the great feedback everyone.

This is my new breakdown,

CSM Terminator unit 1 - anti armor
Champion - Veteran of the long war, combi-bolter, power maul
2x combi-melta, 2x chain-fist
MoN

CSM Terminator unit 2 - anti troop
Champion - Veteran of the long war, combi-bolter, power maul
2x combi-flamer, 2x power maul
MoN

Makes sense? I also saved some points through this and added an additional mastery level to my Sorceror. So BONUS!

Senari wrote:

 doctor_doom wrote:

All have MoT

Always give them Mark of Nurgle.

T5 vs T4 instead of a 4++ vs 5++ is always better.

Don't be fooled by the powers of Tzeentch.

Nah man, Tzeentch is on to something. Yeah Nurgle termies win vs anti-infantry, but so many people target termies with anti-vehicle guns and those are still wounding on 2s even with Nurgle. Tzeentch increases survivability in the long run.

@doctor_doom, yeah those new setups look really good! Though I would maybe recommend swapping MoN to the anti-troop setup for reasons mentioned above. I can't tell how you've got VotLW, presumably you're aware it's an upgrade for the whole unit and not just the champ right?

Oh, I'm using an app to build the list so the VotLW just said Veteran not "Veterans" so I thought it didn't apply to the whole group. This is my first CSM list, so I'm still working out the kinks. I edited to show that I put MoN on both squads. I agree with you about MoT because I've seen that with my Tau army, people targeting Riptides and the like with anti-vehicle weapons. So the 4++ can certainly help. I'll play around with it. It saves me about 6 points if I change it on both.

Senari wrote:

 doctor_doom wrote:

All have MoT

Always give them Mark of Nurgle.

T5 vs T4 instead of a 4++ vs 5++ is always better.

Don't be fooled by the powers of Tzeentch.

It certainly isnt any better against Plasmaguns, starcannons, powerfist, demolisher cannons, or really anything AP2/rending. You know, things that kill terminators

T5 is better against Str3-6 things that are AP3 or worse.

MoN is so much better against lasguns it isnt even funny. But how many terminators do you lose each game to lasguns

I actually prefer Mark of Slaanesh and Feel No Pain. Also, having a Sorcerer roll on Slaanesh is not actually terrible as it's a decent tree with good buffs/debuffs and then you can take Sanctic twice and hope to get Vortex or something else.

Icon of Excess indeed significantly increases the survivability of the Terminators, particularly against things such as Plasma Guns or Grav-guns (from 33% to 55%). It even helps a bit against high volume of low-Strength fire.

IMHO the main problem with the Terminators is the lack of mobility. Although, when you DS a squad with combi weapons and MoS + Icon of Excess, they might not only blow something up on arrival, but also survive to charge something in the following turn. Too bad it's a matter of "might" instead of "will", though.

Yeah it's kind of dumb that the only thing you got that could benefit them the Dimensional key , is it. Like that's it.
Very frustrating.Actually I haven't done the math but Chaos Terminators w/ Icon of Excess and having Sanctic on them I believe are the best you can get pretty much at survivability. It's a 2+ 4++ 5+, kind of hard to beat, plus Ini 5.It's also rather cheap if you go full squad when you consider what they have.


I'm rather fond of this load out. It's a fun.

Chaos Space Marine Sorcerer w/ Spell Familiar , Chaos Terminator Armour, Force Axe, Mark of Slaanesh, Level 3 Psyker , (Slaanesh, Sanctic) : 165

8 Chaos Space Marine Terminators w/ Mark of Slaanesh, 4 Power Mauls, Champion has Power Axe, 2 Chainfists, 4 Combimeltas, 4 Combiplasmas , Icon Of Excess : 396

Sometimes I take a Reaper Autocannon

I'm pretty fond of this because yeah I have to lose a stupid roll on the chart , but I get a chance to get 2 spells that are actually pretty half way decent. Plus auto get the spell that causes , blind, concussive, and pinning and I can shoot it on the turn I get there and at something seperate.

I look at it as taking 15 points to get Feel No Pain which helps if I roll Vortex on the Sanctic chart because it can negate it the perils plus with spell familiar I'm probably going to succeed.

The 4 spells that most benefit the squad are , Sanctuary, Hammer Hand, Gate of Infinity , Vortex w/ 2 rolls I'm probably gonna get one of those and since most on the chart are Warp Charge 1 w/ Spell familiar I'm going to get it.

This leads us to another CSM problem. In 6th Edition our Sorcerers were amazing with Ld 10 and Spell Familiars granting them re-rolls for mere 15 pts. Or the Balestar of Mannon with its added access to Divination. But now?

The cheap re-rolls are still amazing, but what is depressing is the lack of Warp Charges. ML 3 Sorcerer is 3+D6 Warp Charges. I've already tried casting some spells against a Tyranids army, and you can imagine how well that went with his 12+D6 dice to Deny the Witch. CSM lack decent access to a sizeable Warp Charge pool. You either have to sacrifice a marked Lord that makes a Cult unit Troops choices and/or take an Allied Detachment, but it's still a lot of points for few Warp Charges.

One could also take Daemons allies because Heralds. This is however yet another instance of "take allies to fix your crappy Codex".

Why would you tell someone running a Thousand Sons army to take MoN or MoS? I understand the preference for those models and why you would recommend them, but the Fluff Gods will not approve.

I am also working on a T Sons list. I have been toying with different ideas and hoping to try them out tonight. I will let you know how it goes.

I am running with MoT Oblits and not termies however.

I am also leaning towards taking a Skyshield landing platform (chaosed up of course). Between the MoT and (hopefully) Cursed Earth from my HoT, I am hoping I can pull off a 2+ invul for them, 3+ otherwise.

 Green is Best! wrote:
Why would you tell someone running a Thousand Sons army to take MoN or MoS? I

Because this is the tactics sub-board. The fluff sub-board is one notch below this one.

With the nerf to Power Weapons, I kind of feel the Powermaul is the best choice right now for the Terms.

Hollismason wrote:
With the nerf to Power Weapons, I kind of feel the Powermaul is the best choice right now for the Terms.

power weapons havent changed in a few years.

Power Maul always was the best take all comers choice since it's inception

 Exergy wrote:

Senari wrote:

 doctor_doom wrote:

All have MoT

Always give them Mark of Nurgle.

T5 vs T4 instead of a 4++ vs 5++ is always better.

Don't be fooled by the powers of Tzeentch.

It certainly isnt any better against Plasmaguns, starcannons, powerfist, demolisher cannons, or really anything AP2/rending. You know, things that kill terminators

T5 is better against Str3-6 things that are AP3 or worse.

MoN is so much better against lasguns it isnt even funny. But how many terminators do you lose each game to lasguns

Well, if your opponent wastes his good weapons (like the ones you mentioned) on a so-so unit like Chaos Terminators all the better.

If you're playing a smart opponent however he will most likely mass shot them to death with cheap infantry or ignore them all together and that way keeping his high STR/low AP weapons available for bigger fish then Chaos Terminators.

Most you'll ever do with Chaos Terminators anyway is probably DS them next to a vehicle and combi-melta the gak out of it. If that vehicle happens to be a transport see how your T4 with 4++ vs T5 with 5++ fares against most stuff that was inside that transport and that is not even mentioning the damage you take from the possible explosion of the vehicle.

I am not saying MoT is a bad thing, it is just my experience that I usually have more mileage with them if I use MoN.

Yeah, but nurgle is all gross and icky looking.

I kind of feel Mark of Slaanesh is the best w/ icon.

As long as it's on a large squad it's cost is negligible.