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I will say objectively that Centurions are a problem.

They are probably, to me at least, the most Obvious "GWism" I've yet seen released (save for what happened to Dire Avengers, for which I'd feel more righteously angry, but, you know, Eldar...) in where they created a new unit which represents an improved version of an older, underperforming unit in statline, wargear and so on, but is more expensive and aesthetically questionable. I personally pretend they don't exist, and have trained my eyes to not even see them listed on Battlescribe.

Now there's an idea though, "counts-as" centurions, using terminators!

Pure genius.

As for survival versus small arms, while it does take a fair volume of fire to kill a terminator, all a Guardsmen squad needs to do in the entire game is kill 1 terminator to just about make its points back. I can say with some confidence that my Death Korps don't particularly fear terminators, as they're 200+ points for 5 wounds, and 200+ points of lasguns can get through 5 T4 wounds.

The stand-outs, to me, for small-arms durability are Lychguard and MegaNobz, a 2+ T4 is nice, but at the price Terminators are it's not effecient, and yes, making them cheaper will help on that front, it doesn't make them feel any more "walking tank piloted by veteran of dozens of apocalyptic wars," which is a big thing for me with 40k.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:
[LONG]

most of those aren't pie plates. D-scythes aren't "close enough," they're a line. "Several kinds of plasma cannons" are just plasma cannons - they may be prolific, but they're still one kind of weapon. The exocrine's gun isn't a pie plate. Implosion Missiles are AP- (their "roll a wounds test" mechanic hardly counts as AP2), Helfrost Destructors are, IIRC, AP3 unless they fire focussed blasts.

Also, many of them have risks to firing them, such as the boom bomb and the plasma weapons.

You listed plasma cannons so I made a list of AP2 weapons with any kind of AoE, if we're talking just 5" blasts and larger the list goes down some. "Several kinds of plasma cannons" is three different S7/AP2/Gets Hot blasts with different ranges and rates of fire that have different names (Ectoplasma Cannon, Executioner Plasma Cannon, and plain old Plasma Cannon). The exocrine's gun is indeed a 5" blast (it has two fire modes, six shots or one 5" blast), Implosion Missiles are S6/AP2 blasts now and were AP2 even last book with the Wounds test, and I put the Helfrost Destructor there because there's a typo in the Space Wolves summary section that claims it is AP2, it isn't really.

Absent the Helfrost Destructor and rolling back to blasts or large blasts only we're still at 21 before Forge World, and we haven't gotten into high rate of fire AP2 guns or things like Psychic Shriek that make Terminator Armour about as useful as flak armour in games where people decide they want to bring something large and obnoxious.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Wow, lots of Terminator hate.

Terminators are fantastic except when shot at with antitank guns.

If there are too many antitank guns, bring horde, not terminators - then the enemy will be forced to bring flamers and missile launchers/heavy bolters.

Against armies kitted to fight hordes is where Terminators shine - not banzai charging antitank guns.

No, they suck against small arms as well.

Martel732 wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Wow, lots of Terminator hate.

Terminators are fantastic except when shot at with antitank guns.

If there are too many antitank guns, bring horde, not terminators - then the enemy will be forced to bring flamers and missile launchers/heavy bolters.

Against armies kitted to fight hordes is where Terminators shine - not banzai charging antitank guns.

No, they suck against small arms as well.

90 bolter shots or 180 lasgun shots?

What is the world coming to, when something that can tank 180 shots "sucks against small arms."

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Martel732 wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Wow, lots of Terminator hate.

Terminators are fantastic except when shot at with antitank guns.

If there are too many antitank guns, bring horde, not terminators - then the enemy will be forced to bring flamers and missile launchers/heavy bolters.

Against armies kitted to fight hordes is where Terminators shine - not banzai charging antitank guns.

No, they suck against small arms as well.

90 bolter shots or 180 lasgun shots?

What is the world coming to, when something that can tank 180 shots "sucks against small arms."

Because the math is a lot weirder than it sounds. Terminators may take a hundred and eighty shots to kill on paper but when we're talking that many dice you don't have to deviate very far from perfectly statistical to start losing models. If you have to roll, say, twelve armour saves on a Terminator squad you're probably losing two guys, right? That outcome has about a thirty percent chance of actually happening, there's a forty percent chance you lose less and a thirty percent chance you lose more, and since losing more models than appears statistically accurate is pulling forty points of stuff that could actually turn around and kill things off the table...

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Martel732 wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Wow, lots of Terminator hate.

Terminators are fantastic except when shot at with antitank guns.

If there are too many antitank guns, bring horde, not terminators - then the enemy will be forced to bring flamers and missile launchers/heavy bolters.

Against armies kitted to fight hordes is where Terminators shine - not banzai charging antitank guns.

No, they suck against small arms as well.

90 bolter shots or 180 lasgun shots?

What is the world coming to, when something that can tank 180 shots "sucks against small arms."

Because they have less durability per point than a tactical marine against small arms. That's why they suck. The ONLY weapon type they are better against is AP 3.

Durability is one problem, but terminators commit the #1 sin in 7th ed: they have pitiful offense for their points. Just awful.

Terminators are not underpowered or overcosted- it's just that over the editions a good chunk of the rest of the game has become more and more overpowered and undercosted.

Used to be units like Terminators were a big deal and each army had models like them that represented the cream of each army's crop, but then GW does things like Centurions to drive new sales which continually move those goalposts.

 AegisGrimm wrote:
Terminators are not underpowered or overcosted- it's just that over the editions a good chunk of the rest of the game has become more and more overpowered and undercosted.

Used to be units like Terminators were a big deal and each army had models like them that represented the cream of each army's crop, but then GW does things like Centurions to drive new sales which continually move those goalposts.

Yeah, they are. They are actually one of the worst units in the IoM in practice. Terminators can't reach the goal post of "tactical marine", which is pathetic, because tactical marines themselves are terrible.

That's bad game design that is not centered on Terminators. They are just a symptom, not a cause.

 AegisGrimm wrote:
That's bad game design that is not centered on Terminators. They are just a symptom, not a cause.

No, it's not centered on them, but a side effect, I agree. But it's still a lot easier just to change terminators than try to change the rest of the game. That being said, Imperial terminators have NEVER been good, not even in 2nd ed.

So, making another unit meet the OP meta is better than fixing the game's actual problems?

well, I guess we can forgive GW then. Apparently it's easier to overpower individual units than it is to actually fix their game.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
So, making another unit meet the OP meta is better than fixing the game's actual problems?

well, I guess we can forgive GW then. Apparently it's easier to overpower individual units than it is to actually fix their game.

I don't forgive them. You can drop the hyperbole, though. I just want to bring terminators in line, not over power them. This IS possible. as shown by many entries in 7th ed codices. But they are still making quite a few mistakes. I'm just tired of terminators being bad.

OK, I see two arguments here in this thread over and over.

1. Terminators (and tac marines) are bad because bolters are S4. S4 is weak and puny and can't kill Marines. They should be made better.

2. Terminators (and tac marines) are bad because they are too easily killed by small arms. Such as bolters.

Which is it? You can't have both of these at the same time.

I'd make Termie suits confer a +1 Toughness to the wearer. That way there is a point to officers in Termie armor and Terminators get a durability bonus. Give bolt weapons shred and now we are talking about a fluffy and effective unit.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Alcibiades wrote:
OK, I see two arguments here in this thread over and over.

1. Terminators (and tac marines) are bad because bolters are S4. S4 is weak and puny and can't kill Marines. They should be made better.

2. Terminators (and tac marines) are bad because they are too easily killed by small arms. Such as bolters.

Which is it? You can't have both of these at the same time.

Elfdar, IG and Orkz can drown Termies in shots and Boltguns lack punch for how much you pay for them. People are basically saying that everyone cept Spess Muhreens can kill Terminators easily.

 AegisGrimm wrote:
Terminators are not underpowered or overcosted- it's just that over the editions a good chunk of the rest of the game has become more and more overpowered and undercosted.

Used to be units like Terminators were a big deal and each army had models like them that represented the cream of each army's crop, but then GW does things like Centurions to drive new sales which continually move those goalposts.

They clearly are overcosted, because I wouldn't run them without Centurions in the equation. That's a pretty poor excuse on your end.

Alcibiades wrote:
OK, I see two arguments here in this thread over and over.

1. Terminators (and tac marines) are bad because bolters are S4. S4 is weak and puny and can't kill Marines. They should be made better.

2. Terminators (and tac marines) are bad because they are too easily killed by small arms. Such as bolters.

Which is it? You can't have both of these at the same time.

S4 is not weak and puny because it can't kill marines. It's weak and puny because it's coming from a 14 or even 40 pt model and you can't get enough of it. It's also weak and puny because all MCs are practically immune to it, as is AV 11. Models that care about bolters are either out of range or in something that makes them immune or come in number so enormous that the cost of marines caps their firepower too much.

Tac marines don't have bad resilience against small arms. In fact, they have good resilience against small arms. Terminators are worse because they have double durability for more than double the price. But the problem is that neither deliver any counter punch for what they cost. Because they aren't removing enemy models, they take the fire turn after turn after turn. You are bound to roll poorly at that rate.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 AegisGrimm wrote:
Terminators are not underpowered or overcosted- it's just that over the editions a good chunk of the rest of the game has become more and more overpowered and undercosted.

Used to be units like Terminators were a big deal and each army had models like them that represented the cream of each army's crop, but then GW does things like Centurions to drive new sales which continually move those goalposts.

They clearly are overcosted, because I wouldn't run them without Centurions in the equation. That's a pretty poor excuse on your end.

That's a direct result of every edition seeing units' costs going ever lower, but in a buckshot manner that isn't balanced over all units and seeing some units get more powerful at the same time. Making everything cheaper when it seems it's not worth it's price is not a sustainable sulution, because the problem is that other units that they are being compared to are too cheap for what they do .

Over each edition the balance is not being kept the same, and it slews things in the wrong direction. If things are killing termis too easy, it is more likely that they are too cheap for what they can do rather than the other way around.

 AegisGrimm wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 AegisGrimm wrote:
Terminators are not underpowered or overcosted- it's just that over the editions a good chunk of the rest of the game has become more and more overpowered and undercosted.

Used to be units like Terminators were a big deal and each army had models like them that represented the cream of each army's crop, but then GW does things like Centurions to drive new sales which continually move those goalposts.

They clearly are overcosted, because I wouldn't run them without Centurions in the equation. That's a pretty poor excuse on your end.

That's a direct result of every edition seeing units' costs going ever lower, but in a buckshot manner that isn't balanced over all units and seeing some units get more powerful at the same time. Making everything cheaper when it seems it's not worth it's price is not a sustainable sulution, because the problem is that other units that they are being compared to are too cheap for what they do .

Over each edition the balance is not being kept the same, and it slews things in the wrong direction. If things are killing termis too easy, it is more likely that they are too cheap for what they can do rather than the other way around.

Terminators are not only too easy to kill, but they have little battlefield impact as well. Which is the bigger problem you think?

 TheCustomLime wrote:
I'd make Termie suits confer a +1 Toughness to the wearer. That way there is a point to officers in Termie armor and Terminators get a durability bonus. Give bolt weapons shred and now we are talking about a fluffy and effective unit.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Alcibiades wrote:
OK, I see two arguments here in this thread over and over.

1. Terminators (and tac marines) are bad because bolters are S4. S4 is weak and puny and can't kill Marines. They should be made better.

2. Terminators (and tac marines) are bad because they are too easily killed by small arms. Such as bolters.

Which is it? You can't have both of these at the same time.

Elfdar, IG and Orkz can drown Termies in shots and Boltguns lack punch for how much you pay for them. People are basically saying that everyone cept Spess Muhreens can kill Terminators easily.

OK, let's figure this out. Termies cost 40 points. That's, what, 8 Guardsmen, about 3 tactical marines, about 6 shoota boys, and 3 Dire Avengers. Let's assume that everybody is in range enough to get off 2 shots.

Math says that

8 Guardsmen kill 1/2 x 1/3 x 1/6 = 1/36 x 16 = 16/36 = 4/9 Terminators.

3 bolter Tacs kill 2/3 x 1/2 x 1/6 = 1/18 x 6 = 1/3 Terminators. OK, Guardsmen do a wee bit better.

6 shoota boys kill 1/3 x 1/2 x 1/6 = 1/36 x 12 = 1/3 Terminators. The same as the tacs.

3 dire avengers kill --

Bladestorm 2/3 x 1/6 x 2/3 = 4/54 = 2/27 x 6 = 12/27 + regular 2/3 x 1/3 x 1/6 = 2/54 = 1/27 x 6 = 6/27 = total 2/3 terminators.

So actually all variants are about as good as killing Terminators at an equivalent points cost with the exception of Dire Avengers, who are significantly better. If I didn't screw up the math,

Now compare those same units firepower against other units versus the single terminator. The single terminator only gets two S4 shots. That is terrible firepower compared to all those other units.

Certainly not making them cheaper and cheaper and cheaper like lots of people give for a solution for any random under-performing unit. Because when in later years that stops working, you suddenly have to turn around and make them more and more powerful.

Especially when at the same time every ranged weapon either has a special rule that makes it more deadly, or is one that doesn't have one but people think it should get one.

Case in point: in this same thread people are thinking it's too easy for armies to have weapons that kill Terminators, but other people say some of those exact same weapons should be more powerful because in the hands of Terminators they are too wimpy.

Taken together it almost seems like everyone wants Terminators to be cheaper and more powerful, and for their basic weapon to be more powerful than a Stormbolter.

Maybe my local gaming was far different than everyone claims, but I remember when a Chaos Terminator getting the Nurgle mark to gain +1 toughness was a pretty good deal, and that's at a higher Terminator price than now and with a weapon that was arguably less effective than a Stormbolter.

To make terminators really work, I think the game would have to be rebuilt around the D10. This would allow armor ranging from 2+ to 10+.

Even removing the mandatory power fist, being armed with a storm bolter is unacceptable. I don't know what the fix is in the current game. Not using them is my fix for the moment.

They worked in 2nd edition. There is was a 2+ on a 2d6 (combined rather than the other units having only one die for their saves), and the weapons were very different. For instance a Lascannon had a -6 Save Modifier, so a Terminator had to roll 8+ on 2D6 to not be killed. Small arms simply could not kill them at all, as a bolter only had a -1.

Changing the weapon profiles with 3rd edition removed lots of breathing room with the scaling of weapon damage. The mechanisms of AP are way too small a range.

 AegisGrimm wrote:
They worked in 2nd edition. There is was a 2+ on a 2d6 (combined rather than the other units having only one die for their saves), and the weapons were very different. For instance a Lascannon had a -6 Save Modifier, so a Terminator had to roll 8+ on 2D6 to not be killed. Small arms simply could not kill them at all, as a bolter only had a -1.

Changing the weapon profiles with 3rd edition removed lots of breathing room with the scaling of weapon damage. The mechanisms of AP are way too small a range.

No, they didn't. They got owned by the various weapons systems and schemes of Xenos. And again, because the stormbolter was awful in 2nd, they themselves had no offense.

Terminators were 3+ armor on 2D6, not 2+. So bolters killed them on a "2" or "3". They needed "9"s to save lascannons and krak missiles. So they have actually improved against krak missiles a ton. They were still awful, though. They still died miserably after accomplishing nothing in 2nd as well.

"The mechanisms of AP are way too small a range."

Hence my call for a D10.

Sorry, I thought it was a 2+ for some reason. I guess that was only Abaddon. It's been a few decades.

 AegisGrimm wrote:
Sorry, I thought it was a 2+ for some reason. I guess that was only Abaddon. It's been a few decades.

It's been a long time for sure. In a lot of ways, 6/7th reminds me a lot of 2nd. Power armor/terminator armor is garbage, and the game is all about offense; with only a select few models capable of selecting defensive abilities to survive the offense-based meta.

Alcibiades wrote:

 TheCustomLime wrote:
I'd make Termie suits confer a +1 Toughness to the wearer. That way there is a point to officers in Termie armor and Terminators get a durability bonus. Give bolt weapons shred and now we are talking about a fluffy and effective unit.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Alcibiades wrote:
OK, I see two arguments here in this thread over and over.

1. Terminators (and tac marines) are bad because bolters are S4. S4 is weak and puny and can't kill Marines. They should be made better.

2. Terminators (and tac marines) are bad because they are too easily killed by small arms. Such as bolters.

Which is it? You can't have both of these at the same time.

Elfdar, IG and Orkz can drown Termies in shots and Boltguns lack punch for how much you pay for them. People are basically saying that everyone cept Spess Muhreens can kill Terminators easily.

OK, let's figure this out. Termies cost 40 points. That's, what, 8 Guardsmen, about 3 tactical marines, about 6 shoota boys, and 3 Dire Avengers. Let's assume that everybody is in range enough to get off 2 shots.

Math says that

8 Guardsmen kill 1/2 x 1/3 x 1/6 = 1/36 x 16 = 16/36 = 4/9 Terminators.

3 bolter Tacs kill 2/3 x 1/2 x 1/6 = 1/18 x 6 = 1/3 Terminators. OK, Guardsmen do a wee bit better.

6 shoota boys kill 1/3 x 1/2 x 1/6 = 1/36 x 12 = 1/3 Terminators. The same as the tacs.

3 dire avengers kill --

Bladestorm 2/3 x 1/6 x 2/3 = 4/54 = 2/27 x 6 = 12/27 + regular 2/3 x 1/3 x 1/6 = 2/54 = 1/27 x 6 = 6/27 = total 2/3 terminators.

So actually all variants are about as good as killing Terminators at an equivalent points cost with the exception of Dire Avengers, who are significantly better. If I didn't screw up the math,

It gets even more skewed once you factor in whole unit costs. 200 points of Guardsmen can get you....

PCS
+2x Plasma Guns
PIS
Plasma Gun
PIS
Plasma Gun

That's four Plasma Guns and, once you pop FRFSRF, you are looking at 8 Plasma Gun shots and 60 Lasgun shots. That's about 3-4 Termies dead.

 AegisGrimm wrote:
Terminators are not underpowered or overcosted- it's just that over the editions a good chunk of the rest of the game has become more and more overpowered and undercosted.

Used to be units like Terminators were a big deal and each army had models like them that represented the cream of each army's crop, but then GW does things like Centurions to drive new sales which continually move those goalposts.

Exactly. Terminators are victims of the power creep. Everything else around them has got cheaper or better, Terminators are essentially same they were during 3rd edition.

Tactical Terminators became obsolete upon 4th edition Ork Codex which just put too much dakka on the field for Terminators to compete. Dark Eldar finished the job with Poison attacks and Disintegrators. Assault Terminators remained semi-viable until 6th edition, when Lightning Claws were nerfed and Fearless wounds disappeared: since Terminators have few attacks, they often relied on Fearless wounds when inflicting damage in close combat. Coincidentally, 6th edition also made Rapid fire weapons much better, eliminating one thing Tactical termies had going for them. Then came 6th edition Tau Codex: if you compare Fire Warrior damage output between 4th and 6th edition Tau Codecii, the new Fire Warrior has at least DOUBLE the damage output compared to old ones. T4 models just won't survive against that kind of onslaught, no matter what the save. If there was any doubt, Grav weapons removed it.

So how to fix it? There is no instant cure.
-reverse the power creep with subsesquent books. Tone down AP2 armament and crazy dakka units like HYMP Broadsides etc.
-Terminators should be able to use Storm Bolters as CCW's as if they were pistols.
-Give them S5 or T5, or both

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:
[LONG]

most of those aren't pie plates. D-scythes aren't "close enough," they're a line. "Several kinds of plasma cannons" are just plasma cannons - they may be prolific, but they're still one kind of weapon. The exocrine's gun isn't a pie plate. Implosion Missiles are AP- (their "roll a wounds test" mechanic hardly counts as AP2), Helfrost Destructors are, IIRC, AP3 unless they fire focussed blasts.

Also, many of them have risks to firing them, such as the boom bomb and the plasma weapons.

You listed plasma cannons so I made a list of AP2 weapons with any kind of AoE, if we're talking just 5" blasts and larger the list goes down some. "Several kinds of plasma cannons" is three different S7/AP2/Gets Hot blasts with different ranges and rates of fire that have different names (Ectoplasma Cannon, Executioner Plasma Cannon, and plain old Plasma Cannon). The exocrine's gun is indeed a 5" blast (it has two fire modes, six shots or one 5" blast), Implosion Missiles are S6/AP2 blasts now and were AP2 even last book with the Wounds test, and I put the Helfrost Destructor there because there's a typo in the Space Wolves summary section that claims it is AP2, it isn't really.

Absent the Helfrost Destructor and rolling back to blasts or large blasts only we're still at 21 before Forge World, and we haven't gotten into high rate of fire AP2 guns or things like Psychic Shriek that make Terminator Armour about as useful as flak armour in games where people decide they want to bring something large and obnoxious.

Let's not forget the good ol' Ectoplasma Cannons.

Plasmafiends and their S8 guns are the absolute bane of Terminators everywhere. S8 is a major threat to TDA characters and three blasts per salvo means that even Hammernators melt before it.

A shame the Plasmafiend isn't that great in a vacuum, but against Terminators specifically...

I usually take one anyway because it's so cool.

Terminators suffer because the unit is designed as if 2+ was impressive. It isn't, unless it's on a MC or rock-hard HQ.

Backfire wrote:
Dark Eldar finished the job with Poison attacks and Disintegrators.

How did poison attacks hurt terminators so badly?

Also, why are the new disintegrators so much worse than their previous incarnations? I'd have thought plasma cannons would have been far more of a problem than 3 S5 AP2 shots.