Do you think GW will ever fix Space Marine Terminators

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**vipoid**

Martel732 wrote:

If everything is the same level, then the game is fair. Any arbitrary power level will do, whether its high or low. Buffing to Wave Serpents is fine. Buffing to Wraiths is fine. Nerfing to tac squads or Rhinos is also fine. As long as it is consistent.

Except that this just doesn't work. You can't just keep buffing units because there's a limit to how tough any unit can feasibly be, before the game just gets ludicrous (some would argue we're already there).

**Martel732**

vipoid wrote:
Martel732 wrote:

If everything is the same level, then the game is fair. Any arbitrary power level will do, whether its high or low. Buffing to Wave Serpents is fine. Buffing to Wraiths is fine. Nerfing to tac squads or Rhinos is also fine. As long as it is consistent.

Except that this just doesn't work. You can't just keep buffing units because there's a limit to how tough any unit can feasibly be, before the game just gets ludicrous (some would argue we're already there).

You pick a level and then equalize everything to that level. You don't keep buffing. This game had one turn tablings in 2nd ed. When was it not ludicrous?

**vipoid**

Except that you do - because something more powerful will inevitably come along, and everything will need to be buffed to its level.

**Xenomancers**

Punisher wrote:
Turn 3 assault is actually a decent assault timing. Considering you aren't going to get a turn 1 assault and turn 2 assaults are difficult. Needing you to deploy far up and be able to move 12". As for recouping the investment. I agree the Land Raider won't help other than granting the assault. But the Storm Raven brings plenty of firepower with it as well as solves the greatest weakness of terminators.

Storm raven solves nothing. LR solves more issues than a SR. Still we are talking about a 450-500 point unit at this point...tell me why I don't just take a titan plus another tank to boot for the cost of this below average assault unit?

**Martel732**

vipoid wrote:
Except that you do - because something more powerful will inevitably come along, and everything will need to be buffed to its level.

In the case where something gets buffed, then yes, everything should be brought up to that line. Every unit in every slot in every codex should be viable.

**elotar**

Holy crap, compare terminators to orc boyz.

6 slugga ones with heavy weapon for 41

You get more firepower, more survavibility, and 18 attacks, which are generally better against all but hight toughtness low armor targets.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
For the problem of "power creep" - there really are none. 40k is not a card game, where you can't change the abiliies on a card - the same necron codex nerfed many units and nobody complained.

On the other hand said serpents was generating universal hatred, but I haven't heard about any event or prominent comunity, which ruled errata like smaller range of shield or smth.

So we have to play the game as is, and as is not only terminators, but most assault units are garbage. If you want to play "casual game" you can freely take them and "forge the narrative" of them dying to everyting wherewer you like, I see no need to changes in the rules for it there. But in real game they will meet serpents, tau, IK, wraiths and centurion stars and they have to be comparable.

**BlaxicanX**

Vaktathi wrote:
BlaxicanX wrote:
Vaktathi wrote:
In that case we're talking about as many dead marines as from 4 or 5 double-tapping plasma guns,and as many HP's on AV14 as 9 BS4 Lascannons, while still packing enough anti-horde firepower to average 11-12 IG/Ork/Eldar/Tau infantry a turn.
And? Pask in a Punisher does as much damage to MEQ as thirteen heavy bolters, and can mulch MC's and vehicles up to AV14 to boot.
And he's an HQ SC who's unit costs, at a minimum, 330pts before any upgrades (can't just take one tank), and while he *can* hurt up to AV14, averaging 0.74 HP's a turn with that main gun isn't going to make too many things particularly scared, that 5 Assault Cannon unit is easily going to exceed the firepower of his tank.

"It does as much damage as X weapon" is a terrible metric for gauging whether something is overpowered.
We're putting that firepower into context here. When you say "oh, well it only does X" and then "yeah, and you need huge amount of dedicated weapon Y or Z to get those same results", it shows you how many of other units you need to duplicate that.

It's not just about the raw firepower (which isn't unimpressive), but the versatility of being incredibly effective against *everything*.
Well, they aren't incredibly effective against everything- as the math shows- they're middling against everything.
Except they weren't, they were putting out as much, or more, firepower as many dedicated purpose units, particularly against AV14.

For significantly less points I can do much better against any one unit type- 100 point TFC's will do better against infantry and grav will do better against everything else.
TFC's are heavy support units that rely heavily on units being bunched up and take valuable FoC slots you'll often need for other tasks, but yes are very good. Grav is a little harder to quanity, since it effectively makes anything 2 HP's, but to get those 2 immobilized results, you need an average of 18 shots, and to get that many, you either need Centurions (at 250pts for 3 dudes to get that many shots), or 288pts minimum in Sternguard, or multiple units of other units like Bikers or Tacs.

I don't see how you could do that, considering the weapons all have different points costs...
Your sidestepping the point by referring to the minutiae here. Nobody is ever *not* going to take a ton of heavy weapons on that unit.

So? Your argument is that the unit will have an optimal configuration and unoptimal configurations like every other unit in the game?
The point is that you're effectively completely re-writing what the unit is supposed to be, turning it into another Heavy Support heavy weapons unit, and at that point you might as well just drop the powerfists and powerweapons and just make them a whole new unit.

What is a "centurion unit" in your context?

A heavily armored dedicated fire support unit?

elotar wrote:
1. Wraths (non-decurion) are not overpowered, they are at the normal level of power for HtH unit in the game to be playable. (others are 100+ ork mob with fnp, seer consil, beaststar... even the last ones are questionable)
I think you're about the only one in the world that thinks this. A T5, W2 unit with a 3++sv and 4 S6 Rending attacks on a charge ins absurdly good for what you pay. Most people were expecting them to get nerfed at T4, everyone was shocked to see GW actually buff them as they were *already* one of the best CC units in the game bordering on overpowered.

2. T5 fnp = T4 2W (approximately) But first is easier to implement as just rules of TDA.

3. Paladins (55 for 2W + BoP + force weapons) was really playable only in deathstar with wound shenanigans, +1 A banner, FNP, blessings and drago for tanking. Now they are overcosted as well.

4. TS/SS terminators aren't much more playable either - they are still wery vulnerable to small arms as well as absolutely pointless when they have nothing to charge.

5. More firepower is pointless - SM got centurions for it.
So...Wraiths are good and the normal power level...but every other heavy CC unit is bad. Methinks this would rather disprove your earlier statement.

Xenomancers wrote:
Vaktathi wrote:
BlaxicanX wrote:
Making them BS/WS5 would have a neglible impact, as Deathwing Knights show us. Not being able to hit often enough isn't their problem- having garbage-tier ranged weaponry is their problem.

If upping their offensive capabilities is preferable to making them tougher, then the only way to realistically do that is to give them more access to decent weaponry.

Combine the assault/tactical tactical terminator profiles into one, just called "terminators", and make them 30ppm for the termie armor and storm-bolter/power weapn stock.

Then take a page out of the TWC playbook and remove the unit size requirements for what they can take- allow each model to take whatever they want.

A 5-man unit with 5 assault cannons would cost 250 points. That's fair for a unit that can be crippled if not outright killed by units that are half their cost in a single round of shooting. You want to take storm-shields on top of that so that you're 2+sv dudes with assault cannons also get a 3++? Go right ahead man. You're now paying 300 points for 5 t4 wounds but hey whatever dude. It works out mechanically.
Aside from the fact that 5 assault cannons would be a ludicrous amount of firepower that's effective against literally everything in the game, you'd be introducing a false sense of choice.

Effectively what you'd see is a bunch of small-minimum sized units loaded with heavy weapons, or something like 3 AC's and 2 Stormshields to tank wounds.

If you think thats ludacris firepower you aren't paying attention. Look at warwalkers...you can get 6 scatter lasers (a comparable weapon to the AC) 100 points less than that and for still less points you can get 6 starcannons which would wipe out a 5 man term squad in a single turn without a shadow of a doubt...and they are immune to small arms - have higher range - and are just as mobile have the same invo save.
War Walkers are AV10 HP2 Open Topped vehicles, and Scatterlasers lack Rending, which is pretty huge. Yes they can take Starcannons, but they've got half the shots and a third less range than the Scatterlasers.

LIkewise a unit of three War Walkers (with 6 Scatterlasers or 6 Starcannons), is not 100pts less than that (unless you're looking at the 3++sv unit, in which case, the durability difference is rather extreme), that's a 210pt unit of AV10 open-topped walkers before any other upgrades.

They're not immune to small arms, except Lasguns, 20 bolters is going to put 1.48 HP's on a unit of WW's a turn, while they'll only kill 1.11 Terminators a turn, and in fact you'll need an average of 5 turns to kill the Terminators that way while only 4 will kill the War Walkers on average. The WW's also only have longer range if equipped with the Scatterlasers, in which case they lack Rending and aren't harming heavily armored infantry or heavy tanks much or at all, and with the Starcannons they still aren't hurting heavy tanks and have the same range as the Terminators and would have 12 shots to the Terminators 20.

**Deuce11**

Martel732 wrote:
"If you think termies are useless and terrible at assault then you must think all assault units that don't move 12" or have a assault transport(which termies do) are terrible."

Pretty much. I have to be picky; I'm often wading through a nonstop stream of scatterlasers and serpent shield fire. It starts on turn 1 and never ends unless I can somehow catch them in assault. Oh your LR? The Wraithknight just owned it.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Martel732 wrote:
"If you think termies are useless and terrible at assault then you must think all assault units that don't move 12" or have a assault transport(which termies do) are terrible."

Pretty much. I have to be picky; I'm often wading through a nonstop stream of scatterlasers and serpent shield fire. It starts on turn 1 and never ends unless I can somehow catch them in assault. Oh your LR? The Wraithknight just owned it.

Terminators are much more vulnerable to small arms fire than Wraiths. That alone makes them almost unusable, because all those spare weapons that need a target will just get shot at your T4 W1 losers. The same weapons have little hope of making a dent in T5 W2 models that are moving twice as fast. Essentially, T4 W1, being slow, and having horrible offense makes terminators terrible.

It also doesn't help that your typical terminator squad is crippled after taking only 2-3 wounds.

good arg here

**Martel732**

I'm not happy about it, but it's the situation as I see it.

**nobody**

RE: Terminators in 4th:

Vanilla Terminators only really saw serious play in 4th as Terminator Command Squads (which were available if your HQ was in Terminator Armour). The reason was that a 4 man squad could take two Assault Cannons.

My thoughts on Terminators have pretty much been summed up earlier in the thread, but bottom line is that they aren't great at shooting, aren't great in close combat, are too expensive to get them anywhere near where they'd be worthwhile (Offer the average player a choice of a shooty Terminator squad in a Land Raider or a Knight, and I'm pretty sure we all know who's going to win that contest, especially given the lower points cost of the Knight).

But I don't see GW buffing them in any way, given that most PA army players have bought at least one box of them so it's unlikely that they are running into problems with low sales numbers.

**Alcibiades**

Well I am not an experienced player to say the least, but it seems to me that the point in Terminators being not great in shooting and not great at assault, but nevertheless above-average in both, is that they are supposed to be a unit that, well, shoots and then assaults, making the combined "above-average + above average" into "great".

Much like tactical marines, come to think of it.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
also, damage output vs. wraiths is irrelevant. They're not costed based around the damage they can do to each other. Compare their damage output vs. other things.

As pointed out at length elsewhere, wraith damage output is mediocre.

**Martel732**

Terminator's damage is NOT above average for their cost, and neither is their survivability.

**Slayer-Fan123**

Alcibiades wrote:
Well I am not an experienced player to say the least, but it seems to me that the point in Terminators being not great in shooting and not great at assault, but nevertheless above-average in both, is that they are supposed to be a unit that, well, shoots and then assaults, making the combined "above-average + above average" into "great".

Much like tactical marines, come to think of it.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
also, damage output vs. wraiths is irrelevant. They're not costed based around the damage they can do to each other. Compare their damage output vs. other things.

As pointed out at length elsewhere, wraith damage output is mediocre.

The damage output vs other things HAS BEEN pointed out. 200 points of Terminators vs 200 points of a Tactical Squad with a Plasma Gun, Combi Plasma, and a Drop Pod nets you more Bolter shots, AP2 range attacks, immediately arriving to their destination, etc. The only thing the Terminators have is 10 power fist attacks, and they aren't getting anywhere anytime soon, and there's the matter of grenades existing to boot.

**dragoonmaster101**

Please close this thread 313 posts about terminators is enough for one day eh?

**MajorStoffer**

Alcibiades wrote:
Well I am not an experienced player to say the least, but it seems to me that the point in Terminators being not great in shooting and not great at assault, but nevertheless above-average in both, is that they are supposed to be a unit that, well, shoots and then assaults, making the combined "above-average + above average" into "great".

Much like tactical marines, come to think of it.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
also, damage output vs. wraiths is irrelevant. They're not costed based around the damage they can do to each other. Compare their damage output vs. other things.

As pointed out at length elsewhere, wraith damage output is mediocre.

There is a fundamental flaw with that logic; unless you are very close to begin with, shooting is a bad idea if you want to assault. Kill too many guys and you won't be able to charge. One of the fun oddities of 40k; assault units with guns are paying additional points for wargear they often don't want to use, especially when they're slow like Termies.

**murphs**

formula = (shots * hit chance * wound chance * failed save)

10 Marines Rapid Firing Bolters

VS Terminators @ 40 points each:
20 * 2/3 * 1/2 * 1/6 = 1.11111 Dead Terminators
40 * 1.111111 = 44.444 points damage done

VS Marines @ 14 points each
20 * 2/3 * 1/2 * 1/3 = 2.22222 Dead Marines
14 * 2.22222 = 31.111 points damage done

VS Ork Boyz @ 6 points each
20 * 2/3 * 1/2 = 6.666666667 Dead Orks
6 * 6.666666667 = 40 points damage done

10 Guardsmen Rapid Firing Lasguns

VS Terminators @ 40 points each:
20 * 1/2 * 1/3 * 1/6 =0.555555556 Dead Terminators
40 * 0.555555556= 22.22222222 points damage done

VS Marines@ 14 points each:
20 * 1/2 * 1/3 * 1/3 =1.111111111 Dead Marines
14 * 0.555555556= 15.55555556 points damage done

VS Orks Boyz @ 6 points each:
20 * 1/2 * 1/3 * 5/6 =2.777777778 Dead Boyz
6 * 2.777777778= 16.66666667points damage done

For cost Terminators are more fragile against small arms fire than both Marines and Ork Boyz.

**vipoid**

What about against blasts and flamers?

**Ashiraya**

You're supposed to use Terminators in the hope that the enemy spends their low str high AP blasts and flamers on them?

**Martel732**

If my opponent is brain dead, this unit is great!

**vipoid**

Ashiraya wrote:
You're supposed to use Terminators in the hope that the enemy spends their low str high AP blasts and flamers on them?

Sorry, I didn't realise that any comparisons that shine a favourable light on terminators were banned.

**AegisGrimm**

As I have not tried yet, how are Terminators in Zone Mortalis style games, as I think half their problem with dying to ranged weapons on 40k battlefields is that there's just never enough terrain and the lines of sight are horribly large. Seems like half the games nowadays is about boring gunline dice rolling. Anything will fail saves when half an army or more can easily draw line of sight to them.

I think definitely one thing that should happen is that GW should let them take two heavy weapons again. I can't for the life of me understand why that was taken away.

**Martel732**

Or all heavy weapons. At a discount. 50 pts for an assault cannon terminator would make them competitive. Still not as good as Wraiths at soaking damage, but with superior shooting attacks.

**AegisGrimm**

Back in 3rd edition my buddy and I toyed with the idea of a Heavy support Termi unit that could have 4 heavy weapons. Something like that should have materialized rather than Centurions, especially for Terminator forces like Deathwing.

**Martel732**

AegisGrimm wrote:
Back in 3rd edition my buddy and I toyed with the idea of a Heavy support Termi unit that could have 4 heavy weapons. Something like that should have materialized rather than Centurions, especially for Terminator forces like Deathwing.

Except that the grav cannon is 10X better than an assault cannon. I swear the assault cannon is one of the most overrated weapons in the game.

**AegisGrimm**

So let Terminators take Grav Cannons. Or don't make grav weapons in the first place, so they don't make other weapons obsolete.

Centurions were not needed other than as something new to sell. Just give more options to Terminators.

**Martel732**

AegisGrimm wrote:
So let Terminators take Grav Cannons. Or don't make grav weapons in the first place, so they don't make other weapons obsolete.

Centurions were not needed other than as something new to sell. Just give more options to Terminators.

Grav cannons are extremely valuable against MCs with 2+ saves, and units like seer councils that need dozens of wounds in order to hurt. MCs with 2+ saves made those other weapons obsolete before grave was introduced.

**vipoid**

Martel732 wrote:
Except that the grav cannon is 10X better than an assault cannon. I swear the assault cannon is one of the most overrated weapons in the game.

A lot of things become "overrated" when you only compare them to the most broken things in the game.

**Martel732**

vipoid wrote:
Martel732 wrote:
Except that the grav cannon is 10X better than an assault cannon. I swear the assault cannon is one of the most overrated weapons in the game.

A lot of things become "overrated" when you only compare them to the most broken things in the game.

The most broken things are the relevant bar because the internet calling something "broken" does not stop people from bringing it.

The two most crippling things about the assault cannon are the range and what units can have one. The price doesn't help either. Prima facie, the stat line is fine, but in practice I find the weapon to be a dumpster fire.

**Ashiraya**

vipoid wrote:
Ashiraya wrote:
You're supposed to use Terminators in the hope that the enemy spends their low str high AP blasts and flamers on them?

Sorry, I didn't realise that any comparisons that shine a favourable light on terminators were banned.

Well, you did highlight a strength that isn't really a strength at all in practice.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
I found a use for Terminators!

They are as good at tanking S2 as Wraiths are! So if swarms of gretchin melee is giving you trouble, Terminators can soak them.

**vipoid**

Ashiraya wrote:

They are as good at tanking S2 as Wraiths are! So if swarms of gretchin melee is giving you trouble, Terminators can soak them.

But, how will they fare against my S1 AP2 Orbs of DOOOOOM?

(No, S1 is not a misprint...)