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Lets say the plethora of multi shot ap 2 weapons become ap 3. Things like lascannons and meltaguns stay ap 2. Plasma, grav, and other high shot weapons become ap 3. Is this enough to make terminators (not hammernators) useable again? Me and some friends are considering going by these rules forward, and we think it will be an exciting change that will open up new options. What do you think? And would it make vehicles too strong if they no longer had a chance of exploding from a bunch of weapons?


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Mabye I can use my dreadnoughts again.

I don't think nerfing such a huge family of weapons would do any good. It's not a little change and it might have unexpected consequences. Plus plasma weaponry is interesting because of AP2. Would you really want to risk a Gets hot! for just AP3?

If you do this just to use you Termies, maybe you and your friends should consider buffing them slightly (and the Emprah knows they need a buff) instead.

Terminators die because they're 40-45 points for a model and the 2+ doesn't do much. On top of that they don't have decent damage output.

Yeah Terminators need buffing, as opposed to weakening things that can hurt them.

Plasma has pretty much always been the TEQ killer gun since way back when, and making Grav AP3 similarly runs pretty roughshod over its purpose of being an elite killer gun.

What kills terminators, meganobz, and whatnot is cover ignoring AP2 or weight of fire. Yeah a grav-cent star popping in front of your meganobz is going to be a bad day for them, but at that level of points investment for a weapon that's much less useful against Gargoyle broods and Boyz and Daemons, it kind of deserves to wreck their faces.

This will do largely nothing to resolve a terminator's poor resilience against small arms fire delivered en masse nor will it help their issues of absolutely pitiful ranged firepower (nobody takes Tactical Terminators or Meganobz for their guns I can assure you, Chaos termies being something of an exception because they can be used for termicide squads with meltas or plasmas or flamers), for their cost. More durability versus ranged firepower can be resolved through either points reduction and/or bringing back the concept of a 3+ on a 2d6 save which reduces their chances of being hurt by anything with worse than AP2 to a measley one in twelve chance. This way they're half as likely to be blown away by 20 devourer carrying gaunts in a tyrannocyte.

For the guns, that would take more intensive fixing. Like letting every tactical terminator use an assault cannon/heavy flamer and/or a CML would give them more punch, while Chaos termies could all pimp around with reaper autocannons and Meganobz...I dunno, deffgunz for everyone? This does run into the risk of providing Scatbike grade dakka though.

bringing back the concept of a 3+ on a 2d6 save which reduces their chances of being hurt by

Wow I love this concept, where does it come from?

 RazgrizOne wrote:

bringing back the concept of a 3+ on a 2d6 save which reduces their chances of being hurt by

Wow I love this concept, where does it come from?

I wanna say rogue trader?

 Kain wrote:
More durability versus ranged firepower can be resolved through either points reduction and/or bringing back the concept of a 3+ on a 2d6 save which reduces their chances of being hurt by anything with worse than AP2 to a measley one in twelve chance.

3+ on 2d6 is 1/36 to cause an unsaved wound, everything but snake eyes will pass. It's functionally the same as a 2+ reroll.

 SilverDevilfish wrote:

 Kain wrote:
More durability versus ranged firepower can be resolved through either points reduction and/or bringing back the concept of a 3+ on a 2d6 save which reduces their chances of being hurt by anything with worse than AP2 to a measley one in twelve chance.

3+ on 2d6 is 1/36 to cause an unsaved wound, everything but snake eyes will pass. It's functionally the same as a 2+ reroll.

But they don't have a reroll now? So it's better..? I don't get your point, or were you just correcting the maths?

 ImAGeek wrote:

 SilverDevilfish wrote:

 Kain wrote:
More durability versus ranged firepower can be resolved through either points reduction and/or bringing back the concept of a 3+ on a 2d6 save which reduces their chances of being hurt by anything with worse than AP2 to a measley one in twelve chance.

3+ on 2d6 is 1/36 to cause an unsaved wound, everything but snake eyes will pass. It's functionally the same as a 2+ reroll.

But they don't have a reroll now? So it's better..? I don't get your point, or were you just correcting the maths?

Correcting the math and likening it to something that exists in the game so people have a better idea of the effects of giving Terminators a 3+ on 2d6.

Okay cool, I read it as you were saying they'd be the same as they are now, my bad. Sorry!

 RazgrizOne wrote:

bringing back the concept of a 3+ on a 2d6 save which reduces their chances of being hurt by

Wow I love this concept, where does it come from?

It was what they had in rogue trader and 2nd ed. When 3rd came and they went down to a 2+ without an invuln, it was so bad that GW had to release an errata in WD that gave them a 5++. Still didn't help them that much for their points, as we see today.


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To get a 1 in 12 a 2+ followed by a 4+ 'ceremite' save (think rp) would do that.
In fact if termis got a 'ceremite save' after failed armour or invuln saves, I think it would sort them right out. Makes them twice as tough against literally everything short of D.

It would cause havoc. The real problem is that a Terminators are costed very poorly and this has not been corrected through multiple editions. They have neither the durability, offense,mor movement capabilities to justify their cost. It's that simple.

So how would armies take out Dreadknights if everyone loses their ap2 guns?

Or riptides :-p.

Poly Ranger wrote:
Or riptides :-p.

I only said Dreadknight as MANY IoM players love to say how they die by plasma before they ever do anything and according to them Riptides are never in range anyway so it wouldn't matter against Riptides due to infinitely long tables.

I'm an IOM player (and necron/CSM/Renegades), we don't all have a one direction hive mind that makes us all think the same way :-p.

Poly Ranger wrote:
I'm an IOM player (and necron/CSM/Renegades), we don't all have a one direction hive mind that makes us all think the same way :-p.

I've tried to explain that to him before. You can see how that went.

Tbf to him he has changed it.

I missed a word.


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 ImAGeek wrote:

Poly Ranger wrote:
I'm an IOM player (and necron/CSM/Renegades), we don't all have a one direction hive mind that makes us all think the same way :-p.

I've tried to explain that to him before. You can see how that went.

I missed out the word 'many'.

Much better ;-).

Please don't attack me again, I get bullied enough on here already

Its the blue skin :-p. At least its not blue armour - the smurfs get it way worse!

 RazgrizOne wrote:

bringing back the concept of a 3+ on a 2d6 save which reduces their chances of being hurt by

Wow I love this concept, where does it come from?

It's from way back in the days of Rogue Trader and 2e before they nerfed it hard.

And yes I kind of flubbed the math there. It's basically a rerollable armor save which may be a teensy bit OTT, anyone who's experienced the utter futility of trying to small arms fire Wraithguard to death with protect up should have an idea why.
2 with a 4+ "ceramite" bonus save (if you get FNP you can still take it of course) for certain units like Termies and Meganobz would be pretty fair. Other 2+ save units would be determined on a case by case basis. Phoenix lord? Sure (though maybe only if they have protect up). Riptide? Ehhh they kinda sorta soak up punishment too good as it is, it'd be better for the Tyrannofex (lord knows it needs a buff).

You could have this essentially be a new class of armor save only invalidated by AP1 but that would cause all sorts of screwiness with balance as it would make TEQs laugh heartily at lascannons and plasma guns.

 Orock wrote:
Lets say the plethora of multi shot ap 2 weapons become ap 3. Things like lascannons and meltaguns stay ap 2. Plasma, grav, and other high shot weapons become ap 3. Is this enough to make terminators (not hammernators) useable again? Me and some friends are considering going by these rules forward, and we think it will be an exciting change that will open up new options. What do you think? And would it make vehicles too strong if they no longer had a chance of exploding from a bunch of weapons?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Mabye I can use my dreadnoughts again.

Only Grav weapons should be AP3, the rest stays the same.

Back in those days you got multiple saves too. So you had your terminator armor 2D6 modifiable save, and then a 3+ unmodified Displacer Field. It made characters far less vulnerable to small arms fire.

I think the problem isn't the cost/strength of terminators its GW making everything significantly better pretty much across the board. Just about every army has gotten a couple of new units or weapons that eat 2+ armor so it makes TEQ's borderline useless. Just my opinion

No model or unit costing less than 250 points should have access to AP2 in a form larger than a small blast- that means no flamer templates and no large+ blasts.

Individual models should never have more than 2 shots with an AP2 gun unless it's on a special character (rending doesn't count). A rare allowance may be made for 3+ shot AP2 on weapons with a range of 24'' or less.

Those changes would go a long way toward fixing Terminators, and generally balancing the game. I agree with Gaz that the problem with Terminators (and Marines in general) has more to do with the power creep in the game then the units themselves for the most part.

 BlaxicanX wrote:
Those changes would go a long way toward fixing Terminators, and generally balancing the game.

Sure. Riptide says hi, I am even more survivable now .

It can be as survivable as it wants, since it just lost access to 70% of its fire-power.