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How about they shake things up and make them an actual 1+ armor save? Still fails on a die roll of 1, but only AP'd by actual AP1 weapons like melta, railgun, etc, and not all the AP2 that's out there? Then add FNP to give them a little extra against small arms. Second heavy weapon, slight points adjust, and I think there you're at a pretty decent unit.

Would +1 T in addition to +1 Wound be over the top? Without T5 the anti tank weapons of the game double them out. Without the additional wound they get killed by small arms fire. FNP should be reserved for Command Squads and the like.

Their speed (or lack of) requires them to be tough enough to be able to get to other end of the board with at least half their squad alive.

So like everyone has already discussed, it is the question what is a reasonable amount of firepower to have? Stormbolters are their baseline weapon, it is iconic and something GW won't change out. So we have to look at their upgrades. Having 2 assault cannons in a 5-man squad i snot overpowered. Most Grey Knight players know this as we have literally an assault cannon +1 equivalent AND terminators who have two wounds who can carry 2 psycannons per 5 men. The firepower is not good even then.

2 special weapons per 5 men is good for standard tactical termies. But their durability that must also be increased.

Backfire wrote:

pm713 wrote:

Or think that rather than making everything stronger it's best to mix nerfs and buffs.

That'd be the best, unfortunately people don't often like nerfs, so it is easier to just buff 1 unit than nerf 3-4 others...

They don't like power creep either. Have you seen anybody say scatterbikes are a good thing?

-2k point game.
-vsing Tau
-almost all termie armoured(Captain in termie armour)
-25 termies and captain in reserve
-3 scout squads sitting in 2++ cover
-EVERYTHING lands 1st turn
-nothing mishaps(5 direct hits feth yea!)
-2 assault cannons shoot Riptide
-6 total 6's
-He flunks all 6
-Put two krak missles into the side armour of devilfish
-Roll to hit: 6,6
-Roll to pen: 6,6
-Double Immobolized
-Breachers inside ahve to sit in the naughty corner(by the wreck of devilfish)
-5 man squad with cappy shoot at ethereal in back of fire warrior blob
-Hits everything
-Wound everything
-He flunks 8 LOS
-Ethereal dies
-I love my life
-Opponent is lying on the floor dying of laughter
-We shake hands turn 2
-Best friends since

TERMIES MAKE FRIENDS!

 Sgt. Vanden wrote:
-2k point game.
-vsing Tau
-almost all termie armoured(Captain in termie armour)
-25 termies and captain in reserve
-3 scout squads sitting in 2++ cover
-EVERYTHING lands 1st turn
-nothing mishaps(5 direct hits feth yea!)
-2 assault cannons shoot Riptide
-6 total 6's
-He flunks all 6
-Put two krak missles into the side armour of devilfish
-Roll to hit: 6,6
-Roll to pen: 6,6
-Double Immobolized
-Breachers inside ahve to sit in the naughty corner(by the wreck of devilfish)
-5 man squad with cappy shoot at ethereal in back of fire warrior blob
-Hits everything
-Wound everything
-He flunks 8 LOS
-Ethereal dies
-I love my life
-Opponent is lying on the floor dying of laughter
-We shake hands turn 2
-Best friends since

TERMIES MAKE FRIENDS!

How many children did you sacrifice to the Dice-Lords to get those results, Vanden?

My firstborn, secondborn, thirdborn...and most of my old Templars...

I never understood why they dropped the option of two heavy weapons in a 5 man squad.

I like the idea of two specials in a 5 man termie squad. Deathwing would be pretty gross on the turn they come in. 2 Twinlinked assault cannons would chew stuff up, especially since they can split fire into two different targets if necessary.

 AegisGrimm wrote:
I never understood why they dropped the option of two heavy weapons in a 5 man squad.

Probably because Jervis was allowed near the actual rules?!

 ZergSmasher wrote:
I like the idea of two specials in a 5 man termie squad. Deathwing would be pretty gross on the turn they come in. 2 Twinlinked assault cannons would chew stuff up, especially since they can split fire into two different targets if necessary.

That's still a pittance compared to warp spiders.

Martel don't hold your standards to broken levels.

What's broken? Warp Spiders? Or bad units?

The thing is, you need a LOT of S6 to make the most of it. Going from one assault cannon to two assault cannons is really marginal in the scheme of the game.

I agree being able to give all 5 Tactical Terminators AC would hardly be gamebreaking as the range and slow movement of the unit means you can engage them mostly on your terms.

But saying its not good as Eldar doesn't help anyone, because Eldar is the definition of broken.

I get that a points reduction would help terminators be more competitive, but I stubbornly cling to the idea that they are supposed to be some of the most elite Space Marines in the galaxy. Points reductions do work to fix these things, but they continue to contribute to the 'race to the bottom'. I recognize there is a valid concern that, as a game element, they aren't well constructed right now--but I think a worse problem is that they are not only ineffective as a game element, but do a very poor job of representing the fluff and internal consistency of the setting in the game.

'Elite' units get cheaper and cheaper, and new, more expensive, more powerful units get created to be the 'elite' units. Each adjusting of points seems to address the issue at hand, but it contributes towards this continual creep towards meaningless blandness. When Space Marines are hapless fodder, and terminators are ineffectual, the problem isn't their points cost--it's the relation of the rules towards the setting. If Marines (and Terminators in particular) are supposed to be broadly capable, deadly foes, then common, inexpensive units should not be a reliable way of dealing with them. Making Terminators cheaper just masks an underlying issue. We might as well just tell people to "count them as" power armored marines and pay less points!

Unfortunately, I think it would take a recalibration of the rules, as well as a dramatic rejiggering of the points costs to fix that. However, it does lead me to wonder--why is decreasing the points costs of things and increasing their power level seemingly considered so much more acceptable than increasing the points costs or decreasing the power of other units? For example (and I know plasma is not the only problem, by any means, with Terminators), why should terminators be cheaper if plasma is so capable of dealing with them? Why not (as noted by others), decide that Plasma is not capable of easily penetrating TDA, and change the AP of plasma weapons? Why make terminators cheaper (and thus, more common) instead of regarding plasma weapons as delicate, poorly understood artifacts of a prior age, and increasing their cost?

Is it just a matter of what's easiest to change? Entries in a few codices rather than stats across the board? That might be it, but it really seems like a mentality of 'more toys is always better'. I'd much rather have a game where cannon fodder was cannon fodder, and rare and powerful actually meant something, other than just "a good bargain for the points". I do think terminators need work, but I'd be much happier seeing more capable terminators costing more, not less, if they were given the characteristics that should define them.

Da Butcha wrote:


I get that a points reduction would help terminators be more competitive, but I stubbornly cling to the idea that they are supposed to be some of the most elite Space Marines in the galaxy. Points reductions do work to fix these things, but they continue to contribute to the 'race to the bottom'. I recognize there is a valid concern that, as a game element, they aren't well constructed right now--but I think a worse problem is that they are not only ineffective as a game element, but do a very poor job of representing the fluff and internal consistency of the setting in the game.

'Elite' units get cheaper and cheaper, and new, more expensive, more powerful units get created to be the 'elite' units. Each adjusting of points seems to address the issue at hand, but it contributes towards this continual creep towards meaningless blandness. When Space Marines are hapless fodder, and terminators are ineffectual, the problem isn't their points cost--it's the relation of the rules towards the setting. If Marines (and Terminators in particular) are supposed to be broadly capable, deadly foes, then common, inexpensive units should not be a reliable way of dealing with them. Making Terminators cheaper just masks an underlying issue. We might as well just tell people to "count them as" power armored marines and pay less points!

Unfortunately, I think it would take a recalibration of the rules, as well as a dramatic rejiggering of the points costs to fix that. However, it does lead me to wonder--why is decreasing the points costs of things and increasing their power level seemingly considered so much more acceptable than increasing the points costs or decreasing the power of other units? For example (and I know plasma is not the only problem, by any means, with Terminators), why should terminators be cheaper if plasma is so capable of dealing with them? Why not (as noted by others), decide that Plasma is not capable of easily penetrating TDA, and change the AP of plasma weapons? Why make terminators cheaper (and thus, more common) instead of regarding plasma weapons as delicate, poorly understood artifacts of a prior age, and increasing their cost?

Is it just a matter of what's easiest to change? Entries in a few codices rather than stats across the board? That might be it, but it really seems like a mentality of 'more toys is always better'. I'd much rather have a game where cannon fodder was cannon fodder, and rare and powerful actually meant something, other than just "a good bargain for the points". I do think terminators need work, but I'd be much happier seeing more capable terminators costing more, not less, if they were given the characteristics that should define them.

I think this is sort of a symptom of marines in general being the middle-ground army by which other forces are measured. Marines are popular, and they're often thought of as THE starter army. So on some levels, it makes sense to make them the army with high-average WS/BS/T and a decent armor save. Because of how common they are, I feel like other books get designed with marines in mind. So Tau, being a shooty army, are as shooty as marines and then some. Orks are as choppy as marines and then some. Necrons are as durable as marines and then some. The thing is, marines are kind of meant to be Gary Stu's. Their narrative role is to be the band of action movie protagonists that do way better than logic dictates they should by virtue of plot armor. So while real life factors have caused marines to be okay but not great at shooting and okay but not great at taking a punch, the fluff tells us that a given tactical marine should be one of the shootiest, punchiest, toughest guys on the table.

And I don't mean this in a "Marines are my favorite army, so they should be extra special" kind of way. Tau shoot stuff and cooperate well. Eldar move fast and have potent/specialized gear. Orks are numerous melee-centric. Marines, in that same vein, should be few in number but very good at most things.

Personally, I'd like the average power armor marine to cost something like 25 points but to also be a lot more impressive. For those extra points, I'd love for bolters to be strength five and/or rending, for marines to have some sort of ward save, or for sargeants to have multiple wounds. Their fluff is that they're elite and individually powerful. Their mechanics are that they die slightly slower than carapce armor guardsmen and work best when spammed for free tanks.

 overlord inspiron wrote:

1) no more gargantuans, or super heavies outside of apcoalypse, you dont like it too bad

2) bike units and jetbikes need a major price jack, and shooting centric specialists need to have some of their special rules packages and baselines either adjusted or be gutted. theyve grown out of control

3) you need to slow the game down, this will probably need to involve a reworking of the imbalance between shooting and melee (as noted in item 2) and a rebalancing of unit types where some unit types are objectively better then others because of their mechanics. such as jump infantry and jetpack infantry, jetbikes, cavalry, and bikes. formations that encourage shooting would also need to be re-examind ad well as CC patch job formations like the skyhammer annihilation force and shadowstrike killteam this is to make sure its not a totally worthless venture to buy shooting units. in some cases formations may simply be removed entirely.

option step 4) (as this mainly applies to terminator like units in other armies): you then need to go back and start fixing base armies and dropping supplemental things like formations and supplemental rules. in some cases armies could lose whole army supplements from legal use such as farsight enclave and clan raukkan, this would also include things like relics and warlord traits. for example anything granting eternal warriors would probably become very expensive, or any way to make a non troops base unit a troop such as bike marines in codex marines

So what your saying is ramp up the price of everything that can beat terminators to the point where every ary that can has to take them because other viable options are too expensive and slow down a game which based on the average time it takes to play a game at my lgs already takes at least an hour, as well as this you also want to turn an already dodgey rules system on its head

you act like this would be me not playtesting further and making additional changes. 40k as a whole as you stated is an absolutely cluster---- of rules and costs that make no damn sense. adjusting the terminators would then see you going back and asessing the other armies and codecies. and you act like there wouldnt be answers to terminator armour, i assure you that there are more answers then spam bikes/cav/jetbikes and bring gargantuans. people were killing terminators very effectively long before they came around.

and my suggestion is certainly better then overhauling their baselines, slashing costs, and loading up on special special rules like they have bike marines and wulfen and death company you just imbalance and cluster---- the game more.

terminators are a cc unit that needs to get to CC to be productive they are also a slow clumsy unit. if you can agree on that; then you also need to agree that the game is much too fast, much too aggressive for a terminator and that shooting units and big stated massive creatures and shooting specialists have punished the everliving feth out of terminator usage. this is also why orks arent doing well right now on the hole. theyd actually not be a half bad army if there werent stormsurge doomcannons, table travelling in less then 3 turn bikes with more special rules then filing an income tax return, and rules that punish and punish and punish you for trying to lock in close combat with someone unless as you surely must agree have ridiculous special rules packages in which case you become an isolated incident of intended use and design like the shadowstrike killteam.

the only other way you could make terminators work would be to imbalance the game more and just give say the tyranids some really silly rules like "the entire army gets to deploy from the midline instead of normal deployment rules". and other ridiculous stuff like that that basically forces you to accept that cc is a real possibility you need to deal with and expect. but doing that is just a race to the bottom of what army is the most bloody broken. (thought the idea of tyranids turn 2 ccing your entire army does sound rather amusing so id like to see it happen on table one day for the lulz)


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Sgt. Vanden wrote:
My firstborn, secondborn, thirdborn...and most of my old Templars...

thats probably your allotment of good RNG for the year, i recommend you dont play till next year at any tournaments

I've said it before and I'll say it again. I think Terminators should gain a re-rollable armor save and the ability to take two heavy weapons per 5 men.

I've been told before that this makes them simply waaaay too powerful and yet I will have to disagree with that.

1. They were developed as armored suits to withstand working next to plasma reactors originally.

2. By fluff they are the most powerful suit of armor a Space Marine can wear, enhancing his strength and toughness even far more than standard marine power armor does. They are supposed to be walking tanks almost.

3. My suggestion of a re-rollable armor save (not their invuln) keeps it so that lesser weapons will have a hell of a time shooting through their tank-like armor, but weapons that are ap2 or 1 will still cut through them like a hot knife through butter.

4. People can whine all they want about this, but there are still TONS of ap2 and ap1 weapons in the game that can be brought to bear against Terminators like these.

5. I don't believe just adding 1 point of toughness fixes their situation enough. There are still plenty of weapons capable of harming you on a 2 or better.

6. I had considered extra wounds but after playing GK and some 30k Termies with 2 wounds each I will say it was a slight headache having to put dice counters around my guys to try and make sure I remember which guy took a wound already out of my squad of 5 or more.

 Quickjager wrote:
the anti tank weapons of the game double them out.

ROFLOL. you don't consider it a bonus to using terminators that the only real answer to terminators is to use AT weapons against your infantry? If GW doesn't do a third edition in eighth to deescalate the game, perhaps they could add a rule to the general rulebook that allows terminator armor to assault after a teleport move. . . then all of a sudden they are all Nightcrawler in X-men 2 (without Stryker).

 carldooley wrote:

 Quickjager wrote:
the anti tank weapons of the game double them out.

ROFLOL. you don't consider it a bonus to using terminators that the only real answer to terminators is to use AT weapons against your infantry? If GW doesn't do a third edition in eighth to deescalate the game, perhaps they could add a rule to the general rulebook that allows terminator armor to assault after a teleport move. . . then all of a sudden they are all Nightcrawler in X-men 2 (without Stryker).

If nightcrawler couldn't teleport again after he blew his first load and if nightcrawler moved like the blob afterwards, then yea, I guess you'd be right.

Terminators, across armies, I think should just be t5 and 2 wounds. For loyalists the storm bolter has to be fixed but in general these things are walking tanks and should at least reflect that.

 carldooley wrote:

 Quickjager wrote:
the anti tank weapons of the game double them out.

ROFLOL. you don't consider it a bonus to using terminators that the only real answer to terminators is to use AT weapons against your infantry? If GW doesn't do a third edition in eighth to deescalate the game, perhaps they could add a rule to the general rulebook that allows terminator armor to assault after a teleport move. . . then all of a sudden they are all Nightcrawler in X-men 2 (without Stryker).

Not when that infantry costs more than a lot of tanks....
There's a lot of good ideas here, all of which basically boil down to "let termies catch up with the power creep" I honestly think terminators became a moot point the moment Centurions were released. Seriously Centurions fill the same role as terminators and fill it better. And, sadly, I don't think there's a way to differentiate the 2 enough that it warrants keeping both of them around.

Experiment 626 wrote:

2 Heavies in 5 seems a bit on the cheap side of things

As someone playing an army who's sole claim to fame was having 2 heavies per 5 Terminators when others couldn't: it's not. Not at all.

Terminators were made to be a deepstriking CC threat. Assault centurions are pretty terrible if they don't swing first. Heck even then they'll probably only do 2 or 3 wounds. Only really a big deal against armor and fortifications.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

Experiment 626 wrote:

2 Heavies in 5 seems a bit on the cheap side of things

As someone playing an army who's sole claim to fame was having 2 heavies per 5 Terminators when others couldn't: it's not. Not at all.

How can anyone think that it's too efficient to have two S6 ROF 4 rending guns in a 200+ pt squad with only 5 wounds to give? This is 7th ed. Who is even scared of 8 S6 shots after experiencing Tau or Eldar?

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

Experiment 626 wrote:

2 Heavies in 5 seems a bit on the cheap side of things

As someone playing an army who's sole claim to fame was having 2 heavies per 5 Terminators when others couldn't: it's not. Not at all.

Which army was this?

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

Experiment 626 wrote:

2 Heavies in 5 seems a bit on the cheap side of things

As someone playing an army who's sole claim to fame was having 2 heavies per 5 Terminators when others couldn't: it's not. Not at all.

Which army was this?

Black Templars during 5th. Being stuck with a 4th edition Codex had the perk of allowing us to have 2 heavy weapons with only 5 Terminators.

Martel732 wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

Experiment 626 wrote:

2 Heavies in 5 seems a bit on the cheap side of things

As someone playing an army who's sole claim to fame was having 2 heavies per 5 Terminators when others couldn't: it's not. Not at all.

How can anyone think that it's too efficient to have two S6 ROF 4 rending guns in a 200+ pt squad with only 5 wounds to give? This is 7th ed. Who is even scared of 8 S6 shots after experiencing Tau or Eldar?

Anyone who is not playing against Tau and Eldar, and was hoping that, for one, they aren't going to get shot


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Experiment 626 wrote:

svengarr wrote:
I have been playing for about 4 editions now and the only time i thought terminators were good was for a short time when they released assault terminators. i think that if you could take 1 heavy weapon per model they would be competitive. though 35 points a model was a much needed boost.

That said chaos terminators in min squads with combi are not bad. nice distraction.

Absolutely not! Then we're right back with the exact same obnoxious BS that Scatbikes cause.

2 Heavies in 5 seems a bit on the cheap side of things. Allowing for 2 heavies for simply taking that 6th man at least is fairly balanced & allows 0 room for whining.
That alone would go some distance in at least making Tactical Termies look much more attractive, when they only have to pay an additional 35pts 'tax' instead of a frankly insultingly stupid 175pts tax! (seriously, who the flying ever though THAT was a good idea?!)

+1T to their profile or else innate FnP 4+ AND +1W for the squad Sergeant/Champion would bring Termies much closer to their 'elite walking tank' status.

A fix for Storm Bolters & Combi-Bolters in general is just a no-brainer at this point, as is finally giving all Bolt weapons something like 'Shred' or re-roll 1's to-wound... They're fething explody-grenade-bullets for gak's sake. They're meant to remove large chunks of your average individual's entire body mass when they hit home afterall!

Yeah, the 1 special weapon per 5 soldiers rule always baffled me. Why is that? It makes no sense.
Why impose such an arbitrary condition? Is having 2 or even 3 special weapons in a 5 man squad such a big deal?

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

Experiment 626 wrote:

2 Heavies in 5 seems a bit on the cheap side of things

As someone playing an army who's sole claim to fame was having 2 heavies per 5 Terminators when others couldn't: it's not. Not at all.

Which army was this?

Black Templars during 5th. Being stuck with a 4th edition Codex had the perk of allowing us to have 2 heavy weapons with only 5 Terminators.

But that was also when Termies themselves were 40pts a pop - more if you then gave the Tank Hunters to turn those Assault cannons into better Lascannons vs. vehicles.

Really, I'd prefer to see Termies drop to 30pts a pop. At that point, for a squad of 6 w/2x cannons, you're looking at 240pts total.
That's iirc, the same pts cost as what 5 w/2x A.cannons cost back in 4th, so you're essentially getting a 'free' additional wound.

Besides, I'd much rather see the handful of obnoxious power books, (Eldar & Tau), brought back down a little bit, and other glaring fixes such as the Grav cannon issues be addressed, rather than ramping everything under the sun up to insane levels.
If things like Scatbikes & a re-worked grav rule were put in place, it would also go a decent way to make Termies in general more viable again.

Experiment 626 wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

Experiment 626 wrote:

2 Heavies in 5 seems a bit on the cheap side of things

As someone playing an army who's sole claim to fame was having 2 heavies per 5 Terminators when others couldn't: it's not. Not at all.

Which army was this?

Black Templars during 5th. Being stuck with a 4th edition Codex had the perk of allowing us to have 2 heavy weapons with only 5 Terminators.

But that was also when Termies themselves were 40pts a pop - more if you then gave the Tank Hunters to turn those Assault cannons into better Lascannons vs. vehicles.

Really, I'd prefer to see Termies drop to 30pts a pop. At that point, for a squad of 6 w/2x cannons, you're looking at 240pts total.
That's iirc, the same pts cost as what 5 w/2x A.cannons cost back in 4th, so you're essentially getting a 'free' additional wound.

Besides, I'd much rather see the handful of obnoxious power books, (Eldar & Tau), brought back down a little bit, and other glaring fixes such as the Grav cannon issues be addressed, rather than ramping everything under the sun up to insane levels.
If things like Scatbikes & a re-worked grav rule were put in place, it would also go a decent way to make Termies in general more viable again.

I would be perfectly fine with this

No, loyalist terminators have never been viable. Armor save modifiers killed them in 2nd, and plasma being AP 2 killed them in 3rd ed on.

Nerfing Eldar and Tau will not fix the terminator at all. They're not viable against things like TACTICAL squads.