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 SolarCross wrote:
Ork Meganob = 40 pts
SM Termie = 40 pts

SM Termie is way better than a Meganob.

Yes some weapons ignore even a 2+ save but then some weapons ignore toughness, some ignore extra wounds.. I don't think any weapons ignore invulnerable saves though, or FNP which is accessible to Termies easily through a cheap apothecary upgrade. They can die and they aren't the biggest and the baddest on the table anymore but they are still pretty good. Orks don't complain about their Meganobz why should SM players with their 10 free mini-tanks and re-roll everythings complain about their Termies? I don't get it.

How about making Termies T10 W10 Armour save 1++++ Inv 1+++++ FNP 1+++++ and completely free with every free tank? Would that fix em?

I disagree completely. Manz are twice as durable against anything not ap2, and still more durable against ap2 than tactical termies. (3 plasma shots, accounting for bs4 and wounding, kill a termie, while 4 are needed to kill a MAN.) They only fall behind when the weapon in question is s8+. They also have more attacks, leading to less whiff-fests. Trukks are also quite nice. I wish I had a cheap no frills assault transport like them for my BA.

Also I'm not sure where you're getting the apothecary from. Normal termies can't snag one in-squad. The only way to get one to my knowledge is to ally blood angels for tax unit(s) and a sanguinary priest who can't take termie armor. Orks on the other hand don't need to ally, painboys are right there in their own HQ section.

I've seen tons of games, tons of termie loadouts, and tons of discussion, and I remain utterly convinced that the largest weakness (among the termie list of weaknesses,) is durability. Losing 1 termie per 6 wounds of any junk weapon against t4 does not do the job. Dead units don't do anything, regardless of what they're equipped with.

MANZ are better in practice than terminators. Neither are great, but ST 8+ weapons for the most part actively suck now.

 niv-mizzet wrote:


I disagree completely. Manz are twice as durable against anything not ap2, and still more durable against ap2 than tactical termies. (3 plasma shots, accounting for bs4 and wounding, kill a termie, while 4 are needed to kill a MAN.) They only fall behind when the weapon in question is s8+. They also have more attacks, leading to less whiff-fests. Trukks are also quite nice. I wish I had a cheap no frills assault transport like them for my BA.

Also I'm not sure where you're getting the apothecary from. Normal termies can't snag one in-squad. The only way to get one to my knowledge is to ally blood angels for tax unit(s) and a sanguinary priest who can't take termie armor. Orks on the other hand don't need to ally, painboys are right there in their own HQ section.

Weirdly MANZ are only leadership 7 and unless you take them in huge numbers they don't benefit from mob rule so do tend to run away a lot. Their lowish initiative doesn't help them survive sweeping advances either. They can't shoot and hit anything. Painboyz take up a HQ slot, which really limits how many you can have.

Regarding apothecaries I was looking at the dark angel book thinking termies were the same in the SM book. I just looked and you are right vanila SM can't get apothecaries but then they are only 35pts, so cheaper than a MANZ actually.

 niv-mizzet wrote:

I've seen tons of games, tons of termie loadouts, and tons of discussion, and I remain utterly convinced that the largest weakness (among the termie list of weaknesses,) is durability. Losing 1 termie per 6 wounds of any junk weapon against t4 does not do the job. Dead units don't do anything, regardless of what they're equipped with.

I think you are forgeting the invulnerable save, no? Also dead units is what tends to happen in war, sorry but there it is, warbosses can die, riptides can die, even spess murheeen papa smurf can die. So what you want them to have centurion stats? fine but they should pay for them. and then what stats will the centurion have? T7 W3 Sv 2+ Inv 4+? People will still throw as much dakka at them as they can, and they will still die.

Wow, 5 points cheaper! That changes everything!

Except it doesn't.

Also Painboys taking up a spot is a bad excuse. It is easy to get multiple CAD's. Same thing with Morale being an issue as it is easy to make them Fearless (Bully Boyz) or grab better LD (Warboss, though unneeded with the former formation). Quite frankly, Morale is an overrated problem.Terminators gain less out of formations too.

And I still think MANZ are over costed, but don't pretend they're worse than Terminators.

@solar cross
I never said they shouldn't be able to die. Please don't strawman, it just insults both of us. I said it should be harder to kill them than 30 bolter wounds for their point cost, especially when they're billed as infantry-size tanks.

No I didn't forget the invuln save. That's in my calculations. I'm very familiar with both manz and termies, and I know the ups and downs of both. I would rather have manz. Even over the 35 point codex version termies. (Side note: BA still have the 40 point version.)

Bringing up the shooting is just silly. Neither one of them is killing anything important with their guns. Case in point, no one who takes hammernators ever complains about giving up their storm bolters. If they do, slap them.

StarHunter25 wrote:
My thought has always been to give them "BS7" armor save for plain terminator armor losing the added roll against ap2/1. So vs bolters 2+/5+. Plasma would be just 2+. Any wargear that increases the invuln save increases the reroll.

+1 toughness would be iffy with this, because Nurgle termie lords would be hell to kill, with Typhus becoming Lord Unkillable Without D. Smashfether would be that +1.

I really like this idea

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Wow, 5 points cheaper! That changes everything!

Except it doesn't.

Also Painboys taking up a spot is a bad excuse. It is easy to get multiple CAD's. Same thing with Morale being an issue as it is easy to make them Fearless (Bully Boyz) or grab better LD (Warboss, though unneeded with the former formation). Quite frankly, Morale is an overrated problem.Terminators gain less out of formations too.

And I still think MANZ are over costed, but don't pretend they're worse than Terminators.

35pts for a space marine with a better armour save, invulnerable save, deep strike versus 40pts for a Nob with the same armour save and nothing else.
Meh it still looks to me like termies are probably better, more shooty and a bit less choppy, but otherwise quite okay.

You can take multiple CAD's, or other detachments, but each CAD has a pleb tax. Every Painboy will require at least as many pleb units to be taken to get him. So it is not quite like you can take as many painboyz as you want. Morale is an issue if you have to take very particular formations, get particular warlord traits and add particular characters in order to make it a non issue.

Dark Angels have some pretty good formations for termies, but even vanilla spess murheens have got a couple specially for termies, Ist company task force and strike force ultra. Then there is all those fancy chapter doctrines. SM players can say they are Iron Hands and give their entire army FNP & It will not die for free. *drool*. To me all this crap about termies not being good enough is just SM players being spoilt for free goodies. I can gets 10 free tanks, so why I can'ts have 10 free termie squads too!

those tanks are razrobacks at worst. as require you take take, BARE MINIMUM, 420 points worth of tatical marines.

 SolarCross wrote:

Dark Angels have some pretty good formations for termies, but even vanilla spess murheens have got a couple specially for termies, Ist company task force and strike force ultra. Then there is all those fancy chapter doctrines. SM players can say they are Iron Hands and give their entire army FNP & It will not die for free. *drool*. To me all this crap about termies not being good enough is just SM players being spoilt for free goodies. I can gets 10 free tanks, so why I can'ts have 10 free termie squads too!

First off, it will not die on one wound models does nothing .

2nd, I play BA. Tell me more about how I'm spoiled rotten because I can take a bunch of free transports or passable formation bonuses.
Maybe you should dial back on the irrational imperium hate.

 SolarCross wrote:
Ork Meganob = 40 pts
SM Termie = 40 pts

SM Termie is way better than a Meganob.

This type of logic is flawed. Take out the actual factions and just use letters and numbers.

- Faction A has units 1, 2, 3, 4, where the effectiveness is 1 = 2 > 3 >> 4.
- Faction B has units 1, 2, 3, 4, where the effectiveness is 1 = 2 > 3 >> 4.
- There are also Factions C, D, and E.

In most intelligent lists, Faction A beats Faction B 95% of the time, beats faction C 65% of the time, ties faction D 50/50, and loses to faction E 65% of the time. Faction B also loses to factions C, D and E 95% of the time.

So, in this scenario unit A4 broken, even though an entire army of A4 still has a chance against faction B -- or worse, A1 > B1, A2 > B2, A3 > B3, A4 > B4?

YES, A4 is broken. The effectiveness (or lack thereof) of faction B is totally irrelevant. In fact, factions B, C, D and E are all irrelevant in determining whether A4 is broken: it's broken because A should never take unit A4 in its optimization formula.

If A4, B4, C4, and D4 are all crappy units in their respective factions, then they are all broken. The fact that B really sucks just means faction B is broken; it doesn't mean that any particular unit in another faction isn't.

Specifically in 40k, comparing a 40 pt meganob to a 40 pt terminator is a silly thing to do -- as is any other unit directly to another unit -- because it's the effectiveness of the unit in the context of the faction. For example, a lot of the Skitarii units aren't really super spectacular, but throw in the faction bonuses, and it goes over the top. A lot of Astartes units are pretty average, like Centurions, but toss in some ICs and magic into the mix, and baddabing, you got something special. With tactical terminators, there's really nothing you can do with them to make them worthy of their points -- other than paint them up really nice, and go, ZOMG those rock.

There is often a desire in 40k for people to say, "This faction is too powerful; therefore nothing is broken inside it", when actually, they really should say, "This faction is too powerful, so the game writers should ignore the broken stuff in it and focus on another faction that is really not powerful enough."

But it's all moot. GW will keep the most popular factions at some playable parity, and the less popular factions will slip into disrepair, unless they get lucky at some point, at which time they'll have one or two winning formulae, for a while at least.

 niv-mizzet wrote:


First off, it will not die on one wound models does nothing .

2nd, I play BA. Tell me more about how I'm spoiled rotten because I can take a bunch of free transports or passable formation bonuses.
Maybe you should dial back on the irrational imperium hate.

Iron Hands: 1 Wound Termies would get FNP. Character termies would get It Will Not Die.

Sure I have heard BA are a bottom tier codex, and I am not saying it isn't. I'm not hating on the imperium, just I don't think Termies are priced wrongly or underpowered. They might look that way compared with Eldar, Tau and SM fondue sets, but that isn't a problem with termies that is a problem with the fondue sets. I don't think the answer is more cheese please.

They certainly ARE priced incorrectly, otherwise you'd at least see them on occasion. I can't even name the last time I saw any Terminator variant squad.

 Talys wrote:


Specifically in 40k, comparing a 40 pt meganob to a 40 pt terminator is a silly thing to do -- as is any other unit directly to another unit -- because it's the effectiveness of the unit in the context of the faction.

There really isn't any more context to ork faction to consider when comparing meganobz to other units, they pretty much are what you see. They have a crappy special rule (mob rule) and a decent one ('ere we go).

And while it may or may not be accurate to compare a 40 point 2-w meganob to a 40 point 1-w terminator, I feel as if it is ABSOLUTELY reasonable to compare a 40 point 2w meganob to a theoretical 40 point 2w terminator, which is more or less what this and many other threads like it have argued for some time.

Because a terminator getting 2 wounds, in addition to invluns, relentless, deep strike, ATSKNF, and decent heavy weapon options, for the same price as a meganob, who has none of the aforementioned bonuses except 2w, seems pretty unfair to me.

Except people proposing two wounds for Terminators are trying to make them Centurions, hence why you ignore those suggestions.

 SolarCross wrote:

 niv-mizzet wrote:


First off, it will not die on one wound models does nothing .

2nd, I play BA. Tell me more about how I'm spoiled rotten because I can take a bunch of free transports or passable formation bonuses.
Maybe you should dial back on the irrational imperium hate.

Iron Hands: 1 Wound Termies would get FNP. Character termies would get It Will Not Die.

Sure I have heard BA are a bottom tier codex, and I am not saying it isn't. I'm not hating on the imperium, just I don't think Termies are priced wrongly or underpowered. They might look that way compared with Eldar, Tau and SM fondue sets, but that isn't a problem with termies that is a problem with the fondue sets. I don't think the answer is more cheese please.

The game is only going one way in power scale: up. This means that terminators are underpowered/overcosted. The Eldar/Tau/SM ARE the new standards, not the old crappy models that people keep trotting out.

The assault cannon is a very different weapon than the grav cannon. Give tactical terminators assault cannons ala scatterbikes and make assault terminators cheaper because assault sucks because 7th says so.

Alright try this: In terms of stats a termie is identical to a marine veteran priced at 19pts with 3+ save with chainsword bolt pistol.
So the termie at 35pts is getting a 2+ save, invulnerable save, deepstrike, powerfist & storm bolter upgrade over a veteran for 16pts.

In comparison:

A MAN has the same stats as a Nob which with 4+ eavy armour & slugga and choppa costs 22pts. So the Meganob at 40pts is getting 2+ save & a powerklaw & a TL shoota for an 18pts upgrade over a eavy Nob.

Do any of you see marine veterans as overpriced? If not then how is 16pts too much to pay to turn a veteran into a termie? There is an option to give a vanguard a powerfist which alone costs 15pts...

And that veteran will have a Jump Pack because nobody uses Vanguard without Jump Packs. That alone makes them better. You get your hidden Power Fists and you get them into combat, while at the same time that Vanguard gets different abilities (rerolling failed charges). So I'd be trading that Jump Pack + Rerolling Failed Charges to not be able to sweep, a 2+, a 5++ that will never matter thanks to Vanguard grabbing SS's, and a Storm Bolted that fools you into thinking it has shooting power?

That's pretty bad.

Likewise, the MAN already has 3 attacks, and the TL shooter is just a bit above BS3, which therefore makes their shooting almost the same (though the Terminator is slightly better, and only straight up better as an Imperial Fist). Then there's the option for Combi-Weapons. Options are key.

That's what you fail to realize. I don't need every Vanguard to have a SS or PF or Melta Bomb. I buy exactly what I need to for them to succeed instead of paying for everyone to perform mediocrity. The "Vanguard -> Terminator" price comparison doesn't work because you always bundle for mildly less. That's biker Marines aren't all 34 points.

 Kap'n Krump wrote:


Because a terminator getting 2 wounds, in addition to invluns, relentless, deep strike, ATSKNF, and decent heavy weapon options, for the same price as a meganob, who has none of the aforementioned bonuses except 2w, seems pretty unfair to me.

Meganobz are ALSO BAD. I'd say it's perfectly fair for a unit to be made better than them if the unit wants to be taken seriously. And no one here is disputing that meganobz should also be better, except that the thread title appears to be "terminators," not "meganobz."

I just don't understand this logic of "we must keep all bad units bad because other bad units exist."

Also, there aren't any Chapter Tactics that particularly help Terminators, whereas Vanguard get a bunch of nice things everywhere. MANZ just use the Bully Boyz formation to really fix any issue.

A Vanguard with power fist & stormshield & jumppack costs 47 pts.. That's 12 points over a termie.

 SolarCross wrote:


Do any of you see marine veterans as overpriced?

Yes. rank and file marines are already subpar. Paying extra for extra melee stats and no increase in durability when they already can't make it to melee without charge-from-deepstrike formations is also bad. Sternguard are okay because their ammo is actually a relevant increase in offense that they can actually live long enough to use, but still being a single power armor wound a piece is less than ideal for such expensive guys.

 SolarCross wrote:
A Vanguard with power fist & stormshield & jumppack costs 47 pts.. That's 12 points over a termie.

But why are we equipping everyone likes that?

The comparison to jump pack marines makes it more obvious that the problem is one of deployment and/or movement, not one of durability or offensive capability.

 niv-mizzet wrote:


Meganobz are ALSO BAD. I'd say it's perfectly fair for a unit to be made better than them if the unit wants to be taken seriously. And no one here is disputing that meganobz should also be better, except that the thread title appears to be "terminators," not "meganobz."

I just don't understand this logic of "we must keep all bad units bad because other bad units exist."

But Meganobz aren't bad... at least they look good to Ork players. They have weaknesses and they have strengths. They aren't auto-win units but they have their uses. To me termies look the same if not better. Again SM crying about termies just smacks of Lord Snooty Money Bags complaining about the cost of caviar.

Lord Snooty "(sniff) well why indeed would I want to pay for a deep striking elite soldier with a trifling 2+ armour save and invulnerable save when I can have 10 razorbacks for free?"

Manz are bad because wk and grav exist. Same reason terminators are bad. They just soak twice as much grav. That's the only stat that matters, not rules like atsknf.

BA is bad codex; arguably the worst. Even then , i still think terminators are one of the worst units in the book. That's pretty damn bad.

Martel732 wrote:
Manz are bad because wk and grav exist. Same reason terminators are bad. They just soak twice as much grav. That's the only stat that matters, not rules like atsknf.

In a balanced game (I'm not suggesting 40k is balanced!!!) there should be a way to counter any unit. 2+ saves exist so there should be grav & AP2. Are swarms of low armour grunts bad because flamers exist?

The counters are too cheap and plentiful. And have low opportunity cost.

We made stormbolters have an extra shot at 12". We also allow termies to ride in Rhinos, because why not exactly?

That and we haven't adopted much of the last two editions of dumb rules and codices - I admit that is the biggest issue, really.

 amanita wrote:
We made stormbolters have an extra shot at 12". We also allow termies to ride in Rhinos, because why not exactly?

That and we haven't adopted much of the last two editions of dumb rules and codices - I admit that is the biggest issue, really.

You're not playing the same game at all. But then again, loyalist terminators have always been bad.

MANZ suck because the ork codex munches donkey cave. This thread is more a conversation about a old, beloved SPACE MARINE unit getting the short end of the stick when it comes to internal balance. Orks as a whole need a massive overhaul. So please stop trying to hijack this conversation with the Groans of the Orks, and start another thread about proposed fixes FOR ORKS. I pray SoB and Tyranid players don't bomb your thread.

Centurion buffs to a SM compared to TDA are mostly hard stat buffs. What about some more USRs? I dislike adding more USRs to the pile, but it could be a fluffy distinction.