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I actually like something similar to Dark Heresy's "Storm" mechanic, where sufficiently successful to-hit rolls inflict multiple hits. We already have this - Tesla. Would it work for storm bolters to have something like that? For example:

Storm: All successful to-hit rolls with a weapon that has this special rule inflict two hits. To-hit rolls of 6 inflict four hits instead, unless snap-shooting (where they still inflict two).

Now yeah, that's still measly S4 AP5 shots, but this doesn't only buff Terminators - it buffs everything with a storm bolter. It probably wouldn't be enough for Terminators on its own, though. Maybe also give Termies the ability to take two heavies per 5, and for every model to exchange its storm bolter for a heavy bolter for 5 points, say?

Still just S4 failure firepower. Go assault cannons.

GK need something, but not this.

jade_angel wrote:
I actually like something similar to Dark Heresy's "Storm" mechanic, where sufficiently successful to-hit rolls inflict multiple hits. We already have this - Tesla. Would it work for storm bolters to have something like that? For example:

Storm: All successful to-hit rolls with a weapon that has this special rule inflict two hits. To-hit rolls of 6 inflict four hits instead, unless snap-shooting (where they still inflict two).

Now yeah, that's still measly S4 AP5 shots, but this doesn't only buff Terminators - it buffs everything with a storm bolter. It probably wouldn't be enough for Terminators on its own, though. Maybe also give Termies the ability to take two heavies per 5, and for every model to exchange its storm bolter for a heavy bolter for 5 points, say?

One free heavy weapon, one at a point cost.

 Backspacehacker wrote:

jade_angel wrote:
I actually like something similar to Dark Heresy's "Storm" mechanic, where sufficiently successful to-hit rolls inflict multiple hits. We already have this - Tesla. Would it work for storm bolters to have something like that? For example:

Storm: All successful to-hit rolls with a weapon that has this special rule inflict two hits. To-hit rolls of 6 inflict four hits instead, unless snap-shooting (where they still inflict two).

Now yeah, that's still measly S4 AP5 shots, but this doesn't only buff Terminators - it buffs everything with a storm bolter. It probably wouldn't be enough for Terminators on its own, though. Maybe also give Termies the ability to take two heavies per 5, and for every model to exchange its storm bolter for a heavy bolter for 5 points, say?

One free heavy weapon, one at a point cost.

Not. Enough. Dakka. Quit thinking small. Remember that you are facing Riptides and Wraithknights with these guys.

Assault cannons for all, and the add the option for heavy bolters with the following options:

Heavy Kraken Bolts: R42 S5 AP3 Salvo 3/3
Heavy Hellfire Rounds: R36 S1 AP4 Salvo 3/3, Fleshbane
Heavy Dragonfire Rounds: R36 S5 AP4 Salvo 3/3, Ignores Cover
Heavy Vengeance Rounds: R30 S5 AP1 Salvo 3/3, Gets Hot

For a points cost, of course - not free. But that's getting closer to enough dakka. Your choice, rending and volume or range and weirdness.

ETA: Salvo 3/3, not because it matters for Terminators, but because that's probably where all heavy bolters should be, except for Guard heavy weapons teams. (Give them Heavy 4 for a big mounted belt-fed dealy that's not really designed to move - for reasons of crunch, not fluff.)

jade_angel wrote:
Assault cannons for all, and the add the option for heavy bolters with the following options:

Heavy Kraken Bolts: R42 S5 AP3 Salvo 3/3
Heavy Hellfire Rounds: R36 S1 AP4 Salvo 3/3, Fleshbane
Heavy Dragonfire Rounds: R36 S5 AP4 Salvo 3/3, Ignores Cover
Heavy Vengeance Rounds: R30 S5 AP1 Salvo 3/3, Gets Hot

For a points cost, of course - not free. But that's getting closer to enough dakka. Your choice, rending and volume or range and weirdness.

Yup, this is much closer to Xeno weapons.

Personally, I would be fine with deleting Centurions; they should have fixed the issues with Terminators instead of muddying things by making a poor-looking model that contains the fixes Terminators should have had.

It seems though, moreso than movement, terminator firepower and durability is the real issue. GW seems to be locked into their performance in Space Hulk than on a general battlefield, and they could really use a top-down redesign/reimagining - which I suppose we got with Cetnturions, but I'm really disappointed in the visual style of those models.

BTW, What the heck is MANZ?

Mega Armor Nobz.

Martel732 wrote:
The problem is EXACTLY a d6-based system with so many different models. Models that crowd out the terminator. Terminators may have been functional in 4th, but were not in 2nd, 3rd, 5th, 6th, or 7th.

If you move to d10s or something else you're pushing the problem down the road instead of fixing it. Releasing larger and larger models is what's making things fall off the bottom of the scale, not using too small a die.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
The problem is EXACTLY a d6-based system with so many different models. Models that crowd out the terminator. Terminators may have been functional in 4th, but were not in 2nd, 3rd, 5th, 6th, or 7th.

If you move to d10s or something else you're pushing the problem down the road instead of fixing it. Releasing larger and larger models is what's making things fall off the bottom of the scale, not using too small a die.

I disagree. Using a D10 would give terminators a niche back among their peers. They can't compete against their peers at the moment, much less the larger models. Remember that loyalist terminators were junk in 2nd ed as well.

Martel732 wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
The problem is EXACTLY a d6-based system with so many different models. Models that crowd out the terminator. Terminators may have been functional in 4th, but were not in 2nd, 3rd, 5th, 6th, or 7th.

If you move to d10s or something else you're pushing the problem down the road instead of fixing it. Releasing larger and larger models is what's making things fall off the bottom of the scale, not using too small a die.

I disagree. Using a D10 would give terminators a niche back among their peers. They can't compete against their peers at the moment, much less the larger models. Remember that loyalist terminators were junk in 2nd ed as well.

Using d10s would fix the problem for right now. You'd get things working again for all the models we have now, assuming no new models or units are released.

Once GW starts dropping more weird big kits you'd end up right back where we started.

The granularity problem is distinct from but related to GW's miscosting of models problem.

The terminator no longer has a niche at all mathematically speaking and so becomes nearly impossible to price appropriately.

In a D10 system, terminators would be one of the few rare 2+ save models. Not only is this an immediate boost vs all small arms, with a 90% save rate vs 83%, we can hand out 3+ armor, or the 80% save rate to riptides, broadsides, and other tough units that aren't terminator tough. Get it? Good old space marines would come in with 4+ armor.

The granularity problem is entirely and completely because GW keeps trying to stretch the scale. The 1-10 stat range/d6 system was designed to work in a game where the biggest thing around was a Greater Daemon, AP2 shooting was almost nonexistent, and small arms meant something. It's falling apart because GW's attempted to stretch it into a game of Titans, Hellstorm templates, and tank squadrons, not because it wasn't granular enough to begin with.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
The granularity problem is entirely and completely because GW keeps trying to stretch the scale. The 1-10 stat range/d6 system was designed to work in a game where the biggest thing around was a Greater Daemon, AP2 shooting was almost nonexistent, and small arms meant something. It's falling apart because GW's attempted to stretch it into a game of Titans, Hellstorm templates, and tank squadrons, not because it wasn't granular enough to begin with.

I disagree. Simply adding in more variety of models stretches the system as badly or worse. Again, terminators can't compete against their peers. It has nothing to do with titans, etc. Eldar are nearly a 3+ armor save army now because there is no mathematical space for aspect armor in the current system.

There were several weapons in 2nd that were -6 armor save, including the humble krak missile. Loyalist terminators have NEVER been viable except maybe in 4th. It has NOTHING to do with scale changes. In fact, there are examples of large-scale models that are overcosted significantly. Notably, walker types that go down super-fast to melta.

Martel732 wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:
The granularity problem is entirely and completely because GW keeps trying to stretch the scale. The 1-10 stat range/d6 system was designed to work in a game where the biggest thing around was a Greater Daemon, AP2 shooting was almost nonexistent, and small arms meant something. It's falling apart because GW's attempted to stretch it into a game of Titans, Hellstorm templates, and tank squadrons, not because it wasn't granular enough to begin with.

I disagree. Simply adding in more variety of models stretches the system as badly or worse. Again, terminators can't compete against their peers. It has nothing to do with titans, etc.

There were several weapons in 2nd that were -6 armor save, including the humble krak missile. Loyalist terminators have NEVER been viable except maybe in 4th.

Look. The problem is the power creep. You're proposing a 'solution' that doesn't do anything about the power creep. Buffing a unit makes the power creep worse, adjusting the core system doesn't change the problem.

I can't speak to 2nd. I can barely speak to 3rd. Terminators worked well in 4th and were useful in 5th before the gun size creep started.

Terminators were crap in 5th because their firepower was poor and any old power weapon cut them open like a tin can. We won't get into what fast las/plas razors did to them.

There is no power creep with respect to loyalist terminators being useless. 4th is the anomaly, not the rest of the editions. 3rd is when krak missiles went to AP 3 but plasma went from -2 armor save to an incredible AP 2. But terminators simply went from dying from one weapon to another.

What there IS a problem with is mathematical niche. Which my proposal directly addresses. Plasma would likely become AP 3 on a D10 system, which would no longer penetrate terminators. Given that they are designed to survive plasma reactors, that seems fair.

Currently, terminators would be worthless without centurions or super heavies in the game. It's not power creep in this case.

Martel732 wrote:
I'd much rather have assault cannons. S4 shooting is not valuable for a marine list.

I'm against this idea mostly because scaling up the power level of things to scat bike levels actually does more harm than good in my eyes. While we're discussing homebrew changes, I personally feel it's better to nerf problematic options than to make all options problematic. Asssault cannons everywhere invalidates things like footslogging marines in friendly games. Storm bolters don't.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Martel732 wrote:

 Backspacehacker wrote:

jade_angel wrote:
I actually like something similar to Dark Heresy's "Storm" mechanic, where sufficiently successful to-hit rolls inflict multiple hits. We already have this - Tesla. Would it work for storm bolters to have something like that? For example:

Storm: All successful to-hit rolls with a weapon that has this special rule inflict two hits. To-hit rolls of 6 inflict four hits instead, unless snap-shooting (where they still inflict two).

Now yeah, that's still measly S4 AP5 shots, but this doesn't only buff Terminators - it buffs everything with a storm bolter. It probably wouldn't be enough for Terminators on its own, though. Maybe also give Termies the ability to take two heavies per 5, and for every model to exchange its storm bolter for a heavy bolter for 5 points, say?

One free heavy weapon, one at a point cost.

Not. Enough. Dakka. Quit thinking small. Remember that you are facing Riptides and Wraithknights with these guys.

Power fists are pretty good at killing riptides and will put a dent in a wraithknight. It's okay for some units to not be backing wraithknight-killing firepower.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

jade_angel wrote:
I actually like something similar to Dark Heresy's "Storm" mechanic, where sufficiently successful to-hit rolls inflict multiple hits. We already have this - Tesla. Would it work for storm bolters to have something like that? For example:

Storm: All successful to-hit rolls with a weapon that has this special rule inflict two hits. To-hit rolls of 6 inflict four hits instead, unless snap-shooting (where they still inflict two).

Now yeah, that's still measly S4 AP5 shots, but this doesn't only buff Terminators - it buffs everything with a storm bolter. It probably wouldn't be enough for Terminators on its own, though. Maybe also give Termies the ability to take two heavies per 5, and for every model to exchange its storm bolter for a heavy bolter for 5 points, say?

This is an interesting ideas. Despite Martel's cynicism towards the power of strength 4, generating that many hits per body actually isn't an awful way to take out bikes. Not sure how I feel about the heavy bolter part though.

" footslogging marines in friendly games."

Already invalidated, even in friendly games.

" It's okay for some units to not be backing wraithknight-killing firepower."

Not for what terminators cost. Be real; terminators are never going to get to use their power fists.

"I'm against this idea mostly because scaling up the power level of things to scat bike levels actually does more harm than good in my eyes"

Unless you refuse to play vs C:Eldar, GW is not giving you a design choice. Players react very negatively to nerfs; much less than other lists being buffed to their level. Don't worry, scatbikes are still better.

Martel732 wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:
The granularity problem is entirely and completely because GW keeps trying to stretch the scale. The 1-10 stat range/d6 system was designed to work in a game where the biggest thing around was a Greater Daemon, AP2 shooting was almost nonexistent, and small arms meant something. It's falling apart because GW's attempted to stretch it into a game of Titans, Hellstorm templates, and tank squadrons, not because it wasn't granular enough to begin with.

I disagree. Simply adding in more variety of models stretches the system as badly or worse. Again, terminators can't compete against their peers. It has nothing to do with titans, etc. Eldar are nearly a 3+ armor save army now because there is no mathematical space for aspect armor in the current system.

There were several weapons in 2nd that were -6 armor save, including the humble krak missile. Loyalist terminators have NEVER been viable except maybe in 4th. It has NOTHING to do with scale changes. In fact, there are examples of large-scale models that are overcosted significantly. Notably, walker types that go down super-fast to melta.

I tend to agree with Anomander here, though Martel makes some good points. The difference between a 3+ armor save and a 2+ armor save matters a lot more when the scariest thing on the table is some heavy support choice tank. In a world of GMCs, abundant AP2, and high-strength-high-volume-of-fire spam, terminators have it kind of rough. I remember terminators doing reasonably well back in 5th edition. There were cheesier options, but they weren't frowned upon the way they are now.

They did not do well in 5th against strong lists. Terminators have been good in ONE edition. My group frowned on them a LOT in 5th. Power creep is not the problem as much as concept and mathematical niche.

Martel732 wrote:
" footslogging marines in friendly games."

Already invalidated, even in friendly games.

" It's okay for some units to not be backing wraithknight-killing firepower."

Not for what terminators cost. Be real; terminators are never going to get to use their power fists.

"I'm against this idea mostly because scaling up the power level of things to scat bike levels actually does more harm than good in my eyes"

Unless you refuse to play vs C:Eldar, GW is not giving you a design choice. Players react very negatively to nerfs; much less than other lists being buffed to their level. Don't worry, scatbikes are still better.

Even footslogging chaos marines work perfectly well in my friendly games. They aren't a choice you bring to a tournament, but there are plenty of fluffy, not-that-weird armies that foot marines can face off against and do reasonably well against.

My terminators make it into melee all the time. This is in friendly games (I don't bring marines to tournaments), but they get there without too much fuss.

I think it's perfectly reasonable to turn down a game against a guy bringing scat bike spam if you're just looking for a casual game. You're not wrong about people reacting worse to nerfs than buffs, but that doesn't mean nerfs are impossible to push through or get people to agree to. As someone who plays primarily eldar, I'd be quite happy if our next codex dialed back jetbikes to only allowing one in three models to have a heavy weapon again.

Something else to consider with the granularity problem: there are a LOT of AP 2 weapons and relatively few AP 3 weapons. I have no idea why this is the case, but that's what GW has done.

Something like the Riptide isn't just good because of 2+ armor. The 2+ armor stacks with T6 making regular melee useless and things like poison effectively useless as well. Riptide is backed up by a 3++ save and FNP that make it crazy.

Terminators have little of this. Yes, they have a 5++, but they are only T4. You can force saves on terminators with boltguns and do meaningful damage in a way that simply can't happen with Riptides.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

Martel732 wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:
The granularity problem is entirely and completely because GW keeps trying to stretch the scale. The 1-10 stat range/d6 system was designed to work in a game where the biggest thing around was a Greater Daemon, AP2 shooting was almost nonexistent, and small arms meant something. It's falling apart because GW's attempted to stretch it into a game of Titans, Hellstorm templates, and tank squadrons, not because it wasn't granular enough to begin with.

I disagree. Simply adding in more variety of models stretches the system as badly or worse. Again, terminators can't compete against their peers. It has nothing to do with titans, etc.

There were several weapons in 2nd that were -6 armor save, including the humble krak missile. Loyalist terminators have NEVER been viable except maybe in 4th.

Look. The problem is the power creep. You're proposing a 'solution' that doesn't do anything about the power creep. Buffing a unit makes the power creep worse, adjusting the core system doesn't change the problem.

These are pretty much my thoughts. Upping the power level of units that aren't already top tier just makes it even more difficult to field non-optimal options. I feel our time might be better spent discussing ways to tone down jetbikes, wraithknights, decurion, etc. than discussing ways to make terminators equally OP. If we just raise the average strength of all shooting in the game to 6, then all we're doing is getting rid of variety.

A d10 system isn't a bad idea so much as an unwieldy one. There are plenty of threads discussing the little problems that crop up with the d10 system. Basically, I feel like it would be a complicated, time-intensive bandaid to a problem that's more easily solved by simply fixing problem units. Rather than rewriting every statline and chart in the game, why not focus on a far less daunting task like putting together a reasonable list of modifications to problem units that tone them down without making them unplayable? This would obviously mostly be for use in friendly games, but I think that's implied to be the case for anything found in the proposed rules section of the forum.

Because I think it's important to be able to have some differences between marine armor and eldar armor. And broadside armor and terminator armor. And armor of 6+ and 5+ are both essentially useless except in niche cases.

I don't see any modifications under the current system that make terminators playable. It's been discussed over and over and nothing fits, because the armor is too easily ignored and their firepower is meaningless. By the time you run around and try to nerf stuff, you might as well rewrite under D10.

Martel732 wrote:
Something else to consider with the granularity problem: there are a LOT of AP 2 weapons and relatively few AP 3 weapons. I have no idea why this is the case, but that's what GW has done.

Something like the Riptide isn't just good because of 2+ armor. The 2+ armor stacks with T6 making regular melee useless and things like poison effectively useless as well. Riptide is backed up by a 3++ save and FNP that make it crazy.

Terminators have little of this. Yes, they have a 5++, but they are only T4. You can force saves on terminators with boltguns and do meaningful damage in a way that simply can't happen with Riptides.

I feel your point actually kind of ties in to Anomander's previous point. Part of the problem with terminators is the scale of the game. Not so much the presence of GMCs; those are more of a symptom than a direct problem. The sheer number and variety of units on the table, I think, are a big part of what's ailing terminators these days. Back in the day, fewer models and only a CAD for army construction meant less incoming fire. You were going to be facing off against fewer models, and at least some of those models were going to be troops who were unlikely to be packing a lot of AP2. Now, points deflation, the increase in average game size from ~1500 to ~1850, and the flexibility with which armies can be created (formations/detachments) means that opponents can bring a lot more big guns to the table.

Facing off against a CAD from the old days where you had some missile launcher squads and the occassional plasma gun mixed into a tac marine unit, a guy with a 2+ save and a power fist who could plop down behind enemy lines wasn't so bad. These days, you have to weather formations of riptides that get bonuses just for taking multiples of an optimal unit. You have to deal with the high-strength-high-shots spam that's in vogue for hull pointing out vehicles. You have to sit through at least one turn of all that firepower and then take a little more in the form of overwatch before you make it in.

Again, i'm really curious to see how terminators would perform in a ~1,000 point casual game against a vanilla enemy list. They would probably still need some love, but I imagine they'd seem like much more reasonable choices.

But terminators fared no better in 2nd ed with far fewer models. Because once again, they had a poor mathematical niche. The game scale was smaller, but that just mean you had fewer terminators to die miserably.

3rd ed was arguably worse with the introduction of the AP 2 plasma gun.

Even against a casual list, realize that terminators are less durable against small arms per point than a standard marine. They have no niche even then.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
An addendum to the above: 2nd ed CSM terminators were good. Why? They didn't have any extra durability, but the DID shoot much better.

Martel732 wrote:
Because I think it's important to be able to have some differences between marine armor and eldar armor. And broadside armor and terminator armor. And armor of 6+ and 5+ are both essentially useless except in niche cases.

I don't see any modifications under the current system that make terminators playable. It's been discussed over and over and nothing fits, because the armor is too easily ignored and their firepower is meaningless. By the time you run around and try to nerf stuff, you might as well rewrite under D10.

Not to derail the terminator conversation, but I'm not sure switching to d10 really helps with any of that. For starters, switching to d10 means rewriting literally every statline and chart in the game plus quite a few special rules (Preferred Enemy would be massively nerfed, for instance). I feel that it's much easier to say, "Hey, let's tone down access to heavy weapons and maybe ban problematic formations."

But fair enough. You're not looking at a small project one way or the other, so let's say we did decide to rewrite everything as d10 based. Assuming you're looking at essentially the same mechanics just scaled up for the new die size, directly translating things to a d10 equivalent doesn't really change much. For instance, a 2+ save has about an 83% chance of succeeding. So in a d10 system, you might call that a 3+ because a 3+ in a d10 has an 80% chance of succeeding. So then maybe you decide broadside armor should be just slightly better or worse than terminator armor. So call it a 2+ or 4+. That gives you a 10% difference from the 3+. Which isn't anything to sneeze at, but it's not really a massive change either. Especially when we're dealing with relatively elite models that will be few in number.

On the other side of things, a 6+ armor save on a gaunt might turn into a 9+ armor save in a d10 system. If you make no other changes to AP than to have it scale to d10 (by making AP6 into AP9, AP5 into AP7, etc.), then you're still going to be ignoring that save entirely thus preventing them from getting it, and they're still dying to enemy fire at the same rate. Let's say you want gaunt armor to be really bad so you make it a 10+ save. In situations where they actually get their save (against exploding vehicles for instance), this just means that now you'll now lose 9 gaunts for every 10 that are wounded instead of 8. Which isn't a huge difference really.

If you want to make additional changes that meaningfully change the likelihood of a thing hitting, missing, dying, living, etc, that's great, but those would all be entirely separate discussions independent of the d10 system idea. Unless they also happened to require the use of a d10 system for some reason.

If what you're really looking for from a d10 system is a sense of distinction and granularity (the difference between broadside and terminator durability), that's perfectly fine, but I'd put forward that such granular distinctions might be better suited to a skirmish-level game or RPG rather than a game of 40k's scale. Directly converting current 40k to a d10 system still sees high strength weapons wounding terminators ~80% of the time.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Martel732 wrote:
But terminators fared no better in 2nd ed with far fewer models. Because once again, they had a poor mathematical niche. The game scale was smaller, but that just mean you had fewer terminators to die miserably.

3rd ed was arguably worse with the introduction of the AP 2 plasma gun.

Even against a casual list, realize that terminators are less durable against small arms per point than a standard marine. They have no niche even then.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
An addendum to the above: 2nd ed CSM terminators were good. Why? They didn't have any extra durability, but the DID shoot much better.

This is a fair point. Terminators are, in theory, supposed to be all but immune to small arms fire. So with that in mind, I'd be interested in hearing reasonable ways to make them reflect that durability on the tabletop. Assault cannon spam doesn't really accomplish this.

That's not necessarily true. Let's say marines are now T5 and plasma guns are still S7 for argument's sake. So the plasma gun still wounds around 80% of the time, but now the terminator gets a 2+ vs the plasma wound because we have changed plasma to AP 3! I would keep terminators 2+ on a D10, giving them a 90% save. Going form 83% save to 90% helps show the near immunity to small arms.

It wouldn't be a straight conversion, either. I'm not sure what all exactly would change, but I would try to keep the current AP system with maybe a tweak for AP equal to armor.

"Assault cannon spam doesn't really accomplish this."

That just makes them functional in the current system. There is no way to model them properly in the current system. That's my entire point.

Martel732 wrote:
That's not necessarily true. Let's say marines are now T5 and plasma guns are still S7 for argument's sake. So the plasma gun still wounds around 80% of the time, but now the terminator gets a 2+ vs the plasma wound because we have changed plasma to AP 3! I would keep terminators 2+ on a D10, giving them a 90% save. Going form 83% save to 90% helps show the near immunity to small arms.

It wouldn't be a straight conversion, either. I'm not sure what all exactly would change, but I would try to keep the current AP system with maybe a tweak for AP equal to armor.

"Assault cannon spam doesn't really accomplish this."

That just makes them functional in the current system. There is no way to model them properly in the current system. That's my entire point.

Ahhh. I see. I don't think that the d10 is a bad way to go. Your idea would probably work. It just seems like a very labor-intensive way to go about things. If you're looking to make terminators harder to wound and to give them armor saves against AP2 weapons, you could do something like:

* Change toughness to 5 OR give all enemy weapons a -1 to their to-wound rolls.
* Give them 1+ armor saves. As per the current RAW rules, this would still fail on a 1, but they'd get the save against AP2.

The -1 to-wound thing would require a the addition of a simple-to-resolve special rule (which bad because of rules bloat), but it's still a lot less to write and memorize than rewriting the statline for everything in the game.

Taking some ideas from paraih gear from horus heresy and the eldar formation from death masque.

Terminator armour (from any codex) gains an additional save that can be taken along with any other save. This includes armour, invuln, fnp, cover, etc. This is a 4+ save. However this save can only be used against attacks with a str of 5 or less. Against any attack higher than str5 it is reduced to a 6+.

This gives them doubled survival against massed small arms and helps to give a small bit of resistance to bigger guns.

Another idea I was thinking is that it was originally designed to survive inside plasma reactors. Maybe give them a rule that means plasma based weapons can never remove their armour saves, only reduce.