Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

One simple boost for terminators is to let them ride in Rhinos. We do.

Because why not, exactly? Tradition?

Terminators with Stormbolters gets two shooting attacks per turn.

On a six Stormbolter becomes S5

Cyclone gets flakk for free

Powerfist on a six generates an additional attack (can only be applied to a single enemy model)

I think i might have already posted in here not sure, these threads blur together but ill still put in my suggested changes to them.

offensive:

1)Buff the storm bolter, right now its pretty crappy, rending maybe.

2) Charge from deep strike. Terminators lore wise are the shock troopers meant to jump right into enemy lines and muck them up. Nothing kills the mood more then deep striking deathwing knights and having them stand there like a bunch of donkey-caves, with the ability to run still, and even their other terminators can shoot and run but cant charge.

Defensive:

A) T5 or W2 Big issues with Terminators is they are super weak for their point cost and cant survive for long. Giving them T5 would up their survivability to where they would last more then one round of combat or at least get to swing with more then 2 guys in combat. 2W would also help this for the same reason but not as powerful as the T5

B) Give them Sv 1+, they still fail on a roll of a 1, but would still get saves vs ap 2

I see the idea of S5 Stormbolters gets chucked around a lot. Personally, I think a better fix is upping the rate of fire on the SB. Making them Assault 3 (or even 4, but that might be me going mental) makes them more effective than S5 against most things, and feel like a more fluffy fix to me. The poor old Storm Bolter rather got left behind with the changes to how Rapid Fire works; half the time it's no shootier than a regular bolter.

I think there's also something to be said for giving Terminators the old 2nd ed. 2+ save on 2 dice (which, unless I'm mistaken, is statistically identical to 2+ rerollable?) – it prevents them getting taken out by massed lasgun fire or whatever, and means you're going to need to bring out the big guns to reliably take them down. If that's too insane, what about 3+ rerollable? Still an improvement on 2+, but leaves them vulnerable to AP3.

Oh and let them have the old grenade harnesses back so they can lob frag grenades again.

We gave stormbolters (and heavy bolters) another shot at half their maximum range. Makes them decent up close if not earth shattering.

We call for S5 because nobody wants to purchase more S4 shooting, plus S5 makes more sense with the targets Terminators want to, well, target.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
We call for S5 because nobody wants to purchase more S4 shooting, plus S5 makes more sense with the targets Terminators want to, well, target.

What targets are these? Because against anything <T5, S4 Assault 3 is more effective than S5 Assault 2 – both are equal vs T5, S5 only becomes more effective against T6+. So it really boils down to a question of whether you're looking to try and make Terminators better at what they already do, or fundamentally change their battlefield role, I guess.>

I'm not spending an elite slot for more s4

Martel732 wrote:
I'm not spending an elite slot for more s4

Well ok, that seems to me that you're saying you want Terminators to do something fundamentally different to what they do now, and have always done. So what is that?

Terminators are a CC unit.

They need a better delivery method, not to become Devastators. It's not like Ork players buy MANZ for their combi-shooters.

Yoyoyo wrote:
Terminators are a CC unit.

They need a better delivery method, not to become Devastators. It's not like Ork players buy MANZ for their combi-shooters.

I see what you're driving at, but I'm not sure I entirely agree (at least with the first statement). Assault terminators are absolutely a CC unit, but the regular lads (who seem to be the ones people have more of a problem with, in terms of them not really doing anything quite as well as they should), for obvious reasons, need something to distinguish them a bit from the guys cutting about with Thunder Hammers and Lightning Claws. Given that dedicated CC Terminators are already a thing, the non-assault guys need a bit of a boost in terms of versatility I'd say. And given that a power fist is nowt to be sneezed at, I'd say that upping their shooting output would be a good way to achieve that.

Don't disagree in the least that the delivery method for both kinds of termies could do with being better though. I wonder if something that makes Terminators teleporting in better than standard Deep Striking might be the way to go. It doesn't seem right that a drop pod is a more reliable insertion method than teleporting – if that's the case, why would the Space Marines even bother with teleportation?

Ultimately, I think the problem with Terminators is that a lot of what made them special when they were first introduced, back in the Rogue Trader days (eg teleportation/deep striking; high rate of fire; extremely good armour), have now been either superseded or out-buffed by things available to other units (drop pods/other methods of deep striking; Bolters having as many shots as Stormy Bs half the time; much wider prevalence of 2+ saves/AP2), to the point where they don't feel special any more. And as someone who first encountered them back then, when they were basically the baddest bastards on the board, I'd really like to see them regain that status.

 Nazrak wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
We call for S5 because nobody wants to purchase more S4 shooting, plus S5 makes more sense with the targets Terminators want to, well, target.

What targets are these? Because against anything <T5, S4 Assault 3 is more effective than S5 Assault 2 – both are equal vs T5, S5 only becomes more effective against T6+. So it really boils down to a question of whether you're looking to try and make Terminators better at what they already do, or fundamentally change their battlefield role, I guess.>

Vehicles and Monstrous Creatures? Ya know, the things their special weapons are supposed to target too outside the Heavy Flamer?

Their role is clearly shock troopers based off the supposed wargear, ability to Deep Strike, and being able to buy a Land Raider. They don't do their job. So I always call for literally the same thing in every Terminator thread...
1. S5 Storm Bolters, which also gives Grey Knights a little more bite
2. 2 Special weapons per 5 Terminators
3. Lightning Claw Terminators are 30 base, and the upgrade is 5 points
4. Land Raider variants are 200 base

Bam, done. Now they're not as garbage.

Still not paying for the fething land raider. In today's metal, it's 175 or 150. AV 14 and three heavy weapons that can't fire on the move = white hot garbage. A single assault that costs 400 ish pts is white hot garbage as well. I can have almost 15 windriders for the same cost. No thanks! Or a Wraithknight and some dire avenger bubblewrap.

I don't have a specific solution but I think this thread is going in the right direction -- instead of fixing Terminators by adjusting statlines/weapons/points to make them more desirable, rather figuring out what their role should be and addressing that specifically.

 Haravikk wrote:

Snap Shots might be a bit too severe on its own, unless it were based on some kind of test (e.g- Initiative test or Snap Shots only) but then it wouldn't be as reliable as a simple -1 to-Hit. A -1 is after all a 1/6th reduction in hits so while it's not huge it's still significant.

I do agree that Terminators need to survive afterDS to get to assault, but this is a lot more than a 1/6th reduction. For BS 2/3/4/5, it's a 50%/33%/25%/20% reduction in hits.