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 John Prins wrote:
This thread confuses me.

Terminators were introduced to the game to do one thing: Close quarters assault on spacecrafts (Space Hulks, to be specific). Their weapons somewhat reflect this: Assault shooting and power fists for ripping open bulkheads and killing things very dead up close.

What terminators were not intended to do is fight on the open battlefield. Terminators do not need to be buffed to be able to do this. Terminators should not be doing this.

To me, every army contains units that are situational and probably shouldn't be deployed unless you know they'll be useful. Want to deploy terminators? Set up a game of urban combat and tell your opponent to come equipped for it.

THANK you for actually pointing out that their role wasn't ever being durable.
Look at their rules. They're a shock trooper.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 John Prins wrote:
This thread confuses me.

Terminators were introduced to the game to do one thing: Close quarters assault on spacecrafts (Space Hulks, to be specific). Their weapons somewhat reflect this: Assault shooting and power fists for ripping open bulkheads and killing things very dead up close.

What terminators were not intended to do is fight on the open battlefield. Terminators do not need to be buffed to be able to do this. Terminators should not be doing this.

To me, every army contains units that are situational and probably shouldn't be deployed unless you know they'll be useful. Want to deploy terminators? Set up a game of urban combat and tell your opponent to come equipped for it.

THANK you for actually pointing out that their role wasn't ever being durable.
Look at their rules. They're a shock trooper.

Given that when they were in 2nd edition they had a higher defense then Artificer Armor and Power Armor, (3+ to save on a 2D6) I think its safe to say they were meant to be of a higher durability then what they would have had today.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 John Prins wrote:
This thread confuses me.

Terminators were introduced to the game to do one thing: Close quarters assault on spacecrafts (Space Hulks, to be specific). Their weapons somewhat reflect this: Assault shooting and power fists for ripping open bulkheads and killing things very dead up close.

What terminators were not intended to do is fight on the open battlefield. Terminators do not need to be buffed to be able to do this. Terminators should not be doing this.

To me, every army contains units that are situational and probably shouldn't be deployed unless you know they'll be useful. Want to deploy terminators? Set up a game of urban combat and tell your opponent to come equipped for it.

THANK you for actually pointing out that their role wasn't ever being durable.
Look at their rules. They're a shock trooper.

Nope. It was designed because boarding operations were too dangerous. It's supposed to turn a marine into a walking tank.

You're using circular logic...

They aren't supposed to be tanky, they're supposed to be assault troops.

Being an assault troop is a hard job.

Because being an assault troop is a hard job, they needed to be more tanky.

At the end of the day, they're a highly durable unit meant to be dropped into harms way without backup or support and survive long enough to complete the mission or clear a large enough path for others to follow.

In tabletop terms, they are killy enough. I mean the whole unit is nothing but powerfist or power weapon attacks. Something no other unit can do for Marines. The problem is they don't have the survivability or deployment potential to get the job done.

Why ever use terminators for boarding when you can have Wulfen now? Twice the wounds, and either a storm shield or AP 2 that goes on initiative. Oh, and layered saves!

Nvs wrote:
You're using circular logic...

They aren't supposed to be tanky, they're supposed to be assault troops.

Being an assault troop is a hard job.

Because being an assault troop is a hard job, they needed to be more tanky.

At the end of the day, they're a highly durable unit meant to be dropped into harms way without backup or support and survive long enough to complete the mission or clear a large enough path for others to follow.

In tabletop terms, they are killy enough. I mean the whole unit is nothing but powerfist or power weapon attacks. Something no other unit can do for Marines. The problem is they don't have the survivability or deployment potential to get the job done.

Besides Honour Guard and Vanguard doing that for cheaper and being more mobile in their own ways.

Rosebuddy wrote:

 John Prins wrote:
This thread confuses me.

Terminators were introduced to the game to do one thing: Close quarters assault on spacecrafts (Space Hulks, to be specific). Their weapons somewhat reflect this: Assault shooting and power fists for ripping open bulkheads and killing things very dead up close.

What terminators were not intended to do is fight on the open battlefield. Terminators do not need to be buffed to be able to do this. Terminators should not be doing this.

To me, every army contains units that are situational and probably shouldn't be deployed unless you know they'll be useful. Want to deploy terminators? Set up a game of urban combat and tell your opponent to come equipped for it.

The problem is partially that terminators aren't described as specialists trained and equipped for very particular scenarios but the absolute elite of the chapter sent in when nothing but the very best will do the trick. If terminator armour was simply another piece of equipment like bikes or jump packs and if they maybe had slightly revamped base weaponry we wouldn't be having the current problem to the same degree.

Well that begs the question, though, subtracting the lore, where should they fit into the game?

In Horus Rising (might have been False Gods) the Luna Wolves used their terminators as a combination of a spearhead, a distraction, and simply as mobile cover. They marched the Terminators straight into the teeth of the enemy guns, which apparently was very effective.

Whereas in the game...

Martel732 wrote:
Why ever use terminators for boarding when you can have Wulfen now? Twice the wounds, and either a storm shield or AP 2 that goes on initiative. Oh, and layered saves!

Well, that's kind of a typical GW problem: a major issue of one instance of horrible game design warring with a other instance of horrible game design, ain't it?

Unfortunately, Terminators are a glaring example of GW's constant escalation of their material, because Centurions showing up as the new hotness sold a helluva lot more models than upgrading the rules for models a lot of people already owned.

I was always fine with the idea of TDA and other equivalents like Mega Armor giving +1 toughness like a bike, and Mark of Nurgle giving +1 wound, so Nurgle Terminators would stack. Then leave their ranged weapons alone, but make their Power Fists strike at Initiative. Armor saves could have stayed the same, if not for the fact that the arms race outpaced them.

NivlacSupreme wrote:
Nope. It was designed because boarding operations were too dangerous. It's supposed to turn a marine into a walking tank.

I think the idea was that during boarding operations you don't have dozens of people firing at you at once, and it's dangerous to yourself to deploy really heavy weapons aboard your own ship. So, resilient to small arms fire (above a regular Space Marine) with higher offensive potential, and an invulnerable save to keep them (sorta) alive against stuff that ignores armor in close combat (guys with power weapons).

The problem isn't TDA being bad. The problem is that a ton of other stuff has sprung up around it to be better, without any consequences. For example, Centurions can pretty much go anywhere on the table, though their sheer bulk should preclude them even thinking about going inside a building, or into a forest, or through a swamp. Space Marine IC can buy artificer armor and iron halos to be tougher than the supposedly 'best' Space Marine armor.

Maybe stuff needs to be dialed back. Continual escalation of power levels isn't good for the game. If Plasma and Grav dropped to AP3 (leaving Melta and Lascannons as your source of defeating 2+ armor), Terminators would seem a lot better without otherwise affecting the game very much. Centurions should be Walkers (along with a bunch of other stuff), and 2+ armor shouldn't be easy to acquire without upgrading to a Terminator suit.

John hit it on the head. Terminator armour didn't get worse...everything else in the game became more and more absurd (something which has outpaced MANY older units which were, at one point, viable).

 Elbows wrote:
John hit it on the head. Terminator armour didn't get worse...everything else in the game became more and more absurd (something which has outpaced MANY older units which were, at one point, viable).

Terminator armor was fragile in 2nd ed. I don't know why people are pretending it wasn't.

Martel732 wrote:

 Elbows wrote:
John hit it on the head. Terminator armour didn't get worse...everything else in the game became more and more absurd (something which has outpaced MANY older units which were, at one point, viable).

Terminator armor was fragile in 2nd ed. I don't know why people are pretending it wasn't.

Less fragile then power armor, but then again everything was equal before the power of Shuriken Weapons.

Martel732 wrote:

 Elbows wrote:
John hit it on the head. Terminator armour didn't get worse...everything else in the game became more and more absurd (something which has outpaced MANY older units which were, at one point, viable).

Terminator armor was fragile in 2nd ed. I don't know why people are pretending it wasn't.

Compared to what, though?

Doesn't matter. It was expensive and didn't protect. That's what matters. Power armor was worthless in 2nd ed. Not exactly a great standard. -3 armor save was everywhere, making power armor only function on a 6+ and terminators were failing 28% of the time, which, against dozens of wounds was hopeless at 2nd ed unit costs.

Just like now, people in 2nd figured out that boltguns are crap and started using weapons that cut to the chase instead of wasting their time.

It wasn't that expensive though, so why pretend it should have been impregnable? (despite having a save against Lascannons, etc.)

Five cost the same as ten basic tactical troops (and Termies had a better stat line). It was plenty tough against the majority of weapons.

 John Prins wrote:

NivlacSupreme wrote:
Nope. It was designed because boarding operations were too dangerous. It's supposed to turn a marine into a walking tank.

I think the idea was that during boarding operations you don't have dozens of people firing at you at once, and it's dangerous to yourself to deploy really heavy weapons aboard your own ship. So, resilient to small arms fire (above a regular Space Marine) with higher offensive potential, and an invulnerable save to keep them (sorta) alive against stuff that ignores armor in close combat (guys with power weapons).

The problem isn't TDA being bad. The problem is that a ton of other stuff has sprung up around it to be better, without any consequences. For example, Centurions can pretty much go anywhere on the table, though their sheer bulk should preclude them even thinking about going inside a building, or into a forest, or through a swamp. Space Marine IC can buy artificer armor and iron halos to be tougher than the supposedly 'best' Space Marine armor.

Maybe stuff needs to be dialed back. Continual escalation of power levels isn't good for the game. If Plasma and Grav dropped to AP3 (leaving Melta and Lascannons as your source of defeating 2+ armor), Terminators would seem a lot better without otherwise affecting the game very much. Centurions should be Walkers (along with a bunch of other stuff), and 2+ armor shouldn't be easy to acquire without upgrading to a Terminator suit.

Except Loyalist Terminators aren't good to begin with. So why are we dialing down everything else for a unit that wasn't good to try and make a unit good when it wasn't good to begin with? What is the line of logic here? Seriously?

As a CSM player I don't complain about MY Terminators. The issue is how the Loyalist ones are handled.

 Elbows wrote:
It wasn't that expensive though, so why pretend it should have been impregnable? (despite having a save against Lascannons, etc.)

Five cost the same as ten basic tactical troops (and Termies had a better stat line). It was plenty tough against the majority of weapons.

Until you realize you are firing back a stormbolter and that you were never going to get anywhere that way.

Martel732 wrote:
Why ever use terminators for boarding when you can have Wulfen now? Twice the wounds, and either a storm shield or AP 2 that goes on initiative. Oh, and layered saves!

See, that's another problem that's a sign of the nature of the game itself. Invulnerable saves are just thrown around like candy these days. The Terminators' 5++ means nothing in comparison. Invulnerable saves should be a lot rarer and a lot worse, with a 4+ being a pretty big deal.

Is it a problem that GW finally made an effective (undercosted, but this could be changed) assault unit?

Martel732 wrote:
Why ever use terminators for boarding when you can have Wulfen now? Twice the wounds, and either a storm shield or AP 2 that goes on initiative. Oh, and layered saves!

First, because Wulfen are an extremely rare mutation from a specific Chapter which amounts to only slightly more than 1% of 1% of the Space Marines in the universe (themselves rare to the point of being roughly 1 per world in the Imperium). There simply aren't enough Wulfen around to be available whenever boarding actions would be required, and while Terminators would also be rare, they would be hundreds of times more common than Wulfen.

Second, because Wulfen are exposed in myriad ways, and boarding actions can sometimes force exposure to a lot of destructive things - Wulfen would die (or at least be harmed/reduced in effectiveness) by gas leaks, radiation leaks, extended exposure to the void, extended exposure to extremely low temperatures, extended exposure to extremely high temperatures, biological contaminations, etc., all of which would at least not be uncommon to the sort of boarding actions you'd need Terminators for, particularly Space Hulk exploration.

 Unusual Suspect wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Why ever use terminators for boarding when you can have Wulfen now? Twice the wounds, and either a storm shield or AP 2 that goes on initiative. Oh, and layered saves!

First, because Wulfen are an extremely rare mutation from a specific Chapter which amounts to only slightly more than 1% of 1% of the Space Marines in the universe (themselves rare to the point of being roughly 1 per world in the Imperium). There simply aren't enough Wulfen around to be available whenever boarding actions would be required, and while Terminators would also be rare, they would be hundreds of times more common than Wulfen.

Second, because Wulfen are exposed in myriad ways, and boarding actions can sometimes force exposure to a lot of destructive things - Wulfen would die (or at least be harmed/reduced in effectiveness) by gas leaks, radiation leaks, extended exposure to the void, extended exposure to extremely low temperatures, extended exposure to extremely high temperatures, biological contaminations, etc., all of which would at least not be uncommon to the sort of boarding actions you'd need Terminators for, particularly Space Hulk exploration.

None of which is relevant on the tabletop. Tabletop wise, there are as many Wulfen as necessary as long as the player pays the points.

Martel732 wrote:

 Unusual Suspect wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Why ever use terminators for boarding when you can have Wulfen now? Twice the wounds, and either a storm shield or AP 2 that goes on initiative. Oh, and layered saves!

First, because Wulfen are an extremely rare mutation from a specific Chapter which amounts to only slightly more than 1% of 1% of the Space Marines in the universe (themselves rare to the point of being roughly 1 per world in the Imperium). There simply aren't enough Wulfen around to be available whenever boarding actions would be required, and while Terminators would also be rare, they would be hundreds of times more common than Wulfen.

Second, because Wulfen are exposed in myriad ways, and boarding actions can sometimes force exposure to a lot of destructive things - Wulfen would die (or at least be harmed/reduced in effectiveness) by gas leaks, radiation leaks, extended exposure to the void, extended exposure to extremely low temperatures, extended exposure to extremely high temperatures, biological contaminations, etc., all of which would at least not be uncommon to the sort of boarding actions you'd need Terminators for, particularly Space Hulk exploration.

None of which is relevant on the tabletop. Tabletop wise, there are as many Wulfen as necessary as long as the player pays the points.

Boarding actions aren't really relevant to the Tabletop either. Ask a question unrelated to the tabletop, and you'll get an answer unrelated to the tabletop.

 Fafnir wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Why ever use terminators for boarding when you can have Wulfen now? Twice the wounds, and either a storm shield or AP 2 that goes on initiative. Oh, and layered saves!

See, that's another problem that's a sign of the nature of the game itself. Invulnerable saves are just thrown around like candy these days. The Terminators' 5++ means nothing in comparison. Invulnerable saves should be a lot rarer and a lot worse, with a 4+ being a pretty big deal.

Making invulnerable saves rarer dose not make Terminators better. It just makes grav better because less stuff is resistant to it then.

 mew28 wrote:

 Fafnir wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Why ever use terminators for boarding when you can have Wulfen now? Twice the wounds, and either a storm shield or AP 2 that goes on initiative. Oh, and layered saves!

See, that's another problem that's a sign of the nature of the game itself. Invulnerable saves are just thrown around like candy these days. The Terminators' 5++ means nothing in comparison. Invulnerable saves should be a lot rarer and a lot worse, with a 4+ being a pretty big deal.

Making invulnerable saves rarer dose not make Terminators better. It just makes grav better because less stuff is resistant to it then.

Grav is also a symptom of the problem.

Martel732 wrote:

 Unusual Suspect wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Why ever use terminators for boarding when you can have Wulfen now? Twice the wounds, and either a storm shield or AP 2 that goes on initiative. Oh, and layered saves!

First, because Wulfen are an extremely rare mutation from a specific Chapter which amounts to only slightly more than 1% of 1% of the Space Marines in the universe (themselves rare to the point of being roughly 1 per world in the Imperium). There simply aren't enough Wulfen around to be available whenever boarding actions would be required, and while Terminators would also be rare, they would be hundreds of times more common than Wulfen.

Second, because Wulfen are exposed in myriad ways, and boarding actions can sometimes force exposure to a lot of destructive things - Wulfen would die (or at least be harmed/reduced in effectiveness) by gas leaks, radiation leaks, extended exposure to the void, extended exposure to extremely low temperatures, extended exposure to extremely high temperatures, biological contaminations, etc., all of which would at least not be uncommon to the sort of boarding actions you'd need Terminators for, particularly Space Hulk exploration.

None of which is relevant on the tabletop. Tabletop wise, there are as many Wulfen as necessary as long as the player pays the points.

When has boarding ever mattered on the tabletop?
If you're playing a game like Space Hulk throw down a few house rules using the Fluff -
If it doesn't wear a helmet or at least a breather mask it can't be fielded, no more Wulfen for anybody, takes TWC out of the equation as well.
Declare that most passages are simply too small for bigger models to use; Nothing bigger than a marine in Tactical Dreadnought Armour - they're welcome to take bigger models but more often than not they'll get left behind anyway.

 John Prins wrote:

 mew28 wrote:

 Fafnir wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Why ever use terminators for boarding when you can have Wulfen now? Twice the wounds, and either a storm shield or AP 2 that goes on initiative. Oh, and layered saves!

See, that's another problem that's a sign of the nature of the game itself. Invulnerable saves are just thrown around like candy these days. The Terminators' 5++ means nothing in comparison. Invulnerable saves should be a lot rarer and a lot worse, with a 4+ being a pretty big deal.

Making invulnerable saves rarer dose not make Terminators better. It just makes grav better because less stuff is resistant to it then.

Grav is also a symptom of the problem.

Grav had nothing to do with Terminators being bad.

 Fafnir wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Why ever use terminators for boarding when you can have Wulfen now? Twice the wounds, and either a storm shield or AP 2 that goes on initiative. Oh, and layered saves!

See, that's another problem that's a sign of the nature of the game itself. Invulnerable saves are just thrown around like candy these days. The Terminators' 5++ means nothing in comparison. Invulnerable saves should be a lot rarer and a lot worse, with a 4+ being a pretty big deal.

That's because AP2 is thrown about like candy, good examples would be GMCs that strike at i5, MCs that fire ap1 at 60" have a ++ save and cost less than a Carnifex.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Grav had nothing to do with Terminators being bad.

Grav made Terminators less viable than ever before.

I am hoping that 8th edition has something similar to the Age of Sigmar rending system instead of AP. That would solve some of the issues with 2+ saves. What would be nice is if TDA lets you roll the 5++ after you fail a 2+.