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Terminators come in many flavours, but which is the tastiest? I'm not really sure at all. I've seen Scarab Occults and Wolf guard and Deathwatch all doing well. I've not made a choice yet, I'm still mulling it over. Why not let us know what you picked and why?

I'm always talking about as a squad, so where some of these can be mixed with other units (Space Wolf and Deathwatch for example) please don't take that into account.

I'm down with Chaos Terminators - access to combi-weapons & charge distance re-rolls, and whilst you're not asking about mixed units a support Sorcerer giving them a move after teleporting in gives them a solid chance of inflicting some serious damage with heavy Flamers and charges.

Terminators with a 3+ save on 2D6 are the best. All others suck regardless of flavour.

You missed wolf guard terminators, who imho are probably the best

I'd say Paladins followed closely by Chaos Terminators and Assault Terminators.

None are particularly bad though at least. Except maybe Deathwing but I don't know their rules off hand.

GAdvance wrote:
You missed wolf guard terminators, who imho are probably the best

They are I the poll. Not missed. I really like them. Comparing them to Death watch and Scarab Ocuult prompted me to make this.


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Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
I'd say Paladins followed closely by Chaos Terminators and Assault Terminators.

None are particularly bad though at least. Except maybe Deathwing but I don't know their rules off hand.

Why paladins ? What is it that makes them worth the price tag?

Assault Terminators are certainly not good with their current cost. Deathwing Knights are cheaper and arguably better. Grey Knight Paladins seem quite powerful and not too costly but it's hard to rate 3W models since they are viable targets for weapons with d6 damage such as lascannons. So I'd say Knights for now.

Do you think the extra sound on the paladins might make them more fragile due to drawing heavier guns?

I've been looking into this and I'm really liking the Deathwatch Terminators. Three heavy weapons in the squad rather than one per five makes them a lot more flexible than most Terminators, and the option for power swords base makes them cheaper. They don't have the psychic powers, support options, or AP storm bolters, but as an all-round unit I think they're a very strong option.

Drager wrote:
Do you think the extra sound on the paladins might make them more fragile due to drawing heavier guns?

They pay extra points for that wound, so if it allows the opponent to use heavy weapons with their discounted high damage values then you are allowing your opponent to deal efficient damage. If paladins could take 5 pt storm shields then it could be to your advantage, but since they are locked to 5++ they become excellent targets for such weapons. Depends on what other threats you bring and how many heavy weapons a typical army will have.

Blood Angels Assault Termies assisted by a Terminator Ancient, or other chapters' equivalents.

Lightning claws and thunder hammers rerolling all failed to-hit rolls is _brutal_.

Drager wrote:
Do you think the extra sound on the paladins might make them more fragile due to drawing heavier guns?

Might depend what else is in your army.

Worth noting that the extra wound helps them a lot against plasma (they have 50% more wounds than normal terminators, but it takes about 100% more plasma shots to kill them).

Drager wrote:
Do you think the extra sound on the paladins might make them more fragile due to drawing heavier guns?

They're gonna be targeted by the same guns regardless, and pay a little extra for the extra wound, better assault stat, and the ability to take two guns at 5 men.

 vipoid wrote:

Drager wrote:
Do you think the extra sound on the paladins might make them more fragile due to drawing heavier guns?

Might depend what else is in your army.

Worth noting that the extra wound helps them a lot against plasma (they have 50% more wounds than normal terminators, but it takes about 100% more plasma shots to kill them).

(Also 2x the d3-wound shots (each one has a 2/3 chance of killing a normal Terminator, but only a 1/3 chance of killing a Paladin), so they're also more resistant to force weapons, grav-guns, blasters, krak grenades, battle cannons, some kinds of missile launchers, and overcharged ion weapons.)

If my math checks out D3 damage weapons will only have to fire 33% more shots at 3 wound models than at 2 wound models on average, assuming that you keep firing with d3 damage shots.

For two wound models: 2/3 of the time you only need one shot by rolling two or three damage. 1/3 of the time you roll one damage and so you need two shots. This comes out to 1.33... shots on average.

For three wound models: 1/3 of the time you roll three damage for a one shot kill, 1/3 of the time you roll two damage resulting in two shots required. If you roll one damage it gets a little bit trickier, there's a 1/3 chance that you roll one damage again resulting in a three shot kill. So in the 1/3 of cases where you initially roll one damage it's a 2.33... shot kill. Calculating the average of the three cases we get 1.77... shots to kill.

1.77.../1.33... = 1.33... so you need roughly 33% more shots. In practice you won't be shooting a perfect amount of shots and your opponent might mix in 1 damage and 2 damage shots, but this shows that the extra wound isn't always 50% more durability. Especially when you don't get to use storm shields.

Drager wrote:
Do you think the extra sound on the paladins might make them more fragile due to drawing heavier guns?

You know...probably not! A damage 2 weapon can kill a regular termie, but takes twice as much effort for these guys. 3 damage ranged weapons are pretty rare. D3 will be worse than D2. And who wants to drop lascannons on them when they can negate it on a 5+?

It's sort of a delightful niche they fall into that will really make the opponent think hard about what to shoot.

GAdvance wrote:
You missed wolf guard terminators, who imho are probably the best

Why?

pm713 wrote:

GAdvance wrote:
You missed wolf guard terminators, who imho are probably the best

Why?

All the usual benefits of being an imperium force mixed with the major chaos benefit of being able to pick and choose loadout

They're not the *best* in a fight, but they're the best when it comes to cost

Deathwing Knights aided by other Dark angels termies. All of them have stormshields, Caller in the dark is a nice psyker defense, and their maces are all basically CHAINFISTS WITH NO PENALTY TO HIT, but only ap-2.

Add in Deathwing ancient and terminator chaplain interrogator and you have +1 attacks with rerolls. That's some killy termies.

GAdvance wrote:

pm713 wrote:

GAdvance wrote:
You missed wolf guard terminators, who imho are probably the best

Why?

All the usual benefits of being an imperium force mixed with the major chaos benefit of being able to pick and choose loadout

They're not the *best* in a fight, but they're the best when it comes to cost

They pay the ass termie tax of 5 pts in their base cost, so any equipped with only powerfist and gun are essentially overcosted.

Assault Terminators w/Lightning Claws and Terminator Captain. Shredding Machine.

BA assault terminators are pretty brutal.

SOTS SOTS SOTS woot woot. By far the best. No dispute.

Death wing terminators have the ability to mix and match thunder hammers, lightning claws, storm bolters, and heavy weapons. In addition they DON'T loose their storm bolter when taking a heavy weapon. Yippy for the storm bolter fist assault cannon guy. Or how about fist, two storm bolters, cyclone missiles?

 cuda1179 wrote:
Death wing terminators have the ability to mix and match thunder hammers, lightning claws, storm bolters, and heavy weapons. In addition they DON'T loose their storm bolter when taking a heavy weapon. Yippy for the storm bolter fist assault cannon guy. Or how about fist, two storm bolters, cyclone missiles?

Sure, if you don't mind converting a model to WYSIWYG this obvious oversight that'll be FAQ'd before long

 Iron_Captain wrote:
BA assault terminators are pretty brutal.

Damn right they are. Especially when supported-- add in a BA termie ancient for that sweet +1Ld and rerolls in the fight phase, and you ahve some solid ass-kicking going on. The LC dreads reroll both failed wounds and to-hits, and the rerolled to-hits make thunder hammers massively more powerful (instead of 1/2 a hit per attack, you have almost a guaranteed hit per attack). And the BA termie isn't too shabby himself, with five(!!!) wounds and 3 attacks, even if he can only carry a single LC or a TH at character price.

Even BA tactical termies are solid in melee with a termie ancient around.

Nurgly ones with Toughness 5 would be a good contender.

 Elbows wrote:
Nurgly ones with Toughness 5 would be a good contender.

Don't exist yet.

I haven't read the rules for all the various terminators in 8th, but I do find Scarab Occult Terminators to be downright scary.

They're probably among the worst Terminators for close combat, since they're only equipped with Powerswords, but their Infernal Combi-bolters (4 S4 AP-2 shots at 12") turns them into a real threat against anything that isn't T8, especially other terminators, and their easy access to 1+ and even 0+ armoursaves against many attacks make them super-resilient.

They're not even that expensive, my Khornate Chaos Terminators with dual lightning claws cost more.

Is anyone else feeling wary of Dual Lightning claws? Maybe it's just me being a Heretic who would much rather bring another plasma or melta than get an extra attack - how are Space Wolves feeling about them now they've sort of lost a point of AP (relative to the PS with which they previously had parity)?

I just built a squad and DLCs didn't even feel like an option. Just gave one of them to the Champion, largely because it looks cool...