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Hello all.

My last thread about Centurions had a good discussion, I thought I'd ask about another unit that I have but am having trouble using - space marine terminators.

When I use them in 7th edition, I basically had them teleport as close to the enemy as possible and march forward as they were able to absorb punishment and distract from my other units - in 8th they are slow and look more squishy but have an extra wound.

The new teleport homer rules seem interesting - having them teleport in on the other side of the table and do a job then teleport back home the next turn could have strategic use.

Are they worth taking?

In my opinion, not really. They're not awful but with so much AP-3 weaponry around they basically have a 5+ save. Which is not so good.

And they are just so expensive.

I would love to take my squad but at 250+ points with almost no mobility it's a rough choice.

The teleport homer can be pretty clutch if you put it on or near an objective in your backfield... problem is when you yank your terminators over there (presumably to gain/deny VPs) they are stuck over there, waddling their way back up the field.

Edit to add that their 2 attacks with a power fist at-1 to hit makes them surprisingly bad in combat as well. tYou might expect a unit of 4 PFs to get 2 hits and 1 wound. Woooooo.

They are not awful. They are just lacking in lots of areas for the price.

Best use is home on a shelf unfortunately. Lots of high rend and multi damage makes them a poor choice even in friendly games. Terminators are bully units but they have too many predators themselves and don't have the volume of attacks in either shooting or CC to scare weaker infantry. Catacphractii pattern is a bit better since they can take a single lightning claws with a combi-bolters.

If you insist on using them take smaller units if 5 and take at least two for target saturation as deepstriking a single unit with no support is near free points to your opponent. You can use them as tactical reserves and teleport them in to bolster a line or a flank but don't expect them to bust enemy lines.

As a GK player my base terminator is more than twice the cost of my base strike squad member and adding special weapons increases the cost difference even more. As far as I'm concerned Terminators are not twice as effective as base troops and therefore I'm unwilling to pay that price.
Now, if GW returned the relentless advance rule to them (no penalty on shooting heavy weapons after movement) then I might consider using them as the weapon platforms that I'm being charged for.
As it is now, terminators are slower than my base troops and they don't do anything offensively better than my base troops. They're only marginally better defensively than my base troops and they don't do anything that my base troops can't do. So, at a 1 for 2 cost ratio why should I pay for terminators over strike squads?

Deathwing Terminators need about a 5-point decrease to be worth taking, I think. SM terms need probably 6pts dropped. As noted, they're just not all that durable, given the abundance of 2+ damage weapons and AP.

I've had good luck with Deathwing Terminators dropping in and anchoring a flank, but that's with reroll support from Belial. Even then, they're not particularly cost-effective. They're more for board control and disruption than anything. Without hit rerolls, Terminators would be pretty easy to simply ignore. They don't do enough damage to be considered a major threat. They're far too expensive to simply be roadblocks, too, especially with scouts available.

Now that custodes bikes are available, Terminators are basically completely defunct. Both are kind of jack of all trades units, but Vertus Praetors do everything pretty well for the price. Sure, bikes can't deep strike, but their mobility persists after the first turn; you can't simply move away from them. You basically get all the benefits Termies offer on a more mobile platform. A janitor bike is going to outperform 2 terminators quite reliably. Again, Termies need a significant price cut to be viable.

You have to invest a lot of points to make them work such as taking a landraider for a transport. If you are okay with that then they could work but they won't be super competitive.

If they could take better weapons (grav/plasma/meltas, no mandatory power fist and access to all power weapons) AND had a point reduction (I think 6 is probably right) AND could teleport mid game for 1 cp AND had a 4++ instead of the 5++ they would be viable...

That's a whole lot of ANDs.

Assaults are even worse because unless you get that 9inch charge on landing they are a waste of points. Even if you do get it, you better hope your opponent didn't bubble wrap anything and then you probably aren't going to reach anything else worth charging. At this point if they cost 25 points a model with all equipment they would only be marginally useful without some sort of mobility upgrade (I guess you could afford the landraider/raven to schlep them around in at such a low point cost)

 Silentz wrote:
In my opinion, not really. They're not awful but with so much AP-3 weaponry around they basically have a 5+ save. Which is not so good.

And they are just so expensive.

I would love to take my squad but at 250+ points with almost no mobility it's a rough choice.

The teleport homer can be pretty clutch if you put it on or near an objective in your backfield... problem is when you yank your terminators over there (presumably to gain/deny VPs) they are stuck over there, waddling their way back up the field.

Edit to add that their 2 attacks with a power fist at-1 to hit makes them surprisingly bad in combat as well. tYou might expect a unit of 4 PFs to get 2 hits and 1 wound. Woooooo.

They are not awful. They are just lacking in lots of areas for the price.

I dunno. just how many sources of AP3 are there that aren't also decently easy to kill.

deep striking gives you the opportunity to drop in and take out or mitigate those threats. outside of the one situation where some one brings a metric ton of screen.
Cover can bump your save up to a 4+ (though still not as great but better than nothing)
homing bacon is a decent trick.

bananathug wrote:
If they could take better weapons (grav/plasma/meltas, no mandatory power fist and access to all power weapons) AND had a point reduction (I think 6 is probably right) AND could teleport mid game for 1 cp AND had a 4++ instead of the 5++ they would be viable...

You're basically describing Grey Knight Terminators, minus access to better shooting weapons: different d3 damage power weapon options, a psychic power to teleport, a psychic power to improve their invulnerable save. And these are still largely considered over-costed for what they do. My opinion is that terminators should cost somewhere around 50% more than their Power Armor counterparts. BUT, there's a whole discussion on Power Armor marines being over-costed, so take that for what you will.

All of that said, I think that terminators can have their place in friendly/casual/narrative games. They stand up really well to low AP, Dmg 1 attacks. But they're likely resisting shooting from a much cheaper unit or tying up a much cheaper unit it CC (like cultists or Eldar guardians).

I don't really know how effective it's going to be overall, but I plan to use a squad of 5 cataphractii with bolters/1 claw to SftS alongside a unit of Vanguard Vets (3LC, 1 dual chainsword, and 1 chainsword/storm shield) and some Sternguard. Drop in a Chaplain alongside them as well. The idea is to put a ton of pressure on one of the enemy's flanks and use lots of bolter shots and claw attacks to clear out screening units/maybe catch a character unprotected. With the screens cleared and fire hopefully diverted toward that flank, my devastators plink away at the valuable targets and my contemptor dreads rush in to punch some things to death.

Terminators should be T5/3W/4++ and hit on 3+ with power fists... oh wait that is a lot like Custodes.

Even just bumping their T up to 5 would make a pretty significant difference, no?

Yeah T5 alone is not going to change anything.

T5 makes wounding terminators with plasma guns on a 3+ or a 3+ over charged thats pretty significant from a 2+

 Desubot wrote:
T5 makes wounding terminators with plasma guns on a 3+ or a 3+ over charged thats pretty significant from a 2+

This was my thinking as well. It would be a change that at least benefits termies SOMEWHAT, while still leaving daylight between them and more elite models like Custodes.

 Porphyrius wrote:

 Desubot wrote:
T5 makes wounding terminators with plasma guns on a 3+ or a 3+ over charged thats pretty significant from a 2+

This was my thinking as well. It would be a change that at least benefits termies SOMEWHAT, while still leaving daylight between them and more elite models like Custodes.

I dunno its already steeping on aggressors and centurions by going T5.

honestly T4 2+ 5++ is all fine storm bolters and power fists all fine still. the biggest issue is the base price.

its cheaper just to take a butt load of reivers with chutes and carbines to do a similar job of back field bolter harassment. i think more options for special weapons would be a better start. not chaos levels of everyone gets combi plasma nonsense but perhaps a second heavy weapon or something and adjust those instead of the base unit price.

The way TEQs they are priced is fair if the game was mainly 1d max -1 Ap shots. As noone would run the game with only thoose weapons they quite quickly become terrible, the point efficiancy of guardsmen shooting overcharged plasma at them is insane.

I also think that the "midrange" thoughness such as termies also suffer from never being able to truly achive a threat saturation, if you run an army of mainly terminators and weaker infantery, firing anti-veichle weapons such as plasacannons, lascannons and battlecannons on them gives a quite nice points efficiancy for an opponenets TAC list. On the other hand, if you have mainly termies and vehicles/dreadnoughts,firing some mainly anti infantery/anti-TAC weapons on them also gives a quite fair bang for buck ( guardsmen heavy bolter teams kills their point equivalent of terminators each turn if not moving, terminators kill 1/5 of their points in heavy weapon teams each turn with their stormbolter in rapid fire range).

In both such cases, switching to eiter more another horde unit if your army is hordebased or another heavy unit if the army is heavier usually works a lot better. The TEQ itself dont have a "favoured enemy" where they truly shine whoose damage they can shrug of like nothing, I dont think I can choose a 100 points of any unit that I can allow to shoot at my termies without being worried, like I can let my IG Leman russ eat bolter fire or my orc boys tank lascannons without blinking. The only way termies can make up their points in a shoot out is if they are able to keep their save in the 2+/3+ range, wich results in the paradoxical situation that a terminator is much more dependant on the cover of a trench to stay alive than your average imperial guardsman, and that one of the few viable TEQ units are nurgle obliterators in the nurgle woods, having a 0+ save, or having some kind of "cant taget me sheenaningans" liek DG or making them to one trick ponys like slanesh with stratagem, making them dish out so much damage that you really dont care if they die. The terminator is ironicly a glass cannon

I might not be the most informed. But plasma weapons 2d damage are very good vs them. Tyranid warriors, in adition to having a heavy bolter and AP2 weapons, have 3 wounds. I also belive palladins from GK are good, and they have 3 wounds. (Can somebody playing GK confirm this?) Primaris marines are also 2 wounds. In 8th edition it is better to have 1, 3 or 12+ wounds. 2 is very poor.

 Niiai wrote:
I might not be the most informed. But plasma weapons 2d damage are very good vs them. Tyranid warriors, in adition to having a heavy bolter and AP2 weapons, have 3 wounds. I also belive palladins from GK are good, and they have 3 wounds. (Can somebody playing GK confirm this?) Primaris marines are also 2 wounds. In 8th edition it is better to have 1, 3 or 12+ wounds. 2 is very poor.

This is an intresting question, say you have 30 wounds to either split up on either 15 models with 2wounds each or 10 models with 3 wounds each for the same price it would take the following number of unsaved hits for each damage type to kill them:

D 2W 3W
1 30 30
2 15 20
D3 20 17.8
3 15 10
D6 17,5 13.6

As an extra wound dont increase the point of the model proportionally (example: incessor "only" being 5 points more expensive than TAQ) I think 3 W comes out ahead unless the enemy got loads of anti tanke weapons to spare

 Desubot wrote:

 Silentz wrote:
In my opinion, not really. They're not awful but with so much AP-3 weaponry around they basically have a 5+ save. Which is not so good.

And they are just so expensive.

I would love to take my squad but at 250+ points with almost no mobility it's a rough choice.

The teleport homer can be pretty clutch if you put it on or near an objective in your backfield... problem is when you yank your terminators over there (presumably to gain/deny VPs) they are stuck over there, waddling their way back up the field.

Edit to add that their 2 attacks with a power fist at-1 to hit makes them surprisingly bad in combat as well. tYou might expect a unit of 4 PFs to get 2 hits and 1 wound. Woooooo.

They are not awful. They are just lacking in lots of areas for the price.

I dunno. just how many sources of AP3 are there that aren't also decently easy to kill.

deep striking gives you the opportunity to drop in and take out or mitigate those threats. outside of the one situation where some one brings a metric ton of screen.
Cover can bump your save up to a 4+ (though still not as great but better than nothing)
homing bacon is a decent trick.

It doesn't matter if you are in cover or not, or having 3++, the Terminators die like guants / conscripts when facing smite and other kind of mortal wound spam. And now many armies like Nidz and several Chaos factions can easily spam them in cheap. It is an edition lag that GW forced on marines, especially Terminators and just can't be overcome by tactical genius because they are all too expenisve for what they can do.

How much mortal wound spam are you actually expecting? with the CA smite gets worse over the course of the game. you could always just drop in latter after they pop it on some less important stuff.

smite can be mitigated by having something in front so something cheap like reivers could help. though then you are really building a list for deep striking.

or you could just walk them with chumps in front to take the smite.

i dont know your meta but it sounds cheesy. but you are right they are pretty damn expensive for what they do. but that doesn't mean they are so bad that you could never use them.

Part of the problem is the cost / unit size. For what they cost, you end up taking them in units of 5. A couple plasma shots / smites later, you've lost 40% of their offense. There's a big difference between 5 Terminators and 3.

I agree that making them 3 wounds would solve the problem, but they need a price reduction as well.

Gremmer wrote:

 Niiai wrote:
I might not be the most informed. But plasma weapons 2d damage are very good vs them. Tyranid warriors, in adition to having a heavy bolter and AP2 weapons, have 3 wounds. I also belive palladins from GK are good, and they have 3 wounds. (Can somebody playing GK confirm this?) Primaris marines are also 2 wounds. In 8th edition it is better to have 1, 3 or 12+ wounds. 2 is very poor.

This is an intresting question, say you have 30 wounds to either split up on either 15 models with 2wounds each or 10 models with 3 wounds each for the same price it would take the following number of unsaved hits for each damage type to kill them:

D 2W 3W
1 30 30
2 15 20
D3 20 17.8
3 15 10
D6 17,5 13.6

As an extra wound dont increase the point of the model proportionally (example: incessor "only" being 5 points more expensive than TAQ) I think 3 W comes out ahead unless the enemy got loads of anti tanke weapons to spare

I am not sure I am saying that 3 wound models is the bees knees. (I am not acusing you of saying I said that, just to be clear.) But the way the chess board looks in 8th edition 2 wound models are in a very bad place. Vs anti infantery weapons they do not stand up to dice spam. Vs plasma weapons,the imperial hand weapon of choise in 8th edition, it stands up quite bad.

3W models performs slightly better vs mass infantery shooting thangs to having the extra wound. 2 wound weapons over shoots them. However, D6 weapons performs much better vs them then vs 2W models. But then if you roll a 1 or 2 to wound vs a 3W models, it is really bad to shoot them again.

I think all of this depends on 3W models being properly costed. I do not know Paladins that much. But the tyranid warriors is 27 points 3W S4 T4, 24" assault 3 S5 AP -1, 4 mellee attacks at AP-2. 4+ save (6+++ if leviathan) Fearless. It is a very descent deal for 27" points.

I do not know if leadership tests makes a difference when it comes to palladins. Loosing 1 3W models i harsh!

Gremmer, so much thanks for the math on this. If I should guess 1W models and 3W models are priced descently, while 2W models are very over priced. I do not know where custidians land in all of this, but they seem to be good. Enough wounds to eat 2 lascannon shots, more if they make the ++ save.

As for the original poster, no I do not think Terminators are in a good place. Unless you find some nieche only they can perfom. (Hammer terminators in a landraider comes to mind.) SW terminators are also a potensial as they can be generals in squads (or at leats they did in 5th edition) and you can use the outflank stratagem to deliver the unit. Long Fang can also take a terminator on their team with a rocket launcher. He can tank shots with his ++.

I think terminator characters might have some milage. GK cdharacters used back in 5th to eb abel to equip big cannons. Can they stil do that?

I'm not really sure what the OP is talking about with their Terminators performing better last edition. This is the best they've been since 4th and are still barely doing much.

 Desubot wrote:

homing bacon is a decent trick.

Homing bacon sounds like something that needs to be invented, and fast.

I can imagine the advert

<Interior - Stereotypical Suburban American Family Home>

Sunday Morning?
Heavy Night?
Hungry?

"Oh I wish I had some baco- "
<Bacon flies in through window>
Gee, thanks, Homing Bacon! You sure are swell!

HOMING BACON

Warning: Homing bacon does not represent a guarantee you will receive bacon. All windows and doors must be left open at all times. Consuming homing bacon before removing embedded drone may result in death. Homing bacon does not comply with WEEE regulations and may not be legal in your state. Homing bacon contains mercury and may cause any or all of the following side effects: drowsiness, nausea, headaches, insanity, pregnancy, death.

Not sure about SM in general, but wolf guard terminators are not bad. A unit of 5 dudes with 3TH/SS and 2 stormbolters/frost swords is 211 points.

If you play them with units that have sinergies they can do ok, arjac gives them +1A and a to-wound re roll, wolf priests give them the re roll to all failed hits in combat.

In a list with other assault oriented and fast units like outflanking wulfen, TWC and bikes they could even be great. I use them quite often, always deepstriking them, I prefer using my biggest transport, the stormwolf, to carry 16 bodies, tipycally 15 blood claws and a wolf priest.

SM in general are not assault oriented and many lists in 8th are pure gunlines, and of course with this style of playing terminators are awful. I don't think they can perform as a shooty unit, there are several other platforms of anti infantries or anti tank which are way better, you should field them as melee specialists.

You got a point with the shields. The only way keeping em viable is having the 3+ save against heavy weapons. I think that’s why shield Custodes is fairly ok.

I’d love to see TEQs being 3 wounds though, maybe with a slight point increase as this would shake up the meta with plasma not being the “end of all weapons” in this edition as this would give a clear benefit to running a few Melta as well, also the tax fist termites have would improve somewhat. The only problem is that this would be an indirect buff to the blasted Eldar shining spears

 Blackie wrote:


SM in general are not assault oriented and many lists in 8th are pure gunlines, and of course with this style of playing terminators are awful. I don't think they can perform as a shooty unit, there are several other platforms of anti infantries or anti tank which are way better, you should field them as melee specialists.

I think that arises the problem: The terminators, for their points cost, actually don't do good in assault. The main problem is they have only 2A, and I think outside of a 3CP stratagem there is no way to increase their number of attacks with their PF / TH, and they hit on 4s with these weapons, AND these weapons no longer wound the majority of MC / Vehicles on 2s. But the Terminators still cost almost as many points as before. This fact, coupled with their low mobility, make me think they are lackluster in assault for their 200+pts....

I think I'd take Vanguard Veterans if I want assault units, they are as good as Terminators in DS, while their 12'' move making DS not their only option. And most importantly, if they are not dead after the turn they DS, they have quite larger assault threat range compared to Terminators, making them much better as a "fast reaction force" to handle enemy's assault threat.

Neophyte2012 wrote:

 Blackie wrote:


SM in general are not assault oriented and many lists in 8th are pure gunlines, and of course with this style of playing terminators are awful. I don't think they can perform as a shooty unit, there are several other platforms of anti infantries or anti tank which are way better, you should field them as melee specialists.

I think that arises the problem: The terminators, for their points cost, actually don't do good in assault. The main problem is they have only 2A, and I think outside of a 3CP stratagem there is no way to increase their number of attacks with their PF / TH, and they hit on 4s with these weapons, AND these weapons no longer wound the majority of MC / Vehicles on 2s. But the Terminators still cost almost as many points as before. This fact, coupled with their low mobility, make me think they are lackluster in assault for their 200+pts....

I think I'd take Vanguard Veterans if I want assault units, they are as good as Terminators in DS, while their 12'' move making DS not their only option. And most importantly, if they are not dead after the turn they DS, they have quite larger assault threat range compared to Terminators, making them much better as a "fast reaction force" to handle enemy's assault threat.

I agree, the SW ones perform better because they can have the +1A for free thank to arjac which is an HQ you may want anyway and also give the buff to wolf guards and TWC. Not to mention that you should have multiple units to throw into combat and pressure the opponent by the time the terminators arrive by deepstrike. Still not amazing, but certainly viable.

You can make them work reasonably well in a less competitive scenario, the important thing is to make them not be your only threat so that the enemy has to decide what to engage them with.
I have used a couple of times the Indomitus Termies as a secondary drop on the other side of the table while I also dropped "Lias Issodon and friends". They managed to go "undetected" due to the more pressing matter of Lias and between bolters and fists they managed to tie up/kill a couple of enemy tanks and characters for a while. The teleport homer is a marvelous trick, I always use it when I am to the last man, when the unit is pretty much useless in terms of output, to simply retreat on a backfield objective and stay there.

I also tried the cataphractii terminators with single claw and combi-bolter and sergeant with fist and have them drop together with Lias. I was against IG and the +1" in movement and charge, plus the rerolls to hit helped them a lot, managed to stomp a couple of thanks and some infantry in a couple of turns. 4+ invul is also a boon. I have yet to field the Hammer+Shield ones in this edition, but I am not a close combat fan, using Raptors and all.

In a more competitive scenario, efficiency start trumpling every other aspect of the game and due to their cost, terminators are not that good, sadly.