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Terminators feel fine to me versus small arms fire. The problem is everyone and their mother can spam enough high strength weapons with minus 2 to 3 AP that makes them and their armor irrelevant. So I would like to see maybe a boost to their natural invuln save, or some sort of re-rolling save mechanic.

Just two cents from a casual scrub who likes terminators

I would like to see plasma adjusted from "auto take if available" and Terminators get a reduce damage dealt by one to a minimum of one rule.

I think that palladins are very good. 2 wound models are not good at the moment. 3 wound terminators on the other hand, well they are good.

Paladins are in the grey knight codex. You pay a tax for psykers and deep strike on everything, so combine them with some other codex.

What about no weapon can more than ap-2 against them, then they have a 4+ at worst, sure weight of fire will still bring them down but they would then have the toughest armour in the game, as they should.

 Formosa wrote:
What about no weapon can more than ap-2 against them, then they have a 4+ at worst, sure weight of fire will still bring them down but they would then have the toughest armour in the game, as they should.

Your desired result is more easily achieved by just giving them 4+ invulnerable.

 Niiai wrote:
I think that palladins are very good. 2 wound models are not good at the moment. 3 wound terminators on the other hand, well they are good.

Paladins are in the grey knight codex. You pay a tax for psykers and deep strike on everything, so combine them with some other codex.

...how many people do I have to get over from the Grey Knight tactics thread to show Paladins are ALSO over costed pieces of gak. You literally pay 10 points for a single wound increase. Which is insane.

 Quickjager wrote:

 Niiai wrote:
I think that palladins are very good. 2 wound models are not good at the moment. 3 wound terminators on the other hand, well they are good.

Paladins are in the grey knight codex. You pay a tax for psykers and deep strike on everything, so combine them with some other codex.

...how many people do I have to get over from the Grey Knight tactics thread to show Paladins are ALSO over costed pieces of gak. You literally pay 10 points for a single wound increase. Which is insane.

I mean there IS an extra attack and the WS2+, but the fact they fail hard to Custodes is amazing.

I've played a couple more games using Khorne Terminators today (1st game against nu-necrons and 2nd against Girlyman-Primaris soup) and it occurs to me that durability isn't the problem: in both games my terminators survived till the end (in fact I haven't lost my terminators for a few games now).

The problem comes with delivery and damage output: if you fail that charge after deep strike, whatever you were charging will blow you away next turn and, even if you get in, loyalist terminators will likely not do enough damage. Warptime + Prescience + WE legion trait + Icon of Wrath makes terminators a powerful unit that can easily cripple two big units the turn they come down. Of course to get them to this level is a 500+pts point sink and loyalists don't have the ability to do this.

Make the WE termie combo a little bit cheaper and a bit more accessible and termicide will be a real tasty tactic.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Quickjager wrote:

 Niiai wrote:
I think that palladins are very good. 2 wound models are not good at the moment. 3 wound terminators on the other hand, well they are good.

Paladins are in the grey knight codex. You pay a tax for psykers and deep strike on everything, so combine them with some other codex.

...how many people do I have to get over from the Grey Knight tactics thread to show Paladins are ALSO over costed pieces of gak. You literally pay 10 points for a single wound increase. Which is insane.

I mean there IS an extra attack and the WS2+, but the fact they fail hard to Custodes is amazing.

...They don't get WS2+, only their sgt. does. and if you want just attacks, going for an ordinary terminator squad is more cost efficient per point. Paladins only saving grace is that it takes 2 plasma shots to kill them.

 Quickjager wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Quickjager wrote:

 Niiai wrote:
I think that palladins are very good. 2 wound models are not good at the moment. 3 wound terminators on the other hand, well they are good.

Paladins are in the grey knight codex. You pay a tax for psykers and deep strike on everything, so combine them with some other codex.

...how many people do I have to get over from the Grey Knight tactics thread to show Paladins are ALSO over costed pieces of gak. You literally pay 10 points for a single wound increase. Which is insane.

I mean there IS an extra attack and the WS2+, but the fact they fail hard to Custodes is amazing.

...They don't get WS2+, only their sgt. does. and if you want just attacks, going for an ordinary terminator squad is more cost efficient per point. Paladins only saving grace is that it takes 2 plasma shots to kill them.

Huh. Thought they all did.

Also I don't think you're correct on regular Terminators having more attacks for the points.

Ahh yea, put falchions on terminators but not the Pallies. And yet my points still stands, Paladins are not good. The fact someone says Paladins are "good" is like saying Meganobz are good.

Paladins are what normal terminators should be, but overcosted. Custodes in turn are what Paladins want to BE.

I feel terrible for Deathwing players. Don't they pay more for their termies and not get much more?

 Quickjager wrote:
Ahh yea, put falchions on terminators but not the Pallies. And yet my points still stands, Paladins are not good. The fact someone says Paladins are "good" is like saying Meganobz are good.

Paladins are what normal terminators should be, but overcosted. Custodes in turn are what Paladins want to BE.

Uh then put Falchions on the Paladins too then?

I'm not saying Paladins are fantastic but they're definitely better than the Loyalist Terminators and the Grey Knight Terminators.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 lolman1c wrote:
I feel terrible for Deathwing players. Don't they pay more for their termies and not get much more?

Nope. You pay extra for being able to mix gear too...but that's always a terrible idea.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 lolman1c wrote:
I feel terrible for Deathwing players. Don't they pay more for their termies and not get much more?

Nope. You pay extra for being able to mix gear too...but that's always a terrible idea.

We also get one of the most redundant abilities in the game too! Inner Circle. It means you auto pass morale test. Sounds pretty sweet right? Except this is for a unit with LD9 that you often take in 5 man squads. So you need to have lost 4 models for it to be POSSIBLE to fail a morale test. They also have Grim Resolve, the chapter wide Dark Angels ability which means they only lose a maximum of 1 model to morale anyway. Oh and they're Space Marines, so re-roll all morale tests.

Seriously, what is the point in Inner Circle? The only other units that get it are single models and so never take morale tests anyway!

Stux wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 lolman1c wrote:
I feel terrible for Deathwing players. Don't they pay more for their termies and not get much more?

Nope. You pay extra for being able to mix gear too...but that's always a terrible idea.

We also get one of the most redundant abilities in the game too! Inner Circle. It means you auto pass morale test. Sounds pretty sweet right? Except this is for a unit with LD9 that you often take in 5 man squads. So you need to have lost 4 models for it to be POSSIBLE to fail a morale test. They also have Grim Resolve, the chapter wide Dark Angels ability which means they only lose a maximum of 1 model to morale anyway. Oh and they're Space Marines, so re-roll all morale tests.

Seriously, what is the point in Inner Circle? The only other units that get it are single models and so never take morale tests anyway!

I suppose it would help if you were playing against NL leadership shenanigans.

Hah, yeah I guess so. What are they able to stack to though? -3 LD or something like that?

If so, thats effective LD6 we're down to. Because of Grim Resolve we're only losing one model max anyway, and ATSKNF gives us a reroll.

So say we lose 3 terminators. That means on a roll of 4+ we lose one model. With the reroll we only fail 25% of the time.

Without Inner Circle there's a 25% chance to lose 1 model to morale if we're stacked down by -3 LD. Wow, thanks Inner Circle!

Stux wrote:
Hah, yeah I guess so. What are they able to stack to though? -3 LD or something like that?

If so, thats effective LD6 we're down to. Because of Grim Resolve we're only losing one model max anyway, and ATSKNF gives us a reroll.

So say we love 3 terminators. That means on a roll of 4+ we lose one model. With the reroll we only fail 25% of the time.

Without Inner Circle there's a 25% chance to lose 1 model to morale if we're stacked down by -3 LD. Wow, thanks Inner Circle!

The dark angels codex is full of leadership redundancies if I remember correctly we have 7/8 rules, wargear and warlord traits to negate leadership, 1 possibly 2 is all we needed.

Either way I have been playing pure deathwing for a while now In 8th and as always it’s an uphill struggle, I can’t remember a time when pure deathwing wasn’t 40k in hard mode, I’ll be damned if I don’t force it to work though!

Having read through the thread, there are some common themes emerging for the chief weaknesses of Terminators:
1. Specifically weak to plasma-spam, and other D2 weapons to a lesser degree. This seems to be the only real hole in their durability. They should be weak to plasma, but not as weak as they are currently. The suggested rule to reduce damage by 1, to a minimum of 1, seems like a good way to make this less of an issue. Plasma on the whole needs to be addressed as a wider issue it would appear.

2. Slow. Allowing them to deepstrike closer would make a lot of sense, especially for the Deathwing, who are well known for this. They should be at least close enough to use a heavy flamer on nearby units from teleporting. Maybe 7" away for normal Terminators, and perhaps 5" for the Deathwing?

3. Insufficient damage output. Even if the issues above turn out not to be an issue, they don't kill stuff well enough. Their main role seems to be as a fire magnet, rather than as elite butchers. Honestly, giving the squad BS and WS 2+ would help a lot, and allowing them to ignore the penalties for moving and shooting heavy weapons. No penalties for power fists/thunder hammers too.

I think all three of these changes would improve them a bit, and give them a niche as linebreakers teleporting in to assault key opponents. They really should be slow but relentless... rather than just slow.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Quickjager wrote:
Ahh yea, put falchions on terminators but not the Pallies. And yet my points still stands, Paladins are not good. The fact someone says Paladins are "good" is like saying Meganobz are good.

Paladins are what normal terminators should be, but overcosted. Custodes in turn are what Paladins want to BE.

Uh then put Falchions on the Paladins too then?

I'm not saying Paladins are fantastic but they're definitely better than the Loyalist Terminators and the Grey Knight Terminators.

Yea but thats not saying much still, it's basically saying Boyz are better than Shootas. Ignoring there is a fundamental flaw in how a models defense is priced.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Haighus wrote:
Having read through the thread, there are some common themes emerging for the chief weaknesses of Terminators:
1. Specifically weak to plasma-spam, and other D2 weapons to a lesser degree. This seems to be the only real hole in their durability. They should be weak to plasma, but not as weak as they are currently. The suggested rule to reduce damage by 1, to a minimum of 1, seems like a good way to make this less of an issue. Plasma on the whole needs to be addressed as a wider issue it would appear.

2. Slow. Allowing them to deepstrike closer would make a lot of sense, especially for the Deathwing, who are well known for this. They should be at least close enough to use a heavy flamer on nearby units from teleporting. Maybe 7" away for normal Terminators, and perhaps 5" for the Deathwing?

3. Insufficient damage output. Even if the issues above turn out not to be an issue, they don't kill stuff well enough. Their main role seems to be as a fire magnet, rather than as elite butchers. Honestly, giving the squad BS and WS 2+ would help a lot, and allowing them to ignore the penalties for moving and shooting heavy weapons. No penalties for power fists/thunder hammers too.

I think all three of these changes would improve them a bit, and give them a niche as linebreakers teleporting in to assault key opponents. They really should be slow but relentless... rather than just slow.

Here is a question for you.

Why should terminators be weak to plasma? Why should the best weapon in the game be an answer to everything?

When I think of anti elite infantry weapon, I think plasma. The problem is that plasma works agaisnt light or even heavy vehicles, and it even can kill pseudo expensive hordes! Like... Plasma Scions are actually not bad at shooting boyz, in point investment ratio.

BOYZ!

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 Blackie wrote:


I'm also not in favor of making termies T5. Like the 3W proposal. If you improve their profile you must do the same to all the other heavy elites in the game. They already jumped from 1W to 2W while other elites that were multiwounds in the previous editions didn't received any improvement on their stats in terms of durability, like ork nobz or grotesques. The +1 on the WS/BS makes more sense.

Nobs actually isn't true; they get to take saves against a much larger number of weapons now that used to simply ignore their armour entirely. It's the same reason Ork Boyz and Guardsmen are much better now, just less so in the case of the Nobz.

Terminators, meanwhile, lost out as a bunch of weapons that didn't affect their save at all previously now suddenly became more effective, while the Invulnerable save became somewhat redundant as -3 AP gives them a 5+ save anyway and so where given a second wound to compensate.

But nobz have the same profile profile they had in 7th, they just got +1S instead of Furious Charge. Terminators got +1W. While nobz became more resilient against firepower since they usually keep a save they're also way less effective in combat than before as pks became lackluster and pks were and should be one of the best tools orks have. Termies at least can have thunder hammers and storm shields. Imagine ork nobz with 3+ invuln and a weapon that deals a flat 3 damage.

I'm seriously expecting lots of buffs when the codex drops

Stux wrote:
Hah, yeah I guess so. What are they able to stack to though? -3 LD or something like that?

If so, thats effective LD6 we're down to. Because of Grim Resolve we're only losing one model max anyway, and ATSKNF gives us a reroll.

So say we lose 3 terminators. That means on a roll of 4+ we lose one model. With the reroll we only fail 25% of the time.

Without Inner Circle there's a 25% chance to lose 1 model to morale if we're stacked down by -3 LD. Wow, thanks Inner Circle!

They are able to stack a lot:
-3Ld maximum from their legion trait
-1Ld for every Raptor unit that is in CC with you
-1Ld if you've been shot at with a Butcher Cannon
When the Warlord is in 6" you roll 2d6 and pick the highest for morale
And I'm sure there's a few more leadership shenanigan stuff they can do.

There was a thread not long ago showing how you only had to kill maybe 1 or 2 models in a unit whilst you had the blanket of Raptor's and support guns down to utterly devastate MSU.

 mrhappyface wrote:

Stux wrote:
Hah, yeah I guess so. What are they able to stack to though? -3 LD or something like that?

If so, thats effective LD6 we're down to. Because of Grim Resolve we're only losing one model max anyway, and ATSKNF gives us a reroll.

So say we lose 3 terminators. That means on a roll of 4+ we lose one model. With the reroll we only fail 25% of the time.

Without Inner Circle there's a 25% chance to lose 1 model to morale if we're stacked down by -3 LD. Wow, thanks Inner Circle!

They are able to stack a lot:
-3Ld maximum from their legion trait
-1Ld for every Raptor unit that is in CC with you
-1Ld if you've been shot at with a Butcher Cannon
When the Warlord is in 6" you roll 2d6 and pick the highest for morale
And I'm sure there's a few more leadership shenanigan stuff they can do.

There was a thread not long ago showing how you only had to kill maybe 1 or 2 models in a unit whilst you had the blanket of Raptor's and support guns down to utterly devastate MSU.

Wow, that's pretty nasty!

Still, an ability that is only useful against a specific build of a specific sub-faction of one army, and only if they throw all of their shenanigans at one unit, and then only saves one model from dying is not exactly exciting!

Was about to say... not worth extra points for an ability most players may never even see in any of their games.

I think the main question is; should terminators reflect the fluff? Honestly almost nothing else in the game does.

Here's my issue: Terminators in older editions were tough, not amazing, but tough - but they also weren't as expensive as they are now. They've never properly simulated the fluff - just as normal Space Marines don't. One thing they've lost is that they use to be proper Veteran space marines, meaning they had better WS/BS and leadership. A squad of five Terminators cost only a little more than a normal tactical squad. Now, they cost nearly double.

I think terminators now are fine design-wise but simply need to cost about 25-30% less than they do. None of this is helped by plasma or the heavy presence of -3/-4 AP weapons of course. I like my CSM terminator squad, but it is something like 280 points and it's tough to take it knowing it's a poor return on investment. I still do, because they're cool...but a price drop would be nice.

 mrhappyface wrote:
I've played a couple more games using Khorne Terminators today (1st game against nu-necrons and 2nd against Girlyman-Primaris soup) and it occurs to me that durability isn't the problem: in both games my terminators survived till the end (in fact I haven't lost my terminators for a few games now).

The problem comes with delivery and damage output: if you fail that charge after deep strike, whatever you were charging will blow you away next turn and, even if you get in, loyalist terminators will likely not do enough damage. Warptime + Prescience + WE legion trait + Icon of Wrath makes terminators a powerful unit that can easily cripple two big units the turn they come down. Of course to get them to this level is a 500+pts point sink and loyalists don't have the ability to do this.

Make the WE termie combo a little bit cheaper and a bit more accessible and termicide will be a real tasty tactic.

This right here is the real issue, terminators have very crappy fire power.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
Deathwing are in an even worse boat because lore wise we are meant to have some of the best terminators, all we get a knights which can perform ok, but you have the same problem of, how the hell do i get into combat, and we get the plasma cannon which is really meh.

 Galef wrote:
I will say, Termies are both better and worse than prior editions.
Better due to having multiple wounds (which would have instantly fixed them in prior editions)
Worse because of the AP and Damage mechanics. Having that extra wound means little when you rarely get your 2+ save and a single failed save can kill them outright

A potential fix would be for them to have a 1+ save naturally. A roll of 1 would still fail, but it would allow them to effectively reduce AP modifiers by 1 (AP -2 becomes AP -1, etc).
Another fix could be to bump their invulnerable by 1 to a 4+
Another fix (and personally my favorite) is to leave them as is by drop them by around 10-15ppm

-

Yeah I like your personal favorite. Just have them cost 25-30 points. It is the best solution I think.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Blackie wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 Blackie wrote:


I'm also not in favor of making termies T5. Like the 3W proposal. If you improve their profile you must do the same to all the other heavy elites in the game. They already jumped from 1W to 2W while other elites that were multiwounds in the previous editions didn't received any improvement on their stats in terms of durability, like ork nobz or grotesques. The +1 on the WS/BS makes more sense.

Nobs actually isn't true; they get to take saves against a much larger number of weapons now that used to simply ignore their armour entirely. It's the same reason Ork Boyz and Guardsmen are much better now, just less so in the case of the Nobz.

Terminators, meanwhile, lost out as a bunch of weapons that didn't affect their save at all previously now suddenly became more effective, while the Invulnerable save became somewhat redundant as -3 AP gives them a 5+ save anyway and so where given a second wound to compensate.

But nobz have the same profile profile they had in 7th, they just got +1S instead of Furious Charge. Terminators got +1W. While nobz became more resilient against firepower since they usually keep a save they're also way less effective in combat than before as pks became lackluster and pks were and should be one of the best tools orks have. Termies at least can have thunder hammers and storm shields. Imagine ork nobz with 3+ invuln and a weapon that deals a flat 3 damage.

I'm seriously expecting lots of buffs when the codex drops

Mega Nobs should be very similar to terminators - they always have been.

 Marmatag wrote:
Although, look at Custodes.

If you add...

2 wounds
+1 invulnerable save
Ability to place in 1 stormshield, expanded wargear
Specific stratagems to benefit them
+1 toughness
+2 extra attacks

Terminators become gods that are generally super badass. I like to think a couple of these things would really help terminators, without making them stupid unkillable like custodes.

Bingo. Terminators should be slightly weaker custodes, with chaos ones having bonuses for their gods, and SM ones getting chapter tactics.

As it is, custodes poops all over every terminator by a long shot.

Honestly I think we should hold off on talking about buffing Terminators until a Plasma nerf comes in, as that and its kind are the main offenders to making Terminators near useless. Plasma should and more than likely will be nerfed, so trying to talk about changes to Terminators before then is moot, as any changes to Terminators could increase their durability to insane levels depending on how much and in what ways Plasma is nerfed. Let's just wait to see what changes to Plasma GW makes and then go from there, as Plasma is what this discussion is heavily dependant on.

On a side note, I am also strongly against any change that also increases their resistance to small arms fire, as they are already incredibly resilient to them. Any more would make them far too powerful against them.

8th ed only weaked an already sub par unit. Unfortunately Termies haven't been up to fluff forever. I use GK termies which I love but unless you get them into CC with a decently big target they underperform. At least Storm bolters are now rapid fire 2 and put out a decent amount of dakka under 12". With the points cost for PA GKs it is a bit lopsided as to which to take. I hope GW take a look at Termies and make some improvements but with the push on primaris my expectations are low.