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Karol wrote:

 Danarc wrote:

Karol wrote:

 Porphyrius wrote:
What units do you already have? Perhaps consider soup, and mix in elements from other factions to make your units work better (at least to an acceptable level) for you.

I have 15 plastic terminators, 1 nemezis dreadnought, caldor draigo, 5 grey knight strike squad members with halabards and psycannon and 2 rhinos.

I'm so sorry mate.

Why?

By the way anyone has an idea what to buy next, for our store event I have to expend 500pts till end of next month.

You could benefit from psylancer devastators to actually ride in those rhinos. But i'd probably get tl heavy bolters or assault cannons and turn those rhinos into razorbacks. You'll also need a second character for batallion. Voldus is pretty good.
As for further purchases, i'd go for more strikers with double swords for +1 attack and a landraider crusader. You can deepstike it and it's a great way to carry a bunch of strikers and characters. LRC also benefits from the psybolt ammo strategem and allows you to deepstrike a bunch of units while maintaining some strong board presence.
Besides, you'll probably need ig allies for more cp and cheap backfield scoring/bauble wrap. 3*10 guardsmen and some character are great. Mortars can also be useful. Or you could get heavy bolters or even lazcannons in there but i'd probably settle on mortars.

Is there a way to avoid buying other armies? I think about buying some power armored GK, I don't like the models, but it seems like everyone else seems to run them.
Right now I just hope GW is either add primaris to grey knights, or do something with terminators.

As voldus goes, I don't really want to buy the triumvirate box, it costs too much. Would a librarian or a Grandmaster be that much worse? I could make him out of one of the termintors, so it would be cheaper too.

Karol wrote:
Sorry maybe am not getting something. Plus my english is below passable, but what is wrong with having an army with many strong options? You have an army that works, and that seems a worth on its own. You can try out different things, like playing under 2500pts games. You don't have to buy multiple rule books, and multiple armies till you find the one that works.

And that is just the good stuff for the people playing. Good units make people buy more stuff, so GW gets more money. And I doubt they cry, that this or that unit is selling great.

On the other hand having boaring units, that don't do anything awesome seem only to be a valid joice, if you get the army gifted by someone, or you want to play,but don't have a lot of money and the bad army is cheap to make.

The issue is that to have strong units you have to have bad ones - and yet why would anyone play them?
So eventually the meta evolves and all the bad units disappear. Suddenly your slightly less strong units become just average and the process goes on until everyone is only playing with 10% of the available datasheets.

This is how people can say with a straight face that the SM Gladius & Necron Decurion were only mid tier in 7th edition. I mean sure against Scatbikes & Wrathknights (eventually Ynnari), Riptide Wings, Magnus & Forgeworld Chaos, Superfriends etc they did eventually become inferior choices - but they crushed factions like Orks, Tyranids, Dark Eldar, IG and regular CSM into the ground.

I don't want that in 8th edition.

I don't know what those things you talk about are or were assuming those were armies or editions. And I get that people who played the bad armies may not have liked playing against the good stuff. The negative expiriance was for sure there.

I do question the argument for not trying to make as many good unit options as possible for each codex though. At worse, a codex with a few options will have those 3-4 units that will be able to carry it. Boring and one dimensional? yes, but at least you can play with something. Now if the design team does not try to make stuff as powerful as possible what do you get? Unexpected rules interactions, accidental OP units or units that are made OP, just because. Maybe the writer likes the faction a lot, or this character is his self insart and he gives him or her a "characterful" rule, which in a balanced setting means it suddenly starts dominating everything. Also you would get people whose faction didn't get lucky and their codex are 100% balanced. They are even worse for players, then those books with just a few OP units, because suddenly you have 0 units to play with, and unless you have some pathological need to play that faction, your screwed.

There are a few issues here, I think.

No one wants units to be boring, or so watered down that every lost is pretty much the same and no units are exciting.

In my opinion, all units should be useful and exciting. I mentioned in a previous post that I think GW should ask themselves what it would take to make each unit in the game someone's personal favorite unit, and allow them to make an army that utilizes that unit without it feeling like they are taking a penalty for doing so. I think that is a lofty but worth striving for goal, and I think it's possible through unit ability tweaks/additions and points adjustments.

Although I mentioned I think that custodes bikes are poorly designed, its not because they are good at killing stuff, but because there isn't a lot of internal balance in that unit, they just have so much durability and mobility that they can go anywhere and do anything without much counter play from the other player, and a 2+4++ makes it so only a narrow range of weapons are effective against them (S7 AP2 D2 would be ideal, so auto cannons and OC plasma are pretty good). I'd argue that they are very undercosted and unbalanced compared to most other units in their codex, which otherwise send to have a theme of slow, durable, and medium deadly.

But speaking more generally, I think it's possible to have more units be effective and fun to play with in the right sort of list. It's okay if you have a GK list and adding some purifiers to it isn't a great choice because of the theme the list is going for. But there should be a different GK list where they do fit and are very effective. Purifiers should have a specific thing they are good at (previously was anti horde) and they should be an option worth taking in that role of you think you need that in your army. That doesn't have to deminish the effectiveness of any other unit. And that goes for every unit in the game.

I'd actually argue that most of the reason the eldar books have been so strong recently is that their units do tend to have a single focus and one thing they are pretty good at, but that's a bit of a tangent.

When it comes down to it, I think in a way you are right, and if every unit was "strong" (which I take you to mean what most people consider overpowered) then the game would find a kind of balance in that. But there should not be obvious choices of "the best unit in this codex" that everyone then takes 3 of and you never see another unit from that codex. Part of that issue is also the allies rules which allow that, but it's also most codexes being wildly unbalanced. GK are a special case, where none of their stuff is really worth allying in, but most of the other imperial codexes also only have a few good options that you then ally with guard and hope its good enough.

Karol wrote:

As voldus goes, I don't really want to buy the triumvirate box, it costs too much. Would a librarian or a Grandmaster be that much worse? I could make him out of one of the termintors, so it would be cheaper too.

Voldus is available separately now.

Voldus can be made from the GKT kit, as he’s just a TDA GK with a Hammer. I’d bling him out with as many books as possible, and call it a day.

SJ

Karol wrote:
Is there a way to avoid buying other armies? I think about buying some power armored GK, I don't like the models, but it seems like everyone else seems to run them.
Right now I just hope GW is either add primaris to grey knights, or do something with terminators.

As voldus goes, I don't really want to buy the triumvirate box, it costs too much. Would a librarian or a Grandmaster be that much worse? I could make him out of one of the termintors, so it would be cheaper too.

PAGK are more cost-effective than Terminators most of the time; if you don't like the models you don't have to buy them but they'll give you more falchion attacks/bolter shots, occupy more space/hold objectives better, eat multi-damage fire more efficiently, and fit in Razorbacks at the expense of not being as good when caught out by FRF/SRF or other massed poor-AP fire.

As for Voldus he's nice but not mandatory; the no-penalty-to-hit hammer and cast three/deny three make him a very cheap straight upgrade over a Grand Master, but both of those are kind of situational and there are plenty of matchups where a normal Grand Master is completely sufficient.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

jcd386 wrote:
There are a few issues here, I think.

No one wants units to be boring, or so watered down that every lost is pretty much the same and no units are exciting.

In my opinion, all units should be useful and exciting. I mentioned in a previous post that I think GW should ask themselves what it would take to make each unit in the game someone's personal favorite unit, and allow them to make an army that utilizes that unit without it feeling like they are taking a penalty for doing so. I think that is a lofty but worth striving for goal, and I think it's possible through unit ability tweaks/additions and points adjustments.

Although I mentioned I think that custodes bikes are poorly designed, its not because they are good at killing stuff, but because there isn't a lot of internal balance in that unit, they just have so much durability and mobility that they can go anywhere and do anything without much counter play from the other player, and a 2+4++ makes it so only a narrow range of weapons are effective against them (S7 AP2 D2 would be ideal, so auto cannons and OC plasma are pretty good). I'd argue that they are very undercosted and unbalanced compared to most other units in their codex, which otherwise send to have a theme of slow, durable, and medium deadly.

But speaking more generally, I think it's possible to have more units be effective and fun to play with in the right sort of list. It's okay if you have a GK list and adding some purifiers to it isn't a great choice because of the theme the list is going for. But there should be a different GK list where they do fit and are very effective. Purifiers should have a specific thing they are good at (previously was anti horde) and they should be an option worth taking in that role of you think you need that in your army. That doesn't have to deminish the effectiveness of any other unit. And that goes for every unit in the game.

I'd actually argue that most of the reason the eldar books have been so strong recently is that their units do tend to have a single focus and one thing they are pretty good at, but that's a bit of a tangent.

When it comes down to it, I think in a way you are right, and if every unit was "strong" (which I take you to mean what most people consider overpowered) then the game would find a kind of balance in that. But there should not be obvious choices of "the best unit in this codex" that everyone then takes 3 of and you never see another unit from that codex. Part of that issue is also the allies rules which allow that, but it's also most codexes being wildly unbalanced. GK are a special case, where none of their stuff is really worth allying in, but most of the other imperial codexes also only have a few good options that you then ally with guard and hope its good enough.

Addendum/application of principles to GK: This is actually one thing I really liked about the Warddex; the fluff may have been awful and the A1 statline with expensive melee weapons started the death-spiral of the GK in later editions, but the array of unit-specific psychic powers (block deepstrikers, short-ranged AoE blast, bring a unit in from Reserves, shoot through walls...) took a bunch of units whose narrow range of stats and weapons have stuck them into a "do the same thing as a Strike squad only (better/worse)" box ever since and gave them distinct and interesting functions.

Can't I just pay extra points or something, to get more attacks for termintors? Is there something like a list how much a point of stat costs for an army like Grey Knights.

Part of that issue is also the allies rules which allow that, but it's also most codexes being wildly unbalanced

Why doesn't the GW just remove the ally option, if it makes so much problem then? Most of the rules problems at my store come from the fact that people combined 3-4 factions sometimes. If the option would be removed, people playing normal armies would get buffed, and those who bought ally could decide if they want to play two different armies or quit.

PAGK are more cost-effective than Terminators most of the time; if you don't like the models you don't have to buy them but they'll give you more falchion attacks/bolter shots, occupy more space/hold objectives better, eat multi-damage fire more efficiently, and fit in Razorbacks at the expense of not being as good when caught out by FRF/SRF or other massed poor-AP fire.

Ah ok. I didn't really want to spend more. Thought I could cheat out the 500pts by taking a lot of HQs, but that seems to not be legal at our store.
I checked the GW site and they aren't selling any turrets for rhinos, only full razorback kits, and almost sure that there is only one turret inside. So how do people get them?

Also if terminators are bad, what do people do with the models? All can't be made in to characters, so are they run as paladins, because there doesn't seem to be other terminators in the codex.

Also with razorbacks, they only have 6 slots for power armor dudes. So only 3 termintor models would fit in, does it mean that if I wanted to use razorbacks I would have to run 3 man paladin squads, because terminators are caped at 5 and fit only in to rhinos. Or is there some special OP FW rhino that can transport termintors normally?

My terminators collect dust. A lot of dust.

I might be looking back at 5th with rose colored glasses, but I thought the biggest problem with the ward dexes was that he didn't write all of them, and that whoever wrote all the other ones didn't get creative enough to make books on his level of effectiveness. Granted the fluff was definitely questionable but I don't know that he even write that, and it's not like the fluff now is a ton better.

SW and IG were not Warddexes. They stomped all over BA, at least. GK and Necrons were over the top, though.

Martel732 wrote:
My terminators collect dust. A lot of dust.

Are they Thousand Sons?

Karol wrote:
Can't I just pay extra points or something, to get more attacks for termintors? Is there something like a list how much a point of stat costs for an army like Grey Knights.

Part of that issue is also the allies rules which allow that, but it's also most codexes being wildly unbalanced

Why doesn't the GW just remove the ally option, if it makes so much problem then? Most of the rules problems at my store come from the fact that people combined 3-4 factions sometimes. If the option would be removed, people playing normal armies would get buffed, and those who bought ally could decide if they want to play two different armies or quit.

PAGK are more cost-effective than Terminators most of the time; if you don't like the models you don't have to buy them but they'll give you more falchion attacks/bolter shots, occupy more space/hold objectives better, eat multi-damage fire more efficiently, and fit in Razorbacks at the expense of not being as good when caught out by FRF/SRF or other massed poor-AP fire.

Ah ok. I didn't really want to spend more. Thought I could cheat out the 500pts by taking a lot of HQs, but that seems to not be legal at our store.
I checked the GW site and they aren't selling any turrets for rhinos, only full razorback kits, and almost sure that there is only one turret inside. So how do people get them?

Also if terminators are bad, what do people do with the models? All can't be made in to characters, so are they run as paladins, because there doesn't seem to be other terminators in the codex.

Also with razorbacks, they only have 6 slots for power armor dudes. So only 3 termintor models would fit in, does it mean that if I wanted to use razorbacks I would have to run 3 man paladin squads, because terminators are caped at 5 and fit only in to rhinos. Or is there some special OP FW rhino that can transport termintors normally?

You run your Terminators as Paladins if you want something at least mediocre.

phydaux wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
My terminators collect dust. A lot of dust.

Are they Thousand Sons?

Worse, marine terminators

If GKs got a 20% points cut across the board and then upgraded to regular Smite would that help? Because that's doable in a FAQ.

phydaux wrote:
If GKs got a 20% points cut across the board and then upgraded to regular Smite would that help? Because that's doable in a FAQ.

Yes. Point costs are the best way to fix most problems. They make a list more durable and have better offense at the same time.

phydaux wrote:
If GKs got a 20% points cut across the board and then upgraded to regular Smite would that help? Because that's doable in a FAQ.

Regular smite would definitely help.

They should also give Purifiers and Castellan Crowe the Cleansing Flame kind of AOE spell they used to have.

Karol wrote:
Can't I just pay extra points or something, to get more attacks for termintors? Is there something like a list how much a point of stat costs for an army like Grey Knights.

Kind of. If you want to play in a tournament or any kind of organized format, no, you can't, you're stuck with the statlines you've got. If you want to play a casual game you could wander over to Proposed Rules, suggest changes, get feedback, and try and figure out some of the underlying design principles that might make your tweaks better, then clearly communicate to your opponent that you'd like to use some homemade rules, and see if they agree to play against them. Doing so is an uphill battle because the combinatorial problem of making homebrew stuff for such a large game makes it complicated to balance for all comers, and many communities have a general hostility to homebrew rules because they assume that they're designed by petulant children who want to give themselves OP stuff instead of figuring out how to play, but it's definitely posisble.

Part of that issue is also the allies rules which allow that, but it's also most codexes being wildly unbalanced

Why doesn't the GW just remove the ally option, if it makes so much problem then? Most of the rules problems at my store come from the fact that people combined 3-4 factions sometimes. If the option would be removed, people playing normal armies would get buffed, and those who bought ally could decide if they want to play two different armies or quit.

The ally rule was brought in under 6e when GW chose to start introducing wildly new unit types. Once one book gets Flyers if your book doesn't have anti-aircraft weapons you're sort of screwed until you get an update that gives them to you, so they gave you the option to grab a bit of anti-air from somewhere else in the short term.

It turned quite rapidly into a marketing tool for "Like (army X)? Buy just a few models and get them on the table now instead of needing to buy all of it!", which means it's probably here to stay. 8e's removal of cross-faction buffs means that it isn't actually that much of a balance problem; it's a crutch to help badly-designed armies by letting someone grab efficient bits of another army to plug holes in their list. Grey Knights, for instance, have solid melee units and anti-infantry firepower but are limited in their ability to kill tanks or engage effectively from long range and tend to be quite squishy for their cost, so you might bring some Guard artillery to give you longer range/anti-tank and more bodies to occupy space rather than needing to waste expensive close-range squads holding backfield objectives; doing that isn't necessarily cheesy/OP (though it can be), it simply lets armies that aren't good on their own engage on better terms. It also lets you replicate interesting lore concepts that don't happen within one Codex; I might want my 3e-vintage Inquisitorial strike forces back and take an Inquisitor leading an army of Stormtroopers with a couple of GK/Deathwatch units in it as shock troops, or someone might decide they're doing an integrated Ultramar army by having Guardsmen representing the human armies of Ultramar running about with some proper Ultramarines backing them up, or someone might like the lore about Harlequins showing up out of nowhere in support of Craftworld operations and mix those two armies.

Allies are a "problem" in tournament settings when they let armies mix the most efficient bits of two or three Codexes, but even then they're not that much of a problem because they let armies that wouldn't see play in that environment otherwise see play (pure Custodes, for instance, are nigh-unplayable competitively), and abusing Allies in a casual setting isn't that much more of a problem than taking a tournament-caliber single-Codex army is.

PAGK are more cost-effective than Terminators most of the time; if you don't like the models you don't have to buy them but they'll give you more falchion attacks/bolter shots, occupy more space/hold objectives better, eat multi-damage fire more efficiently, and fit in Razorbacks at the expense of not being as good when caught out by FRF/SRF or other massed poor-AP fire.

Ah ok. I didn't really want to spend more. Thought I could cheat out the 500pts by taking a lot of HQs, but that seems to not be legal at our store.
I checked the GW site and they aren't selling any turrets for rhinos, only full razorback kits, and almost sure that there is only one turret inside. So how do people get them?

Also if terminators are bad, what do people do with the models? All can't be made in to characters, so are they run as paladins, because there doesn't seem to be other terminators in the codex.

Also with razorbacks, they only have 6 slots for power armor dudes. So only 3 termintor models would fit in, does it mean that if I wanted to use razorbacks I would have to run 3 man paladin squads, because terminators are caped at 5 and fit only in to rhinos. Or is there some special OP FW rhino that can transport termintors normally?

Not sure why "cheating out" a 500pt limit by taking a couple of expensive GK HQs would be a problem; if you're stuck to a Battle-Forged army there's a thing called a Supreme Command detachment that's got 3 HQs at minimum. It isn't good and I'm certainly not recommending you do it, but I'm a little confused as to why that particularly would be banned? The only times I know of the Supreme Command detachments are even remotely problematic is when they're used to take more good Thousand Sons units without touching the bad ones and when they're used to take three Dawneagle Shield-Captains, but those are easy enough to ban individually...

I don't know what people do with their Terminator models; my GK have been on a shelf since the first couple of weeks of 8e. Most of the time if models are considered flat-out/universally bad people won't run them or just put them on the shelf. As for the specific question of Paladins I think if it were me I would rather run Paladins than normal Terminators; going from 2W to 3W is a pretty major buff against D2/Dd3 weapons, the cost increase is marginal, the extra Attack makes them hit notably harder for their cost in melee, and three-man minimum squads lets you cover more ground and force your opponent to risk wasting firepower overkilling one squad more.

Keep in mind that when we on the Internet tell you something is "bad" we tend to exist in a weird self-reinforcing loop of tournament results, our own local metas, and the things we hear from each other; you may find you can get results with the people you play against with units we say are pointless because some constraint on your environment (budget, enforced casualness, people playing Orks...) makes it function in a manner distinct from our theory-ball, so me telling you "I've left my GK on the shelf since the start of 8e" doesn't mean "there's no possible way to make them function." If you want to figure out how to run an all-GKT army in your environment you don't have to shelve that and go buy models you don't like just because we tell you they're better; if you find ways to make them work/have fun with them that's what matters.

Terminators are limited in what transports they can get into; it isn't just "Terminators take up two slots", they can't get into Rhinos/Razorbacks at all. Forge World doesn't help much with the transport problem; Grey Knights don't have blanket access to the IA book, just their own little sub-section (which contains a Razorback with psycannons, a Land Raider with psycannons, a special Dreadnaught, and a Thunderhawk), so for practical purposes you're really stuck with the Stormraven/Land Raider. I'd strongly recommend deepstriking most or all of your Terminators since they're harder to alpha-strike out that way and they don't have to slog up the table at 5" a turn taking fire for several turns on the way in.

The Razorback kit has one turret mount containing components for a heavy bolter or lascannon turret; it's the same set of parts that make up the front hull gun on the Land Raider, so the plastic assault cannon Razorback is the assault cannon turret out of the LRC/LRR. If you want to buy turrets individually you're stuck paying exorbitant prices on Ebay or exorbitant prices from Forge World (which is also the only way to get an official plasma/lascannon turret) to the tune of ~$20 USD, but they're not tremendously difficult to scratch-build if you have spare guns lying around (old Ravenwing bike upgrade sprues are a great source of cheap assault cannons).


Automatically Appended Next Post:

phydaux wrote:
If GKs got a 20% points cut across the board and then upgraded to regular Smite would that help? Because that's doable in a FAQ.

I'd like to see +1A/model, a D1 basic melee weapon with the option to upgrade to a bigger one, and a second psychic discipline a la Runes of Battle/Runes of Fate (so the rule of 1 doesn't mean "you get to attempt six powers a turn that aren't Smite, that's it") with PAGK at ~15-16pts/model, plus some kind of infantry anti-armour weapon. ~18pts/model for one-Wound smite-spamming folks with one melee attack apeice wouldn't make GK a functional army, it'd take a one-dimensional gimmick-based list and make them slightly more efficient at being a one-dimensional gimmick-based list.

Not sure why "cheating out" a 500pt limit by taking a couple of expensive GK HQs would be a problem;

We have to get a second character in to our lists till the end of may, so I wanted to cheat, by taking a termintor as one, and not to buy one. I don't really have a lot of money to spend durning summer.

Terminators are limited in what transports they can get into; it isn't just "Terminators take up two slots", they can't get into Rhinos/Razorbacks at all. Forge World doesn't help much with the transport problem;

Didn't knew that. What am I suppose to do with the rhinos then, I have two of them?


How do terminators or paladins reach melee range? Before I bought the rhinos, which I now regret, they were being blasted of the table by my opponents. I only have 1 unit of strikes and the NDK to deploy on the table, the terminators are worth a lot more points, so I can't deep strike them.

If you want to buy turrets individually you're stuck paying exorbitant prices on Ebay or exorbitant prices from Forge World (which is also the only way to get an official plasma/lascannon turret) to the tune of ~$20 USD, but they're not tremendously difficult to scratch-build if you have spare guns lying around (old Ravenwing bike upgrade sprues are a great source of cheap assault cannons).

Only spare parts I have are those from the termintor boxs, and those are mostly melee. I have stormbolters left overs, and I think incinerators too. Not sure Razorbacks can take incinerators as their weapons though.

You run your Terminators as Paladins if you want something at least mediocre.

Do I have to deepstrike them too. And what kind of units are taken the most 5 units of 3, 10 and 5 ?

Termies can DS. So you can bring them in turn 2.

Whether you DS them or not, blasting them off turn 1 should take quite a bit of firepower. Not enough to justify them, but realize that they soak a bunch. Also, if they're likely to get shot by AP-1 or even -2 weapons, try to have them in cover - that'll greatly increase the firepower needed to kill them.

Rhinos can be used for a lot more than just transporting PAGK. Don't forget they can charge and they take up a lot of space on the board.

Not to say GK are good. An optimized list will wipe them. Also, they're not great at low points. But an escalation league shouldn't have you facing optimized lists - that's just a trap.

Bharring wrote:
Termies can DS. So you can bring them in turn 2.

Whether you DS them or not, blasting them off turn 1 should take quite a bit of firepower. Not enough to justify them, but realize that they soak a bunch. Also, if they're likely to get shot by AP-1 or even -2 weapons, try to have them in cover - that'll greatly increase the firepower needed to kill them.

Rhinos can be used for a lot more than just transporting PAGK. Don't forget they can charge and they take up a lot of space on the board.

Not to say GK are good. An optimized list will wipe them. Also, they're not great at low points. But an escalation league shouldn't have you facing optimized lists - that's just a trap.

Yes, of course, but when you deep strike terminators, 2 things happen:

1. They are essentially stuck where they are. If they can't or don't charge, they will get to move 15" from that spot before the game ends, assuming you make it to turn 5.

2. They don't have firepower. They don't have the attacks to kill chaff, they don't have the firepower to shoot past it, or shoot into it and clear it.

In essence terminators are easy to play around. You can swamp them with bodies or just avoid them.

If you need to kill them, they're not that durable, and should devote firepower to them, it's not a huge loss, because their cost is so high, it's a significant return on investment.

Durability in 8th edition for a unit is defined as one of these two things:
a. Good invulnerable save (4++ or better) and decent toughness (5+)
b. High model count & wounds to points ratio

Terminators have neither of these things. They have low toughness. Their wound to point ratio is bad. They have a low model count. And they have a bad invulnerable save.

In the context of the SM codex they're durable. In the context of 8th edition they're paper.

The best way to use terminators is with storm shields for the 3++, this makes them durable. 2wound models with a 3++ is durable. The problem here is twofold, though: Firstly, it limits their scope, the storm bolter dice give them some output at range against chaff; secondly, this is not available to grey knights.

If characters could join units, Terminators would be solid. You could pair them with someone who gets mobility, or defense. For instance, you put assault hammer terminators with Mephiston, and they're suddenly moving around the board, jumping over chaff, and charging things. Or, you put them with Draigo and they've got some durability in a 3++ shield, and can gate around the board (not as good as wings, but it's something).

Oh, I'm not saying they're good. An (apparently new) player was asking about how to play them - and it seems not playing them isn't ideal.

So, if you knew you had those units, that those units will be in your list, how do you minimize their downsides and maximize their upsides?

It's quite a different discussion than whether GK Termies are good.

Bharring wrote:

Not to say GK are good. An optimized list will wipe them. Also, they're not great at low points.

I've found them working best at around 1000-1500 pts. 750 and below is too low for a functionally decent batallion and you need CP. 1750 and above is too much and limited variety and problems against mass vehicles start to show up. Whereas at 1000-1500 you get all the best out of your multi-purpose units.

Bharring wrote:
Oh, I'm not saying they're good. An (apparently new) player was asking about how to play them - and it seems not playing them isn't ideal.

So, if you knew you had those units, that those units will be in your list, how do you minimize their downsides and maximize their upsides?

It's quite a different discussion than whether GK Termies are good.

Yes, that's fair.

I suppose my answer would largely be the same. Bring Thunderhammer / Stormshield terminators and put them in a Storm Raven or Land Raider. Deep strike sucks in 8th edition now especially for melee (sorry, it does), so you want to zip across the board and deploy them. With the ability to disembark, move, and charge, it's a turn 2 gamble. None of these are cost effective, but if I *HAD* to play terminators I would leverage a transport for them.

My strategy would vary based on the army. If I had to do this as Grey Knights, that's essentially what i'd do.

Option 1: Put them in a land raider, astral aim it, gate it, and use the terminators as a turn 2 attack.
Option 2: Put them in a raven, fly across the board, hope it survives to turn 2 so they can disembark, shoot and charge.

Foot slogging terminators and deep striking terminators is a terrible strategy in my opinion. Since they can only ride in those two transports, your options are very limited.

Chaos terminators though have different uses, and aren't as bad.


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 koooaei wrote:

Bharring wrote:

Not to say GK are good. An optimized list will wipe them. Also, they're not great at low points.

I've found them working best at around 1000-1500 pts. 750 and below is too low for a functionally decent batallion and you need CP. 1750 and above is too much and limited variety and problems against mass vehicles start to show up. Whereas at 1000-1500 you get all the best out of your multi-purpose units.

I mean, I wholly disagree with this.

Any strategy available to GK at 1500 points is far better executed by another flavor of Space Marines or Soup.

So what am I suppose to do now? I don't have any ravens or land raiders.

But an escalation league shouldn't have you facing optimized lists - that's just a trap.

I don't know what an optimised list, but the only difference between the armies we play with and the armies that people that play longer is that their armies are painted.

I'll ask my next opponent if he is willing to let me proxy power armored Grey Knights with termintor models for an auto lose. They seem super weak though, high points cost just one wound , save even lower then terminators and 0 inv. I kind of a don't get how people can say that terminators are worse then strikes, when strikes have all defensive stats lower and all offensive stats the same.

Proxy is the way to go for now.

Karol wrote:
I'll ask my next opponent if he is willing to let me proxy power armored Grey Knights with termintor models for an auto lose. They seem super weak though, high points cost just one wound , save even lower then terminators and 0 inv. I kind of a don't get how people can say that terminators are worse then strikes, when strikes have all defensive stats lower and all offensive stats the same.

There are discussions of survivability in the Grey Knights Tactica thread in the Tactics subforum, but here's the summary:
Sure, terminators against AP0 are 4x as survivable as strikes for about double the points cost. Against weapons with better AP, that advantage disapate somewhat becomes even less of a factor against multi-damage weapons. For example, against plasma Terminators are down to a 5++ vs a Strike's 6+ with a failed save still killing either model outright...technically twice as durable still sounds good in that case, right?

Wrong. Because a 5++ isn't that good, a weapon like a lascannon will probably kill either one...but it can only kill one model. More importantly, if you have 2 strikes instead of 1 terminator, you get 8 storm bolter shots and 4 CC attacks vs 4 storm bolter shots and 3 CC attacks, and twice as many mortal wounds from smite. The strikes do much more damage per point, and in an alpha-strike-focused army maximizing damage is more valuable than trying to prioritize durability.

Karol wrote:
So what am I suppose to do now? I don't have any ravens or land raiders.

But an escalation league shouldn't have you facing optimized lists - that's just a trap.

I don't know what an optimised list, but the only difference between the armies we play with and the armies that people that play longer is that their armies are painted.

I'll ask my next opponent if he is willing to let me proxy power armored Grey Knights with termintor models for an auto lose. They seem super weak though, high points cost just one wound , save even lower then terminators and 0 inv. I kind of a don't get how people can say that terminators are worse then strikes, when strikes have all defensive stats lower and all offensive stats the same.

Because it's all about points efficiency.

For roughly the same cost, you can bring twice as many strikes as terminators. Which means the total wound count is the same, for double the storm bolter dice, and the same melee attacks. Additionally you aren't as vulnerable to weapons with 2, D3, D6 damage.

A 5++ invulnerable save on a 2+ is not worth it. Most weapons targeting infantry don't pack more than AP-3. A -3 weapon would take your save from 3+ to 6+, or 2+ to 5+, and a 6+ save means you're taking 5 wounds of 6, and a 5+ save means you're taking 4 wounds out of 6, only a net reduction in wounds of 20% versus AP-3 shooting. You would only see your invuln come into play against AP-4 or higher weapons, which probably won't target your terminators anyway, and if they do, you only have a 1/3 chance to avoid the damage (without the invuln, it would be 1/6, and we already covered the delta here).

In essence, would you rather drop in and fire 20 shots, or drop in and fire 40 shots, while also saving some points and being less vulnerable to multi-damage weapons? Remember, when you pay 2CP to make those strength 5, ap-1, you want as many shots as possible.

And you are right - they are absurdly high cost for what they are, but terminators are even more over-costed. Durability doesn't mean anything in 8th edition unless you have one of two things:

1. High invuln (4++ or better) and good toughness (5 or better)
2. Lots of wounds with a great wounds to points ratio

Terminators are neither of these things.

 Marmatag wrote:

 koooaei wrote:

Bharring wrote:

Not to say GK are good. An optimized list will wipe them. Also, they're not great at low points.

I've found them working best at around 1000-1500 pts. 750 and below is too low for a functionally decent batallion and you need CP. 1750 and above is too much and limited variety and problems against mass vehicles start to show up. Whereas at 1000-1500 you get all the best out of your multi-purpose units.

I mean, I wholly disagree with this.

Any strategy available to GK at 1500 points is far better executed by another flavor of Space Marines or Soup.

Who else can deepstrike a freaking landraider that shoots s5 ap1 bolters to boot? And than another 40+ shots disembark and clean up with force weapons. Hm...who else can do it really?