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Apologies if there is a thread about this.

I haven't had a 40K battle in a long time. So, I decided to see if I could get back in. However I've been digesting the new rules, new format and such forth. Is it just me or has Eighth Edition broke Terminators? See I am an Ordo Malleus / Farsight Enclave gamer, I loved their small but ultra-elite format, it suited me down to the ground as I'm not fond of large, spam forces. I like to take time with models and put a lot of attention to detail into them.

But, the new format seems to have killed the elite, small force format. Terminators in particular seem to be REALLY weak, Knight Terminators even more so. The whole point in a Terminator was to stroll through a hail of fire and still reach the line, slow, purposeful but viable but with the new Armour Penetration rules that just doesn't seem viable. Are Terminators even useable in the game as it is right now? Which sucks given how Terminators were the strongest arm of the Ordo Malleus. What was the point in cutting up the old rule format that no-one ever complained about, no-one ever said 'Grey Knight Terminators...I refuse to have this battle', it was a challenge for them. But now, it's like 'Terminators, fodder'.

Apologies if this seems like a rant.

Terminators are bad because 2 Damage weapons are so prevalent.

It's to the point where having 2 wounds actually makes you LESS durable than having 1 wound.
If Terminators had a 1+ save or 3 wounds they would be viable.

Terminators are actually more durable than any edition so far. There are only a few weapons they're more vulnerable to (Autocannons and some Gauss weapons, for example), and otherwise are at the same durability (S4-5 AP-1 D1) or are more durable to several more weapons, including weapons that would want to be pointed at them (Tau Plasma, Starcannons, any random damage weapon like Lascannons and Melta).

Their problem is solely what they're capable of offensively.

But more durable isn't sufficient. They were so poor before, that the present increase falls short. Any old -1 AP halves the effectiveness of their armor. That kills them. And yes, two damage weapons are super common.

I would say rate of fire is what kills them as well. I remember back when I used to run terminators in 4th/5th and the only weapons capable of removing their save was also the same few weapons capable of hurting my land raider or dreadnoughts. Not many lists had that much long range shooting that could shoot at turn 1 on my units. More abstract LoS rules and harsher penalties for moving made it so you only got a fraction of the anti tank firepower shots your way compared to now. And no moving and rapidfire(nor orders/stratagems/rules that double shots) or rerolls/modifiers to help with hitting so even if terminators were more vulnerable to weak guns when they only had 1 wound they had to take less than half the saves as well. And you could always use a Character to tank some of those weaker shots as well.

They could at least have something like Rubrics, where any AP -1 is ignored or so, maybe degrade all AP by 1 to a minimum of 1/0. That would help out a little bit. Otherwise they suffer the same cost conundrum that such units usually do. You pay for ranged and melee options when you practically can only really use either one. Or (re-)introduce different armour marks to get more granularity.

Martel732 wrote:
But more durable isn't sufficient. They were so poor before, that the present increase falls short. Any old -1 AP halves the effectiveness of their armor. That kills them. And yes, two damage weapons are super common.

They're actually the same durability to most S4-5 AP-1 weapons, which wasn't a problem for their durability to begin with so I wouldn't really say that's a complaint.

It's 44 points (unless it's been amended in Chapter Approved or the likes) for a single GK Terminator. A random example:

This Terminator has 4 toughness, 2 wounds and 2+ armour save with a Rapid Fire 2 weapon with no AP value.

For the same points (less even) one could face five Necron Immortals, which (the Necrons) I've heard are one of the worse performing armies in 8th Edition.

There is NO CHANCE that Terminator can beat those Immortals, who all have a 3+ armour save (which remains 3+ due to the lack of AP on the Stormbolter) and Rapid Fire weapons with - 2AP. That's at maximum range, five - 2AP, S5 shots vs. two (unless Bolter Discipline has changed) 0AP, S4 shots. What is the changes the Terminator will keep rolling 4+ until reaching close combat? Zero. So what is the use of this super expensive armour, if it's armour save is now pointless.

Back in previous editions, the Terminator MIGHT well have made it to close combat, where it can compete. 84% chance of rolling a 2+ vs. 50% chance of rolling 4+. I used to fight a Necron force, but now I reckon chances of competing would be zero because the dude in question fielded a fair few Immortal squads. His force isn't tailored to be an anti-marine force, it was because Immortals are cool and he liked them as miniatures.

That being said, how are Necrons so weak now? Their general weapons are rather decent, I mean ALL of them seem to have armour debuffs, even most basic gauss weapon turns a 3+ power armour save into a 4+ Xenos save, and Necrons can come back from the dead and HPS wielding models as troops with their -3AP. Do Necrons have some fatal flaw I haven't encountered?

Gary_1986 wrote:
What was the point in cutting up the old rule format that no-one ever complained about, no-one ever said 'Grey Knight Terminators...I refuse to have this battle', it was a challenge for them. But now, it's like 'Terminators, fodder'.

Apologies if this seems like a rant.

Sorry, I had to respond to this part of your rant, and I know where you're coming from...but Deathstars were absolutely miserable to play against, and people did complain about that concept. So there were problems in the previous edition and the old rule format. I'm not sure GK termies were the real root of it, but blobs of 2++ with rerolls etc absolutely included them.

I love the terminator concept. I'm with others. They need more firepower for what they do, and an extra wound. I am a fan of the 1+ save. I am totally opposed to increasing invulns etc.
Primarisise them to 3 wounds, 3 attacks base, 1+/4++ and open up shooting options for more shots and I would like them better.

It's a tough balance I'll agree, but I wouldn't know where to begin with GK Terminators, went from God Tier in third edition) Shrouding, Holocaust (I think that's the name) and 6S power weapons as their default close combat weapons to bottom of the pecking order with cardboard armour, gutless ranged weapons and the debuffed Nemesis Force Weapons. To be fair, losing the Shrouding hurt the Knights more than most other debuffs over the editions. It was a VERY unique rule, bespoke to them as far as Astartes chapters went. Shame it had to go.


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Infact in third edition, GK Terminators were so insane overpowered I once had a five man squad of them Deep Strike and wipe out half a Tau battle force it was that bad. Even had someone refuse to let me table Ordo Malleus force on the grounds it was overpowered so I fielded Necrons instead and he still lost, We'll Be Back plus Resurrection Orb.

The GK shoting isn't that bad, at least as long the unit is 10 men strong and you spend 2CP. Although by the time you take 10 termintors, you may as well start thinking about taking paladins.

I don't know what could fix termintors. Offensivily they aren't that bad, in a point void at least, if they could get in to melee it would be even better. Their resiliance is horrible though. ~40pts can give you almost 2 intercessors, they come with twice times the wounds. Number of shots is the same and GK termins can get blessed ammo, but intercessors get doctrins, re-rolls and different bonuses.

Maybe termintors should be costed like intercessors?

I dunno, but there needs to be something to encourage their use. Their biggest selling point, from a fluff point of view is armour protection and firing on the move. But armour protection for them is a little lacking and firing on the move is cool but Bolters have no real power to them.

Perhaps something like reduce an attacks AP value 50% rounding down (2AP becomes 1, 3AP becomes 1, 4AP becomes 2). That would make them a fair bit tankier (given how their minimum armour save would be 4+), or give them a better invulnerable save, or more wounds. Wouldn't turn down a close combat buff to be honest either, I mean a suit of Tactical Dreadnought armour stomping into someone should at the bare minimum stagger.

They also got a downgrade with the loss of Relentless (No penalty to moving and shooting in 7th ed). Sadly, Terminators aren't getting rule changes anytime soon, only point adjustments, just because changing rules would step on the toes of other, related, units.

Well, they're better than in 6th and 7th Edition, but aside from Blightlords still not great, just middle of the road. A bit slow, a bit unreliable with deep strike, and don't actually hit as hard as they probably should, even in melee. And their Landraider also has a hard time, he also got better than in previous editions, but is still quite a points sink since he can be nullified by a grot when he's close to the enemy where he wants to be when transporting Termis.

So, there's a couple of things here that confuse me.

Wade through a hail of fire - Terminators that walk? Since I've played, Terminators have always been a deep strike unit. Generally, in past editions they've been bad because you've got SOMETHING in your army that's AP2, and the terminators would drop in, shoot their boltguns that were at the time effectively just regular boltguns (Deep strike kind of made their only use pointless) and then you'd just shoot them with any AP2 you had, and they'd be dead.

Currently their big struggle in 8th is leveraging their "They do everything" loadouts. The best terminators are those that have ways to get in to combat reliably, and pay NO points for shooting, or those that don't care about combat at all, and put almost ALL their points into guns.

Grey Knights have their own can of worms in a game where they have only a single psychic power list. I highly expect that to change in the upcoming psychic awakening book, where GK are supposed to feature. They need AT LEAST 12 powers, ideally 18, because in 8th you cannot cast the same power twice, so you very quickly run out of powers you can take on your grey knights.

Couple that with Grey Knights being totally deep strike based, but having only one single way to increase their odds of a charge out of deep strike, and you can pretty much understand their struggle. They also distinctly lack any real anti-tank power, since they dont have the usual marine weapon list that has some anti tank options. Unless you like Land Raiders and Dreadnoughts, that's what you've got!

During 3rd through 7th editions, the various incarnations of the current 2+/5++ terminator armour generally worked ok due to the all or nothing AP system (by which I mean the armour durability was reasonably represented, not that the units equipping it were great). Now that 8th is back to 2nd edition style AP modifying all saves, the general trends are that light armoured units are getting some form of save more often (i.e. boltguns don't ignore guardsmen armour), but heavy armoured units can expect to have small arms reduce their saving throw, and are paying points for an 5++ they likely wont ever use.

With 2nd edition AP in effect, it's probably about time 2nd edition armour saves are resurrected, either in the original form of making your save on 2D6, or perhaps in the new apocalypse style of rolling on a single D10 (as AP in general isn't as extreme as it was in 2nd, such as the AP-6 lascannon).

Gary_1986 wrote:
It's 44 points (unless it's been amended in Chapter Approved or the likes) for a single GK Terminator. A random example:

This Terminator has 4 toughness, 2 wounds and 2+ armour save with a Rapid Fire 2 weapon with no AP value.

For the same points (less even) one could face five Necron Immortals, which (the Necrons) I've heard are one of the worse performing armies in 8th Edition.

This is straight-up nonsense.

Necron Immortals are 15pts apiece. You can't even get 3 of them for 44pts, let alone 5.

The issue with Terminators has more to do with the vast increase in special/heavy firepower starting in 5th Edition. Squads that can loadout with ALL high-AP weapons, and/or just much bigger units with even huger guns.

Insufficient terrain rules also hurt them, as well as the grinding down of their heavy weapons/use of them. Back in the day they had a base 1+ to hit (a bonus of 2 over normal marines), and ignored the penalty for heavy weapons. In effect this has made their damage output less, while anti-Terminator weapons are given out like candy.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
But more durable isn't sufficient. They were so poor before, that the present increase falls short. Any old -1 AP halves the effectiveness of their armor. That kills them. And yes, two damage weapons are super common.

They're actually the same durability to most S4-5 AP-1 weapons, which wasn't a problem for their durability to begin with so I wouldn't really say that's a complaint.

Except volume of fire has gone up. Before there wasn't hundreds dices thrown up. And enemy can also bombard with d2 -2 rof weapons as well

 vipoid wrote:

Gary_1986 wrote:
It's 44 points (unless it's been amended in Chapter Approved or the likes) for a single GK Terminator. A random example:

This Terminator has 4 toughness, 2 wounds and 2+ armour save with a Rapid Fire 2 weapon with no AP value.

For the same points (less even) one could face five Necron Immortals, which (the Necrons) I've heard are one of the worse performing armies in 8th Edition.

This is straight-up nonsense.

Necron Immortals are 15pts apiece. You can't even get 3 of them for 44pts, let alone 5.

Was about to say the same thing. Presumably he has just looked at the base cost of the model, and not realised that you also have to pay for the weapon, which almost doubles it.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
But more durable isn't sufficient. They were so poor before, that the present increase falls short. Any old -1 AP halves the effectiveness of their armor. That kills them. And yes, two damage weapons are super common.

They're actually the same durability to most S4-5 AP-1 weapons, which wasn't a problem for their durability to begin with so I wouldn't really say that's a complaint.

I'm complaining about it. -2 is now really common as well thanks to doctrines. That completely wrecks them.


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 Insectum7 wrote:
The issue with Terminators has more to do with the vast increase in special/heavy firepower starting in 5th Edition. Squads that can loadout with ALL high-AP weapons, and/or just much bigger units with even huger guns.

Insufficient terrain rules also hurt them, as well as the grinding down of their heavy weapons/use of them. Back in the day they had a base 1+ to hit (a bonus of 2 over normal marines), and ignored the penalty for heavy weapons. In effect this has made their damage output less, while anti-Terminator weapons are given out like candy.

What increase? -3 to -6 was everywhere in 2nd ed. Once the starcannon was introduced in 3rd, it was all over for them in that edition, too. Also, the stormbolter was awful in 2nd. So I really don't agree with any part of this.

Terminators were only good in 2nd because of their extraordinary good save. Since 3rd they die in droves to lasgun and bolter fire which is pretty stupid. You like Terminators? Fine, play Space Hulk. At least in this game they kick as.

Terminators are stuck in this weird place of elite units, where they are not and have not been for a very long time been elite.

They are only really tough in one way, and that is there luck and how far that luck can be pushed.
But as soon as that luck breaks, they do not have the wounds to wither damage.

They are designed where ether they die or you failed to kill them that shot.
they probably should have had a redesign years ago, more wounds so they actuly had a buffer to there fail state as a tough unit should. Rather than pushing against bad luck with things like re rolls, buffs to saves and Debuff to how they are hit.
Now that GW is finally catching on to wounds being a real way to add durability it’s in a extreme lethality that makes even that nearly worthless.

Terms should just be like wraiths and have 3++ saves. Limit squad size to 5 man and improve their damage output a little bit. Cost appropriate.

I think something simple like them adding -1AP to all weapons that hit them. That way a lot of the "small arms" that have a low AP value would still allow them to retain their 2+ save.

 Xenomancers wrote:
Terms should just be like wraiths and have 3++ saves. Limit squad size to 5 man and improve their damage output a little bit. Cost appropriate.

No. Nothing in this game should have 3++. Its one of the lasting legacy problems. 66% chance of failure after plowing through hit and wound rolls is just a ridiculous cap on the wacky dice game.

Voss wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
Terms should just be like wraiths and have 3++ saves. Limit squad size to 5 man and improve their damage output a little bit. Cost appropriate.

No. Nothing in this game should have 3++. Its one of the lasting legacy problems. 66% chance of failure after plowing through hit and wound rolls is just a ridiculous cap on the wacky dice game.

Cool, but then termintor based armies have the problem of ap 1-2 being spamed everywhere, which means that awesome +2sv is not that awesome. Plus they cost a ton of points, for little to no gains. 2 intercessors cost less then 1 termintor. have double the wounds, better shoting, more attacks in melee, all they don't have is the 1MW power and the no ap on the melee weapons, which stops to matter when we no longer look at the units in void, but how they look in game, because then the intercessor squads can have a sgt hiting as strong as a captin with a first or thunder hammer.

The complaint about the prevalence of D2 weapons has been going around for a while, but since this came up recently in another thread I have to point it out:

5 Terminators, 165 points, unsaved shots to wipe out:
- D1: 10
- D2: 5
- D3+: 5

3 Aggressors, 111 points, unsaved shots to wipe out:
- D1: 9
- D2: 6
- D3+: 3

Considering that most of the D2 weapons are S6-7 so the wound rolls are the same and the Termies have at least a marginally better save regardless those are actually pretty similar.

On top of that the Termies are 4 shots per model at 29" while the Aggressors are 9.5 shots at 26.5" * average. With that in mind the 165 vs 111 price tag is seriously out of round. The issue is less that Terminators are bad under the current rules and more that they're bafflingly over-priced. **

* - If you don't have a way to bypass the stationary requirement on Fire Storm they might as well Advance since they don't suffer the to-hit penalty.
** - Or the Aggressors are bafflingly under-priced. Or both.

3 wounds is magic in 8th ed.

Karol wrote:
Plus they cost a ton of points, for little to no gains. 2 intercessors cost less then 1 termintor. have double the wounds, better shoting, more attacks in melee, all they don't have is the 1MW power and the no ap on the melee weapons, which stops to matter when we no longer look at the units in void, but how they look in game, because then the intercessor squads can have a sgt hiting as strong as a captin with a first or thunder hammer.

Terminators are priced as if they still existed under the all-or-nothing save system, where AP2 was rare.

In 8th, a 2+ save is just incrementally more durable than 3+ (IMO, as it should be), rather than twice as good against anything short of a lascannon as it used to be.

I should also point out that Terminators are already twice as hard to kill with lasguns, bolters, and the like as they used to be, so they're actually in a position now where they're less vulnerable to small arms but more vulnerable to light anti-tank weapons, which IMO is more logical than how it used to be where Heavy Bolters were better at killing Terminators than Missile Launchers.

One of three things needs to happen to make Terminators viable:

1. Significant points drops, which compromises their 'elite' status.
2. Across-the-board AP revisions to reduce armor save modifiers in general. Not likely, especially given how GW's current approach to balance is apparently to hand out AP modifiers like candy.
3. Give them a 1+ save, which is functionally equivalent to 'reduce incoming AP by 1', except without requiring yet another bespoke special rule.

I think #3 is thematically fitting and probably the most useful in the current AP environment.