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Ok so maybe this is bending over backwards to make a sub-par unit work, but I think terminators might have a legitimate place in White Scars lists and I was wondering what people's experience was with this combination.

I've heard of people making assault termies work, but I'm thinking shooty termies could work well too. The plan would be to take a blob of 10 and a terminator librarian with a storm shield and plume of the plainsrunner. Then you can deep strike them, cast storm wreathed and ride the wind, shoot 40 S4 shots at 24" range that can be hitting on 2s with the strat and can be ap-1 depending on what turn it is, then charge while taking no overwatch and only needing a 6 (on 3d6 pick the highest with the strat if you absolutely need to make it). Then you have 27 powerfist attacks plus the sergeant, the libby if he makes it in, and 10 chances to do mortal wounds on 6s as you arrive in combat. Seems pretty versatile for both anti-horde and anti-armour

Then you can use transhuman to make them more survivable and being white scars they can get around termies' usual problem of being slow. Not to mention the teleport homer is a fun if a bit cornercase option to have for free.

Looks solid to me, but I am apparently just a noob, who hasn't even heard that termies are supposed to be "sub-par" now. Big termie unit is a lot of points, so maybe you could cheese even harder with something with the "Primaris" tag on it, but these guys would be a tough nut to chew on for most of the stuff that I have faced so far in my meta.

Centurions would do that better.

The closest equivalent to 10 Termies w/Stormbolter/Powerfist in damage diversity would likely be a 6-man Centurion squad with missile launchers. That's on average 12 S8 damage from the missiles vs 27 from the termies melee attack, and those missiles come from an almost 15% more expensive unit. The Centurions win out on anti-infantry dakka, by a lot, but if the intention is just to get rid of a screen to then finish off a vehicle or some other big tough blob, the termies deliver more punch. (always check my numbers, I am bad at math and reading)

Or do you have a different load-out for the Centurions in mind?

 AuntHerbert wrote:
The closest equivalent to 10 Termies w/Stormbolter/Powerfist in damage diversity would likely be a 6-man Centurion squad with missile launchers. That's on average 12 S8 damage from the missiles vs 27 from the termies melee attack, and those missiles come from an almost 15% more expensive unit. The Centurions win out on anti-infantry dakka, by a lot, but if the intention is just to get rid of a screen to then finish off a vehicle or some other big tough blob, the termies deliver more punch. (always check my numbers, I am bad at math and reading)

Or do you have a different load-out for the Centurions in mind?

Assault Centurions are cheap and HOLY HELL do they pack a punch in Close Combat.

OK, how do you get them to deepstrike? Is there a stratagem for that, that you have in mind?
Transport maybe?

 AuntHerbert wrote:
OK, how do you get them to deepstrike? Is there a stratagem for that, that you have in mind?
Transport maybe?

I thought that was what the Relic did.

I do not own the White Scars supplement. If they cannot deep strike, then yeah, that's an issue.

Nah, at least the one that OP chose just adds 1 to the charge roll. Termies and chars in termie armour have natural deepstrike. There is probably a good way to drop Centurions from a flyer or put them into a drop pod, but that's a whole other load of points.
So far that blanket statement that "Centurions are better" just sounds lazy and wrong.

 AuntHerbert wrote:
Nah, at least the one that OP chose just adds 1 to the charge roll. Termies and chars in termie armour have natural deepstrike. There is probably a good way to drop Centurions from a flyer or something, but that's a whole other load of points.

Okay, fair.

I used the Ravenguard Assault Centurion bomb a few times. I stopped even before it got nerfed, because my community ain't that hardcore, and I felt bad using it.

 JNAProductions wrote:

 AuntHerbert wrote:
Nah, at least the one that OP chose just adds 1 to the charge roll. Termies and chars in termie armour have natural deepstrike. There is probably a good way to drop Centurions from a flyer or something, but that's a whole other load of points.

Okay, fair.

I used the Ravenguard Assault Centurion bomb a few times. I stopped even before it got nerfed, because my community ain't that hardcore, and I felt bad using it.

How did you get them into contact? Storm Eagle?

 AuntHerbert wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:

 AuntHerbert wrote:
Nah, at least the one that OP chose just adds 1 to the charge roll. Termies and chars in termie armour have natural deepstrike. There is probably a good way to drop Centurions from a flyer or something, but that's a whole other load of points.

Okay, fair.

I used the Ravenguard Assault Centurion bomb a few times. I stopped even before it got nerfed, because my community ain't that hardcore, and I felt bad using it.

How did you get them into contact? Storm Eagle?

There's a Warlord Trait for Ravenguard that lets you deploy a unit and the Warlord 9" from any enemies and their deployment zone.

It's been errata'd to disallow Centurions, but it used to allow them.

So, they start 9" from enemy models/deployment zone.
Waddle up 4", leaving them 5" away.
Unload with a crapton of gun.
Charge and murderize everything else.

Yepp, that sounds scary. Good to know it doesn't work on Cents if I ever run into Ravenguard.

Ok glad to hear that I'm not coming too far out of left field and that this plan could work. I'm mostly asking just because I think termies are cool and I want to build a White Scars list with some assault punch and some versatility.

And yeah I agree the centurions are crazy strong and probably better than termies most of the time, they might not be as reliable here for the points though. White Scars can outflank any unit for 1CP but outflanking is harder to use to get them into combat than deep striking. If my opponent knows I have 6 cents in reserve they'll stay far away from the table edges — which of course could be a benefit in itself but I do like the natural deepstrike on the terminators.

Plus the whole 10 man unit and the libby come in at under 500 points!

 AuntHerbert wrote:
Nah, at least the one that OP chose just adds 1 to the charge roll. Termies and chars in termie armour have natural deepstrike. There is probably a good way to drop Centurions from a flyer or put them into a drop pod, but that's a whole other load of points.
So far that blanket statement that "Centurions are better" just sounds lazy and wrong.

Uh Centurions outflank for a single CP with White Scars. That's honestly just as good as the natural Deep Strike the Terminators have overall. So yeah it isn't a lazy statement. Plus Centurions, if trying to use them as a Deathstar like with the Terninators here, are getting so much more out of those Strats. Hurricane Bolters becoming Assault 6 for a full squad is MUCH better than Storm Bolters becoming Assault 2 (oh and they naturally ignore cover, oh and with that advancing you can probably shoot those Flamers). Free -1 to hit on a W4 T5 model? Yep absolutely. Master Crafted Hurricane Bolter OR a Drill? LOL okay dinky Power Fist.


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 TheArchmagos wrote:
Ok glad to hear that I'm not coming too far out of left field and that this plan could work. I'm mostly asking just because I think termies are cool and I want to build a White Scars list with some assault punch and some versatility.

And yeah I agree the centurions are crazy strong and probably better than termies most of the time, they might not be as reliable here for the points though. White Scars can outflank any unit for 1CP but outflanking is harder to use to get them into combat than deep striking. If my opponent knows I have 6 cents in reserve they'll stay far away from the table edges — which of course could be a benefit in itself but I do like the natural deepstrike on the terminators.

Plus the whole 10 man unit and the libby come in at under 500 points!

Uh 6 Centurions and a Libarbarian would be under 500 points too, so that's not an argument in your favor.

The only thing that irritates me: I always thought the point in playing White Scars was a fable for painting a ton of bikes white and following up with some speeders/flyers. A bunch of white termies, that aren't from Deathwatch somehow triggers my OCD. It feels.... weird? Talking about Deathwatch... have you checked how well Dark Angels do at whatever you want to pull off? They paint their bikes black and wear robes, but their preferred fighting style has a lot of overlap with White Scars..At least with White Scar Termies.


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Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
...outflank .... is honestly just as good as .... Deep Strike

Ahm... nope? Def not for units with move stat of 4.

Also, which Cents are you even talking about? The assault ones or the devastator ones? And what lay-out is also quite important, when you want to compare costs. Cents are better than Termies in a lot of ways, but not in all ways.

Look, I'm by no means arguing that this is going to somehow be more competitive than centurions. I've seen the tournament lists that were sweeping the meta. The 500pts things wasn't meant to prove that they're better than cents at all, just that while it isn't cheap, points-wise, this terminator bomb isn't prohibitively costed and I can still have a decent army to support them. All I'm asking is would this terminator bomb be decent.

In terms of white scars versus deathwing (I assume you meant deathwing and not deathwatch?) there's definitely some cool stuff in DA but I've always liked White Scars. Also, don't worry there are 7 bikes in my current list and I'm trying to squeeze in 11, possibly 14!

Ahmm, yepp, Deathwing, Ravenwing, not Deathwatch and Ravenguard, certainly not Death Guard.... Are there some reoccurring thems in chapter names,... maybe? Are the Raven Watch traitor, or loyalists or just a bunch of Swiss clockmakers?

 AuntHerbert wrote:
The only thing that irritates me: I always thought the point in playing White Scars was a fable for painting a ton of bikes white and following up with some speeders/flyers. A bunch of white termies, that aren't from Deathwatch somehow triggers my OCD. It feels.... weird? Talking about Deathwatch... have you checked how well Dark Angels do at whatever you want to pull off? They paint their bikes black and wear robes, but their preferred fighting style has a lot of overlap with White Scars..At least with White Scar Termies.


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Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
...outflank .... is honestly just as good as .... Deep Strike

Ahm... nope? Def not for units with move stat of 4.

Also, which Cents are you even talking about? The assault ones or the devastator ones? And what lay-out is also quite important, when you want to compare costs. Cents are better than Termies in a lot of ways, but not in all ways.

Terminators have a move stat of 5", which is no better for a unit that expensive sorry. Either way, both can advance and charge, and have Strats to support shooting with their weapons. The key difference though is Centurions are better, period.
Also the only Centurions to talk about are Assault ones. Devastator ones are neat only for the Grav Strat (which honestly you could do Grav Devs and just not lose much but if you're banking on being unkillable you'll need the Suit).

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Terminators have a move stat of 5"

OK, I can't talk slowly to you, but you might want to read slowly: My argument was, that Deep Strike is actually quite a lot better than Outflank, especially on a rather slow unit like Cents. That Termies aren't great sprinters either isn't at all important to that argument, as they have proper Deepstrike.
If you are talking about Assault Centurions with 2xFlamers and Siege Drills, the dakka on Hurricane Bolters is likewise irrellevant, unless you want to pay 10 pts extra per model and sacrifice the Assault Launcher. The main weakness of Assault Centurions is still, that they are slow footsloggers with a very low threat range, that take up a lot of space in transports. That is also, but to a lesser degree, true for Termies, but they got their teleport shenanigans to make somewhat good for it, and that 5++ is also in their favor.
Do I want to tell you, that Centurions are bad? No! But Termies do have their strength, and if someone considers using them in his army, a half-sentence bomb like "Cents are better" just gives me the rash. I have written some lengthy words about that special skin condition, which you can find here: .https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/787924.page

I would always pay for the Hurricane Bolters. A few mortals is nothing compared to their CC Potential, and 12 Bolt Shots per guy is a big deal.

As much as I appreciate the advice that centurions are better, the point of the discussion wasn't to debate on what is better than the terminator bomb idea, but simply to discuss how useful it would be and how to best implement it. It's valid that there is an opportunity cost to taking them over centurions, but I don't need to be convinced that centurions are good.

So, yes, if you're trying to win a GT, by all means take cents. I've seen them do work for white scars, but that's not what we're talking about here.

I am trying to imagine the situation, where your shooty bomb variant works best, and I might have discovered kind of a flaw?

OK, let's assume there is some type of castle on the board, a big, threatening, tanky target, that asks to have a lot of powerfists and bonus mortal wounds applied to his face, but it is screened with some kind of bubblewrap unit. You find a spot to teleport in within 9" of that screen. Your librarian hits both his spells...
Are you sure, you even want to shoot at thr screen then? You got a 3"+2d6 (best of 3d6) charge move, but while you only need 9" to reach that screen, there is probably extra space between that screen and your target.
It might be wiser to just charge the screen and then spend 2 CP on that 3+d3" consolidate move, to get into the centre of that castle. But if that is your go-to plan, pure melee termies might be better equipped to execute it. Sure, you can maybe shoot something else instead, just to advance your attrition game, but that doesn't help you with your main objective.

The appeal of your concept at first glance seems to be the versatility. Anti-infantry AND anti-tank, some dakka and some melee combined, but is that really optimal for executing it from deepstrike? 10 Termies and a Librarian are a sizeable part of your force, they need to kill a lot to pull their weight. General anti-hordes activities shouldn't be a problem for your bike-squad(s), I think that termie strike needs to concentrate as much power as possible to deal a crippling blow. Maybe a mix of melee weapons on assault termies would do better? Those stormbolters alone aren't that impressive, anyway, the stormfists are much more likely to swing the battle, if you manage to get them onto the right target Plus, those White Scar buffs you listed all pretty much benefit the charge, not the shooting.

If you got a different idea on how to use those termies, please elaborate.

To be fair, 24" is plenty of range.

But, then again, once you hit T3, Lightning Claws suddenly start looking a LOT better-going from D1 to D2 is much bigger improvement than Dd3 to Dd3+1 or D3 to D4.

 AuntHerbert wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Terminators have a move stat of 5"

OK, I can't talk slowly to you, but you might want to read slowly: My argument was, that Deep Strike is actually quite a lot better than Outflank, especially on a rather slow unit like Cents. That Termies aren't great sprinters either isn't at all important to that argument, as they have proper Deepstrike.
If you are talking about Assault Centurions with 2xFlamers and Siege Drills, the dakka on Hurricane Bolters is likewise irrellevant, unless you want to pay 10 pts extra per model and sacrifice the Assault Launcher. The main weakness of Assault Centurions is still, that they are slow footsloggers with a very low threat range, that take up a lot of space in transports. That is also, but to a lesser degree, true for Termies, but they got their teleport shenanigans to make somewhat good for it, and that 5++ is also in their favor.
Do I want to tell you, that Centurions are bad? No! But Termies do have their strength, and if someone considers using them in his army, a half-sentence bomb like "Cents are better" just gives me the rash. I have written some lengthy words about that special skin condition, which you can find here: .https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/787924.page

I'm not reading your rambling post.

The 4" move doesn't matter because of the Outflank Strat. You are super close to the enemy to shoot them and advance/charge. Nobody is taking the Assault Launchers, everyone is taking the Hurricane Bolters, which is 3× the shots of the Terminators alone, not counting the Flamers! Their firepower is more absurd, period. Their melee is a LOT more consistent, period.

It doesn't matter how much better Deep Strike is when it's on a unit that vastly underperforms in the first place. When you can get basically the same equivalent for a single CP, it is literally absurd just to not go that route.

Slayer, the OP has made clear that 1) they want to use Terminators and 2) they know Centurions are better.

Yelling stuff they already know, and just don't care about, doesn't help anything.

 JNAProductions wrote:
Slayer, the OP has made clear that 1) they want to use Terminators and 2) they know Centurions are better.

Yelling stuff they already know, and just don't care about, doesn't help anything.

well if they're hellbent that bad on terminators they might as well go the Assault variant route.

 AuntHerbert wrote:

If you are talking about Assault Centurions with 2xFlamers and Siege Drills, the dakka on Hurricane Bolters is likewise irrellevant, unless you want to pay 10 pts extra per model and sacrifice the Assault Launcher. The main weakness of Assault Centurions is still, that they are slow footsloggers with a very low threat range, that take up a lot of space in transports. That is also, but to a lesser degree, true for Termies, but they got their teleport shenanigans to make somewhat good for it, and that 5++ is also in their favor.
Do I want to tell you, that Centurions are bad? No! But Termies do have their strength, and if someone considers using them in his army, a half-sentence bomb like "Cents are better" just gives me the rash.[/url]

Centurion assault launchers are gak compared to hurricane bolters. 6 flamer/hurricane Cents 276 pts, 10 Terminators w. 9 PF and 1 PS are 335 pts. 72 shots ignoring cover vs 40 shots. 25 thunder hammers hitting on 3+ (16,7 hits) vs 27 powerfists hitting on 4+ (13,5 hits) and 4 power swords hitting on 3+ (who cares it's S4 D1). The flamers are just gravy in case you ever get into a situation where they are usable. With the exception of melta weapons Centurions are tougher as well, did I mention they're 59 pts cheaper? That more than makes up for the 1CP you're spending. Outflank is not as powerful as deepstrike, but deepstrike isn't that powerful to begin with and if you're thinking of Centurion Assault Squads as a melee unit that is useless if it drops down on a flank and never gets into melee you're wrong, they're an amazing shooting unit and if all they do is put out 72 shots every turn they're still great. On top of that, they zone out a small area of the board that your enemy doesn't want to go near because they're so damn scary in melee on top of being one of the most amazing shooting units in the game. They don't need a transport, they pay 1CP to outflank. 5++ on top of a 2+ almost never comes up, T5 vs T4 though?

 JNAProductions wrote:
Slayer, the OP has made clear that 1) they want to use Terminators and 2) they know Centurions are better.

Yelling stuff they already know, and just don't care about, doesn't help anything.

If you want to use Terminators use them, but if they're clearly worse than another similar choice then they are not viable which is the title question of the thread. The answer is that shooty Terminators do not have a place in your list unless you really like Terminators and you aren't too fussed about how competitive they are. Terminators are clearly much better than they were in the index days, that doesn't make them viable.

I think at the moment the only viable use of Terminator is TH/SS in Salamander Chapter, stack up resilience buff on them used to protect the Flamer Agressors behind them.

The one way I’ve seen white scars use terminators well is equipped with lightning claws. Same general strategy the OP is suggesting, but instead of shooting it’s just claws and using characters for strength/wounding buffs. 4 attacks per model on the charge that re-roll wounds at damage 2. It’s not hitting as hard as siege drills or thunder hammers but it’s consistent damage output and can blend medium-tier units like primaris marines or T6/7 vehicles.