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Ok so after a couple of games facing my friend's thunder hammer/ss assault terminators (led by Vulkan), I've come to think that these guys are just drop dead scary. I am working on a Vulkan list myself, but after watching his unit wipeout my Hive Tyrant and Carnifex in one turn i've begun to see the strengths of these guys.

I was just wanting to open some discussion on how to effectively use a unit like this and the pitfalls/weaknesses of such a unit as well.

The only thing a hitty unit of doom like that has to fear, would be co-ordinated mass fire. And by "mass fire", I'm thinking two platoons of "FRF! SRF!" lasguns...

Hello, and welcome to the rock-paper-scissors section of 40K tactics. You have selected the slow moving, expensive rock unit which generally crushes things which cost less than it does, but which is undone by masses of cheap infantry.

5 thunderhammer terminators versus 15 daemonettes or 30 Boyz? It's a coin toss, but whoever wins, there'll be less terminators at the end.

5 Thunderhammernators is double the cost of 30 boyz, isnt it?

Better make it 60 boyz then.

Never charge a unit of Bloodcrushers with this unit... you'll be dead before you get your hits back.

Boyz? As an ork player, I'm not going to assault thunderhammer terminators with a unit of boyz. Unless they're Initiative 1? If they are, 30 boyz getting 120 attacks, landing 60 of them, wounding on 30 of them....the terminators are going to fail 4.8 of them on average and lose 4 terminators before striking back.

If they go in initiative order, I know that the orks will still come out ahead on points cost (especially when you factor in the nob's powerklaw striking too). But my answer to units like this is basically Ghazghkull Thraka. He's got a 2+ invulnerable save on the Waaaugh! and 7 powerklaw attacks, and is invulnerable to instant death. Thunderhammers aren't going to kill him, he's going to kill a couple of terminators on his turn and the following enemy turn, and then I'm going to counter-assault those terminators with more powerklaws or burnas, and do it in such a way that there's only 1 or 2 terminators in base contact at most to minimize the damage I take.

Thunderhammers are indeed I1.

You SHOULD win combat against 5, and then wipe them out next turn. Ignoring that klaw of death-like death.

EDIT: Assuming all of your boyz got out on the emergency disembark without splattering...

EDIT2: And also assuming the SPESS MAHRINE player (Hurr?) isnt a moron, and didnt get his thunderhammernators out of their land raider/drop pod/teleporting deep strike in the wrong place and let you charge him for no reason...

Da Okz Rulz!

Dashofpepper wrote:Boyz? As an ork player, I'm not going to assault thunderhammer terminators with a unit of boyz. Unless they're Initiative 1? If they are, 30 boyz getting 120 attacks, landing 60 of them, wounding on 30 of them....the terminators are going to fail 4.8 of them on average and lose 4 terminators before striking back.

If they go in initiative order, I know that the orks will still come out ahead on points cost (especially when you factor in the nob's powerklaw striking too). But my answer to units like this is basically Ghazghkull Thraka. He's got a 2+ invulnerable save on the Waaaugh! and 7 powerklaw attacks, and is invulnerable to instant death. Thunderhammers aren't going to kill him, he's going to kill a couple of terminators on his turn and the following enemy turn, and then I'm going to counter-assault those terminators with more powerklaws or burnas, and do it in such a way that there's only 1 or 2 terminators in base contact at most to minimize the damage I take.

I would be pretty impressed to see the Ork-pile required to actually get 120 attacks in on a unit of about 5 Terminators.

Yes, usually when boys are that tighly packed my thunderfire kills a few of them. The trick with assault terminators when facing orks is to tank shock the boys squads with the land raider you are transporting the terminators in and then unleashing the terminators against more squishy units like lootas or nob bikers. Good luck with that AR 14 tank shocking through the lines moving at 12 inchs per turn.