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So I'm playing DW, and I was wondering when should I use TH/SS and when should I use LC. Any help is appreciated.

TH/SS against AP2-attacks or models with a 2+ and vehicles.
LC against anything else.

My favourite option is to go 2x TH/SS and 3x LC.
I put the shields in front to soak the shooting and run towards anything 3+ or worse.

What about facing DE? Because they are weak so LC will excel but they also have a lot of AP 2 weapons in which the SS can save me.

I usually put 2 TH/SS, 1 LC, 1 AC/PF (or SB/PF/CM), and sarge. LC are nice to have when you find yourself against any significant numbers.

LC: Never

TH/SS: 1-2/squad.

Yeah. Take a THSS when you want your terminator to survive, and then kill whatever it touches. Use LCs when you can't figure out what bolters do.

With DA it's a little different, as you have some decent shooting options, but those who aren't shooting...

As other people have said, I wouldn't take LC's, IMO they lose too much compared to a power fist.
Furthermore if you are using a pure Deathwing army then you need to get as much dakka as you can into your small force, so losing storm bolters for little if any return is a no-no.

TH/SS can be good at any time, melee or shooting, terminators naturally attract ap 1 & 2 attacks. So the SS helps protect your points.
(If I could I'd put it on the sergeant, though DA players are still waiting for some confirmation on the new FAQ).

If I was making a pure assault terminator squad, it would be all hammers, with one guy special weapon/CF.
That or just some Deathwing knights.

Vs DE I'd still stick with TH/SS. The reason being that you will always have the lower initiative. So striking at I1 with hammer or PF's is not a disadvantage.
Also incubi AP2 attacks will wreck SS termies pretty quick.

Sadly lightning claws on terminators are not the rapid fire slash of kill everything like in DOW 2, I'd avoid them unless your enemy has absolutely no AP2, 2+ saves, anything with an AV, and anything with toughness 6 or better in the entire army.

Which means...no competetive list I've ever seen. The TH/SS combo gives you so much more, and with their good toughness, WS, and amazing saves you really don't care about going last. The only thing dual LCs have over hammernators is an addiitional attack and being better at wounding T3 and below units.

But honestly if your assault terminators are stuck chewing through Gants something has gone horribly wrong.

If your opponents uses vehicle: go TH
If your oppenents uses ap2 weapons: go TH
If your opponents uses 2+ armour: go TH
If your opponents uses multiwound T3 or T4 units: go TH
If your opponents uses initiative 5 or higher: go TH
If your opponents uses cover to hide behind: go TH
If your opponents uses mass 3+ melee infantry on foot slogging towards you: go LC

LC terminators are really bad. With Deathwing you pay extra for split fire and twin linked guns wich makes them even worse.
The only army usning LC that I can see is BA if they roll furious charge on them. But in 6th the initiative was nerfed.

So I should really avoid LC in general. But the only problem I have is with both, is that they lose their bolters which is very helpful for DW and their TL. So my question is, is it worth it?

Just my opinion but I would almost never use either. SB and PF is more tactical, has use upon DS, and has a barly measurable loss in survive ability and CC punch.

I would generally only put 1 at most in each squad (optimally the sergeant as he would lose a power sword, instead of a PF, this depends if your opponent allows your to ignore the poorly written FAQ).

That is with a pure DW army though, you just cant afford to lose too many shots. Also it is more difficult to use SS in 6th edition. To catch those ap 1 & 2 shots they must be at the front...but if you roll a 1 they will also be the first to die to normal fire (and lose you those extra points). As the player who fires chooses which wounds are resolved first, this is more likely to happen.

Others might have different views if using them as part of a non DW army.

What I've said is of course total rubbish if you are making a terminator assault squad. In which case 4x TH/SS, 1x HF/AC/CML & CF.

In my 1k DW list I only sometimes use TH/SS, and that is on Belial.

Big Blind Bill wrote:
As the player who fires chooses which wounds are resolved first, this is more likely to happen.

Are you sure the shooter chooses and not the player rolling saves? If you are right my group have been doing it wrong for months. No rulebook at hand to look it up myself ATM. It really only mattera in a few specific aituations but I would rather be doing it right when those situations arise.

I believe I read it in the BRB, but I don't have mine with me atm sorry.

If someone could quote the book for us please?

Yeah it's definitely the shooting player, but I too don't have the book to hand.

 Insane Smile wrote:
What about facing DE? Because they are weak so LC will excel but they also have a lot of AP 2 weapons in which the SS can save me.

DE you want the TH/SS.

Lots of AP2 weapons
Virtually everything in the codex strikes before init4 anyway
Str8 negates FNP, LC do not. So +1 attack is always worse than denying FNP.
Against Coven of flesh, higher strength is better than reroll to wound

Neither option is very good though. Against their dakka Teq cost more than twice as much as meq and die exactly half as fast.

I find that LCs are great against Orks and Nids. Against anyone else, though, you'll want to take... Literally anything else. They're not that great of an option unless you are guaranteed to take very little AP2 and lots of models.

Space marines are for the most part not focused on CC. If you are playing Nids or Orcs and have MC's or Meganobs bearing down on you, then I'd pick TH/SS as my dedicated CC unit. The average grunts and boys are more simple to get rid of than t6 grizzlies or Fnp T4 models.

Waaaghpower wrote:
I find that LCs are great against Orks and Nids. Against anyone else, though, you'll want to take... Literally anything else. They're not that great of an option unless you are guaranteed to take very little AP2 and lots of models.

and yet orks have 2+ saves and lots of AP2 power klaws. Nids have high T monsterous creaters and rending everywhere.

LC are for your mass of attacks Meq. 20 death company or khorne zerkers will crush even a 10 strong TH/SS terminator squad. 10 will similarly wreck a 5 man. The LC dont really stop them from crushing you but they take a few models with them.


Still that is a very very select few times where it would be useful

 Exergy wrote:

Waaaghpower wrote:
I find that LCs are great against Orks and Nids. Against anyone else, though, you'll want to take... Literally anything else. They're not that great of an option unless you are guaranteed to take very little AP2 and lots of models.

and yet orks have 2+ saves and lots of AP2 power klaws. Nids have high T monsterous creaters and rending everywhere.

LC are for your mass of attacks Meq. 20 death company or khorne zerkers will crush even a 10 strong TH/SS terminator squad. 10 will similarly wreck a 5 man. The LC dont really stop them from crushing you but they take a few models with them.


Still that is a very very select few times where it would be useful

Orks only have one way of getting 2+ armor. If you're facing them at all, you should have something that can deal with them besides your termies.
Tyranids similarly have only 2 people that get a 2+, and while high toughness can be bad you still re roll wounds. By the way, define rending 'Everywhere,' most every list I see has an extreme lack of it.

Waaaghpower wrote:

 Exergy wrote:

Waaaghpower wrote:
I find that LCs are great against Orks and Nids. Against anyone else, though, you'll want to take... Literally anything else. They're not that great of an option unless you are guaranteed to take very little AP2 and lots of models.

and yet orks have 2+ saves and lots of AP2 power klaws. Nids have high T monsterous creaters and rending everywhere.

LC are for your mass of attacks Meq. 20 death company or khorne zerkers will crush even a 10 strong TH/SS terminator squad. 10 will similarly wreck a 5 man. The LC dont really stop them from crushing you but they take a few models with them.
Still that is a very very select few times where it would be useful

Orks only have one way of getting 2+ armor. If you're facing them at all, you should have something that can deal with them besides your termies.
Tyranids similarly have only 2 people that get a 2+, and while high toughness can be bad you still re roll wounds. By the way, define rending 'Everywhere,' most every list I see has an extreme lack of it.

Orks have 3 units with 2+ saves, meganobz, megawarboss and ghazzy. Meganobs are also succeptable to str8 ID so I am liking TH here. Killing a few more boyz is nice, but can you kill the PK nob? If you arent running TH/SS, he might kill the sergeant in a challenge and then even if your LC termies are killing 5 boyz a turn if the nob is killing 1 LC terminator a turn the orks are happy.

Nid MCs are all AP2
Lots of them are T6. Would you rather wound them on 6s with a reroll or 2s? Would you rather have a 5++ or a 3++? With lash whips its not like you are striking anywhere close to first anyway. Is that really worth +1 attack?
shredding guants might sound nice, but I dont think a nid player really cares if you shred his guants.

I mean, thinking about it for a moment, when would you ever want a set of lightning claws?

Both examples I can think of are in the CSM codex. The first is with warp talons, who come with an invul save, and are fast enough to run away from things with an Sv2+, and MoK terminators, where their claws are S5 on the charge, which means you can much more seriously pile wounds on monstrous creatures and can actually hurt vehicles.

Even then, though, that's pretty thin. Not many people take warp talons, and CSM termies are better with combi weapons...

Ooh! If taking Tyberios from the Badab War, you could stick him with 5 LC Termis as he makes them troops. That's it. Take THSS.

Ok, so I think we've laid to rest the Hammers>Lc argument here. But this is only half the answer.

As the OP said he is running a DW army, so is free to mix and match weapon combinations in a squad. So the next question becomes how many TH/SS per squad?

I posted earlier that I would recommend a max of 1 per squad, but to be honest I wouldn't normally take that. Only if a squad is designed to get close to the enemy (deep strike Belial HF for example) and is expecting str 8+ ap 1&2 weapons would I consider it. (Also vs heavy high AP pie plate spam lists, but then again if you are running DW against this, you are going to have a bad time anyway.) If not then the SB would get more use, and those 5 points saved quickly add up for more/ better special weapons/ wargear.

I run a 15 man + Belial DW army at 1k points. The DW squads don't use TH/SS. Those points allow me to get 2 CML's and a plasma cannon. If I took TH/SS, then I'd have to downgrade the heavy weapons.

I also wouldn't know how to use the TH/SS guy effectively in 6th ed either. Sure if you get into CC with a MC then its hands down better over a powerfist. But for a lot of the game the guy is not hurting the enemy, and then there's the dilemma of where to place him in the squad. You can't really protect the unit from AP1&2 shots anymore with the new wound allocation rules. So are players simply leaving the TH/SS at the back on the squad, waiting for MC's or tough challenges?

Anyone else's thoughts on this?

I put 2 LC termies in a DW command squad with DW banner. And a chappy. Together they pump out 10 ap3 attacks on the charge that reroll to hit and to wound, on top of 3 other termies and the chappy.

 The Shrike wrote:
LC: Never

TH/SS: 1-2/squad.

Agreed completely, at 5 points for each I'd rather have a shild protecting my other termis with that 3++

But with new rules for targeting how often would that "shield' be removed by bolter fire before the ap 1 & 2 are resolved. Last edition sure, it was a good way to save your investment, now you could just be making it more expensive when you roll a 1.

I would say 0-1 at most for a non-CC dedicated unit.

I put 2 LC termies in a DW command squad with DW banner. And a chappy. Together they pump out 10 ap3 attacks on the charge that reroll to hit and to wound, on top of 3 other termies and the chappy.

If you want ap3 attacks with a command squad, just swap an Interrogator Chaplain's ranged weapon for the Mace of Redemption. 5 ap3, str 7 attacks that cause blind right there. The rest of guys would be better with TH/SS and PF/BS. Using your example, could still put out 8 re-rollable str 8 ap 2 hits.

Big Blind Bill wrote:
But with new rules for targeting how often would that "shield' be removed by bolter fire before the ap 1 & 2 are resolved. Last edition sure, it was a good way to save your investment, now you could just be making it more expensive when you roll a 1.

I would say 0-1 at most for a non-CC dedicated unit.

that has happened to me several times but at the same time with new eldar mass ap2 ive had it work in my favor several times.

Seems that if you're worried about TH/SS being sniped out, wouldn't it make more sense to have them with the whole squad?
As much as I like the LC, it doesn't have a purpose, for me anyway.

I like a lC guy hiding somewhere in the army when I run DW, because he's just as good a bullet sponge as a SB/PF guy most of the time, and then some idiot let's me into melee against his GEQ one game in every ten or so and he goes mental. Or he backs off assault teams that would otherwise flood the squad in bodies to go after harder charges on other teams, letting that team get onto an objective later etc.

No more than 0-1 per army, though, unless list tailoring (enemy brining nothing but PA marines? LC belial is GO)