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Currently terminators and other 2W models are quite a predicament.

With the translation of elite infantries (termies, bikers) into 8th as well as introduction to primaris, termies have no place whatsoever in the game currently.

Termies cost 28 pt bare with mandatory 22 pt upgrade via fist and sb.
Reivers cost 20 pt including grav chute
Intersessors cost 20 pt with bolt rifle

All have same stat line with termies having 1 worse M and 2+/5++ save.

How do we make termies viable again and precisely what role do they fill now?

Yeah, even in 3rd they were 42pts before receiving the 5++ so given that armor is more easily degradable, I don't think an 8pt drop on their base cost would go amiss considering the required upgrades...

Power Fists got a lot cheaper in the Codex.

My Terminators always do the work. Just don't put them near plasmaguns.

I normally run 5-15, sometimes kitted for close combat with dual powerclaws, other for dakkadakka with Stormbolters and Powerfists. I use them as a tactical scalpel. Drop them in turn 2-3 where they can do the most damage. Never, never, put them in turn 1 in front of the enemy.

My response is that, when used correctly, Terminators can be viable. They're more difficult to use than other options, which gives the impression that they're not worth as many points, but in the right circumstances they're great. They're a rock, you've got to use them against scissors.

That said, you can't really make them tougher. Even if you did, it doesn't solve the issue of massed fire taking them down. Without a reroll to their save, there's no real way to make them better against small arms. And a reroll is not palatable.

So, yes, you drop the points to make them more appealing. They are a unit that carries legacy costing.

terms just need a 4++ save and +1 attack for no point increase and they would be pretty good.

The ones in the codex are alright, but the Tactical Terminators still need two heavy weapons per 5. Assault ones are at least decent now but I don't know how you could really make them great at this point. Still rocking them regardless.

Terminators are a good unit. I don't play SM but wolf guard terminators are quite solid and SW don't even have the codex yet. I always run them as a choppy unit.

Termis are heavy infantry and should have T5. Look at the other heavy infantry like inceptors, aggressors, centurions, they all have T5. Or a point reduction.

The problem is not the 2W models. It is the cheap smite and plasma that is too good.

If plasma was only damage 1 and all full smiting psykers were 60+ points, then 2W models like bikes, terminators, primaris-marines and such would instantly become more viable.

p5freak wrote:
Termis are heavy infantry and should have T5. Look at the other heavy infantry like inceptors, aggressors, centurions, they all have T5. Or a point reduction.

Not being T5 is the head scratcher for me certainly.

The issue with just dropping their point cost is that it puts them in more direct competition with less elite options and likely results in them being the better/worse option in the same role rather than filling a distinct niche.

Strictly per viable battlefield role, Termies are sort of "tactical elite infantry" where they can be very strong in a particular situation (which makes them elite in the sense they are niche units) while not particularly excelling at certain aspects of a phase.

Take for example:
-centurion devs & agressors are about adding fire power, where one excels at using heavy and the other assault weapons.
-centurion assault are about adding heavy melee/short range punch, but subjected to nerf via new droppod restrictions.

Depending on the load out of the termies, they start to sit in the middle of available heavy/elite infantries available in the game where they have decent shooting and assault capabilities. Using their deep strike capabilties, they can deliver the hurt where need be. They are indeed a good unit when used right - the problem is, they cost too much to build up to a critical mass, and in my experience, you need about 10~15 + a character in Termie armor. With equipments, they clock in roughly 800~1000 points for fairly fragile units that needs to be used with surgical precision.

Raising their durability begins to compete with other elite slots (as others have stated).

I feel like 35~37 pt for a standard load out termies should be appropriate, where a squad of 5 before special weapons would cost somewhere along 175~185pt mark. This would clock in roughly at same rate as fully loaded tac squad. I feel like a dedicated "terminator wing" should be clocking in at about 20~40% of the total army cost, not 40~60%.

Inceptors are at a really weird place right now - I feel like they're more of fluffy units to be used in all jump pack army that lacks anti MEQ/TEQ.

While the extra wound on terminators is nice, it still doesn't feel like a big bonus; I'm not sure I really want them cheaper though, as they're supposed to be elite and relatively rare.

Personally I'd either give them a third wound, Toughness 5, or maybe give them a 0+ armour save, effectively giving them a 2+ save for all weapons with AP -2, -1 or 0, meaning you need minimum AP -3 before their save starts to diminish.

This is basically how fantasy used to handle things like chaos knights who would already have a top tier save with armour + shields, so mounts then effectively made them resistant to modifiers.

Yes, there is a price point at which terminators become worth taking.

Hooboy. It is really difficult to not make a unproductive and caustic comment about you imperials being impossible to please.

Instead, I will say that I agree with Haravikk, at least in part, that it would make sense for terminators to partially negate enemy AP modifiers.

Because their base 5+ invlun is kind of useless, unless they're being hit by melta weaponry. I mean, meganobz have no invlun, and typically get the exact same save as terminators with their 5++.

Matt from miniwargaming made a video early on in 8th where he thought invluns should just negate enemy AP values instead of making a base save, which I thought made some good points.

So, if instead of a 5+ invlun, terminators had a 1+ save (that still fails on 1s), that would actually seem pretty fair to me.

Frankly, I'm a little surprised that no units in the game, that I'm aware of, can cancel out enemy AP values. It seems like a mechanic that's just begging to exist.

If anyone got that rule, Termies seem the ideal candidate.

It felt deliberate on GW's part in not including saves better than 2+, though.

The problem, I think, is that negating AP values becomes pretty broken, pretty quickly.

I mean, +1 to your save is pretty reasonable. It's about the same as a 4++.

But +2 to your save isn't a far jump, and that's pretty much a 3++. hell, it's better, because you still get 2+ saves unless you're being hit by AP3 or better. So it takes a lascannon to be as effective as, say, a heavy bolter is now.

Even so, I would totally be on board with vanilla terminators getting a +1 to save. it seems reasonable, given how useless their 5++ is, generally.

You could consider that from the other end, like eldar guardians would have a 5+ but ignore the first point of AP, so they save on 5+ against heavy bolters, 6+ against plasma.

But the difference between that and just having a 4+ seems not worth the effort.

I feel like they lack a solid offensive punch and are not really survivable.

If termie storm bolters had a -1 AP I feel they would be much more useful.

The idea of 2x heavy weapons in a squad of 5 would be great, opening up the heavy weapon options would go a long way to make them viable (deep striking grav cannons please).

Their guns seem to be good against hordes and their melee seems suited to elites. They get killed equally well by either.

Make their invuln a 4++, I'd love for assault termies to have some sort of unique CCW (+1s, -2 AP, 2d lightning claws)

T5 would really help against volume of fire from s3-4 weapons.

They couldn't have all of these options but something needs to be done because I never see them at my fairly competitive local meta. They have no role that a different unit doesn't do better for cheaper.

Anti-hord loadout. ap -1 storm bolters and -1 ap chainswords (+1 attack, get rid of power fist)
Heavy loadout, 2x heavy weapons per 5, open up heavy weapon options (keep power fists?)
Assault termies: +1s, ap-2, 2d lightning claws (4++ invuln)
T5

I can't play 4++ termis because there is no game involved - at present there is a game for the opponent in maneuvering their ap -3 weapons to hit the terminators while the terminators try to avoid it, and you have to choose whether to use high volume shots or high ap, and figure out if it's worth it to use the ap weapons against them or against a different unit.

To increase that strategy element instead of decreasing it, I think scrub units like guardsmen should get a penalty when shooting at veteran units like terminators, like -1 to hit if a cultist or guardsman is shooting a terminator or exarch. That increases the kinds of choices - can you drop your terminators near guardsmen who they are strong against, or can the enemy move his elite units into place to kill me without the penalty.

2x heavies is an ok idea, for fluff purposes I think they should have to be different guns, but that reduces the power by a lot.

To keep points down, min squad size could be three models with one heavy, then increase to five models with two heavies.

I think you don't see them in tournies simply because most tourny lists don't need a semi-hard counter like them at their price point. Most SM lists in tournies are either gunlines or MEQ spam. Most of what they face either have anti-TEQ weapons in place for that contingency, have enough long-range heavy firepower to deal with them, or aren't particularly vulnerable to a 200+pt unit dropping on a flank to take it over - or at least, no more vulnerable to that than a Tac squad in a Rhino.

With those styles of lists, they can't really force the opponent's hand with just a squad of Termies. And spammed Termies don't work well.

The gunline lists would rather bring more guns. The MEQ/Razor spam doesn't need the variance in target profiles they bring.

You'd need to either make them so shooty that they're OP whenever their toughness/CC is relevant, or so cheap that they can be spammed - either wouldn't work well.

If SM tourny lists were more combined-arms based, you'd probably already see a unit or two in some lists.

But when was the last time in 8th you saw a couple Tac squads, some Devs, and some ASM all in a list that did well at a tourny?

pelicaniforce wrote:
To increase that strategy element instead of decreasing it, I think scrub units like guardsmen should get a penalty when shooting at veteran units like terminators, like -1 to hit if a cultist or guardsman is shooting a terminator or exarch.

Not sure how I feel about a to-Hit penalty for shooting at elites, that just seems weird to me. But in one of the 7th edition Terminator discussions I floated something similar, namely a -1 to-Hit penalty against units that Deep Strike, to represent the fact that terminators have just emerged from the warp in front of your, jump units are coming down from above etc. This gives you at least a single turn of protection to mitigate your inability to reliably charge.

The other issue that came up a lot was the Storm Bolter; at the time I favoured the idea of making Storm Bolters Assault 2/Heavy 4, so that they were better for a stationary unit, and better all the time for Terminators and Dreadnoughts. While Storm Bolters are finally Rapid Fire 2 in 8th, I do think this is still something that would be worth doing, except that I think for Terminator/Dreadnoughts it would need to be in the form of a new profile. In 8th there are quite a lot of options for what a Terminator Storm Bolter profile might look like, for example, they could be made a Pistol 3 weapon for more firepower but also make them less vulnerable to being rushed by hordes, they could have AP-1 due to greater stability/better targeting or such, and so-on, or even a mixture of changes.

In general terminators are a unit where GW needs to go back to the drawing board, as they probably need a combination of these boosts to make them properly fit into marine armies, i.e- 1+ save, -1 to-Hit them after Deep Strike, enhanced Storm Bolter, together would make them worth taking again.

Bharring wrote:
I think you don't see them in tournies simply because most tourny lists don't need a semi-hard counter like them at their price point. Most SM lists in tournies are either gunlines or MEQ spam. Most of what they face either have anti-TEQ weapons in place for that contingency, have enough long-range heavy firepower to deal with them, or aren't particularly vulnerable to a 200+pt unit dropping on a flank to take it over - or at least, no more vulnerable to that than a Tac squad in a Rhino.

With those styles of lists, they can't really force the opponent's hand with just a squad of Termies. And spammed Termies don't work well.

The gunline lists would rather bring more guns. The MEQ/Razor spam doesn't need the variance in target profiles they bring.

You'd need to either make them so shooty that they're OP whenever their toughness/CC is relevant, or so cheap that they can be spammed - either wouldn't work well.

If SM tourny lists were more combined-arms based, you'd probably already see a unit or two in some lists.

But when was the last time in 8th you saw a couple Tac squads, some Devs, and some ASM all in a list that did well at a tourny?

Making them cheaper would work fine. There is a price point at which every unit becomes viable. You may not like that solution, but that's what this game is likely to use, and it's how games like Starcraft balance as well. Of course, they can add temporal build cost, which this game lacks.

Martel732 wrote:
Making them cheaper would work fine. There is a price point at which every unit becomes viable. You may not like that solution, but that's what this game is likely to use, and it's how games like Starcraft balance as well. Of course, they can add temporal build cost, which this game lacks.

What he said. As it currently stands, terminators are grossly overcosted for what they bring to the table.

There are very few, if any, units that dakka termies out dps point-for-point. While the buff to powerfists generally increased their threat level in assault, but with 5" movement and +9" deepstrike restriction, you won't see many instances where they get into assault unless in a case of well played hammer-and-anvil maneuver or a LR delivery.

In terms of durability, the selling point of terminators for many prior editions was that they were nigh unkillable with their 2+/5++(3++ with SS). The only way to really kill them reliably was to drown them in a rain of bolters/lasguns and force rolls of 1's via weigh of dice. At the end of the day, they served as a good distraction carnifexes more so than a proper offensive units. This singular selling point has gone down the drain with the proliferation of anti-TEQ weapons and multi-damage weapons and changes to AP system in 8th ed, effectively making terminators only as tough as a regular power armor marines. The changes to 2W theoretically doubles their durability, but effectively does nothing as what you would bring to deal with termies often do 2 or more damage.

Compare tac marine to an assault marine and dev marine - for assault marines, you pay extra for its mobility and ever so slightly better assault performance. for dev marines, you pay extra for its increased firepower. For what it's worth, terminators are 'generalist among the elites', the tac squad of elite infantries - but there are many other choices out there that shadow terminators by far in terms of expected performance with less cost.

I use Scarrab terms and they preform pretty well. The real problem for any infantry unit 20+ points per model is mortal wounds particularly smite. Watch the latest winters battke report any you can see smite cut through terminators like butter. As long as mortal wounds are a thing and smite is easily spamable elite infantry will always have a disadvantage

p5freak wrote:
Termis are heavy infantry and should have T5. Look at the other heavy infantry like inceptors, aggressors, centurions, they all have T5. Or a point reduction.

Thats because they wear Gravis Armour, and that armour gives you a +3 save and +1T. If you make Terminator armour +2 save and +1T the Gravis one loses his niche.

 Kap'n Krump wrote:
Hooboy. It is really difficult to not make a unproductive and caustic comment about you imperials being impossible to please.

Instead, I will say that I agree with Haravikk, at least in part, that it would make sense for terminators to partially negate enemy AP modifiers.

Because their base 5+ invlun is kind of useless, unless they're being hit by melta weaponry. I mean, meganobz have no invlun, and typically get the exact same save as terminators with their 5++.

Matt from miniwargaming made a video early on in 8th where he thought invluns should just negate enemy AP values instead of making a base save, which I thought made some good points.

So, if instead of a 5+ invlun, terminators had a 1+ save (that still fails on 1s), that would actually seem pretty fair to me.

Frankly, I'm a little surprised that no units in the game, that I'm aware of, can cancel out enemy AP values. It seems like a mechanic that's just begging to exist.

In Age of Sigmar theres many units that have a rule of "Ignore Rend values of the enemy attack if they aren't -2 or higher" (Actually all the not Skink Lizardmen have that rule). Terminators could have a rule to ignore -1 AP.

Yeah i just played a small game with my friend and i took my terminators which one turn of shooting from crisis suits they were gone...

Looking at terminators i'd say for a unit that is "Near invincible and utterly indomitable", quoted from the codex, quite lame. Granted we were just playing a friendly game testing out units cause we're still unfamiliar with 8th. I got tabled hard.

So my answer to this question is No, frankly i think they need a supporting special rule that sets them apart from say Centurion suits, which also have a 2+ save but also T5. My reasoning for this is a 2+ save isn't as fantastic as everyone thinks it is. literally every other marine can get a 2+ from staying in cover.

 fraser1191 wrote:
Yeah i just played a small game with my friend and i took my terminators which one turn of shooting from crisis suits they were gone...

Looking at terminators i'd say for a unit that is "Near invincible and utterly indomitable", quoted from the codex, quite lame. Granted we were just playing a friendly game testing out units cause we're still unfamiliar with 8th. I got tabled hard.

So my answer to this question is No, frankly i think they need a supporting special rule that sets them apart from say Centurion suits, which also have a 2+ save but also T5. My reasoning for this is a 2+ save isn't as fantastic as everyone thinks it is. literally every other marine can get a 2+ from staying in cover.

The thing with 2+ not "being as fantastic as everyone thinks" is due to anti-TEQ weapons having become the baseline, take-all-comers weapon of choice without having to pay a liver for. On paper, 2+/5++ is actually pretty damn fantastic - it's just that everyone else has even more fantastic weapons.

Terminators cost just barely made sense up until 7th ed where they were neigh invincible to everything but massed fire. A single change made to one of the weapons (the plasma) simply and utterly made terminators "not-competitive but viable in certain situation choice" to "purely fluffy choice"

Terminators have never been viable. Even in 2nd.

The AM Armageddon Doctrine makes hits on vehicles from weapons with AP-1 count as AP-, giving Terminator Armor the same rule wouldn't be unprecedented in 8th ed 40k.