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So I was thinking about this earlier, why do terminators have "unwieldy" powerfists?

Those guys have been fighting with those things for years. Now I'm not saying every marine with a powerfist shouldn't have a penalty, but I do think think the guys that have them tied into their armour should not.

Terminators aren't very threatening over all so I think this would be a nice slight buff

It's a carry over from 7th unwieldy where they struck at init 1, now they just get -1 to hit

The thing to me that sets Terminators (and most Marine melee units) apart from effective assault units is 1-2 Attacks. Marines relied on the charging/two-weapon attack buffs in earlier editions a lot more than other folks.

I'd support removing the unwieldy penalty and pumping them to 3A (4 on the sergeant) at their current pricepoint.

I'm aware it's a carry over I played 7th.

Yeah marines/power armoured units as a whole are in a weird position seeing as how they are super human's but only punch once in most cases.

There's really few instances where I can manage to get these guys into melee, there's just too many shots coming from armies and marines across the board aren't durable enough to shrug stuff off

Generally, I think a lot of things would be solved by bumping the Attacks of most non-Primaris marines by +1.

 Nazrak wrote:
Generally, I think a lot of things would be solved by bumping the Attacks of most non-Primaris marines by +1.

I can picture BA becoming OP tier army with this suggestion.

 skchsan wrote:

 Nazrak wrote:
Generally, I think a lot of things would be solved by bumping the Attacks of most non-Primaris marines by +1.

I can picture BA becoming OP tier army with this suggestion.

True. You may need to read "most" as "not Death Company".

(Honestly I don't think giving Primaris models another attack would make any difference; the characters would be a bit stronger but the only ones that have actual melee weapons (Aggressors) are stuck in the same powerfists-on-an-expensive-2A-model hole that Terminators are, and are only rescued by their guns.)

I'd like the concept of letting heavy elites with 2+ armor strike with unwieldy weapons without modifying their WS. I think other similar units, like ork meganobz, should be able to do that.

I think losing the -1 to hit if wearing Terminator armour would be a suitable boost for the rather lack-luster terminators.

As a World Eaters player who uses Terminators, I completely support this.

Not swinging their melee weapons in some special manner isn't what kept Terminators from being good. It's just one of the problems.

The way I see it for the way you want it, they NEED to have almost HQ levels to hit stuff. I propose a BS/WS2+ to offset heavier weapons both types carry.

They're just another CC unit in a codex full of units that really want to be in CC.

Out of curiosity, a perspective check on Terminators by benchmarking them against Custodian Guard (who do, by and large, the same set of things, and who in my experience feel like they do them effectively on the table):

A Terminator is 40pts, gets four S4/AP0/D1 shots at 12" (2 at 24") hitting on 3+, two S8/AP-3/Dd3 attacks in melee hitting on 4+, and is T4/2W with a 2+/5++. He can Deep Strike under his own power, comes in a 5-10-man squad, moves 5" a turn, and is functionally immune to morale in small squads. The squad has access to an assault cannon (24"/S6/AP-1/D1/Heavy 6 as a 20pt upgrade), a heavy flamer (pointless), and a Cyclone launcher (48"/S4/AP0/D1/Heavy 2d3 or 48"/S8/AP-2/Dd6/Heavy 2 as a 50pt upgrade) as upgrade weapons.

A Custodian Guard is 52pts, gets two S4/AP-1/D2 shots at 12" (1 at 24") hitting on 2+, four S6/AP-3/Dd3 attacks in melee hitting on 2+, and is T5/3W with a 2+/4++. He can Deep Strike with a stratagem, comes in a 3-10-man squad, moves 6" a turn, and is functionally immune to morale in small squads. He has a built-in 6+ FNP against mortal wounds in the Psychic phase.

Offensively they don't look horribly different at range; two D2 shots are similar to but worse than four D1 shots (similar damage to a single model but fewer dead one-Wound models), and BS2+/AP-1 makes the Custodian's single-shot damage better, so the Custodian is better overall but not hugely so, reasonably worthy of the difference between a 40pt Space Marine and a 52pt Custodian.

The melee damage is a wildly different story; the AP and the damage are the same, but WS2+ and four Attacks get you 3.3 hits on average compared to one hit for WS3+ (-1 to hit) and two Attacks, and S8 isn't enough of an upgrade over S6 (especially with the Piercing Strike stratagem (+1 to wound) for emergencies) to compensate for that.

On durability the numbers don't tell the entire story; the Custodian is a point better on three metrics (Wounds, Invul, Toughness) but the bump from 2W to 3W is incredibly important because of volume of D2 (the Custodian can take twice as many D2 hits as the Terminator), and the bump from T4 to T5 is important because the kinds of volume-of-fire weapons that let slight dice spikes wipe Terminators off the table tend to be S4 or S5.

So at this point Custodians feel like they're doing what Terminators want to be doing reasonably well; I don't know how to make Terminators as durable as Custodians without just making them Custodians, but if their damage output were more reasonable the price should help compensate.

Either dropping the unwieldy penalty or giving Terminators a base WS2+ and bumping them to 3A would straight-up double their melee output. On the ranged front I don't know that I want to suggest bumping them to BS2+ (given the Lieutenant statline); I find the assault cannon and Reaper autocannon to work reasonably well on paper, but the Cyclone launcher has always struck me as weird; it is "two missile launchers", but they're mounted on a platform that's paying a lot of points to get up close and they've got half the frag shots of two missile launchers. I'd suggest dropping the damage on the krak mode to 2 or d3 so it's mathematically one missile launcher with more shots, and then drop it to 20-25pts.

I might also suggest going to two guns per five and making some of the weapons available to other sorts of Terminators (plasma blasters, plasma cannons, multi-meltas...) available more broadly. And as always I'm going to reiterate that allowing you the option to take a power sword on normal members of the squad (allowing a 32pt Terminator) for general-purpose squads who you aren't expecting to throw into targets that are hard enough to require a mass of powerfist attacks would make them a lot more generally usable.

The fixes are easy.

WS/BS2+
2 Heavy Weapons per five Terminators

This fixes all variants in one fell swoop.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
The fixes are easy.

WS/BS2+
2 Heavy Weapons per five Terminators

This fixes all variants in one fell swoop.

No it doesn't. You're still worse off in melee than you were last edition if you've got an unwieldy weapon, for example, because the removal of extra attacks when charging disproportionately punished models with few attacks.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
The fixes are easy.

WS/BS2+
2 Heavy Weapons per five Terminators

This fixes all variants in one fell swoop.

Follow up with "+1A for all Terminators" and "any Terminator armed with a powerfist may exchange it for a power sword, axe, or maul" and I might even agree with this.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
The fixes are easy.

WS/BS2+
2 Heavy Weapons per five Terminators

This fixes all variants in one fell swoop.

Follow up with "+1A for all Terminators" and "any Terminator armed with a powerfist may exchange it for a power sword, axe, or maul" and I might even agree with this.

I dunno about letting them take regular Power Weapons but I might be okay with an extra attack. Just do be warned that might need to translate to HQ units though.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 skchsan wrote:

 Nazrak wrote:
Generally, I think a lot of things would be solved by bumping the Attacks of most non-Primaris marines by +1.

I can picture BA becoming OP tier army with this suggestion.

True. You may need to read "most" as "not Death Company".

(Honestly I don't think giving Primaris models another attack would make any difference; the characters would be a bit stronger but the only ones that have actual melee weapons (Aggressors) are stuck in the same powerfists-on-an-expensive-2A-model hole that Terminators are, and are only rescued by their guns.)

All power armoured marines and up realy should have been given 2 attacks baseline and upgrade from their for vets etc. Scouts as being young and less experianced I can accept 1 attack.

Also active combat experianced space marines with hundress of years in the field are apparently worse at fighting that freshly revived marine 2.0's just doesn't feel right to me. Them being tougher I can handle the new weapons well ok but just straight up out fighting them BS.

Ice_can wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 skchsan wrote:

 Nazrak wrote:
Generally, I think a lot of things would be solved by bumping the Attacks of most non-Primaris marines by +1.

I can picture BA becoming OP tier army with this suggestion.

True. You may need to read "most" as "not Death Company".

(Honestly I don't think giving Primaris models another attack would make any difference; the characters would be a bit stronger but the only ones that have actual melee weapons (Aggressors) are stuck in the same powerfists-on-an-expensive-2A-model hole that Terminators are, and are only rescued by their guns.)

All power armoured marines and up realy should have been given 2 attacks baseline and upgrade from their for vets etc. Scouts as being young and less experianced I can accept 1 attack.

Also active combat experianced space marines with hundress of years in the field are apparently worse at fighting that freshly revived marine 2.0's just doesn't feel right to me. Them being tougher I can handle the new weapons well ok but just straight up out fighting them BS.

They aren't better at fighting. They just have more energy to spare and stuff. A Vet equivalent of Primaris would likely sport 3 attacks.

I get that the powerfist -1 is just a translation, but it doesn't make a lot of sense except against infantry.

Imo, it should be -1 vs infantry models. -0 vs vehicles. It really seems as if it is a anti-tank melee weapon, yet it still is harder to hit vehicles with it.

I don't play SM, but I can see how it would be frustrating to have one of your coolest units being basically junk in the new edition. IMO, they could also use some kind of buff vs low strength attacks - like a feel no pain 5+ if the power is < 4. That would at least toughen them vs massed fire.

Maybe termies could be changed into a mostly close combat oriented unit, so rather than BS and WS 2+ they could be WS2+ but BS4+.

Why? Why are the veterans inside suddenly worse at shooting things than a Scout?

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
Why? Why are the veterans inside suddenly worse at shooting things than a Scout?

Because they focussed their career on punching stuff Too many shooty units in the SM codex, they need more CC oriented stuff.

Actually SM are overflowing with units that need to be in CC.

SirWeeble wrote:
I get that the powerfist -1 is just a translation, but it doesn't make a lot of sense except against infantry.

Imo, it should be -1 vs infantry models. -0 vs vehicles. It really seems as if it is a anti-tank melee weapon, yet it still is harder to hit vehicles with it.

I don't play SM, but I can see how it would be frustrating to have one of your coolest units being basically junk in the new edition. IMO, they could also use some kind of buff vs low strength attacks - like a feel no pain 5+ if the power is < 4. That would at least toughen them vs massed fire.

No, traditionally, termies were the type of unit if you didn't dedicate your turn wiping them, they'd wipe the floors with your blood.

With the old instant death rule, S8 attack would erase even a HQ with one hit as long as dice was out to get you. Now it only increases you chance to wound and nothing more.

Terminators were never good. And they were never hard to kill.

*Cough* 3+ on 2D6 was hard to kill. But since then they juat have struggled to compaired to most thing, heck even GW admittrd they were busted in 7th and promised they were being fixed for 8th and still not a good choice :(

Martel732 wrote:
Terminators were never good. And they were never hard to kill.

They were never auto take but they filled niche roles (which, were arguably done better/similar by other units). Prior to 8th ed saves, having +2/++5 and powerfist deepstriking 1 inch away from your key units meant that you either dump all of your AP2/1's on the termies or they are going to charge you next turn and blow you up. Powerfists were scary as hell when it was in range.

This effectively protected your other investment units from those AP1/2's that needed that extra turn to make their points worth.

Termies were decent distraction carnifexes that actually could manage to put a dent on your enemy.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
One of the reasons why termies got worse from prior editions is that with the new save/AP mechanism, there's really no need to prioritize and optimize the usage of your weapons vs the targets. Everything is dice and no strat in this edition. Stats don't matter in this edition - more dice you bring/roll than the opponent = better chance of winning.

 skchsan wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Terminators were never good. And they were never hard to kill.

They were never auto take but they filled niche roles (which, were arguably done better/similar by other units). Prior to 8th ed saves, having +2/++5 and powerfist deepstriking 1 inch away from your key units meant that you either dump all of your AP2/1's on the termies or they are going to charge you next turn and blow you up. Powerfists were scary as hell when it was in range.

This effectively protected your other investment units from those AP1/2's that needed that extra turn to make their points worth.

Termies were decent distraction carnifexes that actually could manage to put a dent on your enemy.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
One of the reasons why termies got worse from prior editions is that with the new save/AP mechanism, there's really no need to prioritize and optimize the usage of your weapons vs the targets. Everything is dice and no strat in this edition. Stats don't matter in this edition - more dice you bring/roll than the opponent = better chance of winning.

Um no they weren't doing that from when I was playing, which is 4th to present. You don't have to dump a lot into killing them either...
In fact this is the best they've been in years and they're still struggling.

Ice_can wrote:
*Cough* 3+ on 2D6 was hard to kill. But since then they juat have struggled to compaired to most thing, heck even GW admittrd they were busted in 7th and promised they were being fixed for 8th and still not a good choice :(

No it wasn't. I killed 30 of them in one game with freaking BA. Krak missiles were -6 back then and storm bolters JAMMED. 2nd ed terminators had no firepower outside the cyclone and the assault cannon. And the assault cannon ALSO jammed. They were useless garbage.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 skchsan wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Terminators were never good. And they were never hard to kill.

They were never auto take but they filled niche roles (which, were arguably done better/similar by other units). Prior to 8th ed saves, having +2/++5 and powerfist deepstriking 1 inch away from your key units meant that you either dump all of your AP2/1's on the termies or they are going to charge you next turn and blow you up. Powerfists were scary as hell when it was in range.

This effectively protected your other investment units from those AP1/2's that needed that extra turn to make their points worth.

Termies were decent distraction carnifexes that actually could manage to put a dent on your enemy.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
One of the reasons why termies got worse from prior editions is that with the new save/AP mechanism, there's really no need to prioritize and optimize the usage of your weapons vs the targets. Everything is dice and no strat in this edition. Stats don't matter in this edition - more dice you bring/roll than the opponent = better chance of winning.

That's some revisionist history, I think. Plasma has always massacred terminators. Grav did it even worse. Powerfists weren't scary if you had a way to go first with power weapons or an invuln or you were T5. And deep striking without drop pods was stupid.