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I looooove Terminators! The idea of being in a nigh invulnerable suit just slowly walking forward with super heavy weapons to clear out hordes of tyranids sounds awesome! I was really hyped when I finally decided to play Space Marines this year (after being and Ork player) because it finally meant I was going to be able to grab some Terminators! A few people told me Terminators sucked but I'm not a competitive player so I just went ahead with it. However, I played a few games with them now and i'm highly disappointed... I wanted a cool looking squad so I got some Tartaros Termies and the finale cost of everything came to about 250pts. I was a little shocked but figured it must be worth it for the extra inch or better weapons or something... (I actually think the normal T's ain't far off 250pts for 5 guys). I put them into battle for the first time by 9" deep striking a Necron armies flanks to hit their heavy weapons and..... Despite making the charge I didn't kill the Vehicle... the Vehicle just pulled out because it had fly and the 20 Necron warriors just turned around and shot me to death.... I couldn't even believe it when I opened the codex to see my Toughness was T4. XD With the 3 up save (due to necrons) and a bunch of shots coming through I didn't stand a chance! I was actually confused because for the same Value I could get 10 Nobz in my Ork army with similar weapons and a 5 up invuln... And I think Nobz are over priced! So I figured it was a bad game and moved onto the next one... I was vs Ad Mech and there was a perfect chance for me to Deep Strike! His Robots were lined up with some kind of character sat behind them. I sent my Guys in and.... They didn't cause a single wound... So I charged them in and finally killed the 2 characters! Then the robots turned around and shot me to death because they were father than 3" for the consolidation... Well.... Erm.... So I did a game vs IG! I thought this was it! Their low S weapons must mean my guys can push in and slaughter their way up to the Lord Commissar sat on the back objective! The the dude DS some scions in with plas and kill all mah dudes... granted I did fail all my invulns...

This is all anecdotal and I have no maths to back myself up... but am i just playing wrong or is there really something wrong with Terminators? And if so how would we fix it?

Termies are weak at the moment (and have been for a long time before 8th). This is general consensus.

Plasma is really popular and it's really good at killing them. At 40 to 50 points a model that's not acceptable.

If you want to be competitive, don't use them basically. In casual games you can do ok with them sometimes (Deathwing Knights can pull their weight in the right circumstances, or Chaos ones loaded up with Melta for instance), but they are just subpar.

What would fix them? Well, there's lots of ideas out there. Reduce all AP by one step, give them an extra wound, increasing toughness. But that's all theoretical. Unless GW decide to do something then I'm afraid they're just bad.

They are just weak at the moment. Both offensively and defensively. 2 wounds is a crime in a universe where everyone and their mother have overcharged plasma AND reroll 1's. And powerfists with -1 to hit are also very weak for only str 8. They need a third wound asap and then some other funky rule too to justify the fact that they are elites. Their trick used to be that they could deep strike, but now almost everyone can do it also.

I will say, Termies are both better and worse than prior editions.
Better due to having multiple wounds (which would have instantly fixed them in prior editions)
Worse because of the AP and Damage mechanics. Having that extra wound means little when you rarely get your 2+ save and a single failed save can kill them outright

A potential fix would be for them to have a 1+ save naturally. A roll of 1 would still fail, but it would allow them to effectively reduce AP modifiers by 1 (AP -2 becomes AP -1, etc).
Another fix could be to bump their invulnerable by 1 to a 4+
Another fix (and personally my favorite) is to leave them as is by drop them by around 10-15ppm

-

Scions don't reroll 1's necessarily ,but they don't care if they die.

Although, look at Custodes.

If you add...

2 wounds
+1 invulnerable save
Ability to place in 1 stormshield, expanded wargear
Specific stratagems to benefit them
+1 toughness
+2 extra attacks

Terminators become gods that are generally super badass. I like to think a couple of these things would really help terminators, without making them stupid unkillable like custodes.

Previously you either got a good 2+ save or a 5++ save. Terminators could shrug off a lot of incoming fire. 8th has weakened them by having armour save modifers which ensure that you are not going to get decent saves for the points.

Except terminators were garbage in 7th, too. If you want to see how to make them gods among men look at Custodes.

Terminators only lived up to their fluff in 2nd due to their 3+ save on 2D6. When GW "streamlined" the game in 3rd, Terminators became an overcosted and fragile unit. They either die to massed lasgun fire or to the nowadays overabundance of plasma fire.

A simple fix for all terminators would be to reduce AP of incoming fire by 1, period. All weapons. So yes, this means anything with AP 0 cannot hurt a terminator (obviously this would have to override the natural roll of 1 rule). Broken? No, these suits should shrug off these hits with impunity....you're going to have to come after them with something a little bigger, as you should. Just also add that terminators never benefit from cover.

make terminators great again!

btw, this has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that I just started painting my Deathwing this morning.....nope, not at all.

edit: this should also be for shooting attacks only.

 BlackLobster wrote:
Previously you either got a good 2+ save or a 5++ save. Terminators could shrug off a lot of incoming fire. 8th has weakened them by having armour save modifers which ensure that you are not going to get decent saves for the points.

Previously Terminators were trash because 1W, a 6" move and no offensive capability for 40 points was a terrible deal. Doubly so when you're only T4 in a T5 multi-wound 12" move meta. You'd have to go back to when hammernators were first introduced to have even the slightest semblance that termies were "good". Even then they would still keel over to massed small arms and that weakness only got worse as almost everything else got cheaper and they stayed the same. On top of that, plasma and/or melta have been staples for ignoring 2+ armour and/or dealing with tanks and MC's and on top of that, we had grav guns/cannons just flat out deleting anything they looked at with better than a 5+ save.

No, termies have been trash for a long time and you can look through the various forum archives for proof as there's a "How do we fix terminators" thread every couple of months, to the point where you can almost set your watch to it.

One thing that used to maker terminators useful was that there were able to move and fire heavy weapons without a penalty. At least at that point you could put a couple of nasty weapons on them and possibly do some damage via shooting.

Terminators have problems. Someone suggested they get a +1 modifier to the AP of incoming attacks, i.e. AP -2 becomes AP -1. I thought that might be a good way to make them a little more competitive.

 Strg Alt wrote:
Terminators only lived up to their fluff in 2nd due to their 3+ save on 2D6.

This mightn't be a bad thing to bring back: give all Terminators re-rolls for all failed saves. Would make them laugh off all small arms fire and make them a bit more resilient to massed rockets/lascannons/etc.

Not sure what to do about the loyalist terminator problem of getting into close combat; us Chaos have warptime and icon of wrath to help Terminators get into combat but I don't know what loyalists could be given without just ripping off Chaos toys.

Landraiders regain their assualt ramp rule. Also means their transport capacity has a purpose appart from deployment shenanigans.

 mrhappyface wrote:

 Strg Alt wrote:
Terminators only lived up to their fluff in 2nd due to their 3+ save on 2D6.

This mightn't be a bad thing to bring back: give all Terminators re-rolls for all failed saves. Would make them laugh off all small arms fire and make them a bit more resilient to massed rockets/lascannons/etc.

I guess there is a misunderstanding here. 2D6 doesn´t mean a reroll. You roll 2D6 and add the result of each dice together (e.g. 3+4=7). So on an average roll of 7 our Terminator can shrug off even a hit with a -4 armour save modifier. Yep, they were VERY hard to kill in 2nd. You had to shoot them with lascannons or equivalent weapons (-6 armour save modifiers).


I also think that GW screwed up plasma weapons from 3rd onwards. Not all plasma weapons had a really high armour save modifier in 2nd and were thus indomitable power armour killers:

Imperial version:
Plasma Pistol (low power): ST4 & 0 asm
Plasma Pistol (max power): ST6 & -1 asm & 1 sustained fire dice (needs to recharge after use)

Chaos version:
Mk 1 Plasma Pistol: ST6 & -1 asm & 1 sustained fire dice

Imperial version:
Plasma Gun (low power): ST5 & -1 asm
Plasma Pistol (max power): ST7 & -2 asm & 1 sustained fire dice (needs to recharge after use)

Chaos version:
Mk 1 Plasma Gun: ST7 & -2 asm & 1 sustained fire dice (NO need to recharge)

Imperial version:
Heavy Plasma Gun (low power): ST7 & -2 asm & D4 damage & 1,5´´ blast marker
Heavy Plasma Gun (max power):ST10 & -6 asm & D10 damage & 1,5´´ blast marker (needs to recharge after use)

Chaos version:
Heavy Plasma Gun (low power): ST7 & -2 asm & D4 damage & 1,5´´ blast marker
Heavy Plasma Gun (max power):ST10 & -6 asm & D10 damage & 1,5´´ blast marker, 1 sustained fire dice (needs to recharge after use)

I kind of want to play 2nd edition. From what I hear it sounds fun.

 BlackLobster wrote:
Previously you either got a good 2+ save or a 5++ save. Terminators could shrug off a lot of incoming fire. 8th has weakened them by having armour save modifers which ensure that you are not going to get decent saves for the points.

How did that weaken them? They're more durable compared to how they used to be barring VERY specific weapons (like the Autocannon and Gauss Blasters). You're only under the impression they're less durable because you didn't do the math.

I think the best fix for regular terminators would be to make it so they reduce all damage taken by 1 to a minimum of 1.

This way, they are fairly hard to kill with 1 and 2 damage weapons, but still die to 3+ damage weapons.

I like this better than giving them 3 wounds, since that would increase their durability against 1 damage weapons by 50%, which I'm not sure it's needed.

The only potential issue I see with this is I don't think this ability should translate to paladins and custodes, since they already have 3 wounds which is better than 2w reducing damage by 1, and I think any imbalance they have can be solved by points adjustments, but it would seem odd if they didn't have the same rule. But I guess they could just have a different special rule or something.

 Strg Alt wrote:
Terminators only lived up to their fluff in 2nd due to their 3+ save on 2D6. When GW "streamlined" the game in 3rd, Terminators became an overcosted and fragile unit. They either die to massed lasgun fire or to the nowadays overabundance of plasma fire.

Not even then. Too many -6 save weapons and -2 weapons that fired many times.

This makes me wonder. Would terminators still perform badly if plasma was nerfed in a way so that it wouldn't be the no-brainer choice? I feel plasma usually comes up as a big factor when discussing the worth of terminators, often to the exclusion of any other factors.

When it comes to ap0 small arms they basically already have a 3+ sv on 2d6 now, as you have to fail two 2+ saves to lose a guy.

Martel732 wrote:

 Strg Alt wrote:
Terminators only lived up to their fluff in 2nd due to their 3+ save on 2D6. When GW "streamlined" the game in 3rd, Terminators became an overcosted and fragile unit. They either die to massed lasgun fire or to the nowadays overabundance of plasma fire.

Not even then. Too many -6 save weapons and -2 weapons that fired many times.

Which isn't really the case today.

Anyway the math...it would be damned strong and they'd need to lose their invulns and get a hefty point increase, I think. And then you'd have to worry about people spamming termie characters with 5+ wounds.

D6 2D6 AP0 .167 .028 AP1 .333 .084 AP2 .500 .167 AP3 .666 .278 AP4 .666 .417 AP5 .666 .584

shortymcnostrill wrote:
This makes me wonder. Would terminators still perform badly if plasma was nerfed in a way so that it wouldn't be the no-brainer choice? I feel plasma usually comes up as a big factor when discussing the worth of terminators, often to the exclusion of any other factors.

When it comes to ap0 small arms they basically already have a 3+ sv on 2d6 now, as you have to fail two 2+ saves to lose a guy.

rather then nerf plasma I'd buff flamerts to the point where they are worth taking for dealing with hordes.

 Marmatag wrote:
Except terminators were garbage in 7th, too. If you want to see how to make them gods among men look at Custodes.

Terminators were alot better in 7th. I mean sure the still sucked but they could make a unit route pretty much for sure in combat even if they could not sweep. Also they could eat shots better with a 2+ save vs pretty much everything shy of anti tank guns.

 mrhappyface wrote:

 Strg Alt wrote:
Terminators only lived up to their fluff in 2nd due to their 3+ save on 2D6.

This mightn't be a bad thing to bring back: give all Terminators re-rolls for all failed saves. Would make them laugh off all small arms fire and make them a bit more resilient to massed rockets/lascannons/etc.

Not sure what to do about the loyalist terminator problem of getting into close combat; us Chaos have warptime and icon of wrath to help Terminators get into combat but I don't know what loyalists could be given without just ripping off Chaos toys.

Warp time was a LSM power first in 7th called veil of time. Caning see why LSM can't have it again seeing as CSM ripped off LSM.

The solutions were always give them 2 wounds, give them more SB shots, stop them from striking last. Well all those things happened. They should probably stop futzing around with wound and invulns and do something else because it's probably a bigger problem than just termies anyhow. There are lots of slow t4 elite infantry that aren't useful.

and they'd need to lose their invulns and get a hefty point increase,

Yeah they should probably lose their invulns because they don't have force fields or anything it was just a chapter approved rules patch in 2001, because of how bad they were with just a flat 2+ armor.

BrianDavion wrote:


rather then nerf plasma I'd buff flamerts to the point where they are worth taking for dealing with hordes.

That's probably fine too. Yeah flamers should get way better and push out plasma.

As said terminators have been bad for a long time, they have gotten better with the ability to charge outta deep strike so that they can actually use the thing they are best at, punching people. But if you dont make the charge you are stuck with shooting. This is of course the biggest problem with Terminators. At the end of the day....you are still shooting bolters. So your paying 200+ points for basiclly a deep striking squad of marines. The only benefit terminators have is that they force your enemy to deal with them because they are annoying in melee. The only way terminators will be useful is if we get some sort of ability to deep strike up to 6 inches away from the enemy via a stratagem. Until then, terminators offer nothing to the table.

So far the only terminators i have seen be viable are TH/SS squads that happen to make a charge. As of right now, THE terminator army, deathwing, are so worthless and under powered. I have a DW RW army that has been shelved since the start of 8th because they just dont perform well at all anymore.

Outside of being way to good at killing 2W models, I don't think plasma is really all that OP. Which makes me think the 2w models need a buff.

Flamers, melta, and grav probably also need a buff, but that's its own issue.

2w models pay for being twice as durable vs 1 damage weapons, but then die easily to anything better, with plasma bring the most obvious offender.

Scions are freakin' scary soldiers.

They will deepstrike, they will shoot just as well (if not better) than space marines and they will be armed with plasmaguns. And the best part is that when it comes to points, they pretty much only pay for those things I mentioned. Lean, mean killing machines. And it doesn't even matter if they will die after they do their damage.

Meanwhile, the terminators pay a lot of points for stuff that they won't be even necessarily using in one single match. Not to mention, terminators really need to be able to do the deep striking charge (hard) while scions only need to be able to do deep striking rabid fire (easy).

This all comes down to efficiency.

 mew28 wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
Except terminators were garbage in 7th, too. If you want to see how to make them gods among men look at Custodes.

Terminators were alot better in 7th. I mean sure the still sucked but they could make a unit route pretty much for sure in combat even if they could not sweep. Also they could eat shots better with a 2+ save vs pretty much everything shy of anti tank guns.

 mrhappyface wrote:

 Strg Alt wrote:
Terminators only lived up to their fluff in 2nd due to their 3+ save on 2D6.

This mightn't be a bad thing to bring back: give all Terminators re-rolls for all failed saves. Would make them laugh off all small arms fire and make them a bit more resilient to massed rockets/lascannons/etc.

Not sure what to do about the loyalist terminator problem of getting into close combat; us Chaos have warptime and icon of wrath to help Terminators get into combat but I don't know what loyalists could be given without just ripping off Chaos toys.

Warp time was a LSM power first in 7th called veil of time. Caning see why LSM can't have it again seeing as CSM ripped off LSM.

Veil of time in last edition was allowing a unit to reroll failed saves of any kind. It was much better than this edition version allowing "reroll charge" for the Space Marines as they need more durability, and SM actually have better shooty compare to choppy. However, combined with other buffs it has to be noticed that the 7th edition Veil of time become too strong in 7th. It was right to be complained "broken" back in that time.

Why be complicated? Terminators are not a broken unit, in that they function reasonably well in their intended role. They hit hard with a small volume of attacks, and they have a high volume of small arms firepower. Their stat line doesn't create any strange rules interactions. They do useful things and can contribute meaningfully to victory.

If they're not producing good results on the tabletop it's not their rules. To fix them just drop their point cost. How about 30 points? 25? So long as they cost more than most other Marines they'll still feel like their fit their role of the elite of the elite.