I'll Be Back - The Humble Terminator

[stofficus]

Hello All,

As someone who has an overabundance of everyone's over-armoured post-human monsters, I have found myself wondering of late - how would one go about using them? 

It's no secret terminators have been....lacking for many editions now, in spite of being the iconic Space Marine "elite." At first, 8th seemed to offer some new life with the much-desire multiwound profile, but with multi-damage weapons being fairly available, and other units getting multi-wounds for cheaper, such as the terminator's traditional superior - the bike, not much has really changed for the terminator. 

So then - how would one go about using terminators these days, and which ruleset would give you the most bang for your buck?

As it stands, here are my thoughts on the various terminator armies out there:

Vanilla Space Marines

+ Variant Heresy-Era armours; Tartaros and Cataphractii offer some wargear options - the 4++ on Cataphractii in particular being desireable
+ Diverse chapter tactics/special characters which can be combined to useful ends. Re-rolling charges on BT terminators can make immediate charges more viable, and chapter-master characters deep striking giving full re-rolls is attractive

- no in-built bonuses or unique functionality
- part of vanilla space marines - very mediocre units to choose from for support or to fill out a battalion for CP, no particularly useful strategems

Variant Loyalist Codex Space Marines

BA and DA aren't different enough in this category to warrant their own detailed breakdown. 

Both retain access to heresy-era armour. BA chapter tactics don't offer much for terminators, but they do have the Terminator Ancient which provides a blanket re-roll for all BA within 6'' in combat, which with BA tactics can provide a slight bonus to combat-oriented lists. However, if you're going for a deep-strike focused assault list, Sanguinary guard are objectively better in every way.

DA have the full range of Deathwing characters, mixed assault/ranged options, Belial and a handful of deathwing-specific strategems, such as shooting twice the turn they arrive from deep-strike. On paper, one of the more attractive options, but they pay a slight premium for this, and get little to no benefit from their chapter tactics. 

Chaos Space Marines

+ Flexible wargear choices (combi-weapons for all, not forced into power fists by default)
+ Useful stratagems and psychic powers

- No heresy-variant armour (for some inexplicable reason)
- Abaddon only named character able to deep-strike with them

Overall, if when I consider the conventional terminator kits (i.e. not Custodes, Death Guard, Grey Knights), Dark Angels or Chaos seem to have the best potential, via Chaos having the best "shooty" options with combis + heavies, buffed through very useful psychic powers and strategems such as double-shoot at will with Slaanesh and 5++, to Tzeentch buffed invulns, etc, which Dark Angels have the best assault potential being supported by Champions, Apothecaries, Belial which opening up with double-shooting Deathwing Assault stratagem, but are these the mark of a unit that is actually worth the cost of entry? 

Furthermore, would one argue that the more special, restricted terminator variants outshine the baseline? Death Guard seem to be no slouches in the terminator game, Grey Knights have excellent psychic potential and decent loadouts, and who doesn't like the idea of a 10 man Custodes Terminator unit splitting into individuals and locking an entire army in combat turn 2 with a little luck? 

I'm curious to see everyone's experiences thus far in 8th with terminators, and how one might put together an effective terminator-centric list. 

[Typhus]

A few tournaments have seen the Blight Lord Bomb: 10 Blight Lord Terminators, all armed with combi-plasma and bubotic axe, moving up and rapid-firing from 18" away. This actually works because Death Guard have access to the Cloud of Flies stratagem, which allows them to keep the Blight Lords untargetable. This combines well with a CSM Sorcerer for additional psychic support - Prescience means the unit hits on 2+ and can no longer die to their own overcharged plasma weapons, and Warp Time to actually get within range of the enemy.

[Jack Shrapnel]

<moved to tactics>

I've seen custodes-terminator variants be quite successful, but this is due in large part to the better support options available. Also as Typhus has said, there's a way to make the death guard version fairly scary. (death guard is such a solid book...good job GW!)

vanilla terminators should be scary, but they just aren't. I've gotten so frustrated with my smurf terminators I just don't run them anymore. Big units, smaller units, supported or not, there's just so many better options to take for the points, it's extremely hard to justify. A two wound, 2+/3++ with a thunder hammer SEEMS like it should be good right? problem is against anything that wants to kill it, multiple damage and even a single AP is so abundant that they're just shot off the board before they can make combat. Even if a big unit deep strikes in, makes that charge and absolutely murders something, it's usually a cheap screen vs. a good player (who knows you're going to deep strike!) and then they just murder them on the retaliation.

[Frosty the Pirate]

I've been toying around with several options myself, and the couple more effective thoughts I've had are: (Basically just a re-hashing of the above)

1) 5 Man Combi-Plasma Blight Bomb (See above what typhus said, just smaller), through it costs like ~300 points for a 5 man unit, but it absolutely would shred things with that 18" rapid fire plasma fire, this is probably the most viable termie option available today.

2) Vanilla w Storm Bolter & Powerfist - Drop in and murder infantry with 20 storm bolter shots, make them ultra marines so they can fall back and shoot as well. You opponent will most likely murder them on the response, but use that to force their hand with target priority, you need other (read: better) threats and use the terms as bait. Which isn't really the best/iconic use of termies, but it works.

3) Allarus Custodes - take the Axes and throw in a Shield Captain for a rather self-sufficient piece that will take care of itself, because it has things like super-obsec and hitting on 2s and T5 W4 they just work and are painful for the opponent to remove.

I absolutely have not been able to make Chaos terms feel right, the Chaos Term Drop Unit with a Sorc & Warpflamers was a really nasty piece until the FAQ for deep strike + movement based psychic powers broke the combo (since you can't move into Warp Flamer range with Warptime post-drop anymore)

Deathwatch gave me some hope for Terms as well, 5 so midfield unit with special ammo & storm bolters (which was confirmed) can drop in with 20 storm bolter shots & special issue ammo or drop out of a corvus blackstar. It's so new that I'm not sure if it's viable or not yet, but it gave me some hope.

Assault Terminators I absolutely cannot see working without a Land Raider or Storm Raven to jump out of. I toyed with the idea of a 5 Man unit with Lightning Claws in a Storm Raven with a Chappy & Sang Priest, but that combo runs like 600-700 points and becomes threat numero-uno quite fast. You'd basically have to throw down a big block of jump pack death company who scout + charge turn 1 to target saturate against it. (which is like another 300 points)

Space Wolves remain my last hope to breathe some life into Terminators, Wolf Guard generally have near-chaos levels of customization so a similar unit to Blight Bomb might be possible. But this one is a wait-and-see.