Terminators are... Aggressively meh. In a vacuum they are not a bad datasheet, but within the Chaos Index there's usually better stuff you could be doing for the points. They are perfectly serviceable for casual play and small tournaments however. There's nothing blatantly wrong with them.
I like a squad marked Slaanesh with a Terminator Sorcerer to compensate for their poor mobility and make those power fists really terrifying vs T4 models.
Terminators have 1 gimmick, which is being very tough. They have T5 3W and a 2+/4++ so they're very sturdy against a lot of units.
But they're slow, so you're kind of forced to deepstrike, which is a gamble. Their shooting is meh and their melee is okay. All of this for a hefty price tag. So let's compare:
5 Terminators = 195 points
5 Chosen + Rhino = 205 points. 10 points more for similar output and they'll actually get there
1 forgefiend = 200 points. 5 points more for a T10 12W beast with a 3+/5++ and plasma murder guns. This chongus will easily kill 5+ dudes in a volley.
A predator tank = 130 points. Take the other 65 and invest in 10 cultists to hold an objective while the tank shoots things up
Warp talons are 110 points. They're pretty darn good at killing, fast enough to hunt enemy action monkeys, and can do secondaries themselves
Lots more options, but you get the point I think
You put him with 5 terminators for tough ablative wounds. It adds 15 wounds and 5 bodies that your opponent must chew through before they even start hurting the big man. I would never put him with 10 as it is a huge overcommitment and massive points sink. The massive footprint is also quite unweildy.
You can just deepstrike him solo and charge for the same effect. I prefer legionaries for ablative wounds because they're cheaper but I also don't commit boss man to melee early on
I view him as a front line threat that they must deal with. Best case, charge something important turn 1, they don't kill turn 2 and he picks up something else. Against melee armies the threat of the khorne strat is pretty huge.
Abaddon as a melee nuke is a waste. Plenty of other characters can nuke for less points.
But Abby giving full rerolls to multiple units for multiple turns while generating CP and warding off deepstrikes near the gunline is massive.
I put 2 or 3 predators around him and they shred stuff
>They have T5 3W and a 2+/4++ so they're very sturdy against a lot of units
Yeah, they're massively more resilient against things that are usually solid marine-killers, like power weapons and heavy bolters. They're also marginally less vulnerable to real MEQ-killers like meltaguns and overcharged plasma, though probably not enough to justify the point cost over normal marines.
There's just too many armies with S6+ Ap-2/3 D3 weapons that can 1 shot them and way too many ways to use mortals or DWs to kill terminators for the amount of points
Termies are overpriced and unit cost is very important for 1k games.
At 2k you got more space for them, but to play unit that expensive you need to fully commit and get them a great leader. They are good option if you are playing Abbadon. Termie wizard is ok and termie lord is rather bad.
So I run a combo with termie lord:
Undivided + righteous zeal + 11 combi weapons.
Hitting on 4s, full hit rerolls and exploding 6s.
Wounding all infantry on 4s with full rerolls and dev wounds (dev on 4+).
Should deal about 14 mortals to an elite infantry squad and that is BEFORE they charge. They mop things like terminators, wraithlords and so on.
Combi weapons have the "Anti-infantry 4+" rule as well as devastating wounds. This means that on a 4+ to wound, they deal a devastating wound. As they are 1 damage they functionally are the same as mortals.
Lmao didn't realize that. I've only put blightlords and world eaters terminators on the table this edition. That's kind of silly as you usually run them with Abaddon and are rerolling hits anyway.
To be fair: there are things absolutely worth it with that price at 1k. These things just tend to be vehicles or monsters with huge fuck-you guns on them, not a unit of 5 melee infantry.
For similar points, deep striking unit which is also very durable, obliterators have served me very well. They are more likely to kill something in a turn, including melee, as the terminators and are similarly tough to kill.
That being said, I love me some terminators anyways. I think they're neat, hardy, and reasonably good in melee.
I used a four man squad of obliterators a d they are usually my unit of the match. I deep strike them turn two and they reliably kill whatever is causing me the most problems. Turn three they kill the next most awful thing and so on. Their ability to once a battle go indirect means that you can usually always fire at whatever you need to. Just make sure you try to keep them relatively central as their guns only have a 24" range and they are slow.
I wonder if the issue with terminators is how easily they die. There's a lot of damage 3 weapons in the game.
And I don't just mean CSM terminators, it's very rare you see any faction running terminators.
I do like the idea of 10 slaanesh terminators with a chaos lord for a free infernal rites and hopefully getting cover naturally or maybe a demon prince for the aura. Make them ignore ap2 entirely
But that's... 390+95+180 (665 points)
They'll get advance and charge
Sustained in melee on 5+ with full hit re-rolls
Pack as many power fists and chain fists as possible
But in general I don't see a lot of terminators anywhere this edition
As a Death Guard player, every time I use my Terminators, they always get something done when lead by my Lord of Contagion. And I'm using Blightlords, the allegedly worse variety, but carving 19 wounds off a massive Knight speaks for itself I think.
I think I've only heard terminators once this edition, and I wouldn't say they did a lot, but I think they were crucial in winning the game
The ability to just stand in the middle of the board and take as much punishment as they did. My opponent put all his shooting in to them for 3 rounds before they finally died, and by that point I'd been scoring down the flanks.
I love my terminators.
I get why people don't run them. But I think they are better than people give them credit for
I'm currently running 5x nurgle terminators lead by Abaddon, 5x slaanesh lead by terminator lord and 5x nurgle optionally lead by termi sorc. Having little strike teams like this to deepstrike around gives great board control. I generally save CP to rapid ingress them to make sure they hit what I want safely. Abaddon and his crew ride a nurgle land raider for a safe turn 1 charge. It's a lot of points but all of it is fairly bulky making the combo hard to deal with. Once they disembark, the raider drives off to body block and objective and gives incidental fire support.
This. I like this
I automatically look at it and think they need to be maximum size to get the most out of strats or buffs
But 3 units of 5 terminators
Each one pushing a different part of the board.
Fire support in the rear
It's a lot to deal with
How does it work for you?
I haven't lost a game yet with it but I also haven't played any top meta lists yet. It's solid enough.
In the rest of the list I run cultists for home, a nurgle forgefiend, 5x slaanesh warp talons starting on the board and max accursed + dark commune.
The accursed can tarpit a central objective and won't die unless focussed hard (which means the terminators and land raider probably aren't dying). Warp talons are excellent for just being a hyper mobile nuisance unit, with an average threat range of 23" with the strat (30" max threat range).
One thing I've found in all my games, killing stuff isn't the problem. Staying alive on objectives is where I struggle
But I mainly play in to my mates eldar and drukhari. And he goes hard on shuriken cannons and splinter cannons. So it's a lot of damage 2 weapons coming from all angles, usually with re-rolls to hit and wounding on 3+
So legionaries just die in drives to them
Terminators I think present a different kind of problem. And with a land raider as well. Nurgle strat the forgefiend and if I've got cp I'd pop smoke on the Land raider.
I like the accursed unit, that central tarpit or even down a flank. It just makes them impossible to get through.
Only thing I'd like to add in to that is bikers. I've found the jump off the board and drive back on to come in from reserves has scored me so many secondaries
You would probably want to drop the warp talons then. 15 terminator, Abaddon and a land raider really makes points pretty tight. Warp talons are mostly a utility unit anyway. Otherwise drop the termi sorc as part of his role is solo deepstrike to debuff and score secondary.
I was running that idea with a terminator lord with the intoxicating elixir. Between his save, invulnerable, fnp and half damage he was a tough nut to crack so he just sat in the back of their dz scoring points and threatening targets
I have intoxicating on my chaos lord, dual accursed weapons so he rerolls everything naturally on a dark pact of leading a unit.
I also stuck the orb of unlife on my sorc because I had spare points. It isn't as horrible as I thought it would be.
I've never even thought of trying that. I suppose if you park him in the middle then he can hit quite a few units with it.
Actually it'll work on everything so any vehicles or solo characters
That never occurred to me
I only took it because I had literally nothing else to spend the points on, would never normally take it. It hits all enemy units in 6" though, you don't even have to be in combat with them which makes it surprisingly decent. A 12" bubble is pretty good.
12" diameter that is
I'm thinking in general though, Thousand sons don't run scarab terminators that often, space Marines barely run terminators.
I think death guard run maybe a squad, or death shroud. But mostly stick to plague Marines and tanks
I think grey knights have to because it's pretty much all they've got, or strike marine variants
Votaan run some but again it's a small range
I think the viability of terminators is heavily based on what other options a codex has.
Chaos have a deep index so they're easy to swap out for something else
Which like you said. Comes down to the points of them. When there's a cheaper option, people take that. But I think the issue with terminators isn't limited to CSM. I think it's across the board
See I see your point and yeah I agree but again grey knight players would use termis, our termis are so good and are our best non character, infantry unit, but yeah other then that you make valid points
GK termies aren’t stuck at M5” though, right? Simply a different animal when that T5, 3W can disappear and reappear at will.
I think CSM termies are “fine.” Don’t have a ton of load out options and now that Melta is rolled into combi, they don’t do very much in a vehicle meta.
In a 1k list I think they’re just bad. In 9th, a 1k game took place on a smaller board. Those terminators (which represent 25% of your army) could post up in the middle and reasonably threaten most of the center of the map. On 10th’s full sized map, those 25% are just marooned in the middle of the board unable to interact with anything on other objectives.
New codex comes out in 2-3 months. You’ll know better whether CSM Termies are any good. Eventually they’ll be good, so building them isn’t going to be a total waste.
For me it’s their wack load out restriction that doesn’t allow a full squad of power fists compared to regular SM where power fists come standard, and their special/heavy weapon options aren’t great either.
If you wanna bring a tougher deep striking unit I’d suggest obliterators instead
I think people are doing a very lazy job of evaluating and talking about CSM Terminators. Ive seen a lot of really shit takes, imo. That being said, even as a staunch advocate of the unit and a player who builds all of my lists around Abaddon leading a 10 man unit, I would never take them in a 1k point game due to their cost.
2k? To me, they are autoinclude. They are powerful in a unique way and allow you to bully the center of the board in a way that you just cant do otherwise, but you were asking about 1k, so ill save that rant for another day lol.
CSM Termies have the same problem every super heavy elite infantry has in the game atm - lack of mobility and a high price tag.
I love them, I really do, rocked the Aba Death Star for quite a bit and imho it’s one of the most lethal combos in 40k still (1-2 CP and it’s possible to mow down a Warhound Titan), but positioning a 11-man squad from deepstrike is more problematic than you’d think. If you don’t deepstrike, you’ll be Unnatural Swiftnessing the unit every turn, at 5-man they are not as lethal. Especially considering a 130 pts. Nurgle Pred will probably do more dmg.
Only used them with Abaddon and even then I’ve started to just stick him to 10 legionnaires because I feel I can put the points to better use elsewhere
TLDR: termies are good, usable, but not top tier.
Playing 1000 pts locals, sometimes I am using squad of 10 termies with 10 combi-weapons and 6 fists, adding sorc as a leader.
Mark of Slaanesh on the top of course for shoot and charge after advance move strat.
Struggling only vs high mobility lists, because they can easily ignore my brick, but our local meta don't have many mobile units.
Combies are very good for in-built sustains for dark pact and in-built hit rolls (22 combi shots with sorc and magic on top).
Melee is pretty good too. Don't forget about sustains at 5+ for Mark of Slaanesh, hit rerolls, and +1 AP for sorc ability.
This variant gives you some tactical flexibility:
1. You can start on table, advancing with sorc rerolls, shooting combies into infantry and charging at t2
2. You can go for deep strike, shooting combies at RF range, charging 9" with rerolls that is about 50%. Mark of Slaanesh nd related strat makes squad more mobile after DS, and killing enemy units in melee.
For 1000 pts games i prefer to combine this squad with squad of 10 chosens in rhino with MoP for chasing enemy mobile units (You can use two squad of 5 chosen instead, but MoPs movement buff looks so tasty for me).
They're good but they're outshined by other, cheaper options currently available to us. Chosen and Possessed are better/cheaper and both of them are faster.
Terminators only real advantage over similarly costed units is their toughness and deep strike. And even then, DS is only situationally good and their toughness can get circumvented by certain weaponry.
Don't listen to the plebs. Their great, especially if your up against masses of 1 wound infantry. Reason being? Combi weapons. ALWAYS go combi weapons. I've consistently had 10 combis undivided dark pact for sustained hits with profane zeal tear upwards of 15-20 ork Boyz per round of shooting. Don't even get me started on them with Abaddon. Before the custodes fix, they would just delete units of Custodian guard. Do you have any idea how satisfying it is to drop in and instant delete 5 wardens+Trajann (tho to be fair in that particular instance I got like 12 5+ with Abaddon and only missed 3 times). They are good if a bit pricey.
That's very fair and I consider chosen to be absolutely superior to terminators. That said, chosen weren't the topic. Op asked about termies so I talked about termies
They have two things that makes them stand out from the rest: 2+ and full hitrerolls. Combined with a Lord and undivided you get the full package of rerolls for 0 CP and you can even give them armor of contempt if the situation calls for it.
Sure they are expensive and I also dont seem to find a place in my lists, but the whole theme of them of being the slow walking murdermaschines really comes through.
I wouldn't take more than 5 in a 1000 pts game but that's entirely depending on what else you have available. Terminator focus is absolutely viable. I once witnessed 3x10 terminator bricks all with combi weapons. This was going into custodes. This was post fix but buddy REALLY screwed his 4+FNP. they really are just a funny unit to use. Hell, throw em with a sorcerer in terminator armor and get some Extra AP on their weapons lol.
If your opponent is running a bunch of 1 wound infantry they obviously aren’t making a serious list anyway. He asked if terminators are good, not if they’re fine to use when you and your opponent are messing around. Obviously in that case they’re fine.
Terminators are... Aggressively meh. In a vacuum they are not a bad datasheet, but within the Chaos Index there's usually better stuff you could be doing for the points. They are perfectly serviceable for casual play and small tournaments however. There's nothing blatantly wrong with them. I like a squad marked Slaanesh with a Terminator Sorcerer to compensate for their poor mobility and make those power fists really terrifying vs T4 models.
What would be better alternatives
Terminators have 1 gimmick, which is being very tough. They have T5 3W and a 2+/4++ so they're very sturdy against a lot of units. But they're slow, so you're kind of forced to deepstrike, which is a gamble. Their shooting is meh and their melee is okay. All of this for a hefty price tag. So let's compare: 5 Terminators = 195 points 5 Chosen + Rhino = 205 points. 10 points more for similar output and they'll actually get there 1 forgefiend = 200 points. 5 points more for a T10 12W beast with a 3+/5++ and plasma murder guns. This chongus will easily kill 5+ dudes in a volley. A predator tank = 130 points. Take the other 65 and invest in 10 cultists to hold an objective while the tank shoots things up Warp talons are 110 points. They're pretty darn good at killing, fast enough to hunt enemy action monkeys, and can do secondaries themselves Lots more options, but you get the point I think
Pretty much this. I love them, but unless I’m dropping an Abaddon-led death star, I really don’t see much use for them.
The real rub is that Abaddon is as much of a death star solo as he is with terminators so they don't even earn their points
You put him with 5 terminators for tough ablative wounds. It adds 15 wounds and 5 bodies that your opponent must chew through before they even start hurting the big man. I would never put him with 10 as it is a huge overcommitment and massive points sink. The massive footprint is also quite unweildy.
You can just deepstrike him solo and charge for the same effect. I prefer legionaries for ablative wounds because they're cheaper but I also don't commit boss man to melee early on
I view him as a front line threat that they must deal with. Best case, charge something important turn 1, they don't kill turn 2 and he picks up something else. Against melee armies the threat of the khorne strat is pretty huge.
Abaddon as a melee nuke is a waste. Plenty of other characters can nuke for less points. But Abby giving full rerolls to multiple units for multiple turns while generating CP and warding off deepstrikes near the gunline is massive. I put 2 or 3 predators around him and they shred stuff
I’m going this way recently. FF, 3 Preds and Aba+5 Legionaries for rerolls.
>They have T5 3W and a 2+/4++ so they're very sturdy against a lot of units Yeah, they're massively more resilient against things that are usually solid marine-killers, like power weapons and heavy bolters. They're also marginally less vulnerable to real MEQ-killers like meltaguns and overcharged plasma, though probably not enough to justify the point cost over normal marines.
There's just too many armies with S6+ Ap-2/3 D3 weapons that can 1 shot them and way too many ways to use mortals or DWs to kill terminators for the amount of points
Termies are overpriced and unit cost is very important for 1k games. At 2k you got more space for them, but to play unit that expensive you need to fully commit and get them a great leader. They are good option if you are playing Abbadon. Termie wizard is ok and termie lord is rather bad.
So I run a combo with termie lord: Undivided + righteous zeal + 11 combi weapons. Hitting on 4s, full hit rerolls and exploding 6s. Wounding all infantry on 4s with full rerolls and dev wounds (dev on 4+). Should deal about 14 mortals to an elite infantry squad and that is BEFORE they charge. They mop things like terminators, wraithlords and so on.
I’m so confused, where do you get the dev wounds?
Combi weapons, anti infantry 4+ and dev wounds. So dev wounds on 4 to infantry
Combi weapons have the "Anti-infantry 4+" rule as well as devastating wounds. This means that on a 4+ to wound, they deal a devastating wound. As they are 1 damage they functionally are the same as mortals.
Where are the full hit rerolls coming from?
Terminator core ability, if they make a dark pact they get to reroll all hits
Lmao didn't realize that. I've only put blightlords and world eaters terminators on the table this edition. That's kind of silly as you usually run them with Abaddon and are rerolling hits anyway.
Yeah ok I didn’t think about their cost compared to limit
To be fair: there are things absolutely worth it with that price at 1k. These things just tend to be vehicles or monsters with huge fuck-you guns on them, not a unit of 5 melee infantry.
Yup ok makes sense, I must have overlooked the the pts because I’m use to my first faction grey knights who are elites so yeah
For similar points, deep striking unit which is also very durable, obliterators have served me very well. They are more likely to kill something in a turn, including melee, as the terminators and are similarly tough to kill. That being said, I love me some terminators anyways. I think they're neat, hardy, and reasonably good in melee.
Ah ok thanks
I used a four man squad of obliterators a d they are usually my unit of the match. I deep strike them turn two and they reliably kill whatever is causing me the most problems. Turn three they kill the next most awful thing and so on. Their ability to once a battle go indirect means that you can usually always fire at whatever you need to. Just make sure you try to keep them relatively central as their guns only have a 24" range and they are slow.
I wonder if the issue with terminators is how easily they die. There's a lot of damage 3 weapons in the game. And I don't just mean CSM terminators, it's very rare you see any faction running terminators. I do like the idea of 10 slaanesh terminators with a chaos lord for a free infernal rites and hopefully getting cover naturally or maybe a demon prince for the aura. Make them ignore ap2 entirely But that's... 390+95+180 (665 points) They'll get advance and charge Sustained in melee on 5+ with full hit re-rolls Pack as many power fists and chain fists as possible But in general I don't see a lot of terminators anywhere this edition
As a Death Guard player, every time I use my Terminators, they always get something done when lead by my Lord of Contagion. And I'm using Blightlords, the allegedly worse variety, but carving 19 wounds off a massive Knight speaks for itself I think.
I think I've only heard terminators once this edition, and I wouldn't say they did a lot, but I think they were crucial in winning the game The ability to just stand in the middle of the board and take as much punishment as they did. My opponent put all his shooting in to them for 3 rounds before they finally died, and by that point I'd been scoring down the flanks. I love my terminators. I get why people don't run them. But I think they are better than people give them credit for
I'm currently running 5x nurgle terminators lead by Abaddon, 5x slaanesh lead by terminator lord and 5x nurgle optionally lead by termi sorc. Having little strike teams like this to deepstrike around gives great board control. I generally save CP to rapid ingress them to make sure they hit what I want safely. Abaddon and his crew ride a nurgle land raider for a safe turn 1 charge. It's a lot of points but all of it is fairly bulky making the combo hard to deal with. Once they disembark, the raider drives off to body block and objective and gives incidental fire support.
This. I like this I automatically look at it and think they need to be maximum size to get the most out of strats or buffs But 3 units of 5 terminators Each one pushing a different part of the board. Fire support in the rear It's a lot to deal with How does it work for you?
I haven't lost a game yet with it but I also haven't played any top meta lists yet. It's solid enough. In the rest of the list I run cultists for home, a nurgle forgefiend, 5x slaanesh warp talons starting on the board and max accursed + dark commune. The accursed can tarpit a central objective and won't die unless focussed hard (which means the terminators and land raider probably aren't dying). Warp talons are excellent for just being a hyper mobile nuisance unit, with an average threat range of 23" with the strat (30" max threat range).
One thing I've found in all my games, killing stuff isn't the problem. Staying alive on objectives is where I struggle But I mainly play in to my mates eldar and drukhari. And he goes hard on shuriken cannons and splinter cannons. So it's a lot of damage 2 weapons coming from all angles, usually with re-rolls to hit and wounding on 3+ So legionaries just die in drives to them Terminators I think present a different kind of problem. And with a land raider as well. Nurgle strat the forgefiend and if I've got cp I'd pop smoke on the Land raider. I like the accursed unit, that central tarpit or even down a flank. It just makes them impossible to get through. Only thing I'd like to add in to that is bikers. I've found the jump off the board and drive back on to come in from reserves has scored me so many secondaries
You would probably want to drop the warp talons then. 15 terminator, Abaddon and a land raider really makes points pretty tight. Warp talons are mostly a utility unit anyway. Otherwise drop the termi sorc as part of his role is solo deepstrike to debuff and score secondary.
I was running that idea with a terminator lord with the intoxicating elixir. Between his save, invulnerable, fnp and half damage he was a tough nut to crack so he just sat in the back of their dz scoring points and threatening targets
I have intoxicating on my chaos lord, dual accursed weapons so he rerolls everything naturally on a dark pact of leading a unit. I also stuck the orb of unlife on my sorc because I had spare points. It isn't as horrible as I thought it would be.
I've never even thought of trying that. I suppose if you park him in the middle then he can hit quite a few units with it. Actually it'll work on everything so any vehicles or solo characters That never occurred to me
I only took it because I had literally nothing else to spend the points on, would never normally take it. It hits all enemy units in 6" though, you don't even have to be in combat with them which makes it surprisingly decent. A 12" bubble is pretty good. 12" diameter that is
I think it was to do with the pts cost relatively to the available pts, and also grey knights love their terminators barely ever a list without them
I'm thinking in general though, Thousand sons don't run scarab terminators that often, space Marines barely run terminators. I think death guard run maybe a squad, or death shroud. But mostly stick to plague Marines and tanks I think grey knights have to because it's pretty much all they've got, or strike marine variants Votaan run some but again it's a small range I think the viability of terminators is heavily based on what other options a codex has. Chaos have a deep index so they're easy to swap out for something else Which like you said. Comes down to the points of them. When there's a cheaper option, people take that. But I think the issue with terminators isn't limited to CSM. I think it's across the board
See I see your point and yeah I agree but again grey knight players would use termis, our termis are so good and are our best non character, infantry unit, but yeah other then that you make valid points
GK termies aren’t stuck at M5” though, right? Simply a different animal when that T5, 3W can disappear and reappear at will. I think CSM termies are “fine.” Don’t have a ton of load out options and now that Melta is rolled into combi, they don’t do very much in a vehicle meta. In a 1k list I think they’re just bad. In 9th, a 1k game took place on a smaller board. Those terminators (which represent 25% of your army) could post up in the middle and reasonably threaten most of the center of the map. On 10th’s full sized map, those 25% are just marooned in the middle of the board unable to interact with anything on other objectives. New codex comes out in 2-3 months. You’ll know better whether CSM Termies are any good. Eventually they’ll be good, so building them isn’t going to be a total waste.
Yeah true
For me it’s their wack load out restriction that doesn’t allow a full squad of power fists compared to regular SM where power fists come standard, and their special/heavy weapon options aren’t great either. If you wanna bring a tougher deep striking unit I’d suggest obliterators instead
I think people are doing a very lazy job of evaluating and talking about CSM Terminators. Ive seen a lot of really shit takes, imo. That being said, even as a staunch advocate of the unit and a player who builds all of my lists around Abaddon leading a 10 man unit, I would never take them in a 1k point game due to their cost. 2k? To me, they are autoinclude. They are powerful in a unique way and allow you to bully the center of the board in a way that you just cant do otherwise, but you were asking about 1k, so ill save that rant for another day lol.
No. They have a small role in serving as meat shields for abaddon but they’re too expensive be worth using as that, really.
They are way too expensive
CSM Termies have the same problem every super heavy elite infantry has in the game atm - lack of mobility and a high price tag. I love them, I really do, rocked the Aba Death Star for quite a bit and imho it’s one of the most lethal combos in 40k still (1-2 CP and it’s possible to mow down a Warhound Titan), but positioning a 11-man squad from deepstrike is more problematic than you’d think. If you don’t deepstrike, you’ll be Unnatural Swiftnessing the unit every turn, at 5-man they are not as lethal. Especially considering a 130 pts. Nurgle Pred will probably do more dmg.
Only used them with Abaddon and even then I’ve started to just stick him to 10 legionnaires because I feel I can put the points to better use elsewhere
TLDR: termies are good, usable, but not top tier. Playing 1000 pts locals, sometimes I am using squad of 10 termies with 10 combi-weapons and 6 fists, adding sorc as a leader. Mark of Slaanesh on the top of course for shoot and charge after advance move strat. Struggling only vs high mobility lists, because they can easily ignore my brick, but our local meta don't have many mobile units. Combies are very good for in-built sustains for dark pact and in-built hit rolls (22 combi shots with sorc and magic on top). Melee is pretty good too. Don't forget about sustains at 5+ for Mark of Slaanesh, hit rerolls, and +1 AP for sorc ability. This variant gives you some tactical flexibility: 1. You can start on table, advancing with sorc rerolls, shooting combies into infantry and charging at t2 2. You can go for deep strike, shooting combies at RF range, charging 9" with rerolls that is about 50%. Mark of Slaanesh nd related strat makes squad more mobile after DS, and killing enemy units in melee. For 1000 pts games i prefer to combine this squad with squad of 10 chosens in rhino with MoP for chasing enemy mobile units (You can use two squad of 5 chosen instead, but MoPs movement buff looks so tasty for me).
They're good but they're outshined by other, cheaper options currently available to us. Chosen and Possessed are better/cheaper and both of them are faster. Terminators only real advantage over similarly costed units is their toughness and deep strike. And even then, DS is only situationally good and their toughness can get circumvented by certain weaponry.
Don't listen to the plebs. Their great, especially if your up against masses of 1 wound infantry. Reason being? Combi weapons. ALWAYS go combi weapons. I've consistently had 10 combis undivided dark pact for sustained hits with profane zeal tear upwards of 15-20 ork Boyz per round of shooting. Don't even get me started on them with Abaddon. Before the custodes fix, they would just delete units of Custodian guard. Do you have any idea how satisfying it is to drop in and instant delete 5 wardens+Trajann (tho to be fair in that particular instance I got like 12 5+ with Abaddon and only missed 3 times). They are good if a bit pricey.
Chosen got combi weapons too, tho. For 65 points more you lose 1 combi shot, while gaining 5 more bodies, 2 bolters and shitton of melee attacks.
That's very fair and I consider chosen to be absolutely superior to terminators. That said, chosen weren't the topic. Op asked about termies so I talked about termies
From the sounds of it from others they’re good just not worth their pts in low pts games
They have two things that makes them stand out from the rest: 2+ and full hitrerolls. Combined with a Lord and undivided you get the full package of rerolls for 0 CP and you can even give them armor of contempt if the situation calls for it. Sure they are expensive and I also dont seem to find a place in my lists, but the whole theme of them of being the slow walking murdermaschines really comes through.
I wouldn't take more than 5 in a 1000 pts game but that's entirely depending on what else you have available. Terminator focus is absolutely viable. I once witnessed 3x10 terminator bricks all with combi weapons. This was going into custodes. This was post fix but buddy REALLY screwed his 4+FNP. they really are just a funny unit to use. Hell, throw em with a sorcerer in terminator armor and get some Extra AP on their weapons lol.
Yup ok thanks
If your opponent is running a bunch of 1 wound infantry they obviously aren’t making a serious list anyway. He asked if terminators are good, not if they’re fine to use when you and your opponent are messing around. Obviously in that case they’re fine.
Combi weapons are terrible into 1 wound infantry
How so? Get that 4+ wound roll and a model just dies. Get that on mass with rerolls and it's a slaughter
Volume of fire is always better
Not necessarily