TDA for Lords and leaders?

[Annatar Giftbringer]

Greetings Fanged Ones,

I couldn't resist threading the path of my ancestors and finally succumbed to the whispers.... So, I'm starting a Space Wolf army! So far, I own one pack of Grey Hunters and a box of terminators. I was thinking about an atleast partially Terminator-equipped Wolf Guard squad lead by a Battle Leader, that will probably Drop Pod into the face of the enemy. The terminator Kit is awesome, so many possibilities! Almost too many.... Anyways I thought I'd build the Battle-leader from this kit too, the wolf cloak readilty marking him as leader.

 

But... What options to give him? He has three attacks and high initiative, and he is an Independent Character without Invulnerable save. Terminator armour on its own don't quite make him survivable enough, does it? He almost needs a shield. As for the attacks, he needs either extra wounding chances or improved damage-dealing in order to do damage and properly utilise his high initiative. this tells me he needs either a Wolf Claw or a Frost Blade, but if he has Frost Blade he really should have a pistol of some kind, which is impossible with Terminator Armour.

 

then I thought, why not make the most of his damage-dealing and survivability and give him a Storm Shield and a Thunderhammer? brutal and effective, plus I could use the same model as Arjac when I feel like it! Great! But... Is it really worth paying all those points for termi armour when he mostly relies on the shield for defence? Seems much better to me to use those points elsewhere?

 

The main reasons I can see for using TDA on the Battle Leader is that it looks cool, and he won't want to be smaller than his squad, after all he is a God of War and all that! But, if he gets regular Power Armour, there will be room for more Wolf Guard in the Drop Pod...

 

 

 

Also, the same reasoning goes for Wolf Lord. He can get a decent Invul save through the Russ Belt, and perhaps has enough attacks to be able to make the most of his possible Frost Blade even if he has Termi Armour. On the other hand, the Wolf Lord might be better off with PA or Runic, since he has none-battlefield duties to attend too, and that might be easier in PA... Or I could give him a Thunderwolf and be done with it (yay!). By the way, I'm planning on using Sven Bloodhowl's Company. I wanted red shoulderpads, and I also wanted an army not too similiar to my Blood Ravens, so more elite super troops and assault, which he seems to favour.

[Freman Bloodglaive]

Since we don't get terminator teleport, if you take an invulnerable save like belt of Russ or storm shield then runic armour is better than terminator armour. More mobility options (Rhino, jump pack, bike), the ability to sweeping advance, and the same save as terminator armour effectively.

 

However if he is in a terminator squad there's no real disadvantage to taking terminator armour since the penalties apply to the squad anyway.

 

In terms of weapons I'd say that initiative based weapons are best for the initiative 5 characters, at least those which aren't protected by non-independent character status and eternal warrior (like Arjac). You can get away with the thunder hammer, but I wouldn't do it myself.

[Vash113]

Well to be honest, I liked Terminator Armor for my HQ's more in the older Codex, when at more than 2000 points I was getting towards 4-5 HQs on the field and at that point I was having trouble giving them all an Invulnerable Save and so Terminator Armor was a good option to give them a better armor save and at least a token Invulnerable save.

 

Now with Storm Shields its... not so great...

 

I still like it on my extra Battle Leaders and my Rune Priest but its more because its cool and a relatively cheap invulnerable save that leaves the characters free to take a gun and in a sci-fi setting I hate it when people run around without guns and my army already has a choppy-choppy Frost Blade+Storm Shield Battle Leader so... options and diversity...

 

It's really up to personal preference.