Tactical Terminators?

[Theduke08]

Ive been kicking around the idea of running a squad of 10 tactical terminators with dual CML and maybe with a chainfist or two with Corbulo up front soaking up as many shots as possible and using LoS if necessary. I understand that this is a huge chunk of points but i think it would be a unit thats nearly impossible to ignore. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

[JamesI]

I haven't done it with 10 terminators yet (still need to paint several). I have used 6 terminators (assault cannon instead of Cyclones) and corbulo and a Librarian in terminator armor with storm shield. IT worked well, the librarian and corbulo can soak a lot of wounds for the rest of the squad.

[Ushtarador]

If you build your army around it, it might work out very well indeed. Just advance forward while shooting stuff and camp his objectives after turn 4. The rest of the army should be rather shooty as well though in my opinion, if you spend such a huge chunk of points on a ranged rock your fast-moving melee units will not be as effective as usual.

[IK Viper]

I run a ten man tac. term unit in about 75% of my games with a naked PA sang priest and a naked Librarian. its alot of points but its HARD to remove, and hits back hard in both CC and shooting. I run mine with 2 Assault Cannons and 2 Chain Fists in there. They can take on anything and do fairly well, and yes the enemy will put alot of shots into them in an attempt to blow them off the table.

 

I used them thursday in a relic game and they moved up near the relic and came under fire from 3 raiders full of wytches and 2 Razorwing Fighters. They went to ground a few times but held out for 4 turns under that baradge and only lost 5 guys, dispite being rapid fired for 2 turns, finishing off both flyers in the proccess (thanks to precience) and then helping DC clean out what remained of the DE Raiders and their contents

 

very impressive game for them.

 

btw Paladins are afraid of these guys now :-)

[Killax]

Yes, Terminators (ei 2+ armour) has gone up, like 13+ AV has.

 

My best friend plays DA Deathwing and it's actually quite competative now.

 

So yes, give it a try.

[CitadelArmyGuy]

I need to playtest these guys. I've run Assault Terminators with Corbulo in about 5 games now, and they have always overperformed and usually destroy their cost in points back. Corbulo is the key for me, my last game he soaked 46 wounds throughout the game without failing a single one. 46. 46 wounds. HO....LEE....CRAP!

 

He had to Look Out Sir! a few meltagun shots in there, so I took those on the Unit's stormshields.

 

I feel the Tactical Terminators will perform better in the back-to-midfield, if your list is built that way. It would seem the Assault Terminators perform better in a mid-to-forward field attacking list. But as I've said, I need to playtest the Tactical Terminators to really see how they do-- in my mind however, I am simply loathe to give up my Storm Shields. Corbulo with TH-SS Termies is one of (if not THE most) durable Units in the entire game of 40K.

[Killax]

I have to agree with the above, in general:

 

The BA Mech can make the most use of the normal Tactical Terminators.

The BA DoA can make some nice use of the Assault Terminators, however since that list allready is very forward the extras sometimes feel like overkill, this is mostly due to 2+ armour getting better but shooting to.

[Theduke08]

Well I plan on using them for exactly that, sitting in the middle of the field absorbing/distracting as many of his units as possible while my faster moving units run on the outside of the board with some drop pod sternguard in there somewhere.

[knife&fork]

Corbulo is the key for me, my last game he soaked 46 wounds throughout the game without failing a single one. 46. 46 wounds. HO....LEE....CRAP!

 

This part is what I don't get and I've seen a lot of people post similar things.

Why does your opponent let you get away with Corbulo tanking that amount of wounds? Doesn't seem like something a good opponent would allow, at least not more than once.

[Pascalnz]

If you angle it well, it's hard to not shoot at him out front.

 

a strom shield termy Librarian can soak even more, if he get the div power that lets him re roll his armour saves. 2+ 3++ rerollable yikes.

 

I had a game with corbulo a ten man assault termy squad and an allied vanilla libby with gate and null zone. came up against a logan wing, hot damn it worked a charm:P. it should be about as good with tactical.

[CitadelArmyGuy]

Corbulo is the key for me, my last game he soaked 46 wounds throughout the game without failing a single one. 46. 46 wounds. HO....LEE....CRAP!

 

This part is what I don't get and I've seen a lot of people post similar things.

Why does your opponent let you get away with Corbulo tanking that amount of wounds? Doesn't seem like something a good opponent would allow, at least not more than once.

A good combination of Positioning from Shooting, Engaging in melee, and considering the other components of your list. Also, your opponent not understanding just how good his tank is certainly helps, no lie there.

 

The game in question Corbulo where he tanked 46 wounds was because my list was 2 Land Raiders and 2 Predators (plus other misc). The crux was there wasn't anything else for his anti-infantry shooting to aim at. And when I engaged in melee, Corbulo refused any challenges and simply lended his tank to soak all non-ID hits. Melee is where Corbulo-tank is at his best; as you can choose to take hits on anyone who is in base-to-base (ie equal distance from enemy) then you can choose to take all non-ID hits onto him. So in that game, his 2 squadrons of double-HB Speeders and his Grey Hunters (in melee) had no other choice but to 'waste' their efforts against Corbulo. I had so much heavy-armor on the table that he couldn't spend any of his shooting-AT aiming at Corbulo.

[Joasht]

I need to go re-read the wound allocation rules; I always assumed if your opponent has models in combat with an IC (like Corbulo) and a bunch of other things, he/she chooses whether to allocate the wounds to the IC or unit.

[Lord Ragnarok]

I need to go re-read the wound allocation rules; I always assumed if your opponent has models in combat with an IC (like Corbulo) and a bunch of other things, he/she chooses whether to allocate the wounds to the IC or unit.

 

Yeah, not anymore. Ic's can't be singled out in normal combat. They are like squad leading characters. They can be targeted for challenges and precision strikes.

[knife&fork]

I had a game with corbulo a ten man assault termy squad and an allied vanilla libby with gate and null zone. came up against a logan wing, hot damn it worked a charm:P. it should be about as good with tactical.

 

I wouldn't expect it to work quite as well with tacticals since you are less inclined to get in CC and the unit doesn't have a lot of good inv saves to use. I was a huge fan of the 10 man terminator FnP blob in 5th but from what I've seen so far it's weaker in 6th. Cover saves got worse, FnP got worse overall for termies and casualty removal rules made it much easier to single out your heavy weapons.

 

 

On the other hand, if you really go for a melee approach with your tacticals it might work better. It just seems counter intuitive at first. They do have quite the bite in CC and losing one or two to a fist isn't a huge price to pay when you will massacre most things in return. The problem of course is mobility.

 

Also, your opponent not understanding just how good his tank is certainly helps, no lie there.

 

I think that most people have yet to realize just how important (and powerful!) positioning is in 6th.

[IK Viper]

Very good point knife&fork. these guys do suffer from a mobility issue to be sure. and I have never been pleased with the results of DS these guys in the past, they loose atleast one round of shooting and are hard to bring down safely. tactiacls only outperform Assault Term. if they get several turns of shooting in and DS cuts into this conciderably

 

To counter the lack of lateral speed I have tried (with mixed success) to use my supporting fast units like JP RAS, Rhino bound DC or Sternguard, or Fast Predators to get at the sides of enemy units, forcing the opponent to choose to keep his IC tank as he is, or shift and expose the unit to Terminator fire.

 

when I use these guys I want them taking fire, I want them being the attention getter in the middle of the board because they can handle it for the most part. Since they can shoot, if you really need them to stand up to alot of fire you can send them to ground in area terrain to get a 3+ cover save, making them Assault terminators for a turn. I would only do this though if there is a very good reason to try and keep them around (paladin blob walking toward you) or if there are flyers they can snap fire at after going to ground. It is all a matter of gadging how much fire your opponent is going to assign to the unit. If they can tank a whole bunch of wounds then they are doing their job.

 

Assume that they will die when you put them on the board... but hope that their sacrifice results in you having alot of full strength TROOP CHOICES around in the late game.

 

PS Take chain fists, they are cheap and make this unit alot more viable against heavy armor, just adding to their versitility. With FC its like 3, S 9 Melta Bombs that don't give a crap about Cerimite plating

[Prototype]

I need to go re-read the wound allocation rules; I always assumed if your opponent has models in combat with an IC (like Corbulo) and a bunch of other things, he/she chooses whether to allocate the wounds to the IC or unit.

 

Yeah, not anymore. Ic's can't be singled out in normal combat. They are like squad leading characters. They can be targeted for challenges and precision strikes.

 

This is news to me too. Good gosh, my locals need to learn to read the rulebook. Mine just arrived...

So, there is literally nothing that can be done to "snipe" ICs in melee except with challenges or precision strikes?

[Xenith]

So, there is literally nothing that can be done to "snipe" ICs in melee except with challenges or precision strikes?

Nope. Welcome to the 202nd decade.

[Prototype]

Interesting......*evil giggle*

 

Anyway back on topic, I'm interested in playing Terminators, as I do own quite a lot of them, of both flavors (assault and tactical).

 

However, at the points I play at (1,000 and 1,500 mostly), finding space for the SR or LR is extremely tight.

 

What are opinions on just footslogging them? Or should I just pay for the transport? Or maybe tactical Terminators can easily get away without a transport, but assault Terminators are just too slow?

[mysteriousmaskedmystery]

if you put corbs in with them, they can probably slog it, and become a part of your strategy as a fire magnet, though, without the ++3 saves to look out sir to, it could be a problem

[Zeller]

So how does this work when you get thrown against a vindicator or 3? Do the psyker's powers allow the TDA members to re-roll their invulnerable saves? Seeing as how FNP is useless against ID weapons I don't see this squad living long against it. Granted this can't be a vacuum comparison but even then the vindi's aren't unsupported either.

[DominicJ]

How are people getting corbs to survive all these wounds?

He has a 3+ AS and a 2+ FNP

 

Statisticaly, thats 18, assuming he doesnt fail a LoS and eat a demolisher round

[JamesI]

How are people getting corbs to survive all these wounds?

He has a 3+ AS and a 2+ FNP

 

Statisticaly, thats 18, assuming he doesnt fail a LoS and eat a demolisher round

luck. I had Dante soak 16 wounds in one round once, failed none between 2+ and FNP. I also had him die to failing 4 out of 6 armor saves in another round. Its luck.

 

Corbulo is good at soaking wounds, but don't count on him passing some obscene number of saves

[Pascalnz]

it's not 18 mate:) it's 18 per wound, with a reroll so usually 18x3 =44. and that's bang average, if you roll well, i.e. within a standard deviation, he aint gonna die at all:)

[CitadelArmyGuy]

it's not 18 mate:) it's 18 per wound, with a reroll so usually 18x3 =44. and that's bang average, if you roll well, i.e. within a standard deviation, he aint gonna die at all:)

 

Yep. 36 Wounds to kill Corbulo, if there are no ID or AP3. Effectively 44 wounds since you can use Far Seeing Eye to reroll for his 2nd wound-- but it's not a *true* 44 wounds (as it's only one reroll, and you may need to use it against an unlucky Look Out Sir from an ID weapon). As mentioned however, it is not unreasonable where he never takes any wounds at all-- the game I had where he saved 46 wounds is within one standard deviation of the expected outcome.

 

The fact that Far Seeing Eye can be used flexibly between either failing his last wound or failing a Look Out Sir actually makes him harder to kill than many 3-wounds ICs.

 

None of this changes the fact that for all the games where he never dies at all, you'll see an equal number of games where he dies from the first 15 wounds put on him. But in general, your method of employment as well as a reroll on two types of 2+ rolls means he'll 'save' his points costs back (if he saves 105pts from dying, then he was worth it--- and generally he can prevent the death of 3 Terminators or 5 MEQ quite easily)

 

 

Also the fact that he likes to lead out-front of a Unit rather than hiding at the back like a normal Sanguinary Priest makes him awesome, frankly!