Chaos Termies - why say they suck?

[Rune_Priest_Rhapsody]

@jeske: Again, I am talking about the point cost for a combi weapon taken by a chaos terminator and the point cost of a combi weapon taken by a space marine sternguard. I could give two :cusss about all the other stuff. I know that, I have the codex too...

 

@FENRISULFER: I totally agree that Yaba-daba-Abaddon should of unlocked terminators as troops. It just seems so fluffy!!

 

I personally have always liked the idea of termicide units, even before I started playing Chaos. If, and I say IF the unit of 3 DS's in and pops a land raider, or battle wagon, or anything else that makes up it's points then that's great. The psychological use of them is also very appealing to me. Keeping my opponent wondering when and where they will drop and causing possible poor movement choices is great!!

 

When it comes down to it, it's your army. Build and play it how you want. *thumbs up*

 

End of Line

[FENRISÚLFUR]

@jeske: Again, I am talking about the point cost for a combi weapon taken by a chaos terminator and the point cost of a combi weapon taken by a space marine sternguard. I could give two :cusss about all the other stuff. I know that, I have the codex too...

 

@FENRISULFER: I totally agree that Yaba-daba-Abaddon should of unlocked terminators as troops. It just seems so fluffy!!

 

I personally have always liked the idea of termicide units, even before I started playing Chaos. If, and I say IF the unit of 3 DS's in and pops a land raider, or battle wagon, or anything else that makes up it's points then that's great. The psychological use of them is also very appealing to me. Keeping my opponent wondering when and where they will drop and causing possible poor movement choices is great!!

 

When it comes down to it, it's your army. Build and play it how you want. *thumbs up*

 

End of Line

 

 

I tend to use units/models that psych out my opponent and draw most of their firepower. Some of my favorite units for this role are daemon princes, defilers, and our beloved terminators. Basically units that appear to be much more of a threat than they actually are. If it keep them from shooting up my troops, then they have done their job.

[Res Ipsa Loquitur]

Because most of the people on forums like this who will offer you tactical advice are the same people who build optimised lists to attend tournaments with and CSM Terminators simply don't cut it, in that meta.

 

If you don't play tournaments you can gleefully ignore every piece of tactical advice you ever read on the internet. It's much more constructive to discover what works in your meta. 

[Warsmith Aznable]

I have never played in a tournament and don't ever plan to. I don't worry about super optimization and I never field any unit, ally, or combination thereof that I don't think would fit my warband's fluff. But I do get tired of losing, so I avoid it if I can. Sometimes you just have to look at a unit and take it for what it is and run it the best way you can (or avoid it altogether). Sure, look at your local game and think about what you could get away with doing. But that's a different thing than an objective look at a unit and comparing it to enemy equivalents, other options in your codex that fill the same role, and overall effectiveness in given configurations.

[zyl-]

I've actually had great success with terminators in my lists before. I really don't think they deserve the venom they recieve.

[Chaeron]

Fibonacci nailed it. I've said the same thing about other units in the codex. If your terminators suck, it's because you're playing them wrong. 

 

That's a pretty far-reaching claim to make.

 

My rebuttal: clearly I must be, because I play competitively. 

[Kilofix]

One thing I know, when I do play Loyalist Termies, I miss having a whole squad with Combi-Plasma, Melta or Flamer.

[Fibonacci]

 If you don't play tournaments you can gleefully ignore every piece of tactical advice you ever read on the internet.

including this ^

:lol:

[Hellios]

Yeah, if you are just messing around, you can do what you like. Feel free to take them. They can be used, and they can make their points back. Hell Termicide squads don't have to die. Good placement (and a bit of luck, no scatter mitigation) can make the difference between living or not after blowing up that land raider.

 

The problem with chaos terminators is... there are better things to spend your points on. That is why terminators are bad. They are not really good, and they are not cheap. So you have an expensive but okay unit.

[Sception]

It's less the core package with terminators and more the options that surround them.  The termies themselves are ok, but the marks are all a bit pricey for them, vets is just criminal, and reaper autocannons are both quite pricey and just not all that impressive.  On top of that, the lack of a focused transport land raider and deep strike mitigation rather painfully restrict your options for using terminators if you choose to do so.

 

Again, the core package isn't bad, and they're easily, imo, our best elite unit.  But because of the lackluster options surrounding them, there's not all that much interesting there is to do with them, and the points situation in the rest of our list means I rarely have points spare for terminators even if I don't think they're all that bad in and of themselves.

[the jeske]

@jeske: Again, I am talking about the point cost for a combi weapon

taken by a chaos terminator and the point cost of a combi weapon taken

by a space marine sternguard. I could give two :cusss about all the

other stuff. I know that, I have the codex too...

I must miss understand the nature of term suck it then . Because marines seem to run their sternguards and they do have combi weapons , and sternguards are run more offten then terminators both chaos and not chaos.

 

 

 If you don't play tournaments you can gleefully ignore every piece of tactical advice you ever read on the internet.

But that isn't very helpful to people that may want to use chaos termianators themselfs . If there are other ways of using terminators and they are supposably good , I would like to learn about them . A rather sure there are many people both new and old players that would like to do that too.

[Deadman Wade]

While I find all terminators underperforming, I prefer Chaos terminators over shooty loyalist and GK. For 185 pts you can take 5-man squad with combi-weapons and inflict much more damage than regular terminators (last game ten Salamander terminators couldn't kill my obliterators squad for two turns of shooting and died after doing pretty much nothing).

I would use Chaos Terminators more often if they would have something like Deathwing Assault or simple teleport homer, but currently they are too unreliable for my taste.

[Warsmith Aznable]

simple teleport homer,

I miss deepstriking onto Icons too...

I feel like they were trying to force us into finding some kind of synergy with codex daemons to push the concept of allies.

[RolandTHTG]

simple teleport homer,

I miss deepstriking onto Icons too...

I feel like they were trying to force us into finding some kind of synergy with codex daemons to push the concept of allies.

But then they removed being able to deepstrike onto your allie's icons too

It isn't the best unit, but I'm planning to run khorne termis in my local games, just because the "They have how many attacks!" look is hilarious.

[Chaeron]

simple teleport homer,

I miss deepstriking onto Icons too...

I feel like they were trying to force us into finding some kind of synergy with codex daemons to push the concept of allies.

But then they removed being able to deepstrike onto your allie's icons too

It isn't the best unit, but I'm planning to run khorne termis in my local games, just because the "They have how many attacks!" look is hilarious.

Yeah, similar reasoning here - looks great. I'm not too sure how often I'll use it, but love the concept.

[Dam13n]

Chaos Terminators in themselves aren't bad, they have:

- Access to Combi-weapons

- Good variety of Melee Weapons

- Small minimum squad size

- Adaptable thanks to Marks and Icons

- Cheap (before upgrades)

 

Unfortunately they don't have:

- Access to a 3++ save

- Access to decent heavy weapons

- A good delivery mechanism

 

They also tend to lose out a lot of the time because once you've taken the essential/valuable choices that a CSM army needs to work on the table, there often aren't enough points left to invest in a decent squad of Terminators and a Delivery system (Land Raider) for them, so they get stuck as Suicide Squads at best.

 

It's not really the Terminators fault, it's the rest of the codex that fails to provide a good delivery system for them (no Land Raider variants, while the Storm Eagle and Spartan are expensive, and lose PotMS when taken by Chaos) and also encourages you to take more effective units (usually from the Fast Attack and Heavy Support selections).

 

I personally would love to put a Khorne Lord (in TA with the Axe of Blind Fury and a Power Weapon) and 7 Khorne Terminators (with 5 Pairs of Lightning Claws, Champ with Claw/Chainfist and 1 with Heavy Flamer/Chainfist) in a Chaos Land Raider Crusader (with a Dirge Caster and Multi-melta) and smash my way though pretty much anything that got in my way.  (Especially if they were Berserker Terminators and I could give them Feel no Pain, like the old days of 3.5 when it was a Gift of Khorne).

 

But I know that I can't do that, because GW were too short-sighted to see that just updating Gav's Codex wasn't going to make anyone happy, or fix any of the problems that Chaos Marines had.

[Deadman Wade]

I honestly don't see not having Land Raider variants as a problem. All LRs are big overcosted targets for anti-vehicle weapons, and usually they get blown before they deliver anything close enough, at least Chaos Land Raider can get screen of cultists for one turn. I rarely use any Land Raiders these days, maybe in one of five games, even though I have all 3 for loyalists and one for chaos.

Chaos has the worst transport options for close combat squads, yes, but all other delivery methods (different LRs and Stormraven/stormeagle) are also quite bad, except for Space Wolves drop pods, they are the best transport for terminators IMO.

[Sception]

Meh > Lousy, and lack of EDIT: transports for terminators isn't as frustrating as total lack of homing beacons or other deep strike mitigation.  Chaos termies don't get missiles or assault cannons, reapers are lousy EDIT: lackluster and overpriced.  Long range is just not a thing they do, so that leaves infiltrate via huron, or MSU to be cheap enough to make unsupported deep strike remotely palatable.
 
And, again, chaos termies are ok in those contexts.  Not great, usually not able to justify inclusion, but not bad if you force them into your list anyway.  But I'd gladly give up termicide viability (with, for instance a 4 or even 5 man min squad) or the ability to infiltrate them (specifically barring them from Huron & Ahriman's ability for instance), for suitable transports, homing beacons, and prices on their upgrades, so that I could run them effectively in the ways they're shown in the fluff.  The disconnect between how they work in the fluff and how they work on the table means that while it's not hard to win (casual) games using them, it is very difficult to "forge their narrative".

[Rune_Priest_Rhapsody]

@Jeske: I was simply saying that our terminators get combi weapons for 5 points less than the new sternguard. So to them (the sternguard) I meant "in your face". Sorry for the confusion.

 

I'm going to agree with malisteen 100% on his above statement. My only additional thought that differs is that cheap termicides units are great in the psychological game, which I already stated, but are not nearly as good as they could be with beacons etc. This fact still makes them worse than the other elite options we have. i.e. I would rather take a Baleflamer and or bike squad over a termicide unit that might offer up assistance or get shot to :cuss before they can do any real damage.

It comes down to two things: Personal preference and the hard facts that there are better options if you are optimizing.

 

End of Line

[Sception]

Elite slot.  They're our best unit, in that they're the best unit choice we have out of the elites section of the force org chart.  Dreads suffer even worse from lack of delivery for their short range & melee weaponry, chosen are as expensive (once you kit them up) as combi weapon terminators but don't have the terminator armor or power weapons, none of the cult units are really worth considering if you aren't taking them as troops, and possessed are just laughably awful.

 

But while terminators are our best option out of the elites section, they're still pretty lackluster, and just don't hold up compared to the majority of the units in our Fast or Heavy slots, nor are they simply necessary (both in terms of being literally required and in terms of being needed for army functionality & scenario objectives) like our better Troop and HQ options.

 

Saying I usually can't find points for terminators is saying I generally can't find points for anything from our elites section at all, which is a shame, as several of our more iconic units, terminators included, live there, and given our fluff and the overall character of our faction, the elite's slot should be one of our most important unit categories.  It's where the heresy era legionnaires should live, ruling like debased warrior-kings over the clattering rabble of post-heresy renegades, newly created chaos marines, and degenerate cultists that should comprise the bulk of our army.

 

Then again, I've always been more partial to the 'lost and the damned' style take on the forces of chaos in the 41st millenium than the traditional 'marines with spikey bits' approach.

[Rune_Priest_Rhapsody]

LOL!! oops...

Weird, my army builder has them under the fast attach slots... Guess it's time to update the program, and my brain

 

Noise and Plague Marines aren't bad either, and are made better if your HQ has a corresponding mark. But right, Terminators are all around a better choicedo to them not being situational. Although you see more players running PM's with twin plasma more than anything else in the section...

 

End of Line

[Sception]

I'd rate plague marines and certain configurations of noise marines as midway decent troops choices, but I don't think either pass muster as non-scoring elites.  Difference of opinion, I guess.  Honestly, if terminators could be made scoring somehow, I might rate them a bit better as well, though that's not exactly the 'fix' I'd like to see for them.

[Andhil]

I constantly run 20 Chaos termies in my list. Now, It's a fluffy list, with a concept. 10 of the Termies are equipped with a couple of fists and chainfists, and 2 Reaper autocannons. No combi's whatsoever. Why? My local group loves their FMC's, and Twin-Linked weaponry almost equals Skyfire for efficiency. And beyond that, it's a ridiculous amount of shooting, and a huge target.

The other Termies are divided in 2 Groups of 5. The first group packs 5 Combi-Melta's. (again, more MC's than tanks here, so 3 Melta's don't cut it.) the other group has 4 Combi-flamers and a Heavy Flamer. They Deepstrike, and are somewhat a Counter Attack force for me.

I've heard alot of moaning about Delivery systems and stuff. Well....I use a Daemon Prince with Wings, who often gets into CC in T1 to activate his Dimensional Key. And voila, instant DS Scatter mitigation. Nothing breaks an army in two like 10 Termies in your rear lines who don't Scatter on DS.

Ok, I admit, it's not perfect, but it's sooo cool when this works. So, don't take this as "the absolute Truth that Chaos Termies ARE awesome!" but rather as a...serving suggestion.

[Sception]

It's nice to hear they're doing well for someone at least.  I've attempted similar configurations with decidedly less favorable results, and Black Legion doesn't even have access to the dimensional key without resorting to allies.

[FENRISÚLFUR]

Would it be that bad to ally with the main codex Mal? In doing so it gives you axcess to another Hq (for the Key), another of the precious fast attack slots, and another slot to take more obliterators or perhaps a daemon engine if you so desire.