Quick Space Wolf Terminator Question

[Guest]

Hello! I am not a space wolf player but have managed to acquire Krom Dragongaze and 10 Space wolf terminators. I thought I'd paint them up just as a break from my vanilla marines and Guard, but wanted some advice from you all before I did that. So, heres my question, what's the best way for me to build the terminators? TH/SS? Dual lightning claws (or wait you call them something else right?), powerfists and storm blotters? I don't have the codex but I do want to build something game legal, and not completely daft. Also, 1 unit of 10 or 2 of 5? Thanks in advance for your suggestions.

[Jochteas]

Short Answer: Magnetize, terminators are worth it and their are many different great combinations for such, its easy and for like $10 more you save in the long wrong not having to buy many terminators.

 

Long Answer:

 

While there are many great customizations and configurations for Terminators there are 'popular' trends. Two popular formations that where featured in the Supplement Champions Of Fenris is a 5 man termie squad with Arjac and a LRC that's very good, the stipulation for them is all TH/SS. There is also an all termie group that is x2 Wolf claw (Not lightning here ) that is really good and has a lot of nice bonuses. If you had to do any and refused to magnetized 1 group of 5 TH/SS and 1 group of 5 WCx2 Would be my route. Both of those combos (WCx2 or TH/SS) make great lone wolves as well, so you could get some mileage out of them that way. Like I said there are some good ranged set ups that good use of dakka, but those 2 groups are popular and will see some good use.

[FenrisWolf]

You're right. IN our codex "Lightning claws" are Wolf Claws, and have all the stats of Lightning claws but also add 1 to the strength of the user.

As for what to take, that is dependent on what you want them to do, just as regular marines. The most common load outs would be TH/SS, WolfClaw/SS, dual Wolf Claws (opens a nice formation for you) or chainfists. I haven't seen many folks run PF on termies.

Jochteas sniped me. SHouldn't have stopped to look something up!

[Jochteas]

Sorry! I just wanted to terminate the question as quick as possible

[FenrisWolf]

*groan* Where's my throwing tankard? Can't waste the good ones on your hard head!

[Frater Cornelius]

Jochteas will officially be crowned as the jester of the Fang. Work on it though, some jokes are not up to par yet. This one was fairly decent though :P

[Jochteas]

Jochteas will officially be crowned as the jester of the Fang. Work on it though, some jokes are not up to par yet. This one was fairly decent though

You're right, around here some jokes i just rune. Aett enough time in the day to think of all the rout answers, but i try to pack in as many as I can anyways.

[Donkalleone]

Ehm Arjac SB is Arjac + 3 Termis (the minimum)

[Jochteas]

Ehm Arjac SB is Arjac + 3 Termis (the minimum)

Actually its Arjac + 3 Termies + Land Raider Crusader, and all the Termies bust be equiped with Thunder hammer and Storm Shield, But whose counting?

[FenrisWolf]

Jochteas, allow me to regale you with a cautionary tale.  There once was a young Bloodclaw, as renowned for his mirth and humor as for his skills in battle.  He had quick wit and was able to lift the spirits of his brothers-in-arms with his jokes and laughter, even in dark circumstances.  He was in the High King's Great Company, and his fame grew over the years.  In countless battles he proved his valor and bravery and also his skills in word play.  

 

Eventually the High King himself heard of this young warrior and sent for him.  Logan Grimnar was still troubled by the actions of the Inquisition after the First War of Armageddon and was seeking a lightening of his mood.  The young Bloodclaw, being full of bravado and the brashness of youth, answered his summons quickly.  Logan asked for a demonstration of his word play talents and wit.  The young warrior made his first jest, and elicited little reaction from the High King.  Undaunted he pressed on with another pun.  Again, no reaction.  The Bloodclaw tried over and over, but was unable to get even a smile from our King.  But he had saved his greatest work for last.  He delivered this, his most exquisitely crafted word play,and his timing was flawless.  But again, our High King was unmoved.  He sent the Bloodclaw away, but not unkindly as he saw the skills, but his mood was too black.  

 

Upon returning to his pack, the others asked how the audience went.  He told them of his tries, how he had so desperately wanted to prove himself to the High King.  

He said, "I gave him my best, ten times I tried.  Ten jests I said."  

 

They asked, "Did he laugh? Did he smile?"

 

"I thought that one would make him laugh," said the Bloodclaw, "but, unfortunately, no pun in ten did."

[Jochteas]

What? Logan was Grim? Narrrrr I don't believe it.

But seriously hilarious story. I like to tell long stories like that in person, I mean puns too, but its harder to holder a captive internet audience. Especially around here its a batch

[Rune Priest Jbickb]

I love a good pun so keep em rolling Jochteas!

[tylerw]

I prefer, "Not pun in ten did," but that's like preferring three braids in my beer(d) to two.

[irwit]

All ten with storm shields and stormbolters and a couple of assault cannons. Solid unit which for a 2+ 3++ unit is cheap as chips. Deep strike into the cebter of the board and soak up lots of shooting :)

[Hear da Lamentation]

Two great Ba Bum ..... Cheeeese's :)

[Guest]

you all have been great help and thoroughly entertaining. Thank you again. I think I have a good idea of where to go when i decide to put these guys together. 

[skeletoro]

note that at 33 points, a sb+ss terminator is actually more expensive than two grey hunters, with less (at best equal) firepower and equal survivability vs AP4+. Yes, the unit is a lot tougher vs AP3 and somewhat tougher vs AP1-2, but yeaahh.

[irwit]

How are they equal survivability with a 3+ vs a 2+ save? Tda are twice as survivable vs ap4 and up and many times more survivable vs ap3 and ap2. They also have twice the fire power at 12-24 inch range. They also have no need for cover saves so can roam the board as they please.

 

Everything in moderation obviously but our cheap stormshield terminators are something to take advantage of I feel.

[Rasclomalum]

Not sure how valid a comparison this is, but let's pit two units against each other as a quick example.

 

Squad 1: 5 TDAWG, 4 Storm Bolter/Storm Shield, 1 Assault Cannon/Storm Shield. 185 points.

 

Squad 2: 10 GH, 2 Plasma Guns, one plasma pistol (for :cusss and giggles and points equality). 185 points. 

 

12''-24''

 

The Terminators kill 1.926 Grey Hunters, or about 27 points. 

 

The Grey Hunters kill 0.814 Terminators, or about 27 points. 

 

So, pretty much equal here. 

 

0''-12''

 

The Terminators kill 1.926 Grey Hunters, or about 27 points. Then 0.453 terminators die to overwatch. But assaulting with this particular termie loadout seems unadvisable.

 

The Grey Hunters kill 1.815 Terminators, or about 60 points. 

 

Not looking too good for the termies here. 

 

 

To be sure, this does not take a lot of things into account, but to me it seems to convey a basic idea: terminators just don't do long range fire well. Personally I feel that their storm bolters should come with special issue ammunition, because tactical terminators could do with a helping hand. Anyway, the problem with SB/SS terminators seems to be that they aren't as durable as one might think and that any stripe of terminator really wants to get into close combat to maximise their potential. 

[Jochteas]

You know for fun, what about changing it to Stormbolter and power weapon, like maybe power axe or powermaul and see what happens when the Termies do have a good assault weapon. 

[irwit]

Not sure how valid a comparison this is, but let's pit two units against each other as a quick example.

 

Squad 1: 5 TDAWG, 4 Storm Bolter/Storm Shield, 1 Assault Cannon/Storm Shield. 185 points.

 

Squad 2: 10 GH, 2 Plasma Guns, one plasma pistol (for :cusss and giggles and points equality). 185 points. 

 

12''-24''

 

The Terminators kill 1.926 Grey Hunters, or about 27 points. 

 

The Grey Hunters kill 0.814 Terminators, or about 27 points. 

 

So, pretty much equal here. 

 

0''-12''

 

The Terminators kill 1.926 Grey Hunters, or about 27 points. Then 0.453 terminators die to overwatch. But assaulting with this particular termie loadout seems unadvisable.

 

The Grey Hunters kill 1.815 Terminators, or about 60 points. 

 

Not looking too good for the termies here. 

 

 

To be sure, this does not take a lot of things into account, but to me it seems to convey a basic idea: terminators just don't do long range fire well. Personally I feel that their storm bolters should come with special issue ammunition, because tactical terminators could do with a helping hand. Anyway, the problem with SB/SS terminators seems to be that they aren't as durable as one might think and that any stripe of terminator really wants to get into close combat to maximise their potential. 

 

I dont understand the comparison here,  why do the terminators charge?  Why don't they just move away from the grey hunters where they were causing more wounds than they were losing.  Also you have given the grey hunters ap2 weapons and the terminators ap4.  Give the terminators a CML and that would help.  

 

I did say after my comment " everything in moderation".  Its like working out why bother taking space marines when in a one on one fight conscripts will cause more wounds?  

[Z00Z]

I see a lot of people making the same mistakes when it comes to calculating hits/wounds on theoretical scenarios. Dice rolls follow a binomial probability distribution and the key here is 'probability'. You cannot say 10 dice hitting on 3's = 10 × .66 = 6.7hits. And continue extrapolating to wounds etc. I agree with Irwit, on the durability increase of a free SS on a termie. Unfortunately your maths is out

[Rasclomalum]

 I dont understand the comparison here,  why do the terminators charge?  Why don't they just move away from the grey hunters where they were causing more wounds than they were losing.

 

 

The problem with the bolded part is that the termies cost a lot more per wound than the grey hunters do, so even if you're causing more wounds than you receive, shooting matches between SB TDAWG and GH tend to be losing battles. As for my comment on charging... I guess that bullying things in assault is what they're for, disregarding whether they are assault termies or tactical termies, and giving them SB/SS kinda detracts from that purpose. 

 

Also you have given the grey hunters ap2 weapons and the terminators ap4.  Give the terminators a CML and that would help.  

 

 

Ah well, the reason why I did that was because I wanted the squads to be equal in terms of points for comparison's sake. A CML is 5 points more than an assault cannon so now the WG squad is 190 points minimum. For the same points, you get 10 GH with 2 plasma guns and a WGPL with a combi-plasma. At long range they kill one terminator in a turn of shooting (if the WGPL fires his combi-plasma), while the termies kill two GHs* - at close range the GH reign supreme what with Rapid Fire. Again, the termies cause more WOUNDS than they lose but in terms of points it's not looking all that good.

 

*Assuming krak missiles here for the AP3. Don't even know how to take blast scatter into consideration to be honest, and depending on how close together the GH are and all this could change matters. I also haven't taken into account who shoots first and how this affects subsequent rounds, always assuming intact squads shooting at each other. 

 

You know for fun, what about changing it to Stormbolter and power weapon, like maybe power axe or powermaul and see what happens when the Termies do have a good assault weapon. 

 

 

And here I thought my comment was aimed at a discussion concerning SB/SS terminators!

 

I see a lot of people making the same mistakes when it comes to calculating hits/wounds on theoretical scenarios. Dice rolls follow a binomial probability distribution and the key here is 'probability'. You cannot say 10 dice hitting on 3's = 10 × .66 = 6.7hits. And continue extrapolating to wounds etc. I agree with Irwit, on the durability increase of a free SS on a termie. Unfortunately your maths is out 

 

 

I'm certainly going to allow for the possibility (I love terminators and always look for an excuse to field them). But then it's Mathhammer's maths that is out, because that is what I used. 

[Z00Z]

 

 

I'm certainly going to allow for the possibility (I love terminators and always look for an excuse to field them). But then it's Mathhammer's maths that is out, because that is what I used. 

 

 

 

Well let me explain to you why its wrong then. For your future consideration of course. When you throw a dice, each dice is an independent event. Each dice has a probability of either being a successful or unsuccessful result. You will also do this for a certain number of dice. All these 3 criteria confirm in statistical terms, that the probability follows a "binomial distribution".

 

This formula in excel is 'binom.dist'. But we dont need to go into statistics formulas to explain. In the GH example, you have 7 independent dice for bolters, 3 for plasmas. So the independence nature means you need to 'pool' them separately, you cant assume the 66% rule hitting on a "3-4-5-6"/"1-2-3-4-5-6". For statistical scientific certainty called a confidence level, you tend to only look at things upwards of 95%.

 

So in the following tables you see the statistical probabilities of something happening.

 

bolter

1 hit    99.95%

2 hits  99.23%

3 hits  95.08%

4 hits 81.63%

5 hits 55.53%

6 hits 25.12%

7 hits 5.45%

 

So this means, you can confidently 95% of the time get 3 in 7 hits with a BS4 shot. You can see how it tails off quickly after. 

 

Now you do the same for plasma:

 

1 hit 96.07%

2 hits 73.18%

3 hits 28.7%

 

Again, if you want to have 95% certainty, thats 1 in 3 hits with a BS4 shot with plasma. 

 

Now independently, you will carry those two pools over to wound rolls. and then the balance you do the same for saves.

 

This is why you cannot equate pts vs. wounds in your example, its comparing apples with oranges. Firstly you have mixed pts in a unit dependent on the loadout. Why does that mattter? Simply, it could be possibly that in the very same scenario next time, 2 AP2's get through instead of 1 and the invul save on the termies fail on the 50% save. i.o.w. you would have to do a pts loadout vs wounds comparison for it to be accurate and to make any sort of relevant inferential conclusions.

 

Finally, in independent trials such as dice rolls, there are no cumulative additions of probabilities, because you either hit him, wound him, he saves or it doesn't. 1.9 wounds is meaningless. 6.6 hits is meaningless. its either a wound or not. same for hits. Mathammer does cumulative percentiles, and adds to the analogy of "lies, lies and statistics'. 

[FenrisWolf]

Thanks for the awesome explanation Zooz!