Chaos Terminators Discussion: How to support them

[Sonoftherubric21]

I agree with you Stross; support is absolutely and totally essential. 

I only drop a 5 man with 3 meltas, if there isnt a viable target (and depending on mission) I sometimes drop and have them clear things beyond LOS or help to clear chaff or take out opportune targets.  bare in mind deepstriking a unit across the field will often end in death for the squad so that isnt usually something I concern myself with. I have had them drop and clear even just chaff where its clenched me a game now and again.

my opponents got plenty of targets to shoot since I run with 60 cultists in every list + 20 tac marines (in rhinos). I wouldn't go "all in" on the terminator drop like that unless you have other things to support immediately. Id probably wait till turn 2 to drop as the rest of your list can probably clear some of the chaff. However; Dropping 10 termies + abbadon + Sorcerer is WELL beyond 500 points, in 2k thats basically half your list. 

I usually max out at 5-6 terminators + Sorcerer. and I always keep abbadon in the line anchoring the Cultists. 

[Gabocius]

As it seems that cleaning chaff is key to get the most of our terminators, I was thinking of a big blob of cultist in this role.

Run them in AL detachment to set them up in short range, mark of slaanesh, supported by a sorcerer for prescience and 3 CP for +1 to wound and fire twice...you can get up to 160 shots out of them.

Against GeQ that's an average of 47 unsaved wound, pretty fair for an investment of 160 + 3 CP + sorcerer whom you should be able to use later to support other units.

 

Then again, it's all a matter of going first or not, positionning, etc. But I guess if going second, you deploy them out of 12" + delightfull agony, they should not look too juicy for your opponent to shoot at / or your opponent will need to move his screens to reach within 12", which is not bad either.

 

Still, not sure that it would prove efficient as it suppose that you actually plan your real alpha on turn 2 rather than turn 1.

[Mekhitar]

Take a large number of noise marines. Since they can move, advance, and fire their sonic weapons, and are fully effective at 24”, they are great at chaff slaying on t1. Use 3cp for VotLW and firing twice, and don’t be afraid to split fire. This can help clear a lot of ground for the termies to come in in a good spot on t2 or t3.

[Res Ipsa Loquitur]

Havocs w/ Heavy Bolters?

 

If your Termies aren't coming down until T2 you can use Endless Cacophony on them for 24 S5 shots.

[Sonoftherubric21]

Take a large number of noise marines. Since they can move, advance, and fire their sonic weapons, and are fully effective at 24”, they are great at chaff slaying on t1. Use 3cp for VotLW and firing twice, and don’t be afraid to split fire. This can help clear a lot of ground for the termies to come in in a good spot on t2 or t3.

 

They are good; and as a bonus are pretty dang good at fighting, but are expensive PPM. They will get focused if the opponent has the chance, so bare that in mind and use a rhino or lots of cover till they go.

[Panzer]

PPM Cultists with the support Gabocius listed Cultists have more damage output than Sonic Blaster Noise Marines. About twice as much. Plus they can get "revived and repositioned".

 

However Noise Marines should be better without support (keep in mind CP are limited and Psychic powers don't always get through...especially against Tyranids!), easier to hide in Cover and don't lose as much damage output as fast as Cultists. Cultists should be suffering a LOT more casualties which brings down their damage output and also makes them lose even more models due moral which decreases their damage output even faster. Once the enemy learned that the Cultists can actually do damage they will get focussed down quickly.

 

tl;dr Cultists are theoretically better than Noise Marines but REALLY unreliable through the game in damageoutput terms.

So if you by chance have a full Cultist unit with Mark of Slaanesh and all those CP and Psychic powers left over, by all means, shoot with the Cultists (if they are in Rapid fire range) but don't try to rely on them.

[the jeske]

I think the problem comes from the unit on unit comperation here. Cultists should never be run as singles. Ton of stuff seems fair or good, when run as single, but it is only when you cram 3-5 of those things in to a list you can check how good it scales up. With the points NM cost, they do not scale up really well. It is not really possible to run 2-3 squads of shoty infiltrating AL noise marines, but it is possible to have 3-5 units of cultists in a list. And as much I do not like the fact that power armored stuff is not that great [specially after the ap changes in 8th] for chaos, it is hard to ignore the fact that the best csm and chaos stuff right now[pre index] is Mlords, cultists and demons, with csm ranging from flavor choices[like NM/zerkers run udner AL or terminators] to stuff that is hard to explain why it exists[csm].

[masterstrider]

Agree with the point about clearing a path for them. They're best brought on after T2, once the chaff/screens are out of the way. Cultists are a great way to punch a hole with Tide of Traitors putting them right next to the enemy and rapid firing with VotLW. They will really put the hurt on GEQ and MEQ and the unit is fully refreshed, so take 30-40 along.

 

I think the purpose of the Terminator bomb (5 Plasmanators) is to function as a kind of heavy support assassin unit. It costs around 250pts and its job is to take out almost double the pts before it is nuked the following turn. It should be targeting vehicles (nothing with a -1 to hit, e.g. a flyer if you can avoid it, to prevent overheating), but nothing with a 2+ save, since you risk them making those 5+ saves. Anything with a 3+ save is the perfect target. If they can drop 2 Predators or Leman Russ' in a turn, they've done their job.

 

Using Delightful Agonies is your best defense with spells, or deploying in cover. Failing that, try to target stuff that will hurt your army/Terminators and take it out. This goes a long way to also keeping them alive longer. If the enemy you removed was their main threat, you've just increased their lifespan.

 

You can run the same unit with Meltanators, but you get less shots. This is best used with Prescience or Abaddon nearby to maximise hits. The unit will run you around 275pts. There is around 20pts difference, so YMMV.

 

Regarding marks, I would 99.9% of the time go Slaanesh with the Plasma/Meltanator kit out. You could run them as Tzeentch to give them more survivability, but honestly, I'd rather just vapourise 2+ units and meet my maker.

 

There are few other ways to run Terminators. Meleenators are pretty good with the Mark of Tzeentch and Weaver of Fates + Prescience + VotLW. Keep them cheap with Power Axe and Combi-Bolters @ 38ppm and they will tie up something for a while. This is good for Black Legion since you can make them harder to kill - I've had a unit hold up Bjorn for 2 turns, keeping him from the rest of my army. Make sure you have a Warptime or CP handy to ensure they hit their target on the charge.

 

You can also run them with the Mark of Nurgle and make them -1 to hit with Miasma of Pestilence, regenerating models with 2CPs using the Grandfather Nurgle stratagem. This is probably better with Alpha Legion since stacking penalties to hit goes a long way to keeping them alive.

 

MS

Edited November 27, 2017 by masterstrider

[Lord Asvaldir]

I've run a 5 man MoS plasma terminator squad supported by a lord and/or sorcerer in all but one of my 8th edition games, and pretty much every single time they have been my MVP. You just can't go wrong with dropping in 20 plasma shots turn 2-3 and absolutely vaporizing their target. I'd say a lord is more reliable than a sorcerer for support given psychic powers can be stopped, however prescience will make your shots more reliable given they hit on +2. Second power is really up to personal preference, though if you know your main target has an invul save death hex is definetly handy. 

 

I would say there is nothing wrong with different types of terminator loadouts like a melee unit, a combi bolter focused unit or melta unit, but point for point a squad with  all combi plasma is pretty much always going to be the best pts investment. I don't even usually bother with giving them melee weapons besides axes, no point investing more pts in a unit that is going to be target priority number one for the enemy once they drop in. My unit rarely last more than a turn or two but by then they have done their job. 

[Nekro83]

So do you suggest to use combi plasma and axes or chainfist and combi bolters?

Edited December 1, 2017 by Nekro83

[meepnight]

Personally, im still trying to decide between Slannesh termies or Blightlords. Combiplas on both all the way but shooting twice vs extreme durability is a toss up for me. With the Chapter Approved change, Deathshrouds are now a legitimate contender as well for the 250-300pt elite slot.

 

Different armies I know, but running dual battalions opens up a lot of roster options.

[Lord Asvaldir]

So do you suggest to use combi plasma and axes or chainfist and combi bolters?

 

Hands down combi plasma/axes is the best way to run them. Keeps them cheap as possible while still giving you the best amount of damage. Fists/other melee weapons really just aren't needed, since the suad probably won't live that long. I put a fist on the champion but that's it. 

 

Not much of a tossup in my opinion, yeah the fnp and +4 invul makes blightlords tougher, but normal terminators are getting twice the firepower on the turn they show up with MoS. Plus, taking blightlords isn't an option for a lot of chaos players like myself who don't want to dip into using DG. 

[Stross]

I understood one thing. If you want to run your Termi, you need almost everything what they got in different situations, that is why I want to magnetize everything. Combi-bolters, Combi-plasma, combi-melta, lightning claws, power axes, power maul and power fists. 10 hands for each

[Lord Asvaldir]

Eh I disagree, I very rarely see any reason to change the loadout for my axe/combi plasma 5 man unit. I mean if you really love magnetizing that much go for it but that seems a bit excessive, I just have an extra suad for standard combi bolters. 

[Sception]

I do reccomend magnets. Not so much because there isn't a 'best kit' now, but rather because what constitutes the 'best kit' is likely to chamge as time passes and points are adjusted and new codeces and entire game editions are released.