Bringers of Dispair - how to make terminators work

[Brother Talarian]

Brothers, I’ve read a lot of negativity about terminators. They look fantastic, I would love for them to work.

 

I would like to start this thread so we can talk about certain tactics to make termies work, as well as tell of tales where they performed epic deeds.

 

I myself am considering running 5-10 alongside Abby, possibly with a sorcerer to provide a 5+++ or maybe even +1 to invulnerable for survivabiltit.

 

How can we improve their survivability, make sure they make combat, etc.

 

What load out would you run etc.

[Wayniac]

I think the best approach is to keep them cheap. Combi-bolters and chainaxes, maybe a reaper. With the beta bolter rule that's a scary amount of shots.

[Brother Talarian]

Aye, I think that’s a good way to run them. Alongside Abby it could be brutal.

 

Abby would do the heavy lifting while the termies clear chaff and some more elite units.

 

What mark would you run them as?

Would you buff them with spells, Daemons?

[General Strike]

Doesn't one of the stratagems for it boost LD? Use cultists with them to tie stuff up and hold objectives, have them kill chaff and other elites, and backfield havoks blasting away at high wound stuff? Maybe even that havok focused specialist detachment.

[Sception]

If possible, magnetize. Points efficiencies come and go, magnets are forever.

 

I personally prefer deep striking with overwhelming force, and thus endorse slaaneshi combi plas, with at least one chain fist in there. Sure, they get a lot pricier, but we have a lot of anti-chaf weaponry. Sooner or later you're going to need to crack some hard targets, and who else is doing that job if not the terminators?

 

But that might just be me trying to justify a bunch of 3rd party combi plasma bits I purchased earlier in the edition.

[Sonoftherubric21]

Remember you can get a "chapter master" chaos lord accompanying terminators with that warlord trait. OR (assuming Abbadon IS your warlord) you can get a Terminator Sorcerer with a "Re roll 1s" in shooting with them using that trait.  The Dark Apostle is not able to take that trait....but a Sorcerer is!!! 

 

Worth a try as you get 3 warlord traits now Abbadon/prince/chaos lord as your direct lord so you have more auras for that. 

 

For a termie heavy list I would consider the Heretical 17 or filling a battallion with cultists or home-turf marines holding objectives to allow more points in heavy stuff to go with the terminators. Your army is a turn-2 army in that case. Second turn deepstrike and hit em hard. Now that we have a 29 ppm Terminator build there is a bit more wiggle room for gear as you can pick and choose what guys get what gear you intend on paying substantial points for. I wouldn't give out any maces/axes/swords and instead go full chain axes saving substantial points.... use those extra points to upgrade other units or to take combis you actually like. and If they happen to get into melee? still 2 swings each at str 5 ap-1. Ain't bad for a pittance each! 

 

Given Abbadon + Terminators + 2 other characters in support + our new strats and relics we may be in an incredibly solid position to run a list like this. Bringers of Despair detachment ain't bad at all. "Brutal Subjugation" has some potential against melee hordes, its not great but it may see some table time. and Chosen Enforcers is a solid rule so long as you have large units of either Chaos Marines or large units of cultists within 18.  as Abbadon may be off doing his own thing this could see use on many tables. 

[Prot]

Yea I agree you don’t necessarily need Abaddon to steer the Termies, and the Sorc could do more.

 

I think the cheap squad is going to be popular but with the reroll I have played games with some melta combis and split fire when necessary basically firing everything. It often does have good results. Or the first round you fire all bolt rounds, Cacaphony the meltas on a Knight or whatever.

[Brother Talarian]

Great feedback everyone!

Plopping then down near a horde while it’s advancing can definitely work, Abby and the termies could even fall on separate sides, providing a fearless bubble. If your horde, be it marines or cultists, is marching forward with a dark apostle(s), they can even provide additional auras for your horses or termies to be more surviveable.

 

Can even use “let the galaxy burn” so don’t need to worry about re-rolls for termies.

 

I think the extra warlord trait for sorc and apostle is pretty awesome. Dark Apostle could maybe take the fall back and charge warlord trait, and could the sorc use something from the Daemonkin book?

 

 

My only concern with having your termies expensive would be that they become a high priority target for your enemy that is unfortunately not so durable. How would you make them more durable? Target saturation? Buffs? Expect them to die?

 

I like the idea of them being supported by havocs. I’m thinking of bringing two squads, 4 chain cannons and 4 lascannons. Deals with both horde and Armor.

 

Edit: note that if the termies outnumber the enemy they could also get an extra attack with merciless killers, this combined with brutal subjugation can be pretty brutal if your opponent can’t spare (or doesn’t have) 2CP.

 

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PS: how did I edit the title? I noticed I misspelled despair -.-

[Subtle Discord]

From my perspective, if you're doing this it's to try for a decapitating/debilitating hit on your opponent and there's no way that's not going to be messy; it seems obvious, but what I mean is go all in expecting that the reprisal after you arrive will be harsh, but if you make a big enough splash you will blunt the reply and/or put your opponent on the back foot. Even if you're Terminators are getting hit hard, because your opponent really has no choice, then there should be a large chunk of your army being ignored. A list is always stronger if you can create target saturation as much as possible, so when your Terminators are drawing attention, the question is what are you going to have to be applying pressure from other directions?

[DuskRaider]

What I've been doing since the beginning of time is dropping a squad of 10 strong Terminators with Combi-Plasma and Reaper Autocannons in my opponent's backfield and just cause total chaos. I can't tell you what to send with them (if anything) but I can tell you I've been doing this since 4th or earlier and I don't care who the opponent is, they're in for a rough ride in that round (at the very least).

[Wayniac]

See I can't shake the fact that all combi-plasma makes them way too big of a target, as well as super expensive.  But maybe that's because I mainly play(ed) Death Guard so Blightlord Terminators are stupid expensive.  Hence my inclination to keep them as cheap as possible rather than go all out.

 

I'm sort of torn between one squad of 10 or two squads of 5.  On one hand, a squad of 10 is a bigger target and can be wiped out with effort (although that's an effort not put elsewhere) while 2x5 can go in different places to pincer or put pressure on different sections of the board.    But on the other hand, a unit of 10 benefits from more abilities than 2x5 especially if you include a terminator lord or sorcerer lord with them.

[DuskRaider]

I do it with my Blightlords too.

[Sception]

The concept with combi plasma is to hit *so hard* when they land that the enemy isnt really able to strike back effectively. This is easier to do on cluttered, cityfight style boards where you can limit line of sight from units other than your target, though heavy terrain is a double edged sword, as it makes it harder to strip bubble wraps away before the termies land. Combi plas is super vulnerable to bubble wrap, if you can't land within 12" of a high value target you're going to have a tough time of it.

 

Cheaper, combi bolter & chain axe terminators are probably more versatile overall, as, point for point, they are pretty durable. But you will have to crack hard targets with something, so if not your terminators then you'll need some high strength, good ap offense somewhere else. Given the cost that you've already sunk into terminators and infantry hoards, I'm not sure exactly where you're getting it otherwise.

[Panzer]

The best debuff is death and killing things makes tanking things easier because there's less to tank. Terminators aren't exactly the most durable infantry unit in the game (unfortunately) so the less the enemy has to shoot at them the longer they survive the more value you get from the points spend on them.

If you think barebone Terminators are good enough and cheap enough then go for it but if you think Terminators regardless of loadout are already quite a bit of an investment then might as well go all in and make the investment worth it.

 

That being said I love the Chainaxe/Combi-Bolter combo on Chosen and Termis so I'd definitely try it out for a bit.

[Balthamal]

Guess a lot depends on what you'll face. If you know in advance that you'll have a lot of chaff to mow out the way then combi-bolter/chainaxes will plough through it especially when backed by a sorcerer or Abaddon who will incidentally do the bulk of the heavy duty damage dealing against anything. In this incarnation it's likely the 2 units of 5 will be better since there's no real push to maximise their damage output through strats etc. If on the other hand you want a knight killer then you're better taking 10 all tooled with combiplas Abaddon for rerolling everything and a sorcerer for prescience and death hex because that unit will lay waste to more or less everything it touches, even more so with endless cacophony but the downside is obviously the moon sized bullseye being painted on them unless you have something equally nasty in another 2 or 3 places to provide overwhelming target saturation 

[GreaterChickenofTzeentch]

The concept with combi plasma is to hit *so hard* when they land that the enemy isnt really able to strike back effectively. This is easier to do on cluttered, cityfight style boards where you can limit line of sight from units other than your target, though heavy terrain is a double edged sword, as it makes it harder to strip bubble wraps away before the termies land. Combi plas is super vulnerable to bubble wrap, if you can't land within 12" of a high value target you're going to have a tough time of it.

 

Cheaper, combi bolter & chain axe terminators are probably more versatile overall, as, point for point, they are pretty durable. But you will have to crack hard targets with something, so if not your terminators then you'll need some high strength, good ap offense somewhere else. Given the cost that you've already sunk into terminators and infantry hoards, I'm not sure exactly where you're getting it otherwise.

A great way to hit *so hard* as above with Combi-Plasma would be as follows. Note this is very risky and requires precise placement, plus the rest of your army being tooled for max CP.

 

Drop them in and use Chosen of the Pantheon to give them all four Marks for a turn, have a Nurgle Terminator Sorcerer tag them with Presicence and Miasma of Pestilence, then open fire twice, Supercharged and firing both parts of each weapon with Vets. Then, if you manage to get a charge off, you can multi-charge, spread out, and fight twice with Fury of Khorne and Brutal Subjugation to inflict significant morale tests on 4-5 units or so. If you don't get the charge off, you are still -1 to be hit. Alternately, you could use a Slaanesh Terminator Sorcerer instead/in addition and go for ignoring wounds.

 

When you shoot, be sure to shoot BEHIND what you're going to charge. This could crumple literally an entire chaff screen if your opponent has deployed in a castle, plus destroy one or more important targets.

 

If your objective is JUST to remove the chaff screen, go with combi-bolters and chainaxes instead and you can basically delete a fair chunk of a Guard or Ork army in one shooting phase plus one fight phase. For Orks, focus the charge rather than multi-charging. Leadership 30 doesn't mean much when the 20 models you killed out of a mob count as 40.

[DuskRaider]

Yeah, admittedly I originally used the massed Combi-Plas in the good ole days of AV where landing behind an enemy's big bad tank and popping it meant they just lost their teeth in some cases.

[Brother Talarian]

Fantastic points GCoT! Sounds pretty bad ass... I must try. As you mentioned things need to align relatively well, and you need CP, but hey!

 

I also hadn’t considered multi-charges with brutal subjugation, forces your opponent to choose which unit to save..... delicious

[Brother Talarian]

Where are people seeing the 29pt variant btw?

If the termies didn’t get a points drop, Combi bolter+ chainaxe would come out to 31prs, no?

 

The more I look at it the more I’m inclined to run a big group of 10. Thing with that is id also want to run a big blob of 20 legionnaires running upfield.

 

I guess las havocs would be my go to for anti-tank... or maybe daemon engines running upfield

[Wayniac]

Yeah unless they went down, it should be 28 base (inexplicably 4 points more than loyalists, which would be understandable except Space Wolves are also 4 points less and get the same varied options) +2 for combi-bolter +1 for chainaxe.

 

Now if they did go down to 26ppm that would be pretty good!

[Balthamal]

New dex has them in at 29ppm with that load out iirc

[Lagrath]

I was going to run them with a cheap terminator lord and the cheapest setup as anti-horde, but I keep changing my mind and giving them all combi-plasma and putting them with Abbadon. Pricey, but can be game-changing. Based on my Blightlord lists, I like plasma because it gives you anti-elite and anti-tank with more than just your backline vehicles or heavy weapons teams.

[Sception]

The obvious answer is to take more terminators so you can have it both ways.

 

Maybe 1-2 5 man plasma squads deep striking with abby, 1-2 10 man squads walking across the table with combi bolters and reaper autocannons under the direction of Falkus (aka a field commander chaos lord with the BoD trait).  The combi bolter terminators can clear away chaff on the first turn, opening up space for the plasma terminators to land within rapid fire range of a key target and nuke it off the table.

 

Maybe tack on an apostle to give (one of) the walking squad(s) the -1 to be hit buff, plus a terminator sorcerer who can either buff a foot squad with one of the aligned protection spells or deep strike with abby to cast precience on (one of) the plasma squad(s), allowing the terminators to fire both sides of their combi plasmaguns without penalty.  With Abby as your warlord, you can take the new BL strat to give both the apostle and the sorcerer warlord traits of their own.  Maybe the apostle can take the trait that refunds CP on a 5+, while the sorcerer can take one of the daemonkin traits to help with casting.

[Prot]

I was going to run them with a cheap terminator lord and the cheapest setup as anti-horde, but I keep changing my mind and giving them all combi-plasma and putting them with Abbadon. Pricey, but can be game-changing. Based on my Blightlord lists, I like plasma because it gives you anti-elite and anti-tank with more than just your backline vehicles or heavy weapons teams.

 

When I played my Blightlords I started with combi Plasma. However I changed to melta and never looked back.

 

The reason I did this is because (especially with Abe) I like to shoot BOTH weapons. I find with Oblits we have to find ways to completely maximize the Terminator or to be honest I'll just keep deep striking Oblits with Abaddon.

 

Of course it's situational and sometimes I'll never use the melta, however against certain armies it's really big, and again a lot of armies have some -1 to hit mechanism, and that can change what I'll do as well.

 

Plasma is super popular though, I agree. I just hate losing a guy to overcharge (frankly I rarely ever use plasma without overcharge), and therefore with plasma I never fire both combi weapons. I'd recommend people try both and see what you're comfortable with. To be fair I bounce between both as well. I just really love that D6 damage especially within 6" and I play against superheavies.

[Lagrath]

If you hit the unit with prescience, and there are no other modifiers, you can't lose guys to prescience even when you reroll a 1 into another 1. 

 

Anyway, I was SUPER bummed to realize that you can't do Chosen of the Pantheon and give all the marks to an unmarked unit of terminators coming in from deep strike....it's at the start of the turn :(