Viability of all Terminator Armies...

[Dominic]

Hiya Guys,

I was just wondering about how viable all terminator armies are, if built correctly.

The original Deathwing seems to have lost competivness compared to the Logan-Wing, and the new GK termi armies (& the possiblyity of a Draigo wing)

So, I want to hear your thoughts on what would make a good all termi list, why you like/dislike the lists, and if they can be a competitive army

Hopefully through this discussion, we can then come up with a nice summary post detailing all-Termi lists, and essentially, how to make one a fun, competitive list :D

[ElCheezus]

I can't see them winning against hordes unless the player can really apply shooting before getting into CC. The sad part about 2+, to me, is that a little bit of bad rolling can spell disaster, while you pay quite a bit for it. Plus, with melta being spammed for anti-mech and plasma being not to far behind, the 2+ isn't as formidable to some armies. Hopefully GKs will have ways of mitigating all these factors. Making them more offensive is a start, but if they're going to be the elite-elite army, then they need more survivability than 2+ can offer.

They do seem quite fun, though. And even with the potential weaknesses I mention above, it's rarely that an all termy list should get bowled over. I've been really tempted to try my hand at a templar list or two, just for kicks.

[eagleboy7259]

It depends on what you mean when you say an "all terminator army". In the previous edition of the Dark Angels book Deathwing were limited to Dreadnoughts, Land Raiders and Terminators. I think that is what has kind of prevailed when people associate the suffix -wing to a list. However Loganwing has no fluff ties to all terminators outside of him leading the Grand Old Wolf Company (or whatever puppy players call it) which is the essentially the 1st company and has the cream of the crop equipment. I personally haven't seen the beta for the Demon Hunters so I have no idea what Diagowing is capable of.

As they stand right now both the Dark Angels and the Space Wolves books are capable of doing some neat things non-pure terminators. DA can scout move bikes and put your termintors in threat range on turn one with teleport homers. On the flip side SW can deepstrike long fangs and with Logan fire on the turn they come in.

If you play mono-terminator: IC's and the rest of the army being Terminators then your flexibility is limited. The biggest challenge that comes up is the ability to pop tanks reliably from range. Personally I think that DA have the SW's beat on this since you can take TH&SS terminators with cyclone missile launchers and not have them cost you an arm and a leg. SW's certainly have more options but their terminators get to be expensive real quick. I think the FAQ updates swung the favor back in the direction of DA.

However I would hold off till the Grey Knights book comes out. Supposively you can get 2W terminators with jump pack rules and force weapons and a rule that automatically wins the game through shear awesomeness alone.

Yes all terminator armies can be competitive. They struggle with mobility, low body count and anti-tank. You will have trouble balancing scoring and killing. Personally I think that if you stick to what DA Deathwing used to be - IC's Land Raiders, Dreadnoughts and Terminators people will generally applaude you for having a fun fluffly list that is still capabale of tackling most MEQ army build outs.

[Dominic]

I can't see them winning against hordes unless the player can really apply shooting before getting into CC.

This is where I think that you can truly tell a talented player, or one who has mastered using small forces; for example, when I last took my Logan-wing out against a Tyranid horde I managed to kill considerable numbers of gaunts through unit placement and just the general list itself.

If your going to take an all Termi list, then you need some way of taking out vast numbers of models (i.e. Heavy flamers or Assult cannons), and then picking fights you know you can win, and hiding when you cant - 5 termis in cover laying out fire and attacks first (generally) against a horde can be effective, although, the more dice you role, the more of your own guys will die

The sad part about 2+, to me, is that a little bit of bad rolling can spell disaster, while you pay quite a bit for it. Plus, with melta being spammed for anti-mech and plasma being not to far behind, the 2+ isn't as formidable to some armies. Hopefully GKs will have ways of mitigating all these factors. Making them more offensive is a start, but if they're going to be the elite-elite army, then they need more survivability than 2+ can offer.

I agree again with what your saying, weight of fire will always be your weakness, however, through clever depolyment, and other factors (e.g drop pods, scouting etc.), you can minimize the amount of shots which can be fired at you termis, and get into combat (if thats what your termis are loaded out for) ASAP



It depends on what you mean when you say an "all terminator army". In the previous edition of the Dark Angels book Deathwing were limited to Dreadnoughts, Land Raiders and Terminators. I think that is what has kind of prevailed when people associate the suffix -wing to a list. However Loganwing has no fluff ties to all terminators outside of him leading the Grand Old Wolf Company (or whatever puppy players call it) which is the essentially the 1st company and has the cream of the crop equipment. I personally haven't seen the beta for the Demon Hunters so I have no idea what Diagowing is capable of.

By all Terminator, I was not coming from a fluff perspective, more so that the army's infantry models have termi armour, any other models (dreads etc.) are fine

As they stand right now both the Dark Angels and the Space Wolves books are capable of doing some neat things non-pure terminators. DA can scout move bikes and put your termintors in threat range on turn one with teleport homers. On the flip side SW can deepstrike long fangs and with Logan fire on the turn they come in.

True, but thats not an all terminator army, heading to more of a 'balanced list'

If you play mono-terminator: IC's and the rest of the army being Terminators then your flexibility is limited. The biggest challenge that comes up is the ability to pop tanks reliably from range. Personally I think that DA have the SW's beat on this since you can take TH&SS terminators with cyclone missile launchers and not have them cost you an arm and a leg. SW's certainly have more options but their terminators get to be expensive real quick. I think the FAQ updates swung the favor back in the direction of DA.

Maybe, but SW have the advantage for different load outs, and more combi weapons IIRC

However I would hold off till the Grey Knights book comes out. Supposively you can get 2W terminators with jump pack rules and force weapons and a rule that automatically wins the game through shear awesomeness alone.

Yes all terminator armies can be competitive. They struggle with mobility, low body count and anti-tank. You will have trouble balancing scoring and killing. Personally I think that if you stick to what DA Deathwing used to be - IC's Land Raiders, Dreadnoughts and Terminators people will generally applaude you for having a fun fluffly list that is still capabale of tackling most MEQ army build outs.

I think GK will add mobility to all temri lists, being able to play the reserves game +/-2 to any reserve roll, redepolying where needed (through the libby), and no 'unlock character needed. TBH, I think that the GK will become the new codex for all termi lists



Comments in red :)

[blackjack]

Pure Deathwing with cyclone missile launchers gives nice ranged anti light armor, some anti hord in the form of frag missiles. (though smart players will spread out too much for small plates to be effective.)

the main problem is anti heavy armor. I highly recommend taking 3 land speeders with mullti meltas to give the list some mobility and anti Land Raider capability.

[Xas]

afaik SW cannot compete with post-errate DA simply for the cost of their terminators and the associated charackter (iirc the big wolf costs more than twice than the DA termi-captain!) if you want good equipment troughout on all your termies. If all you want is 2+ armor and can live with worse equipment SW are good as well (and you can get bigger units).


DA can put up cheap scoring terminators on the table and can happily mix between all the wargear. in my book I'd go with belial (LCs), 2 ***-cannon dreads, 1 command terminator squad (1 asscanon/chainfist, 2 TH/SS, 2LC, apothecary), 2 melee oriented buster squads (3 TH/SS, 2 LC, missile launcher) and 3 support fire squads (bolter/fist, 1 asscanon & 1 chainfist) as well as 1 landspeeder (fill points).

thats 31 terminator armor infantry, 2 dreads and a speeder (a bit out of place) that can both put out a ton of shooting as well as put the hurt in melee.

the assoult cannon is the best you'll get in terms of ranged anti-tank on a terminator that can shoot more than once (relying on combiweapons alone is inviting desaster with a few bad rolls). the other way would be with vehicles (landraider/speeder with multimelta).


I've tried a similar list with SW and apparently you can get nearly the same layout (a few less SS/TH and instead cheap fillers. only powerswords for the shooty ones) and only have to miss the speeder to fuel logans higher cost over belial.

[windspear]

Yes all terminator armies can be competitive. They struggle with mobility, low body count and anti-tank. You will have trouble balancing scoring and killing. Personally I think that if you stick to what DA Deathwing used to be - IC's Land Raiders, Dreadnoughts and Terminators people will generally applaude you for having a fun fluffly list that is still capabale of tackling most MEQ army build outs.[/QUOTE]

This is the models mix I currently play from, and have been pretty successful with: 2 Godhammer LRs, 1 Crusader LR, 1 Mortis Dread, 2 Assault cannon and DCW dreads, 1 Plasma Cannon/DCCW Dread (sometimes run as a Ven Dread) and soon a metal Ven Dread with Asslt Cannon; The terminators are mostly the shooty kind, with two Cyclones, 2 Assault Cannons, and 1 Flamer, for a total of 20 Ranged weapon terminators, backed up by 3 lightning claw and 3 SS/TH, and a Standard bearer, led by a SS/TH armed Belial.

I've been more successful with this bunch of models than I've been with any of my other DA armies. I'm going to be adding a Ravenwing so I can play Dual-Wing in the near future.

[cypher623]

As far as i can tell the following is true;

death wing can get 9 squads of death wing terminators; 6 troop and 3 as elites;
They combine awesome hand to hand TH& SS + Cyclone ML per squad. These are scoring. Pros awesome staying power; cons at 2k you are running about 7 squads six of which are scoring but only 43 models.

logan wing I think loganwing can run the same numbers 6 troop and 3 elites; But they are a bit less equipped than the Deathwing per model and have more options per squad. Pros; these lists have been domiminating through their versatility and the combos that logan can grant. Cons. This has been asbsolutely and completely done to damn death, on the tournament circuit last year along I saw a dozen or more "counts as" logan wing spam and several actual pure space wolves logan wing.

Templars: 2 command squads, each of which can have a captain AND a chaplain; with two assault cannons; and then 3 elites armed the same. Five squads of terminator death and they take down whoever and whatever they shoot at. Combine this with preferred enemy; an emperor's champion (poor them for having to take this) and a two lasplas 5 man squads and this army rocks. While being non-termionator for the last two squads this army (so long as it doesn't deep strike) still carries the two heavy weapons for five termies concept.

So, all termies. death wing all of the way. If you are a fraternity type guy who likes to blend in, pile on the bandwagon, and be one of the gang (I suppose you can see I have disdain for people who play flavor of the month) loganwing by all means. But if you want a mostly termie army with the ability to deal out death and dismay, the crusaders are still it!!!! My two cents.

[eagleboy7259]

Pretty much what Xas said - sure you can be more flexbile and you can also pay through the nose for it. SW do have much better characters - characters that are capable of destroying whole squads and monsterous creatures through the right combination of sagas and wargear. However they are expensive and in a list where you're limiting yourself the the second most expensive scoring unit in the game it can be a major detractor.

[Da Gargoyle]

As an Eldar I think I would rather play a terminator army over the standard marine army. The issue for me would be cover because both types have a high rate of fire these days. But I can snipe at Termies from range with guardians issued with star cannons. I can get in close with fire dragons and Banshees and snipe with my ranger/pathfinders. These troops usually form the core of my army these days along with wave serpents 1 of which has missile launchers and the other bright lance. After that it depends on the points total but a storm guardian squad can surprise people if there is a warlock with enhance & spear in it and two fusion guns. The trick is kill at least two termies to limit their return fire. Most termie units are 5 strong right?

To me it seems the biggest threat would be the deep striking part. But so far as I know you can shoot but not assault. Which gives me a chance to shoot back. and minimise the threat.

The other issue is with limited troops and if you are taking dreads and raiders there will not be that many scoring units to kill. You could lose to a single unit of snipers because I managed to kill all the terminators.

This is all theory though. Non of the guys I have gamed against take termies because of the expense and the dangers I mentioned. We are usually limited to 1000 pts because of playing area.

[Lemt]

Terminator armies can do well, or terribly, depending on the meta. Horde is tough on them, and if they lack Storm Shields so are Banshees, Genestealers, and other units with mass rending or power weapons. Vindicators can be good or terrible against them depending on cover, and if you will fight mass plasma and las cannons (some IG players do that) then forget about it. If neither of those are a major concern for you, go ahead and play termies.

[dethangel]

i use a Dwing army but i do take a Rwing squad or 2 with meltas for safe deepstriking and opening up cans for my terms. its not a pure term list but trust me those bikes add a huge amount of mobility that an all term list lacks.