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Brother C here,
So I've found myself contemplating my terminators alot lately. I think I have made every mistake in the book of tactics for them so here are just my own thoughts on how they can and should be used.There of course will be exceptions to all of these rules and strategies should be considered on actual game context, but these are just some general thoughts on use and tactics.
Deepstrike. sounds great right? appearing right next to your opponent at some point during the game. surprise! here I am! plow plow plow. this would be great if it actually ever panned out like that. However, your opponent isn't dumb, he knows it is coming, and he is preparing himself for it. As soon as you come down, he will have a trap and blast you off the board. Even if you've loaded out your terms with a cyclone, storm bolters, flamers, combis, you name it, do not fall for the trap of shooting the first turn you come down. You need to get into cover if you have not deepstruck into cover. If you have deepstruck into cover, hell, fire away. Terms can take alot of punches, but you will eventually roll 1s on those armor saves, and it would be nice to avoid those plasma shots. My recommendation, if you are going to deepstrike. play smart. either deepstrike far away, and get into cover, and wait for your opportunity to strike. OR do the complete opposite, deepstrike directly onto that objective surrounded by your enemy, go somewhere he is not expecting you to go, because its crazy. fortune favors the bold.
Landraider. sounds great right? massive tank rolling up, assaulting out of it decked out in all claws, ripping to pieces that little gaunt squad. bad idea. for one, your opponent knows you just want to rip that trash squad to bits and he will use it to lure you out of that tin can. be careful, there will be a counter attack coming, it was bait, and you fell for it. and for 250 points (+) points. forget it. I'll take an entire second term squad plus upgrades for that price. plus, with all the new codexs coming out, there are meltas everywhere. you will be lucky to even get your raider across the board before it explodes, leaving your models to foot it. might as well just have deepstruck. in my opinion the raider is just not worth its weight anymore. its too big of a point sink, and you need bodies on the field, not empty hulls.
Escorts. Is my new favorite tactic for terms. Operation human shield in full effect. space the term squad out in front of your forces. (its 5th edition, you are castling like everyone else aren't you?) Give your priority targets that cover save. (my new favorite is a squad of terms in front of 3 vindis with a techmarine and 3 servo arm servitors behind) Walk them across the field. Your opponent will be firing at the priority targets and not your terms. And you will have the added bonus of decent melee protection if your opponent decides he's going to roll a walker or a fist to try and punk your armor. You of course will need the added support of the rest of your forces in order to pull this escort service off properly. Layers of offense and defense is the key here people.
Anyways, just checking in for now and throwing these ideas up for discussion. I would advise people to at least try out the term escort service. It may not be for everyone. Put an assault cannon, and cyclone on that group (or an apothecary if you are DA and using Belial)and you have a real threat.
has anyone else been using this tactic to their advantage? or tried it and failed miserably? Would love to know your experiences and thoughts.
interesting information and I'm going to have to agree with you. The terms are great they really are but just my last match Moros deep struck in his terminators and they ate A LOT of gauss fire. So much so that with the aid of Moros' pathetic rolling I killed the entire squad in one round of shooting.
ReplyDeleteI went on to get phased out later in the match but thats not the point, the point is that that squad was essentially wasted. A squad of terminators is a huge target especially for me because in close combat my army crumbles. I think the escort tactic works well, it will either pull shots off of your more valuable units or provide them with cover saves, you're making your opponent make a choice and neither one will result how your opponent wants it to.
Well in our match Forsaken, It was sheer luck that you killed my terminators. Rolling 5 1s on 9 dice is just total bad luck. That's how 40k is tho I guess.
ReplyDeleteBottom line is tho, Terms do their job 99% of the time. I have found that they usually always kill more than they are worth, even if they take a land raider with them.
As far as deep striking goes, it really depends on what you're doing with your terminators. Honestly, Dark Angel terminators aren't as good on the deep strike in my opinion. Chaos Terms can all take combi-weapons and this really adds a ton to their deep strike. They are basically meant to die and take some stuff with them. Its decently effective.
But yeah, for the Dark Angels ones, I would drop out of LOS and then charge in, close in from all directions.
I would like to humbly disagree with Moros on this one, terminators do not fulfill their duties 99% of the time. In fact, I find, rarely do they do anything accept rail one meaningless squad and than get blasted to kingdom come.
ReplyDeleteThis is just my rant, but its the reason I use my terms in one of two ways. either deepstrike directly onto objectives. all the glory, or none. OR as an escort, leading my more priority targets and armor into the field.
If you're going to gank my pictures you could at least credit me :/
ReplyDeleteGott,
ReplyDeleteI apologize for the gank, sometimes we get so wrapped up with posting and gaming, sometimes forget to give credit where credit is due.
.Fixed.
Using my pics is fine, and thanks for putting the link in :)
ReplyDeleteAnd on topic I don't use termies in 40k at all anymore, they're too slow on foot, to slow in HtH with fists, and too expensive. I've had some success with Deathwing and they're variable layout but the rest of the codex lags behind so they tend to only come out in Apoc.
@ Gott,
ReplyDeleteThanks for subbing to the blog! And I really am starting to agree with you. I play chaos marines, and I think my terms are probably the best terms in the game and even so they are still overpriced and not effective enough.
I have had great games with them and not so great games with them. But I do find myself just not including them in my lists anymore.
Maybe GW should give them 2 wounds or something, I don't know. But they need an overhaul to be more competitive.