Email - All Terminator Army

“These are a couple of the basic mechanized lists I drew up, basing most around the deathwing tactica, as there are some long-time DW players on warseer who have spent a long time getting very, very good with their bottom-tier army. But since the GK codex has a lot more options than the DA do, I wonder if there is are better ways of doing things. Most people have advised SRs over the LRs, but personally I feel the storm raven to be out of place in this kinda list - as a blood talons delivery system I think it works great since its survival is not really required, but in this case its role is more to increase maneuverability... which requires it to be alive. The other advantage I see of the LRRs is that they operate in the same sweet spot as the paladins, and both can be used to screen each other depending on the local threat environment, or even castle up if things turn sour.

Rules: Terminator armour, Dreadnoughts, probably dreadknights, and land raider variants only.

1,500 pts:

Librarian (Summoning, shrouding, sanctuary, warp rift) 170
10 Terminators (2 incinerators, psybolt ammo) 420
10 Terminators 400
2LRR (Multimelta) (510)2000 pts:
Draigo (275)
10 Paladins (2 incinerators, psybolt ammo) 580
10 Paladins (3 psycannons, psybolt ammo) 630
2LRR (Multimelta)

2000: (Currently 1900)

Mordrak 200
5 ghost knights 200
Librarian (Summoning, shrouding, sanctuary, warp rift, 2 servo skulls) 180
Ven dread (MM, HF, warp stabilization field) 190
Ven dread (MM, HF, warp stabilization field) 190
10 Terminators (2 psycannons, psybolt ammo) 470
10 Terminators (2 psycannons, psybolt ammo) 470”

First off thanks for sending this in. Secondly I’m only going to speak to the 1,500 and 2,000 range lists in your email as 2,500 isn’t a point value I play more than 6 games a year (Read Ard Boyz J).

I also love the idea of all terminator lists. I’ve been toying more and more with them in the GK codex using both paladins and no paladins. I’ve found a couple of ideas I’m liking but let’s address your stuff first J

Now in the first two lists you’re utilizing just Terminators and Landraiders. I honestly don’t see how these could work on a competitive level. In the 1,500 list you’re looking at having only the LR’s MM for anti-tank outside of CC (assuming you give 1-2 hammers per 5 terminators). You’re also looking at having only 6 maximum damage dealing units. I don’t think that works at 1,500. The same can be said for the 2,000 list with Draigo. You doubled your wounds and added a little anti-tank punch in the form of 3 extra psycannons but you’re still horribly light on units. Bear in mind that if you intend to use those LR’s as transports you’re never going to be able to reserve you force as you won’t be able to combat squad so that you’re small enough to enter the Raiders.

Now the Modrak list has potential. I think mixing dreads and termies is a bad idea as it simply focuses the enemies St8 missile spam for them and hands them back their effectiveness.

Here are my thoughts regarding first the “mechanized” terminator list and then the non-mechanized list.

Mechanized:

If you’re going this route then you still need some ranged damage potential. I don’t think you can truly build an all comers competitive list with the restrictions on this but I’d be looking at something like this at 2,000:

Librarian-170

Might, Shrouding, Sanctuary, Quicksilver

4x5 Terminators-225(900)

1xHammer, 4xSwords, Psycannon

2xVenerable Dreadnought-195?(390?)

Dual Twin-Linked Auto Cannons, Psybolt

2xStandard Landraider-250 (500)

This leaves you with 40pts to play with it allows you certain advantages. The Dreads can naturally use the LR’s to avoid major incoming fire while opening transports. The Librarian w/Shrouding gives boosts to your vulnerable troop units. Your Landraiders have the ability to pick off transports even on the move. This combination might work out. It’s less wounds than what you were running at 2k but much greater overall efficiency I think. You could even add a teleport homer to the Libby and deepstrike your GK’s that aren’t in the transports.

Now the better option I think for a Termi-oriented list is the foot list. This is what I would be looking at for it:

Libby-170

Might, Shrouding, Sanctuary, Quicksilver

5 Paladins-315

2xHammer, 2xSword, 1xHalberd, 2xPsycannon

5x5 Terminators-225(1350)

1xHammer, 4xHalberds, Psycannon

3xDreadknight-130(390)

This is 2k on the nose and a good place to start I think with your requirements. 35 Terminator wounds isn’t anything to sneer at. It doesn’t allow an easy target for anything over AP2. It’s not fast though so don’t mistake it for an assault force. It does provide some decent anti-tank spread around the list as you move up. The Dreadknights are big scary beasties that draw fire off your troops/pallies. Libby plays the same role as in the previous list. You could drop one Dreadknight to give the other two teleporters (if you can find 20pts). Or you could go back to no pallies and all GKT’s and use the 90pts to add a Heavy Incinerator to each Dreadknight for crowd control.

Overall I’m not really happy with either list. Would I run them for fun? Hell yes. Do I think they’ll stand up with the limited criteria? Not so much. But they follow the rules you gave and give you some of the tools you’ll need to rock it out.

I’ll try and cover the 1,500pt lists in a separate topic since this got really long, really fast. Thanks for reading!