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The Trouble with Terminators For those of you that have been playing along at home, I recently started a Deathwing army. This army is to eventually become Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Warband. That will come when more of it is done, however. For now, they are painted in Doom Eagle Colors (Boltgun Metal base with Snot Green and Blood Red pieces, plus a bit of Bleached Bone for the Terminator stuff.) So, I've got about 1100pts painted up, which means that I could just about fit my new army in my pockets. (No, I haven't tried, but it's an amusing thought.) I've been playing games both with my painted miniatures and with proxies, to get a feel for the force and try it before I buy it. So, how does it feel? Well, it's very different! First off, even in my most model intensive game to date, I had no more than 27 models. That makes transport, movement and deployment so much easier than the 60-70 models I routinely fielded in similar sized games with my Dark Eldar and Tyranids. In addition to that, I actually get to make armor saves! Not just against wimpy close combat attacks, but Bolters (Curse you, AP5!) and even Lascannons! On the other hand, the army is very slow. My fastest vehicle is a Tank (move 6" and fire one weapon, move 12" and do not fire) and my infantry only move 6" per turn, unlike my fleet-of-foot Dark Eldar and Gaunts, or my Flying Hive Tyrants. This means that they tend to advance slowly, unlike my usual hell-for-leather screaming assault by turn 2. They are also very slow to react, which means that changing my mind about where I want to go is nearly impossible. Assuming they get one assault move, that would mean a maximum of 45" of movement in a full 6 turn game (6 turns of 6" movement, plus one 6" assault move, plus a 3" consolidation after winning the assault.) That means that if I start on one board edge, and just spend the entire game going in a straight line, I probably won't make it off the far board edge. So, Deathwing is definitely entirely different from either of my other armies, which was part of the point of doing it. All these differences mean that there will be quite a learning curve with this army. I've heard a number of people say that Deathwing are a hard army to win with, and I can see why. They have very limited mobility, which makes it more difficult to accomplish objectives. They have very expensive models, which mean that mistakes and bad luck hurt more, and that they will tend to have fewer units, limiting their flexibility as well. I like a challenge, and I figured that Deathwing would be one. To offset their mobility issues, I have been using an all-mounted list. 15 Terminators held in 3 LandRaiders. This somewhat solves the mobility problem and adds 6 Twin-Linked Lascannons to my forces. On the other hand, those LandRaiders are big targets, and some people may not be too happy about facing 3 tanks with AV14 on all facings. In addition, the 15 terminators inside will be heavily outnumbered by anyone they face, so it may be too much of a handicap. The other day I was mulling over the problems that Deathwing face and I came up with a different solution. Each squad can have 2 Cyclone Missile Launchers. (a standard missile launcher, but Terminators can move and shoot.) That idea, coupled with the idea of trying to reduce the penalty of having a small army, gave me the idea of a Terminator SAFH (Shooty Army From Hell, while it used to be the bailiwick of the Imperial Guard, other armies such as Marines and Dark Eldar can use it as well. The usual idea is to have a lot of basic squads, each with the maximum number of ranged weapons upgrades. Then sit back and shoot.) Anyway, I discovered that at 1500pts, I can get 5 squads of 5 Terminators, plus an Interrogator Chaplain and a Master of the Deathwing. 4 of the 5 squads can have 2 Cyclone missile launchers, while the 5th one has a single one. So, 9 move and shoot missiles in 1500pts, plus 27 Stormbolters. That's some pretty serious dakka. It's also 27 Terminators, though only 11 have powerfists and 7 have powerweapons. I've tried both versions of this army and while I was initially impressed, I haven't really had much luck with them. So far, my Deathwing has had about a dozen games. A few of those looked promising but ended early, a few were wins, but more than half have been losses, though some of the losses were tantalizingly close. I've been starting to feel a little depressed about the win-loss record of the army. While I play for fun, I do like to win, and the losses (particularly as the wins were all concentrated on one day, before any of the losses!) have been bugging me. Well, it does give me a reason to play around with army lists, like I love to do, and some of those losses have been really, really close. I'm toying with the idea of the all foot version of the army replacing one squad with a Dreadnaught. The points saved by this will be spent on an Apothecary (already modeled, when not in base to base contact allows the squad to ignore the first failed armor save each turn, which will cut down on those unlucky ones I sometimes roll!) and a few extra basic Terminators with Powerfists for a single large unit that will screen the others as they advance. How will this army fare, I don't know, but I'll have to try it out! One thing that I need to remember with all versions of this army is that I've actually got a lot of range. Cyclone Missile Launchers, Twin-Linked Lascannons, those are all 48" range weapons. Basically, I can sit back and shoot, or I can move in and assault with any version of this army. I'll just have to decide whether I am shootier than the enemy or not, and if so, at what range? At 48" range, I have either 6 Twin Linked Lascannons or 9 Missile Launchers, or 9 Missile Launchers and a Twin Linked Lascannon. That's a good amount of dakka, but not overwhelming. At 24" range, I add 14-27 StormBolters. More Dakka. Even Space Marines start failing armor saves to that, and armies with a 5+ Save (Orks, Imperial Guard, Tyranids, Dark Eldar, etc.) positively evaporate. On the other hand, once I'm in close combat, I can almost ignore anything but power weapons, and all my powerfists get to do the talking! I'll need to figure out whether I'm going to hang back at long range and make them do the walking, or if I want to close in and shoot them up, then assault them, and it'll change every time, since some armies will be more effective at one range than others. So, I need to decide whether I'm shooting or assaulting and plan ahead to take objectives and stick to my plans once I start. I also need to keep them together so that I can make use of the concept of local superiority. I think that if I keep these guidelines in mind, I will start winning more often, and I'll still be having fun. If you enjoyed this, email me and let me know |