Full Terminator squad

[Brother Drakist]

With the building of my Crimson Fists army coming along I have been thinking over different strategies. In accordance with the background I am going to run with a full Elite FOC army. Considering that the CF base of operations on Rynn's world was annhilated I am going to limit vehicle selections. Therefore I was thinking of fielding a 10 man Terminator squad to act as the spearhead for my CF force. I will also switch between dual heavy flamer, and dual cyclone builds. However my preference is for the cyclones.

 

I know that this is an expensive proposition but in 5th edition it's all about our troops so running 10 Termies into the face of my opponent will hopefully keep some heat off my troops. This will not be a suicide mission as I will look to get the Termies into cover on my opponents side of the table to benefit from cover saves. I figure between the 20 storm bolter shots, 4 Missile shots, and 9 Powrfists these guys will get plenty of attention while I move my other units to objectives and to support locations.

 

What do you guys think? Crazy idea or valid tactic? Either I will give it a shot, but looking for some input.

[DevianID]

Amazingly valid tactic. 10 Termies, with 2 cyclones and Pedro Kantor, simply cant be beat. No really--they cant be beat. The termies can use 4 blasts to suppliment the 20 storm bolter shots to scrub large xeno squads off the map, the 4 s8 shots wreck anything the xenos can muster except for a monolith, and in combat nothing beats 30 powerfist attacks, 40 with the charge. Plus, they are only 1 kill point for the squad and 1 for the character, but can combat squad to put 2 cyclones and the power weapon in the backfield while charging forward with the 5 powerfists in non killpoint games.

 

Also, simply as a bodyguard for pedro they excell. Because they have a 48 inch range, they can afford to sit still when pedro fires off his s 10 ap 1 large blast, or can move away from pedro and still shoot if you need to target 2 different units.

 

Finally, in terms of metagame usefulness, termies are nearly perfect. The only metagame they struggle with is bloodcrusher daemonlists, but then again, termies only make up 460 points in the list, usually you will have some sternguard in there as well, and if you are REALLY worried about daemons, you can take a 100 point librarian with nullzone, who will, with the rest of your shooting, make a mockery of daemons that think getting to assault range is a good idea.

 

This is not just theoryhammer on my part either, our group has been playing the 10 man termie unit in every marine tourney list we run since the book came out. And while it started out as a metagame choice versus nob biker lists, it has grown into an anti everything unit (save those pesky bloodcrushers!)

[Warp Angel]

My experience with the 10 man cyclone/Pedro squad is pretty identical.

 

It's a beatstick unit that can deal with just about anything on it's own and only gets more flexible when you remember that you can deep strike them on their own, Pedro doesn't have to be attached to give bonuses, you can combat squad them, and they give you a LR slot so you can use your heavies for something else. Nothing says you have to use the LR as a transport for them...

 

I still prefer him attached to a TH/SS squad of 7 in a Crusader though. It fits my particular army's needs better.

 

But that's not a unit to build an army around like you're talking about. If you're building an army to be spearheaded by Termies... go the 2x cyclone route.

[kaiserstole20]

I use the same config, only with Lysander. I find it to be a great unit.