Hey There Everyone its The Dak, back at it again with another “should I buy” article. This one is coming in a bit late, but its better late than never I always say. Unless its like a rescue helicopter or something, those kinda need to be on time.
Anyways, today’s article is all about the new Chaos Terminators. Terminators have seen quite a few changes over thier long time in the 40k universe, and while they haven’t changed with the new codex, they have gotten new models. So, lets reexamine their rules and take a look at the new models.
The Crunch
Ok, so their stats haven’t changed with the codex, and they remain the same old ‘Nators you know and love. As always, what makes them so unique and gives them an edge over their loyalist counterparts is their equipment options. Every terminator can take a different weapon, and can be given everything from chain axes to power fists to combi-weapons. The only real limitation is having one heavy weapon per five guys. If you need something to shred infantry you have combi-bolters and lightning claws (two pairs each if you really want to get stuck in). Conversely, you can give them power fists and combi-meltas if you want to put the hurt on tanks. Also, you can just go ham on a unit of ten with combi-plasmas and the mark of Slaanesh to shoot them twice.
Not only that, but if you take them as Black Legion you can give them the specialist detachment the “Bringers of Despair”. Firstly, it may be worth paying the CP just to give a Terminator Lord a re-roll all hits aura. Essentially giving you another “budget” Abaddon for you squads of Terminators. Secondly you gain access to a few stratagems to use with your terminators. The first one doubles your opponent’s losses in close combat for morale purposes. So, it’s a bit situational but could be great against hordes that they may otherwise have trouble with, or at they very least force your opponent to spend 2CP. The other stratagem allows another unit near a squad to auto-pass moral for 1CP. This is really cool, as it gives you another way to have a squad auto-pass morale. Plus, its cheaper than the one in the rulebook.
One thing I don’t recommend doing is mixing and matching in a single squad. Moreover, try to make sure your squad has a focus whether its anti-infantry or anti-tank. Sure, everyone can split fire now but having the squad have a bunch of different weapons with different ranges and targets wont work out.
The New Look
This one was a little surprising, as I thought the last sculpt for terminators looked fine. In fact Im sure a few of you thought the same thing. In any case we got some new terminators, and I do think these look better than the last ones. Really, its just not as drastic as the change we saw with stuff like Devastators or Chaos Space Marines. Personally, I think a big part of it was to keep them in line with the new larger Chaos Space Marines.
It was an issue I saw with my Huron Blackheart Mini. Next to the new Chaos Marines he looked short and runty, as opposed to the imposing Chaos Lord he’s supposed to be. Its why I put mine on a custom base, partly because it looked cool but mainly because I needed to make him a bit taller. In any case these guys cool and are a bit beefier than the last sculpts.
The Verdict
Chaos Terminators are really cool, and while they might not be at the top tiers of competitive play yet they are still quite good. Also, we have a lot more going on with Chaos now and so who knows what we will see in the months ahead. Maybe even a list that uses a couple squads of them. However, the one downside worth mentioning is that the kit doesn’t come with enough weapon bits to give everyone the same exact weapon(aside from combi-bolters it seems). So, you may want to either break out the bits box or buy a few boxes. Its also worth mentioning that while you cant spam the same melee weapons right out of the box, having mixed melee weapons isn’t all that bad at the end of the day.
So should you buy them? For the most part, the answer is yes. If you have the new Chaos Marines and are still running the old Terminators you may want to switch purely for aesthetics. If you don’t have them, then I think they can make a fine addition to a Chaos Space Marine army. Just be sure you build them with the job you want them to do in mind.
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As usual, a big thanks to Games Workshop for the images used in our article.
