Unit Tactica - Grey Knight Terminators

For our Brotherhood!

Let's have a dedicated topic to share opinions, experiences and tactics for (almost) everyone's favourite and one of our most iconic units: Grey Knight Terminators!


Just some ideas to structure the discussion:

SETUP: How do you equip your Terminators? What are the pro's and con's of our various CC and ranged options? What squad size do you prefer and for which role?
TACTICS: How do you use your Terminators on the field? And what successes did you achieve with them with the 7th ed dex?
SUPPORT: What do you bring to support your Terminator troops? Are there any synergies you like? How do you use characters to add to the unit?

While not aimed strictly at terminators, this is a potential idea on using them: https://greyknights.forumotion.com/t4107-teleportation-waves

I think one of the key areas for success with terminators is to stop thinking of them like Space Marine or Chaos terminators. Other terminators are support units for power armoured units who make up the main fighting strength. In addition there is a wide variety of other support units from gunships to tanks and anti aircraft assets to artillery that make up the fighting force, which between them cover most eventualities. Hence Space Marine terminators often come in minimal sized units intended as a heavy assault force. Terminators with thunderhammers and stormshields have a fairly obvious, if limited, use.

Grey Knight Terminators are not intended to be used in the same way.
Power armoured knights cost a lot of points and die as easily as their 13 point chaos cousins, while there is a distinct lack of support options. The terminators are the main fighting strength of the Grey Knights, they're the core of the army, the equivalent of tactical marines.

Of all the units in the codex, it is the terminators that are the all-rounders.

And they should be all-rounders. The Grey Knights haven't the numbers to have specialist units like thunderhammer and stormshield squads or dedicated AA units. They don't have suicide veteran squads in pods with meltaguns to eliminate enemy armour. They have several units than can perform moderately well in a variety of circumstances. It's up to the player to ensure that the right targets are hit at the right time with minimal casualties. Any ten year old can put devastators in a tower and shoot at tanks or drive a landraider forward and launch an assault with a librarian and dedicated assault units. These are obvious tactics. A Grey Knight player has more flexibility and should have a different mindset.

Firstly, I think at least one 10 man squad should be mandatory.
In terms of equipment:
Stormbolters and an incinerator kill infantry.
A psycannon is your jack of all trade gun, handy for the rear armour of tanks and shredding transports, as well as killing a few more infantry.
Halberds give a handy bonus without having to use hammerhand.
A pair of hammers are useful for bigger, nastier things and enemy tanks. Speaking of which, why not take a meltabomb? I've heard a lot of people gripping about how they can't handle heavy armour because their henchman meltaguns aren't there anymore. I figure that if you're close enough for an extra D6 in armour penetration, you're close enough to charge and use hammers and bombs.

You can put all of this into one squad, and then rearrange the unit into combat squads depending on the opposition and mission. Keep the hammers together, divide them, up to you. in a kill point mission they could even stay together- they'd be difficult to keep out of LoS but will take a lot of fire for the enemy to secure that 1 kill point.

With 20 terminators your unit options expand a lot further. By putting duplicate special weapons in units you can double them up or split them apart as you like. Dual incinerators or psycannons can be useful, but remember, Grey Knights focus on generalisation and redundancy over specialisation.


The most important thing here is that Grey Knights are not assault units in the same way as their codex equivalents. They are good at an assault- 20 stormbolter shots followed by 30 power weapon attacks is powerful. But they also shoot infantry. And tanks. And Monstrous creatures. And use psycannons as last ditch AA. And hold objectives. And hide. Going to ground seems strange for the greatest warriors in the galaxy, but if the enemy are decked out with plasma guns and you hold the objective, do the smart thing. Your terminators are there to achieve a mission.

As as aside, the Stormraven can also follow the generalisation principle. Certainly it can be outfitted as an assault carrier with many boltguns, but it can also be outfitted as an anti-tank and anti-aircraft platform with the transport space used when the situation warrants it. What with the machine spirit, it can shoot an aircraft, blow up a tank and deliver a squad simultaneously.