Is an all-Terminator army viable to use?

[This Dave]

While costly points wise an all Sternguard force can be terrifying as they have the right weapon for any situation at all times, and are even decent in assault as they come with two attacks base. Especially if you use Crimson Fist Chapter Tactics as that gives them Objective Secured too.

[Wayniac]

While costly points wise an all Sternguard force can be terrifying as they have the right weapon for any situation at all times, and are even decent in assault as they come with two attacks base. Especially if you use Crimson Fist Chapter Tactics as that gives them Objective Secured too.

I might have to consider that. I Just really like the idea of having an elite strike team of Space Marines, but I want to invent my own Chapter for the most part so I don't want to use Grey Knights or something like that; Crimson Fists still IIRC use Imperial Fist tactics so they're still fairly generic, and while I'd have to have my own counts-as Pedro Kantor for the other benefits he's fairly generic too so I wouldn't feel weird using him as my own guy. Only possible issue is that I know a store is having an escalation league soon and something tells me that a lot of costly units won't work too well in that format

[Da Gargoyle]

I have played against terminator heavy armies. One lad who loved the DA set up for terminators. He equipped his squads with Storm Shield and Thunder Hammer, deep struck with two to three units and hung in there for that first turn. In bigger games he included a predator, snipers and tac marines for long range shootin. I watched him drop in front of a 1500 IG force, lose 9 or 10 marines and then just walk through the guard with the survivors.

The other lad was in a recent 750 point tourny. Two termy squads, one of which had the head honcho and a long range tactical squad, against my Eldar. He had some enhancement to invulnerable saves, and it was a close run game with him winning on victory points because my Spirit Seer bottled it and my Warlocks threw their spears like fairies.

I think they would be competative, but you would need something that gives you the slightly better 4+ invun save.

Though it is funny when you see a Storm Guardian squad hold up a Termy squad in C/C for for turns. It brought the image of the Monty Python fish dance.

[Arkhan Land]

Personally One of the things that gets me about termie armies is that they have really specified roles and dont move ridiculously quickly meaning a savy opponent can end up letting you attack his raider armour with your L-claws and troops with P-fists (see that Storn Guardian battle a post above). sometimes its better to have one or two more all purpose troops.
Also on survivability I have only once ever destroyed a friend of mine's Belial+Chaplain+Apothecary DA-Command Sqaud nightmare thing in about a dozen games, the thing is tough.

[vonDietdrich]

If terminators aren't viable, how are Sternguard/Vanguard? A 1st Company army could also fit my idea/theme without being entirely Terminators, but the typical SM mix wouldn't.

The big problem with standard Terminators is that you just don't get enough heavy weapons in a squad of 10 of them to make them viable in a shooting capacity. Assault terminators are great at what they do. Regular terminators.. notsomuch. If it can't be killed with a bolter, you're going to have problems.

The Strike Force Ultra box is mostly awesome. The two vehicles are necessary staples of an elite army, as both Land Raiders and Storm Ravens will shield your relatively few models from all the shots that your opponent would normally try to drown you in, hoping you roll 1's on your saves. Assault Terminators are fine, especially in a Land Raider. Terminator Captains do work, though you'll want to kit him out with something that's not a Storm Bolter/Power Sword. Dreads are fantastic, though it pretty much requires a drop pod to be effective. I guess you could deliver it with the Storm Raven, but.. meh, 35 points is a pittance for the havoc that a good Turn One drop can cause.

It's the 10 regular Terminators where you run into trouble.

So basically you've got four guys that want to shoot infantry and one dude that wants to shoot heavy targets, and ideally you just want to get all of them into melee because power fists are better than anything they can do in the shooting phase. If you can deliver them into the enemy, they'll slaughter everything, but then they might as well just be Assault terminators and you paid a premium for their guns (which aren't as effective as their melee abilities in the first place). And so, in all Terminator army, ironically it's the generalist terminators that are the least effective for their points. A single five-man squad of them could be fine for defending objectives against infantry and light vehicles, but more than 5 is a waste.

My point is, a 'nothing but Terminators' army isn't viable, but a 'mostly Terminators with some vehicles and support' is fine.

Something like this would be very playable:

Terminator Captain, The Burning Blade/Power Sword (4 attacks at S7 AP2 at regular initiative, plus I've always wanted to model a Terminator dual-wielding power swords)
x5 Assault Terminators, 3 Lightning Claws, 2 Thunder Hammer/Storm Shield
Land Raider Crusader

x5 Assault Terminators, 3 Lightning Claws, 2 Thunder Hammer/Storm Shield
Land Raider Crusader

Dreadnought, Heavy Flamer, Twin-Linked Heavy Flamer (It's not there for killing vehicles, although it can with the Power Fist. Ideally you'll drop it on a large squad of infantry and melt them on turn one.)
Drop Pod

x5 Devastators, 2 Lascannons, 2 Missile Launchers, Bolt Pistol/Chainsword Sergeant (mostly because modeling eight lascannons would get boring, but also if your meta is flyer-heavy you can buy the Skyfire upgrade or switch to frag missiles versus infantry)
Razorback, TL Lascannon

x5 Devastators, 2 Lascannons, 2 Missile Launchers, Bolt Pistol/Chainsword Sergeant (with two squads you have six lascannon shots per turn and four ML shots out to 48", supporting your terminators from anywhere on the board. You can also switch them around to one group of lascannon devastators and one of missiles.)
Razorback, TL Lascannon

x5 Sternguard Veterans, 2 Grav Guns
Drop Pod

1855 points

The basic idea of the army is to use the two Crusaders as a spearhead to quickly deliver the Assault Terminators to your enemy, while simultaneously engaging the enemy at range with the Devastators and Razorbacks to soften up or eliminate priority targets (Wraithknights, Riptides, Imperial Knights et al). Your opponent has to choose whether he wants to focus his firepower on the Crusaders or the support elements, and you screw with his decision-making process by dropping a Dreadnought somewhere annoying and hopefully incinerating his troops (or at least blocking him with the pod and setting up a decent second turn charge). Follow up the Dreadnought's deployment with the Sternguard on the second turn, because if the Dreadnought's flamers can't kill it, the two grav guns will. Or just drop them somewhere else that's annoying. Meanwhile, the LRCs advance and hopefully get your Terminators into assault by turn two while laying down covering fire with the assault cannons. If necessary, redeploy your devastators to take objectives.

You could certainly do worse. It has enough shots to mow down infantry-heavy armies (from the two LRCs and the dreadnought, 24 twin-linked bolter shots from the hurricane bolters and 8 TL shots from the assault cannons plus two heavy flamer templates, one TL), enough heavy weaponry to kill Knights quickly, not much can beat it in Assault, it's mobile (everything's in a transport or pod), the LRCs will be beastly for drawing aggro, good long-range firepower from the Devastators/Razorbacks, and the two drop pods give you a measure of early board control and disruption (and you can also mix up the order, dropping the Sternguard first if you see an opening for the grav guns). It won't lose by default against popular strategies, gives you flexible strategies, and will put up a stiff fight against almost all list types while still being about elite Space Marines and their pimp mobiles.

Hope that helps, good luck.

[Thornblood]

If you were to add anything to that list, I would vote for a chaplain, and for him and an assault terminator squad to hang out in a land raider crusader/redeemer together.