Editing Chaos Terminator (section)

===Third Edition Roller-Coaster===

Terminators in general took a battering in third edition, especially for chaos. Reason being, deep-striking units could only fire assault weapons when deep-striking (initially, but this was changed later), meaning combi-bolters were unusable for striking termies. Also was the introduction of the 5++ and the reduction of termie statlines down to PAMs with another attack, a better save, deep-striking, the total loss of grenades, no pistols and the ability to move and shoot heavy weapons (unless deep-striking). Termies had to compete hard against Veterans, Berserkers, Thousand Sons, Plague Marines and chaos dreadnoughts in the elites slot, though the first four of these could be shuffled to troops with a choice of HQ. There are also options for cult terminators which were fleshed out more fully in a FAQ, but they pail in comparison to 3.5. Speaking of, that book merged Chosen and Terminators together with terminators being an upgrade to chosen. There's a lot to say about how awesome and skubtastic this was, but suffice to say that these were some of the earliest roots of what will eventually become Death Guard and Thousand Sons special terminators (and hopefully more to follow). It was also in 3.5 that rules for deep-striking were amended to allow them to shoot any of their weapons - basically, if you can normally move and shoot, you can deep-strike and shoot. Unfortunately, Terminators had to compete with the original, uniquely chaos TEQ in 3.5 - the Obliterators, which GW thought would be great to move into the Elites slot this time around. FWIW, oblits were just flat out better terminators in 3.5 if they could be afforded, though most armies could only take one squad of oblits.