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We all know that Paladins get Apothecaries. I fully intend on starting a GK army (as I already have a GK support force for my SMs back when the we had the Allies rules) so I was wondering if Apothecaries were actually worth it. Given that they're T4 with 2 wounds, they'll probably be seeing alot of S8 weapons come their way, so the FnP might not be worth it. 2 wounds with a 2+ armor save is already insanely survivable, so I was wondering if this would just be wasting points, given that (according to the leaked dex) the Apoth isn't cheap.

EDIT: Damnit I posted in the wrong forum AGAIN! >_<

They're less vulnerable than marine apothecaries because they're a unit upgrade, not an IC. Nothing but the nastiest psychic powers and the vindicare assassin will be able to pick him out of the crowd. I'd say running paladins without the apothecary will be the dumb move, because really, why wouldn't you give them such a massive boost in power?

Because an apothecary, if the leaked dex is right, is 75 points, more than enough for a whole other Paladin (the 75 is on top of the cost of a normal Paladin). That and FnP is ignored by AP2 weapons, S8 weapons (which would ID the Paladins too) and Power weapons in melee. Given the stats of the Paladin, these will likely be the only things coming their way.

the Apothecary and the varity of options the Paladins have allows for Diversification.


if i am not mistaken, you can have up to 9 unique terminators including the Apothecary.


of course, you probably won't be ever running that many as they won't fit in any transports.

using my copy of the codex i have this squad for riding in Stormravens.


Palidin with Force Sword and Psycannon
Palidin with Force halbard
Palidin with Force halbard and Psycannon
Palidin with Nemisis Deamonhammer
Paladin with a Pair of Nemisis Falchions
Apothacary with Force Halbard

the entire squad has Psybolts

final cost=470 pts


12 wounds with FnP.

you can almost get 12 Vanilla Assault Terminators for the same price.


the Apothecary is a no brainer upgrade in my opinion.

It makes them insanely survivable in the face of small arms fire (each terminator, statistically, has to be hit 12 times to suffer a wound, and 24 times to die, meaning to wipe a 5 man squad it's going to take at least 120 wounds). However they will die to roughly 10 lascannon wounds (4+ invul means that 10 actual wounds are needed to inflict 5 instant deaths) Normal GK terminators of the same unit size would die to the same amount of Lascannon fire, but much less normal arms fire are needed (roughly 30 normal wounds would do them in). This means that in an equivallent points, Paladins would be twice as survivable in terms of small arms fire compared to 10 normal Terminators, while 10 normal terminators have twice the amount of survivability compared to Paladins. Normal Terminators appeal a little bit more though, because they would also bring in MUCH more attacks to the field. It also depends on Anti-tank weapon saturation: Normal Terminators have an overall increased survivability against Power weapons, S8+ weapons and AP2 weapons solely because they bring more wounds, Paladins would not.

I'm unimpressed with Paladins. Consider the following:

5 Paladins, 1 of which is an Apothecary. 350 pts. This is without upgrades.

10 wounds, FNP. Standing in cover, 10 lascannon wounds will kill the entire squad. Anything S7 or lower, or AP3 or worse, however, will have to do do 120 wounds.

For the same cost, I could simply have 9 regular Terminators. Standing in cover, they'll require 18 lascannon wounds to kill, or 54 "regular" wounds.

Assuming all wargear costs are identical, Terminators will have more firepower but Paladins will have, effectively, 5 ablative wounds before they remove models. Terms will actually beat the Paladins in close combat point-for-point.

Pallies are clearly the superior choice when sweeping "regular" infantry, but the squad is either outperformed, in general, by a larger number of regular Terminators or prohibitively expensive.

I would really only take the Paladins when I wanted a special character delivery squad that can extend the FNP bubble to Draigo (or the equiv) and a Librarian, where the force multiplication effects of their grenades, banner, Chapter Master bonus, FNP and psy powers can cover more models. In that line, you want to take as many Pallies as can fit, so 6 if traveling via Crusader, or 10 if forming a footslogging unit.

I think with Pallies it's go big or go Terminator. For general purpose utility, I'd rather simply have more Terms on the table for greater table coverage and target selection.

MechaEmperor7000 wrote:It also depends on Anti-tank weapon saturation: Normal Terminators have an overall increased survivability against Power weapons, S8+ weapons and AP2 weapons solely because they bring more wounds, Paladins would not.

I think you missed something there...

Yeah, palidins have 2 wounds each and are diversifiable.

sourclams wrote:I'm unimpressed with Paladins. Consider the following:

5 Paladins, 1 of which is an Apothecary. 350 pts. This is without upgrades.

10 wounds, FNP. Standing in cover, 10 lascannon wounds will kill the entire squad. Anything S7 or lower, or AP3 or worse, however, will have to do do 120 wounds.

For the same cost, I could simply have 9 regular Terminators. Standing in cover, they'll require 18 lascannon wounds to kill, or 54 "regular" wounds.

I just need to address how ridiculous this example is. You're talking about wounds here, not even shots. Thats 20+ BS 3 lascannon shots at a single unit in cover!

1) What the hell was the idiot GK player in this scenario doing putting paladins in line of sight of 20+ heavy weapons?

and

2) What kind of army can afford to fire 20 or more heavy weapons at a single unit of infantry?

For the vast majority of armies, those 20+ heavy weapons represent their entire firepower, IG included. Name a codex and I can guarantee that competitive lists for it will be around the 15-30 heavy weapon mark. And thats the entire army we're talking about remember.

In reality, the paladins are going to be deploying out of a stormraven or landraider. I'd pick the stormraven because after coming in fast from reserve, they'll probably be able to hit the enemy lines in cc by turn 3-4. Compare the survivability of paladins versus terminators in that scenario and I think you'll see clearly that paladins win. Hence why they are an expensive elite choice for the army and not just troops.

Bruteboss wrote:I just need to address how ridiculous this example is. You're talking about wounds here, not even shots. Thats 20+ BS 3 lascannon shots at a single unit in cover!

1) What the hell was the idiot GK player in this scenario doing putting paladins in line of sight of 20+ heavy weapons?

and

2) What kind of army can afford to fire 20 or more heavy weapons at a single unit of infantry?

For the vast majority of armies, those 20+ heavy weapons represent their entire firepower, IG included. Name a codex and I can guarantee that competitive lists for it will be around the 15-30 heavy weapon mark. And thats the entire army we're talking about remember.

In reality, the paladins are going to be deploying out of a stormraven or landraider. I'd pick the stormraven because after coming in fast from reserve, they'll probably be able to hit the enemy lines in cc by turn 3-4. Compare the survivability of paladins versus terminators in that scenario and I think you'll see clearly that paladins win. Hence why they are an expensive elite choice for the army and not just troops.

The example is not ridiculous. He didn't say 'put 10 lascannon wounds on them in one turn'. He merely stated that it takes 10 lascannon wounds to kill a paladin squad in cover. You don't think that over 2-3 turns of shooting some lascannons at them you can't genereate 10 wounds?

Vs most of the ranged weapons fire that will be directed at paladins, they are not going to be anymore survivable than regular terminators.

The apothecary costs 55+75=130 points

That is absurd. The apothecary doesn't even help you against the weapons your enemy is going to shoot at your paladins: things that instant death them.

Bruteboss wrote:1) What the hell was the idiot GK player in this scenario doing putting paladins in line of sight of 20+ heavy weapons?

and

2) What kind of army can afford to fire 20 or more heavy weapons at a single unit of infantry?

3 IG Vendettas fire T1. 6 wounds. 2 IG Vendettas fire T2. 4 wounds.

5 Paladins with Apothecary = 350 pts. 3 IG Vendettas = 390 pts.

Doesn't sound so UNPOSSIBLEH when you break it down, does it?

For the vast majority of armies, those 20+ heavy weapons represent their entire firepower, IG included.

Really? 3 Vendettas is UNPOSSIBLEH?

In reality, the paladins are going to be deploying out of a stormraven or landraider. I'd pick the stormraven because after coming in fast from reserve, they'll probably be able to hit the enemy lines in cc by turn 3-4. Compare the survivability of paladins versus terminators in that scenario and I think you'll see clearly that paladins win. Hence why they are an expensive elite choice for the army and not just troops.

Okay, so 5 Paladins + Apoth in LR are 600 points.

5 Paladins @ 350 charge 9 bog standard TH/SS Terms @ 360. 15 attacks, 10 hits, ~7 wounds due to Hammerhand, 2 dead TH/SS Terms. 7 TH/SS Terms swing, dealing 5 wounds, killing 4 Paladins, or all 5 with Null Zone or Vulkan.

TH/SS Terms lost 80 pts worth of men, Paladins lost 350. Lack of T5 or EW is a huge liability on expensive multiwound units.

Do you have any other completely irrational statements that you'd like to make today?

paladins with a medic are virtually immune to small arms fire, pretty much completely immune, you cant bring them down with weight of fire with any sort of reliability like normal terminators.

however they are somewhat more vulnerable to anti-terminator weaponry, you need to build the rest of your army with this in mind to destroy/disrupt these weapons so the pallies can do their job.

there are many pretty decent abilities and wargear options to accomplish this, you can give them stealth (3+ cover) follow them with psychic, plasma, and deep strike defences, and more.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

sourclams wrote:

5 Paladins @ 350 charge 9 bog standard TH/SS Terms @ 360. 15 attacks, 10 hits, ~7 wounds due to Hammerhand, 2 dead TH/SS Terms. 7 TH/SS Terms swing, dealing 5 wounds, killing 4 Paladins, or all 5 with Null Zone or Vulkan.

TH/SS Terms lost 80 pts worth of men, Paladins lost 350. Lack of T5 or EW is a huge liability on expensive multiwound units.

Do you have any other completely irrational statements that you'd like to make today?

pallies with falchions have 5 attacks on the charge with rerolls, there are many weapons and wargearoptions that will make this a very one sided fight in their favor, from wounding on 2's with hammerhand to having the hammer terminators attach eachother instead of the paladins to removing their attacks alltogether.

so yes, in a vacuume they lose to the best close combat unit in the game, supprise supprise.
with properloadout and planning they will run house over the same squad.

I'd say take the Apothecary if you're running an entirely Paladin army+Draigo. They'll be likely to eat a lot of small-arms fire as well as the heavy stuff, so they might as well become near-immune to it anyway.

But if you're running a more balanced army with Paladins, then the Apothecary starts to lose his value, since your opponent is more likely to use his small-arms on your mooks while saving the big killy stuff for your Paladins.

Grundz wrote:
Automatically Appended Next Post:

sourclams wrote:

5 Paladins @ 350 charge 9 bog standard TH/SS Terms @ 360. 15 attacks, 10 hits, ~7 wounds due to Hammerhand, 2 dead TH/SS Terms. 7 TH/SS Terms swing, dealing 5 wounds, killing 4 Paladins, or all 5 with Null Zone or Vulkan.

TH/SS Terms lost 80 pts worth of men, Paladins lost 350. Lack of T5 or EW is a huge liability on expensive multiwound units.

Do you have any other completely irrational statements that you'd like to make today?

pallies with falchions have 5 attacks on the charge with rerolls, there are many weapons and wargearoptions that will make this a very one sided fight in their favor, from wounding on 2's with hammerhand to having the hammer terminators attach eachother instead of the paladins to removing their attacks alltogether.

so yes, in a vacuume they lose to the best close combat unit in the game, supprise supprise.
with properloadout and planning they will run house over the same squad.

I gotta say, if you're going against a guy who's taking 10 TH/SS terminators, you got to rule in the fact that the GKPs can do a fair amount of shooting before getting into assault, what with the storm bolter shuffle.

Not to mention, if you're going against 10 TH/SS terminators, you might as well go big or go home. 10 tooled-out GKP (hey, if you can make unrealistic comparisons, so can I) would wipe a unit of TH/SS terminators off the table. Especially when you consider the other wargear options they have available.

And cost more points.

Surprise, surprise.

And did you notice that I let them get the charge? Reality is that Paladins are the new, super seductive codex option due to FNP and multiple customizable wounds, but including transport options and wargear, anything that costs eighty hundred points should be darn impressive.

They're slow as balls. People haven't been terrified of Nob Bikers or TWolf cav for months, or years. Just feed them 500 pts of ablative squads to set up your counterpunch and knock them out.

Fafnir wrote:
Not to mention, if you're going against 10 TH/SS terminators, you might as well go big or go home. 10 tooled-out GKP (hey, if you can make unrealistic comparisons, so can I) would wipe a unit of TH/SS terminators off the table. Especially when you consider the other wargear options they have available.

well yeah, pretty much, most of the said upgrades are free or very cheap and just tossing a cheap plasma-syphon inquisitor with psyk or rad grenades in and those terminators probably arent getting a swing off, even with 5 pallies.

I'm not saying they're the new competetive standard, far from it. Their high cost ensures that won't be the case (because let's face it, purifiers look fething amazing), but to compare them to TH/SS terminators is a bad idea. GKP pack so much more versatility than TH/SS terminators. The ability to lay down some serious relentless firepower is pretty important too.

sourclams wrote:And cost more points.

Surprise, surprise.

And did you notice that I let them get the charge?

You also put your hand over the free wargear options and just stated some math against a bare bones squad with no wound allocation or differentiated gear that no one will ever run, guess what i can put my hand over your wargear options and beat up a bunch of basic terminators just as easily.
you can kick and cry all you like, but your example is wholly inaccurate and you obviously havent read the real codex yet, so shhhhh.

also fafnir show me how to do glowing eyes please mr paint master XD

Why is it a bad idea? TH/SS Terminators are as common as dirt in Marine lists, and if you have 25% - 35% of your list sunk into a super death squad, not to mention its transport, which TH/SS Terms are a pretty hard counter to, how could you say that they're not going to end up in combat with them fairly frequently?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Grundz wrote:You also put your hand over the free wargear options and just stated some math against a bare bones squad with no wound allocation or differentiated gear that no one will ever run, guess what i can put my hand over your wargear options and beat up a bunch of basic terminators just as easily.

Differentation means what to Instant Death? All the wargear that would make a difference to combat rez, i.e. warding staves and brotherhood banner, costs points.

Grundz wrote:
also fafnir show me how to do glowing eyes please mr paint master XD

A lot of patience and luck. Mostly luck.

But really, just start with your base colour for the eyes, and then work your way up to white/alternate colour, making the 'dab' for the eye smaller each time. For my Gallowsmen, I use Amarantha Red as the base colour, yellow as the alternate colour, and white as the... white.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

sourclams wrote:Why is it a bad idea? TH/SS Terminators are as common as dirt in Marine lists, and if you have 25% - 35% of your list sunk into a super death squad, not to mention its transport, which TH/SS Terms are a pretty hard counter to, how could you say that they're not going to end up in combat with them fairly frequently?

But there'd only be 8 at most then really, 7 with a Librarian. Take an inquisitional retinue loaded up with melta guns, pop the land raider, storm-bolter shuffle accross the table, they've got to roll a few ones. When things look easy to sweep, just walk forward and meet them in combat.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Grundz wrote:You also put your hand over the free wargear options and just stated some math against a bare bones squad with no wound allocation or differentiated gear that no one will ever run, guess what i can put my hand over your wargear options and beat up a bunch of basic terminators just as easily.

Differentation means what to Instant Death? All the wargear that would make a difference to combat rez, i.e. warding staves and brotherhood banner, costs points.

And I figure it should be accepted that, if you're going to be playing Paladins, you're going to invest heavily in them. They are not cheap units, and they aren't exactly cost efficient. They're a steam roller.

sourclams wrote:
Differentation means what to Instant Death?

Wow, so you don't even understand how a tourney player abuses wound allocation, nevermind then, you are just bad.
nevermind, carry on.

Fan: Ive got a few extra marines to try it on this weekend wish me luck!

Grundz wrote:

sourclams wrote:
Differentation means what to Instant Death?

Wow, so you don't even understand how a tourney player abuses wound allocation, nevermind then, you are just bad.
nevermind, carry on.

Fan: Ive got a few extra marines to try it on this weekend wish me luck!

You've got 5 models.

You've got 10 S8 power weapon wounds to allocate.

Allocate away Mr. Pro Tourney Abuser.

(Hint: It hasn't been a big deal since Nob Bikers. It's not now.)

You ignore my point that no army is putting that many shots on the paladin unit in 1 turn. Don't deliberately misinterpret what I wrote when you know what I said is perfectly valid.

I really dislike that you seem to use nothing but ideal scenarios to try proving your argument. I will give you ss/th termies vs paladins [/u]with no upgrades[u] will win easily. But arm the paladins differently and they will destroy those same terminators. No one is going to bring basic paladins to the fight because that wastes their incredible value.

Your shooting example is no different. You waste the firepower of 3 vendettas (the best anti-tank in the IG codex, btw), for 2 whole turns on 1 unit of infantry. Guess what happens when I equip them with nemesis ward staves (2++ save)? Those 10 wounds become about 1.5. Looks like a waste of 2 turns of shooting to me.

Yes we get it, paladins will die to enough heavy weapon fire or against close combat monsters. That isn't news, its common sense and simple game balance. The real thing to take notice of here is that against anything else (and even facing those problems), the paladins will be incredibly difficult to put down, hence their value.

edit: ninja'd by fafnir and grundz

Fafnir wrote:And I figure it should be accepted that, if you're going to be playing Paladins, you're going to invest heavily in them. They are not cheap units, and they aren't exactly cost efficient. They're a steam roller.

As I said in my first post, go big or go home.

Nobody is going to be taking 5 Paladins and Apothecary four times.

It's going to be one giant super death squad, that prays it can neutralize or avoid lascannon and melta fire.

sourclams wrote:

Grundz wrote:

sourclams wrote:
Differentation means what to Instant Death?

Wow, so you don't even understand how a tourney player abuses wound allocation, nevermind then, you are just bad.
nevermind, carry on.

Fan: Ive got a few extra marines to try it on this weekend wish me luck!

You've got 5 models.

You've got 10 S8 power weapon wounds to allocate.

Allocate away Mr. Pro Tourney Abuser.

(Hint: It hasn't been a big deal since Nob Bikers. It's not now.)

That makes no sense.

Assuming the 5 man GKP unit actually strikes at initiative, assuming that the unit has been upgraded to the bare minimum, the terminators will inflict 7 wounds, with 2 of them dead anyway.

And that's assuming no falchions were taken, and no warding staves. Assuming a majority of swords, that means that it's a 4+ invulnerable on the unit.

Regardless, it's still an utterly rediculous comparison, those terminators would likely be shot a fair bit before reaching combat, especially with a 10 man unit and Librarian.

Bruteboss wrote:Your shooting example is no different. You waste the firepower of 3 vendettas (the best anti-tank in the IG codex, btw), for 2 whole turns on 1 unit of infantry. Guess what happens when I equip them with nemesis ward staves (2++ save)? Those 10 wounds become about 1.5. Looks like a waste of 2 turns of shooting to me.

No, you miss the point that I shot 390 points of units at 360 points of units and watched them disappear. Nemesis Warding Staves are in CC only. And cost points.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
So le'ts turn this around. Instead of me trying to stress test the unit in bad but likely scenarios, you all throw out the Paladin unit builds that you're going to try to feature in your lists.

Well I'll agree with ph34r and sourclams. Paladins are pretty awful, and the apothecary doesn't make them any better. Additionally, people are talking like FNP Terminators are something new. If I want FNP Terminators I'll play BA, use Assault Terminators with Storm Shields and have 2 Priests bubble two units of said TH/SS Terminators AND 20 jump packers with PF sergeants with FNP AND FC for a bargain amount of points. Heck, I can even deep strike those Terminators in Land Raiders alongside the jump packers if I wanted.

No matter how we try to spin it, GK Terminators of all types are worse than the BA and vanilla variants. GK's in power armour aren't so bad because the 5 points per model price tag buys a force weapon, aegis and a warp quake. They're not undercosted either but atleast they're not plain bad like the Paladins.

sourclams wrote:

You've got 5 models.

You've got 10 S8 power weapon wounds to allocate.

Allocate away Mr. Pro Tourney Abuser.

each model takes 2 wounds (in theory, which they wont)
each model has a 4+ invulnerable
each model has a 25% chance of surviving, so likelyhood is you are only killing ~3 models, not the whole squad, because the overflow failures dont get into other wound groups

some situations may be:
5 pallies with falchions, hammerhand
25 swings, ~16.5 hits, ~15 wounds, 7 dead terminators, return blows kill 2.5 pallies
5 pallies with falchions, hammerhand, xenos inquisitor
25 swings, ~16.5 hits ~16.5 wounds (2+w/ reroll), 8 dead terminators, return blows kill an average of 1 paladin if the inquisitor didnt get him
Haeriticium inquisitor is slightly less wounds but there's about a 1/2 chance of losing zero pallies

each model has a 4+ invulnerable

Unless you're talking about 4+ cover saves, they have 5+ invulnerable saves. The force weapon bonus applies in close combat only.

Therion wrote:

each model has a 4+ invulnerable

Unless you're talking about 4+ cover saves, they have 5+ invulnerable saves. The force weapon bonus applies in close combat only.

good thing we are talking about close combat, isnt it?