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A friend wanted to try out an all paladin list to see how it would do. I decided to go with a wolfstar to see it would fare against a tried and tested deathstar unit.
He had the following:
Draigo
GK Libby with alot of powers, stave, and 3 servoskulls.
Paladin squad: 4 psycannons, apothcary, banner, all force swords
Paladin squad: 4 psycannons, apothcary, banner, all force swords
Me:
Twolf lord fist, SS, EW
Twolf lord claw, SS, warrior
Rune priest, jaws, LL, chooser
3 wolfguard term combimelta powerfist
3 squads of 7 grey hunters podding in with pw, melta, standard, wulfen
Twolf PF, SS
Twolf SS, MB
Twolf SS
Twolf
2 squads of longfangs 2 Lc and 2 Ml
We rolled up DoW + KP. This was possibly the worse matchup for wolfstar as it means I might have to table to win.
He does something I wouldnt have. He sets up 24 inches in with 2 paladin squads and the libby opting to have draigo walk on. He gives scouts to the two paladin squads (I would have done counter attack)
He moves 10 inches in between scout and 1st turn move.
My turn 1 I pod in with runepriest hitting one side of his paladin squad. other GH squad drops to create a bottleneck between both squads and the 2nd GH squad aims at the paladin squad without the libby. Twolves move on and fleet next to the squad without libby. I shoot everything and only kill 3 paladins. My jaws hit 8 out of 10 paladins but he made every jaws roll. His only losses were from the melta wounds. He rolled 13 saves and made them all thanks to FNP on 3.
The game breaker here was that the squad then breaks on ld9 and falls back beyond the charge range of the twolves. But 1 twolf has enough charge range to hit the other paladin squad.
I rather charge than be charged with twolves so I assault them and only kill 3 paladins since wolf claw lord was out of combat that turn but he kills the one naked twolf and 1 wound on the fist lord. He fails Ld and runs but is caught and makes 4 saves.
His libby would not get into combat for atleast another round. The only thing that was killing paladins was the fists. WOlfclaw lord could not get more than a wound at a time and while +4 for nemesis swords is not SS, a +4 can shrug alot of wounds off.
His turn 2 my charges made it so his pallies ran back further. They shot at the squad with runepriest and kill 4 thanks to psycannons and psybolt stormbolters. Draigo gets pulled nearby the libby and then makes a run move out of LOS of the longfangs.
My turn 2 had the squad of grey hunters come from reserves and deepstrike right next to the falling back pallies. I aim to escort them off the board. Here is where I made a big mistake, I shot at them with the meltas and killed another 2. This caused them to fall back again but out of range of the drop pod. My other GH squad cloest to the other paladin squad joins the fight and pops banner. They help kill another 2 paladins. Libby makes 5 powerfist saves between the twolf and wolf guard. I lose 3 grey hunters and my wolf claw lord took a wound. Luckily he was boosting strength and I10 but the rune priest denied I10 and hammer hand but might got pulled off.
His turn 3 the pallies regroup and shoot up the closest grey hunter squad and assault. They kill it without losing a single wound. Draigo joins the fight but only kills 2 grey hunters.
My turn 3, rune priest and other GH run behind drop pod but runepriest has clear LOS. He tries to jaws but fails on a 10 thanks to the aegis. LL fails horribly thanks to rolling a 1 to hit with 1 shot. The longfangs open fire but he makes his +2 rolls on the ML and cover from lascannons.
From turn 3-5 it was a game of attrition. I eventually won that fight with the twolves but had 1 wound left on both lords and every twolf had 1 wound. In the end, he needed the Strength boost rather than the force weapons (he tried force weapons 1 round but couldnt wound a single twolf.) Draigo falls to the wolfclaw lord since I chose to reroll wounds vs T5.
The remaining paladin squad is still alive but shot to death the squad of the rune priest and kills everyone but the wolf guard in terminator armor.
by games end, I had 3 KP to his 2.
Here are my thoughts on the matter.
Ld9 on the paladins suck. You need a Ld10 character to run with them.
The combo of libby with might, quicksilver, and paladins casting hammerhand is sick. But I got real lucky and bounced usually 2 out of the 3 powers every turn. But if Draigo was in the combat, that would mean Draigo can do hammerhand, Libby does might plus quicksilver, finally paladins use banner to activate FW.
DoW messes the army slightly but not by much.
4 psycannons shooting at stuff does hurt. I was fortunate he did not target drop pods for easy KP the GH put enough pressure and jaws to force him to shoot at them.
2 wounds, +2 save, and FNP is hard to kill with normal small arms.
Shrouding plus cover means they can weather an IG shooting army. It would get real stupid if there was a techmarine to bolster. Paladins sitting on an objective with a +2 cover would be even more annoying than rangers.
Draigo is a tank and not much else. He does not put out enough DPS and better off as a character assassin. For the points a regular Grand Master making units scoring would be better.
Better to give a few of the paladins deamon hammers for the possibility of S10. Then he would not need to use FW to kill Twolves. Paladins get them free.
The only problem is, the GK will 9/10 times be the ones getting charged. Which is why you need sanctuary to go off. Its an expensive combo but 10 paladins plus Grand master and libby gives you a very flexible unit. Only problem would be its speed.
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