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I've only found one batrep concerning them (they were victorious) even though there seems to be lot of discussion concerning their viability.

I'm starting a 1500 list, Draigo, Librarian, 10 man squad /w Apocathery and a 5 man squad. Hopefully I'll get a game or two in next week. If I expand it to 2000k I'll add in another 5 man squad and 2 psyriflemen dreads.

I see a few major issues with fielding such an army.

Very vulnerable to S8+ AP2- weaponry. I don't remember if AP2 takes away FNP or not, if not the Apoc will help a lot against plasmaguns, which while nasty, do not threaten paladins as much as other terminators (excluding SS/TH).

Mobility. Yes, you can outflank with them, but they're still only moving 6 +d6 inches a turn. A fast moving, mobile army (ala DE) will have a field day against Paladins.

Short range weaponry. Relentless helps out some, but Psycannons still only have a 30" range. The Psyrifleman Dreads will help out at higher points.

But the army does have strengths!

Anything under s8 or AP3 or worse will take TONS of shots to kill a Paladin especially against the Apocathery squad. In the same vein, anything that isn't a power weapon is nigh useless against them in CC.

Outside of TH/SS Terminators, not much can mess with them in CC. WS5 means pretty much anything that isn't a HQ will hit them on 4s. The ability to pump to s5 gives them a great boost in CC. Halberds allow them to strike before most units in the game and Quicksilver will allow Draigo's monster squad to strike before everything (and potentially at +2 since Hammerhand and Might of Titan stack).

Hordes are ineffective against them. Even a MSU squad can pump out 8 s7 shots and 6 s4 shots at 24" per turn. Once you get within 12" your going to be eating a s5 large blast.

And I doubt DoA and Drop Pod lists would do well against them. For example my friend only takes 10 meltaguns in his 2k list. I doubt he has as many as 8 in his 1500. Now, I dislike his lists and think that they could be better, but a assault marine squad within 12" of even 5 paladins is going to be pretty much a free kill. I think the most effective way to beat paladins will be to STAY AWAY from them and DP/DoA lists are built around getting close to the enemy. In fact, anything assaulty that lacks power weapons (especially PFs) will not do well against them.

I doubt Paladins will be competitve, but I think they can do well at least in friendly games.

A friend of mine is thinking of starting a Paladin-centric GK list.

I'm stocking up on Demolishers as we speak.

Brother SRM wrote:A friend of mine is thinking of starting a Paladin-centric GK list.

I'm stocking up on Demolishers as we speak.

Ah, that's mean.

I dunno, Paladins seem hit or miss to me. If you don't have the tools to deal with them, they can be unstoppable. If you have the tools to take out paladins, then they aren't really a big deal IMO.

Paladins, for all intesive purposes, are basically immune to small arms fire (Str 7 and lower, AP 3 and higher). 16 successful wounds to take down a single Paladin before wound shenanigans are even taken into effect. Standard Guardsmen with lasguns at BS 3 would take 480 shots on average to kill a 5 man Paladin squad in shooting (960 shots to take a 10 man squad out, wheee). I watched a guy with green tide, who liked to say "Need to deal with something? Throw more boys at it" get tabled by someone running FnP Paladins. The Powerklaws just bounced off the warding staves 2++, and the boys attacks, no matter how plentiful, were not getting thru 2+/4+ fnp and wound shenanigans.

If the enemy has some nice Str 8+ or AP 2-1 shooting (demolisher cannons, demo charges, melta spam) , or a CC squad that can stand against tons of Init 6 halberd attacks, and in return dish out a lot of str 8+ power weapons (Think TH/SS terminators), then you really have nothing to worry about. Kitted out, Paladins are INSANELY expensive, and if they are shot by str 8+ ap 2- they are only 1 wound with a 5++ save.

They remind me of nob bikers - scary to an unprepared opponent, but not a big deal with all the melta, ordnance and powerfists people are packing these days.

scubasteve04 wrote:IPaladins, for all intesive purposes,

Intents and purposes. "For all intensive purposes" means nothing. It's like "A whole nother thing" and is incorrect.

Paladins are all but immune to small arms fire, and I know even with FRFSRF on a huge blob of Guardsmen they won't go down to much of anything.

I watched a game of Paladins vs Space Wolves with thunder calv and the good stuff. I started dusting off my Heavy Destroyers after that, jeez those things can be brutal.

Kurgash wrote:I watched a game of Paladins vs Space Wolves with thunder calv and the good stuff. I started dusting off my Heavy Destroyers after that, jeez those things can be brutal.

Who won?

A friend of mine fielded them in a 1750 GK/1750 BT v 3500 Nids with a custom Grandmaster attached. They brutalized a group of Raveners and I was really impressed. Massive point advantage, but regardless I'm usually scared shitless of Ravs.

I would expect a Paladin army to be fairly extreme hit-or-miss.

Either your opponent brought a list that can comparatively easily deal with the Paladins (say.. massed Vindicator+Null-Zone, Lash&Oblits, TH/SS-Termies, JoTWW-spam, etc..?) and/or a mission working against the Paladins (5 objectives?). Paladins will likely loose big.

Or your opponent's list is missing the crucial tools and/or the mission is working in favour of the Paladins (Kill points?). Paladins will take it home fairly easily.

Perhaps more than most 40K-games, the fights of a pure-Paladin-army will be determined by the lists brought to the table, not the skill of the players.

I play an almost pure Paladin army (nevermind the Vindicare behind the curtain...) at 1500 (I add interceptors at 2000... strange how no one wants to play me at 2000...), and it tends to be hit-or-miss. A Paladin deathstar is a mighty glacier. Incredibly powerful and durable, but very slow. Mobile armies that pack plenty of high strength, low AP weaponry will scare the crap out of them (I basically consider all of my matches against Dark Eldar to be written off), but against more 'balanced' armies, they can really be one hell of a threat.

They're amazing in team games though, when an ally can help to counteract the army's weaknesses.

What I think is funny is that if Paladins are popular, Nob Bikers may make a comeback, as they are mostly the same thing--a strong metagame list.

The more I think about it, the more I'm thinking that a 10 man Paladin squad supported by Draigo and a libby might be very good. A five man squad not so much but 10 Paladins, Draigo and Libby is lots of wounds that are very difficult to remove. And Paladins can take a lot of powerful weaponry, too.

I think a lot of the 'they're easy to deal with if you shoot them with AP2/AP1' comments have come from a desire to frighten people into thinking that Paladins are worse than they are because, actually, they may be pretty good and difficult to face.

With the Libby's powers, cover, wound allocation, FNP and terminator armour, they will be very difficult to take down unless you can put out a hell of a lot of long ranged AP1/AP2 shots - and I don't mean melta range stuff, I'm talking 48"+.

Having said that, I'm not going to run a Paladin army because putting that many points into an army is going to mean very little tactical variety.

They are almost impossible to beat with some armies but others will steamroll over them.

They will never be a super competitive build because it depends so heavil on who your facing. DE and Tau (suprised no has mentioned them yet) will remove their saves and ID them without getting close enough to take real damage back.

scubasteve04 wrote:
They remind me of nob bikers - scary to an unprepared opponent, but not a big deal with all the melta, ordnance and powerfists people are packing these days.

That's exactly what they reminded me of but with a whole lot less mobility.

Paladins seem to me like they're really only THAT good against other elite armies, much like Grey Knights themselves. They can out-Terminator Terminators! However, for Tau, Guard, Dark Eldar, or most other non-elite armies, they don't make much of a difference. It doesn't matter to me if Paladins or regular Grey Knight Terminators get into hand to hand with my Guardsmen - my dudes will die just the same. It's overkill against just about anything that isn't Nobz or Terminators of some flavor.

Yes, they're pretty much immune to small arms fire, but I make a point to fire mostly AP1/2 weapons against Terminators anyway. I guess I'm more or less saying what everyone else here is saying - against some lists they'll be nigh-unstoppable, while against others they'll get trounced. That can be said for any army build, but I think it's even more glaring with Paladin lists.

My DoA would be screwed. I guess, I would do what I normally do against CC armies, try to draw them out, and not put myself in assault range unless I can charge and win.

I would multi charge with 20 marines and a priest and hopefully a libby too, but even that isn't a sure win. It would be 50% of my army in one combat.

Fafnir wrote:I play an almost pure Paladin army (nevermind the Vindicare behind the curtain...) at 1500 (I add interceptors at 2000... strange how no one wants to play me at 2000...), and it tends to be hit-or-miss. A Paladin deathstar is a mighty glacier. Incredibly powerful and durable, but very slow. Mobile armies that pack plenty of high strength, low AP weaponry will scare the crap out of them (I basically consider all of my matches against Dark Eldar to be written off), but against more 'balanced' armies, they can really be one hell of a threat.

They're amazing in team games though, when an ally can help to counteract the army's weaknesses.

Just a question... Have you tried mordrack + librarian for T1 deepstrike and teleport homer on librarian for no scatter DS of paladins? Mordrack's unit should be tough enough to resist most fire, especially if shrouded...

GeckoOBac wrote:

Fafnir wrote:I play an almost pure Paladin army (nevermind the Vindicare behind the curtain...) at 1500 (I add interceptors at 2000... strange how no one wants to play me at 2000...), and it tends to be hit-or-miss. A Paladin deathstar is a mighty glacier. Incredibly powerful and durable, but very slow. Mobile armies that pack plenty of high strength, low AP weaponry will scare the crap out of them (I basically consider all of my matches against Dark Eldar to be written off), but against more 'balanced' armies, they can really be one hell of a threat.

They're amazing in team games though, when an ally can help to counteract the army's weaknesses.

Just a question... Have you tried mordrack + librarian for T1 deepstrike and teleport homer on librarian for no scatter DS of paladins? Mordrack's unit should be tough enough to resist most fire, especially if shrouded...

Have to take Draigo for Paladins as troops.

Amaya wrote:

GeckoOBac wrote:

Fafnir wrote:I play an almost pure Paladin army (nevermind the Vindicare behind the curtain...) at 1500 (I add interceptors at 2000... strange how no one wants to play me at 2000...), and it tends to be hit-or-miss. A Paladin deathstar is a mighty glacier. Incredibly powerful and durable, but very slow. Mobile armies that pack plenty of high strength, low AP weaponry will scare the crap out of them (I basically consider all of my matches against Dark Eldar to be written off), but against more 'balanced' armies, they can really be one hell of a threat.

They're amazing in team games though, when an ally can help to counteract the army's weaknesses.

Just a question... Have you tried mordrack + librarian for T1 deepstrike and teleport homer on librarian for no scatter DS of paladins? Mordrack's unit should be tough enough to resist most fire, especially if shrouded...

Have to take Draigo for Paladins as troops.

Well that's if you want to make it a 100% paladin army. Otherwise you can go for palading + termies if you like the termi armor, or go with normal SS.

Mordrak can only be upgraded with Ghost Knights, he can't join units IIRC.

Darkvoidof40k wrote:Mordrak can only be upgraded with Ghost Knights, he can't join units IIRC.

Librarian can join him though. That's the point... no scatter DS turn 1, with following no scatter DS from the paladins (due to the teleport homer on the librarian), aided with the psychic communion power from mordrak himself (he still gets it IIRC). Plus, you can always give scoring to the paladin unit since mordrak does get grand strategy IIRC.

Even then, that's one turn where you're neck deep in the enemy's lines, so he'll be firing everything he has at you. At that point, you really, really need Draigo to soak up the scary guns.

Uhm Can he actually fire everything he has at you? Imho with a no scatter deepstrike with a smallish unit you can position yourself close enough to actually avoid most of the fire... Afterall mordrak is still a 2+/4++ with 4 wounds, with up to 5 2+/5++ models to soak up eventual ID attacks... Plus there's the Librarian, another 2 wounds terminator...

And a turn 1 precise warp rift can defeat most deathstars or at least put the hurt on something nasty... If you survive till turn 2 then you've got some terminators and a librarian, with a bunch of palading coming hopefully soon.

It IS risky, but a paladin army is risky by definition, very costly, vulnerable to low ap/high str and no storm shields... Either you are on the offensive from the beginning or you are subject to being outmaneuvered...

Not yet but a worker at my FLGS is working on it.

Paladins should be an easy win for DE, at 1500 points you can easily have over 25 Lance shots.

I just picked up my Draigo, two terminator boxes and a pair of PAGK boxes today. I will probably repurpose some unpainted vehicles.

I'm not sure how I want to do the squad layout...Tooling them up means I don't have much points for anything else...Hm.

Perhaps a librarian for quicksilver, and outfit the paladins with swords, for 4++ all around...

Im yet to play a paladin list myself, but i did watch a battle in the local a few days ago.

Not the best match-up, but a missile-fang army pretty much tore them apart.
The lack of mobility really does dent paladins abilities to kill things.

Jackal wrote:Im yet to play a paladin list myself, but i did watch a battle in the local a few days ago.

Not the best match-up, but a missile-fang army pretty much tore them apart.
The lack of mobility really does dent paladins abilities to kill things.

You've put emphasis on the missiles by specifically naming them; so please tell, how ~15 shots get past 2+ saves with any real regularity? Admittedly; S8 will kill Paladins easily, but unless the GK player was completely useless, they shouldn't have lost many Paladins to missiles before they got in combat.

As i said, it wasnt me playing so i dont know everything done to the point i started watching, but by the seems of it, GK deployed pretty far back and lacked any real DS.

Seems they just slogged over the board for some reason.



Of course i named them, as generally a SW army that runs 3 units of fangs with missiles is known as "Missile-fang"
Now, im not a SW player, but i dont see that going over 650 - 700 points or so, and in a 2k game you have plenty more to play with.

I know alot of it was also melta spam from small units, each with a transport.

Well there you go; the GK player played badly. I would've just deep-striked in an unusual "refused flank" approach, and walked up his lines.