Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

So an army with Draigo, maybe a Librarian, and a bunch of paladins. Low model count, but with feel no pain and would allocation they could be a tough list. Firepower could be pretty good, shelling out up to 16 psycannon shots per squad. Demon hammers in the squad could be deadly to vehicles if combined with Might of Titan and/or hammerhand. Anybody have any experience with/against this army?

The problem with Driago lists are that after you take him and 10 paladins with psycannons, you've already spent 905 points. So, i'd say taking any more is probably not a good idea in a 2k list (below that i don't even think driago is viable at all)

Feen no pain is pretty overpriced, since most of the things you are afraid of (plasma, and especially melta and las) ignore it, and you already have 2 wounds, so rolling a 1 isn't so bad. Wound allocation games make this even more true.

In a standard 2k point army, 905 is a lot of points for 1 monster HQ and a bunch of 2-wound shooty terminators. A lib makes that more like 1100 points, making that really not an option. If you want a lib, leave Driago home and leave the paladins as elites.

If you decide to take Driago, you've spent so many points already that you probably need to make the rest of your army cheap, right? Meaning, you probably need coteaz to get you a decent number of troops and still have points for anything else (like dreads, or w/e).

If this doesn't appeal to you, i'd think about running just a regular all-terminator list instead, as these generally tend to be much more viable, and almost as durable.

Something like:

Librarian, MoT, Sanc, Shrouding, Warding stave - 200

4x10 terminators, 2 psycannons, mix of free weapons - 450 each

So, 41 terminators, lib powers, 8 relentless psycannons, lots of storm bolters, and lots of 2+ armor. Its hard to kill that many terminators before they shoot you to death, and most things don't exactly want to get into close combat with them. Plus you can combat squad and have 8 different units walking around, which is pretty scary.

If these were paladins, you'd have about 25 of them, or 20 something a librarian, meaning 5 or less units if you combat squadded. Sure, they are harder (sort of, since meltas, fists, hammers and lascannons all kill these guys the same) to kill, but the numbers are usually better IMO.

When the 5th ed Team Edward Marines came out, my friend tried a Sang Guard/ Dante/ Astorath army. That and two Baal Preds was his 2k army. They did great in CC, but always lost against one army. My Tau. Because I run alot of Plasma.

An all paladin Army w/ draigo seems like it would hit the same problem. Rocks against anyone who doesn't plaspam.

give the paladins a ride and then you have something mean going on. Paladins are extremely resilient but rather slow.

I think paladins (and Draigo) are great......but not in a great big blob running up the field. Too many things, meaning mostly IG and DE, will be able to hit them with massed low ap, Str 8+ Shooting, insta-killing a great deal. Even with Draigo to tank it up with his shield.

I've found they work just great with Draigo, 5 of them, and a transport, though. (Meaning either SR or LR)

I made a list with just such a build. It isn't Draigo wing; neither Draigo nor the paladins are the majority of the army. However, they certainly are the central element, what makes it all work.

http://prometheusatwar.com/2011/06/stormraven-and-land-raider-grey-knight-list-the-army-to-dominate-boston-brawlcon/

Funnily enough, plasma is not something that paladins fear. Against a full paladin unit, you would have to cause 10 unsaved wounds (or more with HQs attached) before they would lose any models. You'd be surprised how much shooting that takes to accomplish. Between draigo tanking the instant killing shots, and the librarian giving everyone stealth, the unit is actually insanely durable, but I digress...

If you look at some of the batreps on dakka, draigowing armies all seem to suffer the same fate: minor losses. They all seem to be near victory every game, slaughtering every unit in their path, and then eventually get wiped off the table after killing most of the enemy's army. It's always a "nearly but not enough" situation with them. They are outrageously powerful on a unit by unit comparison but can get swamped by overwhelming numbers or firepower from other armies. DE for example could easily wipe them off the board without difficultly, same as IG and Tau. You will kill many units, have no doubt, but its very unlikely you will win, and next to impossible to score a total victory.

Draigowing armies have at best 4 units, and more likely 2-3. That's 2-4 units you can target a turn, something that armies like IG and DE will laugh at. Even if you wipe those units out each time you target them, the enemy still has 10 more where that came from, which will continue to focus fire on your 2-4 units, wiping them out piece by piece.

I have been running a unit of 5 paladins for the last 25 games or so and can say that I would not leave home without them. They are an elite slot though, which is where I think they fit perfectly. They are far too expensive to be camping objectives, when I could be stomping faces with them and scaring the enemy into wasting firepower on them. They also don't take up 50% of my total points, leaving room for lots of other awesome units.

As others have said, paladins work best when they have the option of a transport. Whether storm raven, land raider or commandeered chimera, mech paladins are much more effective than walking ones.

Not competitivly viable
1 too many points wound allo good but no storm shield means plamsa cannons lascannons wear through very quickly assualt termies punch them apart and mass plaz slays
2 not enough AT to get troops out of tanks yeah 16 pycannon shots will get a rhino a turn maybe

The palladins are amazing if you give them apothecary and brotherhood banner and give them an ordo xenos inquisitor with terminator armour and ulumeathi plasma syphon and put it in next to the plasma and eat it in assault
So the only efficient way of killing it is to lascannon it back to titan

Paladins are indeed competitive as 5th place as wargamescon had 5 of them in a stormraven, so he must have done something right.

Bruteboss wrote:
I have been running a unit of 5 paladins for the last 25 games or so and can say that I would not leave home without them. They are an elite slot though, which is where I think they fit perfectly. They are far too expensive to be camping objectives, when I could be stomping faces with them and scaring the enemy into wasting firepower on them. They also don't take up 50% of my total points, leaving room for lots of other awesome units.

I can echo this
If you are taking a bunch of servo skulls or beacons, they can be very nice.
I'm also growing on taking single paladins to fill out my elites choices for some targeted thunder hammering in friendlier games.

i'd say taking any more is probably not a good idea in a 2k list (below that i don't even think driago is viable at all)

I've only just started playing 40K again after some years and Paladins make a nice cheap force. So far at 1500 points (Draigo, Librarian w/stave, Shrouding, Warp Rift, Sanctuary, Might of Titan, Quicksilver), one squad of six plaadins, one of 5 paladins, and a Land Raider Crusader, my record is:

Pitched Battle Annihilation vs Space Wolves - Win over 5 turns 5-1
Pitched Battle Seize Ground (5 objectives) versus Black Templars - win over 6 turns. 2-1 (KPs were 5-0)
Dawn of War Annihilation vs 750 pts of Black Templars (same player as above) and 750 pts of Space Wolves (not same player as the first game) - win over 5 turns 4-2.

Two of these players are veterans players with their armies who do well in the local league (one was unbeaten this year).

I'm not saying this to boast, just to say that my limited experience is that all Paladins are actually pretty viable at 1500 points against at least fairly experienced opposition. I agree though that they are better at 2000+ where venerable dreadnoughts can support them and you can run 15 or 16 paladins rather than 11.

There are a wide array of tactical options available but two of the best are using Draigo's Grand Strategy to outflank one squad - being sure to place any objectives with that in mind - and always reserving.

There was a very interesting paladin list, that JY2 posted in one of his batreps. it used henchment squads ith coteaz ( no draigo) this allowed chimeras to be taken for the henchmen then the paladins were able to use these as thier transports, as well as having additional model count.


Found the list.

Coteaz
Librarian - Might of Titan, Shrouding, Summoning, Warp Rift

10x Paladins - 4x Psycannons, 1 Brotherhood Banner, All halberds
10x Paladins - 4x Psycannons, All halberds

3x Acolytes w/Boltguns - Chimera w/Warp Stabilization
3x Acolytes w/Boltguns - Chimera w/Warp Stabilization
3x Acolytes w/Boltguns - Chimera w/Warp Stabilization
3x Acolytes w/Boltguns - Chimera w/Warp Stabilization
3x Acolytes w/Boltguns, 3x Crusaders, 2x Mystics - Chimera w/Dozers + Warp Stabilization (Coteaz + librarian here)


Link to the Bat rep thread. http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/378310.page

As an addition to GK army, they can be competitive.

As an army of Paladins, they are nowhere near competitive.

This is simply because there are so many IG and DE armies that pop up in competitive environments. When you are facing armies that shred your guys with AP1-2 guns, many of them from 36" away or more (Lances and Lascannons), then hit you with more up them when you get close (Meltas and Blasters). You will be on the losing end of a very short and one sided game.

Of course, there are other armies that spam Meltas and/or Lascannons, such as SW Razorback Spam or BA Melta Spam, which only makes the problem of bad matchups worse.

In casual environments an all Pally list can be fun, but in a competitive environment you are asking to get trounced.

rovian wrote:Not competitivly viable
1 too many points wound allo good but no storm shield means plamsa cannons lascannons wear through very quickly assualt termies punch them apart and mass plaz slays
2 not enough AT to get troops out of tanks yeah 16 pycannon shots will get a rhino a turn maybe

You're kidding, right? Scratch a rhino? You realize an assault cannon is far more likely to pen a LR than a lascannon is? Psycannons, obviously, will be twice as good as that. (penning on a 3+ after a 6, rather than 5+) And you're talking about 4 of them. So that will penetrate about 8x as well as 1 assault cannon, and a bit better than 8 lascannons.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

Alerian wrote:As an addition to GK army, they can be competitive.

As an army of Paladins, they are nowhere near competitive.

Yeah, that's about the right of it. 5 of them, + Draigo, will definitely do the job. (also, that's conveniently what fits in a Storm Raven, or Land Raider Redeemer) Groups of 10 and all that nonsense is wasteful and a big fat target.

At 1500 points I have my doubts about a paladin list but at 2000+ they most often eat space fairies and Imperial Weaklings for breakfast so long as they're supported by Venerable Dreadnoughts. As far as LandRaiders go, the best option is (surprisingly) a Crusader with Draigo, Librarian and 6 paladins, including a Brotherhood banner. It is expensive but it's also extraordinarily tough to kill, used properly. You need Draigo and the Librarian though as the two of them combined in the same unit improve survivability and killing power in melleee enormously. It's counter to the generally sound notion that you shouldn't invest too many points in one unit but actually it does pretty well for me, all in all - in over two dozen games the unit has never been destroyed.

I'm confused as to what you need the librarian for. For Might? The squad would already be Str 6 with two castings of hammerhand. (remember, Draigo is psyker mastery 2) Don't really need quick silver, will have at least a few halberds, don't need Sanctuary (you're coming out of a LR, and besides, who's going to assault you?) so the only power I can think of that you really want is shrouding. Shrouding is good, but I'm not sure it's worth ~170 pts for.

Now, if you really wanted to make that unit redonkulous I would put a brotherhood champion in there. Re-rolled to hits, plus the killing power of he himself? Yes, please.

Might lets you absolutely carve up any dreadnoughts (even venerable) foolish enough to chance their arm. Quicksilver is necessary to ensure first strike (you can't just take halberds as you're going for wound allocation). Sanctuary denies the enemy potentially dangerous muti-assaults (eg two dreadnoughts plus storm shield terminators plus character) which is important because Quicksilver can only be cast in the Librarian's turn - and you want to assault if possible not be assaulted. Shrouding helps with low AP fire that Draigo can't absorb - 3+ being better than 5+.

In my experience the unit is far better with a Librarian and Draigo than with only one.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
Let me expand on the Sanctuary/Quicksilver thing. You might have 2 halberds in the squad. If you're getting attacked, that's only 4 hits from them plus maybe Draigo that goes before I4. That's not enough to minimise wounds, especially if you are multi-assaulting (which I find is often a good idea if possible).

Sanctuary is so your enemy will likely not risk an assault in his own turn, allowing you to assault instead.

Assaulting, a unit of Draigo, Librarian, banner, hammer, 2x falchions, 2x swords gets 28 I 10 attacks, probably at S6 (7 for Draigo), probably rolling +D6 for pens to any dreadnoughts silly enough to involve themselves. Against most enemies, that's around 15 kills, allowing safe multi-assault (or forcing 3 saves on each model of a single TH+SS terminator unit, granted in that instance Quicksilver isn't necessary but Sanctuary probably gets you the charge).

Sir_Prometheus wrote:I'm confused as to what you need the librarian for. For Might? The squad would already be Str 6 with two castings of hammerhand. (remember, Draigo is psyker mastery 2) Don't really need quick silver, will have at least a few halberds, don't need Sanctuary (you're coming out of a LR, and besides, who's going to assault you?) so the only power I can think of that you really want is shrouding. Shrouding is good, but I'm not sure it's worth ~170 pts for.

Now, if you really wanted to make that unit redonkulous I would put a brotherhood champion in there. Re-rolled to hits, plus the killing power of he himself? Yes, please.

Remember, the FAQ specifically stated that you're not allowed to cast the same psychic power more than once every turn unless otherwise stated. Thus, the Paladins themselves would need to use hammerhand, meaning they would be unable to Force Weapon big nasties to oblivion.

AlmightyWalrus wrote:

Sir_Prometheus wrote:I'm confused as to what you need the librarian for. For Might? The squad would already be Str 6 with two castings of hammerhand. (remember, Draigo is psyker mastery 2) Don't really need quick silver, will have at least a few halberds, don't need Sanctuary (you're coming out of a LR, and besides, who's going to assault you?) so the only power I can think of that you really want is shrouding. Shrouding is good, but I'm not sure it's worth ~170 pts for.

Now, if you really wanted to make that unit redonkulous I would put a brotherhood champion in there. Re-rolled to hits, plus the killing power of he himself? Yes, please.

Remember, the FAQ specifically stated that you're not allowed to cast the same psychic power more than once every turn unless otherwise stated. Thus, the Paladins themselves would need to use hammerhand, meaning they would be unable to Force Weapon big nasties to oblivion.

I am unsure of your point. Yes, a specific unit can only cast a power once, and besides that most units can only cast 1 power, total. But what I was saying was Draigo can cast hammerhand once (and still have a second power available, for say the forceweapon, if needed) and the squad can cast it once. Both castings affect everybody, so everyone gets +2 str. If there is something that needs to be insta killed, which frankly isn't that often, but if so, Draigo and his six (6!) attacks on the charge, at strength seven, with your banner, for which he auto-passes the check, is pretty likely to be plenty to do the job just fine. If it's not........what the hell are you fighting?

Are Paladins worth taking without Draigo? I was planning on running 10 with a librarian (with MOT + a few other powers) as my only HQ.

Also--- should I go for 4 psycannons? I was going to just run 3 and 1 incinerator, because I have a termie with one already painted. But if it's a huge disadvantage I'll convert him somehow.

A dreadnought will need 6s for Draigo to penetrate at S7 (and he’ll only glance if it’s Ironclad). Everyone else needs 6s to glance bar the hammer wielder but he stikes last, allowing ID dreadnought hits at I4. With a Quicksilver/Might casting Librarian, even two Venerable Dreadnoughts will very likely be destroyed because of the +D6 to pens. That’s what many people overlook with Might, its +1S is just a little bonus.

As an aside, Draigo has 4 attacks base, +1 charge, + another 1 if with a banner. Six.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Draigo’s 3+ invulnerable save and Eternal Warrior really help absorb the odd nasty ID attack. At 275 points he’s worth exactly the same as a 5 man paladin squad with no upgrades. Personally of the two options, I’d take Draigo as he enhances your overall options (Grand Strategy, paladins scoring, psychic communion, etc) as well as being equivalent to about a basic 5 squad terminator unit by himself.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
It seems to me that at 1500 points if people consider a paladin list and go:

Draigo
Librarian
6 man squad with banner
5 man squad
Land Raider Crusader

they then automatically dismiss it as an option because conventional wisdom says you need more troops and more bodies. Much is then made of ID weapons and how will you take objectives and the like. But what the conventional wisdom, it seems to me, fails to consider, is that a paladin army is unconventional. It has apparent weaknesses that in fact are generally hard to exploit. It’s really, really difficult to destroy a unit that consists of Draigo, Librarian, 5/6 paladins. So difficult that in fact no army I have faced has managed to do so. Put the Draigo unit in the Crusader. Reserve, move on 12”, disembark into cover, start shooting... pick and choose your assaults and use Sanctuary to allow you to do so. Use shrouding for extra ID defence. Quicksilver to reduce enemy melee attacks before they happen. Might to wreck dreadnoughts. The Land raider can concentrate on pesky enemy vehicles with demolishers, etc. The weak link is the 5 man squad. Outflanking it via Grand Strategy is a good option as you can often move/fire/assault on the turn it arrives, and it’s often useful for objective grabbing/contesting. Annihilation should be a straight win unless you make a horrendous mistake. Capture and control you should win or draw. The worst mission is seize ground with 4 or 5 objectives, you might well lose these but if the enemy is well spread out over objectives, he’s not concentrating against your units, so there’s the possibility of weakening him to the point of grabbing a late win (3 is actually pretty winnable, though not a given by any means, but you shouldn’t lose).

Artemo wrote:A dreadnought will need 6s for Draigo to penetrate at S7 (and he’ll only glance if it’s Ironclad). Everyone else needs 6s to glance bar the hammer wielder but he stikes last, allowing ID dreadnought hits at I4. With a Quicksilver/Might casting Librarian, even two Venerable Dreadnoughts will very likely be destroyed because of the +D6 to pens. That’s what many people overlook with Might, its +1S is just a little bonus.

Or, you could have one lousy daemonhammer, and you wouldn't need to worry about it very often. If either Hammerhand works, you're str 10, and that's going to take care of the problem most of the time. On the other hand, a single Might can fail to cast, or get hooded. I always have at least one hammer in the squad, I thought that was assumed? I was talking about hurting regular folks and MCs.

As an aside, Draigo has 4 attacks base, +1 charge, + another 1 if with a banner. Six.

Um, who are you correcting, isn't that what I said?




Automatically Appended Next Post:

nectarprime wrote:Are Paladins worth taking without Draigo? I was planning on running 10 with a librarian (with MOT + a few other powers) as my only HQ.

Also--- should I go for 4 psycannons? I was going to just run 3 and 1 incinerator, because I have a termie with one already painted. But if it's a huge disadvantage I'll convert him somehow.

It's more like once you take paladins, you might as well take Draigo, he's just so good. BTW, I think even 3 psycannons is just too much. 8 Psycannons shots will usually take care of your problem.

Sir_Prometheus wrote:

nectarprime wrote:Are Paladins worth taking without Draigo? I was planning on running 10 with a librarian (with MOT + a few other powers) as my only HQ.

Also--- should I go for 4 psycannons? I was going to just run 3 and 1 incinerator, because I have a termie with one already painted. But if it's a huge disadvantage I'll convert him somehow.

It's more like once you take paladins, you might as well take Draigo, he's just so good. BTW, I think even 3 psycannons is just too much. 8 Psycannons shots will usually take care of your problem.

Take as many psycannons as you can. They're great weapons.

If you don't take Draigo, then you need some cheap troops. I'd recommend Coteaz and a bunch of cheap scoring melta henchmen. I like the list posted above:

jacetms87 wrote:There was a very interesting paladin list, that JY2 posted in one of his batreps. it used henchment squads ith coteaz ( no draigo) this allowed chimeras to be taken for the henchmen then the paladins were able to use these as thier transports, as well as having additional model count.


Found the list.

Coteaz
Librarian - Might of Titan, Shrouding, Summoning, Warp Rift

10x Paladins - 4x Psycannons, 1 Brotherhood Banner, All halberds
10x Paladins - 4x Psycannons, All halberds

3x Acolytes w/Boltguns - Chimera w/Warp Stabilization
3x Acolytes w/Boltguns - Chimera w/Warp Stabilization
3x Acolytes w/Boltguns - Chimera w/Warp Stabilization
3x Acolytes w/Boltguns - Chimera w/Warp Stabilization
3x Acolytes w/Boltguns, 3x Crusaders, 2x Mystics - Chimera w/Dozers + Warp Stabilization (Coteaz + librarian here)


Link to the Bat rep thread. http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/378310.page

But with just a slight modification. Drop 5 paladins, 1 henchmen unit and add 3 psyfleman dreads. This is how I would run a paladin build:

Coteaz
Librarian - Might of Titan, Quicksilver, Shrouding, Summoning - 170

10x Paladins - 3x Psycannons, 1 Brotherhood Banner, Warding Stave, Mix of halberds, swords + 1 Hammer - 655
5x Paladins - 2x Psycannons, Mixed weapons - 315

3x Acolytes w/Boltgun - Chimera w/Warp Stabilization - 75
3x Acolytes w/Boltgun - Chimera w/Warp Stabilization
3x Acolytes w/Boltgun - Chimera w/Warp Stabilization
3x Acolytes w/Boltgun, 2x Crusaders, 2x Mystics - Chimera w/Dozers + Warp Stabilization (Coteaz + librarian here) 130

Psyfleman Dread
Psyfleman Dread
Psyfleman Dread

Total - 2000

That build is very interesting, if I only hadnt just bought a DE army...

jacetms87 wrote:That build is very interesting, if I only hadnt just bought a DE army...

If only I didn't have 25 PAGK and no henchmen :/

Could guard models substitute? I havnt actually seen any of the henchmen models.

I agree, the paladin + librarian teleport tag list seems like it would be a ton of fun to play.

from the battle report it looked like the player didn't really use the mobility increase of the librarians teleport to full effect.

I just picked up a bunch of GK termies that I'm going to try running as paladins. I'll probably change things up as I get some different models, but for the near future I'll be running 20 paladins, Draigo, and a librarian. The thought of using so few models and having them have to run on foot is awfully scary, but I hope it offers up some fun casual games.

Great ideas flowing through this thread though.

I am sure it will be a blast to play, provided you are not running into armies that can nullify your armies general ability to survive.