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So, this past weekend a buddy of mine claimed that his Thunderwolf Cav were invincible and could never die. Now I playing GKs said its always possible due to the roll of the dice, and the possibility of unsaved wounds from my force weapons. He fires back with Njal will cancel the activation of these weapons. I say ok, fair enough they will still deny your armor saves. He retorts with they are all lords too. After that it becomes an apocalypse scenario of all his TWC counting as lords vs all my Paladins counting as Grandmasters or Librarians with warding staves.

All macho talk aside, which would win? Paladins or TWC? What load out would be optimal for my Paladins to take the TWC out?

Paladins are somewhat tougher against low AP shooting due to their ability to get FNP and better armour saves. But Thunderwolves are tougher against high AP shooting due to their better invulnerable saves. It really all depends on what's being shot at them.

That said, Nemesis Force weapons generally make other wound allocating units cry with instant death. I'd recommend Halberds to go first, maybe swords if you're overly concerned about losing paladins to power weapons.

As far as I know, hoods cant block force weapon activation?

Randomonioum wrote:As far as I know, hoods cant block force weapon activation?

I don't know who told you that but thats wrong. Hoods can block it. And I'd have to go with paladins as winning. Halberds will let you get your ID in first (also how is Njal coming into this argument, he's not on a TWC, thats like you saying 'my paladins will take you, and my stormraven will mindstrike missile njal first' or something), but it seems unfair to compare lorded up TWC with Njal in support to paladins. Make sure the points are balanced. Also, I reckon the 4 psycannons would help hurt the TWC in shooting, and the brotherhood banner would mean you get auto-activation, so the TWC would just die like....well, like dogs.

No one in particular has told me, I just seem to remember it being true. Its never come up in any games I've played, so I've never had cause to look into it any deeper.

Ah. Well you have to take a psychic test to activate it, so it can then be hooded just like any other power.

Depends how many are in each unit. Let's say 500pts of Thunderwolves vs 500pts of Paladins? That's a Thunderlord with EW and 2 Fenrisian Wolves + 3 wound allocation shenanigans TWC (2 with Shields) vs Draigo and 3 Paladins (with a Brotherhood Banner, Warding Stave and Halberds). Personally, I have to say that the TWC seem to have the advantage, although if the GK can get off their Force Weapons then they'll likely win.

Andilus Greatsword wrote:Depends how many are in each unit. Let's say 500pts of Thunderwolves vs 500pts of Paladins? That's a Thunderlord with EW and 2 Fenrisian Wolves + 3 wound allocation shenanigans TWC (2 with Shields) vs Draigo and 3 Paladins (with a Brotherhood Banner, Warding Stave and Halberds). Personally, I have to say that the TWC seem to have the advantage, although if the GK can get off their Force Weapons then they'll likely win.

In that situation they automatically have their FW because of the banner. And an extra attack.

Wouldnt the BB still let the force weapons be blocked? It merely says the test is passed automatically, which implies a test was taken.

Randomonioum wrote:Wouldnt the BB still let the force weapons be blocked? It merely says the test is passed automatically, which implies a test was taken.

I'm not sure, I feel like it could still be blocked, yes. But in andilus' example there was no njal to block it, so it'd go of automatically wouldn't it?

As I understand it, when activating force weapons you are essentially using a psyker power that is granted to you for having a force weapon, thus a hood can still block its activation. Now, with the banner it states that the test is automatically passed, but you'd still have to use the psyker power to activate the weapons which can be canceled.

Sorry, I may have slightly derailed the thread here.

Hood can be used to cancel 'automatic' force weapon activation from Brotherhood Banner, as banner just allows you to pass the psychic test automatically and using Hood is reaction to passing psychic test.

Also take into account that Terminator wielding the Banner has no NFW. In this case (TWC get the charge) it effectively only gives the unit 1 extra attack for Draigo and 3 extra non-special attacks for the unit.

True, but if you use Grand Strategy to give them Counter Attack then they will all still gain the extra attack.

Depends if he's running a wolfstar or not.

Base twolves it comes down to rolls; you both have the ability to instasquish each other, but you need to pick to forcewep (wounding on a 5+, unless draigo hammerhands) or double hammerhand for str 6 pws (wounding on 3's)

I dont understand how TWC will survive a volley of 4 Psycannons and 6 storm bolters master crafted.

And IF the TWC even make it into combat, wound allocation will make the paladins win hands down.

Can you even have TWC squads above 4?

Point for point, I am pretty sure Paladin will win. Striking at I6, Str5 (with Hammer Hand), 3 attack each will decimate TWC before they even strike.

If TWC has Njal with them, Paladin will have Draigo (similar point cost). Str 10 of Draigo will kill Njal before he finishes saying "OMG" in 10 languages.

Paladins crush TWC. NFW dash away any hopes the wolves might have.

Njal is mostly a non-issue. His psychic defense only has a range of 24", and that's just long enough for the Paladins to sit back and take shots at the wolves, who don't have any ranged options of their own. If Njal joins the TWC to close in for combat, then the unit takes longer to get into combat in the first place, allowing for more shots on the Paladins' part, and then Draigo hulks out to S10 and instantly kills everything in the unit (and once Njal is dead, the force weapons will go off no matter what).

If Njal doesn't directly join the unit, then the Paladins open fire with 4 psycannons and a load of stormbolters, killing him quickly enough to ensure he's not a major threat, and sealing the fate of the TWC.

If Njal is hiding behind cover, then simply stormbolter-shuffle oldschool style out of range and force the fight out of Njal's null range.

Paladins have no trouble killing TWC. Many of the best strengths that TWC have are either nullified by the Paladin's innate abilities, or simply out-muscled by the Paladins' superior abilities overall.

190 points of Thunderwolves:

2 Thunderwolves
Storm Shield/Thunder Hammer, Storm Shield

190 Points of Paladins:

3 Paladins
2x Halberds, 1 Brotherhood Banner

Point for point Thunderwolves win Hands down...


Automatically Appended Next Post:
If you go to 750 Points of Paladins..you get 4 Psycannons all say 4 Halberds, 2 Swords, 2 Hammers, Banner, and Feel No Pain.

750 points of Thunderwolves would be 3 squads of 3 Thunderwolves all toting Hammer/Shield, Shield, Naked...with 30 points Left Over...you can get another Shield for that amount of points...that's 15 S10 Attacks on the Charge and I doubt your 10 Paladins will get to the Hammers that easily...

Paladins utterly crush TWC if they manage to activate Hammerhand only once.

Halberds: Striking first, hitting on 3+, wounding on 4+, no inv save for TWC except extremly expensive SSs.
NDHs: Hitting on 3+ (most likely even master-crafted), wounding on 2+, S10 resulting in Instant-Kills

TWC simply cannot compete with Paladins as they are lacking inv. saves, power weapons and only have WS 4. Rending (even with a ton of attacks) simply won't cause enough AP wounds if only 1/3 of the original attack count will actually cause a wound (and only 1/6 of these will be rending). And Paladins still have 5++ saves minimum and wound allocation. And if they fail the combat (which is most likely) they'll most likely flee (LS8 - x) and will either flee 3D6" and be left open to GK shooting or'' have to save a bunch of No Retreat! wounds.

Shas'O Canada wrote:
@Fafnir, doesn't draigo only get S10 against daemons?

Draigo is S10 against any unit containing psykers or daemons. And it's against the entire unit, not just the offending psykers/daemons.

Also, paladin shooting would do nothing to TWC with shields. At all.

Well, let's see...

4 MC Psycannons will get around 13.3 hits per shooting phase. Of those 13.3, around 11 will wound. We'll assume that there are enough stormshields going around to nullify the impact of any rending wounds. With that in mind, we end up with about 3.7 unsaved wounds.

Then there are 6 Psybolt Stormbolters. We'll assume that none of these are master-crafted. 8 hits, 4 wounds, 1.3 unsaved.

In total, we're looking at 5 wounds in one shooting phase. That's 1/2 of the entire unit's pool of wounds. Wound allocation would mitigate the worst of the damage, but it's still something that would certainly be felt, and even the best wound allocation can't guarantee that you won't lose bodies from that first round.

I'd hardly call that nothing at all.

You'll end up spending 3-4x the points between Paladins and Draigo compared to a single Thunderwolf Pack...just a thought.

I think Fafnir was talking about the scenario of a full 10-man Paladin + Draigo to counter the TWC + Njal. I think both units fill different roles and should be used as such.

Unholy_Martyr wrote:You'll end up spending 3-4x the points between Paladins and Draigo compared to a single Thunderwolf Pack...just a thought.

Of course. Paladins are an entire army. Thunderwolves are the heavy assault support unit of the rest of an army.

It's just that some people are severely overestimating the survivability and combat potential of TWC against the hardest unit in the entire game.

I think the real problem is that people are viewing them entirely in a vacuum... who in their right mind puts Njal in a unit of Thunderwolves? He'd probably be in a Rhino somewhere nearby or deep inside a unit of Grey Hunters/Long Fangs to avoid being sniped while having his 3+ psychic nullification in play. Most people who run TWC also give them a Thunder Lord, often with the Saga of the Bear to soak up ID wounds.

Andilus Greatsword wrote:I think the real problem is that people are viewing them entirely in a vacuum... who in their right mind puts Njal in a unit of Thunderwolves? He'd probably be in a Rhino somewhere nearby or deep inside a unit of Grey Hunters/Long Fangs to avoid being sniped while having his 3+ psychic nullification in play. Most people who run TWC also give them a Thunder Lord, often with the Saga of the Bear to soak up ID wounds.

How would you soak up ID wounds with an IC that isn't in a retinue in close combat ?

AlmightyWalrus wrote:

Andilus Greatsword wrote:I think the real problem is that people are viewing them entirely in a vacuum... who in their right mind puts Njal in a unit of Thunderwolves? He'd probably be in a Rhino somewhere nearby or deep inside a unit of Grey Hunters/Long Fangs to avoid being sniped while having his 3+ psychic nullification in play. Most people who run TWC also give them a Thunder Lord, often with the Saga of the Bear to soak up ID wounds.

How would you soak up ID wounds with an IC that isn't in a retinue in close combat ?

Good point I suppose, but he (and the 2 Fenrisian Wolves with him) have large bases, and a lot of the Paladins' attacks will have to be directed at them.

Turn the Fenrisian Wolves and Wolf Lord Sideways when charging in, You tag more Paladins. At that point, you'll have 4-5 Paladins that are forced to swing on just the Lord alone (and his 2 dogs). From there, just position your other Wolves accordingly and enjoy your Powerfist/Thunder Hammer killing 3-4 Paladins at a time

Unholy_Martyr wrote:Turn the Fenrisian Wolves and Wolf Lord Sideways when charging in, You tag more Paladins. At that point, you'll have 4-5 Paladins that are forced to swing on just the Lord alone (and his 2 dogs). From there, just position your other Wolves accordingly and enjoy your Powerfist/Thunder Hammer killing 3-4 Paladins at a time

Not sure how you get to this conclusion - the WLord is on the same base as the rest of the TWC and the FW are on 40mm round...