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This sort of popped into my head out of nowhere but I was wondering what Dakka's thoughts were on this.

With the change in power weapons that 6th edition brought wouldn't it be a decent idea to give Paladins falchions rather than halberds in terms of numbers? It used to be that the higher initiative would allow you to beat other power weapon squads to the punch and cause costly casualties, but now it seems that since most AP2 weapons are unwieldy the halberd is less of an attractive option. Your regular initiative is already better than most of the weapons that threaten you, so the plus to initiative has less of an impact.

The falchions on the other hand help deal with one of the key weaknesses that death stars have: Tarpits. It does cost points to upgrade them rather than a free swap out, but I think the extra attack would be invaluable for a big squad that needs to make it to an objective by wiping fearless units. Hell, the brotherhood banner would give falchion paladins 4 attacks without the charge if I am reading that correctly. Expensive, yes, but you're already investing a lot in making one unit super killy.

Have falchions become a "competitive" option for paladins?

Unrelated note: Whoops, 1000th post. Was gonna post something philosophical or some gak like that but hey, it's an internet forum.

Halberds are free and the bro banner is a better investment in points for +1 attack for everyone in the unit. Falchions would be 5 on the charge. 2 base + 1 charge + 1 falchions + 1 bro banner. If they were also a free option I'd probably take them in a heartbeat for terminators in 6th edition. PA guys i'd still take Halberds.

 Goat wrote:
Halberds are free and the bro banner is a better investment in points for +1 attack for everyone in the unit. Falchions would be 5 on the charge. 2 base + 1 charge + 1 falchions + 1 bro banner. If they were also a free option I'd probably take them in a heartbeat for terminators in 6th edition. PA guys i'd still take Halberds.

This. If they were free or they gave one more attack for having a second cc weapon then they would be totally worth it. Now you just keep halberds for power armor guys and hammers for TDA guys. On the other hand falchions + banner + quicksilver + hammerhand + might of the titan on a charge seems like great fun .

 gpfunk wrote:
With the change in power weapons that 6th edition brought wouldn't it be a decent idea to give Paladins falchions rather than halberds in terms of numbers

Except that with the changes in power weapons that 6th brought there is no better weapon for a deathstar than a hammer. 6th made every other option worthless against 2+ armor saves while at the same time making hammers even better against vehicles. A deathstar needs to be able to kill everything, you could have 45 attacks on the charge but an equal-sized unit of vanilla termies wouldn't even need storm shields to mess with your day. Subtract 1 more attack for a warding staff (as you should) and you could find yourself in a different kind of tarpit altogether. You'll probably still win due to volume of attacks, but it will take you a few turns. Plus, you've just given up your ability to overwhelmingly crush landraiders and Iron Arm MCs.

 gpfunk wrote:
The falchions on the other hand help deal with one of the key weaknesses that death stars have: Tarpits

So you make an anti-deathstar...one designed to kill tarpits. The issue is that you give your opponent an opportunity to tarpit you with other kinds of units, as described above. Furthermore, you sacrifice the ability to overwhelmingly kill certain types of units, which is the purpose of taking a deathstar in the first place. You also have other units (like purifiers) that can kill hordes.

 gpfunk wrote:
but you're already investing a lot in making one unit super killy.

Yes, against some unit types (like MEQ) you will be significantly more killy. However, against certain other unit types you lose a great deal of killy-ness. Your whole army is already good against MEQ/hordes in CC, is it necessary to have another unit that's even better at it? There are very few units that can shrug off 32 S10 AP2 attacks on the charge, there are quite a few more that can deal with 44 S5 AP3 attacks. I could see a mixed unit of falchions and hammers, but are 5 more AP3 attacks worth 50 pts?

To each his/her own, but I'd rather just take hammers and let my multiple wound models soak up the MEQ attacks, if I'm fighting something that can bypass that I'd want hammers anyway cause it's probably got a 2+ save or an enhanced toughness.

Other terminators are indeed the bane of Paladins, but the thing is, as you stated above, that weight of attacks will take the day. A paladin has a base of 2 attacks. That's not all that good, especially against the type of targets your opponent should be feeding you. They either throw a mob of 30 fearless boys/gaunts/etc or they throw some other terminators at you. If you're relying on your 2 base attacks to do the damage you need to wipe a unit then you will be sorely disappointed. Unless you go all hammers (at which point you'd STILL be at a disadvantage to TH/SS termies) then you have to rely on the number of attacks and your high weapon skill to kill them.

I'd say paladins do very poorly against large mobs and hordes, in assault especially. They'll most certainly win, but if they've been in combat for 3 turns then it was a waste of all the firepower you probably have on them. My suggestion is falchions are exactly what Paladins need to destroy those units quickly in order to maximize their point investment. If you get off your charge then halberd paladins do a bit better with three attacks each, but they'll peter out in effectiveness in the second round to the point where you might be stuck for another crucial turn.

The pittance of a point cost for the extra attack is not enough to persuade me that the halberd or the hammer are always a better option. Nor is the fact that every GK power weapon save for the Hammer negate 2+ armor saves. In order to maximize the effectiveness of a pali-star you need to destroy units every turn and be able to wipe units that try to tarpit you.

A balanced squad for me would be a warding staff on the justicar, two hammers, and the rest armed with falchions. I'd also shell out for the brotherhood banner. High number of attacks, decent number of STR 8 AP2 hits, auto-activation of force weapons, and a very good challenge tanker.

my brother runs a unit of 5 falchions paladins with a librarian to give him some spell that boosts him up to I10. that is really painfull

SlyasR wrote:
my brother runs a unit of 5 falchions paladins with a librarian to give him some spell that boosts him up to I10. that is really painfull

That's another thing as well. With Librarian support the halberds become even more superfluous.

Well like I said:

"On the other hand falchions + banner + quicksilver + hammerhand + might of the titan on a charge seems like great fun."

But you have to have a librarian handy in order to do that which along with you other HQ will bring the cost of the deathstar to two gazillion points

45pts for 3 attacks off a terminator,
or 29 pts for 3 attacks off a purifier

2nd choice is better anti horde, and cheaper
1st choice is trying to make a unit better at something its not really the best at, and making it worse at something it really is the best at.

like someone said, you have better tools in the tool box for dealing with armour 3 and hordes

A few things to consider


1) I think that a paladin deathstar should be built with durability in mind over damage

A Paladin star is usually going to win combat. The issue will be attrition. You will lose 1-2 here and there, and before you know it your unit is gone.


The Sword is a important defensive upgrade for Paladins. Having a better INV save on more of the unit protects you from the S8 AP2 powerfists that are very dangerous to paladins. Each little bit helps. Even making 1-2 saves against S8 AP2 weapons will be a big deal when you are saving paladins from ID.

Paying points to lose and important defensive benefit does not seem all that great to me



2) If you want more damage, then go for a hammer.

the added STR and AP2 makes a significantly stronger offensive option than the Falcions. Hitting at INT 1 VS INT 4 is not as big of an issue. There should be other paladins who are taking the wounds at higher INT steps who either have already attack with halberds or have the defensive benefit of a sword or stave.



3) There is not really any benefit to having INT 4 vs. INT 1

The Falcion gives you increased damage, but it does not force you to attack at INT 1. The issue is that for a model with 2 wounds and a 2+ save, there is no real downside to hitting at INT 1. There are very few weapons that are S8 AND AP2 AND hit at INT 2 or 3.

Any weapon that is at INT 5 or higher is still going to hit first no matter what.

Any weapon at INT 4 will still get a chance to swing whether you have a hammer or Falcions



4) The Falcions are only good against something that no one really takes.

The Falcions only really shine when you are up against a 3+ save unit with a S8 AP2 INT1 weapon. Ie. A Marine with a Powerfist.

Hoever, almost no one takes MEQ with PFs anymore due to the fact that they can be challenged and die before they swing.

I see the point you're making about the swords...sort of?

It gives you a 4+ invul in CC which is great against anything that ignores your save in CC. All of which are unwieldy. So if you have more attacks with the falchion you may be able to force enough wounds to completely ignore those weapons. If you're going against other termies, you're sort of fethed anyway. Taking an all hammer unit doesn't change the fact that you only have 2 attacks a model. You'll beat the crap out of any expensive termies you get your hands on, but any sort of fearless horde is going to keep you tarpitted.

The benefit of going at init 4 over init 1 is pretty huge, especially when you're talking about durability, since you brought it up. You get more chances to kill enemies that will force you to take saves. Even if they're 2+, you're going to fail some. If you wipe that unit of Orks before they get to swing back, you don't have to worry about taking any saves.

I'm trying to build a "Death Star" that is able to destroy units that will typically give it trouble. With two hammers and a bro banner that'll be 8 Str 8 Ap 2 attacks which will generally hit on 3s. The rest will get a boat load of attacks to shred hordes. It'll be able to clear itself out of close combat in no time, giving it a chance to move forward and destroy more units or capture an objective.

The idea is to shore up the weaknesses of paladins. And their weakness is getting stuck in CC with fearless units and terminators. I bring enough AP2 to crunch terminators and enough attacks to shred fearless units to nothing.

I love using swords and then trying to get the 4+ invun power on coteaz on divination. It basically means you have storm shields. I managed to pull it off at a recent tournie and my paladinstar played a vulcan list. I managed to get the charge on a unit of 10 thunder hammer storm shields led by vulken.

Draigo challenged vulcan, did 1 unsaved wound and then force weapon him down. With bro banner, next came 28 sword/halberd attacks, with rerolls from presience and S5 from hammerhand, killed of 3 more. Then coteaz and 3 hammers hit against his 7 left hammers, I killed of 4 more and with warding stave and 3++ on swords he only killed 2 pallys.

Long story short, swords can be very good if you can get that power, but I think a mix of them and halberds is good.

Falchions seem pointless if you have to pay for them, if they were free...maybe more people would use them. I guess it depends what you want from your unit.

 tuiman wrote:
Long story short, swords can be very good if you can get that power, but I think a mix of them and halberds is good.
Falchions seem pointless if you have to pay for them, if they were free...maybe more people would use them. I guess it depends what you want from your unit.

It's 5 points for a falchion on a paladin. I'd rather keep the sword for free or shell out the 5 points for an extra attack rather than have a +2 to init, which isn't always useful. If you'd had a bro banner AND falchions you'd have had a sick number of attacks on the charge. The enemy termies may have gone down through weight of attacks alone.

I'm just really not getting why falchions are "pointless" cause you have to pay a piddly 5 points for them. It's an extra attack. Plenty of other codexes can pay for an extra CCW. The only difference is ours is AP3 and is on a killer platform, and is appropriately costed.

But over a 10 man squad, why pay 50 points in falchions for 10 more attacks, when you can get a bro banner for 25 points, and give you 11 extra attacks (including attached draigo) and then still keep the benefits of having swords/hammers/halberds etc

The more I read about the Falchions,the more I want to to build a unit of pallies with them.

They may not be the most sensible unit in the 'dex armed like that,but in my flgc,i am known for doing things exactly like this.

 tuiman wrote:
But over a 10 man squad, why pay 50 points in falchions for 10 more attacks, when you can get a bro banner for 25 points, and give you 11 extra attacks (including attached draigo) and then still keep the benefits of having swords/hammers/halberds etc

I'm advocating for both together. For 75 you get 20 extra attacks base for a ten man squad, not to mention auto activating force weapons. That's 40 attacks without the charge, 50 with. And that's what I am looking for. If I charge large fearless blobs, I should do enough wounds to wipe them. If I charge terminators, I should force enough saves to win through attrition. Even if I don't get the charge, that is going to seriously hurt whatever they decide to throw at me. That's if I decided to go all falchions, but even if I throw a hammer or two in there for MCs i'm still doing a big enough amount of attacks to wipe tarpitters.

I'll be out in one turn maximum giving me more movement and move turns shooting things to death.

Pedro Kantor wrote:The more I read about the Falchions,the more I want to to build a unit of pallies with them.

They may not be the most sensible unit in the 'dex armed like that,but in my flgc,i am known for doing things exactly like this.

gpfunk wrote:

 tuiman wrote:
But over a 10 man squad, why pay 50 points in falchions for 10 more attacks, when you can get a bro banner for 25 points, and give you 11 extra attacks (including attached draigo) and then still keep the benefits of having swords/hammers/halberds etc

I'm advocating for both together. For 75 you get 20 extra attacks base for a ten man squad, not to mention auto activating force weapons. That's 40 attacks without the charge, 50 with. And that's what I am looking for. If I charge large fearless blobs, I should do enough wounds to wipe them. If I charge terminators, I should force enough saves to win through attrition. Even if I don't get the charge, that is going to seriously hurt whatever they decide to throw at me. That's if I decided to go all falchions, but even if I throw a hammer or two in there for MCs i'm still doing a big enough amount of attacks to wipe tarpitters.

I'll be out in one turn maximum giving me more movement and move turns shooting things to death.

The more I think about falchions the more I wanna give it a try. The problem is that although my termies are magnetized and can swap weapons freely falchions need both hands .... and on the other I have glued the fist. I think I will model some two bladed swords instead in order to be able to attach them to a single hand. Do you think it will look fine?

 gpfunk wrote:

 tuiman wrote:
But over a 10 man squad, why pay 50 points in falchions for 10 more attacks, when you can get a bro banner for 25 points, and give you 11 extra attacks (including attached draigo) and then still keep the benefits of having swords/hammers/halberds etc

I'm advocating for both together. For 75 you get 20 extra attacks base for a ten man squad, not to mention auto activating force weapons. That's 40 attacks without the charge, 50 with. And that's what I am looking for. If I charge large fearless blobs, I should do enough wounds to wipe them. If I charge terminators, I should force enough saves to win through attrition. Even if I don't get the charge, that is going to seriously hurt whatever they decide to throw at me. That's if I decided to go all falchions, but even if I throw a hammer or two in there for MCs i'm still doing a big enough amount of attacks to wipe tarpitters.

I'll be out in one turn maximum giving me more movement and move turns shooting things to death.

Very minor correction(s):

Brotherhood Banner is taken instead of the melee weapon, so:

10 paladins w/o falchions: 20 total base attacks (30 on charge)
10 paladins w/o falchions plus banner: 27 total base attacks (36 on charge) (+10-3 or +10-4, respectively)
10 paladins w/ falchions: 30 total base attacks (40 on charge)
10 paladins w/ falchions: 36 base attacks (45 on charge) (+10-4 or +10-5, respectively)

You should probably add a Daemon Hammer somewhere in there so that you can hit things with lots of toughness easy. If you are worried about your Paladins dying then you might as well invest in an apothecary. Gives the unit "feel no pain" along with their 2+ armor save and 5+ invulnerable.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
You should probably add a Daemon Hammer in their somewhere to give your Paladins some extra strength against high toughness creatures and vehicles. If you are worried about your Paladins dying then you might as well invest in an Apothecary. I mean just in case you failed the 2+ armor or the 5+ invulnerable you could have the "feel no pain" rule to back you up.,Have you considered investing in Draigo? He would make your Paladins troops allowing them to claim objectives.

I dont think the apothacary is worthwhile. Most of the things that kill my paladins, are vendettas, melta guns, vindicators etc, which cause instant death and ignore fnp anyway.

The more I think about falchions, the more I wish terminators could get them for free.

I think I will model some two bladed swords instead in order to be able to attach them to a single hand. Do you think it will look fine?

Indeed i do.They would look great,like a bunch of massive silver darth mauls.

 Kerrathyr wrote:

Brotherhood Banner is taken instead of the melee weapon, so:

10 paladins w/o falchions: 20 total base attacks (30 on charge)
10 paladins w/o falchions plus banner: 27 total base attacks (36 on charge) (+10-3 or +10-4, respectively)
10 paladins w/ falchions: 30 total base attacks (40 on charge)
10 paladins w/ falchions: 36 base attacks (45 on charge) (+10-4 or +10-5, respectively)

Thanks for the math! That's still a fethload of attacks. Good enough to chew through big units in one game turn.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 tuiman wrote:
I dont think the apothacary is worthwhile. Most of the things that kill my paladins, are vendettas, melta guns, vindicators etc, which cause instant death and ignore fnp anyway.

It's generally good if you think you'll face a lot of plasma. I will always take that apothecary whenever I face Imperial Guard, cause I know that 3x Plasma vets are brutal. They also help you avoid any wound loss from small arms fire. It can be pretty demoralizing when a lasgun wounds your bad-ass paladin. It's situational in my opinion.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Goat wrote:
The more I think about falchions, the more I wish terminators could get them for free.

I honestly think they're adequately priced. You're paying 5 points for a pair of power weapons. If they were free I think everyone would take them without question. I think that the ability to cause damage they have when taken en masse is worth the up-charge.