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Hello fellow dakkas,

I was just wondering if there was any way to make a GK list with both Coteaz and Draigo competitive at 1500? I've thought about it a lot but it's very hard working with just 1500 points.


Any help or feedback would be great!

Thanks!

Only reason to play Drago is Draigowing, and as I found out yesturday playing against wave serpents Draigowing is not competative, had some horrific rolls but was tabled turn 3 only damage he took was a wound caused by perils, it was a slaughter.

- Draigowing doesn't put out that much firepower for the points.
- In this edition with the weight of firepower being thrown about draigowing isn't all that survivable.
- There's no reliable method to get your paladins into CC and few armies would ever activly try to assault you.

Probably better off just taking coteaz spaming henchen, PC servitors and 1-2 monkeys per squad and liberally sprinkling the list with cheap divination from codex inquisition allies.

Mike712 wrote:
Only reason to play Drago is Draigowing, and as I found out yesturday playing against wave serpents Draigowing is not competative, had some horrific rolls but was tabled turn 3 only damage he took was a wound caused by perils, it was a slaughter.

- Draigowing doesn't put out that much firepower for the points.
- In this edition with the weight of firepower being thrown about draigowing isn't all that survivable.
- There's no reliable method to get your paladins into CC and few armies would ever activly try to assault you.

Probably better off just taking coteaz spaming henchen, PC servitors and 1-2 monkeys per squad and liberally sprinkling the list with cheap divination from codex inquisition allies.

I hate to point this out, but this is completely unhelpful to the OP. It's good to say that an Eldar or Tau matchup will be a struggle, or that this is most definitely no longer one of the easiest armies to play, but it is unfair to just toss his/her request to the side and tell them to just play something else especially when he or she may have their heart set on this particular build. Just some food for thought.

Anyway,

I have been wondering the same thing OP as I've been debating on starting my own Draigowing, you know for the challenge. I think a few things will help out. One, check out Jy2's Battle Reports (specifically this link) : http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/547392.page for some tips and ways that you might build a list. Ultimately he's really the one that has inspired me to build a Draigo army. Two, here's a list that I think would work alright based on what has been successful for him that hits 1500 right on the nose.



Though to be honest, I haven't had the chance to play this list or GK at all (so take what I say with a grain of salt, or lots of salt), but I think it can stand up decently versus most lists. Tau and Eldar will definitely be uphill battles, and I would even dare venture to say that it may take a kick in the teeth or two to really understand how to play them against those two armies. You'll need to use every tool at your disposal I think to get the necessary edge, but I think it can be done.

Now that there's my two cents, I hope others with more experience can give you a little more help.

It's just a sad fact that Draigowing works very poorly without any wound allocation tricks apart from being able to look out sir wounds from draigo to the closest model.

You can shuffle models about each turn to try and spread the wounds but you're still losing whole models because draigo can't be everwhere at once.

It's a cool army theme for sure, how I feel GKs should be based on their origional background, but competative in 6th edition it is not and that was what the op was asking about.

Mike712 wrote:
It's just a sad fact that Draigowing works very poorly without any wound allocation tricks apart from being able to look out sir wounds from draigo to the closest model.

You can shuffle models about each turn to try and spread the wounds but you're still losing whole models because draigo can't be everwhere at once.

It's a cool army theme for sure, how I feel GKs should be based on their origional background, but competative in 6th edition it is not and that was what the op was asking about.

As KelCJ said, you should really go read jy2's battle reports. He uses Draigowing very effectively against even highly competitive armies.

And as I've said before, the biggest weakness with Draigowing is the player throwing them at the enemy and expecting the result to be "UBER DEATHSTAR TABLES OPPONENT!!1!11!!" This will never happen in 6th edition unless your opponent lets you do it. Draigowing's strength is holding an area, which requires very careful model placement and use of LOS-blocking terrain. It's certainly very difficult to do, especially against experienced players, but it's far from uncompetitive. Not top-tier maybe, but still gives most armies a run for their money.

However, at the 1500 point level you will struggle. The efficiency of Draigowing (and any true Deathstar army) is directly proportional to the points value of the game. The higher it goes, the better Draigowing is, because the army can act more and more independently of the Deathstar. At the 2-2.5k level, you can fit a lot of allies or shooting into the army in addition to the tough, scary paladinstar. But the opposite is also true. At the 1-1.5k level, you will rely on the paladins much more, which will make it very hard to play against fast, mobile, high-firepower armies like Eldar and Tau.

Just my 2 cents on the matter...

Maybe I can be of some help here.

Here are my 2 key philosophies dealing with deathstar armies:

1. How good a deathstar build is isn't defined by the deathstar. It is defined by its supporting units. The bigger the deathstar is, the weaker the supporting units become and the more unbalanced the list becomes.

2. The easiest way to beat a deathstar build is to kill the support units. Thus if you want a balanced and "strong" deathstar army, the supporting units has to be as good as the deathstar itself.

Thus, my unsaid rule-of-thumb when building a deathstar build is about 50% deathstar + 50% support units (+/-10%). If your deathstar takes up too many points from the army, then it becomes less and less of a TAC (Take-All-Comers) build and will encounter more and more problem matchups (like against Tau, Eldar or Necrons who can overload certain aspects of the game).

Also, Draigowing builds have other issues that you need to address:

1. Lack of mobility.

2. Lack of anti-air.

3. Scoring.

4. How to handle multiple-threats (MSU).


So with these tips in mind, how shall we go about making a balanced Draigowing list at 1500? Unfortunately at that points level, something's got to give. My full-blown paladinstar consists of Draigon, Coteaz + 10 paladins. That's about 1100-pts! In a 2K army, that's close enough to the 50/50 but it is not viable at 1.5K. We need to scale down. At this points level, I'd rather drop some paladins and use more henchmen to balance out the army.

So this is what I would do at 1.5K using purely units from the Grey Knights:


Draigo
Coteaz

5x Paladins - 2x Psycannons, Banner - 340
Soladin - Hammer - 55
Soladin - Hammer - 55
4x Henchmen - Razorback w/Psybolt Ammo - 66
3x Crusaders, 6x Deathcult Assassins - 135 (Coteaz can go here or with the paladins)

Stormraven

Psyfleman Dread - Searchlights - 136
Psyfleman Dread - 135

1500


So it's got a good amount of scoring units with 5. Draigo can use Grand Strategy to make the dreads scoring as well if necessary.

It's got decent mobility with 2 deepstriking hammerdins, assassins in a flyer and 1 transport.

Anti-air is not great, but 1 stormraven will present problems to other flyers at 1500. For backup AA, dreads are twin-linked and Coteaz can also make paladins twin-linked to help with AA duties.

As for handling multiple threats, each hammerdin is a threat in his own right, with Holocaust for hordes and a force hammer for vehicles and MC's. Assassins and the mini-paladinstar are huge threats and psyflemans can reliably handle any vehicle not a flyer or land raider.

Finally, henchmen in psyback (razorback w/psybolt) mainly stay in reserves to deny an easy First Blood for the opponent. I also put the soladins in reserves normally for deepstriking purposes. Otherwise, you lose some of your mobility (and threat to enemy objective-holders) if you deploy them on the table.

So normally, the only thing you deploy is your paladinstar and maybe 1-2 dreads.

And that is an excellent analysis, one that I was hoping for the OP. Thanks Jy2.

One question I have is how have you had a chance to play against Tau often? They seem to be one of the Rocks to Draigowing scissors and I can't help but feel that Riptides are an achilles heel due to that annoying str8-9 blast.

Awesome! Thank you guys for your great responses and thanks jy2 for your wonderful analysis.

That was an answer I was definitely looking for.


1500 is definitely a squeeze but maybe with some practice and good knowledge of the army type it could definitely work as a competitive army.

One of the main issues I see is lack of mobility from the deathstar itself and really fast armies being able to kite the crap out of it.

Mike712 wrote:
Only reason to play Drago is Draigowing, and as I found out yesturday playing against wave serpents Draigowing is not competative

I've played Draigowing a few times with wave serpent spam / seer council. Your right, it is a slaughter.
A decent player (like myself) will ignore Draigo's paladins and just kill the rest of your army. You would be surprised at what rending twin linked shuriken catapults will do to a doomed Dreadknight.

The problem is point costs. Modern day death stars (screamers/eldar) are 600-700 points. That gives you a lot more points for your supporting units -- as jy2 clearly describes as the value behind deathstar armies. That is why 5th edition deathstar armies like draigowing struggle.

KelCJ wrote:
And that is an excellent analysis, one that I was hoping for the OP. Thanks Jy2.

One question I have is how have you had a chance to play against Tau often? They seem to be one of the Rocks to Draigowing scissors and I can't help but feel that Riptides are an achilles heel due to that annoying str8-9 blast.

No, I haven't played against Tau yet, at least not with Draigowing (though I have played against them many times with my other armies). Tau and Eldar are potentially tough matchups for Draigowing. Unfortunately, there is no shortcut against them. How well you do will depend on how well you can "take the pain".

But it can be done. Here are some tips against Tau.

1. Play for board control. There is very little chance of your deathstar to make it into the Tau lines (unless you take a full-blown 10-man paladin squad + characters, but even that isn't guaranteed) because 1) they're going to get shot up, 2) Tau can easily screen them out or 3) mobile Tau can just get out of the way. What you want to do is to threaten the Tau and deny them access to the middle objectives. Then try to deny their objectives in the late game with any of your fast elements if you have.

2. Unfortunately, this matchup will depend largely on BLOS (Blocking-LOS) terrain. Insist on some type of BLOS terrain in/near the middle for a fair game and when placing terrain between you and your opponent (don't just let your opponent place terrains by himself). Most tournaments do this anyways. Without fair terrain, it will most likely end up as a blowout for Tau.

3. If he's mainly taking Ion on his tides and/or no skyrays, then you can actually dominate the skys. If you run a stormraven (or necron flyers), then you can actually do some damage, especially with late-game objective grabs or to threaten his units (i.e. my assassins in the stormraven).

4. This is a "trick" and doesn't always work, but you can use Grand Strategy to give your paladins Scout, which gives them slightly more mobility. Against less experienced players, that could make a difference. Just don't expect it to work more than once against the same player (or against a more experienced player).

5. Positioning is key. Against blast-heavy riptides, you need to spread out and make sure Draigo is in front relative to the riptide(s). If he spreads out his riptides, then use the BLOS terrain (assuming there is some) to deny shooting from 1 riptide and use Draigo to tank shooting from the others.

6. Against Tau in an objectives game, watch out for target priority. My target priority normally isn't his troops or his firepower. It is actually his mobility. Basically, my tactic is to take away his ability to move fast and to contest. That usually means the riptides and also transports. If I can do that, then I have the advantage. His troops will control his home objective. My troops control my home objective and the paladinstar will control the middle objectives. Without mobile units to contest your objectives, then you will inherently have the advantage.


Don't play his game and just march straight up to your death. Make him play your game and force him to come to you. You can do this by playing a game of Denial, with proper target priority and with board control. That, in essence, is my philosophy of Positional Dominance.

iinvisionx wrote:
Awesome! Thank you guys for your great responses and thanks jy2 for your wonderful analysis.

That was an answer I was definitely looking for.


1500 is definitely a squeeze but maybe with some practice and good knowledge of the army type it could definitely work as a competitive army.

One of the main issues I see is lack of mobility from the deathstar itself and really fast armies being able to kite the crap out of it.

That is why I take a shooty Draigowing build with psyfleman dreads instead of dreadknights. Dreadnoughts is basically your best answer to these fast armies - mechdar, venom-spam deldar, necrons, etc. It's tough to play against them and more often than not, you're playing an uphill battle. Against these armies, you most likely will have to play a Denial game to try to minimize the shots coming at your army. Sometimes I even put my dreads in reserves and bring them in on a 2+ with Draigo's Psychic Communion. This guarantees that I will get the alpha-strike against his fast transports. Take away his mobility and you will have the advantage.

BTW, here is a battle report between my Draigowing against a very fast Seer Council mechdar/venom-spam Eldar/Dark Eldar army:


2500 Double-FOC Rematch - Jy2's Draigowing vs Grant Theft Auto's Deer Council Deldar II

 jy2 wrote:

KelCJ wrote:
And that is an excellent analysis, one that I was hoping for the OP. Thanks Jy2.

One question I have is how have you had a chance to play against Tau often? They seem to be one of the Rocks to Draigowing scissors and I can't help but feel that Riptides are an achilles heel due to that annoying str8-9 blast.

No, I haven't played against Tau yet, at least not with Draigowing (though I have played against them many times with my other armies). Tau and Eldar are potentially tough matchups for Draigowing. Unfortunately, there is no shortcut against them. How well you do will depend on how well you can "take the pain".

But it can be done. Here are some tips against Tau.

1. Play for board control. There is very little chance of your deathstar to make it into the Tau lines (unless you take a full-blown 10-man paladin squad + characters, but even that isn't guaranteed) because 1) they're going to get shot up, 2) Tau can easily screen them out or 3) mobile Tau can just get out of the way. What you want to do is to threaten the Tau and deny them access to the middle objectives. Then try to deny their objectives in the late game with any of your fast elements if you have.

2. Unfortunately, this matchup will depend largely on BLOS (Blocking-LOS) terrain. Insist on some type of BLOS terrain in/near the middle for a fair game and when placing terrain between you and your opponent (don't just let your opponent place terrains by himself). Most tournaments do this anyways. Without fair terrain, it will most likely end up as a blowout for Tau.

3. If he's mainly taking Ion on his tides and/or no skyrays, then you can actually dominate the skys. If you run a stormraven (or necron flyers), then you can actually do some damage, especially with late-game objective grabs or to threaten his units (i.e. my assassins in the stormraven).

4. This is a "trick" and doesn't always work, but you can use Grand Strategy to give your paladins Scout, which gives them slightly more mobility. Against less experienced players, that could make a difference. Just don't expect it to work more than once against the same player (or against a more experienced player).

5. Positioning is key. Against blast-heavy riptides, you need to spread out and make sure Draigo is in front relative to the riptide(s). If he spreads out his riptides, then use the BLOS terrain (assuming there is some) to deny shooting from 1 riptide and use Draigo to tank shooting from the others.

6. Against Tau in an objectives game, watch out for target priority. My target priority normally isn't his troops or his firepower. It is actually his mobility. Basically, my tactic is to take away his ability to move fast and to contest. That usually means the riptides and also transports. If I can do that, then I have the advantage. His troops will control his home objective. My troops control my home objective and the paladinstar will control the middle objectives. Without mobile units to contest your objectives, then you will inherently have the advantage.


Don't play his game and just march straight up to your death. Make him play your game and force him to come to you. You can do this by playing a game of Denial, with proper target priority and with board control. That, in essence, is my philosophy of Positional Dominance.

Really great advice. Nice to see that my opinion of Draigowing isn't completely off in regards to keeping up with Tau/Eldar. At least it is a winnable match up, and not a down right slaughter, and I don't know about the OP, but it has given me some confidence in picking them up at some point in the near future. Especially since my game store often has plenty (if not over abundant) amount of LoS blocking terrain. Tons of ruins/medium area terrain.

Also in the case against Tau/Eldar, would it likely be better to just have greater supporting units as opposed to dumping more points into the Pallystar in say a 1750 or 1850 point game? Maybe an extra 2-3 paladins with Psybolt Ammo? How about a Dreadknight thrown in as well/mixed with Dreadnoughts? Yeah it will likely die, but it can definitely influence the manner and way they deploy. Plus, it will keep fire off the Paladins at least one turn allowing for slightly more board control, or am I wrong about that?

Would you also recommend say Necron support in a less than 2k game? Maybe lose a few henchmen squads for Warriors in Night scythes? That would definitely help with mobility problems as well as give a little more firepower that we might otherwise lack, plus, based on your recent games with them, I think it can shift Draigowing a little further along the competitive scale. I'd just like to try to fit them in 1750 game, as those are the ones I often play. Also, Scythes and Storm Ravens? Good idea? Bad?

Good thread.

I like jy2's 1500 Draigo list as I think at that points level 5 Paladins led by Draigo is a durable deathstar and gives you enough points for some support. I would (and will to give it a go) modify to include an Apothecary though as he is a massive force multiplier and has doubled my Draigostar life expectancy on most occasions. For me an Apothecary is mandatory in a Draigostar, especially a small one to make Draigo (and Pallies) last longer.

Modified jy2:

Draigo
Coteaz

5x Paladins - Apothecary, 2x Psycannons - 390
Soladin - Hammer - 55
3x Henchmen - Bolters, Razorback w/Psybolt Ammo - 65
1x Crusaders, 5x Deathcult Assassins - 90 (Coteaz can go here or with the paladins)

Stormraven, TL-AC, TL-MM, Hurricane + Psybolt - 255

Psyfleman Dread - 135
Psyfleman Dread - 135

1500


I have run a GK/Necron 1500pt Draigo with sucsess:

Draigo
Coteaz (warlord so Draigo can tank)
Overlord - 90

5 x Paladins, Apothecary, 2 x Psycannons - 390
Solodin, Hammer - 55
5 x Warriors, NS - 165
5 x Warriors, NS - 165

ABarge - 90

2 x Vengeance Weapon Battery with Battle Cannon - 170

1500

Vengeance Batteries distract/alter opponent deployment, Draigostar tanks and controls areas and OBJs, ABarge and Overlord are distractions, NS provide Anti-air and Warriors do their last turn drop off and claim/contest. A great little (risky) option for this army is to outflank the Draigostar if you are facing a gunline you need to access as long as you are confident you can keep the Overlord, Solodin and ABarge alive for a couple of turns.

The list struggles to drop heavy armour but to be honest it hasn't really been a problem. Multi LR Executioners and/or TH/SS Terms in a raider would be tough but nothing is perfect!

First Blood is usaually pretty consistent for the list to claim and deny the opponent it at the same time by Reserving Solodin and NS's. First Blood is usually achieved on T2 when the NS arrive comined with the Pallies firepower.

McBain wrote:
Good thread.

I like jy2's 1500 Draigo list as I think at that points level 5 Paladins led by Draigo is a durable deathstar and gives you enough points for some support. I would (and will to give it a go) modify to include an Apothecary though as he is a massive force multiplier and has doubled my Draigostar life expectancy on most occasions. For me an Apothecary is mandatory in a Draigostar, especially a small one to make Draigo (and Pallies) last longer.

Modified jy2:

Draigo
Coteaz

5x Paladins - Apothecary, 2x Psycannons - 390
Soladin - Hammer - 55
3x Henchmen - Bolters, Razorback w/Psybolt Ammo - 65
1x Crusaders, 5x Deathcult Assassins - 90 (Coteaz can go here or with the paladins)

Stormraven, TL-AC, TL-MM, Hurricane + Psybolt - 255

Psyfleman Dread - 135
Psyfleman Dread - 135

1500


I have run a GK/Necron 1500pt Draigo with sucsess:

Draigo
Coteaz (warlord so Draigo can tank)
Overlord - 90

5 x Paladins, Apothecary, 2 x Psycannons - 390
Solodin, Hammer - 55
5 x Warriors, NS - 165
5 x Warriors, NS - 165

ABarge - 90

2 x Vengeance Weapon Battery with Battle Cannon - 170

1500

Vengeance Batteries distract/alter opponent deployment, Draigostar tanks and controls areas and OBJs, ABarge and Overlord are distractions, NS provide Anti-air and Warriors do their last turn drop off and claim/contest. A great little (risky) option for this army is to outflank the Draigostar if you are facing a gunline you need to access as long as you are confident you can keep the Overlord, Solodin and ABarge alive for a couple of turns.

The list struggles to drop heavy armour but to be honest it hasn't really been a problem. Multi LR Executioners and/or TH/SS Terms in a raider would be tough but nothing is perfect!

First Blood is usaually pretty consistent for the list to claim and deny the opponent it at the same time by Reserving Solodin and NS's. First Blood is usually achieved on T2 when the NS arrive comined with the Pallies firepower.

That would work also. I'm finding the Apothecary to be a much more worthwhile investment than I originally thought.

I'm not too familiar with the Vengeance Battery, but necrons are definitely a great ally for Draigowing. That's what I ran at the ATC - Grey Knight Primary w/Necron allies - and I did alright with them.

 jy2 wrote:

McBain wrote:

That would work also. I'm finding the Apothecary to be a much more worthwhile investment than I originally thought.

I'm not too familiar with the Vengeance Battery, but necrons are definitely a great ally for Draigowing. That's what I ran at the ATC - Grey Knight Primary w/Necron allies - and I did alright with them.

It's funny because the 5+ FNP doesn't sound like much in theory but with some average dice (let alone when they get hot!) it has been effectively making Draigo a 6 wound tank and the Pallies a 3 wound terminator! Now that makes for a durable deathstar.

The Vengeance Battery is simply an AV14 Building with a BS2 Battle Cannon on top that has Automated Fire for 85 points! (or you can run a Punisher Cannon for 75) Not bad considering you need a pen to hurt it, it provides some nice cover and it is excellent at shaping the opponents deployment. A good distraction at worst and at best will drag some heavy weapons away from the Draigostar.

Also your ATC Batreps were my inspiration for trying a similar list!