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I've been really intrigued by reading about people's experiences with Paladin armies. I played Deathwing back during the previous DA codex. At 2000 points I fielded three land raiders, 2 dreads and a total of 16 terminators. It was a compact, shooty force that was a real challenge to play. I really enjoyed it for some time.

I haven't been a big fan of the new GK codex, mainly because of some of the fluff and the ghastly DK model, but I've really been considering making a paladin army after reading some of the comments in this thread and others. Keep the great comments coming guys.

How would something like this work out at 2k points: Draigo, Librarian (Draigo and libby each attached to separate paladin squad) 2x10 Paladins, Vindicare? It's basically 2 deathstar units and the vindicare, which can harass the enemy.

augustus5 wrote:I've been really intrigued by reading about people's experiences with Paladin armies. I played Deathwing back during the previous DA codex. At 2000 points I fielded three land raiders, 2 dreads and a total of 16 terminators. It was a compact, shooty force that was a real challenge to play. I really enjoyed it for some time.

I haven't been a big fan of the new GK codex, mainly because of some of the fluff and the ghastly DK model, but I've really been considering making a paladin army after reading some of the comments in this thread and others. Keep the great comments coming guys.

How would something like this work out at 2k points: Draigo, Librarian (Draigo and libby each attached to separate paladin squad) 2x10 Paladins, Vindicare? It's basically 2 deathstar units and the vindicare, which can harass the enemy.

A properly kitted paladin squad comes out to 790 points so no go on the libby to exensive

youbedead wrote:

augustus5 wrote:I've been really intrigued by reading about people's experiences with Paladin armies. I played Deathwing back during the previous DA codex. At 2000 points I fielded three land raiders, 2 dreads and a total of 16 terminators. It was a compact, shooty force that was a real challenge to play. I really enjoyed it for some time.

I haven't been a big fan of the new GK codex, mainly because of some of the fluff and the ghastly DK model, but I've really been considering making a paladin army after reading some of the comments in this thread and others. Keep the great comments coming guys.

How would something like this work out at 2k points: Draigo, Librarian (Draigo and libby each attached to separate paladin squad) 2x10 Paladins, Vindicare? It's basically 2 deathstar units and the vindicare, which can harass the enemy.

A properly kitted paladin squad comes out to 790 points so no go on the libby to exensive

Define "properly kitted". When I take nobs, I can take them pretty cheap and still be able to wound abuse.

By "properly kitted" he means that those 10 paladins are 550 points base. And to really get the most out of that squad you're going to want as many psycannon/incinerators as you can fit in, not to mention a brotherhood banner, warding stave, psybolt ammo and apothecary.

Why bring all that extra stuff? because in a draigowing list, paladins are basically your only units on the board, minus whatever transport you took for them and the odd support unit, paladins have to do all the fighting because they represent such a big chunk of your list.

As to performance, I've never played full draigowing but have been including a paladin unit in every game over 2000 points. Play them right and be aware of the few units that can hurt them, and they are nearly impossible to kill. Full draigowing is actually incredibly powerful in annihilation games but going to struggle to ever win objectives.

As we've found out, the problem is 1 failed LD test (and totally horrible opponents). I can help with the opponent part in tournaments but not the Ld test

10man 4 psycannon unique paladin squad with Draigo and a Lib attached, Psybolts
2 Dreadknights
Psyrifle dread
5 man strike with psyback
My 2k point list

3 scoring units if you combat squad the paladins, or more if you take Unyielding Anvil from Draigo.

Assuming you attach draigo and the librarian to other units, that's 5-6 units in a 2000 point list. I have trouble accepting the low numbers I play with in my GK list, let alone having that few targets.

I may try draigowing someday but just find the incredibly low model and unit count a bitter pill to swallow.

I'm not completely sold on the Draigowing list.

First off an all terminator army doesn't need Draigo. One could take a regular GM + 2 units of regular terminators + Paladins that can be turned into troops.

I'm also not completely sold on kitting out paladins. With 2 wounds there isn't much they should fear that's over I4. 4-5 barebones paladins is still a hell of a deathstar, and with 2 wounds and a 4++ invo they are actually tougher than TH/SS termies. I could see a unit of paladins working ok in any GM list.

What Draigo does for Paladins, aside from being a monster in CC and giving those awesome GM powers, is he has the ability to catch those super nasty s8+ low AP weapons that will assuredly be firing on your paladins, IDing them with their awful regular 5++. Draigo, with his 3++ and Eternal Warrior, has no such fear of high str low ap weaponry.

daedalus-templarius wrote:What Draigo does for Paladins, aside from being a monster in CC and giving those awesome GM powers, it he has the ability to catch those super nasty s8+ low AP weapons that will assuredly be firing on your paladins, IDing them with their awful regular 5++. Draigo, with his 3++ and Eternal Warrior, has no such fear of high str low ap weaponry.

What he said.

It's clutch. He's only about 100pts more (IIRC) than a grandmaster, and gets an extra wound, toughness, strength, a 3++, and EW.

Draigo is mandatory for Paladni lists because

-He will catch those double str hits
-You dont have enough points to bring 2 other troops to satisfy FOC requirements
-He makes paladins he is attached to, fearless.
-He brings a second Hammer hand to the squad.

You definitely need Draigo for an all out Paladin army. Hin and the Librarian are both very key.

Yes, I think people who haven't played paladin-heavy lists or played against them don't full appreciate that Draigo's T 5, Eternal Warrior and 3++ adds a hell of a lot of survivability to a paladin squad. He's terrific value for a pladin army as well as being essential.

The Librarian is very useful but could, at a pinch, be dispensed with to field a paladin-heavy force at less than 2000 points.

Point for point, paladins offer better value than terminators because of their higher survivability (much in the same way the venerable dreadnoughts are actually underpriced compared to their heavy support brothers).

There are downsides to having all your troops being paladins (you don't get many units), but that is a blessing in KP games and if you can squeeze in a venerable dreadnought or two (or even three, which becomes feasible above 2000 pts), you can use Draigo's Grand strategy to make them scoring, easing the problem a little.

I actually have more success with my paladin list than my mechanised marine list or my drop-pod Sternguard/Dreadnought list.

You can go Paladin heavy and still squeeze in a 5 man strike with a psyback for objective holding(like 170pts if you take a psycannon and a DH on justicar, +psyback). You kind of need to if you make a 10 man paladin squad (that you can then combat squad if needed), just to fulfill troop requirements.

I guess you could also take 15 paladins, but I like a bit more diversification

daedalus-templarius wrote:You can go Paladin heavy and still squeeze in a 5 man strike with a psyback for objective holding(like 170pts if you take a psycannon and a DH on justicar, +psyback). You kind of need to if you make a 10 man paladin squad (that you can then combat squad if needed), just to fulfill troop requirements.

I guess you could also take 15 paladins, but I like a bit more diversification

I dont think this willwork because a 5 man strike squads will die the turn they come in. 15 paladins is better.

If you take draigo, you can also take single man paladin squads. 55pts buys you a deep striking scoring unit with a 12" range S5 Large blast.

I'm thinking about taking two in my 2000pt list, along with two 10 man squads, draigo, and a libby.

Yuber wrote:

daedalus-templarius wrote:You can go Paladin heavy and still squeeze in a 5 man strike with a psyback for objective holding(like 170pts if you take a psycannon and a DH on justicar, +psyback). You kind of need to if you make a 10 man paladin squad (that you can then combat squad if needed), just to fulfill troop requirements.

I guess you could also take 15 paladins, but I like a bit more diversification

I dont think this willwork because a 5 man strike squads will die the turn they come in. 15 paladins is better.

It seems to work fine for me since I usually just plant them on an objective in cover, but, you are correct in the fact they may die very quickly depending on my enemy's target acquisition.

I've got a friend who's running an all paladin list with a LR & storm raven as transports. He is reasonably successful with it. It's a gimmick army and he knows it, but he says it's been more viable than he ever expected it to be given it's obvious weaknesses. As others have mentioned, a lot depends on your opponent's army and the scenario. I think the mobility afforded by the transports is critical in making his army semi-viable.

Gitsplitta wrote:I've got a friend who's running an all paladin list with a LR & storm raven as transports. He is reasonably successful with it. It's a gimmick army and he knows it, but he says it's been more viable than he ever expected it to be given it's obvious weaknesses. As others have mentioned, a lot depends on your opponent's army and the scenario. I think the mobility afforded by the transports is critical in making his army semi-viable.

IMHO, at 1.5k It's semi viable. but at 2k, it's very viable. Ive tried a dual Storm Raven list, and at 1.5k its easy to play for draw, and sometimes win with it (I autowin Annihilation tho). At 2k Points, it becomes ridiculous as I pack a libby with shrouding and 2 Venerable dreads with MMs. I win alot of times regardless of objectives. 3+ Cover save on a Storm raven? Yes Please.

The trick is moving flatout all the time while killing high priority stuff with MM.

You can manage 1360 in paladins, still really well equipped, 275 in draigo, 165 for lib leaving 180 points over. If you cut 5 points in upgrades from the paladins, you can get a vanilla stormraven, or if you'd prefer, a vindicare and one extra paladin to sit on your home objective in C&C. Those 200-450 left over points in 2000-2250 games are really the only variety you get in paladin lists. It's a super-elite list, and very hard to use to great effect. Going up against any army that spams HW like lances, missiles, las, melta, etc... is going to ruin your day, as you have virtually no mobility and and a 24" effective range; but against large lists without specialists you're very very hard to kill; also, considering you give up virtually no kill points, it's very hard to lose an annihilation game.

A 10 man paladin squad with 4 psycannons and psybolt, all halberds and 2 hammers is what, 680 I think? The banner and the apothecary are kind of unnecessary; anything that's going to crack their armor is going to deny fnp. The warding stave, while nice for tanking enemy fists and hammers is also a negligible upgrade. The paladins do well enough in CC at initiative 6 that the staves are the first to go to shave points. I don't like cutting psybolt, because it's such a cost effective upgrade for a 10 man squad, and the hammers are wonderful for those multi assaults when you can squeeze in a few hits on a landraider or some such thing.

A fun option is:

Draigo, Librarian
10 Paladins, Halberds, 3xpsycannon, 2xhammer, Psybolt
5 Paladins, 2xFalchions, 2xHalberds, 1xHammer
3xStorm Ravens

Split into 3 squads, everyone gets a raven, yay!

Yuber wrote:Draigo is mandatory for Paladni lists because
-He makes paladins he is attached to, fearless.

I thought he didn't? He has just regular Fearless, doesn't he?

He just has regular fearless and it makes no sense since none of the units have fearless. Just another oversight in the GK book I imagine

It's so fun watching Marine players learn about Wound Shenanigans!

Look, boyz (and girlz), those Pallys? They're your Meganobz. They're about the only non-HQ multi-wound models you're ever going to field with Marines. They're still vulnurable to large volumes of weak fire, unless you differentiate. The invuln saves are nice against Plama weaponry and double toughness too. But Differentiate, and get them going as fast as you can. Get into close combat with Infantry as soon as possible- it'll protect them from strong fire, and from massed fire, and as long as there isn't a hidden Powerfist in there, you'll be fine, until you win combat, and go on to the next one.

Just a pity you can't Sweeping Advance in TDA.

junk wrote:
Draigo, Librarian
10 Paladins, Halberds, 3xpsycannon, 2xhammer, Psybolt
5 Paladins, 2xFalchions, 2xHalberds, 1xHammer
3xStorm Ravens

Split into 3 squads, everyone gets a raven, yay!

Sounds like I need some more paladins... maybe I can try this with 3 LRs, since I have 4

I've been thinking about the following at 1850:

Draigo

Libby w/Shrouding, Sanctuary, Random 3rd Power

4x5 Paladins w/2 Halberds, 1 Sword, 2 Psycannons, 2 Hammer mixed for wound allocation shenannigans.

2x1 Paladin w/Warding Stave

Seems like it could work, the other options is just Draigo+5 Squads like the above w/one of them combining to 10-man and adding the 2 Individual Pallies at 2k

Running a fully differentiated squad with psybolt, banner, and staff is 705pts. You can min-max psy-cannons at 630pts, or 315 for five men.

The banner is mildly overkill, I'll agree, and psybolt ammo while a great deal, isn't necessary. The pimpstaff is only key in larger squads, when the need to prevent furiosos and MCs from ripping you up is present.

From my list, you can scrape up 140pts by dropping master crafting, psybolts, banners, and staves.

Definitely worth trying.

On the discussion of the all paladin list, here is mine:

Total:
HQ:
Dargio:275
Librarian: 170
2x Servo Skulls
The Summoning, Might of Titan

Troops:
Paladin Squad: 405
Incinerator (2x)
Apothecary
Daemon Hammers (3x)
Warding Staff
Brotherhood Banner

Paladin Squad: 435
Psycannon (2x)
Apothecary
Warding Staff
Brotherhood Banner

Paladin Squad: 435
Psycannon (2x)
Apothecary
Warding Staff
Brotherhood Banner

Heavy Support:
LandRaider: 276
Searchlight
Psybolt Ammo
Warp Stabilization Field
Stormbolter

Didn't Blackmoor take a paladin army to a local tournament recently and do somewhat decent with it?

Brotherhood banners on another other than 10 man squads is pretty meh.

I'd drop the apoths, 130pts(each!) better spent on more guys/gear, since anything that will get through your armor save is going to ignore FNP anyway.

I'd only put a warding stave on your Lib, and you certainly don't need it on the squad that is running with Draigo.

I'd take 1 hammer on each squad, rest of members can have a mix of halberd/sword. Also, I'd drop the incinerators for MC Psycannons.

I've been having success with this Paladin list at 1850pts.

HQ - Draigo
HQ - Libby, Might, Sanctuary, Shrouding, Quicksilver
TR - 10 paladins, 4 psycannons, apoth, weapons galore
TR - 5 Terminators, psycannon, 2 hammers, 3 halberds
HV - Dreadknight, incinerator, sword
HV - Dreadnought, 2x autocannons + Psy-ammo
HV - Dreadnought, 2x autocannons + Psy-ammo


The plan has been to drop the deathstar as close to as much of the enemy as possible and go at them. The Dreads walk on and snipe fast movers on the edge of the fight. The Dreadnight acts as a goalie and is a good counter to enemy ac dreads. The Termies try to grab an objective.

Might of Titan is an absolute beast. The enemy has a problem. If they spread out then the small footprint of this list can isolate a portion on their army and decimate it. If they castle together, then the turn after the Paladins arrive the whole castle is assaulted with str 5-8 + 2d6 from everyone.

So many lists have single shot anti-tank weapons that Draigo is invaluable to keeping the unit in tact until the first assault.

As long as the paladins have control of the center, their 16 psycannon shots can reach any fast movers who want to stay on the edge away from them. The 2 Dread's also play a roll in limiting the mobility of key scoring units.

I want to keep the Apothecary for unexpected matchups. Guided Warwalkers could be a problem along with a string of bad dice rolling. I consider the Apoth as insurance.

The list won't win every game, but one thing I really like about it is that the games are over fast.