1850 Pure Pally

Since it was requested, heres the 1850 Pally build i ran at a local tourney. Its a for fun build, it's good in casual environments, but will lose to awesome builds. That said, if you don't want to drop the hammer with your uber build on your local buddies, and just want a low model count build thats pretty easy and fun to play, try it out!

JUST MAKE SURE TO HAVE COUNTERS OR SOMETHING FOR WOUND ALLOCATION, youll need it!


275 Draigo
205 Librarian, shroud, sanctuary, quicken, might, staff

685 10 paladins, totally wound allocated
1 psycannon hammer
1 psycannon MC hammer
1 psycannon halberd
1 psycannon sword
1 sword
1 halberd
1 mc halberd
1 hammer
1 brother banner
1 staff

685 10 paladins, wound allocated as above

you can deep strike a pally squad, using draigo to do it on a 3+. you can scout them, outflank them, make them reroll ones. I wouldn't suggest outflank too often, it splits your forces up too much if they come in on the wrong side. scouting forward or rerolling 1's is a good time, and against a CC army counter attack is SICK SICK SICK. really though, reroll ones should be chosen unless you need to scout forward.

you can trade quicken (only useful in a few situations) for a servo skull or warp rift if you want

You instantly lose to good DE. just instantly. too many s8 ap2. You can try to win with holding things in reserve, using draigo to delay, coming in late, and using shrouding/going to ground on squads that will take a lot of the hits. for 2+ cover.
You pretty much auto win vs nids and assault armies without grenades.
Against everything else your goal is to move 6 inches away or towards it every turn (depending on what it is) while getting 3+ cover, having draigo take anything that is s8 for you, and putting out 32 psycannon shots and a bunch of storm bolters on the move. Your CC is redonkulous. I might not even split them up in obective missions, as having them together for the banner, to wound allocate, and to have draigo soak wounds is sooo good.

dont forget you can start with just draigo on the board, out of sight. use him to delay reserves till late, them come in in a blaze of glory when the opponent doesnt have nearly enough time to whittle you down. works with regular reserve, outflank, and deep strike.

Kill point missions? table me or i win. that simple.

remember, if they have a lot of melta, stay back and shoot them! 90% of games you can win (or at least tie) from midfield, and you can always advance turn 4-5 if you need to contest something. Just because youre bad to the bone in CC doesnt mean you should try and do it if you'll take alot of casualties.

everything is wound allocated different, so if it's not s8 (which should go on draigo first), put it on your regular guys and wound allocate. I've went games where i should be half dead, but instead i was at full strength because everyone had just taken one wound.

Anyways, its fun once you learn it, though perhaps it does take some learning. Try to stick together so both squads support each other, can focus fire, and can get shrouding and sancutuary and might, and keep everything at 2 coherency so strong templates can't bone you.

later!

Hahaha this is awesome!

The benefit of having Draigo is that any high strength low AP shots, simply allocate to him, because there is an alright chance of nothing happening (SS ftw)

How does it fare against Tau, Long Fangs and IG? Also, you mention that DE are an auto-loose because of lots S8 AP2 shots, but how about their speed, does it make a difference? I'm curious because assault armies always want to be in CC as soon as possible and they excel in it, but being brutal in CC, Paladins can deliver a mighty punch. Did you play against them? BA and DE come to mind as very fast and assaulty.

DE dont want to assault you, all those dark lances are more potent. their speed keeps them out of CC range, you pop a couple vehicles a turn but are loosing a BUNCH of models. If they try and assault you, nothing will work. I\'ve had a full incuibi AND witch squad charge me same turn, and i repelled them easy peasy. If they hit you with even more in the same turn it could be a problem, but your psycannons will just tear through transports so you should be able to ground a few squads. priority is on the vehicles with the most dark lances, but makes sure to take out 1-2 transports if you see them prepping for a big charge to prevent being overwhelmed. but paladins just arent afraid of DE assault. they use sanctuary to go first against most things, mulch a LOT of DE, and wound allocate the attacks back. you've got some 2+ and 4+ invulns, a lot of attacks, and you force weapon any multiwound beasts for MASSIVE combat rez. Even CC builds have a lot of s8 ap2 guns though, so its still a losing matchup for us

Assault BA has a really tough time with this. Halberds take out some models before they even swing(roughly 5 models before they even swing/squad!), BA doesn't have enough power weapons to put a dent in you (one powerfist goes to draigo, everything else doesn't ID and is wound allocated so you don't lose pallys) , and auto activating force weapons to deal with mephiston. everything in CC ignores FNP, and the shooting is pretty good against their tranports And dreads hate the 3 s10 thunder hammers/squad. BA is usually in the GK favor.

Long fangs usually have missiles instead of full lascannon, so aren't much of a problem. on average it take over 9 missiles to kill a paladin, and thats without draigo absorbing them. as long as you aren't in LOS and ignoring them EVERY TURN they wont be able to punch you in time. and shrouding really works against what lascannons they do have. Plus, you can just deep strike ~11 inches away from longfangs with a squad, and they wont be sitting still shooting for long, i guarantee it.

My most common opponent is actually tau, though i didn't face him in the tournament, i have played him before

9 broadside tau with multiple pathfinder squads might really hurt, but if you can kill the pathfinders early it's not bad, but other than that (which is pretty rare nowadays) they arent so tough. and really, thats just about the same as long fangs with lascannons, so use the same tactics. Their railguns are the only thing that really worries paladins, and they lack alot of s8+. You can actually outshoot them because at range most of their ranged shooting is ap4/5. if they ever close to regular plasma range, you can shoot them back, and just backpeddle so the dont get in double tap range. They key is to target pathfinders whenever possible, do NOT close in to plasma range before you've whittled their firepower down, and its pretty favorable to us. on average your army will kill a squad of 3 suits+2 drones a turn shoooting, so pretty soon theyre left without any firepower and you can mop up. While rerolling 1's is nice here, i'd usually go with scout to take midfield turn 1. This means i can literally hit the back of their board edge turn 1, so i mulch some pathfinders one pally squad kills about 6 pathfinders or so a turn while they are in cover.


I have not played this against IG. I expect it to be a similar game to tau, though harder, and my guess is it would be in IG favor, depending on the build and terrain. this is one of the few matchups splitting up makes sense for, are you pretty much have to shake/damage 4 vehicles a turn Get good angles so not a lot can shoot you, stay back till late, maybe deep strike on the side of their force if the angle is good. consider deep striking draigo as a lone wolf. by then you've killed a few transports, exposed some infantry, and draigo takes a lot of shots to take down. your opponent will either panic and send too much at your lone model, or not take him seriously where draigo can punch out some things.


A lot of armies now a days have a static shooty element with a few squads in transports that move up (long fangs/grey hunters, IG/meltavets, tau/devilfish, etc)

You basic strategy is always take care of threats by backpeddling and shooting, and mop up with CC. so just stay out of the transports range, peppering it with a LOT of s7, it goes down, you go mulch the squad. rinse repeat until they have nothing midfield. now their shootyness has to come to you, as your ahead on kp and/or have the objectives, so hunker down out of los and fight a slow attrition battle, always trying first and foremost to preserve GK instead of kill. scout really accentuates this, as you hit midfield first turn, so it's proabably better vs mech (besides, the rerolls dont work on mech). rerolling ones is better when you expect a lot of people on foot and assaults.




as a side note, the squads are probably better of with 4 halbers/2hammers that 3/3, but i roll poorly vs psychic hoods so i like to put a lot of natural high strength in my squads.

How would rate the necessity of the Librarian? If you think it's possible to put on a scale from 1 to 10 with 1 being "he's just there because I had the points" (which is obviously not the case), and 10 being "without him, this army would crumble to all except very bad lists with very bad players behind them," then please do so.

I'm mostly inquiring as to the survivability of the paladins without him. I'm going to be fielding an army that includes 10 paladins with Draigo and an OMInq using a psycannon, and was wondering what to expect.

Thanks for the detailed explanation of the army against these particular foes. It was a joy to read, and I always enjoy tactical insight.

In my (theoretical) list at 1500 I have Draigo with about 15 pallies

AND a dread knight

Do you think a dreadknight could assist your pallys out at all/ draw fire/ Heavy Psycannon kill their AP weapons/weapon squads?

Your 10 man Paladin squad goes with Draigo, then 5 man assists the Dreadknight with teleporter

Do you think DK is worth more than Lib? Lib definitely helps, but it doesn't fit in my 1500 list.

Interesting, thanks for the thoughts.

I think the librarian is a stronger choice in my list. I'd rate him about a 7/10. He's not necessary, but he takes a crude list and refines it to shore up its weaknesses. Without him, you lose to a lot more armies. He has a psychic hood for anti psyker and the GK mirror, he has sanctuary to prevent a lot of hordes from attacking first or simultaneous, shrouding blocks and extra 1/6 shots coming in, and being able to stack that might and hammerhand really gives vehicles/mcs no chance. In fact, if you put the librarian and draigo in the same squad, that squad can get EVERYONE to s8 (+1d6 armor pen). its a lot of little things, but it shores up just enough in certain matchups.

The list is certainly playable without him, but i think it does lose refinement and that solid feel of a well built list.

If i had to replace him, a DK would probably be my first choice (that and dropping some other upgrades for 2 psyflemen) You can fit in one teleporter guy with no upgrades, but think long and hard about how you're going to use him, because your list is slow, so if he goes teleporting alone he'es likely to die. a better use is probably to take a 2 gun or gun+weapon DK, and use communion to deep strike it sooner, or use a 2 gun DK as a fire platform to back up your Pallys.

Im a firm believer that lists have to be re thought up from scratch at each point level to be really good, i don't like adding to/subtracting from lists, so dont take a lot of this too seriously when talking about your 1500

I will say without two full sized squads, the importance of a libby goes down, and you should feel free to take other things. 10 paladins that are all the same usually last most of the game, let alone when they're wound allocated. then add draigo? forget it, theyre super survivable. spice up those extra points with long range dreads, tough/fast DK, or more shooting through an inquisitor.

If i took an inquisitor i would definitely make him a psyker. +2 or -2 to reserve rolls? i can hold things out for a long time or get all my reserves on 2+ turn 2? yes please!


*also remember, this is a fun local list, not a GT winner. so while i give advice on how good it is and how to make it better and what's *best* in this list, realize thats all relative, and you can definitely make stronger lists*

I´d say the libby is very important.
Giving the palis 3+ cover saves in terrain does wonders when sitting on/near objectives and simply surviving.

Also vs DE, if you start on the table you loose but what if you deepstrike with combatsquads on one flank or near their table edge, it´s a destroyed DE transport per squad that DS. If you get 3 squads in on turn 2 that means 3 DE vehicles gone with another squad waiting to DS.

Now I havent run pure paladin builds myself but would this be doable vs DE?

Deep striking is good for the alpha strike, but the problem is the randomness. First lets clear something up - with combat squads, you roll for all 10 men together, then if you get them you can deep strike both wherever you want, so no 3 squads, it's 0, 2 or 4.

I like deep striking for the alpha strike, but there are points against it.
1) limited deployment. DE can spread out FAST, and since you have nothing on the board to start, all they're going to do will be spreading out to deny safe areas to deep strike. now imagine you dont get either squad 2nd turn, or you simply started with second turn. (not hard to imagine on a 4+). The DE has had 2 turns to move anywhere he wanted, so he can basically cover anywhere on the board. a smart DE player will put his dark lances somewhere and protect them with a 24" no deep strike bubble, but even if they just spread out, it get really hard to deepstrike, and mishaps HUUUUUUURT. even if you survive and come in at the same time, your not getting them close enough for shrouding.
2)Random entry. now that you're entering on a 4+, you squads have a large chance to be split up. combines with the limited deployment area, this often means your squads will be spread out and isolated, and if they come in piecemeal, just picked off.
3)Even if it works, so what? Lets say you got everything in turn two and had good deep strike rolls in range of everything. you now have killed 4 transports. but thats like 240 points. in your list, thats less points than 4 or you paladins. that right, each and every one of your models is worth more than the transports you spent all your firepower on. (average 68.5 points per pally)

On the other hand you can have good luck, kill most dark lances, hunker down for most return fire... But even with the good luck i think it's still a losing matchup, just my opinion. reserving against them may be the better option, more testing is needed.

MJSwasey wrote:...First lets clear something up - with combat squads, you roll for all 10 men together, then if you get them you can deep strike both wherever you want, so no 3 squads, it's 0, 2 or 4...

I'm sorry for being relatively off-topic here, but this greatly effects a tactic I've been tossing around in my head. Can you combat squad them at the beginning of the game, then put 5 out on the field and keep the other 5 in reserve?

no


Edit to be more specific:

heres a short combat squad a reserve tutorial:
Combat squadding happens when you deploy. During your deployment phase you have the option to deploy or go into reserve. If you chose deploy, you are now deploying, and can combat squad or stick together. If you chose reserve, you are not deploying yet. The book says that you don't deploy from reserves until you make your roll, so you're still a 10 man unit until you successfully make their reserve roll. Once you make the reserve roll, you are now deploying, so you can combat squad, choose two separate locations, and deep strike. or you can stay as a large group.

The big take away here is that the decision to combat squad is made right before you put down models. To put down models, you have to already know if theyre coming in, and if they're in reserve or being deployed normally.

Strike squads would actually be much improved if you could deploy the half with two psycannons in a rhino and deep strike the other half, or something similar - but you can't.

I think this problem is not only present against DE but with those armies capable of firing High Strength low AP weapons (pie plates, lances, LasPlas, etc.).

As MJ just said, loosing a Paladin hurts too much to the whole army, and you only have 20 of them!

Donfer's correct - with one caveat. It has to be S8 or more AND ap2 or less to be really scary. plasma? yeah it wounds on a 2 and you only get cover, but with wound allocation you don't loose a model until you've taken 11 unsaved wounds.

yes plasma starts to hurt if you get a lot of rapid fire, but then they're in charge range....

s8? yes its scary, but only 1/6 get through your armor. and they still have to wound and hit first.

it's really only when these two get together in large numbers i get scared, and the "famous" army for this is DE, but other armies definitely CAN do it, so be on the lookout.

Agreed.

Perhaps the best way to increase survibability of both units is to decrease their numbers to say 7-8 in each unit. That would leave us with good 270+ points to play with. I don't think adding more bodies will do the trick, but some threats to force the opponent to "look the other way" might work. On the top of my head I'd go with 2 NDKs (points allowing), but one LRC/SR could also increase our mobility and durability. Thoughts?

Think the best way to strenghten the paladin build is to actually water it down with a full strike squad.

That will protect the paladins in against-all environments against all the deepstriking and podding melta that are so abundant.
Anything AP1-2 that can get into rapid fire range on deepstrike will be neutralized.

Paladins only at 1850.....

really not sure about them but my two cents for a list would be:

HQ

Kaldor Draigo
275

Grand Master Mordrak
200

Ghost Knights (5 man)
Halberds x 5
200

TROOPS

Paladin Squad (5 man)
Apothecary
Psycannons x 2
390

Paladin Squad (5 man)
Apothecary
Psycannons x 2
390

Paladin Squad (5 man)
Apothecary
Psycannons x 2
390

1845

Here Mordrak and Draigo can come down first turn, then use their psychic communion to bring down everyone else on second turn.

do you find apothecaries worth it in 5 man squads? i find even in my 10 man squads it wouldn't make any noticable difference.

4 more paladins for the cost of those Apoths.
For a 10 man squad I would be tempted, but for 5 man.....

for a 5 man squad it is much more worth it actually than a 10 man. if you have a 10 man squad and you fail armour saves then you might lose 1 or 2 wounds from 2 terminators.
If you keep doing the same on a five man squad they start dying quickly

I concur with Brother Z and Brother MJ, Apothecaries are just to expensive to include in a 5 man squad. Better have the bodies than to roll the FNP dice.

Perhaps leaving one in one squad to join Draigo, just to add extra muscle to the unit. But the other two, I rather have 7-8 paladins squads; much more scary.

I hadnt considered that, Coren. I still think the extra paladins would make up for it in wound allocated squads, but perhaps without Wound Allocation apothecaries are indeed worth it.

That may be the case Brother MJ, but it's much cheaper to achieve full wound allocation than it is to get an apothecary.

Give each Paladin different wargear and you can allocate wounds

MJSwasey wrote:
Strike squads would actually be much improved if you could deploy the half with two psycannons in a rhino and deep strike the other half, or something similar - but you can't.

Why can't you do this?