Paladin Wound Allocation

[Doomaflatchi]

Recently, I've seen several markedly different lines of thought for how to kit out our Paladins. So, I wanted to pose the question separately, in an effort to get a more specialized group consensus on the pros and cons. Simply put, is it worth it to kit out our Paladin squads to take advantage of the wound allocation rules?

 

On the one hand (and please understand that I'm paraphrasing these positions), having a mostly unified equipment loadout (like one Daemonhammer and the rest as Halberds) gives the squad a unity of purpose in terms of battlefield role, and generally adds to their ability to deal damage in close combat.

 

On the other hand, kitting out each Paladin differently adds to their survivability, allowing the squad to take multiple wounds without any loss in effective killing power. However, this results in a lesser level of initial offensive capability, as they can't, for example, routinely wipe the entire enemy squad before being struck back.

 

Which do you guys use for your squads? What are some of the more detailed pros and cons of each that I've missed? Where should each be used, and which should become the staple? When is it worth it to equip them each way?

[Aidoneus]

If I were to use Paladins, each squad would look like this:

 

1: MC-Psycannon, Sword

2: MC-Psyannon, Halberd

3: Sword

4: Halberd

5: Daemonhammer (possibly MC)

 

This gives you 5 unique models, 8 master-crafted psycannon shots on the move, and a decent amount of both I6 and 4++ in combat, with the hammer to take care of big things.

 

Of course, this is all moot, as I would never take Paladins. Clever wound allocation and fancy NFWs won't help you against lascannons and melta. For my 330-odd points, I'd much rather take a squad and a half of Purifiers or Strikeknights, or even a kitted-out squad of Interceptors.

[Drudge Dreadnought]

Unless you are playing Apoc, I think any unit that costs as much as a paladin squad is going to need to be generalized to fullfill multiple roles. I'd try to get the most out of the wound allocation. This doesn't mean you can't have plenty of halberds, though. You could have a 5 man squad like this: Apoth with halberd, Special weapon+halberd, Stormbolter+halberd, Banner+special, Hammer.

[Zagman]

Ok, I run a Driago/Paladin/Dreadknight army. I have found Paladins to be surprisingly good. I expected my army to be fun, yet non competitive. It is proving to hold its own against many armies thanks to wound allocation(especially with Driago in their squad), and Target saturation for enemy AT. And... it is hilarious when your opponent uses missile spam for their AT, Long Fangs watch out.

 

I run my Paladins as such:

Psycannon + Daemon Hammer

Psycannon + Falshions

Sword

Halberd

Falshions

 

At 2k I have 3 of those units. Wound allocation is absolutely amazing. For examply, I had a squad equipped like this with Driago take the assault from a bloodbrides unit with FC, 3 Hydra Gauntlets, and an attatched Archon. I took 5 wounds, and NO CASUALTIES wiping them to a man(woman). I've also take a large multiassault from two moderate sized orc units, and survived with minimal casualties.

 

Paladins have no need to be equipped with a single setup such as DH and Halberds. I have also found the extra attack from the falshions to be a great fit, as nothing that is striking at I6/I5 is likely to be hurt by our S5 attacks. Fists, Claws, DCCWs, all are striking at Either I1, or are attached to to something we cannot hurt until I1 Daemon Hammer strikes anyways. Swords and Falshions have been more effective for me to date as the additional attacks and teh 4++ in CC go along ways towards survivability and damage potential.

 

Being a mobile Psycannon platform cannot be underrated. GKSS, GKIS, GKPS have a greatly reduced effectiveness when moving and shooting, paladins do not suffer this penalty and due to wound allocation will rarely lose a psycannon early.

 

The main reason I chose to run 5 different loadouts for each paladin is that I wanted an army of Heroes, each the rough inequivalent of an opponent HQ. My Heroes of Titan Army is a blast to play and can cause some serious headaches as most opponents won't be able to field enough S8+ AP2- to dish out damage fast enough(IG and their undercosted spammable Meltavets, Demolishers and Medusas aside).

 

PS. With wound allocation the Apothecary becomes a worthless upgrade. Small arms fire and non PF/PW equivelent CC attacks shouldn't scare a properly tooled out paladin squad. Certainly not enough to wast 75pt for an upgrade which will not increase your survivability against the most common and effective attacks directed at you.

[thor1234]

on the other hand an apothecary is a MUST if you are like me and end up passing more FNP saves than 2+ saves :)

without an apothecary or two my pallies would be slaughtered by small arms fire! in one of my recent games i took 24 wounds from dire avengers bladestorming i rolled 9 1's!!! and would have lost 2 pallies, 3 wounds off Draigo and afew wounded guys the apothecary reduced that to ONLY DRAIO TAKING A SINGLE WOUND!!!!!!! that 75pt upgrade paid for itself in one round of shooting......

[StormTAG]

For an apoth to pay for himself, you need to make two FNP saves. Plus, he gets to keep his NFW, so he can still beat down in CC.

 

For example, if you like Falchions, you can have a squad like this...

 

Paladin; Falchions, Stormbolter

Paladin; Falchions, Psycannon

Paladin; Falchions, Narthecium

Paladin; MC Falchions, Stormbolter

Paladin; MC Falchions, Psycannon

Paladin; MC Falchions, MC Stormbolter

Paladin; MC Falchions, MC Psycannon

Paladin; Brotherhood Banner, Stormbolter

Paladin; MC Daemonhammer, Psycannon

Paladin; MC Daemon Hammer, Stormbolter

 

On a charge, this unit would have 35 Init 4 Forceweapon attacks, 4 Init 4 regular attacks and 8 Daemonhammer attacks and they're all unique. You spend 40 points on master crafting, which keeps them all unique.

 

Of course, you might get Dread-socked for this kind of tomfoolery. ;)

[krewl]

No you would not, as every other player in the universe would see that this unit is a blob of 750-ish points (From memory) which is a 3rd or even half of a normal army size in 1 unit (which at best could combat squad in 2 units (but you would lose FnP on half) to target 2 things.

 

That could be 30 bodies of GKSS or fully kitted 2 interceptors or so many other things. Apart from the other stuff you could buy for that, I think you would suffer most from the fact that you are to killy. Whatever you hit dies, even your shooting would usually be overkill. (With 16 rending shots alone not to mention the stormbolters).

That would also bring you into a lot of situation where your shots kill so much that a propper opponent removes closest models, stealing away your charge a lot.

 

CC is even worse, I can not imagine a unit that would take that ammount of attacks and still be standing, leaving you open to shooting in their turn every time.

 

Also an apothecary would need to provide 4 FnP saves to pay back for itself, you need 4 failed saves to lose 2 guys which would be over his points costs.

Shots that take away 2 wounds would negate FnP anyways so they are useless there. (but then I might be biased as I seem to fail FnP a lot more then 50% on say my deathwing ;) )

I feel the FnP is overpriced here.

[Cpt. Blood Donator]

There is nothing funny about being woundede with a missile launcher if you're a paladin.

[Zagman]

There is nothing funny about being woundede with a missile launcher if you're a paladin.

 

Long term you are twice as survivable against Missile Launchers than you are against Plasma wounds. When they are spamming MLs for AT, those lists tend not to have enough AP1/2 shooting.

[StormTAG]

No you would not, as every other player in the universe would see that this unit is a blob of 750-ish points (From memory) which is a 3rd or even half of a normal army size in 1 unit (which at best could combat squad in 2 units (but you would lose FnP on half) to target 2 things.

 

870 if I remember right specifically. 890 with Psybolt, which would be a sound investment for the mother of all Deathstars. ^_^

 

However, Deathstars are Deathstars for a purpose. If you can't run them well, don't.

 

All the rest of your criticisms of the squad a spot on. No arguments here. It was mainly an exercise to see just how many of a single type of weapon I could cram into a Paladin unit while maintaining Uniqueness for Wound Allocation silliness.

 

 

Also an apothecary would need to provide 4 FnP saves to pay back for itself, you need 4 failed saves to lose 2 guys which would be over his points costs.

 

Quite correct.

 

However, depending on the army, the FNP can seriously improve the Paladin's survivability. Against Ork Boy Mobs, for example...

 

Charging Boy attacks needed to kill a Paladin: 1/2 hit, 1/2 wound, 1/6 fail saves, 2 wounds = 48 attacks

Charging Boy attacks needed to kill a Paladin w/ FNP: 1/2 hit, 1/2 wound, 1/6 fail saves, 1/2 fail FNP save, 2 wounds = 96 attacks

 

Lasguns are even better...

 

Guardsmen Lasgun shots needed to kill a Paladin: 1/2 hit, 1/3 wound, 1/6 fail save, 2 wounds = 72 Lasguns

Guardsmen Lasgun shots needed to kill a Paladin w/ FNP: 1/2 hit, 1/3 wound, 1/6 fail save, 1/2 fail FNP save, 2 wounds = 144 lasguns

 

You need a platoon of 5 squads under Rank Fire at less than 12" to get that kind of fire volume (Each 10 man squad has 9 lasguns firing thrice and 1 las pistol = 28 shots)

 

Of course, there's some Plasmaguns in there which screw up the math, but you get the picture.

 

'Nid firing is similar since so little of it is AP 1/2 or Str 8.

 

So for those folks who put 180 Ork Boys on the table, led by a Warlord who goes WAAAAGHHH!! Paladin FNP is definitely useful. ^_^

[mlund]

Having played with Vindicators for years makes me wary about investing too heavily in Paladins. It is way too easy to lose 200+ points to a single Demolisher Cannon shot.

 

- Marty Lund

[Cpt. Blood Donator]

There is nothing funny about being woundede with a missile launcher if you're a paladin.

 

Long term you are twice as survivable against Missile Launchers than you are against Plasma wounds. When they are spamming MLs for AT, those lists tend not to have enough AP1/2 shooting.

 

I was thinking that a paladin goes down to a roll of 1 against a missile launcher, and is then instagibbed with no FNP as it cannot be used against str 8 weapons if you're a marine.

[Aidoneus]

I was thinking that a paladin goes down to a roll of 1 against a missile launcher, and is then instagibbed with no FNP as it cannot be used against str 8 weapons if you're a marine.

Right. 1 out of every 9 missile launchers shot at a unit of Paladins will kill a model. 1 of every 6 Paladins hit by a battle cannon die. Lascannons and melta are killing slightly more than 1 for every 3 shots, while demolisher cannons kill 2 of every 3 Paladins they hit.

 

These all ignore Apothecaries. These all insta-kill.

 

Before taking Paladins then, I suppose the question you need to ask yourself is "Do my opponents tend to have a decent amount of missile launchers, lascannons, melta, or S8+ blast weapons?" If so, Paladins simply aren't worth the huge points expenditure.

[Brother Valerius]

I was thinking that a paladin goes down to a roll of 1 against a missile launcher, and is then instagibbed with no FNP as it cannot be used against str 8 weapons if you're a marine.

Right. 1 out of every 9 missile launchers shot at a unit of Paladins will kill a model. 1 of every 6 Paladins hit by a battle cannon die. Lascannons and melta are killing slightly more than 1 for every 3 shots, while demolisher cannons kill 2 of every 3 Paladins they hit.

 

These all ignore Apothecaries. These all insta-kill.

 

Before taking Paladins then, I suppose the question you need to ask yourself is "Do my opponents tend to have a decent amount of missile launchers, lascannons, melta, or S8+ blast weapons?" If so, Paladins simply aren't worth the huge points expenditure.

 

Why 1 out of 9 missile launchers? I follow you for the rest of the examples, but not that one.

[Cpt. Blood Donator]

Mathhammer:

 

9 shots, 6 hits, 5-6 wounds, 1 unsaved. Assuming marines are doing the shooting.

 

I wouldn't take that unit against Blood Angels ever I might add. All squads have like 2 meltaguns or inferno pistols, would not be pretty.

 

Edit:

Might as well add that I see no point in the squad, as they will either kill anything they shoot at, and never get to charge, or just kill anything it charges and

take a full round of shooting. Against combat squaded marines, they'd be killing like 110 points per turn. Another option is to quite simply ignore them, as

most armies in either rhinos, eldar-boats or on jump packs will easily do. So what if they off some marine as there will only be 3 other squads of GKS on the table?

[StormTAG]

2/3 hit, needs a 2 to wound and is saved on a 2+, so... 9 shots, 7.5 wound,

 

1 = X * (2/3) * (5/6) * (1/6)

1 = X * 10/108

 

About 11ish

 

So, not sure where 1/9 comes from either.

[Aidoneus]

So, not sure where 1/9 comes from either.

It comes from me forgetting that missile launchers still need to roll to-wound. ;) My mathhammer has just been off lately. So yeah, it's closer to 1/11. Sorry 'bout that.

 

My inability to do simple arithmetic notwithstanding, it's still way too easy to insta-gib Paladins.

[Chairman_woo]

There is nothing funny about being woundede with a missile launcher if you're a paladin.

 

Long term you are twice as survivable against Missile Launchers than you are against Plasma wounds. When they are spamming MLs for AT, those lists tend not to have enough AP1/2 shooting.

 

I was thinking that a paladin goes down to a roll of 1 against a missile launcher, and is then instagibbed with no FNP as it cannot be used against str 8 weapons if you're a marine.

 

You still get the 2+ save ;)

[Cpt. Blood Donator]

^ Yeah. I thought wounded sort of implied that save got failed. Otherwise it wouldn't suck that hard ^^