Why no Shields?

[breng77]

Termies have their advantages (they are cheaper, and scoring) but being able to take more psycannons is really what tips the balance in favor of the Paladins (now if only they were fearless)

[nurglez]

2 wounds and wound allocation shenanigans is what makes them powerful. I had a 9 man squad with Draigo get hit with paroyxm, then charged by 15-20 genestealers, take 8 wounds and lose no models, then go on to wipe out both squads on the return attacks.

 

I've also had a 5 man squad lose 2 models to shooting and run off the table...

 

Pallies are just awesome. And so much better then I thought they would be when I first played with them.

[breng77]

The issue with them is when they are good they're great, and when they are not they are terrible.(for their points). I ran some recently against a Marine list with a bunch of melta weapons and lascannons, and the paladins just melted away due to their 5+ invul save. Also with 10 paladins I would expect to beat 20 Genstealers for how much they cost (20 genstealers are 280ish points vs 550+ points of Paladins)

[Valerian]

Ultimately, adding Storm Shields to a few units could have been done without breaking the game.

 

In GKT squads "1 model may replace their Storm Bolter with a Storm Shield for +15 points, for every 5 models in the unit."

 

For a Paladin squad "2 models may replace their Storm Bolter with a Storm Shield for +25 each, for every 5 models in the unit".

 

Something like that would have worked fine. They could have even put it in the same line as the option for the special weapons, so that you'd sacrifice your ability to take a Psycannon if you chose to take the Shield.

 

Whatever, no big deal, but I agree with the OP that their absence is a glaring omission.

 

Valerian

[Liba terminatus]

Going Off those points then that would make the warding stave even more redundant :)

 

Draigo is he worst though, I ran just him against a 600pt army of space marines and draigo just facerolled them all :P

 

Edit: p.s sorry about the double post I don't know how to merge :devil:

[nurglez]

True. If they wanted terminators or power armoured to have storm sheilds, they would have. For balance issues they gave us the stave. 1 storm shield in an 11 man unit (draigo and 10 pallies) gives me a quite durable squad, the first low ap shot I get, I put on Draigo, even better it its instant death causing. Due to having 2 wounds I assign the next instant death to wounded models.

 

Storm shields would just be too powerful. We don't need them anyway using cover and shrouding, we get 3+ anyways depending on terrain.

[Souba]

Ultimately, adding Storm Shields to a few units could have been done without breaking the game.

 

In GKT squads "1 model may replace their Storm Bolter with a Storm Shield for +15 points, for every 5 models in the unit."

 

For a Paladin squad "2 models may replace their Storm Bolter with a Storm Shield for +25 each, for every 5 models in the unit".

 

Something like that would have worked fine. They could have even put it in the same line as the option for the special weapons, so that you'd sacrifice your ability to take a Psycannon if you chose to take the Shield.

 

Whatever, no big deal, but I agree with the OP that their absence is a glaring omission.

 

Valerian

 

then we would see the following :

 

10 man paladins. 4 psycannons 4 storm shields + halberds + apothecary upgrade. combat squad them. now we have a 5 man shooting squad with psycannons and a 5 man squad that runs around with terminator armor 4 stormshields and feel no pain. on top of hitting at I6 with a WS of 5 and a possible strength of 5. sorry that would just be plain broken. if you give them different weapons. wich is perfectly doable with 4 man + apo you have one unit that will be almost unstoppable for their point cost.

[thade]

Nemesis Warding Staves are more hip anyway; Storm Shields are everywhere. These glowy sticks are the new cool. And they're Force Weapons! Take that Storm Shields!

[Valerian]

then we would see the following :

 

10 man paladins. 4 psycannons 4 storm shields + halberds + apothecary upgrade. combat squad them. now we have a 5 man shooting squad with psycannons and a 5 man squad that runs around with terminator armor 4 stormshields and feel no pain. on top of hitting at I6 with a WS of 5 and a possible strength of 5. sorry that would just be plain broken. if you give them different weapons. wich is perfectly doable with 4 man + apo you have one unit that will be almost unstoppable for their point cost.

 

Did you skip over this part?

 

. They could have even put it in the same line as the option for the special weapons, so that you'd sacrifice your ability to take a Psycannon if you chose to take the Shield

 

The point was that it would be either/or, not both. Regardless, I was simply demonstrating that it would not be too hard to have included Shields while maintaining balance.

 

Valerian

[Souba]

i apologize valerian, i think i misinterpreted it a bit. still thanks to wound allocation 4 storm shields and a apothecary will make this unit too tough. SS eat away heavy ap shots and the termie armor + feel no pain takes care of the rest.

[thade]

Paladins are tough enough, as Nurglez's (and others) bat reps can tell us. Easy access to Storm Shields would have been overkill.

[nurglez]

Obviously, paladins are a very rock papers siscors army. But in my experience all the armies I have fought haven't had much success. I am het to play in a tourny or serious match up. But I shall be soon I hope.

 

My Logan wing army needs access to storm shields to survive. I have 1 for every 5 terminators on average. Paladins have kicked ass compared to my Logan wing.

 

My usual 5 man Logan wing squad is 5 terminators. With 1 storm shield, 2 combi melta, 1 fist, 1 wolf claw and a cyclone launcher. I consider this my all comers squad, and is 235 points. Throw in a drop pod so they can deepstrike and that's 270 points.

5 paladins with wound allocation (sword,3 halberds and a hammer), 1 MC weapon and 2 psycannons is 320 points, and have an extra 5 wounds and better at 24 inch shooting and assault.

 

We really don't need storm shields ;)

[Brother Valerius]

Nurglez, I've seen you mention a few times how you utilize wound allocation tricks with your paladin army. How essential do you feel this is? I ask because I have thought of running a Draigowing myself, but I hate the wound allocation rules and would refuse to design an army to benefit from what I consider to be such a badly written rule. Would a refusal to utilize that tactic cripple the army too much to make it viable?

[nurglez]

In my uber squad, 10 paladins. I have psycannon halberd, psycsnnon MC halberd, psycsnnon hammer, psycsnnon sword, 2 with halberds, sword, falchions, MC halberd, hammer. Draigo is alway attached and takes the first instant death hit and low ap hits. I spread the normal wounds out on the paladins, psycannon's getting them last. If there are any instant death hits that Draigo cant tank these will first go on wounded paladins first. Low ap normal ones go on unwounded ones and normal saves go on wounded.

 

Without wound allocation. These guys would still do ok, but not as well of course vs a mix of instant death and non instant death (where stacking will help you vastly increase their durability).

 

To me, true line of sight is annoying, you can see half of one of my terminators, you can now shoot all of them. I consider wound allocation shenanigans my way of putting up with The above rule.

[Valerian]

Nurglez, I've seen you mention a few times how you utilize wound allocation tricks with your paladin army. How essential do you feel this is? I ask because I have thought of running a Draigowing myself, but I hate the wound allocation rules and would refuse to design an army to benefit from what I consider to be such a badly written rule. Would a refusal to utilize that tactic cripple the army too much to make it viable?

 

If the 6th Edition rumors pan out, then Wound Allocation "shenanigans" are going away soon enough anyway.

 

V

[Brother Valerius]

Let us hope. Of course, to Nurglez' point, they aren't the only stupid rules in 5th ed. Way to go on making true line of sight not "true", GW...

[Whitefireinferno]

Complaining about TLOS as a Marine player is somewhat pointless IMO even our biggish things like termies are pretty small next to the Likes of Nid warriors Tau crisis suits and such sure they are not the best of rules but it really should not be that big of a issue for us sine other armies get to deal with Vastly bigger minis. other than the rules that have been rumoured for 6th for me will be a game killer.