Grey Knights Paladins?

[Captain Antargo]

So I have decided to start Grey knights and want to start with Paladins any tactics or strategies and how would you use or recommend using them?

[techsoldaten]

Yeah, I would take them.

 

Standard disclaimer: Grey Knights are 40k on hard mode. You will have an easier time with other armies.

 

Paladins are an expensive unit. With Terminator armor, force weapons, psychic powers and 3 wounds per model, you are only going to have so many of them in your force. They come standard in units of 3 and can be expanded to 10.

 

When I play Paladins, I take them in units of 8 - 10. That means you are getting ~40 bolter shots and one smite from the unit itself. I buff the unit with 1 (or 2) Apothecaries, a Paladin Ancient, and an HQ - usually Draigo. The Apothecaries are there to restore wounds to the Paladins, Draigo is there to give them rerolls to hit, and the Ancient is there to give them an extra attack. That brings you up to 56 bolter shots and 4 smites per turn, which is a decent amount of offense.

 

I equip mine with 5 Force Swords and 5 Daemon Hammers. This makes the unit effective against Vehicles and Infantry. I also give the Apothecaries Hammers, which is often important. I usually give the Ancient the Curlass relic to ignore wounds on a 5+. For psychic powers, I give everyone Sanctuary, Hammerhand or Astral Aim. Gate of Infinity is useless when you have to move 5 units at a time and Vortex of Doom has never really worked for me.

 

Then I take at least 2 Assassins - Vindicare is the best. Their job is to kill HQs from range and attract the attention of your opponent. It's very important that they do, your Paladins are not fast so you need to give other armies a reason to come towards them. If you can deploy on top of an objective, do so.

 

For deployment, they can go on the board or the teleport chamber. In general, if I'm facing a horde, it's better to deploy to the table. Deep strike can be tough when you are putting aside points for assassins, the Paladins + characters will often add up to more than half your points. Sometimes you have to pick a character to start on the table and give him Gate of Infinity to get into position.

 

This is not a deathstar, it's more like a death-streetlight. You will lose Paladins over the course of the game, you just won't lose them as fast as other units. Just remember that, at half strength, this is still a very potent melee unit. Keep your HQs alive as long as possible, those buffs are necessary to keep the pain train rolling. I usually won't fight with mine unless it's a heroic intervention.

[Holier Than Thou]

I’ve got to admit, I think that’s terrible advice. I love my Paladins, I always try to have a unit of them but your advice is to put over half your points (assuming 2k list) into basically a single blob of models (including Draigo and the others) that have a 5” move, 24” max shooting range and 12” smite range. And you even say that sometimes you’ll start them on the board!!!

 

Any semi-competent player will just keep anything of value away from them, maybe occasionally being in storm Bolter range, and bam, you’ve wasted half your points.

 

Also, taking at least 2 assassins. Unless you take an Execution Force with all 4, that’s costing you 2 command points per assassin. With all those points invested in those elites choices, that’s giving you a Vanguard Detachment and Battleforged. 4 command points total, which you’ve just used.

 

Sorry, but I just can’t agree with anything you’ve recommended.

 

Also, minor nitpicks but you say you get 56 stormbolter shots from that massive unit but Apothecaries don’t get a ranged weapon. And a unit can only be healed by a single Apothecary per turn, it sounds like you are using both.

[IronDreddKnight]

I must admit I have seen, the strategy that techsoldaten has shown, being adopted more and more over the last year.

 

Like everything, it’s got it’s pros and cons, I personally think it’s a great platform for psybolt stratagem. The look on you’re opponents face when you roll 40 heavy bolter shots is hilarious.

 

How do you play you’re paladins Holier Than Thou?

[techsoldaten]

I’ve got to admit, I think that’s terrible advice. I love my Paladins, I always try to have a unit of them but your advice is to put over half your points (assuming 2k list) into basically a single blob of models (including Draigo and the others) that have a 5” move, 24” max shooting range and 12” smite range. And you even say that sometimes you’ll start them on the board!!!

 

Any semi-competent player will just keep anything of value away from them, maybe occasionally being in storm Bolter range, and bam, you’ve wasted half your points.

 

Also, taking at least 2 assassins. Unless you take an Execution Force with all 4, that’s costing you 2 command points per assassin. With all those points invested in those elites choices, that’s giving you a Vanguard Detachment and Battleforged. 4 command points total, which you’ve just used.

 

Sorry, but I just can’t agree with anything you’ve recommended.

 

Also, minor nitpicks but you say you get 56 stormbolter shots from that massive unit but Apothecaries don’t get a ranged weapon. And a unit can only be healed by a single Apothecary per turn, it sounds like you are using both.

 

Sure. As with all things Grey Knights, opinions vary.

 

What got me into playing Paladins was this Grey Knights tournament victory. The winner brought Paladins, Land Raiders, a Purgation Squad, and other units that don't normally find their way into 8th edition GK lists.

 

As you mentioned, most people would just try to avoid the unit, but killing 10 Paladins at range is actually kind of hard. Having them screen the warlord and assassins ensures they can't be ignored, and Apothecaries give them a chance to bring back fallen models. So it's a pretty durable unit with slightly-above average shooting and excellent melee.

 

Paladins do not make Grey Knights competitive, just sufferable. The units I listed are good for creating a firebase, sniping HQs, tossing around smites, grabbing objectives, gunning down infantry and hammering tanks / Knights. Make sure they are properly supported. I get a lot more out of them using Guard allies instead of a mono-GK list, piling infantry squads / HWTs behind them with Basilisks / LRs in support creates a decent list.

 

With regards to the Apothecaries - I usually bring more than one. For whatever reason, the Apothecary is always the first to die.

 

With regards to the range - deep strike into the middle of the board. Most things will be in range the turn you arrive. If you can, stick them next to a building and use Astral Aim to blow something away. Absolutely pisses people off when you do that.

[Holier Than Thou]

I just think it’s a helluva lot of points for a relatively small threat range that, because of it’s lack of speed, can also quite easily be completely negated.

 

I usually use 5, hammer on the Paragon, backed up by a Grand Master and an Apothecary so similar strategy but it’s less than a quarter of my points and doesn’t lose out much on rerolls (reroll 1s instead of 1s and 2s) and they really don’t need any extra attacks. Anything they can reach in combat has usually been softened up with stormbolters so 3 attacks each from the Paladins is usually enough to get the job done. It also leaves me a lot more to use on other threats so the Paladins aren’t the obvious target.

[Corvus Fortis]

Paladins are best in missions, where they have to secure point. With hail of bolts they will kill anything that gets in range and with 2+/4++ and constat revive they can be very hard to remove. They are still very vulnerable to damage 3 weapons, but they are not as common as D2. Bolter Discipine helped them alot and 4 psilencers are nice too. If you are short on points, you can bring 7-8 paladins instead of 10, and they are still ok. They are best against armies, that want to get in close range themselves, but GoI can still compensate for low mobility.  

[IronDreddKnight]

Hopefully grey knight chaplains also benefit from the new litanies, having those buffs on a big squad of paladins would be sweet. Imagine 40 storm bolter shots with psybolt strat and +1 to wound..

[TheGoldenThrone]

Now that Primaris Mk X Gravis armour units (Aggressors, Inceptors) have joined the 3W club, what might this mean for the future of our Paladins?

[Holier Than Thou]

Now that Primaris Mk X Gravis armour units (Aggressors, Inceptors) have joined the 3W club, what might this mean for the future of our Paladins?

Absolutely nothing. We will be left in the dirt as always. It would have been so easy to give us the Doctrines, we are Astartes too after all, but instead we got the bare minimum again.

[Corvus Fortis]

Other Astartes didn't get doctrines too, and deathwatch got only repulsor executioner out of all the new primaris. Not even Impulsor!

 

We need just wait for an update now. But I'm pretty sure they won't bring anything really good, unless they don't want to sell new models. But we can be playable after our codex update.

 

What bothers me is how long we will be in a hanging state. The next month there will be dark angels. This, probably, means that other first founding boys will be released before GK. I won't expect anything before winter.

 

And hey, next Big FAQ is not so far away! Let's see, how they will nerf us this time. 

[Holier Than Thou]

Other Astartes didn't get doctrines too, and deathwatch got only repulsor executioner out of all the new primaris. Not even Impulsor!

 

We need just wait for an update now. But I'm pretty sure they won't bring anything really good, unless they don't want to sell new models. But we can be playable after our codex update.

 

What bothers me is how long we will be in a hanging state. The next month there will be dark angels. This, probably, means that other first founding boys will be released before GK. I won't expect anything before winter.

 

And hey, next Big FAQ is not so far away! Let's see, how they will nerf us this time.

Yes, but why didn’t they? Why didn’t GW look at us, and SW, and the other Astartes factions and go “Wow, these guys are really suffering. Why don’t we give them the Doctrines too, as a temporary boost, until we’re ready to release a new Codex.” If they honestly thought giving us an extra attack for the first round of combat was enough then they are worse at understanding their own game than we give them credit for. If not, then as I said, they’ve given us the bare minimum as always.

[Matt_149]

Or they are getting a codex soon and think if they give them all the rules for free no one will buy the codex?

[Holier Than Thou]

Or they are getting a codex soon and think if they give them all the rules for free no one will buy the codex?

Yeah, good one. If the Doctrines are the extent of changes for the eventual new Codex then I don’t think anyone will be buying it anyway.

[Corvus Fortis]

 If they honestly thought giving us an extra attack for the first round of combat was enough then they are worse at understanding their own game than we give them credit for.

 

 

I doubt, GW even care about understanding of their own game. As far as it doesn't affect the sales. And GW sales grow every year, so everything is fine for them. Why would they bother with temporal rules? I must admit, that we are getting a lot from Shock Assault. Probably more, than all other astartes.

 

I think, non-vanilla codex is getting their own special traits. Probably, we could recieve Psybolt ammunition as a special rule? Or get exceptions from matched play rules? We are getting an update, 100%, but when and how good will it be? I doubt, it will be good, because they don't want to sell us intercessors.

 

What really bothers me is why? Why don't they want to sell more models to GK? If they don't want to support GK, they could just merge our models in codex: SM, like they did with BT. They could do it twice! Can we get inquisition book with all other agents of the imperium, deathwatch and GK in it?

[techsoldaten]

*sigh*

 

There are 3 kinds of Grey Knights players:

 

- The ones who optimistically look forward to the next rules update, hoping GW will spread a little sunshine on the faction.

 

- The ones who pessimistically look at all the previous rules updates, realizing GW has no plans that include the 666th legion.

 

- The ones who love the models and the lore and keep playing no matter what.

 

We all showed up in this thread. At least we have that.