DarkLink
05-25-2011, 12:30 AM
I've seen a couple articles discussing this around the web, so I though I'd add my opinion. I haven't played around with Paladins too much, but I have taken either Paladins or Terminators in every list I've played.
Shooting
So first off, the gold standard for GK shooting is 'how many psycannons can you get'. You need 10 Terminators to get 2 psycannons, at a minimum of 450pts. For 315, on the other hand, you can get 5 Paladins with 2 Psycannons. Plus those psycannons can be master crafted.
Now, you also have to consider storm bolters, but honestly foot Terminators will probably spend most of their shooting trying to pop vehicles. Once you've popped said vehicles, the Terminators will have walked far forward enough to assault something (or possibly get killed off, but that tends to take a big investment of your opponent's firepower over multiple turns, often trapping them in their own deployment zone which is very good for you). If you want Storm Bolters, take GKSS. They're cheaper, and you also happen to get a better psycannon density alongside it.
So here, Paladins win. I'd rather fit more psycannons into fewer points, and have more points to buy storm bolters and more psycannons in other units than have one big unit of storm bolters wasted on vehicles they can't hurt.
Oh, and you can cast Holocaust to make up for the lack of storm bolters when shooting infantry with Paladins, btw. And you have to worry less about Perils since you have 2 wounds on everything.
Assault
For our purposes, we'll compare 5 Paladins and 10 Terminators. Just keep in mind that the Paladins are significantly cheaper, so you'll have more shooting and more CC attacks elsewhere in your army. You could also buy ~3 more Paladins and have roughly the same overall cost. But, anyways...
5 Paladins with 4 Halberds and 1 Hammer get 8 WS5 I6 attacks base plus one Daemonhammer, while 10 Terminators get 16 WS4 I6 attacks plus 2 Daemonhammers. Win for the Terminators against big scary enemy units, but it won't matter much against weaker opponents like a shot-up Tactical Squad or Eldar Guardians.
I think the answer here relies on the rest of your list. If you have other good combat units, like Purifiers or other Terminators, you don't need to have a single CC unit of death like the 10 Terminators. Just be careful with your 5 Paladins, and you should be fine. Also, if you have a Librarian you can give the Paladins Falchions and use Quicksilver, and now you have just as many I10 attacks as the Terminators would, at WS5 to boot. And since Paladins are more durable than Terminators to things that strike at I4+, you are more likely to survive with full attacks back despite not hitting first.
On the other hand, if you sacrifice a bit of shooting and spend some extra points, 10 Terminators supported by a Librarian or Grand Master can march up the middle of the board and just dare anything to assault them. Some armies simply can't deal with a unit like this. I played a game against 'nidz where I shot up the only thing that could hurt me (genestealers), and then literally walked through the rest of his army with my Terminators backed up by a GM with grenades.
So here, it's a tie that depends on what the rest of your list looks like. Some lists will benefit more from the 10 Terminators, while others can make better use of the greater psycannon density.
Durability
I've mostly used Terminators so far because I've been concerned that against certain opponents like DE and IG, Paladins would just get ID'd into non-existance. While that is still the case, my experience against these armies has led me to reconsider how bad that might be.
First off, you need to take the Shrouding. Then, you need to learn how to generate cover saves on the go, as Shrouding only grants either Stealth or a 6+ cover save. If you know what you're doing, then you should be able to get 3+ cover against most of your opponent's army easily.
That said, there are two differences between Paladins and Terminators. Paladins are more vulnerable to ID, but lose firepower more slowly than Terminators when you fail saves. They also have a smaller footprint so it is easier to spread out and avoid blasts while keeping in cover and giving the rest of your army room to maneuver.
Terminators, on the other hand, don't care as much about str8+ shooting. However in my experience, most of my casualties come from failed armor saves, not from str8+. I occasionally lose a guy from a lascannon/darklance, but usually not before I've taken casualties from normal shooting. As a result, you'll likely have Paladins with only one wound left that you can dump the str8+ shot on to minimize the effect of ID. And you should still be getting 3+ cover most of the time.
Secondly, I actually want my opponent shooting his heavy weapons at my Paladin/Terminators. The reason I don't usually take many casualties from these weapons is because they are all either Shaken/Stunned, or shooting at my Psyrifle Dreads. This kills my Psyrifle Dreads, which hurts my firepower more than losing a Paladin with a Storm Bolter would, so I'd rather keep my Psyrifle Dreads in the fight. It also keeps my opponent from shooting my Rhino/Razorbacks, meaning I can retain my 3+ cover saves for longer, as well as all the other benefits of Rhinos.
Ultimately this comes down to target saturation. You don't shoot Paladins with anti-infantry guns, you shoot them with anti-tank guns. Ones that would also have to shoot Rhinos and Psyrifle Dreads. My opponent has too many things to shoot with too few guns, which not only distributes the damage across my army more evenly which mitigates any loss of effectiveness but can also drive my opponent to make mistakes. He's basically stuck between a rock and a hard place. If he shoots my Paladins, my vehicles are untouched. If he shoots my Psyrifle Dreads, then my Paladins and Rhinos are unharmed. While Terminators do this to a lesser extent, their lack of vulnerability to ID weapons is less likely to mess up my opponent's decision-making process.
And again, point cost is an important factor here. 7-8 Paladins with 2 psycannons are tougher but cost the same as 10 Terminators. Or, you can buy another Psyrifle Dread if you drop the 10 Terminators down to 5 Paladins.
All in all, Terminators are a little more resilient, but well-played Paladins should be nearly as tough while being a fair bit cheaper. So again, it depends on what you need. Do you need to soak up a ton of heavy firepower, or do you need to save the points for something else. Against certain armies (mainly IG, since their heavy weapons are tougher to silence than DE guns), Terminators are worth more here, but against most armies I think Paladins get by just fine.
Keep in mind that if you take Driago, you can just dump wounds on him thanks to his 3++ and Eternal Warrior. Fact: Driago doesn't block Lascannon shots with his shield. He blocks them with his face, then carves his name in his opponent's heart.
Scoring
Here's a biggie. Terminators score by default, Paladins don't.
Now, since I'm talking about a single unit in the army, as opposed to Driagowing or something, we'll assume you have several other scoring units in your army. Driagowing works somewhat differently since your entire army is in Terminator armor.
There are two ways to make Paladins scoring, Driago and a Grand Master's Grand Strategy. Driago is a bit too expensive to justify for just a single unit of Paladins (don't get me wrong, he's a beast, but he doesn't have the Shrouding and he doesn't have rad/psykotroke grenades, and he's expensive enough to make it very difficult to fit either into your list if you take him). I wouldn't consider Driago for normal game, save him for playing Driagowing lists.
A GM, on the other hand, can use his Grand Strategy to make d3 units scoring. I'm not a fan of relying on this, for a couple reasons. First off, GMs are expensive, and Librarians are expensive, and you probably can't fit all this stuff into one list. I wouldn't take a GM just to make Paladins scoring. Secondly, every time you make Paladins score is a time you're not scouting or rerolling to wound or counter assaulting. Paying 200pts just to make Paladins score isn't all that great, though at least you get grenades and a good wound-soak to go with it. Not saying the GM is bad by any means, just that both options for making Paladins score is a bit sub-optimal.
So from here the Terminators have a big advantage. You don't need to worry about scoring or taking a certain HQ or anything.
However...
As often as not, my Terminators don't survive the end of the game. I usually march them up the field (using whatever I can to generate cover along the way), getting whittled down a little bit at a time under the weight of most of my opponent's firepower. I then assault the first thing I can get close to. Rinse and repeat.
As a result, the Terminators and often my HQs are dead around Turn 6. It takes a massive amount of effort on my opponent's part to do this usually, and as I mentioned before it can completely trap some armies in their deployment zone (particularly razorback spam lists, who tend to have to sit still and shoot to maximize their firepower). That means that I control pretty much everything outside my opponent's deployment zone, while he's pinned down and unable to move against me effectively.
As a result, I often don't use my Terminators to score. That means that the difference between Terminators and Paladins here isn't too important when you use them aggressively. Let the other units in your army claim objectives. The Terminators/Paladins will be the ones taking those objectives, and so what if they die in the process.
So, once again Terminators have a slight advantage, but a slight one so long as you have adequate scoring in the rest of your army.
As a result, I've decided to start playing Paladins more often due to their greater Psycannon density. 5-6 Paladins can do the same job as 10 Terminators, for cheaper. More or less. We'll see as playtesting goes on, but I wouldn't be surprised if I end up sticking with Paladins over Terminators in the long run.
Edit: Oh, and btw, I mentioned that I lose more of my Terminators to small arms fire than heavy AT? That includes Razorback spam lists with meltas in every squad, Dark Eldar Dark Lance spam and IG with triple Manticores. And in my first couple games I played Paladins, my opponent did not kill a single Paladin via shooting with his space Wolves. He literally killed every single Paladin with JotWW, thanks to my ability to roll really high on initiative tests, the fact that I took fewer Dreads with Reinforced Aegis back then, and that I was using a Grand Master instead of a Librarian so I didn't have a psychic hood.
And one other thing? The Apothecary upgrade is retarded. Don't bother.
Shooting
So first off, the gold standard for GK shooting is 'how many psycannons can you get'. You need 10 Terminators to get 2 psycannons, at a minimum of 450pts. For 315, on the other hand, you can get 5 Paladins with 2 Psycannons. Plus those psycannons can be master crafted.
Now, you also have to consider storm bolters, but honestly foot Terminators will probably spend most of their shooting trying to pop vehicles. Once you've popped said vehicles, the Terminators will have walked far forward enough to assault something (or possibly get killed off, but that tends to take a big investment of your opponent's firepower over multiple turns, often trapping them in their own deployment zone which is very good for you). If you want Storm Bolters, take GKSS. They're cheaper, and you also happen to get a better psycannon density alongside it.
So here, Paladins win. I'd rather fit more psycannons into fewer points, and have more points to buy storm bolters and more psycannons in other units than have one big unit of storm bolters wasted on vehicles they can't hurt.
Oh, and you can cast Holocaust to make up for the lack of storm bolters when shooting infantry with Paladins, btw. And you have to worry less about Perils since you have 2 wounds on everything.
Assault
For our purposes, we'll compare 5 Paladins and 10 Terminators. Just keep in mind that the Paladins are significantly cheaper, so you'll have more shooting and more CC attacks elsewhere in your army. You could also buy ~3 more Paladins and have roughly the same overall cost. But, anyways...
5 Paladins with 4 Halberds and 1 Hammer get 8 WS5 I6 attacks base plus one Daemonhammer, while 10 Terminators get 16 WS4 I6 attacks plus 2 Daemonhammers. Win for the Terminators against big scary enemy units, but it won't matter much against weaker opponents like a shot-up Tactical Squad or Eldar Guardians.
I think the answer here relies on the rest of your list. If you have other good combat units, like Purifiers or other Terminators, you don't need to have a single CC unit of death like the 10 Terminators. Just be careful with your 5 Paladins, and you should be fine. Also, if you have a Librarian you can give the Paladins Falchions and use Quicksilver, and now you have just as many I10 attacks as the Terminators would, at WS5 to boot. And since Paladins are more durable than Terminators to things that strike at I4+, you are more likely to survive with full attacks back despite not hitting first.
On the other hand, if you sacrifice a bit of shooting and spend some extra points, 10 Terminators supported by a Librarian or Grand Master can march up the middle of the board and just dare anything to assault them. Some armies simply can't deal with a unit like this. I played a game against 'nidz where I shot up the only thing that could hurt me (genestealers), and then literally walked through the rest of his army with my Terminators backed up by a GM with grenades.
So here, it's a tie that depends on what the rest of your list looks like. Some lists will benefit more from the 10 Terminators, while others can make better use of the greater psycannon density.
Durability
I've mostly used Terminators so far because I've been concerned that against certain opponents like DE and IG, Paladins would just get ID'd into non-existance. While that is still the case, my experience against these armies has led me to reconsider how bad that might be.
First off, you need to take the Shrouding. Then, you need to learn how to generate cover saves on the go, as Shrouding only grants either Stealth or a 6+ cover save. If you know what you're doing, then you should be able to get 3+ cover against most of your opponent's army easily.
That said, there are two differences between Paladins and Terminators. Paladins are more vulnerable to ID, but lose firepower more slowly than Terminators when you fail saves. They also have a smaller footprint so it is easier to spread out and avoid blasts while keeping in cover and giving the rest of your army room to maneuver.
Terminators, on the other hand, don't care as much about str8+ shooting. However in my experience, most of my casualties come from failed armor saves, not from str8+. I occasionally lose a guy from a lascannon/darklance, but usually not before I've taken casualties from normal shooting. As a result, you'll likely have Paladins with only one wound left that you can dump the str8+ shot on to minimize the effect of ID. And you should still be getting 3+ cover most of the time.
Secondly, I actually want my opponent shooting his heavy weapons at my Paladin/Terminators. The reason I don't usually take many casualties from these weapons is because they are all either Shaken/Stunned, or shooting at my Psyrifle Dreads. This kills my Psyrifle Dreads, which hurts my firepower more than losing a Paladin with a Storm Bolter would, so I'd rather keep my Psyrifle Dreads in the fight. It also keeps my opponent from shooting my Rhino/Razorbacks, meaning I can retain my 3+ cover saves for longer, as well as all the other benefits of Rhinos.
Ultimately this comes down to target saturation. You don't shoot Paladins with anti-infantry guns, you shoot them with anti-tank guns. Ones that would also have to shoot Rhinos and Psyrifle Dreads. My opponent has too many things to shoot with too few guns, which not only distributes the damage across my army more evenly which mitigates any loss of effectiveness but can also drive my opponent to make mistakes. He's basically stuck between a rock and a hard place. If he shoots my Paladins, my vehicles are untouched. If he shoots my Psyrifle Dreads, then my Paladins and Rhinos are unharmed. While Terminators do this to a lesser extent, their lack of vulnerability to ID weapons is less likely to mess up my opponent's decision-making process.
And again, point cost is an important factor here. 7-8 Paladins with 2 psycannons are tougher but cost the same as 10 Terminators. Or, you can buy another Psyrifle Dread if you drop the 10 Terminators down to 5 Paladins.
All in all, Terminators are a little more resilient, but well-played Paladins should be nearly as tough while being a fair bit cheaper. So again, it depends on what you need. Do you need to soak up a ton of heavy firepower, or do you need to save the points for something else. Against certain armies (mainly IG, since their heavy weapons are tougher to silence than DE guns), Terminators are worth more here, but against most armies I think Paladins get by just fine.
Keep in mind that if you take Driago, you can just dump wounds on him thanks to his 3++ and Eternal Warrior. Fact: Driago doesn't block Lascannon shots with his shield. He blocks them with his face, then carves his name in his opponent's heart.
Scoring
Here's a biggie. Terminators score by default, Paladins don't.
Now, since I'm talking about a single unit in the army, as opposed to Driagowing or something, we'll assume you have several other scoring units in your army. Driagowing works somewhat differently since your entire army is in Terminator armor.
There are two ways to make Paladins scoring, Driago and a Grand Master's Grand Strategy. Driago is a bit too expensive to justify for just a single unit of Paladins (don't get me wrong, he's a beast, but he doesn't have the Shrouding and he doesn't have rad/psykotroke grenades, and he's expensive enough to make it very difficult to fit either into your list if you take him). I wouldn't consider Driago for normal game, save him for playing Driagowing lists.
A GM, on the other hand, can use his Grand Strategy to make d3 units scoring. I'm not a fan of relying on this, for a couple reasons. First off, GMs are expensive, and Librarians are expensive, and you probably can't fit all this stuff into one list. I wouldn't take a GM just to make Paladins scoring. Secondly, every time you make Paladins score is a time you're not scouting or rerolling to wound or counter assaulting. Paying 200pts just to make Paladins score isn't all that great, though at least you get grenades and a good wound-soak to go with it. Not saying the GM is bad by any means, just that both options for making Paladins score is a bit sub-optimal.
So from here the Terminators have a big advantage. You don't need to worry about scoring or taking a certain HQ or anything.
However...
As often as not, my Terminators don't survive the end of the game. I usually march them up the field (using whatever I can to generate cover along the way), getting whittled down a little bit at a time under the weight of most of my opponent's firepower. I then assault the first thing I can get close to. Rinse and repeat.
As a result, the Terminators and often my HQs are dead around Turn 6. It takes a massive amount of effort on my opponent's part to do this usually, and as I mentioned before it can completely trap some armies in their deployment zone (particularly razorback spam lists, who tend to have to sit still and shoot to maximize their firepower). That means that I control pretty much everything outside my opponent's deployment zone, while he's pinned down and unable to move against me effectively.
As a result, I often don't use my Terminators to score. That means that the difference between Terminators and Paladins here isn't too important when you use them aggressively. Let the other units in your army claim objectives. The Terminators/Paladins will be the ones taking those objectives, and so what if they die in the process.
So, once again Terminators have a slight advantage, but a slight one so long as you have adequate scoring in the rest of your army.
As a result, I've decided to start playing Paladins more often due to their greater Psycannon density. 5-6 Paladins can do the same job as 10 Terminators, for cheaper. More or less. We'll see as playtesting goes on, but I wouldn't be surprised if I end up sticking with Paladins over Terminators in the long run.
Edit: Oh, and btw, I mentioned that I lose more of my Terminators to small arms fire than heavy AT? That includes Razorback spam lists with meltas in every squad, Dark Eldar Dark Lance spam and IG with triple Manticores. And in my first couple games I played Paladins, my opponent did not kill a single Paladin via shooting with his space Wolves. He literally killed every single Paladin with JotWW, thanks to my ability to roll really high on initiative tests, the fact that I took fewer Dreads with Reinforced Aegis back then, and that I was using a Grand Master instead of a Librarian so I didn't have a psychic hood.
And one other thing? The Apothecary upgrade is retarded. Don't bother.