Foot Terminator Armies-Draigowing vs Others?

[Shadoq]

So...
We all know the score, Draigo makes Paladins into Troops allowing one to make a Paladin Termie army.

My question is how does it stack up compared to the other "wings"?

I'll preface this by stating, I am not a huge tournament player. I don't expect any list created here to win a tourney.

I want to run a smallish all foot elite Imperial army. Something I can take on the road and/or spend obscene amounts of time on 1 figure to make a nice looking army. I already have IG Foot platoons, IG mech vets, SM Salamander drop pod assault, and Tau so looking for something different.

I don't want to run Psyfledreads or other vehicular items in this army. I have no interest in Speehs Puppies or Dante wing.

So how do y'all think Draigowing would fare as opposed to the following?

Vulkanwing-30 termies plus scouts- Go GO HAMMERTIME!
Deathwing-The original all termie- Cyclones and Hammer spam here we come
Shrikewing

Any other ideas?

[Bean]

Land speeders are critical to the success of Vulcanwing--you will absolutely fail to build a capable army around Vulcan and termies without them. So, consider whether you want speeders. If you do, this army still lacks guns compared to Draigo wing, and (of course) the terminators are more resilient to high-strength/low ap weapons and much less resilient to normal anti-infantry stuff. The guns this list put out, even if you include landspeeders, are substantially inferior to the guns the Draigo-wing brings (even without rifledreads).

All in all, Draigo-wing is competitive, here. Vulkan's assault termies win in close combat, but get shot up badly before it comes to that--also, Drago's guys score, while Vulkan's guys rely on scouts to handle objectives, which is kinda lame.



Deathwing is nice because the stuff is a lot cheaper. Cyclone Missile launcher isn't as good as a single psycannon at pretty much anything, so Draigo-wing solidly outshoots Deathwing, but Cyclone launchers have much longer range, so the occasional mechdar dance-out-of-range list isn't as much of a problem for them. Again, Draigowing loses out a bit in combat to th/ss termies, but outshoots them so heavily that it isn't a big deal.



Loganwing is terrible--be glad you're not attracted to that army.

Shrike-wing is a one-trick pony, and the trick isn't really even all that good. Don't bother. Vulkan's trick is way, way better.



Remember that the advantage of Draigowing is the paladins have great shooting. Two mastercrafted psycannons is better anti-tank than four twin-linked lascannons--and far, far better anti-infantry. The paladins are resilient, good in combat, good at shooting, and fairly mobile. They're the most versatile of the terminator foot lists--honestly, their best competition is regular old grey knight terminators.

Terminators get fewer wounds and fewer psycannons per point, but far more close combat attacks, and their wounds aren't stacked up in lascannon-friendly targets. Draigo is a strong HQ, but sometimes it's nice to be able to play just a librarian and not have to shell out 275 points just to make your army work. Ultimately, I kinda think these two are a bit of a tossup, but I also think that paladins are cooler, which leaves my line-up looking like this:

Draigowing
GKTs
Deathwing
Vulkanwing
Shrikewing
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
Loganwing


Hope that helps.

[Demonus]

LOL why such hate for logan wing? logan wing wg are scoring units at least.

[Bean]

LOL why such hate for logan wing? logan wing wg are scoring units at least.

Yeah, but they're terrible scoring units.

Deathwing has good scoring units. GK have great terminator scoring units. C:SM have much better terminators, even though they don't score--but, really, I don't care much for these lists, either: I just have to acknowledge that these terminators are extremely efficacious. Loganwing can't even really say that for itself. If it tools up its terminators to the point where they're strong enough, they're too expensive.

[OXRS]

Yeah, but they're terrible scoring units.

Deathwing has good scoring units. GK have great terminator scoring units. C:SM have much better terminators, even though they don't score--but, really, I don't care much for these lists, either: I just have to acknowledge that these terminators are extremely efficacious. Loganwing can't even really say that for itself. If it tools up its terminators to the point where they're strong enough, they're too expensive.

The problem with that is the assumption that Wolf Guard should work the same way as other Terminators. It doesn't qualify as an all Terminator army, but a WG army led by Grimnar is quite powerful if you build it well. WG squads should only have 1 Terminator per 5 guys. The sweet spot for me is a 10 man squad with 2 Terminators carrying missile launchers, one with a power fist, 4 extra storm bolters, a couple of combi-meltas and the rest with pistols and CCW. That gives you 4 missiles, 6 storm bolters, 2 one shot meltas and a credible melee threat with Counter-attack. That unit has significant firepower and isn't something that would be fun to charge for 302 points. Add in Grimnar and a Living Lightning Rune Priest and you've got a massive point sink that does d6 S8 and 4 S9 shots to a vehicle almost anywhere on the board, as long as you're not in a corner, because Grimnar can grant the Tank Hunters USR. 5 man squads with 1 terminator with a missile launcher and combi-meltas everywhere go well in a drop pod for 195 points. If you're worried about them being a massive target after they drop, remove the terminator and it's 150 points, and the unit no longer poses any real threat after it fires it's melta, so is less of a target, but still scores.

Wolf Guard armies are all about the versatility you get - they get an entire page in the army building section to themselves, after all - but you really pay for that on the big toys. Don't buy the big toys. No claws, no hammer and shield. Use power armour bodies to hide your Terminators. It works well, just don't assume they work the same as every other Terminator squad.

[Bean]

The problem with that is the assumption that Wolf Guard should work the same way as other Terminators. It doesn't qualify as an all Terminator army, but a WG army led by Grimnar is quite powerful if you build it well. WG squads should only have 1 Terminator per 5 guys. The sweet spot for me is a 10 man squad with 2 Terminators carrying missile launchers, one with a power fist, 4 extra storm bolters, a couple of combi-meltas and the rest with pistols and CCW. That gives you 4 missiles, 6 storm bolters, 2 one shot meltas and a credible melee threat with Counter-attack. That unit has significant firepower and isn't something that would be fun to charge for 302 points. Add in Grimnar and a Living Lightning Rune Priest and you've got a massive point sink that does d6 S8 and 4 S9 shots to a vehicle almost anywhere on the board, as long as you're not in a corner, because Grimnar can grant the Tank Hunters USR. 5 man squads with 1 terminator with a missile launcher and combi-meltas everywhere go well in a drop pod for 195 points. If you're worried about them being a massive target after they drop, remove the terminator and it's 150 points, and the unit no longer poses any real threat after it fires it's melta, so is less of a target, but still scores.

Wolf Guard armies are all about the versatility you get - they get an entire page in the army building section to themselves, after all - but you really pay for that on the big toys. Don't buy the big toys. No claws, no hammer and shield. Use power armour bodies to hide your Terminators. It works well, just don't assume they work the same as every other Terminator squad.

A fair point, but the OP was looking for all-terminator foot lists. An army of power-armor guys with a few terminators hidden within their squads doesn't really fit the bill.

[Demonus]

Gotcha. Yeah I agree all WG terminators are horribly expensive. Like the last poster said, i like to throw them here and there (a CML guy with my LFs or in a drop pod with some GH/Power armor WG, a PF/SS one with my Blood Claws in a Raider.

[ankhcitizen]

Bean is spot.
Paladins are not to be underestimated though I would caution every one to stay away from the apothecary (unless you need for fluff purposes) two wound termies hardly need a grossly expensive upgrade unit Feel no pain is good but hardly nesecessary for TWO wound termies and stay away from an all terminator LoganWing...the number of models you get for so much points is pretty depressing.

DraigoWing is the way to go, he complements his TWO wound termie squads quite well, I'm might be overselling paladins a bit but used correctly and they are your opponents nightmare.

[Denied]

The only problem with Draigowing is how expensive it is. 550 for 10 paladins, 275 for the HQ, 20 for a psycannon, 5 to Master Craft it, 25 for a Brotherhood Banner.... it starts to add up. You're looking at 950 for a squad of 10+Draigo (4xMC psycannons, Brotherhood Banner, 8 halbreds, 2 Daemon Hammers) That's a vicious squad yes but damn expensive. And lets not forget they still die to instant death weapons just like any other unit. They are still only in terminator armor 5+ invo save.

[plawolf]

The only problem with Draigowing is how expensive it is. 550 for 10 paladins, 275 for the HQ, 20 for a psycannon, 5 to Master Craft it, 25 for a Brotherhood Banner.... it starts to add up. You're looking at 950 for a squad of 10+Draigo (4xMC psycannons, Brotherhood Banner, 8 halbreds, 2 Daemon Hammers) That's a vicious squad yes but damn expensive. And lets not forget they still die to instant death weapons just like any other unit. They are still only in terminator armor 5+ invo save.

That is why you stick Draigo with that squad, and he takes any instant-kill inducing shots on his storm shield. Even if you roll badly and whiff the 3++, he has eternal warrior and plenty of wounds, so him stopping a few lascannon/railgun shots with his face is not the end of the world.

Also bare in mind that just because you can go all Paladin is not necessarily a reason to actually go all Paladin. Regular GKTs are still damn good, and cheap enough to allow you to get a good number of bodies on the field.

Also, if you have a big squad of Paladins and Draigo on the field and was using that squad aggressively to get in your opponent's face, there is a good chance they will attract most of the firepower so it would matter less that the other squads are 'just' terminators and not Paladins.

With the new BBB FAQ, I am taking another long hard look at Justicar Thawn. He was too expensive before the FAQ for what he did, but with psy powers now stacking, he is starting to look more reasonable.

With mastery level 2, he can cast hammerhand and activate force weapons for the squad, and the squad can cast hammerhand again to give you S6 force weapon wielding termies.

Depending on how religiously you want to stick to you 'termies only' rule, you could also consider taking a PA xenos =I= with grenades. Maybe also give him a plasma syphon and stick him in Draigo's Paladin squad. March them into the enemy's army and really mess with the most effective weapons they have against terminators.

[Denied]

That is why you stick Draigo with that squad, and he takes any instant-kill inducing shots on his storm shield. Even if you roll badly and whiff the 3++, he has eternal warrior and plenty of wounds, so him stopping a few lascannon/railgun shots with his face is not the end of the world.


This is good for a few wounds but if they take more then one its still close to being GG for your squad.




With mastery level 2, he can cast hammerhand and activate force weapons for the squad, and the squad can cast hammerhand again to give you S6 force weapon wielding termies.



I am not sure you can use Draigos second psypower to activate the squads force weapons. I am not certain though.

[Tynskel]

People don't think about this very much, but you can take 20 Blood angels Terminators, 3 Sanguinary Priest Terminators, and 2 HQ character terminators.

Slap some scouts in there, and you have an army!

Or you could go 30 terminators, 2 HQ character terminators, and 2 honorguard squads with storm shields for the priests.

You also can get locator beacons on scouts, so no worry of scatter.
And if you are really redonkulous-- stormravens with locator beacons with scouts with locator beacons embarked!



Maybe this is what I should bring to 'Ard Boyz...

[bonedale]

I remember seeing on eBay someone selling something like 50 metal GK terminators a year or so before the new book, and I thought how the hell can you field that in anything but apoc. Had I known we would have 2 wound termie troops. And GW used to sell psycannon termie arms in 5 packs in their bit packs.

Anyway, I think regular termies make up your troop core, with a shock attack of 1 or 2 paladin squads. Leaving draigo off the list. I feel he is just too costly. Send the paladins to their glorious death, and let the regular GKTs, and rifle dreads win the game. That way, your HQs can be more of an army boost.

[plawolf]

This is good for a few wounds but if they take more then one its still close to being GG for your squad.

Depends on if he shoots you with small arms. I usually run Draigo with a 5 man Paladin squad with 4 psycannons and that is one big fire magnet, so its usually not uncommon to have enough wounds to be able to stack instagbib ones on Draigo's SS.

I know it would make sense to just shoot the high strength shots, but a lot of people seem to just like to gamble I guess. This will probably be harder to do with a 10 men squad.


I am not sure you can use Draigos second psypower to activate the squads force weapons. I am not certain though.

Having read the rules again, on P54, it says independent characters need to roll separately to activate force weapons, so I guess it would only be sensible that it works the other way round again, so you are right, no S6 force weapons.

But you can still get S6 PW for the Paladins with Draigo's attacks still force weapon attacks, and at S7 at that! Best of both worlds, and better than S5 Paladins (S6 Draigo) with force weapons all round unless you are fighting a whole squad of T4+ multi-wound models.

[Denied]

Depends on if he shoots you with small arms. I usually run Draigo with a 5 man Paladin squad with 4 psycannons and that is one big fire magnet, so its usually not uncommon to have enough wounds to be able to stack instagbib ones on Draigo's SS.

I know it would make sense to just shoot the high strength shots, but a lot of people seem to just like to gamble I guess. This will probably be harder to do with a 10 men squad.

Yeah that's true if your getting small weapons fire as well, but my mind tends to go towards the str10 large blasts that IG lay down like they are pez. You are almost certain to dish out more then a few str10 wounds in a single volley this way. You get a LR Demolisher or a Manticore template dropped on your Paladins and its GG thanks for having multiple wounds guys.





Having read the rules again, on P54, it says independent characters need to roll separately to activate force weapons, so I guess it would only be sensible that it works the other way round again, so you are right, no S6 force weapons.

But you can still get S6 PW for the Paladins with Draigo's attacks still force weapon attacks, and at S7 at that! Best of both worlds, and better than S5 Paladins (S6 Draigo) with force weapons all round unless you are fighting a whole squad of T4+ multi-wound models.

Yeah I was fairly certain the squad would have to use their psypower on their own force weapon activation. The truth is though you are not going to activate your force weapons unless your against dangerous multiple wound models (blood crushers anyone?). I think the best use of Draigos second psypower is in the shooting phase using his Sanctified flame, then charging the unit you just blasted with fire. Sanctified Flame is better then using his storm bolter for shooting if you are close enough.

This is one of the other reasons I think Draigo fails in comparison to a regular GK Grand Master, because you can give a regular GM a psycannon at BS 6 your hitting on a 2 every time and you get 4 shots. You Master Craft it and basically your always hitting with 4 psycannon shots no matter what with the GM. Also with a Grand Master your paladins can be scoring if you still use them, just use your grand strategy to make them scoring and its GG. Most list can afford more then one squad of paladins as it is so no matter what you can always make that squad scoring.

Draigos only real advantage is in CC he has WS7 vs GM WS6 and he has the free MC froce weapon that is resolved at Str 10 if the unit he attacks has one or more psykers or daemons, but the GM has access to grenades that Draigo doesn't and that with the Psycannon make him a better choice.


Honestly Palwolf I think you had a good strategy for paladins in a previous post which was to say you have a squad of ten + GM (with MC psycannon) the rest have halbreds and you combat squad them and have all the psycannons in one group, this is where I differ with you though, I would have the GM with the halbreds going into CC the added benefit of his Hammerhand and his grenades (Psykotroke, rad, blind) is insane for CC. Then you have basically a squad that is shooting like crazy and a squad that is tearing through assualts.

[plawolf]

Yeah that's true if your getting small weapons fire as well, but my mind tends to go towards the str10 large blasts that IG lay down like they are pez. You are almost certain to dish out more then a few str10 wounds in a single volley this way. You get a LR Demolisher or a Manticore template dropped on your Paladins and its GG thanks for having multiple wounds guys.

With 40mm bases and max spread, a single large blast should not get more than 2 guys, and quite often may only hit one model. If you are facing an army that can put out a lot of such pie plates, you should be digging yourself into cover as a matter of course, so even if he does hit all your guys, you would be very lucky for that to be GG squad.

But usually you would only expect 2 hits max per single blast, and that is if it hits, so realistically unless your opponent is massively spamming pie plat launchers, he would not be able to hit more than a couple of guys per shooting phase on average.

Once again a hit can be allocated to Draigo. Each time he does that, he saves you 55pts minimum, more if you master crafted weapons or gave your guys fancy weapons etc. You can expect to do that 3 times before you take a wound, and thanks to EW, taking a wound won't be the end of Draigo, unlike any other model in the GK codex.


This is one of the other reasons I think Draigo fails in comparison to a regular GK Grand Master, because you can give a regular GM a psycannon at BS 6 your hitting on a 2 every time and you get 4 shots. You Master Craft it and basically your always hitting with 4 psycannon shots no matter what with the GM...Draigos only real advantage is in CC he has WS7 vs GM WS6 and he has the free MC froce weapon that is resolved at Str 10 if the unit he attacks has one or more psykers or daemons, but the GM has access to grenades that Draigo doesn't and that with the Psycannon make him a better choice.

But you are only thinking about offensive potential whereas I am thinking more in terms of defensive capabilities.

If you give your GM a MC psycannon and 3 grenades, he end up only 5pts less than Draigo, but with both psycannons and grenades, he is one confused dude as he doesn't know if he should be shooting or charging, and could be off the field in one of he gets force weaponed or hit by a pie plate.

Sure a psycannon on a GM is ace, but you pay for that since for the cost of a MC psycannon on a GM, you can get two MC psycannons for your Paladins or 5 pscyannons for GKSS. But the real kicker is that in the example you gave above, your MC psycannon GM dies just as surely as anything else to those pie plats if his Iron Halo fails.

I have found that you might start off with more psycannons on the field with one on the GM, but those psycannons tend to stay around a lot longer with Draigo taking hits on his SS/face, so over the course of the game, you actually get a lot more psycannon shots off and score more hits and kills.

You also end up having more models/squads on the board for longer, which in turn forces your opponent to split his fire and that keeps all other squads on the board longer.


Also with a Grand Master your paladins can be scoring if you still use them, just use your grand strategy to make them scoring and its GG. Most list can afford more then one squad of paladins as it is so no matter what you can always make that squad scoring.

But the problem with that is your need for a minimum for 2 troop choices to make a legal list before your GM gets to make anything scoring. With an expensive book, you really need everything in your list to be essential to your game plan, and so cannot afford any dead weight squads to make the list legal.

The cheapest troop choice you can get is a GKSS (assuming you haven't taken Coteaz), but personally, I would much rather spend a little extra and make that squad purifiers instead.

What more this would allow you to use one of the other, may more useful (imo anyways) options with grand strategy. Scouting Paladins, re-rolls or counter attack are all very handy things to have, why tie yourself down with having to make units troops?


Honestly Palwolf I think you had a good strategy for paladins in a previous post which was to say you have a squad of ten + GM (with MC psycannon) the rest have halbreds and you combat squad them and have all the psycannons in one group, this is where I differ with you though, I would have the GM with the halbreds going into CC the added benefit of his Hammerhand and his grenades (Psykotroke, rad, blind) is insane for CC. Then you have basically a squad that is shooting like crazy and a squad that is tearing through assualts.

Well I think I planned that strategy with Draigo in mind, ;) as a GM with MC psycannon plus 4 MC pscyannons in a 6 man squad is just way too tempting a target, and because of a lack of EW on the GM, way too fragile a unit to be effective.

If you tried that, the squad would likely be blasted off the table before the end of turn 3, but more importantly, you will be loosing expensive psycannons, and hence combat effectiveness, really quickly. So even if that squad doesn't get blasted off the table quickly, its damage output will have dropped substantially after only a turn or two (assuming you are not the gambling sort to try and take ID shots deliberately on the tooled up GM hoping for the best).

One of the other main reasons for that set up is because your opponent is not going to be stupid and would realize instantly that the best way to counter 4 psycannons in a 5 man squad of Paladins is not to shoot them but tie them up in CC so all those psycannons are wasted at best. He would shoot the crap out of your CC paladin half and not give them much of a chance to actually get into CC.

With Draigo in the shooting half, he can detach and happily face the enemy CC squad, even deathstars like TH/SS termies, by himself, allowing the psycannons to keep shooting.

What more, with Draigo attached, the shooty half doesn't half pack a punch in CC, and that is something easy to overlook if all they have done is shoot most of the game.

Without Draigo or a tooled up GM/Libby attached, your CC paladins would also drop down the enemy targeting priority list, so there is a greater chance that they will reach the enemy in enough numbers to matter.

They can also reach the enemy a lot faster if you gave them scout and had them run instead of shooting all the time.

I think Draigo is like the 'rare' option for steaks. You see someone else choosing it and think, is that really a good idea? But once you try it yourself, you will never go back to anything else. ;)