Anti-Draigo Wing

[Vanchet]

As we all know 11 Paladins, Draigo and a Librarian can be a total pain in the back side-weather it's hammer spam, the flying Storm shield or simply the Psycannon rain.
But don't lose hope!! There are gaps in their lines and it can destroy them!!
and here is some examples:

Sledgehammer to the hammer: obvious one is sometimes the simplest-have a nastier unit and/or hero to sort them out, mainly Thunder hammers and storm shields, lots of Powerfists/Klaws/Tentacles (if such a thing exists)
Sure they may dish out loads of nasty hits-but trust your invun (specially it bein a 3+) and make sure you always aim for the paladins-for you should know-a fist to the face counts as two for combat resolution-so killing 3 paladins outright is 6 on the res, and if all works out, the paladins will lose solely out of combat resolution and will flee (Draigo's fearless but his mates aren't muahaha)
And once that is successful you begin sheep herding him out of the battlefield (for ppl who don't know-Space marines cannot rally within 6 of a enemy unit) And then that's approx 1000 points destroyed by 1 unit and they're dynamic leader

My Guns are bigger then yours: Some ppl don't have combat units that can challenge grey knights or in fact any other marine elite-but they'll have better guns, generally fusion blasters, meltaguns, fusion guns, Blasters, Shok attack gun, Demolisher cannons,the list goes on, like any other model, all it takes is 1 shot to kill a model outright, best use of these guys is to have a full unit armed to the teeth with S8 guns, this helps us ensure that Draigo can't protect all of them. and this works even better when you got someone nearby meddling with their leadership and make them flee when they "Can't take the heat" :P

If they're much smaller after that, the mightiest threat is now minimal, or better yet if you can mess their leadership up and make them flee, the power of sheep herding.

My psyker is better then yours : They love Hammer hand, for it grants them the power of the Incredible Hulk. a unit with a libraian, draigo, techmarine and 10 paladins can make up Strentgh 9 squad (10 for Draigo) but like all other marine armies, they need to pull this off first, and that's Why the Emperor made Psyhic hoods and Runic weapons.
Having a Psyker there-with either his hood, weapon or Runes, he/she can destroy the squad's main combat strength and render their combat skills inadequate-Who would love to see a Rune priest, sitting 24 away with a long fang squad laughing as their friend in the Dreadnought bashes allot of Paladins left and right and the Priest there rolling 4+ to nullify their hammerhands?

So there you go to ppl lost in frustration or lost in confusion-ideas for ppl to try. Hope this helps and is interesting to listen too-Now go forth and ram those halberds of theirs right up their...........

[TheSustainableCenter]

Why are we not just tank shocking this off the board by now?

[Vanchet]

Why are we not just tank shocking this off the board by now?
Not the best of ideas-simply because chances are, a daemon hammer or a psycannon shot can just kill the tank (pending on what tank you use) death or glory could turn the tables afterall

[DarkLink]

You're approaching the problem completely wrong. You don't try and beat the king at his own game. Driago and 10 Paladins willl likely kill 5-6 THSS Terminators before they get to strike, even if the THSS Terminators get the charge. That's about all you can fit in a Land Raider, which means you need multiple Land Raiders and squads. So you're spending 1000pts to kill Driago and friends, and it's far from a guarantee. 10-12 Terminators will charge in, get chopped up, and kill 3-4 Paladins. Investing in, say, Chaplains and the like to increase your hitting power will improve your odds, but he's still likely to drag you down with him. And if he has Rad/Psykotroke grenades, well, good luck.


Shooting them to death is similarly difficult. Even with little cover, Driago and 10 Paladins can absorb an army's worth of firepower for a whole game sometimes. They might not survive in the end, but the GK player still has another 1000pts of stuff you just ignored.

Tank shock is similarly tricky. It's something to try in a pinch, but at leadership 10 you need to get off a lot of tank shocks to have decent odds, and with 4 psycannons you have to throw out a bunch of vehicles or they'll just shoot your tank to death. And anytime you get close to Driagowing, you're doing him a favor.




Just avoid Driago. 10 Paladins can only cover so much of the board. Just deploy/maneuver/reserve your army so that he has to chase after you. Most tournament quality lists have the flexibility to try and outmaneuver Driago. Then, if the game isn't killpoints go ahead and let him chase some sacrificial units or tank shock him off the objective last minute. If it's objectives, spread out the objectives a bunch in deployment. Let him sit on one or two objectives and never go after you so you have a chance to contest.





And as a Grey Knight player, I can say you guys all put way too much importance on GK psychic powers. They're nice bonuses, but if you have a Librarian to stop Hammerhand it's not too big of a deal. The odds are still in my favor for getting the power off and I get multiple attempts, and even without it Driago and friends are still better in close combat with you. This is mostly directed at Eldar players who seem to think Runes of Warding is practically an auto-win against GKs, but forget about all those psycannons and storm bolters.

You should obviously still take Runes, and Librarians are pretty good HQs, just don't get too excited about having a bit of psychic defense.




Edit: If you're Necrons, mindshackle scarabs. I don't know enough about the Necron codex to say how to make a balanced list incorporating them, but I know it can be done and used as an effective counter to Driago.

[k0mmand3rka7]

From my experience, you either need to kite him with melta or win in 1 turn of combat by combat res, he isn't fearless. I tend to charge Draigo himself with something cheap and then hit the rear with Abaddon. Abaddon will kill more pallies than the cheap unit u gave him to feed on.

[BS FADE]

Use things that force difficult terrain checks. Thunderfire, Deathspinner, Sanctuary, All of Necrons apparently.

Ignoring them is great but if you can stall them somehow, the rest of your army can maneuver around them.

[thecactusman17]

Dangerous Terrain doesn't mean crap to Paladins. The only difference is that their Feel No Pain (in this case, the invulnerable save) goes to a 5+. If they fail it, then no worries, you still have a spare wound.

Killing Pallies can be hard or it can be easy, but they have a dramatic fatal flaw regardless: they are simply unable to be where they need to be without sacrificing points or unit mass to hop inside a transport. This means that the easiest way to neutralize paladins is to ignore them as much as possible and instead decimate the remaining units on the field, often at a significant points and firepower advantage. This is especially easy for fast units like Dark Eldar, Blood Angels, and Eldar or units with excellent long range shooting like Imperial Guard and Tau.

[DarkLink]

they are simply unable to be where they need to be without sacrificing points or unit mass to hop inside a transport. This means that the easiest way to neutralize paladins is to ignore them as much as possible and instead decimate the remaining units on the field, often at a significant points and firepower advantage.

Exactly.

While you're doing this, you can still take potshots at the Paladins as well. Even random lascannons and plasma shots will occasionally put wounds on Driago and some Paladins, and once you neuter the rest of his army, you'll have already started whittling him down. With luck, you'll have reduced Driago to one wound and you can start working on the Paladins themselves. Just kiting and whittling him down.

[Iaipunk]

The only way I've seen to handle him is what has been said.
Play keep away and try to thin them out.

Throwing your big character and a couple extra units at them doesn't always equal a win.
Sometimes it equals them killing the biggest part of your army.

Take shots at them sure, but only when you've dealt with more immediate threats.
(an make sure they don't become an immediate threat)

[Lord Severus]

Tank shocks will eventually work, you just have to be selective in which models you hit, as only ones that are actually touched can DOG. so avoid the hammers, psycannons arent as big of a deal, as they only get 1 auto hit, and it still has to glance or pen, and then 1/3 (or 2/3 if glance) of the results dont stopp you anyway.

boxing them in with non crucial units or tanks is another approach, as they only have 1 target to threaten a turn.

Shooting them with all of you st 8 weaponry (even missles, as they will eventually fail some 1's) and just whittling them down is also an option.

[superhappyrobot]

I've run this unit before a few times, and, to my surprise, torrent of fire is not an effective way to taken them down. They just shrug it off with the 2+/4+ FNP. Even if the odd wound gets through, you still have two per model, so it's by no means a big issue. The lone lascannon/melta shot doesn't really do much because you're always putting that wound on Draigo, who usually makes the save with his storm shield.

Units with a ton of melta shots have been the Paladin's biggest threat, so far. A unit of Fire Dragons (or melta CCSs or combi-melta spam Sternguard squads or similar) is great because each failed save is an instant kill, and there are so many shots you can't just allocate one at a time to Draigo, like the way you can with single lascannon shots.

[DarkLink]

Actually Vendettas are pretty much Paladin's greatest fear. Unless the GK player is stupid enough to clump together when the opponent has a Vindicator. Fire Dragons will only ever get one turn of shooting, ever. A couple Vendettas can kill half the squad turn one from well out of psycannon range.



But, yes, torrent of fire is a horrible, horrible, horrible way to try and deal with paladins. Even mass str8 shots is only mildly acceptable in that it ignores FNP and causes ID.

I don't even run Paladins with an Apothecary (waste of points) and I have never lost a Paladin to small arms fire. Taken wounds, sure. But it is always lascannons, meltaguns, power fists and the occasional plasma weapon that kills Paladins, without fail.

I would say dark lances, but I've so utterly curb-stomped DE (especially dark lance spam DE or skimmer based DE) every time I've played them that I don't care if I lose a couple of Paladins by turn 2, it won't matter in the long run.

[Root]

Agree the Apothecary is not worth it. It wont help you vs the only thing you're actually worried about. As far as Draigo goes its pretty simple. Kill everything else and let him have his fun. Feed him empty transports and I sacrificial speedbump squads til the game ends. Any energy spent attacking his fun unit is usually energy wasted.

[BS FADE]

I actually like for my opponent to pile wounds on draigo, he can save a lot but if he fails enough it will discourage your opponent from breaking him off late game to attack multiple units. If you have things that can target important models that’s the best way of dealing with paladin spam.

I was playing a Tournament last weekend and my opponent had two squads of paladins, a librarian, and draigo. I was lucky by being weird and actually fielding Grey Knight stormravens. It ended badly for him.

Tank shocking can sometimes also lead to hilarious results.

[karlthepagan]

Using GKs to counter draigo wing feels a little like giving up.

Null zone dat HQ. Aegis be damned.


Guard lascannon teams and a stubborn guard blob will wear them down for half the cost.

[BS FADE]

Using GKs to counter draigo wing feels a little like giving up.

Null zone dat HQ. Aegis be damned.


Guard lascannon teams and a stubborn guard blob will wear them down for half the cost.


Opponents where randomized so it wasn’t planned for me. And I really hate playing against draigo wing... its sooooo boring.

I spent 4 turns shooting him and then charging what was left. The game took like 45 mins mostly because he was taking his time trying to wound allocate so he didn’t lose models. I had to call him out because he was rolling one at a time and trying to double up who was taking wounds.

Null zone is a great one. I’m just not sold on relaying on using psychic powers on an army that usually always has a librarian.

[jifel]

Im not the first to say this, but pop the transport and then get the heck away. I play nids, so psycannons dont hurt too bad as they're ap 4 and and my big thing get saves. last time I played Paladins he had a big unit with character in a Stormraven and two small squads on objectives, so I sent a large brood of H gaunts that would have massacred the Strike Squad. he was then forced to disembark and kill them or lose the objective. next turn i put 6 Hive Guard into the Stormraven and immobilised it. I spent the rest of the game running my entire army to the other side of the board and ended up with 3 of 5 objectives.

[Bean]

Im not the first to say this, but pop the transport and then get the heck away. I play nids, so psycannons dont hurt too bad as they're ap 4 and and my big thing get saves. last time I played Paladins he had a big unit with character in a Stormraven and two small squads on objectives, so I sent a large brood of H gaunts that would have massacred the Strike Squad. he was then forced to disembark and kill them or lose the objective. next turn i put 6 Hive Guard into the Stormraven and immobilised it. I spent the rest of the game running my entire army to the other side of the board and ended up with 3 of 5 objectives.

A ten man paladin unit has four psycannons. Four psycannons inflict, on average, 3.55 wounds to a t6, 3+ save model. The probability of them inflicting four wounds on such a model is 49%--they'll kill a Hive Tyrant with just psycannon shots almost half the time. That's better than shooting six lascannons at a hive tyrant (presuming BS:4 all the way around and no master-crafting)

If a unit had six lascannons, you wouldn't say, "that won't hurt too bad," you'd say, "holy crap, I have to deal with that before it murders my monstrous creatures!"

That's what a unit of ten paladins is like at range. If you think you can just move away and suck up the shots, you're basically just wrong. They do enormous amounts of damage at range to all types of targets.

[DarkLink]

For nidz, ymgarl genestealers popping up out of nowhere and assaulting whatever they want is pretty awesome. Good way of killing his backfield stuff, especially if you outflank some genestealers as well. And if it keeps him paranoid enough to hold back his Paladins, that's a double bonus.

[jifel]

A ten man paladin unit has four psycannons. Four psycannons inflict, on average, 3.55 wounds to a t6, 3+ save model. The probability of them inflicting four wounds on such a model is 49%--they'll kill a Hive Tyrant with just psycannon shots almost half the time. That's better than shooting six lascannons at a hive tyrant (presuming BS:4 all the way around and no master-crafting)

If a unit had six lascannons, you wouldn't say, "that won't hurt too bad," you'd say, "holy crap, I have to deal with that before it murders my monstrous creatures!"

That's what a unit of ten paladins is like at range. If you think you can just move away and suck up the shots, you're basically just wrong. They do enormous amounts of damage at range to all types of targets.

Venomthropes and FNP, my dear sir. I wont say that Psycannons are bad, they certainly aren't! But that is only one unit with that firepower, and they can only hurt one unit a turn with shooting. Plus, 30" threat range means I cant get everything out of the way, but i can can get enough beasties away that I can Catalyst the big ones in range.

[Bean]

Venomthropes and FNP, my dear sir. I wont say that Psycannons are bad, they certainly aren't! But that is only one unit with that firepower, and they can only hurt one unit a turn with shooting. Plus, 30" threat range means I cant get everything out of the way, but i can can get enough beasties away that I can Catalyst the big ones in range.

Even if you have FNP and a venomthrope on it, you're still looking at two wounds on average. Really, though, they'll just kill the venomthrope first, which is pretty easy.

[jifel]

Even if you have FNP and a venomthrope on it, you're still looking at two wounds on average. Really, though, they'll just kill the venomthrope first, which is pretty easy.

Two wounds isn't too bad really. And yes, always shoot the venomthrope first. But surprisingly, opponents dont always put concentrated firepower into him. And if you want to dedicate major shooting into him, well thats shooting thats not killing anything else. But yeah, its not too hard to kill 2 venomthropes if you actually try.

[o0HoldFast0o]

Mindstrike missles are pretty rough in the mirrormatch too! Frankly while a clump of rock can be hard to break- its easy to avoid, and far from unbeatable! Just don't rock the rock! Drago-wing can kill a couple units a turn just in psycannon spam- but what if those targets are in cover... or there are tons of them grabbing objectives. Just saying Draigo may be tough, just don't play into his hand!

[Nykster]

Demolisher Cannons. Most Marine codexes and variants can take a vindicator, and Guard can take a Leman Russ with one. Splat.
Ive even been quasi effective using massed battle cannons from defilers and massed blast masters. I had a game with 3 defilers and 4 units of noise mariens with blast masters and killed all of them in 4 turns.
These guns easily out-range the paladins, and a failed save is a dead model, no FNP. With the large blast, you can cover 5 models pretty easily, and wounding on 2+.
In another game I had a sorcerer with lash in a unit with 2 meltas, so I melta'd them then pushed them away so he couldn't assault me. That worked really well, but only Chaos have that ability.

[DarkLink]

If the Paladin player was too stupid to spread out, he deserves to lose like that. Spread out properly, even a large blast is lucky to hit more than one or two large based models.

[Zuul]

So far what I'm hearing is the feasible counters codex marines have for this new technological terror dubbed the "Draigostar" is either massed melta or demolisher cannons?

[DarkLink]

Actually, it's changing up your strategy to negate the Paladin's strengths. That's why Grey Knights seem so OP when they're really not. You don't beat them by challenging them to their own game in a fair fight.

[dreadnaughtguy]

I have found my hiden gem unit in the chaos codes works wonders. A five man chosen squad with melta guns can drop paladins rather easy ... and I usually field 3.

Str 8 and ap 1 means they only get a 5+ save and its save vs death as it is a double toughness shot.