Foot Terminator Armies-Draigowing vs Others?

[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.