Draigozilla - Another look?

The title probably gives you already a really big hint as to what this post is about... But let me start by telling you why I'm doing a post on Draigo in the first place: I was rather underwhelmed with the 2 guest articles on 'Draigowing' if I'm honest. Take 1 felt like a regular list with Paladins shoehorned into it while take 2 had some odd contradictions in it. No offense and that's just my opinion. Anyways, I decided I could make a Draigo list while going a bit more into detail or at least with a more clear idea behind it.

The basis is simple: You start with Draigo, or else you're not making a Draigo army now are you? I also assume that we want at least 2 Paladin units in it. The Paladins, what kind of setup? Let's go with the standard setup: 2 MC'ed Psycannons and optimal wound allocation as it's rather easy to obtain.

Now let's look closer at the Paladins and what their defense statline means. Basicly they are Terminators with 2 wounds, for 15 points more. This means they are a lot more survivable against small arms fire compared to Terminators. Couple with this the wound allocation and it's even better as it takes longer on average to kill any models. Less damage output though right, as you have less models in comparison? Not really; you get 2 psycannons per 5 man and can MC them. In CC you're having WS5 which is pretty sweet. In summary: They are rather survivable to small arms fire when comparing them to Termies (or regular GK's/purifiers, same deal).

Now in list terms what does this mean? My instinct tells me that when I add normal GK's and Rhinos/Psyflemen that the advantage I get by taking Paladins disappears. How's that? Because GK's die to small arms, Rhinos to S6+ weaponry and Psyflemen to S7+ (Autocannons and Missiles for example). What do we get when we include those in a list with Paladins? That often means you don't really get to use the comparative advantage Paladins gives you, because Paladins die to S8, especially when it ignores their 2+ save. Yeah you can get coversaves, but it's still a weakness and Librarians have their own problems. (psychic power, 6" range, rather costly when also taking Draigo) This makes the target priority even easier for your opponent: Throw the S8+ at the Paladins and the rest at your Rhinos/GK's.

Next thing to look at is Draigo: My gawd, 275 points for a model with a 12" threat range unless you take a 200+ transport for him? Pfff... Well as told I can't drop him or else this post would make no sense. Let's see.... We can stick him in a squad so he can catch some S8+ fire I guess. Yeah that doesn't sound all bad. But hey wait! We only got 1 Draigo so our other squads can't use this awesome 'tank' ability of his. This feels rather ineffective too. What can we do about this? Karamazov baby, yes really. He gives us the ability to catch some lasscannons and missiles (omnomnom) for a 2nd squad. That's not it though: He also solves our Leadership problem while adding a MM and some combat potential in the process. Did we have a Leadership problem? Yes, when you're running with units costing more than 200 points while not being Fearless or having a re-roll then you are vulnerable to especially Tank Shocks. The more when not having access to meltas in your squads. (it makes oppenents less willing to try it).

So we have this baseline:

DRAIGO!!!! 275

Karamazov 200

5 Paladins; 2 MC psycannons 325

5 Paladins; 2 MC Psycannons 325

Total: 1125

1125?! No way we're gonna make a good army out of this. Ah well, let me optimise it at least or maybe going for a kind of theme then. Let's see, if you followed my above reasoning I think it's clear that I don't want any 'soft' targets in the list. No Psyflemen then? Indeed, no Psyflemen. Venerable Dreads then? Yes, those pretty much refuse to die to non-Ap1 weaponry (which threatens your Pallies too), so I'll take them. Setup? Psyfleman setup as I want to have a chance against Eldar and DE please. Let's take 2 of those, should be enough.

So we're adding:

Venerable Dreadnought; psyfleman 195

Venerable Dreadnought; psyfleman 195

Total: 1515

485 points left and we have 2 scoring-shooting-midfield-minideathstars and 2 hard to kill suppression platforms. Alright, could have been worse. I would like to just add more targets now and if you been paying attention (or read the title) then you understand what I'm adding now: Dreadknights. For 130 points a piece their defensive statline is pretty impressive and they don't give a fuck about things like Missiles and Autocannons either, just like the rest of the list. What are they gonna do? Either just move up or you can deepstrike them in. (You'll be doing that in DoW missions most of the time for example) And then? They punch stuff, duh.

We get to choose between 3x naked Dreadknight or 2x Teleporter Dreadknight... I'm saying 3x Naked at the moment as I rate more targets a little higher here, but I'm not sure. Then we're having some points left, 95 to be precise. Either we add weapons to the Dreadknights or we can add 1 solo Paladin and spend the leftover points for some more weapons/mastercraftings on the Paladin squads. I'll be going with 1 solo Paladin which might be able to claim an objective. This way you might be less forced to use Draigo his Strat to make more units scoring and thus you can give Dreadknights scout or something like that. (yes Teleporter + scout might be nice, but it's not a reason to choose for teleporter DK's alone as it doesn't work against every army and neither when you go 2nd)

So final list:

Draigo 275

Karamazov 200

5 Paladins; 2 MC psycannons 325

5 Paladins; 2 MC Psycannons 325

Palladin; 55

Venerable Dreadnought; psyfleman 195

Venerable Dreadnought; psyfleman 195

Dreadknight 130

Dreadknight 130

Dreadknight 130

Total: 1960 points

Spend those 40 points in whatever way you want; I'm tempted to go for a Pimpcane in both Paladin squads personally, but mastercrafting weapons is an option as well. Alternatively: drop the Mastercraftings on the psycannons and get a 2nd solo Paladin.

Well there you have it, my take on Draigo. I'm not claiming it's overly competitive (pretty sure it's not ;) ), but at least this list does something else besides just being an inferior list compared to non-Draigo lists. I hope you took enough Ap2 with ya (:

Thoughts?