Daemon hammers for everyone

[Warfiend]

Hey there fellow grey knight players, since there is no mention of a limit on how many daemon hammers a squad can take I was playing with the thought of giving all my paladins a daemon hammer and maybe even use a chaplain to help them get some more hits in. I was wondering what your thoughts are on this and if any of you have played around with this and how it turned out. Edited October 10, 2017 by Warfiend

[Corvus Fortis]

Hammer compared for, say, halberd sacrifices -1 to hit in exchange for +1 to wound against most targets. Halberds have less AP value but this negated if target has 4++. Swords have same AP value but -2 or -1 to wound compared to hammer. Finally halberds worse at everything compared to hammer but have one more attack that will be a huge difference if you face a horde of enemies. Hammer always deal 3 wounds and it doesn't matter if target has 1 or 2 wounds, d3 damage will reliably one-shot them. But most importantly hammer costs 13 more points that other weapons. It is 6 points less than a strike squad model.  So for evey 5 hammers in your army you can take like 3 strike guys. In short, hammers are most powerful weapon, but very expensive in the same time. Full hammer paladin squad is fine to try (terminators or stikes are obviously not worth it) but it has to be an apropriate target for it - multiwound t7-8 monster or vehicle. In other cases halberds and falchions will do the job for free. Rerolls are must have here and Chappy or Draigo is highly recommended. Anciet gets here interesting too. +5 hammer attacks much more scary then +5 falchion attacks. Still very expensive.

 

In competitive terms, I think, it is overcosted. 1-2 hammers per squad is more than enough.

 

P.S.: I personally tried this with proxy models but only 3 of 5 guys get alive to close combat and all wounds was eaten by demonic 3++. 

[Seizeman]

Basically every combat unit worth playing is because they can make good use of hammers. Every other weapon is too weak for a dedicated melee unit. 

 

That's why regular paladins are not very good at the moment. With their heavy weapons being so overcosted, their only choice is to be a melee focused unit, but at the same time, hammers are not very efficient on them except for the paragon. Falchions would be fine if you wanted to take paladins as a powerful generalist unit, but they are too expensive for that. They need a reduction both in their base cost and their heavy weapons.

 

As I said, hammers are very good on paragons. That's why, if you want a dedicated melee unit, you take paragons only. That means apothecaries, with hammers. They are basically buffed paragons that are untargetable most of the time and heal themselves (or other characters). 

 

The minimum paladin squad, with a hammer, costs 178. For a bit more, 103 each, you can get two apothecaries. That gives you 8 hammer attacks instead of 3 hammer attacks and 8 falchions, which is better agains almost everything (except for T3 targets, but you take bolters for that, not paladins). They also have one extra wound, an extra psychic power, heroic intervention, the heal ability, the character untargetability, more versatility and the option to use relics and the "Only in death does duty end" stratagem. They also fill elite slots for extra CP much faster. Their only disadvantage is they have 2 grenades instead of 3 storm bolters, which is not a big deal, specially when you gain the extra smite.

 

On the chaplain topic, as I said, a dedicated melee unit that can't wield a hammer is not worth taking. The chaplain is ridiculously expensive for a unit with almost zero melee ability. A single paladin with falchions does more damage than the chaplain does, and the paladin is already overcosted. His aura is pretty much useless, as you should be using almost exclusively units with WS 2+, that will be rerolling only 1s anyway, so a GM aura works just fine and also benefits shooting. You are going to have the GM aura easily because you want to play GMNDKs anyway, so the chaplain's aura is redundant. For the chaplain to even be considered he should cost half what it costs at this moment.

[Adeptus]

I gotta disagree on Paladins not being very good. I obviously can't speak for everyone else's experiences, but mine have been wrecking face in every game and are the absolute bane of my opponents.

[Trollbeard]

I gotta disagree on Paladins not being very good. I obviously can't speak for everyone else's experiences, but mine have been wrecking face in every game and are the absolute bane of my opponents.

I've found the same thing, I love Paladins now haha, and my friends hate them lol

[Gentlemanloser]

Thirding Paladins just ripping stuff up.

 

Yeah the normal dudes all have 4A. With Hammerhand. And Honour The Chapter.

 

Just let me roll the three hammer attacks first. ;)

[Reclusiarch Darius]

Not really efficient. Remember that hammers are -1 to hit, so its only really worthwhile on characters or Paragons (who start on a 2+). It's the same reason why people mostly take 3-man Paladin units, you wanna take more Paragons over additional regular dudes. And of course, Apothecaries are mega efficient both for drops, transportation, durability and hammer spamming.

 

On anything besides our TDA characters, you want falchions. They're just so efficient at blenderising whatever you touch, and that's before 'Hammerhand' makes enemy Toughness worthless (the +1 to wound means you basically wound most other infantry on 3+, 4+ for anything T5 to T7, and T8 on 5+). I've tried swords and halberds, they're just not that much better. +1A is pretty crucial these days too, now that we no longer get +1A for charging. It also maximises the efficiency of Grandmaster aura and 'Honour the Chapter'.

[swordofmandulis]

I used 2 apothecaries in my elite slots last night and one did nothing, one wrecked total face. I have also had lots of success with 3 man Hammer/Falchion squads. both are good, Paladins do have the advantage of only being able to lose one man to multi damage wounds whereas you could lose the whole apothecary in that situation, but then with the price difference this does equal out quite well.

 

as for the Hammers vs Falchions: I did a bit of points per wound stuff and there isn't a lot in it, I'd argue that all hammers is worth it for the better wounding against tougher targets and the guaranteed damage vs multiwound targets, also the better AP. obviously there are other factors such as hammer hand and invuln saves. just my thoughts.  

[Gentlemanloser]

In our recent 12k game, i charged an apoth into a Knight.

 

Got counter attacked. And the poor apoth got titanic feet stomped to death before doing anything.

 

Still think apothecaries are amazing though. :)