Wednesday 25 January 2012

Killing Draigo

For Christmas, I received, thanks to the generosity of friends and family, a full Draigo-wing army at 2000 points. Consisting of 20 paladins, Draigo, a vindicare, and an Ordo Xenos Inquisitor, I do not think of it as a “good” list. My friends don’t generally enjoy playing competitively, and I’m perfectly content not min-maxing things.

Draigo and his homies. Source
Now, I’ve played just a couple games with this list, and I have been shocked not to lose any! Granted, I haven’t played a LOT of games, but I was surprised to table my friend’s Space Wolves, whom he has been playing for a long time, in my first game! Honestly, I never expected to win much with this list, so I’ve been baffled by my own success.

I think I’ve figured out the problem, though.

When playing against Draigo, you have to hit hard. Any unit of 5-10 Paladins will outpoint any of your squads, except for a few notable deathstar-exceptions. My Space Puppy friend attempted to feel me out, soften me up with some long-range firepower while keeping most of his men hidden. That’s the mistake.
Space Wolves actually explode if you hit them hard enough. True story. 
Paladin squads have to be hit hard by whole chunks of your army at a time. The second game I played was against BA jumpers. He wiped out my flanking psycannon-based combat squads (poorly deployed on my part) with about half his army each. However, because he split his forces to defeat my flanks in detail, my core 10-man Pally unit was able to charge first once flank, then the other, and defeat him in detail.

Rather, if he had instead brought his entire army to bear on one flank, he could have annihilated one of my shooty-squads, pulled back, melta’d my 10-man squad into vapor (probably followed by a multi-assault from his whole army to mop up any stragglers), and then defeated the other combat squad at his leisure. My deployment mistakes would have negated nearly a quarter of my army’s shooting if he positioned himself on the far side of the board from them. My army has very little support—this is one reason why it’s bad, objectively speaking. The number of army types I can’t handle at 2000 points is astronomical.

So the moral of my stories is…?

If you are playing a “pure” Draigo-wing, be merciless in your exploitation of any units left unprotected. Remember, those units will be able to take any of yours one-on-one, so bring down a hammer-blow of firepower on your enemy, one squad at a time. One of the main weaknesses of Draigo-wing is its lack of mobility. If it can be out-maneuvered by the majority of your army, you can win.

And if you’re playing a Draigo-wing, and you’re not bringing some of the nifty support options available *coughpsyfledreadscough* then make sure that none of your units are left hanging in the wind.

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