Leveling Choice: Grand Knight vs. Paladin

[TheJM]

As soon as Skrim asked if there were any he missed I thought "Chocobone!" and as I read down I find someone else had already gotten there.
Ah well

What this seems to boil down to "Paladins can fight everything, Grand Knights can't"

Pretty much, the Paladin is more versatile than the Grand Knight, at the expense of attack power.


I've always preferred the Grand Knight, I think because it suits my playing style better. Obviously I use Paladins when I need them (IE, undead..), but I've always liked the higher HP and attack that a Grand Knight has. Plus is just looks cooler to have a Grand Knight leading the charge.

[Aethaeryn]

I've only ever seen Chocobones once. What campaigns are they in?

They're in the Isle of the Damned in HttT, and possibly another scenario or two in that campaign. I'm not sure about the others, but they could easily be in one or two.

I've seen them in custom MP scenarios.

[Skrim]

Chocobones are actually pretty common. They're in all of the HttT undead scenarios except for The Lost General, and they're in all the TRoW undead scenarios after landing on the Great Continent. I'm sure they appear in EI at some point too, though I can't remember at the moment.

The penultimate TRoW scenario has irritating Submerged Chocos who pop out of the sea and spear any melee-weak unit they can find.

Pretty much, the Paladin is more versatile than the Grand Knight, at the expense of attack power.

Exactly. The Grand Knights are generally quite a bit tougher and more damaging, but the Paladins are faster, have a rare melee Arcane attack(which is more effective in certain situations), are decent against everything, and have a nice minor healing ability.
Plus, I like the "warrior monk" image of the Paladin over the "heavy cavalry" image of the Grand Knight.


On a similar note, the Orcish Slurbow is actually my favorite archer. Because of it's versatility. With it's piercing and fire attacks, and a pretty decent melee blade, I don't think that there is any mainline unit which resists all of the Slurbows weapons. It may not do as much damage as an Elvish Sharpshooter, it may not be as tough as a Master Bowman, but unlike those other archers, there is no situation in which the Slurbow is rendered useless.

[chaoticwanderer]

It's very similar to the choice you have when leveling a clasher.

You can choose a more versatile unit, or a unit that has more raw attack power.

[Araja]

But the Slasher is partially protected from charges, as few cavalry want to trifle with a powerful piercing firstrike.

[thespaceinvader]

Charging any clasher line unit with a horseman line unit is pretty much asking for trouble. You'd be daft to do it, so it's not really an issue

You get the Arbiter/Warden line for raw damage, and the other (name currently in flux) line for adaptability, particularly against the undead.

[Araja]

Raw damage and firstrike.

[The1exile]

Firststrike matters very little when units with high damage and hp have it. Since any unit attacking it is likely accepting it will take the full retaliation, and no standard era faction units have swarm, hitting before or after usually does nothing to affect the outcome of a fight. maybe it might stiop the odd horseman trying to chargekill a wounded Warden.

[Skrim]

Firststrike matters very little when units with high damage and hp have it. Since any unit attacking it is likely accepting it will take the full retaliation, and no standard era faction units have swarm, hitting before or after usually does nothing to affect the outcome of a fight. maybe it might stiop the odd horseman trying to chargekill a wounded Warden.

Yeah, Firststrike is just a nice little freebie, not the main selling point of the Arbiter line. It's main advantages are it's greater total damage output, greater damage-per-strike, and Pierce resistance.

However, among all the first-strikers out there, the Arbiter line makes the best use of it by packing a lot of damage into that one strike. A non-strong Warden could bring down a non-resilient charging Knight from full HP in a single blow at dawn/dusk, before the Knight can even attempt an attack. An Arbiter could do the same thing to a Horseman. So these units really deter charging units.

[Xandria]

Also, they are quite resilient against chain-suicides from walking corpses. (I still shudder at how my Konrad was eaten by them in walley of Death).

[The_great_new_thing]

Also, they are quite resilient against chain-suicides from walking corpses. (I still shudder at how my Konrad was eaten by them in walley of Death).

I lost two paladins this exact way, one WC comes, re-dies, other one comes, re-dies, one more comes, re-dies and so on, till my paladin is 4 hp from dying, and the tenth WC comes and finishes him off

[Skrim]

Also, they are quite resilient against chain-suicides from walking corpses. (I still shudder at how my Konrad was eaten by them in walley of Death).

I lost two paladins this exact way, one WC comes, re-dies, other one comes, re-dies, one more comes, re-dies and so on, till my paladin is 4 hp from dying, and the tenth WC comes and finishes him off

Aye, that's the biggest problem with using Paladins against Undead - sometimes you get unlucky and it keeps killing everything that attacks it like a Berserker, until it runs out of HP or the enemy runs out of attackers. This 'problem' occurs with Walking Corpses/Soullesses, Skeletons, Chocobones, and Ghosts/Wraiths/Shadows.
Fortunately, it resists Blade, Impact and Arcane, and is fast enough to avoid a mob of that kind and let cheap meat L1 units take the hits. Chocobones could still be dangerous, but they are also quite rare.

I once lost a holy-water upgraded Grand Knight like this, but not before it had taken out 2 Revenents, 2 Chocobones, a Wraith and a couple of Skeletons.

And the WCs would get "dispelled", not "re-killed", though the latter is a rather more entertaining term.

[Araja]

Prepare to re-die, foul undead!