Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Army Reborn: Space Wolves

In late 2006 to early 2007, right before my second trip to Iraq, I had the pleasure of playing with a local gamer, Tom Schadle. Some of you guys might know Tom from a few years back, he moderated some boards at Bolter and Chainsword and painted mini's. Auctually he was a pretty prolific painter with over 13 Golden Daemons and a Slayer Sword to his name. Tom and I played bunches of his Black Templars against my Imperial Guard until one day he suggested that we each start a new army, he chose Sisters of Battle and I went with Space Wolves. For Christmas 2006 is gave me the simple, and very old school, space wolf below. This space wolf and all his brothers have sat in an army transport for the last 4 years, until this week.


When I returned from Iraq we had lost contact and never seemed able to get gaming started again. I left the army, worked in a high stress job in health care and he went on to do other things as well. Regrettably, life takes is course, whether we want it to or not. Now fast forward to today, I opened a moving box from our latest cross country and industry changing move, when I found my old Space Wolf army. Quite frankly they are horribly painted, and I have already stripped the entire army and re-primered them in a darker than normal grey. Pictures of all of that in due time, I promise. For today I'm struggling with the list I'm going to build.

I have two basic ideas that I am putting into the list: meat and potatoes. That's it, a very simple list that brings tons of pain in the Space Wolf way - right in your face. I have narrowed it down to two separate lists and here they are:

Option One:

1 Pack of the following:
++ 8 Grey Hunters 1/melta and standard
++ Wolf Guard w/ combi melta and powerfist
++ Njal the Stormcaller
++ Rhino

3 Packs of the following:
++ 9 Grey Hunters 1/melta and standard
++ Wolf Guard w/ combi melta and powerfist
++ Rhino

2 Packs of the following:
++ 6 Longfangs 5/missile launchers
++ Razorback Lascannon Twinlinked plasma

1 Pack of the following:
++ 4 Wolf Guard w/ combi melta and power sword
++ Rune Priest
++ Razorback w/ heavy bolters

My basic idea is the grey hunters close with and destroy the enemy while long fangs provide long range fire support. The second rune priest stays near the long fangs to provide counter assault if anything tries to get in close with them ans also provide a second HQ choice, for one because I agree with SandWyrm about the utility of dual HQ choices, and secondly if some special missions require HQ to seize the objective, like at Adepticon this year.


Option two:

1 Pack of the following:
++ 7 Grey Hunters 1/melta and standard
++ Wolf Guard w/ combi melta and powerfist
++ Njal the Stormcaller
++ Rhino

1 Pack of the following:
++ 7 Grey Hunters 1/melta and standard
++ Wolf Guard w/ combi melta and power sword
++ Rune Priest
++ Rhino

3 Packs of the following:
++ 8 Grey Hunters 1/melta and standard
++ Wolf Guard w/ combi melta and powerfist
++ Rhino

2 Packs of the following:
++ 6 Longfangs 5/missile launchers
++ Razorback Lascannon Twinlinked plasma

In the second configuration the packs are smaller by one guy each, so all packs are 9 dudes, but the second Rune Priest has a full squad with him instead of the Wolf Guard fire-and-forget squad. The Long Fangs will have to fend for themselves but with 5 squads of Grey Hunters rushing the enemy lines, I don't know if they will have any thing to toss in the back field.

Any thoughts or suggestions would be greatly appreciated as I haven't played this army in 4 years and I am starting from scratch. All the dudemen, 40 Grey Hunters, are primered so there is still time to change things around before the paint starts flying.

Cheers,

Tallarn

3 comments:

  1. I like list two. Conceptually the unit of wolf guard that have short range melta that plans to sit back in a transport that has no firepoints seems like a big point sink on a non scoring unit. I think you'd do better to just leave a grey hunter unit at home that can hold an objective, perhaps you could take a small unit in a razorback for this purpose?

    In list two, it looks solid although I really like having the squad with a Pfist (so two with the wolf guard in each) as this threatens termie types and vehicles, should be particularly useful vs grey knights and their army of autocannon dreads.

    So personally I'd drop the 8men units to 7(+45pts) and drop the standards armywide(+50pts) to have a fist in 3 squads(-75pts). I'd also swap that wolf guard power sword for a pfist(-5pts). Most lists i see seem to have mark of the wulfen, so with the last 15 maybe try one of them on your Njal/priest squad?.

    Hope my take helps!

    ReplyDelete
  2. @ Crosser: Yes, I was leaning towards list two. I just have this thing in my head about units needing to be 10 models. I suppose its silly, but after 17 years with guard it hard to shake!

    Ill look at your idea with the power fists and see if I can't cram some additional ones in, but they get expensive fast.

    Any ideas about running two Rune Priests?

    ReplyDelete
  3. I have some lengthy comments but that will be later.

    For now...

    1. Standards vs Wolfen in a Grey Hunter unit - They both are good and it depends on your play style. I would go with the standard for now and then try out the wolfen for fun later... then pick.

    2. Grey Hunters are great however you don't need them in units of 10. Seven is about right. Why? It also gives you the option of placing characters/wolfguard in the unit.

    3. Two Rune Priests... I say no. If you are going to take one rune priest go for Njal. (Go big or stay home.)

    One priest and some thunder wolf guy is in a lot of lists. If you are conserving points... go with one priest but not two.

    I know Njal is in just about every list but he really is a 'swiss army knife' kinda guy. You would have fun with him and it gives you a great oportunity to 'convert/sculpt' a guy to tailor him to your army as a center piece.

    4. If you plan on using wolf guard and place them in units then a combi-melta is almost manditory to boost the unit he is asigned. I'd almost say try to give him a powerfist. Stick him in a grey hunter squad and with the standard you have your very own little 'beater' unit. If you want to go further... give one of the grey hunters a power sword. Tah dah! :P

    Now, I'll be in the corner and get back to you with another comment later,

    CK

    ReplyDelete