Blood Claw Squad

The humble blood claw received a significant points drop in the current codex moving them from being one of the worst units in the codex to a points efficient and effective unit. 

Blood claws are the assault unit of choice for the space wolves filling a very different role to the Grey Hunter.  While Grey Hunters excel at a shooting range of 12" to allow there special Weapons to have maximum impact before using counter attack to receive a charge.  Blood claws need to charge rather than be charged.  They rely upon volume of attacks to wine in assault. 

Special weapons
The only thing worth considering is a flamer.  The other options do not work well with the Blood Claws BS of3.

Power Weapon
Blood claws are able to take a power weapon on a non character model meaning that the wielder of the power weapon cannot be issued a challenge.  Power fists are usually the best option to make use of the large number of attacks that a single blood claw will make during the first round of assault.  Power axes are also viable if points are tight.

Wolf Guard Leader
Expensive to add to the squad and very vulnerable in a challenge.  Adding upgrades to a wolf guard leader becomes expensive very quickly.  Attaching a rune priest in the squad is a more cost effective method of adding additional AP 2 attacks in assault in addition to providing the opportunity to buff the squad.

Formations
They are made even more effective when they are ran as part of the Blackmanes formation with Ragnar Blackmane.  Rerolling all fair hits in assault for all claw units in the formation is exceptional.

Dedicated Transports
Rhinos and Razor backs tend to be a waste.  They take to long to deliver what Is in effect a assault focused unit to the target area.  As they are not assault vehicles the Blood Claw Unit cannot assault during the turn that they disembark. 

Stormwolves are very hard hitting and provide the ultimate in anti armour hunting in addition to being an assault vehicle.  They are also very expensive and will not arrive on the board until turn 2 at the earliest meaning a turn 3 charge.

Drop Pods are the most cost effective way of delivering a blood claw squad.  Granted they are not a assault vehicle meaning no assaults on the turn that the unit disembark but no time is wasted having to traverse the field of play to reach the opposition.

Grey Hunters

Grey Hunter Squads form the heart of most space wolf armies.  While they are not as good currently as what they were compared to the historic 5th ed codex they still are better than there peers in codex Space Marine.  They will out fight a tactical squad in assault and outshoot them on the move due to the ability to take two special Weapons rather than a special + heavy weapon.  The key is to tailor the load out of the grey Hunter Squad to its role on the battle field.

Special Weapons
Grey Hunter Squads need to be tailored to meet the required role. Against infantry x2 flamers, heavy armour x2 plasma guns (+ plasma pistol) and vehicles x2 melta guns.

Placement of the model in the squad needs to ensure that the special Weapons can deliver maximum damage output but ensure that are not in a position where they can be easily targeted.

Power Weapons
The ability to hide a power weapon on a non character model in a squad is the main reason why the humble Grey Hunter Squad out plays a codex space marine tactical squad. The wielder cannot be challenged in assault and as a result is significantly more survivable than a character armed with a power weapon.  The choice of power weapon again needs to be tailored to the required role.  Against vehicles a power fist is essential but against any other target a power axe is more points effective and better than a power sword.

Wolf Standard
This single item was at the heart of the old 5th edition codex and allowed for some truly broken abuse of the rules. The current version gives +1 attack to any unit within 6" and reroll moral checks within 12". Placement if the model is key.  They need to be protected and placed so that the 6" bubble interacts with as many units in assault as possible.  Placing the wolf standard on the model carrying the power weapon helps to do this.

Wolf Guard Leader
Adding a wolf guard leader to the squad is expensive but does have many merits. They will increase the initial Dana he output of a squad but at a premium.  It suits a drop pod delivery system over other means due to the alpha strike nature of drop pods.  The wolf guard leader allows access to a combi weapon which should always match the others in the squad. Power Weapons are expensive and as the wolf guard leader is a character vulnerable in a challenge meaning that this tends to be a unnecessary outlay .  A melta bomb on the wolf guard leader is a good investment if the squad is likely to go up against vehicles.  If the squad is likely to end up in assault or if you a planning on placing an independent character in the squad a wolf guard leader in terminator armour running a storm shield and combi weapon adds a significant amount of survivability and allows the wolf guard leader to take on unwanted challenges.

Extra Close Combat Weapon
Essential if there is a chance that the Grey Hunter Squad could end up in assault. Combined with the wolf standard a single grey Hunter will make 4 attacks during the first round of assault. This is significantly more than most other troop choices in other codex's.

Dedicated Transports
This depends upon many factors. If the Blackmane formation is being used then the free drop pods are a must take. The same is true if  the Iron Wolves formation is being used then a razorback loaded with every free upgrade is the only real sensible choice (assault cannon or Las cannon).  The razorback will limit the squad size to 5 however. 

If a standard force organisation chart is being used my personal preference is to use a drop pod over a rhino or razorback. 

The combination of objective secured on a AV12 3HP vehicle that delivers your squad to a position without taking a turn or two to get there (whilst being shot at) is to good to turn down. Granted they lack mobility after the initial landing but this can be accounted for in the rest of the army list.  When taken en mass they can restrict the movement of opposing forces and cause the opposition to have to responding a reactive manner.

Rhinos are to fragile and likely to be immobilised leaving the squad to move on foot to its target location.  With only two fire points only two members of the embarked squad can fire.  If the vehicles moves faster than combat speed then these weapons are being snap fired. Damage output is likely to be limited.

Razorbacks while having a greater damage output that ether rhinos or drop pods need to be moving at combat speed to make best use of the large gun that's sat on its roof.  This is a lot of circumstances is in direct conflict to moving the squad in side to its desired location to disembark as quickly as possible.

To sum up.  Dedicated Transports role is to transport a unit to a position on the battle field quickly and safely. The drop pod does this better than other choices. High damage output is best left to other units.  The drop pod does lack the ability to be able to redeploy said unit however meaning that initial deployment us key.

Readers Hobby Blog Contribution - Matthew Whipps

From its humble beginnings this blog was always going to be contribution focused from the online Space Wolves community. The pictures above come from the collection of Matthew Whipps.   Matthew was keen to praise the online painting guides produced by Games Workshop featuring Duncan Rhodes.  

Matthews work makes use of a string colour pallet along to produce a clean and exceptionally tidy paint job.  Weathering is focused and realistic and adds to the overall effect.

If you have anything that you want to share get in contact

Lone Wolves

The most characterfull and best fitting fluff wise unit in the entire codex in my humble opinion.  I modelled and painted these four to try and represent four distinct personalities and styles of combat. The forgeworld space wolf upgrade sprue formed the basis of each model. 

These models attract an insane amount of fire from the opposition and usually make their points back 4 or 5 times over. The most was the last lone wolf taking on and beating a knight in assault before being crushed by said knight as it promptly exploded....

Wrydstorm Brotherhood

The Wrydstorm Brotherhood gives a much needed buff to the Space Wolves codex in the form of a formation based psychic witchfire attack that can put out an insane amount of Strength 7 attacks. Combined with the helm of durast to reroll failed to hits and ignore cover and most sub armour 14 vehicles will be taken down in a single psychic phase. 

I find spreading the Rune Priests over multiple squads the most effective tactic and favour axes and staves over swords.  At 55 points for a basic Rune Priest they are very points efficient.  

Rolling on the Divination and Biomancy disciplines tends to work well in a bid to improve the survivability of the squads that each Rune Priest is attached to. 

Steps to achieved the purple glow.  

1.Painting the weapon as normal.

2.Wash with druchii violet x2

3.Dry brush Azul Oscuro dark blue overspilling into the surrounding area

4.Dry brush alien purple overspilling into the surrounding area

5.drybrush purpura warlord purple only on weapon

6. Very light dry brush 50:50 white and purpura warlord purple on edges of weapon.

Thunderwolf/wulfen star

The aim is to create a highly competitive army list that will place highly in a tournament setting.  This list is not intended for normal or friendly games.  The list needs to be highly mobile, hard hitting, robust and have the ability to claim multiple objectives. It's also not much fun to play against.....

WOLF GUARD BATTLE LEADER

The Kraken bone sword allows for you to make best use of the I5.  The storm shield gives a much needed 3 Plus invulnerable save.  Taking two Fenrisian wolves adds yet more ablative wounds into the unit.  The two  Fenrisian wolves should sit at the front of the Death Star so that they are the first to die (to ensure that you keep the T5 majority in the unit).  As an independent character the Wolf Guard Battle Leader can slit off from the main Death Star unit to go and hunt low initiative armour save 2 plus units.

IRON PRIESTS

The Iron Priests form a key aspect of this list. They provide a 2 plus armour save, access to cyber wolves that can be used as ablative wounds and real hard hitting power in the form of S10 AP 1 attacks.  Being an independent character the Iron Priests are able to split off from the main Death Star when required and claim objectives or go vehicle hunting.  The key is not to allow the Iron Priests to become isolated and tar-pitted by large cheap units.

WULFEN or THUNDERWOLVES

Wulfen are possibly the single most over powered unit in the Space Wolf codex right now. 2 W models with a 4 plus save and a 5 plus FNP are tough and robust. The key is to take a mix of different weapons to take advantage of different initiative pile in moves. A unit of 10 with a mix of frost hammers, great axes and frost claws works well.  The Wulfen need to be positioned behind the cyber wolves.  The curse of the Wulfen special rule further buffs the Death Star.

Thunderwolves are more durable and mobile but do not hit as hard as what the wulfen do. A squad of 5 all equipment with storm shields and a few power fists thrown in tends to be the best way to run these.

WRYD STORM BROTHERHOOD

5 Rune Priests on bikes, with melts bombs and with a mixture of runic axes and staves provides a highly mobile hard hitting collective of models that add flexibility and access to a vast range of psychic powers from which to buff the Death Star. Key powers to roll are Endurance and forewarning. These make the Death Star unit super tough 4 plus invulnerable save on every model, 4 plus feel no pain on every model combined with eternal warrior on a unit where the bulk of the models are multi wound.  An alternative is to run an allied librarius conclave and also roll for invisibility.

TIPS AND TRICKS
The key to this list is to be in assault at the start of the opponents turn. Making multi unit assaults is key to this.  Model placement to minimise attacks allocated to a single unit to ensure that you do not wipe out everything during the first round of the assault is a key skill to learn.  I was once able to carry out a 8 unit multi assault with a list very similar to this at a tournament.

Knowing when to split up the Death Star to claim objectives or use individual aspects to target units is very important. The list has a huge number of individual units that are all very mobile. 

It is important to maintain good spacing between models with the cyber wolves and Fenrisian wolves acting as a blanket to absorb wounds.  The Death Star has a huge foot print and as a result can be used to really limit the movement and thus impact of any flyers.

From humble beginnings

From humble beginnings. April 1989, I was 10 and took my first steps into the world of Warhammer 40k. Almost 3 decades later and I'm still here.  The warriors of the Fang have been my army of choice from my very earliest days in this hobby. 

My current force pictured in part above weighs in at around 14000 points fully painted and incorporates elements of codex space marine in it to further add to its character.  I am a firm believer of collecting a themed army, in this case the theme is a planetary assault force modelled around Ragnar Blackmane Great Company.

Inspired by the now gone space wolves blog ran in recent years by Adam Smith I felt the need to attempt to fill the hole left by the previous space wolf blog. This blog will in part act as a medium in which I can document my love of this hobby but mainly as a community resource filled with contributions from the Space Wolf Community.

Happy hunting. . .