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I'd be nice if once all the codices are out, they put out the units that are index only for free on the web as PDFs

Didn't they do something similar for several AoS warscrolls?

If they didnt intend to phase models out, why not include them in the codex? I cant see any other reason, apart from selling indexes to new players by making half-asses codices.

Northern85Star wrote:
If they didnt intend to phase models out, why not include them in the codex? I cant see any other reason, apart from selling indexes to new players by making half-asses codices.

in a lot of those cases they're legacy models. with no real kit for them. that said some of the decisions that way are a bit odd. veterns on bikes for example. most people I suspect make their veterans with a heavy dive into a bits box

GW isn't trying to phase out models, they are trying to only produce rules for models they currently sell and only allowing models to be equipped with what comes in the unit's box set.
Twin Autocannons, for example are not an available choice in any Dreadnought box (outside of FW), so all Codices have the option removed.
Outside of kitbashing, there are no Space Wolf Characters on bikes, nor any with combi-weapons (I think) so the Codex removes them as an option.

GW appears to be moving toward a game that is more accommodating to new players. The kits have only the options in the Codex and vice-versa, regardless of what has come before.
I can appreciate this mentality and think that so far GW has handled it well. It just seems obvious that the Indexes will not be supported forever.

Only time will tell what that will mean for "legacy" units and options. Maybe GW is building up towards dropping these options altogether? If they are supported for a little while but not in the "mainstream" Codices, then when GW does eventually drop the options, far fewer players will be affected by it.

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 Galef wrote:
GW isn't trying to phase out models, they are trying to only produce rules for models they currently sell and only allowing models to be equipped with what comes in the unit's box set.
Twin Autocannons, for example are not an available choice in any Dreadnought box (outside of FW), so all Codices have the option removed.
Outside of kitbashing, there are no Space Wolf Characters on bikes, nor any with combi-weapons (I think) so the Codex removes them as an option.

GW appears to be moving toward a game that is more accommodating to new players. The kits have only the options in the Codex and vice-versa, regardless of what has come before.
I can appreciate this mentality and think that so far GW has handled it well. It just seems obvious that the Indexes will not be supported forever.

Only time will tell what that will mean for "legacy" units and options. Maybe GW is building up towards dropping these options altogether? If they are supported for a little while but not in the "mainstream" Codices, then when GW does eventually drop the options, far fewer players will be affected by it.

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I just hope this means GW will put out kits for some of the more popular options. TBH it's amazed me that they've never put out a "commander on bike" kit.

To get back to SW tactics, I've been thinking about units to use with the rune priest intercept strategem, and the two units that stand out are aggressors and the Leviathan dread, mainly because both of those units are capable of one shotting a smash captain on average.

jcd386 wrote:
To get back to SW tactics, I've been thinking about units to use with the rune priest intercept strategem, and the two units that stand out are aggressors and the Leviathan dread, mainly because both of those units are capable of one shotting a smash captain on average.

I was thinking of stormfangs/stormwolfs now that they are cheaper. They also serve as our transports and with a runepriest they can be -2 to hit with 2+ armor. Add Grimnar and a wgbl, and they reroll all misses, and 1s to wound.

I see the fang ships as being like magnus, if you get first turn you can protect them with powers and just make them a huge pain to deal with. But dont get that first turn and.... they pop.

Northern85Star wrote:

jcd386 wrote:
To get back to SW tactics, I've been thinking about units to use with the rune priest intercept strategem, and the two units that stand out are aggressors and the Leviathan dread, mainly because both of those units are capable of one shotting a smash captain on average.

I was thinking of stormfangs/stormwolfs now that they are cheaper. They also serve as our transports and with a runepriest they can be -2 to hit with 2+ armor. Add Grimnar and a wgbl, and they reroll all misses, and 1s to wound.

Oh yeah, the storm fang will also one shot a smash captain with average shooting. And this means the captain either has to jump out of LoS, or wait until after the first turn to drop in after the storm fang has been handled.

As posted in the News and Rumours - the Errata is now out for the Sagas and Deeds.

https://whc-cdn.games-workshop.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Space_Wolves_Codex_2017_138.pdf

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2018/08/21/20th-aug-updated-space-wolves-warlord-traitsgw-homepage-post-2/

I can’t help but Hunter, Wolfkin and sometimes Beastslayer will be the go tos for a lot of people. That said, Hunter would only come in if you’re not running Wulfen and Beastslayer would be for Knights matchups.

Saga of the warrior born is going to be extremely powerful against other melee armies. The deed is easy to get done (can even be done with shooting), and suddently your blob doesnt have to worry about getting charged too much - you get to alternate between chargers and your units within 6”. Combine with armour of Russ to strike first in all circumstances!
Great vs melee armies.

Saga of majesty is very powerful for Grimnar, a 9” reroll all misses - and this doesnt require a deed. Deed is hard to pull off though.
Great if running a shooty army.

Saga of the wolfkin is good, but since you need to get into melee to get the deed done, it wont become an aura until after you have charged in... so our other units that charged in with the warlord wont get the extra attack until they charge again, get charged or do a HI.
Not sure when this is superior to the others.

Saga of the hunter is probably the greatest trait in most circumstances. The deed is the easiest of them, and greatly increases our ability to get mobile shooty armies into melee with us.
Great against gunlines.

Saga of the beastslayer is obviously good against big things.

Saga of the bear.. meh.

Im so happy that they included these changes, the original print was very inferior to what we have now!

Scout bikers?? limited to power axe and sword?

So, I’d say that currently Saga of the Warrior Born will be difficult to achieve against most armies, and probably neigh on impossible if you’re aiming to complete the deed from shooting alone. This for me is deed that requires a melee warlord, likely, getting into your opponent’s lines. Once picked up though, it could be incredibly strong.

Majesty is a Grimnar only buff that will try to lead you towards a gunline style initially. It is the hardest deed to achieve, and, when you do achieve it, it’ll likely be completely pointless as it’ll either be really late on in the game so your units can’t fail anyway or, you’ll be running 5 man squads where ATSKNF will save you anyway. Could be good for spamming Longfangs and Dreadnoughts for that extra 3” aura, but I don’t think you’ll need it – especially as you want to be within 6” of each other to start with to gain the Rune Priest stratagem buff.

Wolfkin for me is all about the WL running alongside a unit of Wulfen, where the WL will be picking up +2 attacks when he charges. After that, the Wulfen will also pick up the additional attack in the following turns. With all the additional attacks stacking up, it is one of the easiest to achieve as well imo.

The Hunter trait is ok, but I don’t know how much use it’ll get. Your main melee threats are Wulfen and TWC. Wulfen can already advance and charge so don’t need the deed, and TWC – if they are by the WL who has this deed unlocked will already be in the enemy lines so won’t need the advance and charge. The only option that comes to mind right now is a WL alongside Wulfen in a Stormfang, disembarking turn 2 and basically getting wherever the blob wants to due to them all getting advance and charge.

Beastslayer, yeah, you’re essentially an arguably better Smash Captain without the ignores overwatch, and then you turn your Wulfen into a unit of Smash Captains shortly after.

The Bear, I agree. Pretty meh. It’s another one that will likely get picked up as a result of melee, so I guess it could help TWC a bit. If you’re trying to pick it up from an enemy shooting again, then you’re just begging to give away Slay the Warlord lol.

So, for me, I’d probably say Wolfkin, Beastslayer and then a mix of the Hunter and Bear for the ones with the most synergy with how I expect the army as a whole to play out.

I am seeing hunter and wolfkin being amazing on warlords on thunderwolves, shouldnt be that hard to pull off the deed and really the idea of squads of thunderwolves getting all those extra attacks when charging... they will mess something up hardcore.

I don't get Majesty. It will do absolutely nothing on Njarl until he slays the enemy Warlord? Shouldn't the ignore morale be an aura right from the start?

Ragnar69 wrote:
I don't get Majesty. It will do absolutely nothing on Njarl until he slays the enemy Warlord? Shouldn't the ignore morale be an aura right from the start?

Presumably fluff reasons. I think GW assumes it doesnt matter, as virtually no one will pick him as warlord.

I have yet to run into smash captains in my local meta. Most armies are mono build here as well. I'm plan on just taking cool stuff and building synergies off of them. I love my wulfen. perhaps I'll make a "furblur" list with wulfen, thunder wolves and fenrisian wolves.

With Hunter it seems like you charge with the warlord, he makes it in, and then your next charges from units within 6" of him at that time can also charge even if they advanced? Probably doable with TWC and blood claws if you're careful about your positioning.

Edit:
Woops, it's the end of the phase. Nevermind. They all seem pretty bad to me in this case.

jcd386 wrote:
With Hunter it seems like you charge with the warlord, he makes it in, and then your next charges from units within 6" of him at that time can also charge even if they advanced? Probably doable with TWC and blood claws if you're careful about your positioning.

Edit:
Woops, it's the end of the phase. Nevermind. They all seem pretty bad to me in this case.

I always play ITC, so atleast this gives some adaptation to what i am facing. Hunter against UM, warrior born against khorne, wolfkin against DG etc. In this way they are pretty good. If i couldnt do that, wolfkin might be the way to go because it is straight up +1 A on your warlord, and isnt hard to proc into an aura. That is always handy.

Northern85Star wrote:

jcd386 wrote:
With Hunter it seems like you charge with the warlord, he makes it in, and then your next charges from units within 6" of him at that time can also charge even if they advanced? Probably doable with TWC and blood claws if you're careful about your positioning.

Edit:
Woops, it's the end of the phase. Nevermind. They all seem pretty bad to me in this case.

I always play ITC, so atleast this gives some adaptation to what i am facing. Hunter against UM, warrior born against khorne, wolfkin against DG etc. In this way they are pretty good. If i couldnt do that, wolfkin might be the way to go because it is straight up +1 A on your warlord, and isnt hard to proc into an aura. That is always handy.

True, and IIRC ITC doesn't make you pick your warlord trait during list building, only which model is your warlord, so there is some flexibility there. That can change depending on the format, though.

Idd, warlord trait, psychic powers and relics are chosen per battle - so these are all adaptable Each player write them down simultaneously and reveal them at the same time.

We could also reliably make a turn one charge with our warlord with the hunter trait, but that would require him to be on bike for a 14” move, 6” advance plus charge.

Let's talk about troops.

Not being normal Marines, we can't bring scouts as troops, which means that we actually have to make use of troops units if we don't want them to just be a tax.

Luckily, we have the best marine troops in the game, with more and better attacks in close combat, and access to more Plasma than the typical Tac squad on our grey hunters.

We can also use our strategem to infiltrate our troops from a board edge, which seems good for blood claw squads, especially if there is a way to get access to charge rerolls (Wulfen, Ragnar).

What are you guys's thoughts on SW troops? Do you think you'll be sticking with minimum squads on foot, bigger squads on foot, rhino squads, or a combination? How many squads do you think you'll be using? 3, 6, more, less? There doesn't seem to be an obvious answer to me, though some options stick out to me more than others, so I'm interested in others thoughts.

Looks like stratagems is where it's at, so I'm going to soup up with my IG battalion. Maybe a few Leman Russes for long range support.

That said, it's only +5cp and I might want to fit in a SW battalion as well. MSU grey hunters with Razorbacks most probably.

Forward elements include TWC, TWC characters, Wulfen and Wulfen dreads. Sounds like a solid list at least in my mind.

3x min GHs with WG and plasmas most likely. Probably 2 Razorbacks as well to take some heat from the wulfen dread.
I think I will go for jump packs with my characters, fly and the smaller base really help with heroic intervention.

It just feels so lame that our characters can't take all options available just because GW thinks it's too intimidating for beginners to model them. I mean things like Rune Priests with Jump Packs or Wolf Priests on Thunderwolves and so on. It just feels so arbitrary and artificial that they can't move about the battlefield with all the options available to the chapter.

The same sort of thing is happening with the Primaris. You have these big hulking marines but they can't pick up a heavy bolter because it doesn't fit GW's financial scheme or whatever... meh.

Guess I'll make due but this will always be a pet peeve of mine.

E: This just came to mind when I thought a Rune Priest would be sweet to have within a character bomb, but I guess they can only footslog or take transports. I have a RP on bike so I'll guess I'm using an index only unit then.

 Weazel wrote:
It just feels so lame that our characters can't take all options available just because GW thinks it's too intimidating for beginners to model them. I mean things like Rune Priests with Jump Packs or Wolf Priests on Thunderwolves and so on. It just feels so arbitrary and artificial that they can't move about the battlefield with all the options available to the chapter.

The same sort of thing is happening with the Primaris. You have these big hulking marines but they can't pick up a heavy bolter because it doesn't fit GW's financial scheme or whatever... meh.

Guess I'll make due but this will always be a pet peeve of mine.

E: This just came to mind when I thought a Rune Priest would be sweet to have within a character bomb, but I guess they can only footslog or take transports. I have a RP on bike so I'll guess I'm using an index only unit then.

This is one of the reasons the indexes exist. Nothing to complain about unless they make index loadouts illegal, which hasn't happened yet and we don't know if it ever will.

I think the reviewers confirmed that jump packs are still available (except for Iron Priests), only bikes are gone.

Its not just SW, its all the other books too. Chaos took just as big of a hit with this ruling, and R&H had their codex gutted. It's part of 8th edition and not something that is only hurting SW.

jcd386 wrote:
Let's talk about troops.

Not being normal Marines, we can't bring scouts as troops, which means that we actually have to make use of troops units if we don't want them to just be a tax.

Luckily, we have the best marine troops in the game, with more and better attacks in close combat, and access to more Plasma than the typical Tac squad on our grey hunters.

We can also use our strategem to infiltrate our troops from a board edge, which seems good for blood claw squads, especially if there is a way to get access to charge rerolls (Wulfen, Ragnar).

What are you guys's thoughts on SW troops? Do you think you'll be sticking with minimum squads on foot, bigger squads on foot, rhino squads, or a combination? How many squads do you think you'll be using? 3, 6, more, less? There doesn't seem to be an obvious answer to me, though some options stick out to me more than others, so I'm interested in others thoughts.

I like either fully loaded squad, 10 with guard in terminator. Stormbolter and shield, sarg with powerfist, 2 plasma. 1 plasma pistol. But privy at 195 points. Otherwise use 6 man squad including a guard with sb and shield, 1 plasma.
I like to go with 6 squads of hunter. But thight on points when trying to include 3 rune priest, 3 long fangs and either sicaran or leviathan