Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

So, with the new 5e wound allocation rules and the rumored Storm Shield rules change, something interesting happens if you can take one on a Veteran Sergeant.

Let's say you have a Combat Squad, 5 men, and you take fire from another 5-man Combat Squad with four Bolters and a Plasma Gun. Let's just say you get four wounds from the Bolters and one from the Plasma Gun. Now, per the wound allocation, you'd allocate one wound to the sergeant, one to your special weapon trooper, and then three to the other three models in the unit. By conventional tactics you'd just whack one of the normal marines without a save, and roll for everyone else. However, if the sergeant has a Storm Shield, you give him the plasma wound (which he gets a 3+ invulnerable save to), and the rest to everyone else (which they get 3+ armor saves for). As a result, you don't risk anything extra by giving the dangerous wound to the sergeant -- he'd be taking a save anyway, since you have to allocate one to him.

So, then add a plasma wound to the mix. You could then assign it to the sergeant too, so he'd take two 3+s, or you could give it to one of the normal marines, ensuring his death. That's where you have a choice -- if the sergeant's worth protecting because of gear. But if you only take the Storm Shield on the sergeant, there's little reason not to give him extra wounds to save other marines.

Given how a significant portion of low AP shots come in (mixed with higher AP shots; e.g., a Combat Squad firing Bolters and a single Plasma Gun), the Storm Shield on the squad effectively gives the entire squad its 3+ invulnerable save until the save is failed. And if you don't take any other upgrades on the sergeant, there's no additional cost (or, more specifically, risked point cost) beyond the cost of the Storm Shield as the Veteran Sergeant upgrade is free.

Of course, you can still add other things without increasing the risk of assigning extra wounds to the sergeant -- any wargear that's either one shot (e.g., Combiweapon), or something you expect to use only early in the game (e.g., Teleport Homer) doesn't add to the risked value of the sergeant when extra wounds are assigned to him.


Damnit, if this holds up, I'm laying claim to Storm Shield/Combiweapon equipped Veteran Sergeants as Lowinor pattern



...



And then Space Wolves can do some pretty crazy things. Considering that any Wolf Guard can take a Storm Shield for 5 points (whether a pack leader or a bodyguard), especially with the FAQ telling us Wolf Guard Battle Leaders can buy Wolf Guard heavy weapons.

So, take a Wolf Guard Battle Leader, give him a 4 man bodyguard, that's 160 points base.

Give them all Terminator Armor, 35 for the squad.
Hand out three Assault Cannons for 60 points (two of them to the bodyguard, and the WGBL gets one, too)

So we're at 255 points for a squad with 2+/5+ saves, two BS4 Assault Cannons and one BS5 Assault Cannon.

Then, for 30 points each, there are some ugprades here:

Give them all Runic Charms, 30 for the squad (reroll an armor save once per game each).
Give them all Storm Shields, 30 for the squad (a bargain for 3+ invulnerables).
And then 30 points buys Power Fists for the two models without ACs.

345 points for a 5-man squad with 2+/3+ saves (and a reroll on the 2+ once per model), two BS4 Assault Cannons, one BS5 Assault Cannon, and two Power Fists.

I have a feeling stormshields are going to a more reasonable 15 points for individuals in the future space marine codex, and as for super unit from space wolves, It might be fun to build, but their codex is next on the list, and I would hate to spend money only to have it invalidated 6 months later.

As a longtime Space Wolves player, 345 points for a grand total of 5 toughness 4 models is utter fail. It doesn't matter that they're totally uber in hand to hand combat; their mediocrity at range and incredibly high point cost per model means that you need to get them an assault transport, increasing their already inflated cost, and the number of dice that any enemy is going to be able to throw at you will overwhelm even your 2+/3+ save.

sourclams wrote:As a longtime Space Wolves player, 345 points for a grand total of 5 toughness 4 models is utter fail. It doesn't matter that they're totally uber in hand to hand combat; their mediocrity at range and incredibly high point cost per model means that you need to get them an assault transport, increasing their already inflated cost, and the number of dice that any enemy is going to be able to throw at you will overwhelm even your 2+/3+ save.

If you think three Assault Cannons (one of them being BS5, no less) constitutes "mediocrity at range", then as a long time Space Wolf player I'm going to have to think you're crazy

But anyway, in my experience (at least in 4th) with SW, at least, WGBL + Terminator retinue is only behind Wolf Scouts and SW Venerable Dreadnought in effectiveness. They're expensive, but both resilient and killy. Of course, if you're saying a squad with three Assault Cannons and only two Power Fists is mediocre in shooting and uber in assault, we're obviously going to disagree on a lot of things

Also been my experience they work better in pods than LRs, but 5e may change my mind on that.

With the abundance of cover saves, limited range, nerf to rending, and sinking so many points into 5 guys, yeah, 3 assault cannons in a squad is mediocre shooting.

I didn't properly read your HtH loadout... taking the 2 powerfists is a waste if you're not giving the entire squad at least a power weapon. Your wolf guard should be in HtH where they can hit on 3's and wound on 2's with PFs. At range, they're just so much bait for anything Ap2 and small arms fire. If you're going to go with the assault cannon firing platform then at least put a wolf priest in there with healing balms so that you get one freebie before burning through your charms.

If I were making a maxed out Space Wolf terminator squad, here's what I'd try for:

Wolf Priest (150)
Frost blade +20
Healing potions and balms +25
Wolf Tooth Necklace +10

Wolf Guard Terminatorx3 (210)
Assault Cannon +20
Power Fist +15
Runic Charm +5

Wolf Guard Terminatorx4 (200)
Storm Shield
Power Fist

Total cost: 560 pts

Wolf Priest hits on 3s, Str5 I5
3 Assault Cannons
14 Power Fist attacks, 4 storm shield models to absorb wounds requiring invuln. save, 1 automatic wound ignore, 3 armor save rerolls

Yes, this squad is expensive as heck, but they've got average shooting and anything they get into melee with other than a C'tan they will absolutely wreck with no trouble whatsoever.

I still wouldn't recommend doing this.

sourclams wrote:With the abundance of cover saves, limited range, nerf to rending, and sinking so many points into 5 guys, yeah, 3 assault cannons in a squad is mediocre shooting.

If three Assault Cannons are mediocre shooting, I'm not sure there's anything that qualifies as good shooting in the game. The Rending nerf doesn't impact Assault Cannons nearly as much as other sources of Rending due to it being S6 and being fired by BS4 and BS5 models (outside of AV14 targets, at least -- vs. MEQs, BS4 ACs lose 15% effectiveness, BS5 lose 8%; switch your target to anything T4 or worse and 4+ armor or worse, that changes to 4% and 3% respectively. In 4+ cover, those losses get changed to 9%, 5%, 4%, 3%). The S6 on the gun pretty seriously takes the teeth out of the Rending nerf on an Assault Cannon. AV14 is the only place the Assault Cannon seriously suffers (AV12 and below are identical to pre-nerf conditions, AV13 has one out of 6 pre-nerf penetrating hits converted to glancing (1/6 glance, 5/6 pen to 1/3 glance, 2/3 pen on the rending die), AV14 loses some pens to glances and nothing (1/6 nothing, 1/6 glance, 2/3 pen to 1/3 nothing, 1/3 glance, 1/3 pen on the rending die)).

The Rending nerf hits S4 much harder than S6; fortunately Assault Cannons are S6

Into cover you're still laying down 12 high-BS S6 shots.

Range isn't much of a factor since you put them in pods.

I didn't properly read your HtH loadout... taking the 2 powerfists is a waste if you're not giving the entire squad at least a power weapon. Your wolf guard should be in HtH where they can hit on 3's and wound on 2's with PFs. At range, they're just so much bait for anything Ap2 and small arms fire. If you're going to go with the assault cannon firing platform then at least put a wolf priest in there with healing balms so that you get one freebie before burning through your charms.

Two fists is an afterthought to add some assault punch to the squad to avoid being tarpitted. Can't take a third Assault Cannon on a Wolf Priest (and still fit the squad in a pod). My primary observation is the extra AC (at least; I consider the FAQ to add a new potential AC to a 5-man squad) and ability to hand out 3+ invulnerables makes them a solid, if expensive, shooting platform.

In any case, the SW stuff is probably secondary to a Storm Shield on a free upgrade character being a much more interesting choice than it has been in the past

The storm shield upgrade is long overdue, but given the changes to the game...it's 5 years too late, and pretty pointless.

You really should think about it. If you've been killing Terminators with AP2 for all this time, and losing to hordes...there's a reason you should listen to what I am saying.

Torrent of Fire kills Termies. That 3+ invulnerable means nothing except they don't need to really fear lascannons like they used to. It's only +1 save over the 4+ cover save they should have anyway...and lots of shots is what drags down termies. What good is a 3+ invulnerable when you are taking 20 tests on your 2+ save and 1 test on your 4+ cover? Big deal? Hype is all it is. Newb marine players thinking they got all powerful stuff coming.

Trust me, it's a sad joke on you and that isn't what is going to make marines powerful. It really isn't.

Stelek wrote:The storm shield upgrade is long overdue, but given the changes to the game...it's 5 years too late, and pretty pointless.

You really should think about it. If you've been killing Terminators with AP2 for all this time, and losing to hordes...there's a reason you should listen to what I am saying.

Torrent of Fire kills Termies. That 3+ invulnerable means nothing except they don't need to really fear lascannons like they used to. It's only +1 save over the 4+ cover save they should have anyway...and lots of shots is what drags down termies. What good is a 3+ invulnerable when you are taking 20 tests on your 2+ save and 1 test on your 4+ cover? Big deal? Hype is all it is. Newb marine players thinking they got all powerful stuff coming.

Trust me, it's a sad joke on you and that isn't what is going to make marines powerful. It really isn't.

Sigh.

Ok, there are two lines of thought in the original post:

First, that Storm Shields on Veteran Sergeants looks to have some useful properties due to the way things work, and is the main thing.

The other is that cheap Storm Shields on non-assault SW Terminators looks interesting, both from the "SW termies are already really resilient now" and the "hey, a shooty termy squad with Storm Shields" perspective.

The former is really the more interesting, as it's more applicable.

The 3+ invulnerable is considerably better on SW termies, as in a 5 man squad 20 non-AP2 wounds doesn't (on average) kill a model -- the 50% mark isn't until 24 wounding non-AP2 hits. SW termies are already quite resilient to torrents of fire.

And I'm pretty sure I've never said it specifically would make marines powerful. It's just something that appears useful.

I guess I don't see the validity of what you are saying when your mathhammer seems off.

20/6=3+ dead termies.

I don't see how stacking all the extra points is worth it on this unit. For the odd lascannon shot? That isn't what kills termies...lots of weak shots does.

Stelek wrote:I guess I don't see the validity of what you are saying when your mathhammer seems off.

20/6=3+ dead termies.

I don't see how stacking all the extra points is worth it on this unit. For the odd lascannon shot? That isn't what kills termies...lots of weak shots does.

The only termies I was talking about were SW termies, who aren't typically fielded without Runic Charms -- wargear which lets them reroll an armor save per game. Allocated individually, in a 5-man terminator squad with a Runic Charm on each, the 24th wound is, on average, the first one that actually kills one. SW terminators (again, the only ones I was talking about, as they're the only ones that can take Assault Cannons and Storm Shields) are a lot less vulnerable to weight of fire than other terminators as a result. I guess I don't see the validity of what you are saying.

Now it all makes sense.

Sorry I wasn't computing correctly.

Gotta say Wolf Guard to make me get it. lol