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Alright, so I went ahead on Friday and purchased the new Space Wolves Codex, now I'm waiting for it to get here.

From any of the SW players on DakkaDakka, any words of wisdom you can bestow upon a new SW player? I've played Vanilla Marines and Blood Angels and have been building/playing my Nid's list since 3rd edition. I've seen SW played but never really gotten into them to much, was pretty much going with the understanding that they're just really OP and considered kind of cheesy, I suppose that's the major reason I approached them with hesitation and picked up Blood Angels instead. Don't get me wrong love playing my BA's but I like the feral tenacity and feel of the SW so I'm diving in and looking for some advice/tips on anything I should be looking at or considering.

Thanks in advance.

Cheers~

Space wolves are a very very fun army. rune priests rock, Wolf priests rock, Lone wolves rock, Grey hunters are one of the best troops out there. Wulfan is a great upgrade, and as always the Long fangs are super sweet.


Remember to make those grey hunter squads even better with some wolfgaurd, and that lone wolves are great for almost any game. a lone man running around (or better yet, sneak him a razorback from another unit who won't use it on turn 1) and all havok rolls, Most either ignore him, and he hurts something, or they focus on him to much, and the rest of the army hurts something

Space Wolves Scouts work very well esspecially with the extra weapons you can give them. IMO the best thing that the Space Wolves Codex does is give all GH bolter, hand weapon and bolt pistol as standard giving them two attacks in h2h or three on the charge. I think this really gives them a much better chance agains Orks and CSM than vanilla marines have.

Hmmm...making me get excited in anticipation of my new codex.

Thanks for the info, I'll be sure to read each entry carefully. Are there any rules that are confusing or easy to interprit differently player to player? (ie. Doom of Malan'tai hitting/not-hitting units in vehicles.)


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Extra attacks, sounds good to me.

Never take Jaws of the World Wolf. Your friends will hate you for using such a ridiculous spell. Rune Priests still have lots of other cool stuff though.

Wolf Guard are fantastic. Having a squad of mini-ICs is great. You could even mix power armor and terminator armor in one squad if you really wanted.

HQs are a lot of fun as well. There's a ridiculous amount of customization available with them. Sagas give them all kinds of cool abilities. HQ choices are pricier than vanilla Marines, but they're still worth it.

At the core you have Grey Hunters, who are undercosted and very good. 10 Marines with two plasma guns, a power fist, and Mark of the Wulfen, all for around 200 points. Adding a Wolf Guard pack leader with a frost blade (strength 5 power weapon) to that squad makes them a really solid offensive or defensive unit.

I've been playing Space Wolves since their old codex and they've always been a lot of fun. The new codex has a lot of new options; and while some of them are less useful than others, they're still fun.

heh, Brother SRM I know about the JotWW, and how it cripples my Tyranids. lol
Not sure if I'll always use it, but it will be fun to try so we'll just have to see.

Good to know though about the Wolf Guard. hmmm....a full squad of IC's.... MUHAHAHA!!!! A power unit in one...hmmm...can I not give them Terminator Armor and give them all Jump Packs instead? Just out of curiousity, because I had thought about that when looking at my SM Codex.

Space Wolves are cool. I've been reading my firend's Codex for the last week or two and i've written about 20 space wolves lists at different point values. I really dig Njal as one of my HQ choices and Arjac Awesomefist is awesome. daemons and nids hate him.

Yeah I've heard of the pain that SW bring to Nid's even with the codex. I suppose every army has to have it's weak sided opponent, for Nid's it's SW. heh

c34r34lk1ll3r wrote:Space Wolves are cool. I've been reading my firend's Codex for the last week or two and i've written about 20 space wolves lists at different point values. I really dig Njal as one of my HQ choices and Arjac Awesomefist is awesome. daemons and nids hate him.

QFT. I absolutely love Njal with his Lord of Tempests ability - always fun to get that last one and start throwing S8 shots all over the field, since I typically plop him in a squad of Wolf Guard and have him charge up to the enemy in a LRC.

I'm assuming Njal is one of the special IC's in the codex for the SW. Is he really that powerful?

Ok I haven't played my SW yet but I have watched a lot of games.

Two things I have noticed:
Thunderwolf calvarly is great. They may be an obvious target for shooting or avoiding but use this as an advantage. They can draw fire from your equally expensive units, make you opponent move his army around to avoid them, allowing you to force him into bad situtions and when they get into CC they are brutal.

Lone wolfs are a must have for a CC army. They are great fire magnets, are tough enough to survive it and if they die who cares. If your oppenent doesn't kill them they can rip through less CC orientated armies.

From reading the codex I suggest that you do take JotWW in some battles. Against Nids it will be great, and I would love to take in battle with nurgle daemons. As you don't use it as your only tactic people shouldn't be too unhappy. Other people use over powered tactics from their armies they are just less obvious. No one complains this much at nid players who use mawlocs to remove models from play.

@4M2A: Thanks for the info, I will be doing the same thing c34r34lk1ll3r has done and read through the codex a bit first and make a few lists and probably use my existing BA army as "counts as" for testing units and see how they work and what will go with my playstyle. Thanks for the info, definitely take it into account when I start structuring some lists once I get my book.

Fexor wrote:I'm assuming Njal is one of the special IC's in the codex for the SW. Is he really that powerful?

He is. He can use two psychic powers a turn, and has access to all of them (7 in total - though if you play it right, only two or three are actually worth it) as well as his constant Lord of Tempests power that causes a number of fun effects. In addition, he gets access to a staff that nullifies psychic powers on a 3+ within 24" of him, plus Runic Terminator armor with 2+ armor/4+ invulnerable save. I've found it can be great fun to throw him in a squad of Terminator Wolf Guard (With some nifty weapons - Power Fists, Thunder Hammers and Wolf Claws) and run him around the board in a Land Raider Crusader. Costs 245 points to run him, but in high point games he can be deadly. I wouldn't recommend taking him below 1250 or 1500, though. As with any points-heavy choices, a few lucky shots could take him out of commission quick.

Oh, and as another point of advice, I wouldn't bother using the Wolf Guard ability to split up and lead other squads. All you really get is 1 extra Ld for the squad as well as some special weapons. Grey Hunters are already great at 10-strong (They get a second special weapon free, which is too hard to pass up) and are best thrown in a Rhino to move around the battlefield. Take 10 Hunters and a Guard, and they can't fit in a Rhino. Take 9 Hunters and a Guard, and they can't take that second free special weapon.

Haven't tried Thunderwolf Cavalry or Lone Wolves, but they're definitely worth a shot. I've heard good things about outflanking Wolf Scouts as well, since they can pop in on the back table edge.

Locclo wrote:Oh, and as another point of advice, I wouldn't bother using the Wolf Guard ability to split up and lead other squads. All you really get is 1 extra Ld for the squad as well as some special weapons. Grey Hunters are already great at 10-strong (They get a second special weapon free, which is too hard to pass up) and are best thrown in a Rhino to move around the battlefield. Take 10 Hunters and a Guard, and they can't fit in a Rhino. Take 9 Hunters and a Guard, and they can't take that second free special weapon.

I wouldnt quite agree on this. I find Wolf Guard to be quite pivotal, because that 1 extra Ld of 9 is quite alot, especially for those Morale checks required for Counter-attack. Also, he is a far more cost effective choice if you choose to use Powerfists in your squad, as he has an extra attack over a regular GH, and can take a combi-whatever to make up for the lack of a second free special weapon. Face it, you're only ever gonna need to fire it once, or twice, tops per game. Even if you compare a PF/Combi WG to a Space Marine Tac Sergeant of a similar set-up, the WG comes out cheaper. Dont underestimate the ability of the Wolf Guard to be Pack leaders.

@Locclo & Ronin:
I'll have to look at the entries and see how they play with or without the Wolf Guard as leaders and see if the extra weapon is what I'll want to take or the 9 + WG leader. Thanks for the differing opinions thought, gives me things to think about and ideas to weight against each other.

Don't give a grey hunter a powerfist. Give that puppy to the wolf guard leading the squad - for an extra 3 points you get an additional powerfist attack, and +1 LD to the squad. Give the grey hunter an mark of the wulfen instead.