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Hey guys! I have purchased some Giant Wolves to make Thunderwolves out of to sell and was wondering what the common thoughts were on their loadout. Is there a "magic bullet" set-up or lots of variants? Would it be worth magnetizing the squad (keeping in mind this significantly increases the paint/assemebly work)?

I have 10 models to work with (probably will make two lots of 5).

Thoughts?

I magnetized mine, quite simple really...

make one guy a thunderhammer/powerfist/normal CCW
make 2 guys stormshield/normal CCW

total of 10 magnets (1 on each of 3 guys, then 7 arms)

now you can field a unit of 5 fully complex by taking...
1 Thunderhammer
1 Stormshield
1 Stormshield+Meltabomb
1 Meltabomb
1 Bare

and if you need to shave points to fit the unit into an army list you can drop meltabombs, swap the TH for a PF, swap out stormshields for normal CCWs, or run them all bare.

Generally, the best load out for TWC is - IMHO:
4x Thunderwolves. One w/ Thunderhammer. One w/ Storm Shield. One with Meltabomb. One Naked.

265pts, very hard-hitting and still tough. By all means add another storm shield for 5-men (demogerg), but I'd say the 4-man unite above is generally the best.

You may however consider making a couple of Thunderwolf Lords and/or your own Canis model. Thunderwolf-mounted lords are - when it comes to simple killing ability - the best there is. I'd recommend a frost blade and storm shield for this.

Are you really going to run them in 2 squads of 5, or have a character or two in there? I've always wanted to try running a Character on a thunder wolf with 2 extra wolves as wargear as well.

And everyone else is saying go for the complex unit, which is probably good advice, but to make them truly a survivable "deathstar", you'd probably want a 2-3 stormshields in there, and you really want to maximize on the ability to have S10 with a powerfist/Thammer. I'd say you'd also want 2-3 powerfists/Thammers.

whitedragon wrote:Are you really going to run them in 2 squads of 5, or have a character or two in there? I've always wanted to try running a Character on a thunder wolf with 2 extra wolves as wargear as well.

And everyone else is saying go for the complex unit, which is probably good advice, but to make them truly a survivable "deathstar", you'd probably want a 2-3 stormshields in there, and you really want to maximize on the ability to have S10 with a powerfist/Thammer. I'd say you'd also want 2-3 powerfists/Thammers.

Everyone would wan't to have 2-3 PF / TH, sadly you can only use 1 (unless you attach a char to the unit that is).

Whitedragon, TWC are limited to just 1 of either a thunderhammer or a powerfist.

See there, I'm learning things already! lol

Well I have 10 wolves coming and was thinking of making two lots out of them. Perhaps I will magnetize some torsos to make a character option. 4 plus an IC sounds pretty sweet!

I reckon 4 plus an independent character is a good choice. I'd recommend trying to make your own Canis and a Frost Blade/Storm Shield Lord.
A 5 man squad is extremely deadly none-the-less, I'd just argue the 265pts 4-man squad to be more effective for its points.

I think the size of your TWC unit should be dependent on how many TWC units your taking.

If your only going to take one unit and use it as a clean up sort of thing or first turn charge, I'd take the unit of 5 guys. If your going to go all out in the FA section and take three units, then you can get away with smaller numbers, such as units of 3 or 4. This will cause target saturation and its easier on points to still get the necessary troops and probably a Lord on a thunderwolf as well.

3 wolves get 1 shield, 1 fist.

4 wolves get 1-2 shields, 1 fist

5 wolves get 2 shields, 1 fist, and maybe a bolter or something to make the squad fully complex, whatever, just keep it cheap.

I don't really get the t-hammer love, for me their abilities aren't worth the pts upgrade. 2 t-hammers over fists is 1 motw, 3 t-hammers is another hunter, or a banner, or a power weapon. Pts add up in SW and there's so much nice equipment that I don't see the appeal in equipment with fringe benefits.

My buddy runs 5 w/ SS and 1 TH... its a stupidly hard unit to kill when you smash into em with a death co. wielding 4 power weapons and do 12 power weapon wounds... only to have him save em all and kill 3 back -_-

Take units of 4 with:

1 Power Fist (For smashing big things)
1 Storm Shield (For absorbing low-AP fire)
1 Melta Bomb (For cheap complex-wound allocation)
1 Regular

5 is overkill I tend to find. You're better off with more, slightly less deadly units so you can attack more of the enemy at a time. Use the spare Wolf to make a Wolf Lord with:
Thunderwolf (obviously)
Wolf Claw (And re-roll hits or wounds, whichever you're worse at given the enemy. Frost Weapon is generally redundant given the +1S you already have)
Storm Shield (Survivability)
Saga of the Warrior Born (for murdering hordes)

Place the wolf lord with 10 or so Fenrisian Wolves as ablative wounds. If you've already used up your Fast Attack slots on Thunderwolves, swap the Wolf Lord for Canis, and make the Fenrisian Wolves troops instead. If you really really want to go nuts with Thunderwolves, you can take them in Elites too. Consider:

Iron Priest w/ Thunderhammer + Bolt Pistol
Thunderwolf
Wolftooth necklace (To make up for average WS)
4 Cyberwolves (as ablative wounds).

Overall, it's possible to take an army with 22 Thunderwolves in it if you wanted to go completely nuts (3x5 Units, 4xHQ, 3xElites)

Sigh...I just wish Rune Priests could take T-wolves.... :(