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My SM friend was facing off a SW yesterday, and after the match read through the codex of the wolves. Was wondering what does Wolves lose out for getting the Wolves advantages? Tried a summary, but maybe Dakka could see something I couldn't.

Wolves : Dual wielding "normal" marines also armed with bolter. Cheaper Devastators(gray hunters) with option to split fire. 4 HQ. Cheaper terminators(although some modifications would make them more expensive)
Acute senses and counter attack

Generic marines : Orbital Bombardment, that tactical rule(don't remember name)

Difference in named characters.

My friend had trouble seeing what wolves lose out to make it worth playing generic. I suggested Orbital and Tactical rule, but he wasn't overly impressed with the advantages of generic.. U guys got anything?

Their devestators are long fangs, not grey hunters.

Dont know that much of the SW codex but here goes
- No Veterans (Sternguard/Vanguard)
- Overall weak FA choices imo
- No combat tactics
- Long fangs while good, can only be 6 man strong

Your friends should pick an army based on looks, background or maybe playstyle, not who has the best rules at the moment.

Yeah, Long fangs..my bad :-) grey hunters were the "normal" space marines, right?

Thanks for the tip anyways :-)

Land Speeder Storms
Scoring Scouts
Thunderfire Cannons
40pt Hammernators
Attack bike squadrons
Combat squads
Feel No Pain
Psykers with storm shields
Scoring bikers
Bikers that don't suck
Free Iron Halos on captains
Teleporting terminators
Scout bikers
6 dread armies
Ironclad dreadnoughts
Signums
Techmarine fortifications

The Wolves gain some great stuff for giving up all the above, but it's not like they don't make some trades.

Space Wolves are overall a better army, but they are NOT marines. They have their own unique playing style. I think the best way to beat them with vanilla marines is playing to your strengths. PLasma bikers can break up the power armour and the Razorbacks, for example.

Also, the ultramarines global rule is very good (faling back) and vulkan and strike special rules are good and cool.

DaddyWarcrimes wrote:
Land Speeder Storms - People use these?
Scoring Scouts -SW scouts might be an elite choice, but it's hard to argue that they aren't better.
Thunderfire Cannons - Poor, especially when compared to Long Fangs
40pt Hammernators - Legit loss, made up for in TWC in my opinion.
Attack bike squadrons - Land Speeders are better anyways
Combat squads - Being able to get special weapons in 5 man squads makes up for this easily
Feel No Pain - Off apothecaries? People use command squads outside of biker lists?
Psykers with storm shields - Not a huge loss when SW psykers just lurk in rhinos and rain lightning and snipe stuff with JotWW, no need to get into the thick of it really
Scoring bikers - Legit loss and one of the few unique vanilla marine advantages
Bikers that don't suck - Agreed, I'd add assault marines to this list as well, but vanilla marine ASMs aren't anything to write home about.
Free Iron Halos on captains - Most good marine lists don't use a captain outside of a bike list, and SW still have access to storm shield
Teleporting terminators - Agreed, but again deepstriking termies all that common. SW can still get a drop pod for their termies if they REALLY want to DS
Scout bikers - People use these?
6 dread armies - Hardly unique to vanilla marines, as BA can do it too. Not a big loss really
Ironclad dreadnoughts - Agreed
Signums - Laughably poor compared to the ability to split fire.
Techmarine fortifications - Never really looked into this, as I don't know anyone who'd use a tech marine

The Wolves gain some great stuff for giving up all the above, but it's not like they don't make some trades.

Vanilla has more unique builds available to it (Shrike infiltration, biker list, 6 Dread, Vulkan melta-spam, scoring Sternguard etc) and good assault terminators but the top SW builds are just better.

A wolf guard terminator is cheaper case cost. But, the common builds make them much more expensive. Twin lightning claws and thunder hammer/storm shield cost substantially more. Vanilla marines get both variants at base cost.

blood claws are WS3, skyclaws are ws3, no special weapons fro grey hunters (except flamer and plasma gun i think)

Serder wrote:blood claws are WS3, skyclaws are ws3, no special weapons fro grey hunters (except flamer and plasma gun i think)

Blood and Skyclaws are also BS3, makes their bikes underwhelming to say the least.

Grey Hunters get melta-guns as well, and the Wolf banner which is an excellent boost in melee for larger squads. What they DON'T get is heavy weapons like missile, plasma cannons, multi-meltas and the like.

The BA codex is a much better comparison to C:SM. BA gain pretty much everywhere and lose nothing.

DaddyWarcrimes wrote:Land Speeder Storms
Scoring Scouts
Thunderfire Cannons
40pt Hammernators
Attack bike squadrons
Combat squads
Feel No Pain
Psykers with storm shields
Scoring bikers
Bikers that don't suck
Free Iron Halos on captains
Teleporting terminators
Scout bikers
6 dread armies
Ironclad dreadnoughts
Signums
Techmarine fortifications

The Wolves gain some great stuff for giving up all the above, but it's not like they don't make some trades.

All of that (not saying its all great), beyond that sargeants that don't cost an elite slot and a ton of SCs. C:SM is showing its age a bit now and its further compounded with the fact that there have been three loyalist marine chapters made since it was released, its still a decent codex.

The two things that people usualy get there jaws dropping at are the long fangs and grey hunters.

Long fangs are hands down good, but if you get dawn of war you will notice that that first turn withouth shooting hurts them.

Grey Hunters are exelent, but they need to be 12" enshuring that the SW list over all needs to be agresive. You can never get pure gunline. (Well you can take 80 points GK with a razorback but general regular marines do gunn line better.)

if you take sw and want a gunline, you are not taking the right army. Anyway, pure gunline is kinda easy to brake, better take sw, us the long fangs to bgin the hurt and then go in melee like a champ.

Hey, actually I'd like to note that SW's do not give up Ironclad dreadnoughts. After the codex was released there was an FAQ released by GW that stated that any vehicle present in the vanilla marine codex that's not in the SW codex, the SW's can use the vanilla rules for. Ironclads and the new Land Raiders are pretty much the only applications of this rule, but the Ironclads are a handy addition to a melee heavy wolf force.

the_scotsman wrote:Hey, actually I'd like to note that SW's do not give up Ironclad dreadnoughts. After the codex was released there was an FAQ released by GW that stated that any vehicle present in the vanilla marine codex that's not in the SW codex, the SW's can use the vanilla rules for. Ironclads and the new Land Raiders are pretty much the only applications of this rule, but the Ironclads are a handy addition to a melee heavy wolf force.

Which FAQ? I'd like to read it before surprising my friends with 2 ironclads

There's nothing in the current SM or SW FAQ/Errata stating that. I don't think there has been since the 3rd edition Wolf codex, which was essentially an appendix for the SM codex of the day.

Well, I would like to get irionclads into my SW drop pod list. AV 13, yes please.

Biggest practical losses are:

SW standard land raiders hold 10 models and not 12 (So you can take a 5 man squad and an IC with vanilla)
SW drop the ability to take sternguard (Except they can plasma or melta bomb cheaper) and vanguard (Except they get wolfguard, which has about a million different reasons to its credit for being a better option)
SW Don't get to voluntarily run away from fights that are going to go badly (This, depending, may or may not be huge. Instead they get counter attack, which is far more likely to be huge by the time the dust settles.)
SW cost a LOT more for TH/SS terminators.
SWs AV13 dread has I3, is unique, and costs more than a land raider.
SW fast attack slots suck (Except for the whole Thunderwolf cavalry and the same MM/HF speeders that vanilla gets, mind you...)
SWs get a devastator equivalent unit that has more heavy weapons than vanilla, cheaper than vanilla, and can fire at 2 seperate targets so long as the sergeant is alive....However, in apocalypse games the vanilla player can afford to put on ablative wounds whereas the long fang pack cannot.
SWs do not get to do biker armies.
SWs do not get null zone (But instead get LL and JoTWW...and Njall.)
SW troops don't get access to heavy weapons for free, or 2A base sergeants, or sniper rifles, or combat squads for their troops. They do however get more CC attacks, they don't have to take a full 10 men to get upgrades besides the ones on the sergeant, they get to take multiple special weapons (Meaning they can move and shoot to full effect) and they are slightly cheaper than tactical marines.
SWs do not get access to the army-wide-changing special characters that vanilla does.
SWs do not get access to FNP (Which vanilla gets on a whole two units: Captain command squads and Captain sicarius.)

He should pick his army based on background, appearance, and his enjoyment of how it plays on the board...but from a raw "power" perspective, I see no big reason to choose vanilla over space wolves (Vulkan lists...) or blood angels. Blood angels pretty much being a straight upgrade (Again aside from the army changing special characters, primarily Vulkan...) as far as rules go.

One thing that I have not seen mentioned yet is the Wolf Standard. It a HUGE piece of wargear for the Space wolves.

The ability to re-roll Saves is very limited, simply because it is such a powerful ability.

Grey Knights Brotherhood Champion
Chaos Daemons FateWeaver
Eldar Fortune
Space Wolves Wolf Standard.


With PB+CCW, Counterattack, and a Wolf Standard, the combat ability of Grey Hunters is an order of magnitude greater than Tactical Squads. I would rather win combat then try to run away and shoot.

Space wolves play like the fluff says marines should. They can out shoot people and they can out fight people in combat as well. This makes then very easy to play.


There are a few lists that the Codex Marines can do that are still powerful. Vulkan Hestan builds are very powerful (ironclas dreads in pods, TH/SS termies, Sternguard). There are first turn assault builds as well, based on either the Land Speeder Storm or Scout Bikes, (even though they are kinda overlooked). These though are very dependent on who goes first.

The biggest problem I have with the Codex marines is just the Tactical squads are not that great. They are not really a threat in close combat, and they are not much better in the shooting phase than Grey Hunters or even BA Assault Squads.

You dont know how much you miss combat tactics until its gone.

SW is a very diffrent marine army. SW are more assault oriented, while the SM dose the shooting list better. (Looking at you, Kantor sternguard list)

while the SM dose the shooting list better.

Would you care to show me this list? Because quite frankly, Razorspam wolves with longfangs can put out a whole lot of AP2 and AP3, and aim it in a lot of directions at once. Very favorably compared to sternguard heavy builds....and with better CC performance in the case of the grey hunters.

Combat tactics is one of those tricks that isn't really effective that often, at least in my local meta...but when it is, oh god is it a lifesaver. That said, Counter attack, or furious charge would be useful a -LOT- more frequently. Wolf standards, as svendrex stated, are a VERY powerful wargear pick. Nothing in the vanilla SM codex compares to it.

Fact of the matter is SW have troops that are a lot better at actually killing the enemy than vanilla. This isn't opinion, this is numbers. Point for point, model for model, that 15 point grey hunter fights in CC like an 18 point assault marine and has a better ranged capability. As a squad, two special weapons is much superior to being mobile with one special one heavy. At ten men, you have bought two plasma guns and a wolf standard by the time the vanilla tactical marine squad has filled out to 10 men and no non-free upgrades. As far as using your troop choices as tools to directly kill the enemy rather than play morale games and set the opponent up for a sucker punch, the wolves are flat. out. Better.

Now this completely disregards the rest of your FOC, and if you go heavy on your non-troop slots, you can give a wolf a good thwack in the head...but as far as scoring units go? Vanilla is not on the winning side of the argument...

As a space wolves player i have to say that we aren't an assault army. We're a close quarters army. BA does CC better. We're great in the short range fights though. I really miss the combat squads though. Started out only having the SM rules before i got my codex, and damn i found being able to break my squads into 2 useful. But considering how they play, I can understand that the wolves don't have it.