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So before anyone gets upset or anything, let me say this: I know armies are largely a matter of opinion. I'm not trying to claim that Space Wolves are a boring army and no one should play them. I personally feel that Space Wolves just aren't my thing and I want to know if others feel the same way. Oh and yes, I do currently play Space Wolves.

So anyway, here are my reasons:

1. Space Wolves have very, very little to distinguish them from vanilla marine armies. Thunderwolf Cavalry (the largest difference from marine armies) don't actually have models. My competitive lists typically end up spamming Grey Hunters (undercosted tactical marines), Long Fangs (undercosted Devastators), and Rune Priests (slightly over-powered librarians). This might just be a problem with my lists, but this tends to be the norm, from what I've seen. Blood Angels, Grey Knights, Chaos Space Marines - these marine books look and play completely different from everything else.

2. They don't play like their fluff says they should. I know this isn't a big deterrent for a lot of people (and it's not a huge deal for me). But quite often, the best way to play Space Wolves is to sit back on Rune Priests and missile spam and let the opponent come to you. It feels a little weird playing so defensively with an army like Space Wolves.

3. Some army match-ups just aren't fun due to imbalance. I'm sure this can be said about a lot of armies, but I just have firsthand experience with Space Wolves. Tyranids and Orks, for example, are just dumb against SW. Tyranid MC lists suffer against 15 krak missiles a turn, plus Jaws having a 66% chance of insta-gibbing a Carnifex or Tervigon. Swarm lists lose to 15 frag missiles a turn, Murderous hurricane wiping out 10+ gaunts, and grey hunters getting almost 30 S4 attacks even when charged. I could give similar examples against Orks. This isn't to say that Orks and Nids can't beat Space Wolves - it's just an uphill battle all the way, largely due to the codex.

That being said, what do you think? Does anyone have anything else to add? Any counter-arguments to my points?

As a complete side note, any suggestions for a replacement army? Something that hopefully plays and looks a little different from everything else. I'm considering Tyranids

You are not the first person to think this about the Space Wolves, Vaktathi (Sorry if I got your name wrong) in particular has gone in-detail about some of the issues present within the Space Wolves codex. He often notes they play more like an Iron Warriors army.

Tyranids can be fun, but you might feel a bit pigeon-holed in builds if you are trying to play competitively, based on my admittedly very limited experience regarding such things.

Grey Knights and Blood Angels are pretty good assaulty MEQ armies, if that sort of thing is interesting you, since you seemed to be a little miffed about Space Wolves, an army that fluffwise specs in assaults, were better played defensively.

I'll reply point by point here:
1. Their tactical Marine equivalents are better in close combat and have special rules for night fighting and for counter-charging. They're a bit different from tac Marines. Long Fangs have the same rules, but honestly they're just Marines with heavy weapons for cheap with a really good rule. Rune Priests have some very different spells, like Murderous Hurricane and Jaws that are different from the Space Marine librarian powers that are basically the typical close combat buff/shooting/debuff spells.

2. They can, tournament builds just end up spamming razorbacks and long fangs. You can play a very fluffy list with lots of Grey Hunters, lots of Wolf Guard, and Wolf Lords everywhere.

3. Unfortunately, the Space Wolves codex is practically tailored to kill Nids. They're really big on killing big monsters with high strength weapons and lots of close combat bonus abilities. Missile spam can do it too, but you can honestly do that with any Marine codex.

if you want something that plays much differently, Nids is a great choice.

Yeah, they're pretty boring.

Be a man. Play Black Templars.

Play armies the way they were meant to be played.

Poor codex design by GW allows for armies to be fielded in ways that go against established fluff (like you mention).

I played against a space wolf guy... 2000 point list. He had a loganwing list with 20 wolf guard w/ combi-plasmas in rhinos, 20 wolf guard w/ combi-meltas in rhinos, a squad of wolf guard with 6 combi-flamers, 3 squads of missile fangs, and logan.

Completely stupid list... Granted, I beat him with vanilla marines, but only because I blew up his lead rhino in a choke point and stuffed the choke point with assault terminators.... but even with damn good play from me (terminators ate 20 wolf guard, vindicator + dread ate another) I still ended up cowering in a corner on my objective after killing his troops because his tank hunting long fangs blew up all my vehicles.

Space wolves are just plain overpowered against every army out there.

Blood Angels, Grey Knights, Chaos Space Marines - these marine books look and play completely different from everything else.

If you dislike SW on the basis of being no different than Ultramarines (Personally I find that the two play almost nothing alike, in list building or tactical use.) you will -loathe- BA. Outside of SpecialSnowFlakeCharacterHammer 40k, they play the same. Half of the codex, literally, is the same.

GK definitely feel ....Strange though. In some ways they almost feel like eldar, and you may not have enough bodies on the board to recover from an "Oops." can be extremely unforgiving.

Sounds like, for marine armies, you need to go Templars. A bunch of LRCs (Bonus points for actually taking blessed hulls to make DE and nids cry.) fill them with crusaders and neophytes or assault terminators, and charge. Though it does make an exceedingly good close firepower army because the 5e marine nerfs haven't reached them yet, it's an awesome thing to see black tide in action. Playing without psychic defense is also a ...interesting thing.

Outside of marine armies...Honestly the army that plays truest to its fluff is probably going to be guard. There's plenty of fluff justification of any style of play they can bring to the table.

Not bored of the concept (most chapters have one-dimensional characteristics) but I'm bored of the superior/powergamer attitude that some of their players have. Possibly comes from having an online consensus of being one the most powerful codices, at a guess...

As a Space Wolves´s player, I can tell you that your statement is wrong...

They´re not a boring army!!

All armies for 40K are intended to be done in order for us to have fun playing with them...

The codex allows you to make dozens of lists, and making everyone different from each other...

The problem is when you only take a glance on tournament lists... Yes, they´re the real boring problem, but not only with wolves, even with every army on the game!!

So don´t bother about that and continue playing with them!!

SOFDC wrote:If you dislike SW on the basis of being no different than Ultramarines (Personally I find that the two play almost nothing alike, in list building or tactical use.) you will -loathe- BA. Outside of SpecialSnowFlakeCharacterHammer 40k, they play the same. Half of the codex, literally, is the same.

I disagree. The Blood Angels book succeeds marvelously in creating a different "feel" and different options with admittedly few and/or minor changes. But it plays well to the strengths of the fluff with a faster, more assault-oriented style of play. With All-Jumpers, All-Sang.-Guard, "March of the Ancients or, for gaks and giggles, all Death Company, the list also offers quite a few variant lists that are not available to regular Marines.

Blood Angels in this sense is the exact opposite of Space Wolves. Few, carefully constructed changes that have a big impact on variety, style and gameplay. The inept 5th Edition Wolves Codex on the otherhand is the rock-bottom-tail-light of Codex-design. Lots of noise, silly rules, bad synergies, utter failure of internal balance, wound-allocation abuse and horrible naming (not to mention atrocious fluff such as scuba-wolves, SoB-slaughter, Grand-Theft-Thunderhawk, and Mowgli the Wolf Lord) with little game-play innovation and no diversity beyond Long-Fang/JoTWW-abuse to show for it.

You don't have to use a boring list like 15 missle lauchers. Its works yea but at what cost? The guy you playing against not having fun? Drop podding is a lot of fun and i've done that even in a tourney. Just because you have the option of making a slowed spam list doesn't mean you have to. I think that what a lot of people do and it sucks. This game is for gun for just casual play but people can't stand to lose. I can understand tourney list but they don't need to be run everytime.

SwiftLord14 wrote:You don't have to use a boring Codex like Space Wolves. Its works yea but at what cost? The guy you playing against not having fun?

Fixed that for you.

Seaward wrote:Yeah, they're pretty boring.

I do not agree with this.

Be a man. Play Black Templars.

I agree with this whole heartedly.

Personally I don't find them so much "boring" as basically taking the best basics from C:SM and C:CSM and combining them and tossing counterattack and acute senses on there with a 15% cost discount on most stuff on top of it just to make them "Marines+1". They have most of what other SM armies have, it's just their stuff is better and cheaper, just because. It's not so much that they're boring just plain "better" or "marines+1". Counterattack in particular is just a wee bit much, it makes them too capable defensively and removes much of the need for competent decision making as against most opponents you'll be hitting back as hard if not harder even if charged, so they can bolter down an opponent and then take the charge and still likely come out ahead.

The few units that aren't routinely seen such (primarily "-claw" units) aren't so much bad as everything else is just so much better, they're a little less versatile and more situationally designed than their C:SM counterparts but can be highly effective if used in their intended manner, though they also tend to fill roles that other, undercosted units fill rather effectively already.

The army tends to encourage builds that don't play like one would really imagine SW's as. As I've stated before and Void_Dragon noted, at the tournament level they almost universally play more like Iron Warriors than anything else (MSU heavy weapon and tank spam), which is a far cry from how one imagines the Space Wolves playing.

For an army billed as a mighty combat monster hero army of a handful of Space Berzerkers, the fact that they typically play a lot more like a heavy weapon marine horde says a lot.

The book was not well designed. I won't even get into the silly fluff.

If you're looking for something different, Tyranids certainly fit that but have their own issues, Necrons may be another cool list to check out as of today, and will likely be cheaper than tyranids.

In response to the OP's comments, I disagree that Space Wolves are boring. Much of what you're saying seems to be [mis?]interpretation and unfair complains IMHO.

1. If anything, I could argue that Space Wolves are the most divergent in composition in all the non-vanilla Codices (none of which should arguably have their own Codex). The main difference with the Blood Angels is the Assault Squad troops and Black Rage/Red Thirst, the main difference with the Dark Angels is the now-negated/more common Ravenwing and Deathwing. You're right IMHO, you're focussing on units that have equivalents in the Space Marine Codex. There's the Wolf Guard, Blood Claws, Thunderwolves and more. They can pretty much be as different as you make them, which arguably in your case, isn't that different.


2. No, they really can. SOME Space Wolf armies don't play as their fluff should. This is the same with all Codices. Long Fang Missile Spam/Rune Priests/Grey Hunters in Razorbacks isn't fluffy, but it is competitive. The same can be said for Razorback/Mechanised Blood Angels, Razorback/Psyflemen/Mechanised Grey Knights, Venom'spam' Dark Eldar, Wraithwing Necrons, Lash/Plague/Oblit Chaos Space Marines, yet these are all amongst that armies most competitive builds and you are not criticising them. Most highly-competitive lists are arguably un-fluffy it seems.

The Space Wolves Codex design means they are competent in assault, allowing them to function as a shooty army who make use of Long Fangs/Razorbacks and then can finish off the enemy in assault. Something, which as you noted most players follow/abuse.

I can and could easily make a fluffy and semi-competitive-to-competitive Space Wolf list right now. I use such lists myself. IMHO, the background of 40K is so rich and diverse that it's a waste to not use it. Here are just one that I like, have designed and is both semi-competitive and pretty fluffy and contains no Long Fangs or Razorbacks:

Again, Space Wolves are not the only army like this, however, again, they can pretty much be as fluffy as you make them.


3. This is true, but again, this is also the case for many armies. How do Blood Angels fair against Grey Knights? Orks against Chaos? Dark Eldar against Imperial Guard? Nids against Dark Eldar? The list goes on.

Again, it's the same with many armies and it can also be prevented by running different lists. Try using a more fluffy Space Wolf list like the one above I posted against Nids. Space Wolves are typically a close quarters army, excelling within 24" where they can unleash their firepower and finish off in assault, this means that their long range firepower would be compromised in theory. In the list above, theres no 15 krak missiles and no JotWW, yet it's still semi-competitive at least IMHO.
If you use a WAAC list that maximises firepower, then it's understandable if 'nids struggle.
Again, they can be pretty much be as imbalanced as you make them. and even then, it's arguably no more so than other Codices.


The Space Wolves Codex is a powerful and forgiving book (and IMHO this is where they become 'boring'), you can afford to play around with various lists rather than sticking to one method/list in order to 'win'. I strongly believe you would have a lot more fun with them if you tried alternative lists (try a list without any long ranged shooting for example!) and in all honesty I believe part of the problem is with how you use the Space Wolves, rather than the Wolves themselves.
I won't deny that an army such as Tyranids (or Dark Eldar) can be a lot more fun/interesting/challenging and I would wholeheartedly recommend trying them too.

Zweischneid wrote:

SwiftLord14 wrote:You don't have to use a boring Codex like Space Wolves. Its works yea but at what cost? The guy you playing against not having fun?

Fixed that for you.

Thank You.

It depends. Some players do the cheesy list, but a lot of players still run the army with more fluff and character.

Hey, it's their fluff that made me play 'em.

The Space Wolves have their cheesy lists. Frankly part of me dies each time I scroll into the Army Lists page and see nothing but x3 Rune Priests with x3 units of Missile Long Fangs with as many Grey Hunters as possible in Razorbacks. This alone keeps me away from that certain part of the forum.

I like my army. I've stuck to it's fluff as much as possible. With the exception of Rhinos and a Dreadnought. But that's forgivable. My army is not seeing a tournament ever. It's fluffy, can take just about anything the other players in my gaming club throw at them. It wins and loses. Lately it's been losing and 40k itself has been losing my interest. But I'd never sell off these Space Wolves. I love their fluff. I love their look and the "Warrior" traditions appeal to me deeply. My Space Wolves have earned a retirement after a 2+ year tour in the Eye of Terror.

If you find them boring. Then you will likely find any other Marine army boring. Which is -okay- Buy a Non-MEQ battle force.

Or better yet buy a Fantasy Battalion.


This rant brought to you by your friendly local Beastlord. Shadowbrand.

Shadowbrand wrote:The Space Wolves have their cheesy lists. Frankly part of me dies each time I scroll into the Army Lists page and see nothing but x3 Rune Priests with x3 units of Missile Long Fangs with as many Grey Hunters as possible in Razorbacks. This alone keeps me away from that certain part of the forum.

I'm exactly the same man. It's difficult to avoid lists that consist of 1-2 Rune Priests, Grey Hunters with Wolf Guard in rhinos & Razorbacks and then 3x 5 missile Long Fangs. Theres a thread in tactics with that list and the OP here seems to be using that list, and like you, I find it tiresome seeing the same list over and over again.

It's difficult not to gravitate towards that list because it accomplishes all the important bases with points to spare and room to still take some of the extra goodies, it was a rather large failing on Kelly's part in designing the abilities of Rune Priests, the costs and wargear of Grey Hunters and the costs of Long Fangs.

It also doesn't help that players who had armies from other marine books can just swap books, buy a couple extra missile launcher guys, and now have a significantly more powerful army for a relatively small investment.

I play Space Wolves and not for that long (6 months) and I already have the feeling of bordism while playing them. Like most comments, there is only one tournament list out there and I'm trying to find my way out of building it, but it keeps happening. The "fun" lists are fun but if you want a competitive list it's always the same thing....Boring............
75% of my games are tournament games also. Thats why I always end up with the Rune Priest / Razor / Fangs list.....

As for an army to switch too, I'm loving the Crons. Thier not too powerful but, can win against any army.

I agree entirely with the last couple of posts in regard that spam is killing this codex.

I also specifically agree with Just Daves point, they are very divergent.

My wolves aint got no spam and only 1 unit of long fangs, no t-wolves and 1 r-back and i do more than well with them every time.

My hope for the new game includes the no spam special rule :-)

black templars are pretty boring too. darth vader marines... yay. why do space marines have like 8 codex and CSM have one?

a night lords codex or a death guard codex would be nice.

As a space wolf player myself I feel I should chip into this discussion.

I regret the decision ever since I created my first army...

I'm a huge fan of IG and I've always loved almost everything about them. However, they are too expensive to be considered a "starting" army and because of that comment alone I picked up something more "heroic" for my taste. I absolutely love EVERYTHING about space wolf lore from now and before. They are the "savage warrior" I so often end up supporting in games and their lore shows and exemplifies this in almost every way. Which is why I hate my space wolves...

I built up a Harald Deathwolf list that is very fluffy. I love looking at my models. I am HIGHLY satisfied with they way I made them, each and every one, almost tell their story from their stance all the way to what they have equipped. My army is even really fun to play. Here comes the bad part, I CANNOT win a game without struggling up a cliff for absolutely every step...

I feel that my list actually suffers for not using the MSU style or the fact that I only have 2 groups of LF (who I can say from experience have killed NOTHING except four or five transports). I go into every game feeling as though my fun list I created cannot compete like other space wolves out ther and it pains me! I see the GK codex and they can make so many diverse builds, I see the IG and see the same thing. It's just not fair that when I decided to make a fluff based list that is fun to play but present no actual threat to my opponent. In the end, since I dedicated this money and time to them I'll make what I can and keep on smiling as I get small victories with my Deathwolf company. Getting a successful charge with my Canis/FW squad is always something that makes me smile and also whenever I can get my TWC into charging range at all (people love shooting them with everything... if only my LF performed *sigh*).

I look back however and still can't help regretting the money I put into them and wishing I had that money worth of an IG list that I came up (and tested which is VERY successful).

edit* spelling