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I tried out this list today against grey knights as a primer for the tourney this coming weekend. I am pretty sure the three LF squads are too much. I am considering swapping in some dreadnaughts for a squad or two. Maybe another speeder squadron. I lost today's came btw, 8 kill points to seven. He had about 8 models left on the table. His Dreadknight, a dreadnaught and a rhino died in the first round. I had two Laserbacks, all three speeders, and a full grey hunters unit left. The long fangs were scrubs once he got into melee. Not a good feeling. I definately wouldn't call it a success (especially considering I lost). Though it was my fifth space wolf game, and the experience is wicked valuable. 1950 points unless I missed something.

Rune Priest
Termy Armor
Plasma Pistol
Saga of the Beastslayer
Jaws+Living Lighning
Master of Runes
Wolf Tail Taslisman

In hindsight the plasma pistol was a waste of points. So is taking jaws and living lightning. I think I will swap Jaws for Stormcaller for the cover saves. Thoughts?

3 units of 5x Grey Hunters
Melta
Power Fist
Mark of the Wulfen
Razorback
Las+Twin Linked Plasma Gun

3 units of 5x Long Fangs + Squad leader
5x Lascannons

3x Land Speeders
3x Typhoon Missile Launchers
3x MultiMeltas

Dreadnaught
Twin Linked Lascannon
Missile Launcher
Wolf Tail Talisman

No wolf guard or wolf scouts? That is some great units you are missing.

For the rune priest I like living lightning and murderous hurricane as the 2 powers. Saga of the beastslayer is also not really worth it on him.

Grey hunters are nice, but in objective missions you might be a bit short on troops, I would like to see another pack in there.

Lascannon seem excessive on the long fangs, just run them with 5xmissile, they will still be great and you will save a load of points.

Drop the multi-meltas on the speeders, as with the typhoon launchers they don't really want to get that close meaning you won't get to shoot the melta very often.

The dreadnought kind of doesn't really do anything in this list, I would definitely get rid of him.

A unit of wolf scouts would be a very good option here for irritating melta and assaultiness from behind, Some wolf guard to go with your other would also be good.

This will save you 390 points. (stuff from rune priest, long fang lascannon and dreadnought). Assuming my maths is correct of course.

This should give you 2 of: a 4th grey hunter pack, some wolf guard to lead some units, a unit of wolf scouts.

I would probably take the extra grey hunters and the wolf scouts.

Hope this is useful.

I appreciate the reply! I will answer the questions/statements in turn:

1) One of the replacement units I am considering is wolf cav with thunderhammers and stormshields with a wolfguard rockin a jump pack. The strat would be to field a melta dreadnaught in a drop pod. Deploy it in their face and sweep the flank with the cav while the lines behind advance.

2) I do need to change the psyhic power loadout and I like your suggestion. Beastlayer isn't ideal but considering the alternative is even less effective, I don't see the advantage in switching.

3) I may pick up another grey hunter units. One of my weaknesses in the past has been the fact I was stubborn and, when in doubt, did not take more troops. Given the last couple tourneys, and the heavy lean to fast, objective based games I think it would be prudent.

4/5) The switch to meltas makes sense. Given the extra points I can put elsewhere into weapons I can fire every round as opposed to weapons I have to drop typhoons to fire seems to make sense as well.

6) I think the dread does work well. A lascannon and a missile launcher for his relative cheap point cost is valuable. Though given the cuts made previously, I may be convinced to use his points in conjunction with those to a greater end.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
Here is what I am considering. I didn't work in the extra greyhunters, but I might be able to toy around with it some more. 1999 points.

-Rune Priest
Wolf Tail Talisman
Saga of the Beastslayer
Living Lightning
Stormcaller
Master of Runes

-3 Grey Hunter Units 5 per squad
Melta
Power Fist
Mark of the Wulfen
-Razorback
Lascannon, Twin Linked Plasma Gun

-2 Long Fangs Units 4 per squad
4x Missile Launchers

-Dreadnaught
MultiMelta
Missile Launcher
-Drop Pod

-3 Wolf Cav
3 Storm Shields
1 Thunderhammer

-3 Wolf Guard w/ Jump Packs
3 Stormshields
1 thunderhammer

I agree with most of what jangustus says, but I feel that you have made a massive mistake in your rune priest, they are not really designed for a cc role, they are a support unit for either messing with large squads, offering a large area of coversaves, long range fire or sniping with jaws. He doesn't have the stat line of a wolf lord and doesn't offer the unit buffs of a wolf priest so the only thing he would be good at killing would be daemons but daemons are a very small part of the meta game.
Drop all of his upgrades and take a chooser of the slain, maybe keep the terminator armour if you are looking to have him standing out on his own.

It's not a shock that long fangs got owned in combat, they are a shooting unit after all. My advice would be to reduce the number of laz-cannons, you have a decent amount of plasma and melta in the army for those terminators and the like but you are fairly shy on the troop grinding fire-power, I was never sold on it until I started playing it but a missle barrage is quite effective and with the numbers of people playing dark eldar, razorback and ork lists you should get your money's worth out of them.

Drop the wolf tail talisman on the dread, if it's gunning things down it won't be any good in cc so there is little point in it.

I personally don't go in for landspeeders, not much in it tbh but I think you could spend the points on more troops maybe an 8 man squad in a rhino for a rune priest to sit with.

/Shameless-bump-for-more-input

£0.02 here, if you are putting dread in drop pod it suggests you want to drop it into melta range. 12" away.. i would drop missile launcher and take usual close combat arm, give him a bit more punch he will already be up the field not footslogging from the back so why not?

Not a bad point eLeet. *runs off to mathhammer it up*

Okay, I see how you are wanting to do a list that is a little bit different then your standard SW list. But there is some room to maximize your points and loadout. Here is what I was able to come up with that still has the same feel as your revised list.

1994pt Space Wolves

HQ (210pts)
Rune Priest
Living Lightning
Murderous Hurricane

Rune Priest
Chooser of the Slain
Living Lightning
Storm Caller

Elites (489pts)
Dreadnought
Multi-Melta
Dreadnought Close Combat Weapon (Storm Bolter)
Drop Pod (Storm Bolter)

Wolf Guard Pack
Wolf Guard x5
Bolt Pistol x5
Power Weapon x2
Close Combat Weapon x3
Jump Pack x5

Wolf Guard x 3
Bolt Gun
Power Fist
Power Armour

Troops (795pts)
Grey Hunters Pack
5x Grey Hunter
Meltagun
Razorback (Lascannon & Twin-linked Plasma Gun)

Grey Hunters Pack x2
5x Grey Hunter
Mark of the Wulfen
Meltagun
Wolf Standard
Razorback (Lascannon & Twin-linked Plasma Gun)

Grey Hunters Pack x2
5x Grey Hunter
Mark of the Wulfen
Meltagun
Wolf Standard
Rhino

Fast Attack (270pts)
Thunderwolf Cavalry
TWC X3
Thunder Hammer x1
Storm Shield x3

Heavy Support (230pts)
Long Fangs Pack x2
Long Fang x4 (Missile Launcher)
Squad Leader (Bolt Pistol, Close Combat Weapon)

Put the Rune Priests in each of the rhinos. This will allow you to throw Living Lightning and Melta out of the top (nice). Put the three WG with PF as the squad leaders in the other transports. This will leave you with a 5 man WG jump pack unit with 2 PW. I equipped them with bolt pistols so they can get four attacks on the charge and three each round after that. By buying the WG for an extra model and equipping him with the PF and not the GH you get it at a little bit of a discount. Now your squads have a PF, Mark of the Wolfen/Wolf Standard (except 1 Razorback, leave in backfield if you like to hold objective) and higher Leadership (WG or Rune Priest). Hope that this helps, and please let me know what you think.

I like the list! The only thing I would like is a squadron of speeders. The mobility and the typhoons are something I think is is wicked valuable. Especially for the cost. What do you think?

Why is JOTWW not viable? it is a good power!

It's a good power against some. It works 17% of the time (given that all 6s fail) guarantee'd. Other than that it's good against Tau and Orks. Everyone else (especially single wound models) you have better success with a direct attack like Living Lightning. That's just in my opinion. It's great when it works, when it doesn't you just wasted your shooting attack that you could have used for a possible D6 S7 attacks.

If you wanted to add speeders you will probably have to drop a squad and their transport. If that is what you want to do you have some tough choices ahead. If you drop a rhino you will loose the Rune Priest's transport, if you drop the razorback you loose some long range shooting. I'm not saying that it cannot be done, it just going to be a balancing act to get it done.

I wouldn't be opposed to dropping a Lazorback. I would lose the long range shooting, Though I compare what I am giving up. I get 6 S8 AP3 shot per round and the mobility of the speeders. I am losing 1 S9 AP2 shot.

Unless I am missing something here I think that would justify the swap. Is there a reason why it wouldn't?

*edited for typos*

5 man GH squads does not belong in CC, buff the squads upto 8-9 if you want to have use them for a CC roll.

JotWW can, and should, hit more than one model. If you are going with two priests then one JotWW is a must have imo.

Typhoon speeders can not be in squardons.

Wolf Guard Jump pack squads are som massively overcosted that its not even funny. They make Vanguard Vets look like the best buy in the book and thats saying quite alot...

typhoon speeders costs 90pts each, not sure how or why you are comparing the lasback to the speeders

So at 2k you have (3) scoring units consisting of 15-18 marines? This is going to costs you games. I can pretty much guarantee it. You should think about whether that dread or those 5 jump packs guys are worth playing at a severe handicap in games that require you to control nodes (2/3 of games). I would personally drop him and beef out two of those squads to full at the least even if you are of the mind that 3 scoring units is enough. I personally think that anything over 1750 and you should have 4 or more scoring units. In the vast majority of cases I run with that many even at 1750 simply due to Grey Hunters being so good. By dropping that dread or the jump troops and making some other tweaks you should be able to get your troops looking something like this.

8xGH
Melta / Standard / Rhino
8xGH
Melta / Standard / Rhino
5xGH
Melta / Las/Plas RB
5xGH
Melta / Las/Plas RB

These totals are assuming you put a wolf guard in each unit and leaves space for the priests to ride. Otherwise I would fill out to 9/6 if you had no WG to put in there. Also on the suggested changes I would be wary of addin MotW over an additional marine when space is available in the ride. MotW is nice and all, but IMO does not trump another whole marine. YMMV of course.

I agree with tedurur, the way that merlin96 has the WG w/ JP's kitted out they're just WAY over-priced. If you want Assault/JP units that badly, take Skyclaw Assault Packs.

With this load-out:
Skyclaw Assault Pack (5) x2
+Power Weapon, MotW

This exact load-out comes to 240 pts, yes it's 30 pts higher then the Wolf Guard load-out but you're getting 10 guys instead of just 5. (Heck, drop the MotW and they're 5 pts cheaper then the WG w/ JP's. 210 vs 215 for 10 guys instead of 5)
Adding in Berserk Charge to the mix and you have a ton of nasty hits with the first round of CC when you charge; most units can't stand up to that, just due to sheer volume of attacks. It's statistics that they will fail a save or two, if not more like 6-7.

The dread stands alone and will most likely die in turn 1-2 to AT fire, kind of a waste imo. I understand you're idea is to buy time for your other components to get up the field unmolested, but I like my big guns to stick around a little longer. Or at least have another distraction in the same vicinity, but you are dropping him into melta range (I'm assuming on this, maybe you're dropping him mid-field instead of 18" away, idk that's your call.) while your TWC are moving from your table edge. Not exactly, sharing the same priority for target saturation that you're wanting to achieve. More or less you're giving them the Dreadnought first turn for KP's (if you're playing them) and then giving them the TWC next before they have to switch to the rest of your army.

The 5 man GH squads loaded-out with Standards, I'd drop the Standards. Like it's already been said, they should be avoiding CC in favor of shooting. If you wanted to combine one of those squads into a 8-10 man squad then by all means add the Standard, better use and higher chance to survive going into CC.

I do notice, you're trying to avoid the cookie-cutter build, but there are some things that just don't make sense to take in 1's or 2's. Redundancy works for a reason.

I hope you're not taking this harshly, it's not intended to be, just my thoughts/views on the list you posted and posted by merlin96 which was based off your original. As in all list building, ymmv. Best thing is to take your list and a few of the suggestions and do some play tests to see what fits your style of play and works best for you.

Good luck in the tournament, I hope the Sons of Russ take you to victory.

Cheers~

Agreed. My original post was trying to appeal to his vision. Play test with these changes and see what will work for you.

I appreciate the input. I have no ego when it comes to this army. I have five games in so I am still feeling my way into it. Coming from a CSM army for an introduction to the hobby, this codex is a blast. Your points make sense and have me back at the drawing board for my list when it comes to saturday's tourney. That's a good thing though, that was the idea of the op.

Back to the speeder post above, the speeders are fun but are paper airplanes. I feel like the real strength of SW is to sit back with LF with missles and hammer away at the enemy. Also our tourney scene has found the las/plas razorbacks with GH are kinda brutal too. Oh, and SW scouts are really good, with how they have a 66% chance of coming in where ever you need em to in regards to table edge.

Haeslich wrote:
Here is what I am considering. I didn't work in the extra greyhunters, but I might be able to toy around with it some more. 1999 points.

-Rune Priest
Wolf Tail Talisman
Saga of the Beastslayer
Living Lightning
Stormcaller
Master of Runes

-3 Grey Hunter Units 5 per squad
Melta
Power Fist
Mark of the Wulfen
-Razorback
Lascannon, Twin Linked Plasma Gun

-2 Long Fangs Units 4 per squad
4x Missile Launchers

-Dreadnaught
MultiMelta
Missile Launcher
-Drop Pod

-3 Wolf Cav
3 Storm Shields
1 Thunderhammer

-3 Wolf Guard w/ Jump Packs
3 Stormshields
1 thunderhammer

First, I'd drop the Power Fist from each of the Grey Hunter squads. Its just worthless in the long run. You get 2 attacks the first round then its one attack with a 50% chance to hit the thing you need it to usually. 3 points more (model compared to model) gets you a Wolf Guard Pack Leader armed with the same, with the added bonus of Ld 9 for the pack and a Combi weapon. Personally I've never had a Grey Hunter power fist actually do anything. Ever.

Wolf Guard with Jump Packs are "neat" but too expensive for what they are. The cost for the Jump Pack alone is equal to the entire cost for the vanilla marine version. I honestly have to think its a typo that they can't lead Skyclaws cause of the point cost, and that GW just failed to update the Eratta properly.

Same with Thunderwolves really, you're spending too many points on them for not too good of a return. I run a vehicle free list and don't even have as many Storm Shields on my 3 strong Thunder-cav pack. You have Rhinos/Razorbacks that you can use to screen enemy fire, so why are you taking it? You can free 60-90 points taking out those Storm Shields.

Also, the Thunderhammer would be a waste in my opinion. You don't need S10 attacks to take out 99% of the vehicles in the assault phase, your S5 with Rending already. You don't want to be charging a Land Raider since it'll probably have a hard unit inside. You don't want to be striking after the enemy, as you will be outnumbered. Initiative 5+ is a big threat to a small, hard hitting unit like this. You can play smart with them, or you can increase the cost of the unit by 65% to give you a chance of surviving play mistakes.

So if you cut out what I would call the fat you free up 370 points. 420 if you drop the Master of the Runes upgrade to your Rune Priest. Note, this leaves you 3 naked Wolf Guard and 3 naked Thunderwolves we'd have to work on.

I would give one Thunderwolf a Meltabomb and one a Wolf Claw. The Wolf Claw is surprisingly useful since you are S5, and the Meltabomb is there for wound allocation (and if you really want to charge that Land Raider )

I'd also give the Wolf Guard the Power Fists (or Thunder Hammers if you really want, but that's at least 15 points more to give it to all of them). May as well also tack on a Combi-Melta for each since the Power Fist is cheaper for them.

This leaves us 270 points, 330 points if you cut out that Rune Priest upgrade.

I just realized you have only 3 scoring units in an army of 1750+ points. That's insane. It also means you only have 15 troop models, 18 if you deploy the Wolf Guard as pack leaders. That is really not a lot. In fact, I'd say it's bad unless your against a similar list (which it sounds like you played against). Lets add a 4th scoring unit, which I believe is running 165 points currently for you (if you took out the fists). This leaves 105/155 points.

I'd add a second Rune Priest, drop the Master of Runes from the first, and Choosers of the Slain to both, as well as add a 4th Wolf Guard Pack Leader with Combi-Melta and Power Fist. This actually leaves you 3 points over your previous total placing you at 1997 points. Here is the full list:



Personally, I'd also ditch the Suicide Dreadnought and take two Multi-Melta toting Land Speeders instead. May not arrive guaranteed on first turn but could prove more useful. Really that's a tough call to make.

Overall, and this isn't negative, your list isn't competitive on its own but once its tweaked to be a little more lean its dead on what most people claim is competitive. Not sure if that's good or bad, or even what you are looking for. If its not what you want you'll probably want to start over entirely. Lord knows I've had to a few times!

Wolf guard with jump packs are a waste, because you have an18 point jump pack skyclaw. I know that he only has BS3 and WS3 but they get 4 attacks when they charge. IMO you should always have WG in a transport of some kind. I use wolf Guard in squads of 9 or 10 only. They don't have cc power unless they are in a larger squad. Rune priests belong in rhino's shooting LL only. In a 2000 point list i always take 2 squads of LF with a mix of weapons. I also always take 4 full squads of GH's minus room for RP's an the like. Bikes are also great for the price. Cheap and capable of doing all sorts of damage in cc

Ok, tourney was Saturday, here is what I brought:

Rune Priest
Living Lightning
Stormcaller

Three units of 5x grey Hunters with Meltas
Each unit has a Lazorback (las/plas)

Two units of 10x grey Hunters with 2 meltas per unit

Three Long Fangs units, 5 missiles each.

3 Land Speeders with Typhoons. A multi melta/ missile launchered Dread inside.

9 Skyclaws with a Melta.

Games went ok. Lost the first game to blood angels. Couldnt roll to save my life. Kill points, got pwned. Second game was Dark Eldar. She brought like 8 vehicles and I killed 7 in the first round. Was on the way to tabling her and would have in round 4 or 5 if not for the 2 hour time limit. unfortunately, tourney rules awarded objectives if you touched it and rolled on. you did not need to maintain the objective. So in the end, it was a draw. by normal rules I would have held 3 objectives to her 0. I am very satisfied with that game.

Third game was a close loss to Mech-dar. best I have ever faired against that army and that player. he didnt bring Eldrad which hurt him I think.

Either way, here are my observations:

1) The Dread would work better replaced with some terminators, or with a melta only and keep his CC instead of replacing him. Add venerable if I am going to use him. Otherwise wolf guard termies with Arjac might work better.

2) The Skyclaws were mediocre. Thunderwolf Cav with stormshields and a thunderhammer might be an alternative.

3) The two large troop squads weren't great. they were not bqad, but they were not as influential as I would have hoped. Point cost is cheap though. The way the tourney's run at this store they are heavily objective favored so I do not think they are the best choice, at least the way I loaded them out.

4) The Long Fangs did what they were supposed to, again getting gibbed nearly every game and completely ineffective once that happens.

5) Rune Priest wasnt bad. Not nearly as influential as i am used to but I did well hiding him and his kill point. Living lightning was fine, but stormcaller is pointless without master of runes.

Overall, i am satisfied. I am super competetive so I can be hard on myself at times but I did better than my last tourney, and given the fact it's my second tourney ever, finishing middle of the pack isnt terrible.

Not winning is not winning, no matter how you look at it though. Next tourney is 1500 points so I need to head back to the drawing board. Itll be a toss up between SW and CSM. Good thing I have three months to playtest!