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It's amazing that the greatest fenrisian warriors who have gone through training to become space marines and are actually now space marines have not yet accumulated the experience with hth weaponry to get to WS 4.

Orks can substitute the number of models in a unit for the Leadership value. If they have 11 or more models, they are Fearless. Having a 6+ save and losing a combat by 10 wounds is pretty bad for them.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I remember second edition, when all SWs were +1 WS. BCs were 4, GHs 5, etc.

WC_Brian wrote:
It's amazing that the greatest fenrisian warriors who have gone through training to become space marines and are actually now space marines have not yet accumulated the experience with hth weaponry to get to WS 4.

If I understand the fluff correctly, the Blood Claws are the equivalent of Scouts in the base SM army. They're the young guys that are all about hacking and slashing, but don't have any finesse yet. The old vet's in the army are the Wolf Scouts.

Fenrisian Wolves have better weapon skill...nuff said, BC's are so newb they don't deserve army list time.

@Winterman: I don't think you are correct.

Since the Wolf guard are the same we can leave them out.

BC's have 9 bs 3 shots (4.5 hits) followed by 32 ws 3 attacks (16 hits), and 3 ws 3 powerfist attacks.

Total of 20.5 s4 hits, 1.5 powerfist hits.

GH have 9 bs 4 shots (6 hits) followed by 24 ws 4 attacks (12 hits) and 2 ws 4 powerfist attacks

Total of 18 hits, 1 powerfist hit.

These are versus ws 4-6 units, which are the majority of targets in the game.

BC are better. GH would hit harder versus ws 3 units, but none of them will put up enough of a fight at a high enough init to care about.

So the only argument for the GH is the idea that one less ballistic skill on a meltagun or taking less hits in the battle are important enough to justify killing 2 less marines on every charge.

The meltagun will get fired, in a good game, twice. Most games will be 0-1. The odds of rolling a 3, which is the only time matters, are 11/36 in a 2 shot game, 1 in 6 in a one shot game. Beyond that, we'd have to figure in the odds of the meltagun shot that hit for the GH and not the BC doing anything, which given smoke and rolls of 1 to wound isn't a complete certainty. Then we'd have to weigh in the combi-melta shot from the Wolf Guard, which might very well do the job, rendering the difference, on the 1 in 6 shots where it makes one, irrelevant. The meltagun difference simply isn't relevant on anything like enough battles to make up for nerfing your assault.

The return fire argument is similarly corner case. If the enemy is attacking back at ws 4, they aren't furious charging, so they probably aren't killing significant numbers of marines, unless you are assaulting an enemy assault unit, in which case they probably have something else going on that means you shouldn't have done that.

Charge is under a player's control. We charge when we will win. The units we bring to charge space marines aren't units that overly mind the return fire. Bloodcrushers/Genestealers don't care what kind of marines they charge, or that charge them. They kill them. You shouldn't fight such things, put dreads into them.

By contrast, the things you are going to be assaulting can't hurt marines, 10 tac marines might get 2 more hits versus the Blood Claws, but so what? They are dead, and if the counterattack is signficant you are about to be, it doesn't matter if you lost an extra guy.

Most space wolf army lists in this forum and that I have written are either drop pod based or they are foot/cavalry based.

Drop Pods and Counter-Attack are a very nice pair.

Also, in this situation you can throw a Wolf Guard in there and still get the full 10 GHs.

Not that that has anything to do with recommending BCs.

Then everyone who right now is complaining that BCs aren't as good as they want would now, instead, be complaining that GH's aren't worth taking....

Meh, I don't agree (entirely). Clearly there are always naysayers, but I have to say that the BC vs GH tradeoff in this Codex is very disappointing.

The problem is that there's very little reason to take BCs, and they're also very similar to GHs. It'd be nice if they were a shade more distinct from one another, more difference in options, cost, etc.

Honestly, I think if they made the BCs 14 points, that's a good start. Seems a more appropriate costing, IMO.

Or, as others have said, if the BCs were a bit better in CC, so that there was a compelling reason to take them.

Sw drop pods are transport capacity 10. So, no WG+10GH.

What i would have liked to have seen headstronged changed so that if you use headstrong you can't shoot but your assault you get rending. If you do shoot no rending simple as that would make blood claws a nice assault unit against ork boyz shoot then assault or maybe that shooty carnifex can try rend him to death or pile attacks on his 2+ save and he can only kill 2 max of us a turn yay

Not a wishlist thread Ripister, but it's nice to see one more throwing in a vote for GH>BC.

@40KEnthusiast

I have to disagree with you again in this breakdown.

You are taking too myopic a view of it.

First, the GH's will most likely have dual melta's which they will fire before they charge, which will even the kill differential.

You are also assuming you get the charge, which with slow units like BC's and GH's doesn't always happen. Receiving the charge, GH's or in an existing combat, GH's are better.

BC's also need a character to over come headstrong, which makes them cost more points. You keep assuming everyone will use a WG in the GH squad, I think they are better off without one, only taking one model with MoW.

GH's are also far superior in shooting.

So, in only a very limited context do BC's out perform, by a small margin, Grey Hunters for more points.

I think it is pretty clear that the better unit are GH's, although I agree that BC's are not bad at all, simply not as good.

stupid double post.

I've never been too keen on a melee unit on foot. It's pretty easy to stay 12 inches away from someone.

Yeah it is, I tried that with an all infiltrating, foot assault Marine army in 4e, that didn't work so well as soon as my opponents realized they could just walk away from me!

250 points for a 15 pack members, a flamer, free 2nd weapon, and a powerfist.
54 regular attacks on the charge, 3 powerfist... after 2 flamer templates not much will survive that...

13-14 regular wounds, 1-2 fist wounds... without perfered.


and i just took best overall at a tourney with big blob templars... having 4 death stars with a total of 40 marines having perfered on you (emperors champ) running at you is a scarry sight.... and those panzy S4 attacks were ripping through units like paper.

Envy89 wrote:250 points for a 15 pack members, a flamer, free 2nd weapon, and a powerfist.
54 regular attacks on the charge, 3 powerfist... after 2 flamer templates not much will survive that...

13-14 regular wounds, 1-2 fist wounds... without perfered.

How does quoting some numbers about number of attacks on a unit without making a direct comparison to the other unit add anything to the discussion?

Envy89 wrote:and i just took best overall at a tourney with big blob templars... having 4 death stars with a total of 40 marines having perfered on you (emperors champ) running at you is a scarry sight.... and those panzy S4 attacks were ripping through units like paper.

Congrats. I wonder who took best general. Preferred enemy will not help you hit my fast moving vehicles. My banewolves which you can't kill from range will just scoop up truckloads of models, all of my infantry units would be mowed down by your buckets of dice if you could only get to them. But instead you've got one meltagun per blob.

I'm glad you did well. But your anecdotal evidence also doesn't contribute to the actual discussion.

actualy... i took best general as well

but since i won overall (larger prize), they dident want to give me 2 awards.


4 blobs dose NOT = 1850.... i had other stuff.


what i was pointing out is that WS 3 or 4 will be hitting MOST things on a 4+... blood claws have more attacks then Gray hunters, sure they get hit a bit more then the hunters. but thats what the 3+ save is for.

but since i won overall (larger prize), they dident want to give me 2 awards.

One time I won a tournament so much that I won another tournament that was going on the same day in the next state over.

Actually, I did that twice.

And I can fly.

Phryxis wrote:

but since i won overall (larger prize), they dident want to give me 2 awards.

One time I won a tournament so much that I won another tournament that was going on the same day in the next state over.

Actually, I did that twice.

And I can fly.

1st game swept...
2nd game played vs the guy that got general... upside of a tie, scored 8 more points them him
3rd game swept...

imposible for him to have had more points...


but back to the topic at hand... Blood claws do indead have a place in an army. 1st thought is to pile them in a land raider with an IC... wolf priest to get rerolls... wolf lord with frost axe and warrior born... whatever, they are better in HtH then gray hunters IF you play to the strength in numbers of the Blood claws... if your just going to run 10 man squads, your better off going with gray hunters as they have bolters, and BP&CCW

But you are dumping so many points on a unit, just to make it work.
It demands an 'all eggs in a basket' approach.

That to me means the strength of the supporting elements rather than the unit they are buffing.

So the only argument for the GH is the idea that one less ballistic skill on a meltagun or taking less hits in the battle are important enough to justify killing 2 less marines on every charge.

And that is where your mathhammer fell apart. That half a fist hit and 2.5 S4 hits gets you less then a marine more kills (then the GHs (10/12 of a marine difference).

Then you can't simply ignore the return attacks, as that does adjust the final tally, such that the real difference in combat resolution is pretty slim.

So in the context of having enough bodies alive to score at the end of the game, preferably charging scrubbish units and providing melta fire that one time in a game -- yeah I'd still take Grey Hunters.

@envy89
Bro, did you read the thread? You are restating stuff we already talked about and refuted.

Also, BT crusader squads are no comparison to BC's. Preferred enemy and righteous zeal, and fearless in HtH are a HUGE difference. They are also the most broken codex in 5E, and running a foot mob with rules that were not written for this edition does not take a ton of skill, so I wouldn't be waving my flag too much.

The chaos dex still beats BT... Then again, Chaos has consistently been a top tier dex since I’ve been playing.

there was someone in the thread that was saying that all the "completive" BT players are switching over to las plas squads... that is just silly, I was pointing out that the blobs are more competitive... move 6 inches, run up to 6 inches, if one of them dies then they run at you another 1-6 inches or 4-9 inches thanks to those servitors. And don’t even get me started on grimadlus... emperor help you if you play BT's with dawn of war deployment, turn 2 charges.


And wow... you refuted the fact that 15 blood claws are better in HtH then 10 gray hunters??? BC strength lies within being able to get 15 models in one unit, 15 3+ save models 2 of which have flamers, and one powerfist... 16 models if you do the smart thing and stick a wolf guard in with em, which of course also get a nifty weapon like a thunder hammer.

Yes, it is a pricy unit. Worried about plasma hitting your big blob??? That’s what those cheep mobile cover save... I mean wolves, are for. 8 points a pop for a 12 inch charging bog / cover providing unit.