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So I'm a long time Necron player, and I just recently decided to start another army, Space Wolves. Having bought and looked through the codex a few times cover to cover, I really like Murderfang for this edition. But, seeing as how I'm a newbie with the Space Wolves, I was looking for some insight. So, what do you guys think? Is Muderfang a good choice/is he worth the point and money to get him?

Murderfang with his murderclaws from the planet system 187.

Eh, I don't think close combat dreads are worth spit in this edition. Maybe as a distraction unit.

that would be a pretty expensive distraction though!

Very expensive, dies to most medium to high strength weapons (or your damn gauss weaponry). I'm not a huge fan. Can it take a drop pod for maximum annoyance factor?

Yup. I had one drop in next to my army. I felt bad for the player because the shiny new kit blew up without doing anything.

It might have some use against blobs like Orks. Flame em and feth em.

He is slow, AV12 with 3 HP.

I honestly can't see anyone having issues with smoking him at will.

He can take a drop pod, or a Lucius which would be better if you really want to use him IMO.

If you just want to drop a distraction unit, Venerable with blizzard shield would be better. IMO of course.

You would have to drop pod him with a couple of other dreads or something to try and offer multiple, hard threats and hope that he lives. With IWND he has a chance to regen a bit, but with AV12 virtually any army can and will glance him to death in one turn if they know whats good for them.

I would suggest looking at the venerable dread with the axe and shield if you want a melee dread. Not as good at killing hordes, but excellent against MCs and elites, etc and actually might survive a round of shooting.

Thanks for the responses, everyone. The list I have now has 3 grey hunter squads in drop pods also, but I'm unsure of how well they would deflect fire away from the dread. even still, would it be better to conserve the points for something else?

overlord tehuti wrote:
Thanks for the responses, everyone. The list I have now has 3 grey hunter squads in drop pods also, but I'm unsure of how well they would deflect fire away from the dread. even still, would it be better to conserve the points for something else?

Or would the point be to direct fire TO the dread and away from your Objective Secured units?

+1 to ven with shield. If you are dropping a unit for distraction it is better if its tough and live to distract things.

Wait I thought a week ago everyone was going nutz about how good murderfangs were.

 changerofways wrote:
Wait I thought a week ago everyone was going nutz about how good murderfangs were.

I don't know who "everyone" is, but I've been saying Murderfang is pretty sucky since before the codex came out.

He's good if he gets in combat, but any opponent isn't going to let him get in combat, he's only going to act as a distraction. However, he's expensive and not that hard to kill, so he's a pretty bad distraction unit, you're better off just taking a regular Dread if all you're trying to do is throw away 3 HP, or Ven Dread with shield if you actually want a chance for it to survive.

Murderfang, you're basically paying 40pts for the fact that if he does get in to combat he'll do a lot more damage. If you can figure out a way to get him in to combat, he may be worth it. Maybe drop pod him, but NOT on turn 1, drop pod a bunch of other stuff turn 1 to tie up things that can kill Murder, then when Murder shows up hopefully he'll be able to survive to actually get in to combat. But then you also have to avoid your opponent just moving away from him as he's not exactly fast.

 changerofways wrote:
Wait I thought a week ago everyone was going nutz about how good murderfangs were.

No, a week ago we were going nutz about how stupid a concept he is, and how stupidly named he is.

Axecop I can forgive, because it was written and named by a 5 year old, but this... this is something else.

Dont the Stormraven can carrie a Dreadnought behind? just saying...

I agree with AllSeeingSkink. HTH dedicated Dreads need to be dropped later in the game. Not turn 1. Later in the game, your enemy might have moved out of a protected position, lost some heavy weapons to casualties suffered from your long range shooting, maybe you have other vehicles that can create a screen, maybe he got too greedy and left a back end unit objective sitter isolated.

I've always seen HTH dreads as a clean up crew of sorts. They chew up whats left of a squad over two turns instead of trying to get it all done at once.

Dreadnoughts just aren't very good, honestly. Even if they do manage to get into melee, they're not actually all that good in melee. They have like 4 attacks, and most of them are WS4. So even when you don't come up against something that'll casually roll you in melee, like carnifex, they'll probably just be tarpitted. I played a match a few weeks ago in which my opponent had twelve Helbrutes in it, 6 of them deep-striking. I killed 8 of them over the course of the game, and the other 4 spent 3 turns locked in combat with a single termagaunt squad. Not very great.

Murderfang has enough attacks between rage and rampage to reliably.... murder, anything he gets into base combat with. But he's still AV12, meaning that when your opponent focuses him down since he's such a big threat, he won't even have to allocate that much of his army toward doing so. So even the "distraction" plan can only take you so far.

 BlaxicanX wrote:
Dreadnoughts just aren't very good

See, this is the thing that is depressing for me. While I only...wasted money on one, it sucks that Dreads aren't better for the points you blow on them. For the same amount of points I spend to field my Dread (Assault Cannon, HF), I could easily field a full squad of Devastators with a couple of Lascannons and an assortment of other weapons. Sure, they don't serve the exact same purpose, but a Dev squad is worth infinitely more points.

As for Murderpants, it just doesn't seem like he brings anything to the table that something else of similar points doesn't do just as well.

I actually thought Murderfang's crunch was awesome until I realized he's a space wolf and space wolves already have access to dead killy choppy units, like the thunderwolf cavalry. The TWC are faster, can be a lot more durable and will reliably kill anything they come in contact with.

Waaaargh! Yes, he is. Watch him tear all your enemies in half with the murder claw thingies (is that even a word?).

I don't do wolves, but he seems "meh" at best to me, only because he's only S7, so I'm getting my FNP 10/10 times, then proceeding to gak him up. Of course, I'm one player.

What I'm saying is that it depends entirely on your local area. You have a bunch of T4 or more with a ridiculous FNP? There's no point.
If your local meta is full of high-strength APsilly weaponry, don't do it.
Just my opinion, so YMMV.

Well it seems pretty unanimous that Murderfang is a no-go. instead, what other close combat should I bring instead? I plan on a squad of 6 Thunderwolves already, perhaps another? or should I just get more Grey Hunters?

More obsec grey hunters in pods. Murderfang is awful just like every other CC dread in 7th edition (and most shooting dreads too).