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This may sound a bit counter-intuitive, but I'm wondering how to make my Space Wolves unique, so what does everyone else do? What sort of bitz do you use to make Space Wolves look more distinctive. If it's any help, I imagine my Wolves more as the honourable warrior-bros sort of force than the grim executioners.

Learn how to greenstuff fur. It´s very easy, basically you just put a sheet of thin greenstuff on the place where you want to have the pelt and than you start stabbing and ripping the surface with a knife.

Maybe you wanna use a different paint scheme but that´s me not liking baby blue...

I personally like the baby blue, it's nicely balanced to be completely un-grimdark: bright enough to be cheery, subdued enough to not be tasteless in a warzone.

Just my two cents.

Wanna make space wolves unique? I assume you mean as compared to other space wolves as they are pretty unique already.
Do the opposite of the Wolfy image, cut all the tokens and filthy heratic icons off, or minimise them and have them all wear helmets etc. Would make people look twice when trying figure out thier Chapter

After priming under GW black primer, I painted mine dark grey, shoulder pads in red, yellow, white and black. Various details in black, silver and gold. Then a heavy nunn oil wash and dry brush with long beard grey.

I think this gives me a old looking, battle worn, grimey looking warrior. They have been around, fought their battles.......lived a space wolves life!

I find I like mine in
Periwinkle, it keeps them looking sort of the same [bluish], but still different.
I am also working on my own Company, the Winter Wolves. They ended up fighting to close to the warp and have a light Taint to them. As a whole rather than returning to Fenris they White-Washed their Armor [The color of Death in many cultures] and are now seeking a glorious death.

definitely fur cloaks, its very easy to do. and maybe some different marks of armour like forge world mk3, mk4 and mk5 helmets to spice it up on veterans as well as weapon conversions to make them unique looking.

Well I'm not a massive fan of removing the Wolfy iconography, I quite like it. I meant more how could I add to it to make my Wolves stand out as something that I obviously created myself, rather than just the standard bitz out of the box. I was thinking of using some old Chaos bitz I've got lying around with the Chaos symbols filed off to create more feral-looking weapons.

Paint them like wolves which come in every combination of white/black/brown/grey.

I'm definitely using different colour schemes for different units: blues for the normal guys, black for the Crows (my forlorn hope unit), white for Lone Wolves and such, but I'm not sure what to do for weapon conversions. Though I did give my Wolf Priest a custom crozius based on two wolf-hammers. Do you mean that sort of thing?

Colonel-Commissar wrote:
I'm definitely using different colour schemes for different units: blues for the normal guys, black for the Crows (my forlorn hope unit), white for Lone Wolves and such, but I'm not sure what to do for weapon conversions. Though I did give my Wolf Priest a custom crozius based on two wolf-hammers. Do you mean that sort of thing?

Not quite. I meant paint them like real wolves. For example, white torso, grey or brown arms, black back-pack. It would be tough to do but would certainly be unique.

https://www.google.ca/search?q=grey+wolf&rlz=1T4GGHP_enCA591CA591&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=zmNwVJffGITriQK7iYCwDA&ved=0CAgQ_AUoAQ&biw=1680&bih=848

Hmm...

Colonel-Commissar wrote:
This may sound a bit counter-intuitive, but I'm wondering how to make my Space Wolves unique, so what does everyone else do? What sort of bitz do you use to make Space Wolves look more distinctive. If it's any help, I imagine my Wolves more as the honourable warrior-bros sort of force than the grim executioners.

Given that you have a background for them in mind, go with that!

Pick a different Great Company (don't go with Grimnar or Ragnar). That change in iconography will be distinctive, as most wolves use the same few Great Company icons.


Since they are a different company, you might come up with different markings to distinguish Bloodclaws, Grey Hunters, and Long Fangs. I would keep the same colors, but change the patterns up, or vice versa. That would represent the pack markings used by your Wolf Lord.


Then you might decide on a campaign badge or different sorts of honor markings distinctive to that Wolf Lord. If he's campaigning in a particular area for a long time, a campaign badge would also set your wolves apart. That campaign badge could also be used on any Imperial allies you might have, to tie them all together. If the campaign is against a particular type of foe, you might also add distinctive kill markings to the armor, representing distinguished actions. For instance, Grey Hunters might have a tyranid claw token if they have killed a genestealer in close combat, or whatever.

That type of distinctive foe idea slides right into basing. If you have a distinct campaign in mind, then your basing and weathering should also reflect that. A long campaign against tyranids might have a lot of tyranid limbs/skulls on the bases, etc. That also should inform the weathering. Fights against tyranids should have scratches and claw marks on the armor plate, while fights against Tau might show more energy burns and blasts, but very little in the way of cuts and scratches.

The idea of honorable warriors might also inform your ideas about preferred foes. There's not going to be much 'honor' to fighting, say, Tyranids, while the Space Wolves who fight Tau, or certain Necron dynasties, might find honorable foes as well.

I think that a lot of 'distinctiveness' is possible if your backstory is heavily reflected in your modeling. A lot of that is also possible in posing. If you have honorable warriors, you might want to include a lot of dueling poses, or sword stances, and fewer models posed in feral rages/etc.

I have also been using Grey Knight Bits on my Wolves.
The Sword that inverted with a Scull, this would look great as a Frost Blade.
Grey Knight Nemesis Force Halberd on my Wolf Lord to stand in for the Krakenbone Sword.
There is an Hand bit holding a Skull that would look good on a Rune Priest.
Grey Knight Nemesis Force Staff for a Rune Priest.
Dreadknight Sword/Hammer on your dread with the Shield.

own wolf lord and company markings?

also develop own markings of your ranks and troop types?

distingiwsh them from the established lords. each wolf lord is considered a autonomous leader so can ahve some fun with that.

Da Butcha wrote:Pick a different Great Company (don't go with Grimnar or Ragnar). That change in iconography will be distinctive, as most wolves use the same few Great Company icons.

I'm using my own Wolf Lord, Eddard Winterherald. Well, he's sort of my own! I was thinking of using the Ragnar company marking, but tilted 45 degrees and with an extended neck.

Da Butcha wrote:Since they are a different company, you might come up with different markings to distinguish Bloodclaws, Grey Hunters, and Long Fangs. I would keep the same colors, but change the patterns up, or vice versa. That would represent the pack markings used by your Wolf Lord.

Not sure what you mean here. Are you talking about the geometric shapes? If so, then I prefer those since me and transfers have never totally gotten along, so I'm minimising my use to the company markings.

Da Butcha wrote:That type of distinctive foe idea slides right into basing. If you have a distinct campaign in mind, then your basing and weathering should also reflect that. A long campaign against tyranids might have a lot of tyranid limbs/skulls on the bases, etc. That also should inform the weathering. Fights against tyranids should have scratches and claw marks on the armor plate, while fights against Tau might show more energy burns and blasts, but very little in the way of cuts and scratches.

At the moment I'm just trying to get what I've got painted up, never mind making them look weathered, but I'm thinking about this. The people I play with are all Imperial (one Guard, one Space Marines and one Blood Angels) but I can work on that. Black streaks to signify las-scoring, scratches from chainblades, that sort of thing. Oh, and a red wash on chainblades from all those squishy Guardsmen!

Da Butcha wrote:A lot of that is also possible in posing. If you have honorable warriors, you might want to include a lot of dueling poses, or sword stances, and fewer models posed in feral rages/etc.

I favour the sword poses, I've got a few Blood Claws/Sky Claws especially posed as if preparing for a duel. I'm not so sure on how to do feral poses anyway, but given the loss of Wulfen that's less of a concern!

If you want to make your army really stand out: do something different with the bases. Basing can have a huge impact on the way models look. If you just go green flock or snow then you're not going to look very unique.

If you have decent freehand skills what about some Celtic knot work on the miniatures, maybe with a theme for each pack?

What I see a lot of people to is use CSM heads and heads off the mutant sprue. There are a couple there that are just guys with big fangs, which is kind of nice.

Fur cloaks from the Warriors of Chaos. Easy conversion, looks incredible.

As in chop off the cloaks, or use the whole body? Because I've seen that, and it looks BADASS.

I'm running the smallest space wolf force possible, 3-5 astartes. My goal is to make them look like and play like the marines in the novels like Blood of Asaheim. To do that, I'm converting them to truescale and using both the terminator bits and rules and using the 13th co/preheresy colors. It is definitely NOT an efficient army and are alot of wasted points but it'll be very distinctive on the tabletop allied with my IG.

I say go truscale and make them truely stand out next to regular marines.

Add designs on your cloaks in red and gold?