Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

What on gods green earth are these monstrosities? I mean seriously, as if wolves needed a better, faster melee unit when they already had Thunderwolves. These guys can kick the gak out of thirsters and princes. What the hell!? Why can't we get a new melee unit.....I'm pretty sure it's supposed to be our speciality. It's clear GW hates us.

So......how do we deal with them? I've dealt with them by chucking. Multiple units at them in melee. But do I really have to throw a daemon prince AND a bloodthirster at them in the same assault?

Help me!!

Soften them up with Skull Cannons, Wulfen don't like S8 so much.

See, I don't own skull cannons, I own...

16 bezerkers,
3 daemon princes,
A D thirster
10 bloodletters
About 30 CSM
40 cultists
2 maulerfiends
A land raider
Kharn
A Helldrake
Be'Lakor (don't like using him due to fluffyness)
5 warp talons
6 possessed
A Lord
5 chosen

That's about it so far. My current list can be found here:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/684759.page#8545169

Get in line with the BA and lose.

Ryuken has it dead on. A single shot from a skull cannon = mosly dead unit of wulfen. Str 8 AP4..er...5 Ignores cover large blast. Skull Cannon is a surprisingly good unit. Used two as support for my old Khorne Daemons so Thirsters and Princes got to swing at initiative into cover.

Edit: I could have sworn skull cannon was AP4... shows how long it's been for me. Derp.

If you're running Daemonkin, Skull Cannons are a good choice, but another good choice would be a Soul Grinder with Phlegm. Skull cannons are probably better though since they ignore cover. I would think a Bloodthirster could do pretty well against them, but if they've got Storm Shields I can see where he'd fail.

Get the lube out and pray it is quick?

Wulfen don't get storm shields. But they're initiative 5 and toughness 5 as far as I'm aware.....maybe they're toughness 4?! If they are toughness 4 then I'm less concerned. But they're currently wrecking me.

My thirster is unfortunately a D thirster. And they're initiative 5 with strength 7/8 ap 2. And with about 4-6 attacks on the charge and getting to attack as they die too it's ridiculous. Oh. And they have feel no pain to boot.

I encountered those things for the first time when they ripped apart my dreadknights. Seriously, S6 AP2 at I5 used to be just for named characters...much less "oh if you kill me I hit you with a thunder hammer". Feth those things, and GW for making them.

 Khaine's Wrath wrote:
Wulfen don't get storm shields. But they're initiative 5 and toughness 5 as far as I'm aware.....maybe they're toughness 4?! If they are toughness 4 then I'm less concerned. But they're currently wrecking me.

My thirster is unfortunately a D thirster. And they're initiative 5 with strength 7/8 ap 2. And with about 4-6 attacks on the charge and getting to attack as they die too it's ridiculous. Oh. And they have feel no pain to boot.

Wulfen can get SS/THs

Oh ok, my bad, I'll rephrase - my friend who takes them doesn't take shields. Something like 3 win claws and 2 with axes. It's something like 30 S6/7 ap2 attacks on the charge of which around 18 have shred.

I can't find their toughness though.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Edit: found it. T4. See how they fair against a daemon prince with Goredrinker on the charge. S8 means instant death and no feel no pain. I just need to tease them out and then hit them with a winged DP.

 CrownAxe wrote:

 Khaine's Wrath wrote:
Wulfen don't get storm shields. But they're initiative 5 and toughness 5 as far as I'm aware.....maybe they're toughness 4?! If they are toughness 4 then I'm less concerned. But they're currently wrecking me.

My thirster is unfortunately a D thirster. And they're initiative 5 with strength 7/8 ap 2. And with about 4-6 attacks on the charge and getting to attack as they die too it's ridiculous. Oh. And they have feel no pain to boot.

Wulfen can get SS/THs

The player I often face uses this to his advantage. He'll put 1-2 stormshield/thunderhammer wulfen in a unit of 5 and let them tank the heavy shots due to careful placement. And he spams Wulfen... 2-4 units depending on the game size. He even brought them to 600 point league nights...

Your best bet as Khorne is to kill them with strength 8 or higher wherever you can get it. Not only does strength 8 double out their toughness and kill them immediately, but it also negates their FnP special rule. Preferably you will want to do this in your shooting phase (or psychic with allies) so they can't stand back up and hit you with that stupid special rule of theirs. That means Heldrakes, Forgefiends, Soul Grinders with Phlegm, Skull Cannons... you get the picture.

If you -have- to take them in assault, you only want to charge them first if you are using a model without Counter-attack (anything with a Mark of Khorne will have counter-attack). So Daemons will want to get the charge so they aren't robbed of extra attacks. Mark of Khorne units can wait for them to assault first, since MoK confers Counterattack. The reason you don't want to assault is because they have the weird counter-charge rule for nearby units.

As far as Daemons go, Bloodletters are pretty glassy due to their T3, but AP3 Hellblades and high WS help offset their fragility with effectiveness in melee. If you get the charge, you can hit and wound on 3+, forcing a decent amount of saves for his storm-shields and FnP. Bloodcrushers are a really bad idea, since they can be doubled out in toughness pretty easily by those hammers, and you don't want your 3 wound models going belly up that easy. Same goes for Flesh Hounds. All these daemons will be striking simultaneous at best, unless the wulfen has only TH/SS.

Ideally, you want to hit them with something higher than initiative 5. In KDK, that pretty much only leaves DPs and Bloodthirsters (non D kind). Both of these are roughly equivalent in points to a 5-man wulfen squad, and that makes it a gamble to go fisticuffs with the wulfen using such units. By the time you add a decent weapon to a DP, he's going to end up costing almost as much as a BT anyway. BTs are really one of the few viable assault options to even attempt to take on Wulfen, and he still only has a 50/50 (I guess, I don't know for sure) shot of pulling it off, if you roll some good Decapitating Blows in there. Even if you do kill them though, they are going to probably take your BT with them as they die.

My favored tactic is to throw a cheap lord with the Axe of Ruin and a bike (wings if you don't have a bike) at them. He hits at I5, so he and the leader are likely to kill each other, if your opponent accepts the challenge (which you have to make of course). Even if he dies, though, it's no biggie because OH LOOK A BLOODTHIRSTER FROM HIS CORPSE. If you have enough Blood Tithe points saved up, use him as the sacrifice to spring a second Bloodthirster for the price of one! Sure, the Axe-summoned bloodthirster may not last more than a few turns, but hopefully he'll take more wulfen with him and that 180 point Lord just did most of the work of killing the 240 point unit of wulfen. Even if all you are doing is tying up those wulfen, keeping them from wrecking the wrest of your army, that's probably a good thing.

I've tried tarpitting them, by feeding them cultists, but that barely slows them down. You'd have to have lots of cultists to provide speed bumps.

So there you go. Pretty much shooting them with high strength is your best bet. CSM Lord on a bike (or with a jump pack if you are really desperate) and a Axe of Ruin is a decent Plan B. Bloodthirsters (non-D) are a last resort.

Ok, so I have an idea. A daemon prince with Goredrinker. It's risky, but hear me out.

Goredrinker is +1 strength. Furious charge is +1 strength. With the right blood tithe I can get another +1 attack or rage(is normally easy to get this in my experience)

The prince now hits at WS9 with 7 attacks on the charge (5 base +1 for charging, +1 for tithe) at strength 8. He's hitting on 3's (that's the risk) but then wounding on 2's and doubling out his toughness. With wings he has a much better chance of picking the point to engage. And at initiative 8 he's striking first two. In my experience my friend basically never hunkers them in cover so I'm not normally charging into terrain........it could work...

Though a lot of what I'm reading is simple - buy more bloodthirsters.

In my experience, the Axe of Khorne has better staying power over the course of the fight due to Instant Death of rolls of 6 to-wound, without having to worry about getting the charge (and getting counter-charged). After you add wings and Goredrinker to the DP, they are pretty comparable in cost. The biggest difference in cost is for the dollar value of the models themselves.... the bloodthirsters are obviously very expensive.

You gotta do what you gotta do though. If that's all you have, then that's all you have.

Yeah I see what you're saying. And I do agree. I do need another bloodthirster anyway to be fair. I am thinking about ditching my D thirster to be honest. The prince just does so much heavy lifting for me. And in a grav heavy meta, the ability to leave armour off of him is immense.

Chaos Rapiers seem like they would be decent vs Wulfen considering they are 6 TL Heavy bolter shots per rapier with three in HS slot. They can be S 10 large blast or S 8 AP 4 with 4 shots if you're willing to pay 65-75 points per Rapier. If you droped something from your list you could add another unit of cultist to open up 2 more HS slots on your CSM detachment and then use the 10 cultist you added as bubble rap for the rapiers. The models are pretty easy to scratch build too, just buy some skullcannon or other wheels off ebay and make triangular frames from sprue and add some guns, skulls, Khornate stuff to them. Then just stick them in the corner, even stock the Wulfen are getting hit with about 12-14 shots that wound on 3+ and they only get the 5+ FnP so basically they should take at least 5 wounds after FnP and with 36 inch range you should be able to weaken the unit enough for some cultist or something to finish them off.

This is the second place forgefiends can be useful, as they're str 8 Ap4, so if he's not running Stormshields then you just have to deal with BS3, but with 8 shots, it's still bound to stick enough wounds to drop a few each round.

I think a Hades forgefiend and a skull Cannon would be enough to put a solid crimp in his plans. If he's not taking Hammers, then crushers get a chance to shine, since they're not going to be doubled out and can probably trade kill for kill with the Wulfen, especially with grenades from the skull cannon.

i met them recently, with a list where i had beìlakor D thirster and chaos knight+grimorie, with invisible thirster and grimoried knight i dealt with them quick and easy, they cant almost touch a grimoired 2++ chaos knight and hit thirster on 6 make them hard to hurt him. any 6 i roll in cac mean a dean wulfen, regardless what equipment they have.

Yeah, I get that. But I'm trying to stay mono Khorne. So although I own Be'lakor, he's out. Which means no invis. I suppose a chaos daemons allied detachment isn't a bad idea for grimoire. But even then that's only a 3++ on the BT.

I use imperial Knights for my imperium armies. I'm trying to do well without super heavies and gargs. Though I am tempted with a Kytan.....

They are an absurd unit in CC combat - I mean, it is hard not to be bitter playing Orks, Chaos, etc. and having the "good guys" gain yet another unit that combines many rules that really should have been in other armies. Striking before they die - definitely something berserkers and/or possessed. Anyways, that is besides the point. The thing that caught me off guard and IMO really should be changed is that they attack after they die AT THE INITIATIVE of whatever killed them. It doesn't make sense that a model with a power hammer suddenly becomes so fast. Well...back to the actual topic.

The simple answer is volume of shots will do the trick just fine. I played against them two days ago with Necrons, and I was dropping them fairly easy with regular gauss shots. Cultists with autoguns and heavy stubbers/flamers will do just fine as well. Their armor save is terrible and FNP doesn't quite make up for it. Alternatively, soul grinders with the torrent flamer would do the trick just fine. Negate their armor, wound them on 2+. All they would have is the FNP, which won't save them. The Helldrake would do just fine too, but I would rather use that on other units. Cheap dakka preds are also solid.

Just to warn other players though, I didn't know anything about the formation composed of two wulfen units that gives bonuses to units OUTSIDE of the formation. My opponent rolled a 7+ on the first turn, which allowed his wolf cavalry (whatever their name is) to move normally, then move again in the movement phase. Point being, he made a 29" movement/charge on the first turn. Disgusting. Also, I don't know if it is a rule related to the formation or their core rules, but the wulfen units could also move, run, and then charge (like old-school fleet). They are surprisingly fast even when advancing on foot.

You wanna know how to kill wulfen? It's simple, shoot them till they stop twitching. SW just got one of the most devastating melee units in the game currently and trying to beat them at their game is not a recipe for success. So massed bullets and templates are your friends. Ap means jack as most are probably running 2-3 th/SS and the rest with axes and frags.

You could flank them with Skull cannons to hit ones not covered by the shields?

Spiritfox22 wrote:
You wanna know how to kill wulfen? It's simple, shoot them till they stop twitching. SW just got one of the most devastating melee units in the game currently and trying to beat them at their game is not a recipe for success. So massed bullets and templates are your friends. Ap means jack as most are probably running 2-3 th/SS and the rest with axes and frags.

Pretty much this. Hard to deal with them on their own terms, so set your own.

 FoxPhoenix135 wrote:

Spiritfox22 wrote:
You wanna know how to kill wulfen? It's simple, shoot them till they stop twitching. SW just got one of the most devastating melee units in the game currently and trying to beat them at their game is not a recipe for success. So massed bullets and templates are your friends. Ap means jack as most are probably running 2-3 th/SS and the rest with axes and frags.

Pretty much this. Hard to deal with them on their own terms, so set your own.

The OP was talking KDK. So it's pretty much down to Forgefeind, Skullcannon, Soul grinder and Bolters from CSM (who are pretty lackluster, blood tithes or not). They're still getting saves from the skullcannon, the soul grinder can take an 8/3 pie plate or tl autocannons and a bale template, but he has the same weakness as the Forge feinds. They'll get eaten by the wulfen if/when they get caught (which is likely due to their double movement ) By my calculation is turn 2 unless you either succeed in blowing them off of the table or the spacewolf player makes a pretty epic mistake.

All these factors make it pretty tricky to own them with shooting alone. Especially since Forge feinds are less than awesome against most other opponents. My suggestion would be to tarpit one (or both units with blobs of fearless cultists (after your shooting of course). Keep in mind that the wulfen will likely be supported by TWC which are as high, if not a higher shooting priority.

As for the wulfen it's either

Shoot > tarpit
Or
Sacrifice a unit > charge with high WS/ I and low AP units that can either take the hits or you don't mind losing. That more or less boils down to bloodletters, princes, non- D hirsters, and MSU zerkers w/axes.

Bottleneck them with a landraider and surrounding stuff - than charge with something max choppy, minimizing incoming damage and maximizing damage dealt. Ideally, you'll need a rhino or two, but can still be done with just a lr and fast troops.

To be honest, a lot of this is little help. I'm playing a melee KDK army. So 'shoot the hell out of them' doesn't really do me any favours. About the only shooty part of my army is a Helldrake and a land raider. Unless you class bolt pistols and auto pistols, which I don't.

Now I'm quite lucky at the moment. He doesn't run storm shields on his wulfen. Though he does on his thunder wolf cavalry. Luckily that also means he's basically never above strength 7. So blood tithe feel no pain is useful. But so far there's only been one good day....I pulled off an assault with a lasherfiend. Then charged with a daemon prince and Kharn. I managed to kill them all. But the last two that died wrecked my daemon prince. And it meant I threw something in the region of 520 odd points at them. At which point I realised it was getting ridiculous and I hadn't addressed the Thunderwolves yet.

See, I'm someone who doesn't like to take to the air with my winged beauties. It angers me that when we land we then can't charge. Something I wish they would change. But at the moment that's the only way I can keep them safe, until those ridiculous storm wolfs turn up.

One of the biggest issues I have is their damn initiative. KDK is a melee based force, and yet majority is initiative 4. I hit them with blind from warp talons deep striking once. And they actually failed it on a 6......but of course it was a deep strike....so I couldn't charge them, so when I did they munched me. I had one survive purely because I had FnP on. And he killed 1.5 afterwards. It's so frustrating that I have to through crazy expensive HQ's at it just to beat them.

Also, personally I think they're a higher priority than Thunderwolves, mainly due to the fact that the curse of the wulfen actually buffs the Thunderwolves. (About the only time I've known GW create a rule that's supposed to be a curse....and all it does is improve them....)

I'm.telling you man. You can make good use of those cultists. Use em a 20 man unit to screen the important stuff and stick a 55 point herald with them to make em fearless. 21 models is a lot of board control. 41 is a hell of a lot more. Between the terrain and the minion blobs, his wulfen wont get to charge anything worthwhile for at least the first few turns. And that's if they don't get locked into combat with your cultists or swept when their meaner friends join the party. The beauty of running a fearless wall of em is you get to basically decide how the target unit moves and assaults. And of he's bringing TWC alongside the wulfen, I'd bet he wont be bringing lot of shooting (his only real way of getting through the blobs. Worst case scenario and he shoots a unit off the table, send the herald to join blob number 2 and hit repeat. If he wont charge them, charge with the cultists. Bam, tarpit and round two of the combat come in with prince and or the blood letters. Maybe the zerkers. Any of those units will deny the wolfen their save, and the demons are hitting on 3s. I doubt the wulfen are gonna sweep the cultists and the herald in a single turn of combat. Turn two bring in the nasties that'll kill the wulfen or for serious lulz a second unit of 20 cultists. That should keep em corralled for the better part of the game with a minimal point investment. Of course this means you have to concede first go so you can counter deploy, but the beautiful part of that is he can't charge top of turn one even if he's in range. That's about 300 points to keep the wulfen doing nothing for most, if not the whole game, meanwhile you can drown wulfen in dice and watch as his super elite unit die to cultists. Of course its a bigger investment if you want a guaranteed dead unit of wulfen, but id say keeping them occupied is the best bet given the "if I die I get to swing"rule they get.

By all accounts it should work. I've done the same thing with dark apostles and cultists with regular CSM against DC, lychguardw/orikan, Pedro with honor guard and all sorts of super cc units.

Power mauls will work nicely. They are enough to brake the armor, and the high S at initiative will cause quite a few wounds.

Won't be easy to catch his fast wulfen and thundercav with slow ass termies, but you can create zones of control with them.


But I'm worried about your "pure melee khorne" concept. It's inheritly flawed, even for KDK. An assault army needs a few ranged support pieces to truly work. If for AA, or for target softening, or many to combo off like skull cannon making up for lack of grenades.

 BoomWolf wrote:
Power mauls will work nicely. They are enough to brake the armor, and the high S at initiative will cause quite a few wounds.

Won't be easy to catch his fast wulfen and thundercav with slow ass termies, but you can create zones of control with them.


But I'm worried about your "pure melee khorne" concept. It's inheritly flawed, even for KDK. An assault army needs a few ranged support pieces to truly work. If for AA, or for target softening, or many to combo off like skull cannon making up for lack of grenades.

Skull cannons is something I'm strongly considering. I think it'll remain within the fluff boundaries that I like since they can actually fight in melee. Soul grinders is something else I'm considering. I own a Helldrake. But I don't like using it. Defilers are simply dreadful, and I also think forge fiends are pretty poor. Especially when I can take mailerfiends for less points. I've also contemplated some meltagun wielding raptors for a bloodstorm as I don't see it being played ever.

When fighting Wulfen, a forgefiend is actually pretty handy. I wish I had more of them. My opponent is usually forced to make the only one I got his primary target due to the number of S8 shots that ignore their armor saves. Having a decent armor value in the front, It Will Not Die, and a Daemon save helps it actually survive a few rounds too. Heldrakes may be more resilient, but the Forgefiend has a higher potential damage output.