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Ork player who has no clue how to build Space Marines lists let alone Space Wolves wondering about a few things:

1) Is it worth the points to put a terminator as the leader of a Blood Claws or Grey Hunter squad to tank hits?

2) Do you need Wolf Guard Leaders for squads? I'm coming from mandatory nobs here. ATSKNF seems good enough for me.

3) Are footslogging marines ever good? I'm an ork player so I see the 3+ save and go 'yea sounds good' but I dunno. Lack of assault vehicle makes rhinos/pods a bad choice for blood claws, but the other options are super expensive.

4) Is wolf claw + storm shield a good loadout for TWC? Do they really need a powerfist or thunderhammer with 5 str 6 attacks with shred/rending?

any help would be great

1) Not really. It blocks access to Transports, stops sweeping advance and costs a lot for something that won't do as well as you hope and is easily countered.

2) In my experience no. I only take them in lists where it seems fluffy or where I have a LOT of spare points.

3) Veeery area dependant. If your area is largely casual like mine then they can be OK (not good just ok) but once you get more competitive you'll find they go to very bad to unusable.

4) Debatable. Personally I find it's too many points on one model and I prefer one having the Claw and one having the Shield. It's probably worth having one or two Power Fists in the squad depending on it's size just to get rid of extremely tough enemies or to Instant Death characters.

Alright thanks! You'd be surprised how little information there is on why a certain list is built that way, lol.

My friend is a pretty competitive SW player, so I can give some advice on what he's doing.
1) Depends on 3, he often foots several squads depending on his list, and having a terminator certainly helps.
2) Never seen him take them, usually squad sgts are just fine.
3) This is dependent on Wulfen, I've seen regular squads truck up the table at lightning speed with a couple wulfen squads on the table, but I've mostly seen only Wulfen and TWC outside of transports.
4) Usually medium heavy weapons with 1 big hitter like frost axe or power fist is the way to go.

His best list by far is 2 TWC squads, 2 Wulfen squads, and loading tons of tacs in drop pods using formations and basically doing steel rain but with TWC and wulfen haha.
Hope that helps a little!

@Splintersheild Space wolves don't have Tactical Marines

 Don Savik wrote:
Ork player who has no clue how to build Space Marines lists let alone Space Wolves wondering about a few things:

1) Is it worth the points to put a terminator as the leader of a Blood Claws or Grey Hunter squad to tank hits?

2) Do you need Wolf Guard Leaders for squads? I'm coming from mandatory nobs here. ATSKNF seems good enough for me.

3) Are footslogging marines ever good? I'm an ork player so I see the 3+ save and go 'yea sounds good' but I dunno. Lack of assault vehicle makes rhinos/pods a bad choice for blood claws, but the other options are super expensive.

4) Is wolf claw + storm shield a good loadout for TWC? Do they really need a powerfist or thunderhammer with 5 str 6 attacks with shred/rending?

any help would be great

Ok from my area I tend to get curbstomped by most of my opponents but they love power lists. To answer your questions as a fellow Wolf player.

1) Honestly I've never bothered running Bloodclaws as an option, they were our "scouts" before the regular SM codex buffed them and relagated our units to having worse stats but with a 3+ save. Adding a Terminator WGBL may be an option if and only if you have extra points laying around to slap an Assualt cannon or an extra flamer in the squad.

2) A WGBL is really only needed for slapping a Combi in the squad. Usually for 9 man Greyhunter squads and a WGBL all slapped with Combi's in a Drop pod hoping to splat the nearest enemy they land next to. I suggest Plasma for these squads as it tends to help them delete or at least hurt your opponent's tough units and they can hunt light armor reliably. Remember SW don't have normal Sergeants like the other SM Factions our WGBL'S are closer to their Veteran Sergeants than anything.

3) Footslogging I advise against 35pts for a turn of them not having their power reduced is usually 35pts well spent.

4) The only reccomended thing I put on Thunderwolves is a Stormshield, Wolfclaws go exclusively on the leader to hurt whatever challanges him out of the way, while slapping a powerfist in the squad lets you punch out heavy armor. The rest honestly can go bearbone as Rending will balance the rest out, plus doing so should let you squeeze another guy in a squad.

I'd always put a thunder hammer or two into the squad of TWC. It just opens up more things for them to hurt. If you've charged something squishy, it's not like you have to use the TH attacks, but it's really nice to be able to put wounds on or take hull points off practically anything.

1) Is it worth the points to put a terminator as the leader of a Blood Claws or Grey Hunter squad to tank hits?

- I have definitely enjoyed the concept. Have a 5 man squad drop with a Terminator/SS w/ Combi-Plasma, and a Plasma Rifle & Plasma Pistol. Pts efficient, oh no... haha but epic and fun? Oh yes. (So, essentially a no for competitive lists).

2) Do you need Wolf Guard Leaders for squads? I'm coming from mandatory nobs here. ATSKNF seems good enough for me.

- definitely no. It's not a bad idea to just go ten mans to get the two special weapons.

3) Are footslogging marines ever good? I'm an ork player so I see the 3+ save and go 'yea sounds good' but I dunno. Lack of assault vehicle makes rhinos/pods a bad choice for blood claws, but the other options are super expensive.

- it isn't "bad", just depends on how you wish to engage the targets you need to reach, and how you want to capture location-sensitive positions like Objectives.

4) Is wolf claw + storm shield a good loadout for TWC? Do they really need a powerfist or thunderhammer with 5 str 6 attacks with shred/rending?

- I'd keep it as 1:3, possibly 2:3 SS to TWC ratio, especially on the character. Having a non-character thunder hammer is handy (give him the 2nd SS if you do that many). wolf claws are brilliant on them! 20pts is a touch steep, but when combined with all the else that a TWC has to offer, I accept the losses and go with at least a claw on each. That's just me... I face a lot of 3+'s in my area.

Actually thinking of getting some Wolves, I have a question as well. At a previous event, there was some question about this:

When you bring Company of the Great Wolf and have an Iron Priest, can you take Servitors as your mandatory Elites slot? It says that they may not take up a slot, but can you choose to use them to fulfil your minimum Elites requirement?

Requizen wrote:Actually thinking of getting some Wolves, I have a question as well. At a previous event, there was some question about this:

When you bring Company of the Great Wolf and have an Iron Priest, can you take Servitors as your mandatory Elites slot? It says that they may not take up a slot, but can you choose to use them to fulfil your minimum Elites requirement?

They key word is "may" in that sentence. It's your choice, so yes, they could fill the mandatory slots.

Don Savik wrote:Ork player who has no clue how to build Space Marines lists let alone Space Wolves wondering about a few things:

1) Is it worth the points to put a terminator as the leader of a Blood Claws or Grey Hunter squad to tank hits?

2) Do you need Wolf Guard Leaders for squads? I'm coming from mandatory nobs here. ATSKNF seems good enough for me.

3) Are footslogging marines ever good? I'm an ork player so I see the 3+ save and go 'yea sounds good' but I dunno. Lack of assault vehicle makes rhinos/pods a bad choice for blood claws, but the other options are super expensive.

4) Is wolf claw + storm shield a good loadout for TWC? Do they really need a powerfist or thunderhammer with 5 str 6 attacks with shred/rending?

any help would be great

1: Depends on the situation. Foot-slogging, definite yes. They can eat all the ap 3 with their 2+ and make a porblem in CC. Obviously no-no in a rhino, and they can also do well in pods because, once again, 2+ can tank a lot of the hits for you. If it saves 3 marines, or kills a couple, then he made his points back. (which isn't super hard) Plus it's super cool.

2: For a shooty squad, take them for the combi. Melee squad, take them for an extra melee weapon. If you don't want a combi or power weapon you won't need them.

3: They aren't amazing, but with a terminator pack leader it can increase their survivability. Bloodclaws can excel at this with maxed out unit size, and Ulrik or wolf priest with wulfen stone footslogging can be fun, but will quickly crumble against massed firepower or pie plates (Despite their name, Leman Russ' are not your friends! ). Best used against low rate of fire armies, lots of terrain, or melee armies.

I've also thrown around the idea of tiny 5-6 man squads with termie leaders and a special weapon as objective campers, fodder, or a surprising nuisance to your enemy

4: Yes. I run a unit of 3, 2 vanilla with storm shields (str 5 rending is still no joke) and 1 with a hammer. The SS are essential for their survival, otherwise they will quickly fall to plasma and the likes. I take the hammer because str 10 is nice for any MCs or high armour value. Claws would be good, but perhaps not on all of them because that would get very pricy. 1 per 3 wolves maybe? However everyone should get SS's.