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Got a 2000pts tournament wih less than a month time. Plan to give Space Wolves a chance on the big event. However, currently the units I built up in the Space Wolves army tends to more "fluffy", i.e. much more built to choppy than shooting.

I recently turned my eye to more shooty elements, Looking to get some good long range firepower support from them while gain some distraction from my charging element, so my Rhinos and Dreadnoughts may not be focused shot to pieces before they even started their engine. I first think of getting my hand on a Stormfang Gunship, which have good firepower in both anti tank or anti hordes. However, I know it is a big fire-magnet and it is expensive enough to make me taking only one. Thus I totally expecting that with all those awesome offensive ability dished out by Eldar / Dark Eldar, Tyranids, Imperial Guard, and Imperial Knights, a T7 Sv3+ 14W flyer it is not hard to get shot down or at least heavily cippled before it gets to fire a shot. Long Fang maybe another good choice for fire support, especially with their new introduced stratagem, but they also have the same problem of survivability.

So I turned my eyes on the Imperial Knight looking for good firepower AND survivability. T7 / T8 Sv3+/5++, that is the survivability a vehicle should have, and their firepower and mobility is well worth the apperciation for their cost. I currently already have two Armiger Helverin on painting table, but don't own anymore Knights. Instead of looking at starting a whole new IK army, I am just looking them for the purpose of taking around 600pts to 1000pts shooting elements of survivable platform, mainly stand at the back, keep shooting, stay away from frontline unless situation warrant them to move forwards. Currently I am torn by the few options, hoping to get some idea from dakka.

1. Go big or go home, grab a Castellan. These Knight has the most awesome long range firepower to deal with anything that is big. A downside is it is really expensive and eat up points drastically, and if the enemy with a tournament level army really pays attention to it (and expected that they should), it gets down pretty quick as well. Also, rumors flying that it is getting a price hike leaving another uncertainty.
Looking for: 2CPs to give it 4++ Warlord Trait, and Cawl's Wrath relic

2. Get another box of Helverin. I come up with this idea, originally hope for more target saturation, and these little boys are really cheap compare to the bigger brother, 4 of them comes at 696pts "only", they can use numbers to distract enemy, while their firepower is not somthing that can be look down to for its long range, high RoF and high dmg caused. However, I am not really sure of their capability in dealing with T8+ units like IG LR tanks and other Knights, wounding on 5s hurts, hope their numbers of shot could yield miracles.

3. Get an "older, traditional" Knight model, magnetize build it as a Knight Crusader. Looks like a balanced choiced in my mindset, what it can do while the Castellan don't is reliably shoot down hordes from afar with its Gatling Cannon, , while also not bad in doing Anti Tank job with Thermal Cannon. But, it is also not cheap, and I have concern its firepower efficiency for its points cost maybe much lower than Castellan.
Looking for: 2CP to give it 4++ Warlord Trait, and either Endless Fury or Fury of Mars relic.

The SW models in my current possesion includes an Iron Priest on Thurnder Wolf and 5 other models riding on wolves (can be played as WL, WGBL or TWC of course), 3 Characters on Jumppack taking hammer, sword and axe. 20 Grey Hunter / Bloodclaw, around 7 Wulfens (3 more models to be built), 2 Venerable Dread / Wulfen Dread, and Bjorn. Non-fly Transports that is enough to carry every infantry units. Majorly these elements are planned for rushing up the board, either riding on wolves, footsloging (not preferred, but maybe Dreads need to do this) outflanking or rush in the Rhino. The other unassembled parts for models I have from Space Marines and Space Wolves could provide enough heavy weapons and "wolves pack bodies" to build a pack of Long Fangs.

So, I am quite torn between these different ideas about adding some shooting elements. Really looking for advice from all dakkanuts, hoping you can share some insights or leave a few comments. Thanks a lot in advance.

Cheers.

House Raven Castellan with Cawls wrath is the best shooting unit in the game when you pop the strat. Hard to look past. Plust a 3++ is still very tough to chew through, most metas S6 -3 d3 damage is king, as soon as you start wounding a knight on 5's most damage bounces off, anything that gets through usually doesn't go past the 3++

I vote for the Castellan. I play Wolves a lot and dealing with hordes is not usually a problem. Where they can use a hand is when your opponent brings a bit nasty unit that you need a kill in a hurry before it starts eating your Marines. The Castellan really shines here.

The new Beta rules have made screening more effective as your jump pack Characters can no longer fly over screens in the charge phase to kill big targets with their thunder hammers. This means shooting the big ones just became more important. The Castellan is bristling with AP-4 guns and even Mortarion is likely to be inconvenienced if you get him in your sights.

As a bonus, "Cloaked by the Storm" affects nearby friendly units rather than just SW units so if you want to give your Castellan a little extra protection, your Rune priest can help out there. Expensive at 3CPs but maybe worthwhile if you are facing a very shooty army.

I played a tourney a few weeks back using 3 Knights myself. Last game was against a guy using a single Raven Castellan. It just ate through my Knights thanks to the strategem and Cawl's Wrath. I have one myself and have seen how good it can be, I would suggest the Castellan every time. I wouldn't bother with the Oathbreaker strategem however, it's a lot of CP for something with a lot of variables, even if you're rerolling all your 1's.

My personal favorite is a perceptor with armigers. It's not OP but it's fun and strong.