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I'm thinking about finally making an all drop pod army like I've been wanting to do for awhile now. I'm a bit torn between spamming Rune Priests or Wolf Guard. Fluff-wise I'm picturing an elite, psyker-heavy force, but if I want to keep both themes I'm going to end up with very few units, so right now I'm thinking of dropping the Rune Priests. It sounds like I really don't want them getting into close combat, and I'm always leery of spending too many points on HQ units. Figure if I start with the more straight-forward list and get an idea of what's good and what's not about it, I can try to tweak it to get some points for a couple psykers.

Here's what I'm looking at for 2000 points, single FOC:

Logan Grimnar - 275

Grey Hunters: 10 GH in PA, 2x Plasma, Power Axe, MotW, Wolf Banner, Drop Pod w/ Deathwind - 255
Grey Hunters: 10 GH in PA, 2x Plasma, Power Axe, MotW, Wolf Banner, Drop Pod w/ Deathwind - 255
Wolf Guard Pack A: 5 WG in TDA, 2x Power Sword and SB, 1x Power Axe and SB, 1x Power Fist and Wolf Claw, 1x Power Sword and Ass Cannon, Drop Pod w/ Deathwind - 265
Wolf Guard Pack B: 4 WG in TDA, 1x Power Sword and SB, 1x Power Axe and SB, 1x Power Fist and Wolf Claw, 1x Power Sword and Ass Cannon, Arjac Rockfist, Drop Pod w/ Deathwind - 420
Wolf Guard Pack C: 6 WG in TDA, 1x Power Sword and SB, 1x Power Axe and SB, 1x Power Fist and Wolf Claw, 1x Power Sword and Ass Cannon, 2x Power Sword and Combimelta, Drop Pod w/ Deathwind - 308

Long Fangs Pack: Squad Leader with Meltabombs and Meltagun, Longfang with Multimelta, Drop Pod w/ Deathwind - 110
Long Fangs Pack: Squad Leader with Meltabombs and Meltagun, Longfang with Multimelta, Drop Pod w/ Deathwind - 110

Logan hops into Wolf Guard Pack C for a ride, and the Wolf Guard with Power Sword and Combimelta from that pack each go into one of the long fang packs.

The GH squads are for taking midfield objectives or objectives in my own DZ.

The long fang squads are there to pop armor or to simply allow me to deploy one extra Drop Pod on my first turn. They're pretty much taking the role of a suicide MM dread, but with extra shooting power and costing fewer points. I tossed the WG in these squads in TDA mainly to make the squad a slightly bigger threat at a relatively minor point increase.

The DWML's on all the drop pods are again to increase the threat value. Instead of spending 35 points to just get a safe first-turn deepstrike, I can spend an extra 20 points and make my opponent potentially have to worry about killing my drop pods instead of focusing fire on my troops.

The model count is a bit low, I'd be more comfortable with 60 models than just 48, but I tend to play slow so the more compact army is appealing. I'm fielding 5 fairly tough, killy units that can take objectives though so I'm probably okay.

The other downside is the lack of psykers. I'm pretty sure I could make room for one or two Rune Priests in the list if I shuffle things around a bit: in particular simply dropping Arjac would give me enough points for almost one and a half of them.

I think I'm pretty set on 7 drop pods for this army. Going down to 6 costs me a first-turn pod, and I doubt I could get to 9 without doing some silly things.

I am a little concerned at how spammy this list is and I may shuffle some of the points around so that the squads gain a little more uniqueness. I can always just rely on painting, posing, and conversions to give the army uniqueness though even if the wargear is all very similar.

Thoughts? Suggestions? Is this ready to smash some face?

I might be wrong here, my knowledge of drop pods isn't great, but if the transport capacity is 10 infantry, that means it is 5 terminators. Your squad C won't fit, especially with LG in there too.

Right, my C squad wouldn't fit as is. Two of the TDA guys split off and join the Long Fang units though, which brings me down to 4 models + Logan.

Overall, I think the list idea is good. I would probably drop Arjac for a Rune Priest but that's not a big deal.

For your Wolf Guard, you could make some loadout changes. No point having a PF and a Wolf Claw, you can only use of the weapons during CC. Choose one of them and allocate points elsewhere. Aren't Power Axes the same cost as PFs on Wolf Guard? PF all the way if you are hitting at I1 anyway.

A power weapon comes 'free' with the terminator armor, a powerfist is an extra ten points. *Frost* axes are the same cost as a power fist and don't really have much of a point on a terminator though, that might be what you were thinking of. The idea of the paired wolf claw and power fist is to get 3 attacks either at AP3 or AP2; swapping the claw for a combi-weapon might not be a bad idea though. A little more dakka at the expense of CC strength... really no idea which is better.

Yup, I was translating Power Axe as Frost Axe...my bad, you are correct. I'm a fan of the combi-weapon (plasma).

I think that deathwind launchers are a total waste of points. The range on the deathwind launcher is so limited that if the squad coming out of the pod does it's job, the DW launcher won't even be in range of anything. Plus, it's basically 20 points for a large frag blast. The storm bolter is already strength 4 but it's free.

The second thing is that you can make better use of Logan here. Remember that he doesn't have to stay with the same squad for the whole game. If you put him in a pod with this squad...

Then he can pop out and use relentless to vaporize TWO tanks. The heavy bolter and assault cannon provide good overwatch fire in case you get assaulted. Then Logan can leave this squad on the next turn and join another unit.

This allows you to do with one long fang squad, the job you had planned for two LF Squads and it has a decent chance of surviving. But even if the unit does die, it's only one dead unit and not two. You never need to add meltaguns and meltabombs to your long fang sergeant because the MG is cheaper for grey hunters and you can't split fire if the LF sergeant shoots.

So, I chewed on some of the ideas for a bit. I think I will drop the DWMLs after all. I'm either going to be in the situation where I'm likely to hurt myself as badly as my opponent, or I'm going to have nothing in range. Either way, meh.

This would certainly give me the points to make one of my long fang squads bigger, but I'd rather spend the point on psykers. As it is I spend around 230 points (after dropping the Deathwinds) for two squads, each of which has 2 melta shots (plus snap-fire from a MM if I get lucky.) If I go with a large squad I'm going to spend about the same amount of points for the same number of (actually fewer) shots, except they'll all be snap-fire. I could run Logan with the squad to give them relentless, but now I'm either looking at a 500 point unit to take out two tanks, or needing to make absolutely sure that the unit is sufficiently supported that he can shuffle to a new squad after landing.

That said I realize now that running such a long fang squad while I still have room for another wolf guard pack is absolutely silly. I can get 3 melta shots at full BS for the same points with a 3 man wolf guard pack. Plus they're a scoring unit.

So with a bit of shuffling I think I'm looking at something about like this:

Logan Grimnar - 275

Grey Hunters: 10 GH in PA, 2x Plasma, Power Axe, MotW, Wolf Banner, Drop Pod - 235
Grey Hunters: 10 GH in PA, 2x Plasma, Power Axe, MotW, Wolf Banner, Drop Pod - 235
Wolf Guard Pack A: 5 WG in TDA, 2x Power Sword and SB, 1x Power Axe and SB, 1x Power Fist and Wolf Claw, 1x Power Sword and Ass Cannon, Drop Pod - 245
Wolf Guard Pack B: 4 WG in TDA, 1x Power Sword and SB, 1x Power Axe and SB, 1x Power Fist and Wolf Claw, 1x Power Sword and Ass Cannon, Arjac Rockfist, Drop Pod - 400
Wolf Guard Pack C: 5 WG in TDA, 1x Power Sword and SB, 1x Power Axe and SB, 1x Power Fist and Wolf Claw, 1x Power Sword and Ass Cannon, 1x Power Sword and Combimelta, Drop Pod - 250
Wolf Guard Pack D: 2 WG in PA with PA and Combi-melta, 1 WF in TDA with Power Axe and Combi-Melta, Drop Pod - 119

Long Fangs Pack: Squad Leader with Meltagun, Longfang with Multimelta, Drop Pod - 85

==1844

Again Logan rides with WGP C and the combimelta WG from WGP C joins with the LFP. This leaves me with 156 sexy sexy points with which to buy some psykers. Of course at 100+ each it's going to be hard to make that plural a reality.

One option is to downsize my GH packs, or even just replace them with smaller WG packs. Dropping the MotW and Wolf Banner are options too.I could be down with fiddling around with the GH squads and replacing them with some mixed WG squads.

Lansirill wrote:

That said I realize now that running such a long fang squad while I still have room for another wolf guard pack is absolutely silly. I can get 3 melta shots at full BS for the same points with a 3 man wolf guard pack. Plus they're a scoring unit.

This is true. The only trade off is that if your pod deviates too far from your target, then your WG might not be inside 6" melta range. With the MM's, your melta range is 12". Still, you've probably made the right decision. However, if you go with combi-meltas on WG squads, why not just drop the long fang squad altogether? You can use the points to beef up your melta wolf guard and like you said, they're scoring. Plus, in a mission with kill points, a squad of just 2 long fangs is like a gift to your opponent.

One option is to downsize my GH packs, or even just replace them with smaller WG packs. Dropping the MotW and Wolf Banner are options too.I could be down with fiddling around with the GH squads and replacing them with some mixed WG squads.

Don't do this. A 10 man grey hunter squad is more resilient than a 5 man wolf guard squad and costs the same. If you down size your GH's, you'll just make them vulnerable and what would you spend the points on anyway? If anything, you should get MORE grey hunters. Honestly, your Logan bomb list with 16 WG TDA, 20 GH's and 2 LF's in drop pods does not scare me as much as a list with 50 - 60 grey hunters in drop pods with 2 wolf priests and no grimnar.

longs fangs are great you need more

I love running them with 5 missile launchers

140 points for 5 w/ missile launchers plus pack leader

and for 10 more points you can give him a melta gun

w/drop pod pack comes to 185