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So i'm looking over my Space Wolves and started thinking, what units are actualy good and what ones are not so good? I'm not a very good player and have a hard time making my mind up about things.. But by the looks of things Grey Hunters are good, They are like Tactical Marines with more stuff and rules. And longfangs are good because you can ahve 5 heavy weapons and split fire. But could you give me information on what units you think are good or bad and why?

The best units are Runepriests, Grey Hunters, Long Fangs, and Thunderwolves. There are actually no really bad units.

Everything is good.

Long Fangs with missile launchers and Grey Hunters are busted good. Significantly better and cheaper than counterparts for no real good reason. Thunderwolves are also very good.

The tanks and everything is pretty much identical to what every other marine army has.

The "-claw" units are solid, but have a narrowly defined role relative to their counterparts in other marine books, generally necessitating an aggressive assault role which they're rather good at. Less generalist than counterparts but better as high impact (i.e. breaking opponents on the charge) assault units. Not as all around good as grey hunters so they usually aren't taken as often, but not bad units in and of themselves.

Runepriests are the standard "must take" HQ due, much like Grey Hunters, to largely being better than Librarians with better psychic defense and basic powers. Wolf Priests and Wolf Lords and Battle Leaders aren't bad by any means however either.

I never saw the point in Bloodclaws since they cost the same as Grey Hunters.. And I was always unsure of using Skyclaws and Swiftclaws due to their lowerd WS and BS..

Bloodclaws are a tiny bit cheaper, and if you want a troops unit that's aimed at aggressive assault, they'll serve you better, but the GH's are so stupidly good in all other respects, and not at all bad at assault themselves, that there's usually not a point.

The lower WS/BS on the "-claw" units is offset by the increased number of CC attacks if you use them in an aggressive assault role. Outside of that they're not particularly great and don't have as much flexibility.

Bloodclaws costs the exact same ammount of points per model as Grey Hunters according to my codex so they realy arent cheeper.. Not in my codex atleast..

When I played my space Wolves I normaly ran a Rune Priest or Wolf Priest as HQ, 2-3 groups of Grey Hunters and 1-2 groups of Longfangs. If 1 group then 5 missile launchers, If 2 groups both groups had 3 missile launchers and 2 Lascannons (As thats the weapons my models are equipped with.)

Merellin wrote:
Bloodclaws costs the exact same ammount of points per model as Grey Hunters according to my codex so they realy arent cheeper.. Not in my codex atleast..

Are they? I thought they were 14 and GH's 15, or am I not remembering that right?

 Vaktathi wrote:

Merellin wrote:
Bloodclaws costs the exact same ammount of points per model as Grey Hunters according to my codex so they realy arent cheeper.. Not in my codex atleast..

Are they? I thought they were 14 and GH's 15, or am I not remembering that right?

Nope in my codex both of them are 15 per model. Thats what made me not care about Bloodclaws..

I have recently found swiftclaw bikers to be quite good if you want to include a Claw unit. Twinlinked on the bikes bolters negates the low bs on the unit, throw in a wolf priest for prefered enemy and they can do alot of damage. I run 9 with a preist and thats over 50 attacks (including the hammer of wrath attacks) on the charge. After the unit has already suffered relentless twinlinked bolter fire in the shooting phase.

Warning they do need the charge to be effective IMO.

Merellin wrote:
I never saw the point in Bloodclaws since they cost the same as Grey Hunters.. And I was always unsure of using Skyclaws and Swiftclaws due to their lowerd WS and BS..

Blood Claws can be made into larger squads, which for an MEQ unit is scary good just on it's own. Add in their ability to utterly devastate any non-elite assault unit and how well Wolf Priests synergise with them, and you've got a solid Troops unit that can be used to aggressively kick enemy units off of objectives.
As mentioned, Swiftclaws have become pretty amazing as well in 6th due to the general buffs to bikes. BS3 means crap-all when your guns are twin-linked, and the higher toughness simply makes them even more effective in assaults.

Skyclaws are kinda the odd man out unit... Fairly costly to get in large numbers and any possible role they can do, the other claw units can easily be made to fullfill.

Grey Hunters seem like a huge bargan because Tacticals are slightly over-costed in comparison. If Tacs were the same pts, then the units would be pretty even on their relivent roles.
Sure, while Grey Hunters are better at moving forwards aggressively and holding objectives, they lack other solid abilities like Combat (or Chapter) Tactics, Combat Squads and a heavy weapon slot... Not to mention, Grey Hunters can't take a Sergeant equivalent and still pack both weapon upgrades into the same Rhino either! On top of the fact that a Wolf Guard leader will cost more than a standard Sergeant.

Longfangs are cheap because they're the only infantry-based heavy weapon option in the entire book! (outside of expensive Termies of corse - but those are fairly limited in number)
The split fire is nothing new - they've had that since 3rd ed and unlike their Codex brothers, it's pretty easy to snipe/kill the squad leader and put a stop to it.



I don't consider Space Wolves to be outright 'better' than Vanilla marines myself, rather they're much better at playing aggressively than Codex Marines!

If you pit the standard competitive Wolf Guard/Longfang spam vs say the also fairly standard Vulkan/Hammernator spam lists, they'll play out fairly evenly. You put Grey Hunter/Longfang spam vs a non-optimised list however, and sure, the SW's seem cheesey! (but the, so would any highly optimised list vs a non-optimised list!)

Experiment 626 wrote:
Grey Hunters seem like a huge bargan because Tacticals are slightly over-costed in comparison. If Tacs were the same pts, then the units would be pretty even on their relivent roles.
Sure, while Grey Hunters are better at moving forwards aggressively and holding objectives, they lack other solid abilities like Combat (or Chapter) Tactics, Combat Squads and a heavy weapon slot... Not to mention, Grey Hunters can't take a Sergeant equivalent and still pack both weapon upgrades into the same Rhino either! On top of the fact that a Wolf Guard leader will cost more than a standard Sergeant.

Eh, the Grey Hunters still come out ahead having two close combat weapons. In most lists, you aren't maxing out your troops choices, so doing MSUs with Grey Hunters isn't impossible. And the lack of heavy weapons is balanced out by having the extra special weapons (which are more mobile), and the ridiculous Long Fangs, lol.

Honestly, I hope the next Space Marines codex gives them a close combat weapon. Tactical squads, while not useless, are definitely over-costed, and under-performing, compared to Grey Hunters. On the other hand, Grey Hunters seem like they actually reflect how Space Marines, in general, should perform in the game.

Experiment 626 wrote:


Grey Hunters seem like a huge bargan because Tacticals are slightly over-costed in comparison. If Tacs were the same pts, then the units would be pretty even on their relivent roles.
Sure, while Grey Hunters are better at moving forwards aggressively and holding objectives, they lack other solid abilities like Combat (or Chapter) Tactics, Combat Squads and a heavy weapon slot... Not to mention, Grey Hunters can't take a Sergeant equivalent and still pack both weapon upgrades into the same Rhino either! On top of the fact that a Wolf Guard leader will cost more than a standard Sergeant.

Most marine players, even for the same cost, would swap tac's for GH's in a heartbeat, the heavy weapon really doesn't mean that much, and the greater CC prowess and otherwise equal shooting abilities means a lot more.

Longfangs are cheap because they're the only infantry-based heavy weapon option in the entire book!

That doesn't excuse them from being criminally cheap to the point where they exclude all the other heavy support options 99% of the time.

 Vaktathi wrote:
snip

I agree with this fully. While Combat squadding is quite good, it and Combat/Chapter tactics together are still significantly worse than counter attack and a second CC weapon. Also, the ability to take 2 specialist weapons is arguably more useful than the ability to take 1 heavy and 1 specialist merely because it allows you to shape the unit into a more efficient role.

But back to the OP's original topic, the things that I generally see and hear wolf players recommend are: Grey Hunters as troops, Missile Launcher Long Fangs in squads of 5, Rune Priests (with JotWW) Wolf Guard, Lone Wolves, and Thunderwolf Cavalry.

Thanks for all the replies! ^_^ I normaly gave my Rune Priest Living Lightning, Loved that power. Was so fun, Killing two Grey Knight terminators in one shot and stuff, It always did real good!

I disagree on the Skyclaw hate. I used to dislike them based on limited play experience, but I recently got some more assault marines so I figured I'd try them out again. Only 195pts for 10 with a Wulfen is pretty great for the amount of hurt they can put out. Even with a Jump Pack Wolf Priest (which I highly recommend) they're only 320pts.

 Andilus Greatsword wrote:
I disagree on the Skyclaw hate. I used to dislike them based on limited play experience, but I recently got some more assault marines so I figured I'd try them out again. Only 195pts for 10 with a Wulfen is pretty great for the amount of hurt they can put out. Even with a Jump Pack Wolf Priest (which I highly recommend) they're only 320pts.

I played around with that idea as well but have found that swiftclaw bikers outperform the skyclaws most of the time. Better ranged ability, better speed, better toughness, and built in cover save seem to win out in my opinion.

*edited for typo

True, Swiftclaws are more expensive, slightly less maneuverable (can't jump over objects) and a bit weaker in assault though. They're similar units, but different roles.

Why do you say they are weaker in assault? A guaranteed Hammer of Wrath on the charge seems better then Skyclaws who only get it if they moved 6" or less in the move phase.

Tekik wrote:
Why do you say they are weaker in assault? A guaranteed Hammer of Wrath on the charge seems better then Skyclaws who only get it if they moved 6" or less in the move phase.

Also having higher toughness and relentless twin-linked bolters to soften up tougher enemies or hordes before assault.