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Hi,

I am starting a new SpaceMarine army and need a little help.

I would like to base it on the Ultramarine's codex but I would really like to have a cavalry squad (there is something about a creature that is big enough to carry a SpaceMarine that really appeals to me)

I was going to use the Thunder Wolf cavalry from the Space Wolves codex with storm shields and power weapons (lances).

My question is - Can you choose units or characters from another codex? in the 6th edition has this changed?

Any help would be much appreciated.

Thanks

You can include an allied detachment of space wolves to take a unit of thunderwolves. Need to take a Spacewolf HQ, and one troop choice first though.

Thanks! Is there are the down side to this? (e.g maybe can't have allies in certain missions, not as tactically flexible maybe?)

Would it work to have the allied detachment and main force painted as the same chapter, just different forces on the army list?

Unless you are playing a very esoteric mission or are somehow allowed multiple force org charts (big games) you can take 1 primary and 1 allied detachment. The "downside" is that there are manditory selections in the allied detachment.

To get some thunderwolf calvary, your going to have to sink almost 200 points on a SW troop and HQ choice, then buy your 1 unit of calvary. Additionally, your allied detachment only has 1 fast attack slot so you only get 1 unit of calvary, max.

Paint them however you want, that's entirely up to you. Now if you paint your spacewolves to look like blood angels, you might get some weird looks...

Cool.

Maybe i look a bit more at Space Wolves codex and see if the style of army suits me.

Maybe use the Space Wolves rules and write my own back ground.

Yeah I am very mindful about maintaining a consistent theme for the army... painting spacwolves to look like blood angels would certainly draw the attention of the inquisition...

Thanks for your help.

"When choosing a Space Marines detachment, whether primary or allied, choose one of the Chapters listed in this section. Mark the Chapter you choose for each detachment on your roster sheet. All models benefit from the appropriate Chapter Tactics for their detachment's Chapter, providing they have the Chapter Tactics special rule. Certain units and special characters have specific Chapter Tactics and can only be taken in detachments of the specified Chapter.
You must let your opponent know what Chapter each detachment is from, and what abilities it has as a result. In most cases, this will be obvious from the colour scheme and heraldry of your army, but with over a thousand Chapters to choose from, you can never be too careful"

O.K.

Looking at this I thought there would be two options for including units from another chapter in your main force -

- If the unit didn't have a specific chapter tactic then you could include it in a force as long as you followed basic force organisation (e.g. fast attack in fast at slot)

- If the does have a specific chapter tactic then your main force must have the same chapter tactic or you must have an allied or detachment force with that chapter tactic.

The thing is none of the units in any of the new codexes state what chapter tactic the units have.
The ultramarines in the space marine codex do but they all have ultramarines chapter tactics.

I wasn't expecting Thunderwolf cavalry to have anything but space wolves chapter tactic when they release the codex but based on the statement in red above I would have expected some units in the codexes to able to be include in other chapters without having to have an HQ for them - but apparently not.

So I am not sure why they have made this statement?-
"Certain units and special characters have specific Chapter Tactics and can only be taken in detachments of the specified Chapter"

I am suspecting it should read -
"All units and special characters have specific Chapter Tactics and can only be taken in detachments of the specified Chapter"



Where do I find the rules for primary or allied detachments? This might help.... but I doubt it.


I am still going a head with my army based on Space Wolves codex with no allies or detachments, but would still like to figure this one out

With what you just said, I think it refers to Unique Characters in the 6th Ed Codex: Space Marines. Certain Unique HQ choices can only be taken in their own Chapter Traits list. ie Marneus Calgar (who has Ultramarine Chapter Tactics) in a detachment with Darnath Lysander (who has Imperial Fist Chapter Tactics) whilst the rest of the force has Raven Guard Tactics. It's not legal to have more than one Chapter Tactic in one detachment.

Space Wolves, Blood Angels, Dark Angels and Grey Knights do not have Chapter Tactics rules in their codexes, because they were written before Codex: Space Marines and are not as recent.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Primary and Allied Detatchments are to be found in the main rulebook.

If you really want to take thunderwolves and you don't care about the rest, here's my advice. Thunderwolves come in boxes of 3, and max unit is 5, so you have 1 to spare.. Follow me here.

HQ- WGBL + Thunderwolf Mount 115pts

Troop- 5x Grey Hunters + Melta 80 Pts

Fast- 5x TWC 5 shields+ 1 PW 415 Pts

Solid Wolfy McWolf attachment for your games

Drop the Fast to 2 TWC with shields and power weapon for 175pts, and you can get it done with 1 box for a total attached force of 370 pts.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, be aware you can only have 1 power weapon for the whole TWC squad, but they all have rending, which is sweet.

Pyeatt wrote:
If you really want to take thunderwolves and you don't care about the rest, here's my advice. Thunderwolves come in boxes of 3, and max unit is 5, so you have 1 to spare.. Follow me here.

HQ- WGBL + Thunderwolf Mount 115pts

Troop- 5x Grey Hunters + Melta 80 Pts

Fast- 5x TWC 5 shields+ 1 PW 415 Pts

Solid Wolfy McWolf attachment for your games

Drop the Fast to 2 TWC with shields and power weapon for 175pts, and you can get it done with 1 box for a total attached force of 370 pts.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, be aware you can only have 1 power weapon for the whole TWC squad, but they all have rending, which is sweet.

Better I think would be to give your 6th guy two wolf claws and say that he is Canis Wolfborn (he looks better than the actual model anyway. Don't get me wrong, the wolf lord on TW looks awesome but Canis just looks derp) and then take some Fenrisian wolves as troops. It'd be much more fun and they'd be much faster to stick with your TWC and lend a hand or claim an objective. And they can use Canis' LD so their biggest downfall is nullified.

EDIT: also you dont need five shields, two, three max, should be plenty for a unit of six you can use some of those points to take another PW and if you're feeling frisky and fluffy, upgrade them both to Frost Weapons (don't recommend but it could be fun)

Just did the math. 5 TWC, 3 storm shield, Canis wolfborn and wolf troops would be cheaper than the big list I posted by 30 pts, at 580 for allied slot.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
AND - power wep for TWC is included of course.

Awesome! plenty of food for thought there. Yeah I was wondering if it would effective in gaming terms to have all armed with shields. I have Canis Wolfbane to convert into a wolf guard battle leader/wolf lord with a power weapon and shield. 1 or 2 more with shields and 1 or 2 with plasma or bolt pistol. Cheers

I find that this unit usually does me good:
3 Storm Shields
5 Thunderwolf Cavalry
1 Thunder Hammer


If you want a Power Lance for fluff's sake that's fine, but in terms of damage output you can't beat 5 S10 Ap2 Attacks on the charge.

Hmmm. Yeah I had my mind set a power sword but knights had hammers too. Not having any gaming experience is was a bit scared of by the attacks of a power fist/thunder hammer having initiative of 1. You don't find this a problem?

There is a risk/reward ratio with the unwieldy weapons that must be taken into account. Thunderwolf Cavalry are T5, have 3+ (2+ if a character with runic armour) and you'd be mad not giving a dude with a Thunderhammer/Power fist a Storm Shield for the 3++. The chance of them surviving a power sword is pretty high and theyr'e likely to reduce their enemies to paste with the S10 AP2 when they get to return the favour.

Remember, he's not a character, so your Thunderwolf with the hammer can't be challenged out. Leave him at the back of the squad if you really need him to survive.
A Wolf Lord on a Thunderwolf is an odd trade-off against a Chapter Master on a Bike. They're similar, but have a couple of differences.
Chapter Master: +1 Wound, Can reroll one to-wound roll, Capable of hitting at I5 with AP2, Cheaper, has a ranged weapon, gets Orbital Bombardment
Wolf Lord: +1 Attack, S10 With a Thunder Hammer

In other words, the Chapter Master is usually a better choice, unless you need S10. S7 AP2 at Initiative isn't bad at all, and S8 AP2 only matters compared to S10 against Vehicles, Wraithguard/knights, and ID'ing T10.

If you REALLY want to screw over your competition, take a Chapter Master, a Wolf Lord, a Rune Priest on a bike, and 5 Thunderwolf Cavalry. It's expensive as hell, but unless your opponent brings SD it's nigh impossible to kill and really fun to use.

I just realised I can take a thunder hammer and a power sword!

In a squad of 1-5 one marine can be upgraded to a power weapon.

They will then be joined by my wolfguard battle leader who can have the hammer.

Might get another box set and do a full squad of five+WGBL.

If they are fun to paint....

O.k.

Sorry to re-harsh this old problem.

I have just got a copy of the newest space marine codex and something hit me -

To simplify I am considering the below without using detachments or allies of any sort. Just one force, one force organisation chart (like the good old days)


So, you must choose which Chapter Tactics you army will have. All units you choose must have the that Chapter Tactics.


In the standard codex there are lots of standard units and characters that don't have a specific chapter tactics - Chapter Master, Honour Guard, Command Squad, Librarian, Chaplain, Tactical Squad etc.

So if I want to include a special unit in my army (Thunderwolf Cavalry for instance) that I would have to choose the Chapter Tactics for that unit as the Chapter Tactics for my army(e.g.Space Wolves Chapter Tactics -when they get around to releasing the codex).

But I don't actually need to include any other choices from the Space Wolves army list/Codex. The rest of the force can be made up entirely from the standard units from Space Marine Codex that don't require a particular Chapter Tactic to be chosen.

So my Troops choice doesn't have to be Grey Hunters or Blood Claws, it can just be a standard Tactical Squad from the Space Marine Codex.

Even my army commander can be the standard Chapter Master or Captain instead of a Wolf Lord.

Of course I could still choose units from the Space Wolves Codex if I want, and the army will still have a Space Wolves feel to it due to the army having Space Wolves Chapter Tactics (when the codex comes out). But the majority of force can just be the stock standard space marine units.



Does any one see a rule I have missed or reason this approach would not work?

Lord of War wrote:
But I don't actually need to include any other choices from the Space Wolves army list/Codex. The rest of the force can be made up entirely from the standard units from Space Marine Codex that don't require a particular Chapter Tactic to be chosen.

That's not how it works. Every unit in the primary detachment of your space marine army uses the same chapter tactics.

One point of confusion you seem to have: Space Wolves are NOT vanilla space marines, they have their own codex. The only way to include Thunderwolf Cavalry would be to use an allied detachment of Space Wolves, which requires that you also take a Space Wolves HQ and troop choice.

Every unit in the primary detachment of your space marine army uses the same chapter tactics.

O.K.

Question - Why have standard units (e.g Tactical Squads) in the Space Marine Codex that don't have a Chapter Tactics at all?

What Chapter Tactic must your Primary Detachment have in order to include these units? It can't just be Ultramarines, other wise they would just have put an Ultramarines Chapter Tactic symbol next to these units.

I thought the idea of leaving some of the more standard units without Chapter Tactics is so they could be chosen by any Space Marine force. (e.g. Dark Angels taking an Land Speeder Storm)

All I have done is taken this idea to extreme end of the scale and selected the majority of my units from the Space Marine Codex rather than Space Wolves.


The rules also seem to suggest this.

For example in the Space Marine Codex-

Page 158 "Some units are shown with a Chapter icon here; these units can only be taken in detachment of this Chapter, as described on Page 77" This seems to imply that any unit without a specific Chapter symbol next them can be taken by any Space Marine chapter.


Page 77 " When choosing a Space Marine detachment, whether primary or allied, choose one of the Chapters listed in this section .I have chosen Space Wolves. there is no new codex for them to work with the Chapter Tactics yet but lets assume there is).

"All models benefit from the appropriate Chapter tactics for their detachment's Chapter, providing they have the Chapter Tactics special rules." This is were I did have it wrong. Because any standard units I take don't have a Space Wolves Chapter Tactics, then they don't have any special rules that they benefit from. This a small disadvantage.


This argument may depend on if the Space Wolves codex is considered a supplement to the Space Marine codex or replaces it entirely when using a Space Wolves army.

Question - Are all the rules required to field a Space Wolves army in the Space Wolves Codex? or do you need to refer to the Space Marine Codex for some rules?

Of course if this is true the Space Wolves cannot take tings like Centurion Squads, Storm Talons etc.


Yeah . This one ain't dead by a long shot.

Page 158 "Some units are shown with a Chapter icon here; these units can only be taken in detachment of this Chapter, as described on Page 77" This seems to imply that any unit without a specific Chapter symbol next them can be taken by any Space Marine chapter.

This is correct, However you seem to be under the impression that Codex: Space Wolves is a vanilla Space Marine Chapter. They are not. Lore-wise, yes. they are a chapter. But game-wise they are a separate army entirely.

Page 77 " When choosing a Space Marine detachment, whether primary or allied, choose one of the Chapters listed in this section .I have chosen Space Wolves. there is no new codex for them to work with the Chapter Tactics yet but lets assume there is).

"Space Wolves" is not a Chapter listed in that section and so is an illegal choice. Space Wolves are their OWN codex. Not a Chapter Tactic from the Space Marines codex. Supplements are clearly labeled as such. Codex: Space Wolves is clearly labeled as a Codex. You *MUST* choose one of the Chapters listed in that section if you want to use this codex.

To answer your question - Yes the Space Wolves codex houses ALL necessary information in order to field a Space Wolves army. The Space Marines codex is rules for an entirely separate army.

Chapter Tactics is just a special rule that allows you to choose a specific benefit for the majority of your force (in Vanilla Space Marines ONLY). When a unit has the special rule "Chapter Tactics" It means that whichever chapter tactic you choose to use, they will benefit from it, and may be taken in that force. When a unit has a specific chapter tactic attributed to them, it means that in order to field that unit you MUST have chosen that chapter tactic.

Thanks Bojazz,

You spotted what I had missed and answered my question succinctly.


So the units/characters in Codex Space Marines that don't have specific Chapter Tactics can be used by any of the Chapters listed in the Space Marine Codex.

They are there to built an army for those Chapters that don't have their own Codex.


Dead and buried.

That's exactly right. The Chapter Tactics are just a way for players to play the more popular Space Marine Chapters that Games Workshop didn't feel should be given their own Codex. Black Templars used to have their own Codex but were rolled into the Space Marine Codex this edition.