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when it comes to space wolves, more so then any other chapter

its either you love them, or you hate them....from what i seen....

people either love SW or they hate them for some reason...

i dont understand

Well, as this is an off-shoot of the thread immediately preceding it on the forums, I'll try to keep it brief.

Basically, what makes the SW cool to a lot of people, makes every other Imperial faction seem weak and/or incompetent. The SW are allowed to get away with things that would have almost any other faction written out of the setting (because they were exterminated) while drinking and laughing.

Also, they're idiots, but they never pay any actual price for their idiocy. Some people like that, some people don't.

 Psienesis wrote:
Well, as this is an off-shoot of the thread immediately preceding it on the forums, I'll try to keep it brief.

Basically, what makes the SW cool to a lot of people, makes every other Imperial faction seem weak and/or incompetent. The SW are allowed to get away with things that would have almost any other faction written out of the setting (because they were exterminated) while drinking and laughing.

Also, they're idiots, but they never pay any actual price for their idiocy. Some people like that, some people don't.

why do space wolves get away with things, are they more powerful then other chapters

Because that is how authors write them. This is a phenomenon called "plot armor". They're actually one of the smallest chapters, holding only a single, feral planet in the galactic west. They're Vikings in Space. Which is... kind of silly, really, but also cool.

 Psienesis wrote:
Well, as this is an off-shoot of the thread immediately preceding it on the forums, I'll try to keep it brief.

Basically, what makes the SW cool to a lot of people, makes every other Imperial faction seem weak and/or incompetent. The SW are allowed to get away with things that would have almost any other faction written out of the setting (because they were exterminated) while drinking and laughing.

Also, they're idiots, but they never pay any actual price for their idiocy. Some people like that, some people don't.

Pretty much this. I like the various things that went into making the SW. Vikings are cool. Werewolves are cool (usually... Twilight notwithstanding). Dudes drinking too much and fighting a battle while inebriated is also cool. Put all these things together, and it should be extra-cool. Unfortunately, the authors decided that the SW should be able to get away with doing things any other Imperial group would get purged for, and for no adequate reason aside from "because they are Space Wolves". This has the effect of making it look like the rules of the IoM don't apply to them, which makes the rest of the IoM look stupid for following the rules.

The other problem is how inconsistantly they are written in the studio's own material. The SW are portrayed as brilliant tacticians, crazed berzerkers, stoic warriors, and rampant party animals all at the same time. They can't be all of those things at all times; several of them are mutually exclusive to one another.

But all this is nothing new. Since as far back as 2nd Edition, the Space Wolves have been the bestest Marines at being the bestest evar. They've been able to equip their troops in absurd ways no-one else could (a squad of terminators with assault cannons, stormshields, AND cyclone missile launchers? On each model? Sure, why not?) been able to do things no-one else could (Long fangs can split their fire and nominate different targets even though no other unit in the game can? Sure, why not?) and have been able to violate the fluff that everyone else has had to abide by (your psykers don't use the Warp to power themselves? Even though everyone else in the whole fething universe does? Sure, why not?).

I like the idea of Space Wolves, but GW's execution of them makes me hate them.

Some people find space werewolf vikings to be silly. Other think they are cool.

I find them a bit silly, plus I never liked werewolves.

People hate/like the Ultramarinese because they strictly follow the rules.
People hate/like the Space wolves because they are wild cards.

Simply said, space wolves like to stick it to the man, the ultra marines are the man

There is a tender spot now and again with the whole burning Prospero to the ground with the Sisters of Silence and Adeptus Custodes. A huge amount of players just cannot let that go at all. Not like it was all a trick which was discovered only after it was far far to late.

and yeah this here

your psykers don't use the Warp to power themselves? Even though everyone else in the whole fething universe does? Sure, why not?).

while it makes sense (to me atleast) I like the whole voodoo magic sorta feel similar to the Ork's "we believe it and it happenz"
However, its total BS since the higher up wolves recognize that its just powers of the warp >.> >.>

I have something of a love-hate relationship with the Space Wolves.

There are aspects of them that I really like. I like that they are very divergent in personality and style than other Marines. And I really like that they push values of a more traditional and well-known 'heroic' warrior. They stick up for the little guy and are way more human in their ways than most other Marines. They are very much their own people.

Which is what leads into the hate part of it. They are so independent that they hurt the rest of the team because of it. They so stick to helping the little guy that they become blind and naive, happy to sacrifice billions in order to temporarily save millions.

I hear this "more human" bit a lot. But, for the most part almost ALL the 1st founding chapters are "humane" the only one I would really say push it further are the salamanders.

(ok, remove Dark angels and white scars, then its better)

UM have THE most efficient, and fair government (within the ultra-mar system) of all the 40k universe. You can literally come from nothing into a position of power if you are good enough.

BA fight for the people A LOT (albiet, a tid bit for themselves too) as it was sanginiuses drive to be both noble, powerful, and humble. Hell they are the ANGELS of the 40k world (sorta funny) and Fluff has them going out of there way to save civilians (albeit not that far).

salamdanders are the salamanders

Imperial fists.. they um... well... they protect the ones that make it into the fortress and help out!!... I think.. .

People dislike them because the writers favor them over the other factions and regularly make other factions look bad to make them look good (And oftentimes end up making the Wolves look bad too, accidentally).

All of this is true, though one important factor that's missing is "This one time, a Space Wolf Rune Priest used Jaws of the World Wolf on my army." Admittedly, it may well be the most unbalanced power in the game... And that's without even getting into Runic Weapons.

zbg97 wrote:
All of this is true, though one important factor that's missing is "This one time, a Space Wolf Rune Priest used Jaws of the World Wolf on my army." Admittedly, it may well be the most unbalanced power in the game... And that's without even getting into Runic Weapons.

Clearly you never played against Fear the Darkness back in the 4th ed. SM book with any army with a LD of 8 or worse. Two deepstriking Librarians could effectively clear the table by turn 3 against Tau.

Broken powers and wargear come and go. I'm probably not the only one happy to see the Book of St. Lucius depowered. Psy ammo still ranks pretty close to the top of the list as things that probably need to go as well. Its not just the Wolves who have stuff that people hate to face. Once their new codex shows up, you probably wont have to worry about Jaws anymore. However, two new broken things will probably take its place, giving all the haters new ammo for the next four years.

 Jayden63 wrote:
Broken powers and wargear come and go. I'm probably not the only one happy to see the Book of St. Lucius depowered. Psy ammo still ranks pretty close to the top of the list as things that probably need to go as well. Its not just the Wolves who have stuff that people hate to face. Once their new codex shows up, you probably wont have to worry about Jaws anymore. However, two new broken things will probably take its place, giving all the haters new ammo for the next four years.

Yep. Every new Codex seems to have something most people hate. That said, "broken" is always relative, anyway. JotWW is fantastic against, say, Tau, but my friend who runs Eldar doesn't really worry about it. In addition to having Psykers of equal or greater mastery giving a boost to Deny, having fantastic initiative pretty much negates Jaws, anyway.

And I've only seen and experienced the broken parts of 5th Ed. and 6th Ed. I've been gaming for 30 years, but I've only been pulled into tabletop wargames in the last couple years.

zbg97 wrote:

 Jayden63 wrote:
Broken powers and wargear come and go. I'm probably not the only one happy to see the Book of St. Lucius depowered. Psy ammo still ranks pretty close to the top of the list as things that probably need to go as well. Its not just the Wolves who have stuff that people hate to face. Once their new codex shows up, you probably wont have to worry about Jaws anymore. However, two new broken things will probably take its place, giving all the haters new ammo for the next four years.

Yep. Every new Codex seems to have something most people hate. That said, "broken" is always relative, anyway. JotWW is fantastic against, say, Tau, but my friend who runs Eldar doesn't really worry about it. In addition to having Psykers of equal or greater mastery giving a boost to Deny, having fantastic initiative pretty much negates Jaws, anyway.

And I've only seen and experienced the broken parts of 5th Ed. and 6th Ed. I've been gaming for 30 years, but I've only been pulled into tabletop wargames in the last couple years.

Heck, the codex can be terrible except for this single broken unit and it will damn that book until the end even long after it's effectiveness dies people will point to it and say you should be happy

I dislike Space Wolves for one reason: Everything they are has the word "Except" in the description.

They have Librarians except they don't draw their powers from the warp.

They are loyal Space Marines and faithful to the Emperor except they don't respect any Imperial authority.

They are wild, rebellious drunks except they are masterful tacticians too.

They wear wolf pelts, ride wolves and name every damned thing after the animal except there are none on Fenris.

Basically they turned something that was cool into a bunch of little snowflakes, even by Space Marine standards.

I always like to imagine their librarians plugging fingers into their ears and saying LALALALA I'm not listening~ It's fensresian even though I'm on the other side of the galaxy (all the while a daemon of tzeentch giggles at the joke). And they thought that Magnus and the TS were foolish bah. The wolves are brutish fools that have no right to judge them.

 TheCustomLime wrote:

They wear wolf pelts, ride wolves and name every damned thing after the animal except there are none on Fenris.

Ugh, I hate how this has caught on. This is one of those things that makes me sure GW doesn't really make their writers talk to one another. In the first place, I'm not sure Magnus the Red is exactly a trustworthy source. Ignoring that, however, it's accepted history that Russ was raised by wolves. There were already wolves on Fenris before the Canis Helix arrived there, so the idea that has taken root - that the wolves of Fenris are failed initiates - doesn't make any sense.

And, for what it's worth, the wolf theme and wolf names is no more pervasive with SW than the angel themes and names are with DA and BA, and the mock cockney ("mockney"?) is with Orks.

I think it is mostly the horrid 5th Edition Codex.

- Space Wolves go womanizing, though Marines are supposed to be asexual.
- Stupid "Space Marines" raised by Wolves "Mowgli"-stuff, even though it doesn't make any sense
- Strange "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" episodes with Space Wolves stealing Thunderhawks for joyrides
- Arbitrary slaughtering of Ecclesiarchy envoys (while having ring-a-round-dances with the Eldar)
- Counter-intuitive gameplay throughout 5th Edition, with an "up-close-and-dirty" army becoming the ultimate gunline.
- the overtly obnoxious Wolf-Lord-with-Wolf-Claw-and-Wolf-Talisman-on-Thunderwolf writing style
- Utterly broken internal balance, nearly as bad as today's Screamerstar and/or Seer Council (and/or the slightly fading Heldrake dominance)
- Etc..


If the Space Wolves Codex get redone by a more capable pair of hands, I am sure they could be redeemed.

If the Space Wolves Codex get redone by a more capable pair of hands, I am sure they could be redeemed.

They've always been Space Marines + 1 since they became an army, why would they change them then?

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:


They've always been Space Marines + 1 since they became an army, why would they change them then?

I don't mind Space Marines +1 per se. But it ought to fit and be reflected in the game play.

If Tau are good at shooting, it "fits" the flavour. If they suddenly become kings of bloody close-quarter assault, something's wrong. And that, just in the inverse, happened with Space Wolves in 5th, where the legendary heroes and monster-slayers of the fluff took to the field as Long-Fang/Razor spam hugging the far table-edge, lead by minimum-point-cost Runepriest swarms..

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

If the Space Wolves Codex get redone by a more capable pair of hands, I am sure they could be redeemed.

They've always been Space Marines + 1 since they became an army, why would they change them then?

No no all wrong. This is it!

CSM = CSM
SM = CSM+
BA = CSM++
SW = CSM+++
GK = CSM++++

(I still dunno where to put DA. Thinking kinda like a half step between csm and sm or something)


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 Zweischneid wrote:

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:


They've always been Space Marines + 1 since they became an army, why would they change them then?

I don't mind Space Marines +1 per se. But it ought to fit and be reflected in the game play.

If Tau are good at shooting, it "fits" the flavour. If they suddenly become kings of bloody close-quarter assault, something's wrong. And that, just in the inverse, happened with Space Wolves in 5th, where the legendary heroes and monster-slayers of the fluff took to the field as Long-Fang/Razor spam hugging the far table-edge, lead by minimum-point-cost Runepriest swarms..

They aren't psykers la la la I'm not listeniiiiing! (except the problem with them taking close combat is that starts treading onto the toes of CSM, GK (arguably they are pretty good in cc), and BA )


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zbg97 wrote:

 TheCustomLime wrote:

They wear wolf pelts, ride wolves and name every damned thing after the animal except there are none on Fenris.

Ugh, I hate how this has caught on. This is one of those things that makes me sure GW doesn't really make their writers talk to one another. In the first place, I'm not sure Magnus the Red is exactly a trustworthy source. Ignoring that, however, it's accepted history that Russ was raised by wolves. There were already wolves on Fenris before the Canis Helix arrived there, so the idea that has taken root - that the wolves of Fenris are failed initiates - doesn't make any sense.

And, for what it's worth, the wolf theme and wolf names is no more pervasive with SW than the angel themes and names are with DA and BA, and the mock cockney ("mockney"?) is with Orks.

I think the notion was it implied that something is off about the humans from the planet as well. Like the humans too become wolfy wolfs maybe O.O

 StarTrotter wrote:


They aren't psykers la la la I'm not listeniiiiing! (except the problem with them taking close combat is that starts treading onto the toes of CSM, GK (arguably they are pretty good in cc), and BA )

Well, but GK pay for their advantages over regular Marines (perhaps not enough, some people would argue, but at least the rather basic idea that better abilities should be reflected in higher point costs is present in the GK Codex (and the BA Codex) in ways it isn't in the SW-Codex).Both BA and GK also have a lot of rather clever mechanics that actually encourage player to play the armies close to the theme. SW's encourage players to do the exact opposite.

I don't see CSM's as mainly cc-themed. The very thing that makes, or should make, CSM distinct from their loyalist brethren is that the various loyalist armies put on a more stringent "one-colour" theme, while Chaos Marines have always been about combining diverse specialists such as Plaque Marines, Berzerkers, Thousand Sons, etc.. to become "more than the sum of it's parts". CSM should be the combined-arms approach, the "Aspect-Warrior" army of the Space Marines out there.

Well I will dip my toes in on this on the side of the Space Wolves (note I have not ready any HH stuff due to ruining my blissful ignorance)
Much of the Space Wolf stuff sounds like the stuff of sagas and legends eg: Lone Wolves (Everything very nerdy I did before warhammer was along the lines of D&D)
The rivalry between the Gregarious wolves and the secretive Dark Angels.
While they are space marine viking werewolf berserkers, many like just one or two of the additional aspects
Honestly most peoples gripe about Space Wolves seems to come from Xzibit (Yo dawg I heard you like wolves so I put a wolf glove and a wolf necklace on a wolf marine and put him on a wolf )and frankly people being bitter about them being top tier for a long time, something you see with Tau now, everyone hates tau due to them being top, a problem that I as a Dark Angel player never have to worry about

Don't mention plague marines mixing with thousand sons. Honestly plague marines ,Thousand Sons, and berzerkers don't even mesh well. Heck, the Plague Marines do the berzerker's and the thousand son's jobs better then either of them can. Also so we are eldar now with aspect-warrior army? CSM shouldn't. CSM is chaos, but also in it some semblance of order. Iron Warriors roam in great companies Honestly, it's more like BA are SM+ until 6th edition came out. It's not an assault army like the old edition and so the only assault army that really works is daemons at the moment and arguably spawn spam.

I'm sorry I have to disagree with you when we have Iron Warriors (that are around the size of chapters), the Word bearers pride themself with being extremely united, and the Black Legion is our melting pot of somewhat order. I'll admit, the 3 legions dedicated to any god besides nurgle are extremely disorganized. Even then, when Angron wished to go on a crusade, he got a massive contingent of zerkers on his side. When the plague fleets fly, they do not take with them the petty fools that are zerkers and sons, they are there, alone with infected human beings eager to embrace planets with the gift of their master. Thing is, most people don't want to play, codex happy family. Even the people that like Black Legion like them in part because of the internal broken manner they exist. But if you look at the forums, few are making their own warbands. Heck, the only reason I made one for myself was because building a Thousand Son army would just be too painful to think of fielding. We care about legions. We don't want tzeentch and nurgle brofisting. Also, there's a reason the codex is called codex nurgle and heldrake

Naw, CSM are kinda like SM. SM lean towards the shooty end whilst CSM are bent on the assault. We don't have that many good shooty long ranged weapons, we have super hyper specialized CC units that only work in cc. Our dreadnought is built around the notion of going insane and just wanting to blindly charge them. Almost all of our hqs are CC beat sticks, and our stupid bad special rule is something that requires challenges which is something you can only do in cc. Oh, and out of the new releases, we had 2 shooting oriented units and 3 that have no ranged weapons and can only fight in CC. Also we can get CCW on our standard troops even if they are crummy . Oh and 2 of our marks work almost exclusively in CC (Slaanesh and Khorne).


Anyways, yeah the wolf wolf wolf thing has gone a bit OTT in the last book. Honestly I think SW are just a polarizing army. They do a lot of stupid silly things but also claim to be rutheless warriors and stoic all the while doing heretical things but always getting away with it. When forces siege them they win even when undermanned and their protection of a few thousand guardsman and civilians ended up leading to the destruction of billions of lives. Also don't forget, it is quite likely (and I'd argue I'd be surprised if not) that there are drastically more people that like them then hate them. Whilst they are goofy, and have a bit too much wolf for my tastes, they are still space vikings . These sorts of forums tend to bring out more negative opinions because we are oriented to such emotions and the ones that like them will often pay no real regard.

P.S. If it seems I am overly negative, I've had almost no sleep, taken two finals, been stressed with personal life, and I found it hilarious that the bolter and chainsword chaos subthread has an entire forum open just for people to post their negative opinions of the 6th edition codex. I went in because I found it silly and came out remembering why I've taken a short break from them.


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 Wardragoon wrote:
Well I will dip my toes in on this on the side of the Space Wolves (note I have not ready any HH stuff due to ruining my blissful ignorance)
Much of the Space Wolf stuff sounds like the stuff of sagas and legends eg: Lone Wolves (Everything very nerdy I did before warhammer was along the lines of D&D)
The rivalry between the Gregarious wolves and the secretive Dark Angels.
While they are space marine viking werewolf berserkers, many like just one or two of the additional aspects
Honestly most peoples gripe about Space Wolves seems to come from Xzibit (Yo dawg I heard you like wolves so I put a wolf glove and a wolf necklace on a wolf marine and put him on a wolf )and frankly people being bitter about them being top tier for a long time, something you see with Tau now, everyone hates tau due to them being top, a problem that I as a Dark Angel player never have to worry about

psssht tau were hated even when they could only deploy one decent list in competitives


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Also.... is it just me or does it seem like SW have the biggest problems with coherency? In one book they are stoic warriors that INSPIRE THE SISTAS OF BATTER to believe in the god emprah again but in the next they are flying off to have the sexy times with some fenresian ladies.

 StarTrotter wrote:


Anyways, yeah the wolf wolf wolf thing has gone a bit OTT in the last book. Honestly I think SW are just a polarizing army. They do a lot of stupid silly things but also claim to be rutheless warriors and stoic all the while doing heretical things but always getting away with it. When forces siege them they win even when undermanned and their protection of a few thousand guardsman and civilians ended up leading to the destruction of billions of lives. Also don't forget, it is quite likely (and I'd argue I'd be surprised if not) that there are drastically more people that like them then hate them. Whilst they are goofy, and have a bit too much wolf for my tastes, they are still space vikings . These sorts of forums tend to bring out more negative opinions because we are oriented to such emotions and the ones that like them will often pay no real regard.

P.S. If it seems I am overly negative, I've had almost no sleep, taken two finals, been stressed with personal life, and I found it hilarious that the bolter and chainsword chaos subthread has an entire forum open just for people to post their negative opinions of the 6th edition codex. I went in because I found it silly and came out remembering why I've taken a short break from them.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also.... is it just me or does it seem like SW have the biggest problems with coherency? In one book they are stoic warriors that INSPIRE THE SISTAS OF BATTER to believe in the god emprah again but in the next they are flying off to have the sexy times with some fenresian ladies.

I dont see why SW can't be a bit of everything that they are accused of. Why can you not be a staunch, crafty, tactical mastermind and fight with the ferosity of a bezerker only to then drink and whore yourself stupid during the after party. You know. just like a viking. As long as the planning stages of the operation was done while they were sober, why could it not be masterful. You never hear stories of them fighting drunk, its only during the after party. I'd also reason that due to SM constitution and biology in general the idea of a hangover is laughable. The crazy stunts you hear about are almost always done by the young ones. Guys who have all the power, but not the mental conditioning that Grey Hunters, Wolf Guard, or Long Fangs have.

And while I can't remember which chapter it is, the SW arn't the only one to keep their man bits after becoming a SM, so the idea of them going after women isn't just a SW thing. So again, I see nothing wrong here.

I will agree that some of the stunts are a little OTT and are worthy of a good eye roll, but stealing a T-hawk and going for a joy ride is no more offense to me than the mortality rates of Eldar Avatars at the hands of single SM characters. And I can see why people dont like the "wolf" thing in every name, but most of the armies have some sort of repetitive naming sequence in there. I actually find all the blood in the BA codex to be a worse offender.

 StarTrotter wrote:

Whilst they are goofy, and have a bit too much wolf for my tastes, they are still space vikings ..

Which is my point.

I think the core idea is sound (as 40K-things go). They've just been hit with arguably one of the worst Codex books in 5th Edition, which combined utterly incapable and/or lazy background-writing (seriously, Space Marines don't "womanize", anybody with more than 5 minutes of 40K-knowledge knows that) with some of the most horrendous, broken and counter-intuitive rules.

If they get a half-way decent book, they are a potentially cool army. Same for Chaos Space Marines in 6th.

LightKing wrote:
when it comes to space wolves, more so then any other chapter

its either you love them, or you hate them....from what i seen....

people either love SW or they hate them for some reason...

i dont understand

Some people hate the SW for murderizing the TSons during the Heresy, but that was more Horus' doing than Russ'.

...One helluva misunderstanding...

 Void__Dragon wrote:
People dislike them because the writers favor them over the other factions and regularly make other factions look bad to make them look good (And oftentimes end up making the Wolves look bad too, accidentally).

This is my opinion too.

Also, fanboys. I like the Wolves a lot, I own about 1500 points of them, but I think they have a quite aggressive fan-base. This causes other people to dislike them, after some violent argument.

zbg97 wrote:

 TheCustomLime wrote:

They wear wolf pelts, ride wolves and name every damned thing after the animal except there are none on Fenris.

Ugh, I hate how this has caught on. This is one of those things that makes me sure GW doesn't really make their writers talk to one another. In the first place, I'm not sure Magnus the Red is exactly a trustworthy source. Ignoring that, however, it's accepted history that Russ was raised by wolves. There were already wolves on Fenris before the Canis Helix arrived there, so the idea that has taken root - that the wolves of Fenris are failed initiates - doesn't make any sense.

And, for what it's worth, the wolf theme and wolf names is no more pervasive with SW than the angel themes and names are with DA and BA, and the mock cockney ("mockney"?) is with Orks.

Thunderwolves are failed initiates. The "regular" wolves are mutated settlers.