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Have you tried playing casual games?

For context; the last few weeks have all been matches within a campaign at my FLGS. We work in teams of 2 and try to take as many hexagons on a board as we can, each granting an extra 50pts with some allowing us to take fliers, deep strike or take extra troops. Thankfully my team-mate is a hardcore necron player, who even without Necrons (Which as far as I can tell he doesn't do full cheese with as another guy does) is a very good player. But every match I've done, I've lost, hence my frustrations.

When I get home I'll list every model I own, and using the feedback I'll see if I can assemble a new list. A quick question though; would it be worth taking a venerable dread over murderfang? With the blizzard shield + greataxe it gains a 3+ invul in melee on all sides and on the front (Which I've noticed is the most frequently shot place on murderfang, for obvious reasons) granting much greater survivability, and whilst it will deal many less attacks than Murderfang, and lacks any ranged weapons, the axe will hit like a truck and will most likely kill whatever it hits (Unless I roll snake eyes or something).

That aside, I would like to point out Blood Claws are cheaper than GHs now, but I do agree perhaps I should drop the power fists. The downside of this means both my troop choices will be less effective against anything that isn't also infantry, but those are 25/50pts I could put towards something else. From next week I'll have the Stormclaw models and the formation as well, I've forgotten what the points total of them is but if I recall their formation lets me re-roll to hits or something along those lines.

You should post your list in the Army list section and state that you don't want to buy new models and operate with what you've got right now. I'm sure that it can be a bit optimised to help you out. But if you don't clearly state that you want to use exactly what you own, you'll get spammed with replies like: "Spam thunderwolf cavalry".

 koooaei wrote:
You should post your list in the Army list section and state that you don't want to buy new models and operate with what you've got right now. I'm sure that it can be a bit optimised to help you out. But if you don't clearly state that you want to use exactly what you own, you'll get spammed with replies like: "Spam thunderwolf cavalry".

Funnily enough that's what's happened whenever I asked for recommendations from friends and opponents alike The fact is I can't throw away £60+ like it's nothing (And the store has nothing I can use to proxy as I do with the dread, predator, rhino and drop pod).

I will add however, that I am thinking of cutting back on the termies and buying some tactical models off ebay dirt cheap (literally £5 atm for a pack of ten, just have to check they're unpainted or just primed. I had to strip paint before, it was messy and ended up being a lot more work than it was worth. And it broke all the models apart. :( ) and fielding them as BC, GH or WG as required. I have a sneaking suspicion that I may benefit better from fielding lots of infantry with a number of special weapons, over lumping all my points into a decked out termie squad that gets turned into red paste by Sternguard equipped with poison ammo in one round of shooting.

To answer the dread question: I have found that shieldaxe Mcshieldaxe is much better value than Murderboy I'm personally a Bjorn man but I use them for entirely different purposes.

Ranor wrote:
I've lost entire squads of Grey Hunters to Thunderstorm cannons.
I lost an entire squad of Wolf Guard Terminators w/ Rune Priest and Arjac.
My Blood Claws in a year of play have failed to kill anything.
My Murderfang gets blown to bits long before he can enter melee.
My drop pod has scattered directly in front of my rhino in a narrow passage.
I bought a stormwolf, it killed four tactical marines then got blown to pieces by terminators.

I've been playing this game for a year now, and from my memory (Which I like to think is decent) I've won a grand total of one matches, the guy was playing orks and blew up most of his own force with experimental artillary(?) of some sort. That aside, ever game I've played has been a loss. And not of the 'well that was a good game' kind, more of the 'rapidly growing sense of dread as my opponent moves one model at a time across the board after bitch slapping my Wolf Lord in a single round of combat yet the game has to go on for four more turns' kind.

I've tried, I really have. I don't have the perfect army, nor the perfect tactics. But even when the latter pulls up just fine, and points wise we're level, I get my arse handed to me in bite-sized chunks. Recently I've just started saying 'gg' as soon as that sense of dread kicks in, a feeling in my gut (An unpleasant one) that just tells me to get it over with. Especially when centurions hurl 15 re-rollable shots at any vehicle I own and KO it in a single round.

Next week I'm purchasing the SW half of the Stormclaw box from a guy at my FLGS for £20 (A good deal as they're also decently painted), if they, plus the Stormwolf, fail to make a decent difference I may just call it quits. I'm sorry if these seems ranty, but I just gotta get this off my chest, as I can enjoy the game and the IP but when I'm not having fun I have to ask 'why am I doing this?' I can play other systems where even when losing I can still enjoy myself, where I can still turn things around, but 40k seems to drag on and on and on per match. I spend an hour before each game night setting up a list to the best of what I have, but my excitement just gets squished by a Land Raider that only two weapons I have can actually be damaged by, both of which either miss or are lost very shortly.

If for some bizarre reason anyone is interested, here's last night's list off the top of my head (1550pts);

Warlord Rune Priest w/ Armour of Russ + Lv2 psyker
Wolf Guard termies w/ Chainfist+Assault cannon+Arjac character
Wolf guard squad w/ jump packs+combi-flamer/plasma/melta+twin claws
Blood Claws w/ Wolf Guard PL w/ Twin claws (Stormwolf transport)
Grey Hunters w/ WGPL (Storm Bolter) + Plasma Gun + Power Fist + Wolf Standard (Rhino Transport)
Predator w/ Autocannon+ 2x Heavy Bolters
Murderfang w/ Drop Pod
Stormwolf

That's made out of models I've spent over £200+ on, and I'm highly reluctant to spend anymore. Especially as now, after some paper trials, TWC would be a massive help, but that'd cost between £30 up to £60 for one or two trio's (A single trio will likely not be very effective). I can't help but feel that 40k asks far too much of me both money and time-wise, and I'm reluctant to give anymore unless I'm certain I can actually enjoy the game.

I want you to think about this;

Do you really want a game where a relative beginner can reasonably expect to match up against a veteran?

Or do you want a game where the better play(er) determines the outcome?

Think of Chess. With the armies being equal (except that White is totally OP 'cos it always starts ), the game is determined by the players....and nobody expects a novice to beat a grand master.

Think of any FPS video-game. In the beginning you will be pwned pretty hard and pretty regularly. You might even think that the noobs are botting or wall-hacking......but we all know the actual truth.
The fact is that we just aren't that good at the game yet.....but if we stick it out, we will be.

What I am trying to say is; take your licks and slowly get better.
Contrary to most "Internet wisdom" no army-list is auto-win.
This game has somewhat of a learning-curve.
Take the time to think about your games afterwards. Think about what happened (and no, it wasn't the dice....forget about blaming the dice) and what you could have done differently.

Before a game, think about how you are going to win and how you are going to not lose.
Those are two different things.
Winning is about having the units to score objectives, having mobility and/or ripping the heart out of the opponents army with a death-star.
Not losing is about being able to kill enemy death-stars, defending against flyer or drop armies and/or being able to handle both infantry-heavy armies as well as tank-heavy ones.

In the end it is all about playing better.....and we can't teach you that here. You have to do that yourself by playing, perhaps with the help of your group.

All we can do here is present you with generalities, but implementing those is up to you.
We can say; "Shoot the choppy ones , and chop the shooty ones"
Or "Present the enemy with enough choices of who to shoot, that he is left with no good choices, AKA target saturation"
Or "Throw sacrificial speed-bump units in the way of your enemy's most potent melee unit, to slow it down"
Or "Send your best unit against his second-best, your second-best against his third-best and your third-best against his best"
Or "A units doesn't have to kill anything (ever) to have an impact on the game. If it draws fire away form a more important unit, it did its job, as long as the important unit took that opportunity to do good stuff"

And so on and so on....

Keep it up....or give up. It's entirely up to you.

But in the end it comes down to the fact that he bought the wrong models to play SW. He doesn't have TWC, he doesn't use drop pods for centurions ally ,he takes blood claws , single dreads, takers murderfang over a SS dread and mixed rhinos and drop pods , when it should either be flyers with drop pods or spamed rhinos.

SW aren't eldar where one has to try to make a bad list from random picked units and that is what he more or less did.

He took terminators for gods sake.

Sure, taking sub-optimal lists wont get you a top 16 placing at a GT, but this guy is looking for a couple of wins not a tournament trophy.

You mentioned objectives being in the open. Remember you get to place half of them. Put them in places you know you can hold them. Put them in cover, behind LOS blockers etc.

Centurions with a libby are good, and I am sure he is probably gating around or making them invisible. That's 500ish pts of his army. Try and focus on the other units so he cant score objectives.

If a player has something that seems unkillable, then trying to kill it is a futile exercise. Focus on his scoring troops instead.

I would be interested in hearing a battle report from you next time you play in as much detail as possible.

Also you didnt answer me regarding what you thought the roles were of the units in your army and how they interact and support each other.

I take a beating quite often in 40K, but I always come back for more! Sure it's annoying when I do lose (particularly when I seem unable to put my brother's annoyingly accurate Defiler down permanently).

On the other hand, (in the nicest possible way) maybe Space Wolves don't fit your style of play?

Ranor wrote:


I try to focus on objectives, but it's difficult when there's three little cubes on the board with no cover in the wide open. Anything I sit on them just gets turned to Swiss cheese as soon as my turn is over, and if I try too late my opponent uses his mostly intact force to just pick them up on the last few turns whilst he mops up the last of my units or glances my vehicles to death.

Hang on hang on.

Who places the objectives? You're supposed to take turns doing so, allowing you to pop one nicely in cover. I'm gonna suggest someone's been having you on.

Also, try playing against other newbs, and maybe even without objectives. I recently played a last man standing game which was hilariously fun! Neither of us were really interested in winning, just getting used to the rules and such.

 ChazSexington wrote:

Ranor wrote:


I try to focus on objectives, but it's difficult when there's three little cubes on the board with no cover in the wide open. Anything I sit on them just gets turned to Swiss cheese as soon as my turn is over, and if I try too late my opponent uses his mostly intact force to just pick them up on the last few turns whilst he mops up the last of my units or glances my vehicles to death.

Hang on hang on.

Who places the objectives? You're supposed to take turns doing so, allowing you to pop one nicely in cover. I'm gonna suggest someone's been having you on.

Also, try playing against other newbs, and maybe even without objectives. I recently played a last man standing game which was hilariously fun! Neither of us were really interested in winning, just getting used to the rules and such.

The campaign organiser has been setting them on the game boards prior to the start of each evening's campaign night. They're represented by three random bits or pieces of terrain of the same size/scale and placed up the middle of the board, evenly spread. So one close to me, one in the middle, and one near the opponent. As far as I know they're not unusual objectives or the like, they just award points if you hold them when the game ends. Which as I've described, is difficult, as I get blown away long before I can land one, or I manage to get some units on an objective only to have them killed even if it's literally the last turn.

It's tricky finding newbs as I've previously found, everyone at my FLGS seems reasonably experienced at the least. I gotta confess, I might just be a dumbass. I played the Dark Vengeance box-set at one point (Me as Chaos, opponent as DA) against a kid no older than eight. His warlord merrily skipped through the entire chaos army with an absurd number of attacks, with everything I threw back at him just bouncing off, and his tacticals out of range of everything I had (As I recall, Chaos gets a bit shafted in the box set? Pretty sure the only marines kin it are mostly or pure melee orientated with two squads of cultists and a hellbrute that took face fulls of plasma).

The Dice Gods hate you.

As others have metioned this game has a steep learning curve, and you never really stop learning on how to improve your game.

List building can help or hinder you, but it's not the end all of the game. Strategy and Luck factor in pretty heavily when you play.

Field units that interest you and enjoy playing. You "win" if you have fun, you don't have to win the match to have fun.

I've had matches where I've won with nothing but a hastily thrown together list of models on hand. Other times I've sat their in horror as my well designed force falls appart while I roll buckets of dice and fail to accomplish anything. They are all fun. Some of the best war stories in my gaming group are all about the epic failures.

I noticed you said the campaign organizer sets up terrain. Sounds like organized play, which tends to be extra competitive. Perhaps try talking some of the veteran players into a more casual game. There is always some vet player willing to take a newbie under their wing and teach them their secrets.

Also, just try talking to your fellow players about strategy after they game.

"What do you think I could have done differently to improve my game?"

"What do you think I did right, that gave you the most trouble during the game ?

Ranor wrote:

 ChazSexington wrote:

Ranor wrote:


I try to focus on objectives, but it's difficult when there's three little cubes on the board with no cover in the wide open. Anything I sit on them just gets turned to Swiss cheese as soon as my turn is over, and if I try too late my opponent uses his mostly intact force to just pick them up on the last few turns whilst he mops up the last of my units or glances my vehicles to death.

Hang on hang on.

Who places the objectives? You're supposed to take turns doing so, allowing you to pop one nicely in cover. I'm gonna suggest someone's been having you on.

Also, try playing against other newbs, and maybe even without objectives. I recently played a last man standing game which was hilariously fun! Neither of us were really interested in winning, just getting used to the rules and such.

The campaign organiser has been setting them on the game boards prior to the start of each evening's campaign night. They're represented by three random bits or pieces of terrain of the same size/scale and placed up the middle of the board, evenly spread. So one close to me, one in the middle, and one near the opponent. As far as I know they're not unusual objectives or the like, they just award points if you hold them when the game ends. Which as I've described, is difficult, as I get blown away long before I can land one, or I manage to get some units on an objective only to have them killed even if it's literally the last turn.

It's tricky finding newbs as I've previously found, everyone at my FLGS seems reasonably experienced at the least. I gotta confess, I might just be a dumbass. I played the Dark Vengeance box-set at one point (Me as Chaos, opponent as DA) against a kid no older than eight. His warlord merrily skipped through the entire chaos army with an absurd number of attacks, with everything I threw back at him just bouncing off, and his tacticals out of range of everything I had (As I recall, Chaos gets a bit shafted in the box set? Pretty sure the only marines kin it are mostly or pure melee orientated with two squads of cultists and a hellbrute that took face fulls of plasma).

Have you tried playing with someone more experienced and having him give you tips? That or if you have two really good friends/players, have one fight you and the other be your advisor. The first two 40k games I played were straight up 500 point kill teams. The guy was super cool, taught me a lot of the rules, reminded me about when to use things like Look Out Sir, moving squads with heavies, the whole nine yards. Trust me, it gets better, but 40k is more tactics than gambling. Yeah, the dice can throw you, but where you deploy and how REALLY swings the game.

Ranor wrote:


The campaign organiser has been setting them on the game boards prior to the start of each evening's campaign night. They're represented by three random bits or pieces of terrain of the same size/scale and placed up the middle of the board, evenly spread. So one close to me, one in the middle, and one near the opponent. As far as I know they're not unusual objectives or the like, they just award points if you hold them when the game ends. Which as I've described, is difficult, as I get blown away long before I can land one, or I manage to get some units on an objective only to have them killed even if it's literally the last turn.

It's tricky finding newbs as I've previously found, everyone at my FLGS seems reasonably experienced at the least. I gotta confess, I might just be a dumbass. I played the Dark Vengeance box-set at one point (Me as Chaos, opponent as DA) against a kid no older than eight. His warlord merrily skipped through the entire chaos army with an absurd number of attacks, with everything I threw back at him just bouncing off, and his tacticals out of range of everything I had (As I recall, Chaos gets a bit shafted in the box set? Pretty sure the only marines kin it are mostly or pure melee orientated with two squads of cultists and a hellbrute that took face fulls of plasma).

Don't worry about the DV set; the DA have about 100-200 points more than the CSM, which is substantial when your army is approximately 500 points, which is exceptionally cruel considering your army includes two uselessly small squads of Cultists and expensive Chosen. Cultists and Chosen can be very good, don't get me wrong, but 10-man squads of Cultists is absolutely useless.

Can you maybe ask the campaign organiser to match you with easier opponents? Have you read this btw? It might be of some help

if you quit can I have your stuff?

For those that asked, here are the total models I own;

Tacticals (referring to regular marines, can be used as BCs, GHs, WG, etc) = 32
Termies = 9
Scouts = 6 (Never used really. Don't appear to be worth their points from what I can tell.)
Drop pods = 1
Stormwolf = 1

Models I can borrow from the store;

About 20 tacticals if need be, max.
Predator.
Rhino.
Drop pod.
Two dreadnoughts.
A land raider (though another fellow uses it frequently).
A stormraven/stormwolf (If unused).

After digging through my box of mini's I've also found a number of bits I had completely forgotten about. Mostly half-assembled/broken tacts but also a few long fangs. I could assemble;

Long fangs = 5
Tacts = 10

Or thereabouts, but there's a problem. Each of these bits is in a horrid state. Either broken, poorly painted, obvious signs of shoddy/minimal paint stripping, blobbing of glue and paint in recesses, etc. I could assemble these, but it'd be a decent chunk of work for a total of fifteen marine models.

As for what I had in mind for my current synergy, well, needless to say a lot of this will seem dumb and clearly doesn't work after my recent games;

I had WG termies for the purpose of supporting the Priest. When I first attained them this worked decently, but in the last few months suddenly terminators seem to be a bit of a waste of points. I am contemplating trimming them out altogether or only taking the ones from the Stormclaw set for the detachment bonus. Up until now I've deepstriked them since the new codex allows it, but this is rapidly proving unreliable. May tuck them in a second stormwolf and make them choppy if I do take any termies at all. They've, as said, previously been quite standard in their build. But of late I was leaning towards dropping the AC and instead just kitting them for melee, that was before they got filled with helfire bolter rounds.

WG w/ jump packs were intended to act as fast harassment, sadly this never worked. Will definitely remove.

The grey hunters up to now have always taken CCW's, but I'm thinking of dropping those as I now have plenty of blood claws to fulfill the choppy role. The 20pts can be put towards upgrades for either squad. Up to now they've all had CCW's, a Wolf Guard Pack Leader (w/ Storm Bolter), Wolf standard and a plasma gun.

Blood Claws as said are intended to bog down enemy squads and units in melee combat, with a massive punch spat out of a stormwolf on the initial charge at least. This works, up to a point. As soon as they need to tackle something remotely elite their low WS causes lots of misses and the generally lacking strength makes tackling vehicles difficult if not impossible. Up to now they've had a PF, WGPL w/ twin claws and a Flamer.

Drop pod. Carrying a dreadnought or infantry. Not much to say here except my positioning was likely poor (As said, it once scattered directly infront of my own rhino, blocking it's way to the front).

Murderfang was intended to be dropped in and maul standard infantry quickly so I could turn my attention and army elsewhere. Would help if he didn't get mauled himself first. Will likely exchange for vendread with a shield and axe. Less attacks but it has a higher chance of making it into melee before dying.

Stormwolf. I took heavybolters last time as I was under the impression that they would aid against infantry, which it did, but then it struggled against the land raider redeemer. Will take meltas next time no doubt about it.

Predator. I may just fully deck it with las in the future, I see now I have enough to be able to cope with infantry. I was initially put off as las only allows one shot on the sponsons, but better I -can- damage a heavy vehicle than not at all. Also helpful for forcing enemy units to take their more risky invul save.

The Rune Priest. Once a Wolf Lord, who kept dying and did little to help any games. I usually take the psychic powers within the codex. But whilst they are very powerful, they lack any kind of 'support' capability for my own units, will at the very least try a different school of powers. In addition I will try using runic armour instead of termie/russ armour.


If I did take TWC, I'd likely deck as many with Thunderhammers and Stormshields as I can. Yes they strike last, but they gain a 3+ invul, and a Wolf Priest would grant them Feel No Pain (If I recall right) on top of that, plus re-rolling ones. But unless my calculations are wrong, they'd be at 25 or so attacks on a charge, S10 and AP2. They'd most likely butcher anything they come into contact with unless I rolled absurdly few hits. At least that's my idea. The alternative is to either swap out the hammers for frost swords or the like, or just give them all double wolf claws for 30 attacks with shred.

I'd like to thank those of you taking a moment to lend advice and encouragement. I enjoy the game in of itself, but I do have difficulty seeing straight when I feel like a punching bag.

5-6 TWC with a rune priest and a wolf lord with ally space marine white scar librarian or chapter master to give spread hit and run around.
The HQs have the option to hit at I with force weapons or claws, then TWC hit with thunder hammers and claws. 4 TWC with hammers and 2 with claws all with storm shield.

an alternative option to the white scara HQ, would be a Iron Hands chapter master with TH and eternal shield. no hit an run, but you would get a super +2/++3 tank with IWND.
the rest of the army would be cheap 5 man scouts as ally troops and 5 man BC or GH in rhinos or drop pods to deploy on objective and burn through those mission cards fast.

When i first started playing warhammer and 40k it took me a good 18 months before i started winning anything like half the games i played, but as a very good player told me, you learn more from a loss than you do a victory.

A very good place to start is to keep a record of your battles, and think about which units underperformed, and the reasons (poor placement, poor loadout etc) any mistakes you made (you can ask your opponent) and so forth. don't make sweeping changes based on one battle, but rather look at any trends you notice, does a particular unit regularly underperform, and why?

One of the biggest mistakes i can see from your list is that you are buying upgrades that are strictly not required, these eat into points that you could otherwise spend on more units. Just because a unit or model can take an upgrade, doesn't mean he has to. For example, powerfists on 1 wound models are usually a waste as they usually get killed in a challenge before they strike, and melta bombs are cheaper and do more damage to vehicles.

Its also worth running multiples of certain units, if you have a squad of grey hunters that are armed with lots of plasma guns that are optimised for killing MEQ's, and you lose that unit, having a backup can save the day!

Troops are also key, having lots of units that can secure objectives means that you can play to the games objectives, rather than try to table your opponent. While it doesn't happen frequently, sometimes you can win on VP's with a handful of models, even if you have been almost tabled, and your opponents army is largely untouched. I've also lost games when i've almost tabled people, but they have scored more VP's from objectives, so keep in mind what you have to do to win.

Some elite units are massive points sinks, they will certainly make an impact, but try not to invest too many points in them because you will find yourself massively outnumbered, even elite troops can be brought down by weight of fire.

Finally. Army selection is a key phase of the game, and planning how your army will work before the game, and choosing units to make that strategy work means that when it comes time to play the battle, your army is an army, rather than a selection of units you like.

Ranor: Re those painted models you've dug up- get them in a 1:1 mix of Dettol liquid anti-septic and water in a sealed container (in my case what used to be an ice cream tub). Leave them to soak for 24hrs. Then scrub with a cheap (or old) toothbrush- the paint will come off quite easily. Then you can rinse them off and repaint them when dry. Hello Long Fangs. Hello extra Blood Claw/Grey Hunters. Any damaged ones you can fix up with any spare bitz you might have.

Oh and one more thing: Wear gloves! It's a bit messy!

 angelofvengeance wrote:
Ranor: Re those painted models you've dug up- get them in a 1:1 mix of Dettol liquid anti-septic and water in a sealed container (in my case what used to be an ice cream tub). Leave them to soak for 24hrs. Then scrub with a cheap (or old) toothbrush- the paint will come off quite easily. Then you can rinse them off and repaint them when dry. Hello Long Fangs. Hello extra Blood Claw/Grey Hunters. Any damaged ones you can fix up with any spare bitz you might have.

Oh and one more thing: Wear gloves! It's a bit messy!

I rang up my old bud to ask what's up with those old models. tl;dr: He tried to paint strip using Fairy Power Spray. It worked for the most part, but it has left big blobs of hardened glue and mucky paint in the recesses. I've paint stripped before in the same way and it wasn't pretty. Regardless, I'll give it a shot if I can buy some dettol, if not power spray.

Oh man Foot power armor is hard to make work besides taking them in huuuuuge numbers

Perhaps play at lower points and go double pod and the rhino.

maybe a good idea to las cannon long fangs maybe for some ranged anti tank.

 Desubot wrote:
Oh man Foot power armor is hard to make work besides taking them in huuuuuge numbers

Perhaps play at lower points and go double pod and the rhino.

maybe a good idea to las cannon long fangs maybe for some ranged anti tank.

Tricky, as the campaign last time had escalated to 1550pts per player. I must have had to borrow half the store's SM stuff to even physically get to that, and it'll only go higher until the campaign ends in late November.

Well an escalation campaign is made to promote in store purchases so you might be sol. You might want to drop and just focus on what you have. Maybe 1k games at most. Because it's only going to get worse in a escalation league

It took me 2 years to win my first game. It was hard when fighting 2 chaos armies back in 2nd ed. But i stuck to it and got my first win eventually. Play with what you like and the win will come soon enough.

 Desubot wrote:
Well an escalation campaign is made to promote in store purchases so you might be sol. You might want to drop and just focus on what you have. Maybe 1k games at most. Because it's only going to get worse in a escalation league

I'm not sure if it's -the- escalation. In either case, the campaign is based on the usual hexagon grid. But we seem to be entering peaking point, with more players on the board than ever I suspect it'll be much harder to maintain more than 1500pts for a few weeks solid.

In any case, taking what I have I'll sit with the codex tomorrow and write up a more efficient list. Taking into account the incoming Stormclaw force and such.

Ranor wrote:
For those that asked, here are the total models I own;

Tacticals (referring to regular marines, can be used as BCs, GHs, WG, etc) = 32
Termies = 9
Scouts = 6 (Never used really. Don't appear to be worth their points from what I can tell.)
Drop pods = 1
Stormwolf = 1

Models I can borrow from the store;

About 20 tacticals if need be, max.
Predator.
Rhino.
Drop pod.
Two dreadnoughts.
A land raider (though another fellow uses it frequently).
A stormraven/stormwolf (If unused).

After digging through my box of mini's I've also found a number of bits I had completely forgotten about. Mostly half-assembled/broken tacts but also a few long fangs. I could assemble;

Long fangs = 5
Tacts = 10

Or thereabouts, but there's a problem. Each of these bits is in a horrid state. Either broken, poorly painted, obvious signs of shoddy/minimal paint stripping, blobbing of glue and paint in recesses, etc. I could assemble these, but it'd be a decent chunk of work for a total of fifteen marine models.

As for what I had in mind for my current synergy, well, needless to say a lot of this will seem dumb and clearly doesn't work after my recent games;

I had WG termies for the purpose of supporting the Priest. When I first attained them this worked decently, but in the last few months suddenly terminators seem to be a bit of a waste of points. I am contemplating trimming them out altogether or only taking the ones from the Stormclaw set for the detachment bonus. Up until now I've deepstriked them since the new codex allows it, but this is rapidly proving unreliable. May tuck them in a second stormwolf and make them choppy if I do take any termies at all. They've, as said, previously been quite standard in their build. But of late I was leaning towards dropping the AC and instead just kitting them for melee, that was before they got filled with helfire bolter rounds.

WG w/ jump packs were intended to act as fast harassment, sadly this never worked. Will definitely remove.

The grey hunters up to now have always taken CCW's, but I'm thinking of dropping those as I now have plenty of blood claws to fulfill the choppy role. The 20pts can be put towards upgrades for either squad. Up to now they've all had CCW's, a Wolf Guard Pack Leader (w/ Storm Bolter), Wolf standard and a plasma gun.

Blood Claws as said are intended to bog down enemy squads and units in melee combat, with a massive punch spat out of a stormwolf on the initial charge at least. This works, up to a point. As soon as they need to tackle something remotely elite their low WS causes lots of misses and the generally lacking strength makes tackling vehicles difficult if not impossible. Up to now they've had a PF, WGPL w/ twin claws and a Flamer.

Drop pod. Carrying a dreadnought or infantry. Not much to say here except my positioning was likely poor (As said, it once scattered directly infront of my own rhino, blocking it's way to the front).

Murderfang was intended to be dropped in and maul standard infantry quickly so I could turn my attention and army elsewhere. Would help if he didn't get mauled himself first. Will likely exchange for vendread with a shield and axe. Less attacks but it has a higher chance of making it into melee before dying.

Stormwolf. I took heavybolters last time as I was under the impression that they would aid against infantry, which it did, but then it struggled against the land raider redeemer. Will take meltas next time no doubt about it.

Predator. I may just fully deck it with las in the future, I see now I have enough to be able to cope with infantry. I was initially put off as las only allows one shot on the sponsons, but better I -can- damage a heavy vehicle than not at all. Also helpful for forcing enemy units to take their more risky invul save.

The Rune Priest. Once a Wolf Lord, who kept dying and did little to help any games. I usually take the psychic powers within the codex. But whilst they are very powerful, they lack any kind of 'support' capability for my own units, will at the very least try a different school of powers. In addition I will try using runic armour instead of termie/russ armour.


If I did take TWC, I'd likely deck as many with Thunderhammers and Stormshields as I can. Yes they strike last, but they gain a 3+ invul, and a Wolf Priest would grant them Feel No Pain (If I recall right) on top of that, plus re-rolling ones. But unless my calculations are wrong, they'd be at 25 or so attacks on a charge, S10 and AP2. They'd most likely butcher anything they come into contact with unless I rolled absurdly few hits. At least that's my idea. The alternative is to either swap out the hammers for frost swords or the like, or just give them all double wolf claws for 30 attacks with shred.

I'd like to thank those of you taking a moment to lend advice and encouragement. I enjoy the game in of itself, but I do have difficulty seeing straight when I feel like a punching bag.

The models you own are allright, ignore the guy that said termies are bad, actually the sw termies are really good, you can mix close and renged weapons in a single unit, i like to equip them with combi weapons and two storm shields, powerfist or power mauls instead of thunder hammer to keep them realtive cheap. Sell the scouts or give it a try with camo claoks and sniper rifles, great to hold objetives.
The drop pod and flyer are all right, from the things you can borrow from the store, take the other drop pod and the rhine, alwasy if you can, with this oyu cans try a list with two venerable dreads, they have less attacks, but thier objetive is to wreck vehicles, other walkers or stuck on combat a MC, they absorve damage like sponge, thats give time to your armyto reach the enemy lines
About bloob claws, they are far for usless, they become expesive becuase the need of the landraider or stormfang, but when they reach the enemy, they hit like a bag full of bricks, a good way to use them, make a unit of 12 plues the wg leader, equip the with one power weapon, one flamer and the wg with combi flamer, put a wolf priest and send them to kill infantry
Leave the predator, use long fang if you can, if not, dont worrie for the heavy support, centre your list on infantry then, grey hunters with meltas and wg termies with combi meltas if you need to kill tanks.
For the rune priest, the rune armour is a good choice, biomancy or divination are the way if you want support powers for your army, and if you take rune priest, always take 2, never take just one, take TDA if you want to deep strike with a unit of termies.
For the TWC, keep them cheap, give all the unit ss if you desire, but only one TH, the high numbers of attacks and rending make the work
they make a really good synergi with the venerable shield/axe dreads, while your dreads fall in front on the nemy lines and absorb all the shoots, it gives time to the calvary to speed up and reach the enemy line safely



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Toofast wrote:
I've played SW for a long time. The problem is you're using most of the worst units in the codex. WG, both power and terminator armor, cost way too much considering how easily they die and tthe other stuff you can get for those points. Blood claws are just terrible all the way around. Murderfang is a close combat dread in an edition where dreads are mediocre at best and close combat is an afterthought. You're mixing transport types. Either go full rhino rush or all drop pods with a flyer. Your grey hunters take a power fist which is probably the biggest waste of 25 points in the entire codex. Predators are nothing to write home about either. I would much rather have long fangs. The rune priest, GH and flyer are the only things in your list I would ever consider taking if I cared about winning. Yes, your list is fluffy and probably very similar to what a real SW army would look like. The problem is you want to win and this list is not going to do that unless you're playing an awful list or a hapless noob who doesn't know how to use his army. Here's my average SW list for comparison.
Rune priest in TDA
3 squads of 10 GH, CCWs, 2 melta, WG Sgt with combi melta
All 3 squads in drop pods
stormfang
SM allies
tigurius
2 tac squads, melta, Sgt with combi melta
3 grav cents

Tig and the cents ride in a fast attack pod. Rune priest goes with a min tac squad in a pod. This list has tabled every faction besides tau and eldar multiple times. It can deal with super heavies, flyers and hordes. It has 10 obsec units, air support and a death star with re rolls to hit, re rolls to wound and 4+ invulns. If you want to be competitive with space wolves, either use this pod/melta/cent list or a TWC list. I've tried about every other SW list possible and they all pretty much suck competitively. I have a shelf full of dusty dreads, tanks, scouts and wolf guard terminators because they simply don't win games.

So your advice to him is to buy the est units and make the est list possible, and become TFG and win games, wow what a great advice of yours

I started playing dark eldar about 4 years ago. This is commonly considered the toughest army to "master" and certainly one in which even a minor mistakes lead to a loss.

For the first year, playing 2 games a week, I never won. I played a wide variety of opponents and had my hat handed to me every single game.

Finally I did two things. The first was to keep a log. The log had my list, what I faced, mission and deployment. I also recorded what happened to specific units. For example: "Assaulted Abaddon and Terminators with Warriors; warriors slaughtered."

Based on that information I began tweaking my list, deployment styles, etc. I wrote down what worked, what failed and my best guess as to why. I also got involved in a few escalation leagues and played a LOT of games at 750, 1000 and 1250 points. After about another 6 months I won my first game. Bear in mind I wasn't actually playing to win at this point, rather I was just in research mode. The win that boosted my morale was against a MC heavy tyranid list - which always pounded me before even though I should never have had any issues.

Jumping forward, at this point the *only* army I can't consistently beat is Eldar serpent spam... But they give everyone fits and with the latest codex I'm testing a few options to see what's viable. That isn't to say I win all my games, rather my strategy, list building and general play style is now such that when I do lose I know exactly why.

The key was keeping a log, being brutally honest in what I wrote and making small tweaks as I went along.

So, keep a log and keep at it. You'll figure it out.

MarsNZ wrote:
He's understandably hesitant to buy new models and here you are trashing his list and basically advising him to buy a new army (SM) so he can run a carbon-copy netlist. Nice one.

A carbon copy netlist? I came up with that list the day before the SW codex was officially released. I'm just telling him that winning against competitive armies with his current list will be nearly impossible. I don't want to fill him with false hope that if he just learns the game better or gets 1 or 2 more kits he will suddenly start winning. He can either a. resign himself to losing most of his games, b. change his list to a more competitive build or c. sell everything and play something else. There isn't really another option here which is what he seems to be looking for. I'm not trying to be negative, I just don't want OP to spend more time and money only to have the same result.

I feel ya man, I'm basically teetering on the hope that my new codex will add flavor to my army, which is extremely bland right now. If that doesn't happen, I'm probably out of here.

MarsNZ wrote:
He's understandably hesitant to buy new models and here you are trashing his list and basically advising him to buy a new army (SM) so he can run a carbon-copy netlist. Nice one.

Like I said. A space wolf with a bolt pistol can still be a Grey Hunter. They're issued those also, so its not a modeling issue. Just make sure the opponent knows.