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 koooaei wrote:
Murder face.

I have to reiterate this- Murderface.

graywater wrote:

The other thing about Murderfang is that like some other Units you need to build your list around him not just tack him on at the end because you have the points.

This has been my experience. I play two wolf players. One has had a lot of success playing with dreads in pods and one has had a miserable time with them. The difference is that the first one pods in three when he uses them, while the second only runs one... then claims that they are garbage, even when I tell him of the success of the other player.

That about sums it up.

We have a Guard player who does things like that, he had a concept, but the list usually had big flaws in it. The last one he wanted to try out the Tuorox, so he traded out his two Punishers for them and some of the Eletion Scout cars leaving him with not tanks.

graywater wrote:
Andilus that was great. Those little vignettes are the best part of the show.

Anpu, you are right about the target saturation, but the amount of dreads required to make such a tactic work is a heavy point sink. Then you have to pile additional costs on top of that to buy enough drop pods to have those dreads all come in on the same turn. If they do not come in on the same turn, it is not too difficult to take the dreads on piecemeal. Its certainly a gamble at most point levels because it is such an all or nothing approach. So if you are gonna run them, you better do it big and hope the enemy doesn't have a hard counter to them like mass AV options or high mobility to leave the dreads in the dust.

The problem with Murderface and target saturation is he's too expensive per HP and a high threat. You can't think "well if they're shooting Murderface it just means another dread is surviving" because all the other dreads are either cheaper or tougher, you WANT them to shoot the other dreads instead of Murderface but they will inevitably shoot Murderface.

If your goal is target saturation, you'd almost always prefer either another regular dread or another shield dread to the Murderface.

The only way I really see Murderface being anything but a liability is to put him in a drop pod but have him show up late and hope that you can engage enemy shooty units that can hurt him before he shows up so that he is more likely to survive a turn and charge something.

The problem with Murderface and target saturation is he's too expensive per HP and a high threat. You can't think "well if they're shooting Murderface it just means another dread is surviving" because all the other dreads are either cheaper or tougher, you WANT them to shoot the other dreads instead of Murderface but they will inevitably shoot Murderface.

If your goal is target saturation, you'd almost always prefer either another regular dread or another shield dread to the Murderface.

Target saturation is still the best way to use murderface, and you can use the other dreads to help shield him. Its surprisingly easy to give him a cover save, and potentially totally block access to him between the two other dreads and three drop pods. That being said, I actually agree with you. I have yet to see murderface used effectively, but I have seen a shield and axe dread used to good effect. The target saturation tactic is the underlying principle behind most drop dread lists. I was not suggesting that murderface was particularly effective; only that if someone wanted to run murderface/ dread list, then this is the tactic one should adhere to.

The other tick is an Allied Stormraven. You just have to get it close and he can Assault strait from it.

Completely forgot about Allies. That may be more effective, particularly if you want to just run one. The delivery method is substantially more points-intensive and you are getting a turn three charge at best, but it is capable of contributing more to the battle beyond just transportation.

graywater wrote:
Completely forgot about Allies. That may be more effective, particularly if you want to just run one. The delivery method is substantially more points-intensive and you are getting a turn three charge at best, but it is capable of contributing more to the battle beyond just transportation.

You can also shove in Arjac and 5 of his buddies if you want.

Another key is placement of each dread. As a general rule, dreads are immune to most anti-infantry weapons, resistant to some heavy weapons and vulnerable to all anti-tank weapons.

If you position the most vulnerable dreads where the big stuff has easy shots, you will lose them. So drop in a w. ay that protects your most precious melee dreads and use other units to neutralize the anti-tank component first turn. From there the melee dreads should be able to wreck face safely

Jefffar wrote:
Another key is placement of each dread. As a general rule, dreads are immune to most anti-infantry weapons, resistant to some heavy weapons and vulnerable to all anti-tank weapons.

If you position the most vulnerable dreads where the big stuff has easy shots, you will lose them. So drop in a w. ay that protects your most precious melee dreads and use other units to neutralize the anti-tank component first turn. From there the melee dreads should be able to wreck face safely

You also don't Drop near the Big Guns with Murderfang. Murderfang is best we outnumbered so you want to go after target you know he will do big numbers of wounds on. Geed Targets are Command Squads, and normal Troop Types. If the Command Squad has Calgar in it go for something else. Try Targets like Centurions [No Overwatch], Mega-Nobs [You will go off first] and such.

I feel like the biggest problem with Murderface is it's easily to do better for cheaper. You can build your army around him if you really like him, but all in all he is really meh.

Here is a Maximum Pod Saturation List I have been working on.

2000 Points Codex: Space Wolves Murderfang Drop Pod List

Wolf Lord in Terminator Armour, 170 pts (Storm Shield; Wolf Claw)
Wolf Guard Void Claws, 240 pts
>Wolf Guard Terminator Leader (Two Wolf Claws)
>4x Wolf Guard Terminators (Two Wolf Claws)

Bjorn the Fell-Handed, 280 pts (Helfrost Cannon)
>Drop Pod (Locator Beacon; Deathwind Missile Launcher)

Murderfang, 185 pts
>Drop Pod (Deathwind Missile Launcher)

Maximilian Venerable Dreadnaught [Max] 210 pts (Extra Armour; Smoke Launchers; Fenrisian Great Axe; Blizzard Shield)
>Drop Pod (Deathwind Missile Launcher)

Plasma Hunters, 300 pts (Bolt Pistol x7; Bolt Gun x7; Plasma-Gun x2; Plasma Pistol; Power Fist)
>Wolf Guard Pack Leader (Power Armour; Combi-Plasma; Wolf Claw)
>Drop Pod (Deathwind Missile Launcher)

Melta Hunters, 295 pts (Bolt Pistol x7; Bolt Gun x7; Melta-Gun x2; Plasma Pistol; Power Fist)
>Wolf Guard Pack Leader (Power Armour; Combi-Flamer; Power Fist)
>Drop Pod (Deathwind Missile Launcher)

Rex Dreadnought, 170 pts (Extra Armour; Smoke Launchers; Great Wolf Claw and Storm Bolter; Twin-Linked Heavy Bolter)
Drop Pod (Deathwind Missile Launcher)


Drop Pod, 50 pts (Deathwind Missile Launcher)
Drop Pod, 50 pts (Deathwind Missile Launcher)
Drop Pod, 50 pts (Deathwind Missile Launcher)

Everything on this list has a purpose even the Detachment, Formation and the 3 Empty Drop Pods.
The Wolves Unleashed Formation.: This was chosen mostly for the Rapid Arrival of Reserves. At the Start of each of your Turns before Reserve Rolls are made you can Choose One Unit In Reserves to Automatically Arrive.
Turn #1:
Wolf Lord and the Void Claws: The first are to land are the Wolf Lord and the Void Claws. With their Re-Roll to Scatter. Their final Location will help with the overall Placement of the Rest. Also it prevents Mishaps on what is going to be a very packed Backfield of your enemy. The Wolf Lord is there to soak up wounds with his 3++ Save. [As a Note if you go with the Champions of Fenris Detachment you can replace him with Arjac]
>Why I chose them: They for as long as they are alive will give me Re-Rolls on Reserves.
Bjorn: Then Bjorn Lands somewhere near the Void Claws to both provide some cover and act as an Ant-Something Big Shooting Weapons.
>The choice of Bjorn is twofold, 1st is to act as a possible Warlord Choice to Support your Grey Hunters using his Sega of Majesty and 2nd to get you opponent to react out of fear of what he is capable of, but one you drop your Re-Roll for Scatter S6, AP3 Cupcake or S8, AP1 with Re-Roll attack he will.
>Bjorn's Drop Pod also has the Locator Beacon to act as a center point for Pods should it land in the right spot.
Maximilian: Drop him where you feel you need a Bullet Shield Bjorn and Murderfang and pop Smoke. This gives you 3++ Save to the front and a 5+ Cover Save for the rest of your facings.
By now things should be getting a little crowded oddly enough making your accurate.
Murderfang: He should land in the rough triangle between the Void Claws, Bjorn and Maximilian.
>This should keep him out of the Line of Fire, yet close enough he can pull off an Assault next turn. If you have him in the right place you might even get a chance to take out a Command Squad or Devastator Squad.
Plasma-Hunters: They should land near something significant like a large Vehicle or MC. Another good choice would be a unit on an Objective.
>I tooled them up big time for two major reasons, 1st once more to put the fear of the Emperor in your opponent as 7 Plasma Shots come in his direction, 2nd is the Firepower they will project both up front and when you have a chance at an Assault.
Melta-Hunters: Similar to the Plasma-Hunters, but they should be sent after Tanks and other Hard to kill Targets.
>They are tooled up for the same roasons as the Plasma Hunter, but this time it will be 3 Melta-Guns and 1 Plasma Pistol.

[Currently there are now 11 different Targets for your opponent to deal with, some of them will require multiple different Units to kill off some of them.]

Turn #2:
Rex: Comes down near some infantry and starts to gun them down of an Objective.
>Oddly enough he is there to Bring Down another Drop Pod.
0-3 Drop Empty Drop Pods: Now we are where I explain the Empty [and not so-empty] Pods in detail. You should get two of them and all Three with the Re-Roll for Reserves.
>The Drop Pod Assault: The Empty Pods are there to sort of Front Load your initial Drop Pod Assault.
>Deathwind Missile Launcher: You will notice that all the Drip Pods have them. The thing is one Deathwind will do little, though three of them dumping on a Infantry Unit with S5 Pie will quickly take its toll even if they have good cover.

Example: You have a Squad of Kroot Snipers in a set of Woods sitting on an objective and you pull off Rex and 2 other pods on turn two. You place each one on a different side of the Woods.
Rex Lands and puts his Storm Bolter Shots and his Heavy Bolter to use forcing saves. Then the Three pieces of S5 Shrapnel Pie lands forcing more save. The four of them now become a real threat that has to be dealt with and quickly. Now after dealing with the Kroot Rex wanders off to shoot up something else the Three Pods are now holding the Objective.

I hope that list is just for fun because you will get curb stomped against any semi competitive army with that list. 600 points for 14 GH and 2 WG is insane. Bjorn is just ridiculously over costed and if you took all those missile launchers off your drop pods you could add a squad of long fangs with missiles. Let me know how it plays but don't get your hopes up...

Toofast wrote:
I hope that list is just for fun because you will get curb stomped against any semi competitive army with that list. 600 points for 14 GH and 2 WG is insane. Bjorn is just ridiculously over costed and if you took all those missile launchers off your drop pods you could add a squad of long fangs with missiles. Let me know how it plays but don't get your hopes up...

Well it is for FUN!
Long Fangs do no fit into the theme of the list and the Storm Bolters on the Pods Suck, the Missiles can cause lots of damage very quickly. I have had them kill off entire Squads in one turn from Multi-Pods.

This was also and example ho how to over-saturate your opponent with Pods, take and unit and mix it with another unit the principle is the same.
Cut out ever upgrade and increase the # of Pods.

The big thing this does is give your opponent so much to deal with that you can get Murderfang gets into Melee.

In a 2000 point game, that isn't a lot to deal with. It's a very low model count army considering the points. It's 29 models and some pods. Only half of your pods drop first turn. Against an army like nids or orks the first wave will be swarmed with bodies and as the rest trickle in from reserves they can be wiped out 1 by 1. Against tau or eldar half of your first wave will be dead from shooting before it can assault.

Toofast wrote:
In a 2000 point game, that isn't a lot to deal with. It's a very low model count army considering the points. It's 29 models and some pods. Only half of your pods drop first turn. Against an army like nids or orks the first wave will be swarmed with bodies and as the rest trickle in from reserves they can be wiped out 1 by 1. Against tau or eldar half of your first wave will be dead from shooting before it can assault.

The list was something I threw together in 15min on Army Builder to show how to Maximize Drop Pods and some of the tactics. If you can come up with a better list, please do.

And yes I would love to play it once just to see. I have a 19 model 2000 point list that has yet to loose [don't ask me how, it just does].
It might be a local Meta thing.

That army is not what I consider a target saturation army at all. You've taken 4 expensive dreadnoughts in a 2000pt army and 2 expensive squads of Grey Hunters.

The only way I see that working is if your local meta hasn't heard about armour yet and doesn't know to take anti tank weapons, but then you'd still possibly lose from a lack of models for objectives. I'd say even an army that is light on anti tank in a more typical meta will have little problem against that army.

In an era where people at 2000pts are typically equipped to deal with 2 IK's or a couple a Wraithknights or half a dozen IG tanks... I think a lot of people could take out 3 of your 4 dreadnoughts in 1 turn, many could take out all of them (especially if they have some mobile anti armour to get behind the ven dread to negate his save, you have too few models to control enemy movement).

Granted I haven't played against it so maybe I'm totally wrong... but if I saw you deploying that army against me I'd mostly just giggle

If you think of 40k as being similar to rock paper scissors, target saturation means taking so many scissors that they overwhelm the number of rocks your typical opponent would take... 4 dreadnoughts and a few expensive infantry squads is not target saturation.

I have come up with a better list for drop pods, it came in the top 15 at NOVA.

Rune priest, TDA, level 2 psyker
9 GH, CCW, 2 meltas, WG PL Chainsword, Combi Melta
Drop pod
9 GH, CCW, 2 meltas, WG PL Chainsword, Combi Melta
Drop pod
9 GH, CCW, 2 meltas, WG PL Chainsword, Combi Melta
Drop pod
stormfang, lascannons, multi meltas
fast attack pod

Tigurius
9 tac marines, melta, Sgt, Chainsword, Combi Melta
Drop pod
4 tac marines, melta, Sgt, Chainsword, Combi Melta
Drop pod
3 grav cents, omni scope

1849 points

Or you can swap tigurius for a regular psyker, run sentinels of terra and swap stormfang for another 3 man squad of grav cents in another fast attack pod. If your meta has a decent amount of flyers, take the stormfang version. If you don't anticipate many flyers, take the 2 grav cent squads.

I don't have any dreads there because they're terrible, over costed and I prefer to win games.

Nice List, but This is supposed to be about how to use Murderfang I thought.

 Anpu42 wrote:
Nice List, but This is supposed to be about how to use Murderfang I thought.

- How to run Murderfangs?
- Oh, that's easy - run droppod meltamarines and grav cents!
- ...

 koooaei wrote:

 Anpu42 wrote:
Nice List, but This is supposed to be about how to use Murderfang I thought.

- How to run Murderfangs?
- Oh, that's easy - run droppod meltamarines and grav cents!
- ...

It's basically...

-How do you use Murderface?
-Run him like you would any other expensive and easy to kill CC dread
-So how is that?
-Leave it at home and bring something better...

Don't ya love how balanced 40k is?

Just a quick gloat: I played a game where my maulerfiend fluke-killed both bjorn and murderfang. My mate was livid, I've never seen so many ones rolled.

pax_imperialis wrote:
Just a quick gloat: I played a game where my maulerfiend fluke-killed both bjorn and murderfang. My mate was livid, I've never seen so many ones rolled.

I always have freak things like that happen to Bjorn, that or he never take a Penetrating Hit.

We refer to him colloquially as "The Murderfang" but I'm not sure how it got started. Anyhow, my eyes lit up when I saw him but in-game I find he adds little.

His biggest fault is that he is literally as easy to kill as any chump dreadnought. I have found the Shield dread I run to generally earn a lot more keep. What the Murderfang does, can be done better by a unit of THSS Terminators for only slightly higher cost. He works well in target saturation scenarios but honestly I've had such a good run with the Helfrost cannon dreads that I have really no interest in him anymore, other than as a cool display model.

Someday I'd like to try a CotGW detachment with 6 dreads and see how he works out then...but my Murderfang never has even made combat, since he lands and then is immediately killed off.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 koooaei wrote:

 Anpu42 wrote:
Nice List, but This is supposed to be about how to use Murderfang I thought.

- How to run Murderfangs?
- Oh, that's easy - run droppod meltamarines and grav cents!
- ...

It's basically...

-How do you use Murderface?
-Run him like you would any other expensive and easy to kill CC dread
-So how is that?
-Leave it at home and bring something better...

Don't ya love how balanced 40k is?

That's not really a balance issue. It isn't like everything needs to be effective. Maybe a close combat dreadnought just isn't a good idea most of the time, lol. I mean, it would be like saying my Saxon warriors are gimped in a WW2 game.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 koooaei wrote:

 Anpu42 wrote:
Nice List, but This is supposed to be about how to use Murderfang I thought.

- How to run Murderfangs?
- Oh, that's easy - run droppod meltamarines and grav cents!
- ...

It's basically...

-How do you use Murderface?
-Run him like you would any other expensive and easy to kill CC dread
-So how is that?
-Leave it at home and bring something better...

Don't ya love how balanced 40k is?

Exactly! This post was about how to use Murderfang effectively. In my experience with Murderfang and dreads in general in 7th, their most effective use is sitting at home on your display shelf with their points filled by melta pods and grav cents.

unfortunately, anything relying on AV12 and 3 HP's and needing to be in CC to do most of its damage just won't cut it, if they had a save of some sort or the game still used the 5E damage table, they'd be much more useful.

Alas, for functional vehicle rules.

Dreadnoughts in general have had problems since 3rd. Strangely the problems seem to get worse with every edition.

 DanielBeaver wrote:
and It's not like it's overpowered or anything.

no, of course not.

Because the Furioso is sooooo competetive with its AP3 claws compared to AP2, IWND and Shred...

Ok, now that we have established he is no a good unit.

Can we talk about ways he can actually be used on the Table Tom Battle Field?

Or is this going to continue as a Lets Just Bash "X-Unit" until people just abandon the thread, Thread?

Depends if the same people keep posting or not.