Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

so easy question does anyone know how to play space wolves competitively but not using aliies or deathstars, anything else is fine, my local meta is demi company and wraith/scarab farm, i was thinking of all lone wolves, and msu spam but i dont now how to, thx for the help

Space Wolves have Thunderwolves/TWC, which can and will eat Canoptek Wraiths on the charge and have the durability to take the hits (depending on how many storm shields you have in the squad and how many wolves/cyberwolves you have with the TWC). Very similar in effect to many deathstars, but is CC only.

On the MSU side, Space Wolves do drop pod armies well, as they can take dual special weapons and a Wolf Guard with a combi-weapon at 10 members. Plenty of bodies to absorb fire, solid damage output, Counter-Attack with extra CCWs if you get charged. Terminator Lone Wolves are great troll units for dealing with backfield campers (just don't try to score objectives with them).

Are Pack leaders with combi weapons really that effective? They seem quite pricy for what they give to me.

I've had success with a drop pod with homing beacon carrying a rune priest with ml2 and helm of durfast rolling with 9 blood claws one flamer and a packleader. Grey hunters in a rhino with the wolf standard, sky claws, swiftclaw, and thunderwolf cavalry, wolf scouts in a razorback, terminators with various loadout, a wolf priest in terminator armor with them, a terminator line wolf with wolf claw and storm shield, and Bran Redmaw from forgeworld.

Redmaw gives outflank to the grey hunters, and I use the claws, thunderwolves, and scouts to threaten melee turn two with turboboosting and run moves.

So turn one you have the rune priest light them up with twin linked ignores cover living lightning the the blood class flamer something, the scouts move up and disembark to threaten a flank and the big pile of bikes, the wolves, and the jump pack guys are all rushing forward to threaten charges the next turn. Turn two (with wolves unleashed detachment) I get to choose a unit that comes in automatically, normally the grey hunters, and I bring all the termies in around the droppod to threaten everything for turn three charges. With whatever survived from first turn holding down units in the area for the terminators to come in turn three and polish them off.

With the wolf standard in a rhino the volume of attacks your melee units can have are pretty sick.

Take muhreen.

Put on puppy.

All rest of Mehrines too get puppies so they're not sad.

Tell puppy "u eat face now Kay?"

Competitive Spess Wulf.

Can't go wrong with buckets of TWC. One thing to help deal with the D-Scythe wall of death, is to take Priests in a couple TWC squads. Before charging, separate out the priest. He is the sacrifice to D-Scythe overwatch, to keep the rest of your unit safe.

In the current edition and current Codex, Grey Hunters took a hit in terms of how much they can do and how much they cost relative to everything else. Wolf Guard have definitely come to the fore in terms of value (as have Blood Claws, really). If you're running MSU, rather than paying for a Wolf Guard Pack Leader for a unit of GHs, you can pay basically the same 10 points (assuming you gave those GHs CCW) to make the whole squad WG, getting +1A and +1 Ld for all models. If you're running Company of the Great Wolf, then you're also getting +1 WS for all WG models (and you can run a lot more Elite units). Then, if you do want to sink more points into those units, you can put in as many Storm Shields and Combi- weapons as you want. Running it on the cheap, you can make a 5-man WG unit, CCW/BP on 4, Combi-/SS on one, with a Drop Pod, for exactly 150 points. In CotGW, all 5 are getting WS 5, four of those models are getting 4 Attacks on the Charge (without having to pay for a Wolf Standard), you've got an Invuln save, and one-shot variant of a Special Weapon (plus Combi-Melta costs the same as Melta, and Combi-Plasma is cheaper than Plasma), and in an MSU Drop Pod list, who needs Special Weapons that fire more than once?

If you're worried about Overwatching enemies, you can put a unit of Fenrisian Wolves in front of your Thunderwolf Cavalry. They act as intervening models as you cross the field, and the current Overwatch rules allow a unit to fire Overwatch only once, and it has to be at the first unit to charge. Send in the FW first, and your TWC gets no Overwatch fire at all. Cyberwolves are characters, so put one in that FW unit, and you can use Look Out, Sir! to make choices about wound placement, and the Cyberwolf can even make or accept challenges (it's unclear to me how enemy units KNOW when Cyberwolves are offering a Challenge, but that's another matter). Put Harald in the TWC unit, keep them within 12", and both units have Furious Charge, and both units use Harald's Ld 10.

Also, for what it's worth, a Wolf Priest shines even more putting him in as large a unit as you can. A full 15-man Blood Claw unit with Preferred Enemy re-rolls and Feel No Pain? Yes please. Put them in a Land Raider Crusader or a Stormwolf that they can Assault out of? That's the way a Space Wolf Charge should look.

Alternately, Wolves Unleashed gives you the nice automatic Reserves roll success each round, and a Troop unit with an IC has a 50% chance of Outflanking. That 15-man BC unit with a WP, re-rolling 1s to-hit and getting FNP showing up in the enemy's back-field on Turn 2 (carrying to Special Weapons, if you choose) can ruin someone's day.

Start the game with Long Fangs in cover in your own back-field, with some Lascannons and one or two Missile Launchers to whittle down heavy armor or large groups (or both, thanks to Split Fire), and more of your Infantry/Cavalry/Beasts will live to get into Assault range.

I'm not sold on Lone Wolves... One of the nice things about them is getting to take 2 FW, giving extra Attacks and extra Wounds (and even Look Out, Sir! options), but FW can't embark on Dedicated Transports (or any sort of Transport), anymore, and even now that Space Wolf Terminators can Deep Strike, the FW can't go with if you do that, so one of the things that made Lone Wolves shine also means you have to foot slog him across the table.

 zbg97 wrote:
it's unclear to me how enemy units KNOW when Cyberwolves are offering a Challenge, but that's another matter

The cyberwolf walks up and pees on enemy character's shoes

 Talys wrote:

The cyberwolf walks up and pees on enemy character's shoes

He might hump the enemy Character's leg, but that might send mixed messages.

Space Wolves combined with White Scars -characters to get Scout. Company of the Great Wolf for Iron Priests with 10+ Fenrisian Wolves for look out sir! -and cheap attacks. Wolf Guard Battle Leaders in a White Scars Command Squad for FNP.

 Runic wrote:
Space Wolves combined with White Scars -characters to get Scout. Company of the Great Wolf for Iron Priests with 10+ Fenrisian Wolves for look out sir! -and cheap attacks. Wolf Guard Battle Leaders in a White Scars Command Squad for FNP.

FWIW, the OP specified "not using allies"...