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So it seems to me that 3rd ed left SUCH a bad taste in the mouths of the big cheeses at GW that they have done everything in their power to make sure that elite assault armies will never again be a thing. The only army left with a shot at being an elite assault army in 8th edition is Space Wolves.

So given that the 8th ed rule book is what it is, and the Big FAQ is what it is, and neither of those are likely to change soon, what MUST be in the new Space Wolves codex to make Space Wolves a viable elite assault army?

Nothing. Wolves are now an Elite shooting / high invunl saves army. Spam plasma and storm shields and just thank the emperor the codex is coming soon.

In all seriousness, spacemarine models don't have enough wounds or enough attacks to play assault. As long as wolves stick to the spacemarine chassis they're stuck shooting. Just be glad we have better wargear.

No armies can do assault and have a reasonable chance of winning a game, with the exception of highly tailored Blood Angels.

Maybe? We'll have to see what comes with the Codex.

Right now, I think it's Storm Shields, Storm Bolters, and Plasmaguns, but it might be possible to leverage close quarters. We have an outflank strategem than can get us there, but needing 9s to make the charge though. It's just more reliable to spend the points on Storm Bolters which you know you're going to use than on power weapons, which you won't get to so much of the time.

 BaconCatBug wrote:
No armies can do assault and have a reasonable chance of winning a game, with the exception of highly tailored Blood Angels.

And Orks and Tyranids and Chaos and... You have to either be fast, or have enough guys that hit hard enough that you don't care how many you lose, or both.

Assaulting armies need three things to be top tier:
1. A delivery system that can get them into combat by at least turn 2 with little to no casualties.
2. The ability to kill whatever they hit or have enough models to tie up as many units as possible (that second one doesn't work so well if your tying up units with the FLY keyword or CQC units).
3. To be able to weather enough fire that there are enough CQC units left at the end of your next turn to still be threatoning.

GSC has 1 and mostly has 2 down but they struggle with 3.
Chaos generally has 2 down but struggles with 1 ever since the FAQ and is laughable at 3.
Orks has 1 and 2 down most of the time (unless they get a bad match up) but fails at 3 again.
BA struggles with 1 after the FAQ but still does it better than Chaos, has 2 down but is iffy when it comes to 3 (their SS can face a lascannon down pretty well but don't do so good against anti-infantry fire).
The only army that, IMO comes close to getting all 3 is Custodes: they are so damn tough that they can usually do 1 and 2 pretty well and they hit like a truck which ticks 2 off, they're only short coming is that each model down hurts more than most armies.

If SW want to lead 40k in elite CQC armies, they need to tick off all 3. The best way to do that would probably be to add some way for Thunder Wolves and Wulfen to get up the board quicker that circumnavigates the DS FAQ.

Thunderwolf Cavalry are criminally underrated. You just can't build an army around them... yet.

Looking forward to seeing this list:

Supreme Command
Wolf Lord on Thunderwolf
Wolf Lord on Thunderwolf
Wolf Lord on Thunderwolf

Supreme Command
Custodes Bike Captain
Custodes Bike Captain
Custodes Bike Captain

Required Imperial Guard

Could easily work in some Thunderwolf Cavalry in here too, although the list is better with as much Guard as possible. Nothing beats those Guard units that can assault anywhere on the table without line of sight, no overwatch, and deliver a ton of Strength 10 shots with multi-damage and AP. Oh wait that's shooting but whatever.

 BaconCatBug wrote:
No armies can do assault and have a reasonable chance of winning a game, with the exception of highly tailored Blood Angels.

Nids players nod along and push their models into your deployment zone. "Yep. No other assault options. Nothing to see here"

Tyranids have to play assault in a hybrid role. And they are far from elite assault units.

It's impossible to say right now, as the SW codex isn't out until July/August.

I think it's very likely that some combination of TWC, Wulfen, and SW characters will be a very powerful assault core once the codex releases.

I doubt they'll actually give us what we need to work in 8th, devs are fekking clueless in regards of balance.

We'll be shelved next to gk.

I've zero interest in shooty wolves.

Wolves have always been shooty. It was just close range firepower (Bolters & Flamers), backed up with assault power.

It's just that now, with the nerf to Bolters & Flamers and the boost to combi-weapons, EVERYONE is maximizing their short range firepower via Plasma Gun spam.

IMO come the next Chapter Approved, in the interest of "game balance and variety," combi-weapons will go back to one use per game and Plasma Guns will get some kind of across the board nerf and associated points increase.

phydaux wrote:
Wolves have always been shooty. It was just close range firepower (Bolters & Flamers), backed up with assault power.

It's just that now, with the nerf to Bolters & Flamers and the boost to combi-weapons, EVERYONE is maximizing their short range firepower via Plasma Gun spam.

IMO come the next Chapter Approved, in the interest of "game balance and variety," combi-weapons will go back to one use per game and Plasma Guns will get some kind of across the board nerf and associated points increase.

easy eneugh to nerf it, give a -2 penalty to hit if your shooting both instead of just -1. that means even a space marine with a combi-plas is hitting on 5s is he wants to fire bolt gun and plasma gun. that'd proably be eneugh

I expect Space Wolves will play best as a Hybrid army where you have wulfen and TWD moving in under covering fire from grey hunters etc.

that said points costs will really factor in, there are a few space wolf units I wanna note some thoughts on.

1: Wulfen a melee power house, so long as GW doesn't adjust their points up I think there will be a place for them. I'm kinda hoping that they'll change the unit a bit and make it so pack leaders can choose a varity of weapons.
2: Wolfguard - point costing for these guys is gonna be a biiiig make or break for the codex, there's gonna be a LOT of ways to run em, if they're cheap eneugh that jump packs with swotmshields and good melee weapons is a cheap viable option that could really make things intresting. but I expect a "wolfguard with stormbolters and storm shields" would be the popular way to run them.
3: TWC: I tend to agree these guys are under rated as they stand, people I think where used to them being the "heavy hitter" and THAT has changed. I think due to the beast attacks they have they'll be best run

One thing I expect will be lost will be wolf guard bikers, as I think everyone has lost their vetern bikers but maybe not as GW basicly designs the space wolf pack box with the assumption of "build your basic infantry and ohh lots of bits for additional people!"

Why would anyone EVER fire both, instead of only just firing the plasma?

phydaux wrote:
Why would anyone EVER fire both, instead of only just firing the plasma?

Because sometimes you just need to put out as many shots as possiable?

phydaux wrote:
Wolves have always been shooty. It was just close range firepower (Bolters & Flamers), backed up with assault power.

It's just that now, with the nerf to Bolters & Flamers and the boost to combi-weapons, EVERYONE is maximizing their short range firepower via Plasma Gun spam.

IMO come the next Chapter Approved, in the interest of "game balance and variety," combi-weapons will go back to one use per game and Plasma Guns will get some kind of across the board nerf and associated points increase.

As a guy whose played more than 20 years I have to disagree on this.

2nd 3rd and 4th you needed no strong shooting elements to win.

You needed heavy weapons in 5th to deal with tonks but you could still go heavy on melee.

It wasn't until 6th you needed to take heavy shooting to stand a chance of winning, the reason I quit was i find pure shooting armies dull to play.

I skipped 7th and quit 8th four months in when it became obvious it was going to be another gun heavy edition.

To be fair on guns all it needs is better terrain rules and that would cut them down a lot ('true' los in a miniature wargame that still has to be playable is just silly).

And the best thing they could do with Space Wolves is get rid of the stupid bloody wolves... I mean Santas slay? Wolves with adamantium spines so you can ride them instead of marine bikes? The heresy era wolf incarnation is really so much more attractive...

https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Bjorn_the_Fell_Handed#Tales_of_Bjorn

Some people like TWC though. Some people might even like the weird chariot. I don't like Newcrons but I'm not saying getting rid of them.

Wolves need a stratagem or psy power to give them double move, a relic or trait to not suffer overwatch and some point drops and boom ... meta breakers

 lonewolf81 wrote:
Wolves need a stratagem or psy power to give them double move, a relic or trait to not suffer overwatch and some point drops and boom ... meta breakers

I could see one of the "tempest" psyker powers being tailored that direction: cloud a friendly Space Wolves unit, preventing it from being the target of overwatch shots.

 Marmatag wrote:
Looking forward to seeing this list:

Supreme Command
Wolf Lord on Thunderwolf
Wolf Lord on Thunderwolf
Wolf Lord on Thunderwolf

Supreme Command
Custodes Bike Captain
Custodes Bike Captain
Custodes Bike Captain

Required Imperial Guard

I just threw up in my mouth

oh it is coming

I really do not understand all the hate for Santa's sleigh. It is actually sort of fitting if one considers that one of the inspirations for the Santa myth was Odin, and the Space Wolves are all about Norse themes.

I would say that yes we can. I have three single units with guns that i run along side my pack.

Ive run the following list about a dozen times against my friends the past year in our 150 PL games. Just last weekend i had a new player to the game run the list and win vs chaos.



The only guns i have are Bjorn's Helfrost cannon 24" range, and the pair of flyers with a 4+BS vs ground units. I tend to loose about half a squad of riders and all of the non-cyberwolf's. As we play for fun with the winner owing the looser a bowl, we ignore the optional limit of 3 of x unit. (outside of Tourneys its only valid if both sides against to the limit)

last weekend the packs went against hundreds of cultists and a renegade knight. its alot of fun.

With 8th edition working like it does now (shooting love)... Nope... But we will probably be the best attempt at an elite melee army


Chapter Approved should implement a 2D6 roll off against each other for leaving combat, that would balance combat out so immensely.

One thing I think we can be sure on is that Grey Hunters won't get free Chainswords anymore. They will pay points for them for sure.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Brutallica wrote:
Chapter Approved should implement a 2D6 roll off against each other for leaving combat, that would balance combat out so immensely.

So give a chance to keep squads locked in close combat?

phydaux wrote:
One thing I think we can be sure on is that Grey Hunters won't get free Chainswords anymore. They will pay points for them for sure.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Brutallica wrote:
Chapter Approved should implement a 2D6 roll off against each other for leaving combat, that would balance combat out so immensely.

So give a chance to keep squads locked in close combat?

Yeah, elite units just wither way too fast as it is right now.

phydaux wrote:
One thing I think we can be sure on is that Grey Hunters won't get free Chainswords anymore. They will pay points for them for sure.

that could be hard to do though given how they typically go "1 point cost for all" but they've had varient points costs in a few cases, so I could see "chain swords: grey hunters 1 point. chainswords: everyone else: 0 points" more likely we'll see Grey Hunters suffer a points cost adjust.

BrianDavion wrote:

phydaux wrote:
One thing I think we can be sure on is that Grey Hunters won't get free Chainswords anymore. They will pay points for them for sure.

that could be hard to do though given how they typically go "1 point cost for all" but they've had varient points costs in a few cases, so I could see "chain swords: grey hunters 1 point. chainswords: everyone else: 0 points" more likely we'll see Grey Hunters suffer a points cost adjust.

I mean, do they really have to though? Is extra chainswords on MEQ really breaking the game?

MalfunctBot wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:

phydaux wrote:
One thing I think we can be sure on is that Grey Hunters won't get free Chainswords anymore. They will pay points for them for sure.

that could be hard to do though given how they typically go "1 point cost for all" but they've had varient points costs in a few cases, so I could see "chain swords: grey hunters 1 point. chainswords: everyone else: 0 points" more likely we'll see Grey Hunters suffer a points cost adjust.

I mean, do they really have to though? Is extra chainswords on MEQ really breaking the game?

Giving GH chainswords is like giving a one legged man a running shoe. It helps, but he's still not going to win a footrace.

MalfunctBot wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:

phydaux wrote:
One thing I think we can be sure on is that Grey Hunters won't get free Chainswords anymore. They will pay points for them for sure.

that could be hard to do though given how they typically go "1 point cost for all" but they've had varient points costs in a few cases, so I could see "chain swords: grey hunters 1 point. chainswords: everyone else: 0 points" more likely we'll see Grey Hunters suffer a points cost adjust.

I mean, do they really have to though? Is extra chainswords on MEQ really breaking the game?

no but if GHs cost as much as a vanilla tac marine it's minorly unfair to the other SM players. course that also depends on how good the space wolf CT equivilant is if "has a chain sword" is effectively part of space wolf CTs...