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So, Wulfen have three melee upgrades and an optional ranged upgrade. The Stormfrag AutoLauncher is an upgrade through and through, and 10th doesn't handle them well.

But the melee weapons... Historically, there were three main choices, listed from cheapest to most expensive.
Claws-most attacks, reroll wounds, but worst Strength
Axe-stronger per attack than claw, but less attacks, and at least in 7th edition, worked best on the charge
Hammer-strongest option, but with a penalty (Unwieldy in 7th, -1 to-hit in 8th and 9th). Also comes with a shield.

Now, you have two options.
Claws and melee weapons: A6 WS3+ S5 AP-1 D1
Hammer: A4 WS3+ S5 AP-1 D1, comes with a Shield

...

WHAT?
Seriously, you could EASILY have at least TRIED to make three legitimate options!

Claws-A6 WS3+ S5 AP-2 D1 [Twin-Linked, Sustained Hits 1]-your chaff clearer.
Axe-A5 WS3+ S10 AP-3 D2-your heavy hitter, made stronger than the historically stronger Hammer because Hammer comes with Shield
Hammer-A4 WS3+ S8 AP-2 D2-worst option for offense, generally speaking, but best defense because Shield.

I will not say these are perfectly balanced-I didn't crunch the numbers thoroughly or anything like that. But good god, I spent two minutes on this! GW's designers couldn't've even tried to keep three melee options?

Thematically I can't fathome giving Wulfens anything but claws, so that works out for me

But looking at the free index PDF, it seems to me the idea is that the hammer is a defensive option versus the claws' offensive one. The hammer, in this case, is basically a power sword used with a shield.

Don't understand why they removed the two-handed axe, it's even shown in the miniature image in the pdf.

Wolfen with weapons?

Guns even?

But they're a WHOLE ARMY OF WEREWOLF WOLVERINES IN SPACE!

It's just wrongly wrong.

I think that's the question most people ask when they look at those miniatures.

They want to keep the weapon options on older models to a minimum. Chaos terminators tested it out in 9th edition. It worked great there.

Allmost old space marines with fancy weapon options has gotten this limited. Everything is OK there.

The problem is that wulfen used to be the melee powerhouse. And now they are just very bad at their job. I also wish they had gone the rout of prising them hier and give them some bite.

Honestly thought this thread was just asking why wulfen exist at all, and there is no reason at all, worst unit idea in 40K! Horrible models too.

I agree on the current models, those back from the Eye of Terror campaign were cool.

 Niiai wrote:
It worked great there.

I think that's up for some heavy debate...

Oh how the mighty have fallen. I remember how these damn Wulfen were tearing everything apart in 7th edition, you basically had one round of shooting against a not that squishy unit before it took everything apart It was a joke to compare the fluffwize very similar Possessed to them.

The upside of that profile is that it allows for fast rolling, unlike other profiles. The downside... well, you named it. Gets even more stupid in a codex where there are other hammers with a totally different profile.

Wulfen are one of the very few units where 10th's "Power level" is actually well implemented. Both options are a clear tradeoff, very similar in style to what AoS units offer.

The problem comes with wulfen being an established unit with a known function, so these wargear options are simply not suited for the unit sadly.

Wulfen's current state is a product of anti-tank melee being taken around back and shot.

Andykp wrote:
Honestly thought this thread was just asking why wulfen exist at all, and there is no reason at all, worst unit idea in 40K! Horrible models too.

Likewise.

1 guy running around suffering from the cirse of the wulfen there in 3e (4e?) cool enough.
But once they introduced squads of them.... :(
And I'm not a fan of their current models either.

They had squads of Wulfen in 3rd edition...

What they didn't have back in the 13th Company list though, were absurd stahlrim weapons.

The ice weapons are cool to me, but I do think to other people, they might be too 'mythic'. My take on the Wulfen can be seen in the second thread in my signature - more Deathsworn-y.

 Lord Damocles wrote:
They had squads of Wulfen in 3rd edition...

What they didn't have back in the 13th Company list though, were absurd stahlrim weapons.

It was before the 13th Co list.
Maybe 2e?

If they were in the base 3e codex unit wise? Then time has just deleted them from my memory....
(No loss as 1 useless bit of rules I didn't use just got overwritten with God knows how much other GW junk. Which in turn....)
I do remember that at some point I could take 1 guy solo. I still have the mini I converted for it.

The solo guys were Lone Wolves in 5th ed.
One Grey Hunter per unit could also have the Mark of the Wulfen in 5th ed.

 Niiai wrote:
They want to keep the weapon options on older models to a minimum. Chaos terminators tested it out in 9th edition. It worked great there.

Allmost old space marines with fancy weapon options has gotten this limited. Everything is OK there.

The problem is that wulfen used to be the melee powerhouse. And now they are just very bad at their job. I also wish they had gone the rout of prising them hier and give them some bite.

They want to keep weapon options to a minimum period. Primaris demonstrated that. Everyone gets the same gun. 1 per 3/5 upgrades are uncommon. The push for "streamlining the bloat" gave them all the cover they needed to continue their trend/plan of dumbing down the game. We used to have a datasheet for a Captain, and you did the math yourself if you put him on a bike or in Terminator Armor. Now we have separate datasheets for that, and adding 1 to Wounds or changing movement rate is a rare thing for storm shields etc.

Lord Damocles wrote:They had squads of Wulfen in 3rd edition...

What they didn't have back in the 13th Company list though, were absurd stahlrim weapons.

ccs wrote:

 Lord Damocles wrote:
They had squads of Wulfen in 3rd edition...

What they didn't have back in the 13th Company list though, were absurd stahlrim weapons.

It was before the 13th Co list.
Maybe 2e?

If they were in the base 3e codex unit wise? Then time has just deleted them from my memory....
(No loss as 1 useless bit of rules I didn't use just got overwritten with God knows how much other GW junk. Which in turn....)

I do remember that at some point I could take 1 guy solo. I still have the mini I converted for it.

Lord Damocles wrote:The solo guys were Lone Wolves in 5th ed.
One Grey Hunter per unit could also have the Mark of the Wulfen in 5th ed.

If you were playing second ed you could take the wulfen stone on a dude and anyone he charged had to take a break test on 3D6, except daemons.

The first time they introduced the concept of the wulfen was back then. There was also the pelt of the wulfen which made you hard to shoot.



I really loved the 13th company list when it came out, making a HH style force for modern 40k was cool. The wulfen were my preferred design then as well, mostly human shaped, but with bestial faces and claws.

The plastic wulfen are gross and I've never wanted to own any. The 5th ed wolf codex was where the flanderisation and literal ICE weapons started to become a thing and it's where my interest disappeared.

The fact that they went from the name frostfang in 2nd, as simply a cool name for a sword, to 'frost weapons' in 3rd to reflect the same kind of design as frostfang (although the original wargear card specified it was a unique alloy that died with the iron priest), to literally ICICLE blades is one of the worst cases of ridiculous flanderisation I've ever seen.

Oh are Frost weapons really ice of some kind?

Yes. Magical ice.

Just when you thought the Flanderisation of the Woofs couldn't get any worse...

Current Wulfen come from the Flanderization of Space Wolves. With wolf this and that everywhere. Utterly stupid, so no loss really.

The real question is why did some units get this treatment: Wulfen, Vanguard Vets, Wolf Guard, TWC (yes I know they are still decent on the charge). Yet other similar units kept a pile of choices: Death Company (with or without JP), Deathwatch Veterans.

I'm sure there are other examples of both. Like many other choices in the data-cards it seems there were multiple teams that didn't really talk to each other, or maybe they just played favorites.

Justyn wrote:
Yet other similar units kept a pile of choices: Deathwatch Veterans.

Lol wut

Melee units in your army are allowed to have different types of weapons, with different stats. Must be nice. For my dudes two swords, one big swords, a hammer a sword all have the same stats.
If you don't like their stats, why not run them as "counts as" blade guard or something similar.

Also worth remembering that it's just the index cards, the weapons could possibly be different in the Codex.

Justyn wrote:
Current Wulfen come from the Flanderization of Space Wolves. With wolf this and that everywhere. Utterly stupid, so no loss really.

The real question is why did some units get this treatment: Wulfen, Vanguard Vets, Wolf Guard, TWC (yes I know they are still decent on the charge). Yet other similar units kept a pile of choices: Death Company (with or without JP), Deathwatch Veterans.

I'm sure there are other examples of both. Like many other choices in the data-cards it seems there were multiple teams that didn't really talk to each other, or maybe they just played favorites.

I don't know about that, I think wulfen was always part of the Space Wolves schtick - Blood Angels are Space Vampires, Space Wolves are Space Werewolves the increased canine tooth thing has been part of their fluff for a long time now.

Breton wrote:

Justyn wrote:
Current Wulfen come from the Flanderization of Space Wolves. With wolf this and that everywhere. Utterly stupid, so no loss really.

The real question is why did some units get this treatment: Wulfen, Vanguard Vets, Wolf Guard, TWC (yes I know they are still decent on the charge). Yet other similar units kept a pile of choices: Death Company (with or without JP), Deathwatch Veterans.

I'm sure there are other examples of both. Like many other choices in the data-cards it seems there were multiple teams that didn't really talk to each other, or maybe they just played favorites.

I don't know about that, I think wulfen was always part of the Space Wolves schtick - Blood Angels are Space Vampires, Space Wolves are Space Werewolves the increased canine tooth thing has been part of their fluff for a long time now.

Yeah they had fangs and wolf symbols but they weren't werewolves in space. They were VIKINGS in space. In 3rd you could have a single model with the mark of the wolfen (usually represented by red face paint). It was hinted that on incredibly rare occasions that the geneseed might cause a mutation that would result in a space wolf getting extra hairy and maybe some longer sharper fingernails.
Ward came along and suddenly every single space wolf is actually a werewolf. The Horus Heresy completely ruined the legion/chapter by making all the wolves former space marines that mutated.
I now hate space wolves and consider them the army for the edgy 12 year old.
Same thing for Blood Angels. Originally they just had an issue with one of their implants and would drink more blood than the other chapters. Some would go crazy after a while because of Sanguinis death memory shenanigans. Then Ward made them into literal vampires.

Did Ward even write anything for Space Wolves? Wasn't that Kelly...?

 Rihgu wrote:
Did Ward even write anything for Space Wolves? Wasn't that Kelly...?

Pretty sure Ward was the department head. So 5th edition is entirely his fault. At least because of him they took the writes names off the books.

Can't we just all unite behind blaming Tom Kirby?

Ai, I'll drink to that.