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Let me start off with I am probably not the target audience for this book. I hate Space Marines. No I really do. They were the last army I ever considered collecting. However, having said that, I love Space Wolves. No seriously. Loved them ever since 2nd edition. They were Space Marines, but not. They had their own units, their own style, their own rules, their own look (Da Beards!!). That Norse Viking feel really came though in 5th edition, since then they have been getting a few new units, but other units seem to have fallen aside, and I realize that I've been out of the game since 6th edition but this new codex will probably keep my wolves on the shelf until the next redo, or I play older editions.

I am greatly disappointed in this codex. It seems like its little more than a supplement to the big marine dex and if that is what GW wanted to do, then it spits in the face of SW players and their collections for the last 30 years. Do you know there isn't a single plasma gun or melta gun in any of the presented units? Do you know there is only one place that you could get a Thunder Hammer if you wanted one? There isn't a high strength long range weapon of any kind, that isn't located on a Dreadnaught. Every single SW infantry unit listed is HTH focused with next to no harder hitting ranged weaponry, and even the HTH weapons aren't overly impressive. There is no sticky objective units, the detachments (while fluffy) probably wont win out over the basic Astartes if your looking for something competitive. It insults my SW brain to no end that I cannot field a fully competitive army without having to take generic SM units/characters (I give non-specialized vehicles a pass because all SM armies pull from the same motor pool and have for years). We used to field full armies of SWs, that were competitive, fluffy, and above all were not just light blue colored Ultramarines.

Now, having said all that, the new models look fire. I love them all, and some units are genuinely probably too good for their points. But its not enough to make a full army out of them. I'm looking at trying a full Dread Mob style list with Iron Priests as backup, and I really want to field those new terminators but I just can't figure out how to make them work. If you have any real ideas, please tell.

So what was GW thinking? Or am I just getting addled in my old age and I just can't look past the last 30 years of Bearded goodness.

It's a Codex Supplement. It's not its own Codex.

 Jayden63 wrote:

So what was GW thinking? Or am I just getting addled in my old age and I just can't look past the last 30 years of Bearded goodness.

GW was thinking $$

See, while you were away....
GW came up with a scheme to get more $ out of SM players interested in playing DA/BA/SW.
Now, instead of buying 1 book to make SW work? You need to buy 2 books! Effectively about a 50% tax ($60 Codex + $35 SW Supplement.)

ccs wrote:

 Jayden63 wrote:

So what was GW thinking? Or am I just getting addled in my old age and I just can't look past the last 30 years of Bearded goodness.

GW was thinking $$

See, while you were away....
GW came up with a scheme to get more $ out of SM players interested in playing DA/BA/SW.
Now, instead of buying 1 book to make SW work? You need to buy 2 books! Effectively about a 50% tax ($60 Codex + $35 SW Supplement.)

Yeah, they've been doing that for what... 15 years... at least?

Codex supplements are nothing new.

First of not everyone is in the game for 15 years. I took me I think 4, maybe 5 years to realise that GW is not only not going to "fix" my army, but also that the way that I want to play it is not going to be supported by the company anytime soon. So it does take some time. And there is also investment in to things thing. Even if it is just emotional, it is still big. My grand father and father were fans of Jagiellonia Białystok, a pre WWII(for Poland pre end of WWI actualy as that ended for us in 1921) football club. They were super fans of the club, were never fans of any other club, and that club had a 40 years gap in officialy existing, because of communist rule. My grandfather never saw them win the Polish Cup and later Super Cup. Bottom tier club, yet my grandfather was its fan for 87 years. We had to put Jagiellonia scarf in to his coffin, because he asked for it. what that was over 70 years old. 15 years not accepting reality is nothing comparing to that.

It literally says on the book "Codex Supplement". On the website, it also says "you'll need a copy of Codex: Space Marines, available separately, to make full use of this supplement."

It might be unfortunate that it's not standalone like it was several editions ago, but it's hardly some hidden piece of knowledge about what it is.

 Jayden63 wrote:
It seems like its little more than a supplement to the big marine dex

Yes, that's exactly what it is. It says that on the front cover.

and if that is what GW wanted to do, then it spits in the face of SW players and their collections for the last 30 years.

25 years, actually. Space Wolves have been a supplement for the last two editions.

It insults my SW brain to no end that I cannot field a fully competitive army without having to take generic SM units/characters (I give non-specialized vehicles a pass because all SM armies pull from the same motor pool and have for years). We used to field full armies of SWs, that were competitive, fluffy, and above all were not just light blue colored Ultramarines.

You still can. You just need the core Space Marine book to use all those "non-specialised vehicles" and other units you give a pass to. What exactly are these models which weren't "light blue coloured Ultramarines" which you could take before, but can't now?

 Lathe Biosas wrote:

ccs wrote:

 Jayden63 wrote:

So what was GW thinking? Or am I just getting addled in my old age and I just can't look past the last 30 years of Bearded goodness.

GW was thinking $$

See, while you were away....
GW came up with a scheme to get more $ out of SM players interested in playing DA/BA/SW.
Now, instead of buying 1 book to make SW work? You need to buy 2 books! Effectively about a 50% tax ($60 Codex + $35 SW Supplement.)

Yeah, they've been doing that for what... 15 years... at least?

Codex supplements are nothing new.

27 years, since Codex Supplement Blood Angels was released for 3rd Ed in 1998.

Space Wolves themselves were first a Codex Supplement 25 years ago in 2000.

Though tbf the supplements were £4 back then (though barely a pamphlet).

I think they may have been a supplement at least as often, if not more, than a Codex at this point?

Speaking as someone who likes Space Wolves but doesn't play them, their "unique" units have never seemed all that unique to me. I'll grant you T-Cav and fenrisian wolves as those don't have clear counterparts among other chapters. Wulfen are probably pretty unique too even if I happen to think they should be generic "gene mutants" or whatever instead. But outside of those, most of the "unique" space wolf units are basically just off-brand versions of generic units.

Blood claws are basically just assault marines/assault intercessors.
Grey hunters are just tactical marines.
Wolf Guard are just termies/vets/lieutenants.
Most of the characters are just generic marine characters with different names. Wolf priests are sort of an exception by virtue of being both a chaplain and an apothecary at the same time.
Any of the weapons with a word like "frost" or "wolf" in its name is just a generic marine weapon that someone decided wasn't special enough and thus got an arbitrary buff because the designer liked them.

All of which is to say that space wolves aren't as far from generic marines as people like to pretend. So it seems odd to me that the OP is upset about using generic marine models alongside totally-not-generic-you-guys space wolves units.

Losing out on some of the option like thunderhammers is rough though; I'll give you that. And SW probably suffer more than some marines in terms of the lack of customization available in 10th. They used to be the hero hammer marines, after all.

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:


You still can. You just need the core Space Marine book to use all those "non-specialised vehicles" and other units you give a pass to. What exactly are these models which weren't "light blue coloured Ultramarines" which you could take before, but can't now?

The biggest standouts would be the Wolf Lords (of various flavors), Rune Priest, Long Fangs, and Scouts to name a few.

Wolf Lords were our customizable highly thematic beat sticks in PA or Termi armor or Wolve riders, but now we need SM captains to lead our force if you don't want to run named characters.
Rune Priests might seem like librarians, but they always had unique and "themed" spells, also their anti-psycher abilities worked differently. Once again, they are now just the same as all other librarians and lost all the flavor they brought to the table.
Long Fangs while not much more than devastators, they were the way of getting long range firepower into SW lists as our bloodclaws/grey hunters dont take heavy weapons. And even now, all our infantry can't take heavy weapons so if we want to go shooty we are tied to SM equivalents.
Scouts are huge, SM scouts traditionally meant snipers, but SW scouts didn't and were used for back end force multiplier.

This might seem like something inconsequence to some, but it just rubs me the wrong way and I feel that way for other variant chapter players who are going to be forced to loose their unique identities because they have to fill so many voids that get cut out.

Respectfully, these are all great examples of space wolf units that were never all that special to begin with and whose "uniqueness" was really artificial and seemed to mostly exist to try and justify selling an extra book.

 Jayden63 wrote:


The biggest standouts would be the Wolf Lords (of various flavors), Rune Priest, Long Fangs, and Scouts to name a few.

Wolf Lords were our customizable highly thematic beat sticks in PA or Termi armor or Wolve riders, but now we need SM captains to lead our force if you don't want to run named characters.

So they're captains. They're just captains who had a t-wolf option instead of a bike option. It stinks that characters in general are less customizable now. My dark eldar are certainly feeling it. But that's not a Space Wolf issue; it's a 10th edition issue.

Rune Priests might seem like librarians, but they always had unique and "themed" spells, also their anti-psycher abilities worked differently. Once again, they are now just the same as all other librarians and lost all the flavor they brought to the table.

So they're librarians who miss being able to customize their spells election just like most psykers in 10th edition. Again, doing psychic-hoods-but-different is a great example of something that was slightly different for the sake of being slightly different. I certainly don't want to have to buy an extra codex so that my Iybraesil farseer can have slightly different psychic powers and a sidegraded wychblade or whatever. You've fallen for the marketing trap, my friend!

Long Fangs while not much more than devastators, they were the way of getting long range firepower into SW lists as our bloodclaws/grey hunters dont take heavy weapons. And even now, all our infantry can't take heavy weapons so if we want to go shooty we are tied to SM equivalents.

.
Right. But as you just said, long fangs are and always have been basically just devastators. So use your long fang models with devastator rules, and you're good to go. Not sure what you mean by the "now, all our infantry can't take heavy weapons," part. You can fit heavy weapons into literally the same places vanilla marines can, right?

Scouts are huge, SM scouts traditionally meant snipers, but SW scouts didn't and were used for back end force multiplier.

Been a while since I looked at oldschool SW scout rules, but weren't they essentially just sneaky marines? Surely between the various phobos armor and scout units in the game today you can find a datasheet that represents the style of sneaky marine you want wolf scouts to represent?

This might seem like something inconsequence to some, but it just rubs me the wrong way and I feel that way for other variant chapter players who are going to be forced to loose their unique identities because they have to fill so many voids that get cut out.

As someone with multiple marine armies, I have the opposite take. Wolves and Angels just aren't actually all that special. Most of the "unique" units are artificially unique, and these splats could probably be rolled back into the main marine codex. It feels like you've just really fallen into the trap of wanting super special variant rules for your one specific subfaction of choice. And I get the appeal. I really do. But also my main armies are xenos who manage to fit all their options into a single book each rather than needing to spend an extra $50 to have slightly tweaked versions of our units.

A lot of your complaints seem to center around the loss of customization options, and I definitely sympathize there. But as I said above, that really is an issue with 10th as a whole and not a uniquely Space Wolf problem. It stinks that you lost your t-cav options. But to put that in perspective, my only customization options for my drukhari characters is to choose whether I want the good pistol or the bad pistol.

I've played space wolves since 1993, they were my first army and have always been my favourite marines, although in 2000 when codex Armageddon came out I was enamoured by the salamanders and their I3 stats.

They have gone through waves of uniqueness and genericness.

In 2nd ed their characters were identical to normal marines, but their troops had WS5.

They made them more unique in 3rd ed and added wolf tooth necklaces and frost weapons as a way to distinguish their combat abilities without changing statlines. But otherwise they were pretty much just normal characters.

Then in 5th they got a full codex, when they decided to stop doing supplements and make marine chapters full books. Then they added helfrost cannons and wolf claws thunderwolf cavalry and more of the flanderising aspects of the army.

At the scope of 40k, the differences between chapters shouldn't be big enough to warrant entirely different statlines and special rules that much. A wolf lord and a grand master are on the balance of things going to be basically the same.

This is a balance between them basically just being marines and GW's need to justify making them separate and sell new kits.

The current version of the army I think just highlights the simplification of units and armies in the game in general. They're using simplified marine units and applying simplified wolf units. So it's a double whammy of the current design paradigm.

Wyldhunt wrote:Speaking as someone who likes Space Wolves but doesn't play them, their "unique" units have never seemed all that unique to me. I'll grant you T-Cav and fenrisian wolves as those don't have clear counterparts among other chapters. Wulfen are probably pretty unique too even if I happen to think they should be generic "gene mutants" or whatever instead. But outside of those, most of the "unique" space wolf units are basically just off-brand versions of generic units.

Without quoting the entire post, strongly agreed.

That's not to say that Space Wolves *aren't* a unique Chapter who don't have their own rich customs and culture! However, they're far from the only Chapter to do so - *every* Chapter has their own unique customs and culture, and when, for the Space Wolves, much of that relates to simply renaming their leaders and squads to have a "wolf" themed name, that's not really that mechanically imperative.

Thunderwolf Cavalry, Fenrisian Wolves, and Wulfen are all stuff you wouldn't expect to see in an Ultramarines army, but analogues of those units *could* be found in other ones (Wulfen and Death Company could be considered comparable, and I'd hardly be surprised if other Chapters didn't have their own war beasts they could use). Even things like Wolf Priests being a combo Chaplain-Apothecary isn't that unusual for Space Marine Chapters (the Emperor's Spears have their Druids, which are a combination of Techmarine/Librarian/Chaplain-Apothecaries, and the Iron Hands have their Iron-Fathers, which are Chaplain-Techmarines).

Again, this isn't to say that Space Wolves are just "light blue Ultramarines", far from it - but that they don't need a whole Codex to show that they're not, in the same way White Scars don't need a whole Codex to show that they're not just white armoured Ultramarines either.

Jayden63 wrote:

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:


You still can. You just need the core Space Marine book to use all those "non-specialised vehicles" and other units you give a pass to. What exactly are these models which weren't "light blue coloured Ultramarines" which you could take before, but can't now?

The biggest standouts would be the Wolf Lords (of various flavors), Rune Priest, Long Fangs, and Scouts to name a few.

Wolf Lords were our customizable highly thematic beat sticks in PA or Termi armor or Wolve riders, but now we need SM captains to lead our force if you don't want to run named characters.

Wolf Lords are, and have largely always been, Captains with a different name. Nothing stops you calling your Captains "Wolf Lords" in the same way nothing stops an Iron Hands player calling their Captains "Iron-Captains".
The loss of options is shared by all Space Marines (and even non-Space Marines) - that's a consequence of GW's overarching design philosophy with 10th, and has nothing to do with SW not having a Codex. The big thing being lost from SW in particular, not having a thunderwolf mount, is the only real thing I can point out as a unique loss, but also, let's consider that currently *no* Chapters have a Captain who can ride a bike, let alone a wolf.

Rune Priests might seem like librarians, but they always had unique and "themed" spells, also their anti-psycher abilities worked differently. Once again, they are now just the same as all other librarians and lost all the flavor they brought to the table.

All Librarians now act like other Librarians, including when the first founding chapters all had their own unique doctrines and things. Again - they were Librarians with a different name, with slightly different powers. Now all Librarians, from Blood Angels to Blood Ravens, all have the same powers. Anti-psychic measures have also been reduced across the board from most armies.

Long Fangs while not much more than devastators

So take Devastators, and call them Long Fangs. Like you say, they're not much more.

And even now, all our infantry can't take heavy weapons so if we want to go shooty we are tied to SM equivalents.

Yes, the same can be said of regular Space Marines too - Intercessors don't have heavy weapons embedded.

Scouts are huge, SM scouts traditionally meant snipers, but SW scouts didn't and were used for back end force multiplier.

Scouts still exist. And now, they aren't a sniper unit, even for other Chapters! If anything, Scouts have become more like the traditional Wolf Scouts - so just take Scouts, and put Wolf in front of the name.

This might seem like something inconsequence to some, but it just rubs me the wrong way and I feel that way for other variant chapter players who are going to be forced to loose their unique identities because they have to fill so many voids that get cut out.

Again, pardon for my bluntness, but what have you meaningfully lost for Space Wolves specifically?

You still have Wolf Lords, they're just called Captains.
You still have Rune Priests, they just only get one psychic power - like every other psyker in the game.
You still have Wolf Scouts, you just need to put Wolf in front of the name.
You still have Long Fangs, under a different name (and they still have their ability to split fire!)

Yes, you've lost customisation options on some of your leaders - but *everyone* has. To say that "Space Wolves have lost all their flavour" would imply that practically every faction has lost their flavour - and at that point, it's not just a Space Wolves issue.

If you are mainly playing with people you know, you could consider asking them to play a different edition where you liked the tabletop fantasy of your army more.

 Wyldhunt wrote:

I certainly don't want to have to buy an extra codex so that my Iybraesil farseer can have slightly different psychic powers and a sidegraded wychblade or whatever. You've fallen for the marketing trap, my friend!

OMG! I would totally shell out for an Iybraesil supplement! It wouldn't even need special Farseers, who used to be Banshees, leaping and screaming around the table.