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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.