Aaaah! Damn wolves

Yes Fenrisian Wolves are a separate army entry but can also be purchased to follow some individuals. 5-15 can form a unit of Fenrisian Wolves (in Epic an upgrade of 1-3 units fits). One can be a Cyberwolve (and all Wolves accompanying an Iron Priest) which is considerably tougher. And yes Fenrisian Wolves have the same survivability as generic Ork Boyz. Oh and they can't hold/contest Objectives.

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Right we are gents v0.3.1 is now in the first post.

I've made the changes suggested to Long Fangs, Battle Leaders, Swift Claws and Blood Claws.
The Space Wolf Formation is now 275 points, lost the 'free' Hero, but now gets a Battle Leader and the Hero as an upgrade.

The Wolf Guard also come with a battle leader and are bumped to 400 points (partly incorporating the cost of the leader, partly because the CML might be a bit good).
Sky Claws are now a flat 30 points for the full formation. I await to be asked to put this back to points / stand, but think it works well as, should you want to put one stand of Long Fangs in the formation with them (for whatever depraved reason) then you're paying a little bit more for them.

Cleaned up various points values and description issues that have been noted.


One change that I was thinking about that made it in:

I'm concerned about putting Rune Priests on Long Fang stands, a 2+ MW FF attack is more than a little cheeky. So I was thinking of introducing a note 'band of brothers' (i.e. they've fought together as a pack for so long that they don't want anyone else muscling in) or something to explicitly disallow it.


Also, applying my nerdy day job to my nerdy hobby , I've decided to produce a roadmap (but no timescales) for the list, let me know what you think.

My current plan is to keep knocking out v0.3.x updates based on feedback until such time as everyone is mostly happy with the stats and formations, the list will more-or-less remain in it's current format (read I'm lazy ).

Once 0.3.x has reached it's conculsion, I plan to re-type the list and produce v0.4.0, using
the templates that Steve54 has kindly provided me with.

my aim for v0.4.x is to add unit descriptions and general formatting to the list, together with continuing (and hopefully smaller) 'bug' fixes.

If we ever get that far v0.5.x will be where will have to start asking for artwork (can't draw for toffee) and pics, as well as further tweaks (if needed).

v0.5.x will continue until everyone is happy(-ish) at which point I'll release 1.0 (and probably nip off to draw my pension).

Excellent! We'll be downloading and should have a game to report in the next week or so.

Cheers,

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- 23rd Elysian Drop Regiment

Very good  

But what is a "Battle Wolf Priest" in the Space Wolves Hero stats? A typo i guess?  

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Someone on Epic-Battles.de noticed that the list doesn't state how many upgrades you can purchase and how often.

Also the Skyclaw upgrade suggests that the now Jumppack equipped Bloodclaws retain their 15cm speed.
So either state that the Skyclaw upgrade bestows Jumppack AND a 30cm move to all Bloodclaw units or put in a separate Skylclaw datashet and state in the upgrade that all Bloodclaws are replaced for the same amount of Skyclaws.

And the Hero upgrade still talks about a Great Wolf as Supreme Commander instead of a Wolf Lord.

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Blood Claws

I'm all for a seperate skyclaw formation. Seems easier and represents they are less common.

I think you shouldn't have CC4+ +1 EA blood claws, that puts them as 50% better than assault marines and I feel they are meant to be on par.

Instead I think having them cheaper then Grey Hunters and CC3+/FF6+ does them better stats wise.

I think having the Grey Hunters at 275 (with a free leader upgrade) and then the option to swap grey hunters for blood claws at -25 for 3 stands would be good (with the above stats). I would only allow one swap however so no 'pure' big bloodclaw formations, you have swiftclaws and skyclaws for that. If you were really keen on it make it a support formation?

With that I would then have skyclaws as a seperate 4 strong formation for 150 points. So you can still stuff a thunderhawk full of them but its harder due to the support set up and not as strong (half the FF).

The 'proper' characters of runepriest (with teleport I beg you) and wolf priest, would then also be 25 points each but lack leader.

With this set up I would introduce an Iron priest hero for vehicle squadrons, 25 points get leader, who would also give the option for a regular wolf pack to have 2 leaders at 300 points but no special abilities.

So not keen on a vehicle 'warband' approach?

Like the band of brothers idea. Top of my head Long Fangs and Wolf Scouts would get it.

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@BL duly noted on the errors, a note to state that each upgrade can only be taken once will also be added.

@TRC I'm not really liking the idea of a Tank-Based Warband formation, I don't see the Space Wolves as an Armoured list, and people should have to take some space wolf formations (I'm not at home to a list that is nominally 'Space Wolves' but only actually includes some warhound titans, tanks and 8 stands of Terminators in Thunderhawks). Besides it's already possible to do 7 tank formations (4 tanks, 2 vindis and a hunter).

On the Rune Priest, if and only if the list really needs some teleporters (the image of the space wolves refusing to have much truck with 'fangled technology, even if it would really be magic in this case), there's a placeholder in the Appdenix atm
I do like what you're saying about Blood Claws, how about putting the Sky claws in the same formation as the Swift claws?

On the Characters in General, I thought the consensus was to allow 2 leaders in the space wolf formations to help keep the Long Fangs firing. I quite like the idea of an Iron Priest character, but then the marines in general don't get tech marines so is it one step too far?

Predator annihilator was the Wolves idea I think they are actually quite keen on tanks!

I'm not suggesting making it a core formation, just turning all the armoured formations into one potentially mixed one.



You may discover non airassault/warhound marine armies are tricky to use well and there ground formations oft need beefing up. The idea here is to have the lead tank of a Predator formation a Land Raider and so on giving them a slight boost.



It wouldn't give the list any teleporters It would be an entirely scenario specific ability unless you wished to upgrade a formation with him, in which case only that one stand could teleport, which competitively I can't see much reason for



You really don't need two leaders That means you shift up to 9 blastmarkers a turn from a formation. Remember marine leaders remove 2 blast markers each. A further effect is to 'boost' the core formation further as support formation would have to choose between a wolf priest with inspiring or a battle leader with leader, whereas the grey hunters could have both.



Would depend on your overall approach to characters. if you took leader away from the normal ones, had a battle leader in the grey hunter packs but not as an upgrade you would have a gap for something with leader in the upgrade set and why not call it a iron priest? Certainly tanks could do with leader more than inspiring etc.

So you would have the following line up.
75 points - Wolf Lord - Supreme commander, Invulnerable Save, +1 MWCC
25 Points - Wolf Priest - Inspiring, Invulnerable Save, +1 MWCC
25 Points - RunePriest - Invulnerable Save, +1 MWCC, +1MWFF (teleport, pointless but good for scenarios!)
25 Points - Iron Priest - Invulnerable Save, Leader (fancy name for a bough leader upgrade)
Free - Battle Leader - Leader

So to contradict what I said above you could have to instances of leader but you wouldn't have inspiring or anything and it would be overkill!

The Iron Priest isn't necessarily an Iron priest here, its just the characters not used yet



I don't think its hurts to have one formation other than terminators optimised for air transport in a thunderhawk in the list



Oh yes I've just noticed the wolf guard are 4 strong. Coming from a competitive angle such a formation would only ever be used when air transported, which is of course not necessarily a bad thing.

Also shouldn't the terminators have a battle leader as well if the main characters don't have leader (see above).

I don't think the missile launchers are that good - normally I need to shoot skimmers with them (as can't charge them) and AT is the key here. It might be a factor if the formation was a non standard size.

On a fluf note since this is a Great Company should the wolf guard be limited to 0-1 to represent they are the wolf lords entourage?

Wolf Scouts - on reflection setting them up before any other garrisons off any any objective would be very entertainingly disruptive! Stats wise you could up the save to 4+ as they have higher toughness than scouts and stormtroopers. Another change could be to make them CC5+ with +1EA MW from melta bombs.

Fenris Wolves - they do indeed seem to be at Ork boy level, though I don't have a copy of their stats to hand right now I just rely on what BL says

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Swiftclaw bikers.

A problem with this unit is if you don't want terminators in thunderhawks these chaps are the next best choice (especially with current stats and points - they are way better than grey hunters for example having a better cc and 35cm move but all other stats the same). O course in regular marine list they are normally a better choice than tactical marines as well!

With a drop to FF5+ to match their stats you could have the following formation
5 Bikes, 1 Attack bike - 225 + Hero - 25 = 250
That looks on par to a regular marine bike formation
5 bikes - 200 + Character - 50 = 250
So the extra bike stand is an attack bike (remove the attack bike upgrade so no taking advantage of all Abike formations higher FF) so of questionable benifit and the hero/character upgrade means things aren't that easy for the blood claws.
And you can then wonder about internal balance

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General Plumer, 191x

Actually there is a Great Company which specialises in tank operations. Egil Ironwolf's Great Company.

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Why couldn't it be Mick the Plumbers great company? Why always the name and the inclination so similar heh?

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"Gentlemen, we may not make history tomorrow, but we shall certainly change the geography."
General Plumer, 191x

Because Ironwolf is a honour name. Same as Blackmane for Ragnar. It isn't their family name.

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After another read through of the list I have a few more points

Core Formation
Do you like the idea of 3 grey hunters/3 blood claws + Leader, 250 points?
With an option of replacing the 3 blood claws with 3 grey hunters for 25 points.
(This goes with the CC3+/FF6+ blood claw stat line.)
I have to say I do but it then leads to a few other choices.
I think then there should be a six strong blood claw formation in the support section as there would no longer be an option for a 'blood claw' army. Such a formation I'd guess would be 200? points strong (more if they to get to have the battle leader). I wouldn't rate it as good as the swiftclaw formation (CC3+/FF5+/Attack bike CC5+/FF5+) proposed above (5 bikes, 1 attack bike, hero upgrade).
A separate point is if there can be a Grey Hunter upgrade of 3 grey hunters? I do like despite what everyone says the option of large formations and having that available for say 125 points would be great.

Fenris Wolves
Simply a cheap way to get more attacks for air assaults? Also they seem to be stated quite high and look more like wolf versions of orks (6+ save, higher move etc). Plus for 80 points I get to have 4 more units that help protect my break point?
I think a better way of representing this is to have them as a character upgrade granting infiltrate and +1EACC to the unit they are added to. Plus would look cool modelled into a 7 strong infantry base! Also means no re-writing of transport requirements to fit them in or not.
A further 'fluff' restriction to consider is only being able to add them to units with Heros added, so a practical limit of 2 for Grey Hunter warbands (the battle leader and the upgrade) and 1 for everyone else (if they can take a hero), which stops 4 strong terminator units that can all infiltrate!

Wolf Scouts
I would suggest 1) getting a 4+ armour save to account for higher toughness than marine scouts and better ability to use cover 2) getting a different weapon
The stats source on Dhaka Dhaka says

No idea if this is still current.
Still giving them a missile launcher would help all round while sniper rifle would be excellent in terms of being arsy little sods
I would also think CC5+ and Melta bombs +1EACC would be good. Really these chaps should be a hell of a lot better than stormtroopers or even grey hunters as they are veterans and survivors. (And yes I do think the wolf scouts are by far the 'coolest' space wolf unit )

Band Of Brothers
I like the idea, though to be honest would it only apply to Long Fangs? Is there any call to expand it? Isn't the case that a wolf priest will always go on a blood claw in a mixed blood claw/grey hunter pack? Maybe as all the upgrades seem to revolve around the core grey hunter pack say all character upgrades must go on grey hunters if there are any available in the formation?

Alternate character ideas
I do like the idea of dropping the invulnerable save from the heros and replace them with a 'saga' +1EA (not MW). Would be CC for Wolf Lord and Wolf Priest, FF for the Rune Priest (Iron priests I think as a base should be in the current regime Leader, Inv Save, +1EA FF, under this alternative idea they would get +1EACCMW as a servo arm attack).
Further differentiate them from the more dull regular marine commanders

More radical is having them as hero plus bodyguard as a full unit, but somehow I doubt you will go for this!

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Yes the Dakka Dakka stats are spot on.

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@TRC Good suggestions on the 'core' formation, I think logistically it'd be easier to have all Grey Hunters, then 'Swap Some for Blood Claws' and 'More Grey Hunters' (I like the idea of taking them to 9 pushing them over the Thunderhawk limit).

Maybe the 'Some Blood Claws' update could come with an upgrade of the Battle Leader to a Wolf Priest?



No the Wolves can't go in a Thunderhawk, in a Landing Craft or in Drop Pods (this is one of my intentional omissions). They're also currently part of the Thunderwolves formation, largely because they're all equally ridiculous, but the list has to cater for all tastes to some degree.

I'm not too familiar with 40k stats for comparison but the general consensus seems to be around the same as Orks as far as I can tell.

On the Iron Priest, that's basically a Techmarine you want to add isn't it? I think the Iron Hands (and maybe the Salamanders) might suit it better.
On the Characters in general though, I think it's be fiddly having body guard units (i.e. what happens when I put one in Wolf Guard, or on Bikes and so forth).
What would people say to a the idea of a 'preferred' unit that each Character type has to join if they are available (say Wolf Guard for Battle Leaders and Wolf Lords, Blood Claws for Wolf Priests and Grey Hunters for Rune Priests). That nicely puts a stop to FF2+ Rune Priests, and enforces it throughout the list.

Wolf Scouts - Maybe, but let's have a few playtests first



The Bike formation idea is also good and intelligently uses the pack that is available, this then naturally leads to the Skyclaws as a separate formation.