Take another look at Long Fangs

[Grey Mage]

I think BS 5 would be more appropriate, and make them 20pts, 35 for the leader, with Devastator costs for their weapons and the stealth special rule.

[Max_Dammit]

I think making them relentless, would make them good and fit the army in tactic and fluff, The move up with the rest of the army and are using the heavy weapons for long enough and are strong enough to move and shoot.

[Megalodon]

Those are good suggestions for the update guys. I'm kinda partial to giving them runic armor for more survivability.

[Ryzouken]

Except Runic Armor is supposed to be a rare bit of gear, so slinging it on an entire unit of guys gets a little wierd, particularly when taking more than one unit of them. I mean, if Long Fangs, IC's, and Wolf Guard are able to wear Runic, we'd have upwards of 40 suits of runic armour on the field. Hell, we'd have more runic than powered!

 

upping BS doesn't improve survivability, the main complaint we who are critical of Fangs have.

 

I'd want either a Toughness bump or an extra wound on them. Or decrease their price.

[Megalodon]

Who cares if it's rare we are wishlisting? ;) Besides LF's are the grizzled old veterans of the chapter. They could call it something other than Runic armor.

 

I really like to see them cheaper and a little more survivable.

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

I always ran Long Fangs with heavy weapons in my 13th Company but there is no place for them now for my style of play. I would go with cheap predators over Long Fangs. Front armor 13 is a lot more resilient in fifth edition. I run two Baals in my mech BA list and they always seem to work some magic for me.

 

If I was going to run them I would take 3x HB and an ML.

 

0b ;)

[Ryzouken]

there is a single way I'd field Fangs nowadays, but it's inordinately expensive and only buys them a little time.

5 Fangs with: 2x Heavy Bolter, 2x Lascannon, Rhino.

about 258 points, 15 less if you accept the alternate Rhino costs. Can sit in their transport (till it explodes) and fire either 2x Heavy Bolters or 2x Lascannons, and can split fire if needed. Has an Av 11 ablative "wound." Still would rather have a Land Raider.

[Karl The Jarl]

I run mine in a unit of 3.

 

2 Missile Launchers and I give the leader a bolter since I rarely split fire.

 

It runs for about 113 pts and the only time I can recall losing the squad was when I played an Ork Nob Biker list.

[Grimtooth]

I run Long Fangs in my 2250 13th Co list; 2 heavy bolters, 2 missile launchers, and the pack leader. I then attach my wolf priest w/healing potions & balms along with 4 fenrisian wolves.

 

This setup allows me to have ablative wounds, assault defense, and reroll saves for the Long Fangs. If need be, I can always have the wolf priest detach and head off to support something else.

[Demogerg]

As much as I like the fluff for long fangs, currently they are just terribad.

 

I cant justify taking them in any non Apoc game.

 

people say that troops can be more resilient than armor, yes thats true when you have target saturation with lots of footsloggers, but footslogging is not that effective for marines with our small model count.

but if 1 tank is good, 2 tanks is not just twice as good, its more than twice as good, and 3 is more than 3 times as good.

each tank you add after the first adds more armored targets that your opponent has to dedicate anti-armor killing capacity too, if you have more tanks than he has anti-tanks, then you will be able to curb-stomp them.

 

so, before even considering the Long Fang spcific weakness, refering to space marines in general: vehicles > troops

 

and then Long Fangs are over costed, easily killed, and not very manuverable.

 

I would love to use my Long Fangs, I have 15 of them, but every time I build a list i find myself thinking that the same job could be done better with a Predator, and the Pred adds another armored target to my army.

 

*Heres to hopeing that the new codex gives them Something, a price break, albative wounds, better survivability, USRs, new special rules, anything really.

[lunchb0x]

instead of better armrour...what about giving them the ability the Tech marine has of fortifying a location?

[Max_Dammit]

Id rather have them moving up with my troops

[Ryzouken]

What's more, their saves isn't the problem. Improving their cover save doesn't touch their fundamental flaws: high price, low survivability. The second flaw lies more in their number of wounds and standard toughness, with wounds being the major concern there.

[lunchb0x]

What's more, their saves isn't the problem. Improving their cover save doesn't touch their fundamental flaws: high price, low survivability. The second flaw lies more in their number of wounds and standard toughness, with wounds being the major concern there.

 

 

I will disagree with that statement...my long fangs only get hit by long range heavy weapons. They do not die from bolter fire...they die from lascannons, plasma, and rockets.

 

So I think improving the save to a 3+ invuln would help them stay around a bit more. Keeping them the current numbers, not cost, would equal out this great save. 5 men with a 3+3+ and thats all you can have is 5...keeps it balanced.

 

or...give them terminator armour.

[Ryzouken]

mine died from deepstriker bolters, storm bolters, long range S6 fire (Eldar), and morale tests incurred by 25% casualties (or things like Veiling Nightmare Shroud Necron Lords) back when I used them.

[stinkenheim]

I'm with lunchb0x on this... i've never lost my long fangs to short range, small arms fire because anything that is close enough to rapid fire at them is normally in assualt...

as for the drop podded unit, then that is really about the only way they should be exposed to that kind of fire and if my opponenet has used a drop podded squad to take out my fangs at close range then that unit is (almost always) out of the fight after that as my wolves will have normally advanced half way up the board by then...

 

We've all seen a lot of posts about the fact that long fangs have no 'ablative' wounds and that they are too expenive and never survive the first turn... i've also seen it many times in the same posts about increasing them to BS 5 and even one asking for 2 wounded T 5 long fangs... and i think its safe to say that isn't aywhere close to the answer...

 

Heres my view on a couple of the suggestions;

2 wounds would make them similar to IG heavy weapon teams and would be a change for the worst, as most of the tme the weapons engaging them will be long range which normally equats to high strength and decent AP, therefore at least half the time the shot will inflict instant death on the model... the points cost would also increase to around the 40pt mark... too much for a unit which everyone claims is overpriced anyway...

 

T 5??? :cuss, we aren't nurgle... absolutely no reason for this

 

BS 5... thats gonna help the survivability how?? I mean come on thats pretty much every naysayers reasoning against long fangs with the exception of pts cost, all it means is that one of two things will happen. First if we get first turn they will hit wit almost eveyshot, cue screams of cheese... second, every weapon in range will shoot at those BS5 lascannon toting dudes of cheeseness thus it will have a detrimental effect on thier survivabilty

 

Runic Armour... again WHY?? artificer armour is the domain of captains and bodyguard units not heavy weapon troops, also te points cost will increase by about 15 per model...

 

Some special rule meaning they count as twin-linked weapons... see the BS 5 arguement....

 

in fact the only things that make sense are suggestions to give them rules like stealth/bolster defences or possibly relentless (although that will bring them in range of small arms fire more often)

 

I think alot of those people who claim they never last past turn 1 must be doing something wrong and i really feel for them that they can't get the msot out of a truly hard unit... as said before it does all come down to placement (you need somewhere where they have decent los, in cover, but all the while minimising the opponents los at you, i.e not in the centre in the open), tactics (i.e something more pressing for the opponent to fire at) and a dollop of luck (whats that 15 3+ saves, ok.... *several dice rolls later* haha, not a scratch)...

 

i personally would only take hem in games of at least 2000 pts as they are expensive ad in smaller games you can get about the same level of punch from a vehicle for less points but they are certainly not a hopeless/broken unit, they just require alot of care and thought about where they go, what they are expected to do who they shoot at... i run mine with missile lanchers and one of the first things i shoot at are enemy units who are likely to target them... use the split fire ability to target enemy heavy weapon troops who you know will be shooting them next turn and use your scry units to draw fire/agro... and good luck

[Jarl Kjaran Coldheart]

all i am going to say is i love my long fangs, they love cover, and i rarely lose the entire pack.

 

WLK

[stinkenheim]

all i am going to say is i love my long fangs, they love cover, and i rarely lose the entire pack.

 

WLK

 

i'd go with that... now why did i waste time writing that post above when all it needed was this *slaps face*

[Jarl Kjaran Coldheart]

all i am going to say is i love my long fangs, they love cover, and i rarely lose the entire pack.

 

WLK

 

i'd go with that... now why did i waste time writing that post above when all it needed was this *slaps face*

 

cause your nice enough to debunk some of the crazier stuff being suggested, while i think that explaning it out slowly wont help as they probably got their mids made us the "long fangs sux".

 

i still laugh remembering a time when a friend and i were gaming, he told he that long fangs were garbage as they cost too much and did too little. my pack was 5 strong, 1 ML and 3 PCs. the 3 PCs did 12 of 13 wounds* to a bunched up chaos marine unit where the ML destroyed the demolisher cannon off his vindicator tank. in one turn.

*i was unsure how 3 blast templates did so much damage on the guys, but i let my opponent count this models hits and only correct if it is stupidly low or high.

 

they get more respect now.

 

WLK

[Wolf Guard Nostromo]

I admit that for a long time I was sceptical of Long Fangs - particularly because of the price - but more recently they have featured in my armies with some success.

 

As another angle, I have been fielding mine in a HB razorback. This has quite a few bonuses for a similar price to a single Long Fang with heavy weapon:

-Increased survivbility, particularly at the beginning of a game

-More rapid redeployment

-Mobile cover and lofS blocking

-Increased firepower (twin linked lascannons/assualt cannons/heavy bolters + storm bolter if you like...)

 

I have found that 4 LFs (3ML, 1HB) with PL and HB Razorback seem to have the best of all worlds and come in at under 250 points. I admit that I don't play many armies with multiple AV14 but this unit can spit out death at a surprising rate and is more likely to survive longer into a game. It also seems fair to give the old wolves a break from walking!

 

However, tanks do seem to give better return in small point games.