The Space Wolf Saga

[Hfran Morkai]

I started collecting Space Wolves about 7/8 years ago now. I was intrigued by the look of the army and wanted something to pack a punch in combat. I love real wolves and was saved from the damnation of the wimpy Tau. I love the fluff, ale and brawls! I am really proud I have stuck with this army for so many years. My only regret is that I did not start with thw Wolves! I don't care too much if I win or lose, it's a game and so long as I enjoy my barbarians smashing people's faces in then I'm happy.

 

What about your story?

[SeanyPrawny]

Started collecting over 9 years ago after my brother brought home a white dwarf. I look through seeing the chaos juggernaut thing and was really intrigued by its beastyness. I then saw some tyranids and was then torn between the two. It was only whilst looking at my local store (non-GW) that I saw some space wolves and was instantly sold. I bought myself a battle force thingy and never looked back. Its the only 40K army I have ever played and I imagine will ever play. Though I did try Eldar but the gods didn't want it and they were stolen/smashed before I could even play a game.

[Gyson_Vore]

Well, it started off about nine or tens years ago, when I was a young(-er) whelp, and my brother got the third edition rule book. I spent hours pouring over the information inside of it, learning all of the history and fluff. I loved the color pictures of armies, and often found myself imagining the battles happening. As fate would have it, I saw the picture of the Space Wolf Long Fangs, and then on the next page Bjorn the Fell-Handed in all of his glory along with a WOlf Guard Terminator squad. I liked wolves, and as I got older I began to understand there rules. Then I got the Codex, and my fate was sealed.

[Decoy]

Walked into a G-dub about... too many years ago. Saw the bloodclaw on the front of a codex from all the way across the store, was sold. Then I heard of the 13th Company, more matching my playstyle, and was sold again. Been a Wolf my entire gaming career.

[hendrik]

well first i just bought some marines,painted them all metalic and made them cc orientated

looked for a few chapters on the GW side, found the example of the SW a tad too bright

 

a few years after it started to read the fluff, fell in love with the wolves, stayed a wolf

[Bjorn the Fell-Handed]

Ive been playing about 2 years. I was first attracted to the wolves when researching chapters to start. I came across Space Wolves, and despite the staffer who introduced me being a DA player, I was sold ;) My first army, and at the minute, my only army, is the Sons of Russ. Ive had some great victories, hammering defeats, but Ive improved my painting dramatically :) So, thats always good ;)

 

And all after stepping into a GW during the run up to christmas with a friend during a lunch break..... :P

 

Bjorn the Fell-Handed

[Grey Mage]

About 9 months to a year before 3rd edition came out, after having played WFB for a year or so I found that I couldnt find opponents for fantasy in my little out of the way part of montana, but I could find 40k players. So I went and grabbed an eldar codex, quite sold on their fluff of a dying race of psychers with impressive technology and incredible focus. I still enjoy them to this day.

 

Abour three and a half years later a friend of mine was leaving the game, aswell as moving away, and gave me a small 3rd edition space wolf force- A venerable dreadnaught, a couple of GH packs, a scout pack, and a landspeeder. 750pts of fun. I had to pirate the codex, as the local store never seemed to have a copy and I didnt know they could order it for me- found that out much later. But I had been a fan of norse mythology since before I was 10, and the change of pace from specialists who I made adaptable through canny wargear choices and battlefield tactics to an army where the units were already specialists and I could concentrate soley on the tactics was cool. Ive jumped back and forth for a long time now and have around 4500pts of wolves.

 

Then, during my the summer between my first and second year of college my eldar were given to a friend to hold onto. He in turn moved to florida, leaving them to another local player who refused to tell me he had them despite seeing me around once a week for several months after I came back to town *Id been gone only 4 months*. Nearly Six Thousand Points of eldar, gone. It took me over a year to find them, and I almost put the guy through a wall for it- he had the nerve to ty and make me buy back my own army that he had stripped in many cases and started repainting.

 

Im slowly putting them all back in order, but my hearts not in it. The first 40k model I ever had was in that army, and alot of time was spent painting and repainting all of those models- 8 years once you take out the breaks I had from the hobby. They werent the best painted, but they were mine.

 

The wolves are still mine. They see alot of action these last three years... but I never let them out of my sight on a gaming day, and my armies are now only kept with family if I have to move for any reason.

[Thorgrim Blackwolf]

I've been a wolf for five years but only been actually playing 40k for around two years.

 

I was given a copy of William King's 'Grey Hunter' for christmas around early 4th edition and loved it so much I bought the rest of the Space Wolf series soon after. It didn't take long for me to fall in love with the Sons of Russ and I knew that they would be the army for me once I started playing. Finally got a job that paid enough so I could get into 40k a couple of years ago and now I have approximatley 10k of the Sons of Russ. Some might say I went a little crazy with my student loan/pay checks :devil:

 

They may not end up being my only army in 40k but they will be the first and the best - who can argue with norse mythology, kick arse fighting skills and ale mixed into one army?

 

For Russ and Ale!!!

 

Thorgrm

[Max_Dammit]

Not this again :D

 

Must have been about 1994 a friend of mine got me in to magic the Gathering, I was at a store and there where some people playing a game of 40K, watched for about an hour and then my friend wanted to leave (he was driving) So i had a fast look at some books of warhammer and bought the black Citadel miniatures catalogue, the first mini in that book is Bjorn and i was in love, but playing magic i let it rest, about 6 years later i was in amsterdam and saw the GW shop there went in and bought the 3th ED SWdex, must have read it a 1000 times, and i think about a year later i got the model of bjorn, looked at it a lot of times but never did anything with it, in 2005 I had a fixed job and was once again in amsterdam and was convinced by some other friends to get the macragge starter box.

 

And from that moment one i'm a active member of the 40k and B&C world, so i might be newish in painting mini's, So i'm only 4 years in this game :P

[Coverfire]

I started playing about a year and a half before 3rd Edition and have been playing on and off ever since. I chose the Space Wolves because in my group they already had Eldar, Nids, Choas, Blood Angels, Imperial Fists and Imperial Guard. This left very few options open (as this was before the White Dwarf releasing the first Necrons) and it was suggested that I try Space Wolves. I fell in love with the background of the Fenrisians to the point where no only other army that remotely showed such an interesting background were the Eldar.

 

When 3rd Edition came out I stopped playing as the rest of the group disliked the rule changes, I think they actually enjoyed the debates that arose from the gaps in the 2nd rules. I myself disliked what they had done to the Space Wolves, but I think that was mainly because since everyone else was discontent there were no actual games being played to try out the rules.

 

I love my Wolves to a fault, I can't be bothered reading the rules for the other army lists but seeing as I am only really a seasonal player and my losses outweigh my wins (excepting my 4th Ed Drop Pods, I actually stopped using that army because I felt bad at the amount of wins I received) This doesn't bother me in the slightest, because I know (from being quite good at first person shooters) that not getting more than your fair share of wins can be very frustrating and I tend to put a lot of pressure on myself to achieve victories. As a below average player of 40k I can leave those pressures to my opponent.

[Megalodon]

Time for a long Saga young ones, sit back get an ale and listen to the Tale of the Venerable Dreadnought Megalodon. It was a cold rainy day back in the hallowed days of Rogue Trader that the great prehistoric Shark became one of the Sons of Russ. I had read about the space marines and Rogue Trader in the last White Dwarf, I knew I would have to get them cause they looked so neat. So I headed to my local game store and purchased my first RTB 001 original plastic space marines box. I was also planning on picking up a copy of Rogue Trader, but they had just sold the last copy so had to wait a week for it to come in.

 

So I went home and started assembling my marines. I thought these guys were the best thing since peanut butter; they were just so darned cool! I knew I wanted to be original in their painting so the Crimson Fists scheme on the box was out. I decided on grey as my main color because I thought is made sense as an overall Sci-Fi color scheme. I had all of them painted by the time I my copy of RT had arrived at the game store.

 

I can remember being in awe of the outstanding color pics and artwork in the RT book. Then I saw the marine color plates with some of the famous marine chapters on it. This is where I saw the Space Wolves for the first time. As a kid wolves were always one of my favorite animals. So that is how I chose the Space Wolves as my marine army of choice.

 

Things got even better with the release of the the book of the Astronomicon which came out about a year later it gave more detail to the Wolves and an army list to build from. So I was very happy with my Space Wolves and played them lots in the days of Rogue Trader.

What happened next changed my army forever. The arrival of 2nd edition 40k and the first ever codex which was as most know for the Space Wolves. The wolves were totally fleshed out with a fantastic Norse background and totally unique unit structure. After reading that codex until it fell apart I knew that I would always be one of Russ’ favorite sons.

 

It’s now been almost 22 years since the hallowed days of Rogue Trader and I’ve survived 5 editions of 40k as a Son of Russ. I have amassed a long line of great victories in the name of Russ and the All Father!

 

 

It is great to be a Wolf! Praise Russ and pass the ammunition!

[Warhorse47]

I've been miniature gaming for over 20 years with Battletech [i even run demos for them], and other mini games, but wouldn't get into 40k because i didn't need another expensive game. Well, my buddy James got me to try it late last year and I am now heartily enjoying it. Started out with DA, but I have found that i enjoy the style of the Sons of Russ much more. Looks like I will be selling off the DA specific stuff to pay for more wolves!

[ChapniK]

Well i have been collecting wolves since about 2-3 years when i started this hobby. Unfortunately my great company is just a shadow( lame pun, my great company are the shadow wolves) of what it used to be. about a 9-12 months ago. tried to strip my marines with what my friend told be was a really good solution. Unknown to me you were not supposed to put a lid on the container. Around 80% of my forces were killed by that tyranid bio acid. But were are space wolves after all and we are rebuilding. So now my forces consist of:

 

4 dreads

6 scouts

16 grey hunters

2 rhinos

1 predator

ragnar, logan, 2 rune priest and wolfguard

[dragon950]

4 years ago my friends intoduced me into the game and I picked up the Tau because they were an army that I like, shooty and didn't love bloodshed. After a year my friend picked up space marines and wnet with making them ultramarines. After fighting them I was interested in playing a marine army also, so I started reading the sm codex and found out how much they were limited. After looking at the marine chapters and seeing that Space Wolves have a less rigged orginization I decided to give them a try. Been playing them for 3 years now and just add my 4th landraider

[Vash113]

Well when I first learned about 40k over 12 years ago, Space Wolves were the first to catch my eye. But I was far too young then to properly play the game or model or paint and they were too expensive. As the years passed and more people I knew were getting into the hobby I eventually bought a Tau army off of an acquaintance from Middle School and that was about 7 years ago. Then 3 years ago when I went to college I needed a smaller army to take with me so decided it was time to do a Marine army. I couldn't decide though between Ultramarines, Raven Guard, Black Templars or Space Wolves and eventually went with Ultramarines because their scheme was easy and I still wasn't even remotely a decent painter. Then 3 months into my second year at college someone I had met at a local hobby shop was selling off their 13th Company for 50 bucks so I bought it, remodeled the army as regular Space Wolves (as even though I don't have many tanks I loves em and I'll get em eventually!) and have been working on adding to the army, converting and painting them up as Wolves I can be proud of and they are indeed the first of my army projects that I'm really happy with. The Ultramarines were a distinct improvement on the painting and modeling of my Tau, my Raven Guard which I started after that and my Blood Ravens were alright, I have since stripped down the Blood Ravens and am repainting them. My Grey Knights turned out ok and my new Imperial Fists are looking much, much better. But the personality and character of my Wolves is just unmatched in any of my other armies and their rules and characteristics on the tabletop are just so much more fun than the other Marine armies I've used.

[OnlyInDeath]

Lets see, this was many years ago...

 

About 14 years ago, I started playing WHFB at my local game store after a few years of playing Magic the gathering. I always wanted a way to put the ideas of the card game into action, and eventually the LGS started stocking up WHFB and WH40k and I saw my chance. Obviously, being into fantasy at that time, I got into the fantasy version, picking up my Bretonnians with the old box set (my friends getting lizzardmen). We played this for about two years, and he eventually got rather irked at me for constantly stomping him (Brets back then were almost unstoppable), and stopped playing. So, unable to get a game, I pretty much put up warhammer entirely, but still bought the GW catalogue and spent countless hours staring at the various armies listed there. I remember that the marines really appealed to me as a whole, but I really couldnt fathom why in the heck you would head into battle painted completely blue or red, it just didnt make sense. SO while I really liked the paint schemes that they had for the Blood Angels, I just simply couldnt bring myself to get them. I really liked the posing for the SW's, so I picked some up along with the rulebook, but the store didnt have a dex for the wolves in stock ever, so I had to make due with what I had (the normal SM dex).

 

Finally, right before I left for college, they released the SW dex which I got, but then I didnt have a 40k game for a good two years afterwards. Finally, getting out of school and finding some free time, I got back into the hobby, but mostly spent my time painting, as I still didnt find many places to go (in Madison at that time, everyone still was into Magic). FINALLY, after moving back towards milwaukee w/ my wife, I found out they had just opened a GW store right next to me, and it's there that I found a chance to start dominating with my wolves, havent looked back ever since.

[clanfield]

it was late in 88 and that grey color scheme was just to good to pass up then it was a full company and the russ figure and support we did a huge 25k per player game took a week to play but that was mega then battled right up till 2nd edd change with ragnar and the new figs all that was melted in a house fire about 5 years back so im rebuilding now days looking to the new codex with joy

[Valerian]

@Mikal, excellent thread that you've started here, well done.

 

 

Well, let's see if I can remember back that far. It must have been right about 20 years ago, sometime in 1989 after I got my first car, that my some of my high-school buddies and I started playing Warhammer 40k. One of my friends, who was an avid comic book collector, somehow won a copy of the Rogue Trader rulebook, and introduced the rest of my gaming group to this fascinating new universe and wargame. Soonafter, that same friend got the Realms of Chaos: Slaves to Darkness book, and then The Lost and The Damned, which was released a year or so later. He also grabbed up all of the White Dwarf magazines that he could find, and started getting the new issues regularly through the local comic book shop (I don't think they were doing subscriptions back then, at least not to the US). So, this buddy started collecting the old lead models, as well as the plastics that came with the RTB boxed set, and began building his Ultramarines army; of course, this was way before the Ultramarines were considered the posterboys of the franchise and started getting a bad rap among 40k players. Another buddy, who had a large collection of civil war miniatures, built a sizable Imperial Guard army, while another buddy chose Space Orks for his army. At the time, I was intrigued by the Daemonhunters and Grey Knights which had an army list in the back of Slaves to Darkness, as well as the Harlequins, whose army list was probably in one of the old White Dwarf magazines. The advantage to both of these armies was that you didn't need many models to play a viable army, as you could spend over 1,000 points to outfit either an Ordo Malleus Daemonhunter or the Great Harlequin (or a Solitair for that matter). Back then you could spend all night playing and still barely get through a single turn. We'd come back the following week to pick up where we left off, and of course everyone would have forgotten what had happened. The game was fun, but it was also difficult to get a real game in, and almost impossible to actually finish one.

 

In college I was a part of a wargaming club, and played quite a bit of 40k. At the time I still hadn't started collecting any models myself, but was able to borrow from other gamers who had armies. White Dwarf 156 came out at the end of 1992, and brought with it a completely new conceptualization for the Space Wolves. Before, they had been pretty much like every other Chapter, but now were reborn as the Viking/Werewolves that we now know and love. These new Space Wolves really captured my imagination, and I knew what army I would start to collect, just as soon as I could find some extra money. In 1994, 2nd edition was released, which really streamlined 40k. Now we could easily get in a game in an afternoon, and I was able to play quite often in the last two years of college. Also, as luck would have it, a new player showed up and joined the club, who was an excellent modeller and painter who had a few well-painted Space Wolves units that he sold to me, so he could focus on finishing up his Eldar.

 

So, now it has been 20 years since I started playing the game, and I've got four complete armies. Space Wolves has always been my first and foremost army, but I've also collected a Grey Knights force, a DIY Space Marine force, and a large (but unpainted) Ork army. I don't play that much anymore, as I don't have as much free time with the job and family, but I still keep up with the hobby as much as I can (including spending some time on the forum). Occassionally my old high-school buddies will still get together for a game when we all go home for the holidays, but even that is getting rarer over the years.

 

 

Best Regards,

 

Valerian

[GunnerRed]

I started the wolves about 10 years ago. My best mate was a DA player (also Eldar) and his personality is very much like a DA :) and at the time i was a Ork player and i didnt want to do a space marine army as everyone had one but ive always liked space wolves they seem to appeal to me :D . The more I read about them the more I was pulled to them, untill finally i gave in and got them. Me and my mate had some good games between each other (and with to fight the enemy's of the emperor) and good banter with each other. Ive never looked back after becoming a wolf, im a grayhunter now, quite literally as my hair is going gray :P (im only 24).

 

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