Jump to content

Thunderwolves - what works?


pucadubh

Recommended Posts

'Our reputation speaks for itself, sir,' said Loken.

'As does the reputation of the Imperial Fists,' Sigismund replied. 'Are we going to scrap about it now? Argue which Legion is toughest?'

'The answer, always, is the Wolves of Fenris,' Torgaddon put in, 'because they are clinically insane.' (Horus Rising, page 132)

 

OK To start then. I have always leaned towards assaulty Space Marine builds but I am relatively new to the Fang. I have always liked the Space Wolves (what's not to like) but when I saw the Thunderwolves & Fenrisian Wolves in the new dex I was sold immediately. The fluff in the dex is brilliant and I am Harald Deathwolf’s company through and through. No going back now :D

 

I am not a tank man and I have to say that the builds I hate the most are mech lists (very common in V5 rules) and psyker lists (i.e. Lash, Double Lash etc.)

 

So Space Wolves (with how many meltas do you need?) , Wolves with actual Wolves (yes I have bought the Mr. Dandy 5x Thunderwolf set and they are awesome), Rune Priests (no I won't have that Psychic power near my guys thank you very much) and YES you can still build deadly non-mech assaulty lists (excludes new BA dex immediately) and be competitive means I am a full convert to the FANG.

 

To the post then ...

 

I currently run a 5 TWC unit in a nice list that is doing well, has yet to let me down and is so much fun to play.

 

What works ...

3 is definitely too small for the unit (Ld8 folks don’t you forget it)

4 is probably too small (Ld8 and still not quite enough hitting or staying power)

5 is the sweet spot but only if you use wound allocation.

 

If you don’t know what wound allocation is then here is the crash course.

It’s why everyone hates (and the weaker ones actually fear) Ork Nob Bikers

It means with your ultra high (i.e base 5) Toughness 2 Wound guys, the best way to make them last longer is to make sure you can allocate wounds so that even with 5 wounds on your squad, not one leaves the battle! :lol: 
So according to mini rulebook P 26 every model must be different.

 

So my guys currently travel with

#1 Thunder Hammer & Storm Shield

#2 Storm Shield & Bolt Pistol

#3 Close Combat Weapon & Bolt Pistol

#4 Close Combat Weapon & Bolt Pistol & Melta Bomb

#5 Close Combat Weapon & Bolter ( I know its one less attack but it’s free and makes the wound allocation work, It’s MAGIC trust me)

 

They definitely need the two shields.

 

Use cover (i.e. actual cover, tanks, tanks with smoke, tanks in 6” with Rune Priest with Storm Caller etc.)

 

They assault 12” not 6”

 

Don’t forget they are cavalry and have FLEET

 

Don’t forget when assaulting through cover to DOUBLE the highest dice.

 

They fall back 3D6” (this might help with Regrouping if things go bad)

 

And now the contentious for openers:-

 

[1] I don’t believe Canis is worth it! He is very cool but with no Invun he cannot go head to head with anything serious which is disappointing for a Hero/Leader/IC and at 185 points you can buy another tooled up TWC unit!

 

[2] I don’t believe a 5 man TWC unit needs a Thunderwolf Lord. Lets face it if you build him nice with a mount, Frost Blade, Storm Shield or Belt of Russ, Fenrisian Wolf etc. you are looking at 250 Points no problem and guess what, thats a 4 man tooled up Thunderwolf unit or lots of other shiney toys in your list to protect the first TWC unit!

 

My list works against Marines & Nid Hordes and I will update this post as my experience grows so over to all you other Thunderwolves out there, lets get the post working on what works! Orks will be included after Wednesday.

 

Post Rule #1 : Don’t say what doesn’t work without offering a TWC alternative!

Post Rule #2 : Read the Space Wolf short stories in the following two posts and if you don’t enjoy them then don’t post here ‘cos you don’t get Space Wolves ;)

 

Tales from the Fang by Brother Firenze

http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/index.p...howtopic=183535

 

More Tales from the Fang by Brother Warhorse

http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/index.p...howtopic=185566

Link to comment
https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/196769-thunderwolves-what-works/
Share on other sites

Aye! I too am a follower of the deathwolf, oasting no Less than......ONE Thunderwolf in my army! which Harold proudly sits on, (still saving for the dandy pack lol) but i have many fenrisian wolves.

 

Nice post I agree completely that canis is worthless as everone and theyre dog see's him and fires everything at him.

what is your opinion on one man units of thunderwolves just to act as extreme Hunter killer units?

Never tried one but based on the amount of attention my Lone Wolves get I would expect it to be a fire magnet. What would you kit out a lone TWC with?

 

If you have tried it or intend to try it , post the results and let us all know how it works out.

This is all about figuring out all the tricks we can do with TWC :Troops:

 

What is your build for Harald by the way?

 

My preference is Lord + TWC Mount, Runic Armour, Frost Blade, Bolt Pistol, Belt of Russ, 1x Fenrisian Wolf, Saga of the Bear but rolls in at 260 points!

Basically anything AV13+ needs to be hit by anything else otherwise he is a player!

I run my Harold deathwolf with TW mount, Frost blade, Storm shield, Talismans and necklace, Saga of the wolfkin.

The wolfkin comes in real handy when i run him with a fenrisian wolf pack, allowing himself to re-roll Morale checks due to FW packs and Thunder wolf rule thingy (?) plus making them I5 means they tear apart any marine unit they touch

i run 2 twc 1 with stm sh t hammer 1 bp cc ,in front of them on the field i use a pack of 8 wolves as a screen (gives a 4+ cover save) so far theve eaten in 3 games -2 havoc squads (1 plas ,1 hb) 2 chaos squads 1 sorcerer ,2 termigaunt sqds and a unit of shoota boys (26 1 nob pwr claw)

 

i used canis in one game against chaos in 1 round he ate a 1o man chaos squad sadly i ran out of targets after that ,

as a person who really doesn't "like" the idea of TWC, but have found they work well with others (aka work well in my force). i am actually working on modeling mine. i still have a hard time making a list i like with them in it though. but i guess i still have a hard time liking them to make me really want to get them working right.

 

a thing i have to say about Canis, his special rule there that lets him swap his attacks for the number of enemies in B2B is i think what people look over, yes he has no invul. but if you use him as he seems to be intended (massed horde killer), i think he would do well.

Though I have myself not had a chance to use T-wolves yet (though now that I see those from Dandy, I'm DEF gonna pick up a pack or two) I think the TH/SS Bear Lords are beastly. For those that follow BoLS, Goatboy's lord that he runs that way usually runs roughshod through anything in it's path. 2+, 3++, 3W, T5, EW, with 6 S10 attacks on the charge. Yeah, it's expensive... but gosh, it will absolutely EAT things.

I actually really like units of 3. I am running two units of 3: one guy with a power fist, one with meltabombs, and one with nothing. I am also running a unit of 15 Fen Wolves.

 

It's all about target saturation. Do you fire on the TWCs? Which unit? The Fen Wolves are also providing a lot of cover saves, so you probably need to shoot those, too. Oh, and while you're doing that, four Rhinos full of plasmagunning Grey Hunter goodness is barreling across the table at you. And the Lone Wolf. Don't forget about him.

 

In a vacuum, a unit of 3 is pretty dead meat. Redundancy and tactics are the key...

Power Fist said it: Redundancy and tactics are the key. Multiple units means that an opponent must divide his fire against your various units and must keep shooting til something is wiped out or risk sprinkling wounds on units and allowing some of them to get to combat and hope he bags them there.

 

I'm aiming at running 3 at 1750 with 2 Iron Priests (4 Cyberwolves each) and a Wolf Lord but in the meantime (unpainted and half-painted) I'm using a single squad of 3 (Bolter, Fist, Nothing) with the Priests and Lord and taking Bikers to get more fast targets.

 

If they assault stuff unsupported they struggle. You really need to combine them with something - a squad of them paired with a GH squad with WG bagged Arjac, Rune Priest and their Terminator buddies in 2 rounds of combat. The GH shot them first killing one before they all assaulted.

 

In a more recent game an Iron Priest with WTN bagged a Nurgle Daemon Prince in one round of combat before rampaging through a squad of Plague Marines aided by Grey Hunters. The other one killed a Chaos Lord while another group of Hunters tied up the Bikers he accompanied.

 

They give something to the Wolves that regular Marines don't have: Mobility. Marines need Land Raiders to be able to assault from a tank but we have the speed (and cover saves) to allow TWC to make it into combat in turn 2 or 3 at the latest. After that they can sprint right across the field if they need to in order to aid another unit.

 

I've found that a single unit just isn't enough as it will be focus of much of the enemy's firepower and will probably be blown away before they get to do much. That pretty much rules out taking lots of expensive equipment i.e. Storm Shields in order to get more warm bodies to make your units more survivable. You lose a 3+ Inv save but since you can use a 4+ cover save from terrain it's not such a problem. This allows you put the points towards bulking out the squads or getting more support units.

 

It's a good trade-off.

@Lord Rag, That is how I had originally intended to run my TWC, but I only played one game with that set up. It was against tau. My bikes ate fire from every unit in his army eventually wiping them out. I also turbo boosted turn one which kind of out paced my TWC. I had Canis in that list instead of a lord of a wgbl as well. the TWC did pretty decent, but not nearly as well as they are now. I ended up dropping the bikes in order to include speeders for Mobile AT. I still want to revisit this combo, but I think I'll go for a large squad instead of 3+ab+wg.
Anybody tried Lord with 4 Thunder wolves complimented by a swiftclaw pack lead by another WL or WGBL? I'm thinking that might be a nice compliment.

 

 

I have been running this list with Thunderwolves and Swiftclaws for a couple of games now and without much success.

 

http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/index.p...p;#entry2307630

 

I have a couple of sketchy battle reports added but if anyone could assist me on tuning it up a bit, I would be greatly appreciative.

i actually run multiple units of 2. 1 with TH+SS and 1 naked.

they are small enough to be able to get cover/lose LoS behind a tank, fast nough to scoot across the table, and usually hit hard enough to drop daemon princes, 10 man units, and most dreads.

 

WLK

A little while ago I ran a 4 man unit of thunderwolves, one with a power fist and a wolf lord on thunder wolf with rumic armor, storm shield, frost weapon, and saga of the warrior. I played against a horde ork army in a 1000 point game. he had like 100+ orks and my wolf lord killed at least 50+ in that game. Honestly I have not ran in to anything that can stop these guys yet.

Wolf lord on a TWC, storm shield, TH, wolf tooth necklace, runic armor, two wolves

 

TWC hand weapon SS

TWC hand weapon SS melta bomb

TWC hand weapon SS melta bomb

TWC Thunder hammer SS

 

So decent wound allocation and I dont have to worry too much about pwr fist attacks ruining my day. Have had a great succes with them.

Maybe I'm paranoid, but the leadership 8 seems really sketchy for a fairly expensive unit.

 

I haven't played with TWC yet (I ordered some from eBay and will try them out sooner or later), but I really wanted some way of bolstering the leadership. Essentially that means either bringing a lord+thunderwolf, Ulrik, or anybody with Saga of Majesty.

 

Am I over-estimating enemy shooting? They seem like hard models to get completely out of LoS, so I would think a lot of incoming enemy fire would be directed their way. Even one pinning check feels like too much to me with this unit.

I'm still trying to figure out what is best to support them with. I was considering taking as many TWC as I could, then using Canis' troop granting ability to make fenrisian wolves as troops so I could use that 3rd FA slot for more TWC. Issues I have are I hate that Canis has no Invulnerable save. The other issue I have is that that should I make an all out TWC list, or find something else to support them with? Right now I have enough to make 2 units of 5 TWC, 1-2 wolf lords on TWM, and two Iron Priests on TWM. I am toying with taking GH in drop pods (objective grabs) or for cover, they needn't drop with troops in them, perhaps take some Fenrisian wolves for cover as well.

 

I wanted to try it with Swift Claw bikers too. I just wasn't sure how this would turn out. Any of you have any lists experiences to share? A battle report or something along those lines?

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

By using this site, you agree to our Terms of Use.