Blood Claws vs. Wolf Guard

[Trud Coldfist]

I hear all the time how us Wolves are more CC oriented so finally decided to swap out a Grey Hunter unit for a Blood Claw unit. But then i ran into a problem, whats better? Claws or Guard?

 

I run one unit of Scouts and one unit of guard currently, half the guard unit is broken into pack leaders, the rest roll with Njal. So I have the elite slot available. Thanks to headstrong Claws have 4 attacks on charge, with pistol and sword. While similarly equipped Guard would also have 4 thanks to 2 base. This would also mean that guard would have more attacks in the later rounds of combat as well, all for only 3pts more apiece.

 

I guess my question has changed to: is there any reason to take claws over guard if you have the elite slot available?

[Grey Mage]

Yes- scoring units.

 

Scoring is huge some days- and BCs are cheaper, so if your strapped for points, theyre good for that.

[Valerian]

I hear all the time how us Wolves are more CC oriented so finally decided to swap out a Grey Hunter unit for a Blood Claw unit. But then i ran into a problem, whats better? Claws or Guard?

 

I run one unit of Scouts and one unit of guard currently, half the guard unit is broken into pack leaders, the rest roll with Njal. So I have the elite slot available. Thanks to headstrong Claws have 4 attacks on charge, with pistol and sword. While similarly equipped Guard would also have 4 thanks to 2 base. This would also mean that guard would have more attacks in the later rounds of combat as well, all for only 3pts more apiece.

 

I guess my question has changed to: is there any reason to take claws over guard if you have the elite slot available?

Claws are Scoring, and you can take up to 15 in the unit.

[Trud Coldfist]

I am currently limited by number of modes i have, so 15 i cant do, nor do i think i ever would, after my other units are takin care of i have 23 models left to make troops, so i broke them into 3GH teams of 5 with 8 claws leftover. I wanted as many scoring units as possible.

[Grey Mage]

Well be careful- small units are in danger of simply being swept away- I try to always run my GH units in sets of 10, unless Im running a razorback squad with an HQ or WGPL.

[Stormshrug]

The real answer to the question of "which is better, Blood Claws or Wolf Guard" is 'Grey Hunters.'

 

My advice: don't switch them out for either. Wolf Guard squads eat a valuable Elites slot (and with Scouts, LWs, Dreadnoughts, etc available, you really shouldn't have too many of these open) and can't score without Logan around, so they're better as pack leaders, and Blood Claws are basically always worse than Grey Hunters unless you have 15 of them with a Wolf Priest in a Land Raider.

 

-Stormshrug

[Fenric]

I've been thinking of runninga squad of Wolf Guard with a few special cc weapons+Ragnar in a land raider for a higher points match. This unit can rip basically anything to pieces with lets say 9 Wolf Guard+Ragnar:

 

36-54 attacks on the charge with initiative 5 and str 5. Then add Ragnar with 6-8 attacks on the charge str 6 initiative 6 no armor save.

Don't have my dodex here but what could this cost? 652 points or so combined, without any special weapons for the wolf guard. Then you also have a Land raider of any kind that can shoot fairly well.

 

Anyways I'ma try this out sometime.

My problem with Blood claws is that after the charge they aren't that great so you have to use them in big numbers. I could see myself fielding some Skyclaws to jump from cover to cover to assault some shooty weaker unit though.

[CainTheHunter]

I've been thinking of runninga squad of Wolf Guard with a few special cc weapons+Ragnar in a land raider for a higher points match. This unit can rip basically anything to pieces with lets say 9 Wolf Guard+Ragnar:

 

36-54 attacks on the charge with initiative 5 and str 5. Then add Ragnar with 6-8 attacks on the charge str 6 initiative 6 no armor save.

Don't have my dodex here but what could this cost? 652 points or so combined, without any special weapons for the wolf guard. Then you also have a Land raider of any kind that can shoot fairly well.

 

I've done this with TDA WG tossing in Ragnar and Wolf Priest for re-rolls. It becomes boring after a while, not speaking about huge point sink :o

 

 

My problem with Blood claws is that after the charge they aren't that great so you have to use them in big numbers. I could see myself fielding some Skyclaws to jump from cover to cover to assault some shooty weaker unit though.

 

So what? With such number of attacks they will eliminate pretty everything - just load them back into LRC afterwards and drive them to their next victim - providing that they survive the next enemy shooting phase.

[Wysten]

Out of the two? Wolf Guard, like Grey Hunters. Does anything a blood claw can do everything, except the charge, better. Even possible to have the best of both worlds and have the Wolf Guard lead the Grey Hunters.

 

Unless one is willing to take advantage of their sole redeeming factor (immense charges and scoring) then it's always better off making them Grey Hunters (for all intensive perposes, are our assualt marines and tacticals rolled into one, and cheaper too. Just look at any other marine codex to learn how good these guys are.) or Wolf Guard (when you don't care about the objective, and just want to kit them out to make something die more quickly. Like 1000 sons! That or a good squad leader.)

 

Flexability is a wolf's greatest strength, while we are mostly limited to 24 inch shooting, we have flexability, we can fight in melee like an assualt marine and at range like a tactical. Shoot the choppy and choppy the shooter without comprimise. Close quarters, including combat is our hunting ground.

[Quillen]

Fenric I used the crap out of that when the codex came out. It owned anything it bumped into and it got to bump into a lot.

 

 

I went 2 WG with fists and 3 Wolf Gaurd with Power weapons, and then 5 fodder gaurds to keep the weapons going. With Ragnar and a wolfpriest for the rerolls. Everything I met I pwned. It would draw a ton of fire, but almost always made it to melee. Ragnar did die a few times to back save rolls. Still not before spanking the enemy.

[Fred Johnson the 3rd jr]

Hold on now, if you already have a good number of troop choices in your army, like 3 at 1500 points, and you want an added assault punch to your force, then Wolf Guard are not a bad idea at all. Why? Because they can take multiple power weapons at 10 points a pop, something Grey Hunters cannot do as it costs them 15 and they can only take one.

 

9 GH with a Wolf Standard and power weapon with a WG with a powerfist is 243 points (I'm assuming melta and combi-melta plus a Rhino but since we are talking about close combat we can ignore this for now)).

 

10 WG with 3 power weapons (Rhino and 1 combi-melta if you want) is 250 points. That's only 7 points difference. On the charge or successful counter attack:

 

GH:

24 Normal attacks

3 Power Fist

3 Power Weapon

 

WG:

27 Normal attacks

12 Power Weapon

 

9 more total attacks, 6 more armor ignoring attacks. 12 Power Weapons attacks pack quite a punch! And this is at only 7 points more. Go 17 points more, and you get 23 normal attacks and 16 power weapon attacks. So yeah, Wolf Guard squads can be useful. You just have to realize that they are NOT troops. You need to have enough troops in your army already, and then you can make an assault focused unit of Wolf Guard if you desire.

[LoneSniperSG]

The real answer to the question of "which is better, Blood Claws or Wolf Guard" is 'Grey Hunters.'

 

My advice: don't switch them out for either. Wolf Guard squads eat a valuable Elites slot (and with Scouts, LWs, Dreadnoughts, etc available, you really shouldn't have too many of these open) and can't score without Logan around, so they're better as pack leaders, and Blood Claws are basically always worse than Grey Hunters unless you have 15 of them with a Wolf Priest in a Land Raider.

 

-Stormshrug

 

I might agree with you in terms of Scouts and Dreadnoughts, but there is rarely a time where a single Lone Wolf is better than a pack of men who have access to the same equipment. The only time I've come across a situation where it's better to have the single Lone Wolf is when I went up against Eldar led by an Avatar. Big nasties like the Avatar of Khaine and Daemons are reasons to take a single, geared up Lone Wolf, but other than that, I can't think of many reasons.

 

Now, had my Lone Wolf and his Avatar kept going at it, the Lone Wolf would have won out thanks to his Wolf Claws and special rules. I had two wounds off the Avatar by the end of the game.

 

(If anyone remembers my paranoia of Avatars of Khaine a year ago, that paranoia has been defeated. Despite his strengths [such as WS10] he can't stand up to our IC's charging him.)