Thunderlord Lists

[Grimtooth]

So my normal thunderord list consists of 3 Grey Hunter squads running powerfists, dual meltas, MoW, and rhinos. Long Fang squad with 5 missile launchers with attached Rune Priest casting Tempest Wrath and Living Lightning. Ten strong pack of Fenrisian wolves attached to my dual thunderlords.

 

So playtesting and running them in tournaments, of course I have seen players just start blasting away at my "Deathstar" unit. So I got to thinking, if my opponent is going to target prioritize, why not screw up that tactic.

 

What do some of you thing of dropping my second thunderlord, half of my Fenrisian wolves, and my MoWs to allow for a 5 strong Wolf Guard in TDA drop podding in on turn 1?

 

I am adding another high target priority unit into the mix. I would run them with ss/th, CML/sb, chainfist/sb, fb/sb, sb/pw. I almost get the feeling of it being a steroid pumped up scout unit that I can pick anywhere for them to appear, without worrying about reserve or ouflank rolls. My opponent has the choice of focusing on my thunderlord speeding towards his lines, my WG TDA in his lines, or try and ineffectively split fire between the two of them.

 

Comments and criticisms?

[Vlk]

I'm planning to use Thunderwolves (with a Thunderlord) in a Drop Pod list for 1850 pts. It takes a lot of shooting to kill a single squad of GHs - imagine what it must be like when 3 of them drop directly in your lines in the first round, meltaguns, combi-meltas and flamers blazing, all with Wolf Standards and TDA Wolf Guard pack leaders with power/chain fists?

 

On turn one, they'll vaporize the strongest armour/monsters/infantry squads. On turn two, they'll most likely be able to get the charge and they Thunderpack will be there to join the party while Long Fangs support them from behind. I might also add a dread or something. The only thing I'm worried about are people putting everything in reserves... but hey, that's unreliable and exposed to the rest of pods...

[Stormbrow II]

Jaysus, that's almost the same as my list. I'm running it with more Long Fang squads but I think that I might have a few points more to spend than you (1750). Strange that I've followed a similar path to you in finding out about what units work consistently and what doesn't.

 

I ran a deathstar Wolf Blob for a while but the Wolves are unnecessary if you only have 2 Lords and they're a liability if you get dragged into combat and can't keep using your greater mobility. I've had a few games where they've resulted in my Lords getting bogged down prematurely. Here's an Eldar and a SW game just to show what I'm talking about.

 

As a result I'm dropping one of the Lords and the Wolves (Deathstars don't work against good players) in order to get some more mobility so I'm looking at a Scout squad and a Meltacide squad to get across the table quickly and buy time for the Rhinos. You want to shoot the ThunderLord? Knock yourself out. His 2+ save will soak up a pile of shots and I'm happy for you not to take out my Rhinos. Plus he's going to need 5 wounds to kill him as he has 2 pets and is immune to Instant Death.

 

I have found that your Lord's build will depend on what the rest of your army contains. Obviously. If you have TWC then give them the Fist/Hammer for S10 and let the Lord make use of his high Initiative. I'm fond of the Saga of Majesty for him aswell as it'll prevent you running away from multiple tank shocks and keep you in the fight when you need to without taking lots of No Retreat! wounds.

 

I'm not going to go ape over spending a huge amounts of points on an expendable unit so I'd counsel against putting lots of toys into the Pod squad. Lots of Combi-meltas, and maybe one or two combat builds like TH/SS and/or CF/SS so that when the others are inevitably gunned down you have something that will cause a few problems while the rest of the army is pulling into position.

[DapperDave]

Edit: Nevermind

[Coverfire]

Just looking at your normal list of Grey Hunters/ Long Fangs and Rune Priest. That was the winning list of the local tournament in the weekend. I didn't attend myself, because I haven't painted my army, but I would have liked to have seen it in action for myself.

[Levitas]

Just reserve the thunder wolves. They have a massive range and can usually reach mid table the turn they arrive. This works two ways, one they cant be shot at turn one and two people always forget what you have in reserve. I use this every game and it works, it means I can effectively pick a strong target for them.

 

I like the pod idea but the unit will almost certainly bite the dust, and thats points on a big fat bait unit. Better use of tactics will ensure you dont have to sacrifice units. Space wolves do counter attack tactics better than anyone, just let them run at you while battering them with long fang fire then whats left gets mauled by the thunderlord.

 

Just thoughts. Our codex and play style rocks so many methods to win.