Remembering who we are

[Karack Blackstone]

I'll come back and add that after having heard about a Razorspam list idea that I can recall now thinking that it was unfair and unusual for SW's to favor such light numbers for GH's.

 

The fact remains that LF's are better served in a Razorback overall, and their weapons if ML's might been seen as cheese. That said cheese for LF's happens to be their best weapons (ML's) is something I must say I find versatile and hard bits to acquire. Also, I think Mr. Kelly did kind of make LF's too cheap by a point or two, overall. LF's are just great this edition. Anyone recall 3rd still where a LF was really expensive?

 

Hero, no offense, but one outlook on our army is like saying there is one great company when there are in fact twelve. It's not a baseless statement, it's just going to require more information to come up with a reasonable counter when all the players that seem to be using the internet to maximize list performance are forgetting the fluff of the army, and playing min-max games. I submit to you that many of these internet players may keep SW's, but some should have moved on to the FOTM armies like BA's and GK's.

 

I pray that I will never become an unfluffy SW. I truly do. I just don't see why people think that an army should only exist as they see it is fair to others that don't think like them.

[TiguriusX]

Furthermore, there is nothing wrong with true SWs using Long Fangs. Space wolves aren't mindless close combat berserkers of Chaos...

 

Wolves are not mindless berserkers of Chaos? Either are the actual berserkers of Chaos lol.

 

 

Where are you views of chaos berserkers formed? Mine are fluff. I was under the impression they have become so consumed with battle rage and blood lust they lost themselves to Khorne. All they care about is killing and hacking and slicing. Blood for the blood god or thereabouts.

 

They basically eschew the finer points of ranged combat and tactical cover fire for close combat. An extremely violent version of a Space Wolf Bloodclaw comes to mind (headstrong rule).

 

They are even known to attack allies in their blood lust. One of their prominent characters is Khârn the Betrayer

 

Now...since I don't have the time to go through all my novels and provide cites the easiest is the lexicanum entry for Khorne Berserkers

 

 

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Khorne_Berzerker

 

I'd like to know how a Chaos player views his berzerker and where the support comes from. Perhaps I should have used the word "insane" or "delusional" instead of "mindless" to describe them?

[Grey Mage]

The Warhounds were an aggressive legion, sure- but it was the rage enhancing bionics that each one was implanted with to mimic their primarch that turned the legion as a whole to khorne.

[Godhead]

I don't understand why the wound allocation on TWC is getting beat up on. Space Wolves are supposed to beat heads with a frost blade in hand...Wolves are wildly individual... If that's everyone's expectation of how wolves play on the table, they fit the bill. It's still a wargame, and we surely didn't invent the would allocation concept.. Ork Nobz were doing it when I was still sporting wgbl's with assault cannons and ven dreads were my main HQs. It's a viable game mechanic that helps the concept of 8 foot tall super warriors transition from fluff to the table top. I mean, they are supposed to be HEROES!!"

 

It kind of irritates me that people cry about it simply because it's tough. I don't know about the rest of you, but If I sport a WL on a TWM with TWC retinue i'm clocking in at over 500 points. That's 1/3 to 1/4 of my army. It had better damn well be durable, and heck it fits the theme of this list. Another thing about spacewolf fluff is that they are cunning, not bloodthirsty. They are a pack of wolves giving chase to a prey to tire and wear them down before they close in and go for the throat. Fight smarter, not necessarily harder (however IMO wolves always fight their hard as well as smart).

 

I try to play a balanced list. If I field TWC then i have to field something shooty to provide coverfire while they cross the field. My greyhunters are the true workhorses. They score, they provide short range fire and man.. they are just awesome when you dig in and bust a rapid fire volley, pop a standard and receive a charge and maul the opponent, or better yet, pop pistols shots and charge them 1st. I don't build a list to ignore one whole phase of the game. I enjoy both shooting and assault phase immensely and if I am missing one or the other in my list, I grow bored and revamp my list to something more agreeable. I am growing weary of mech and have been looking at building a decent footslogging (probably drop pod list)

 

I have other armies, most of the armies I have sit on my shelf because I bought them because I loved some of the model line. I don't really play those armies because they don't fit my play style. I love playing a list that can shoot and assault. I like the versatile armies. Guard bore me to death. I don't like to play them, I don't like to play against them. I spend 3 rounds of getting my ass shot off while trying to cross the field to finally knock them down like dominoes.

 

Another thing I've noticed is that I have never encountered a single wolf list identical to mine. Everyone one fields different things. I never field wolf scouts or dreads anymore. I see plenty of lists where those units are a staple. I also don't think everyone's idea of spam is the same.

[Khavos]

I submit to you that many of these internet players may keep SW's, but some should have moved on to the FOTM armies like BA's and GK's.

 

That, I think, is what this whole argument's really about. People want to win because they're the better general, not because they have the better codex. For Space Wolves, that's a tough sell, as they're widely regarded as having the best codex in 40K, and have for a while now. The ship-jumpers should have jumped by now, yet A D-B recently told us that, when he was up at GW HQ chatting with the head honchos, he asked, and was told that Space Wolves blow everyone else out of the water in terms of popularity. Now, does GW actually know that for sure? I have no idea how they could. It doesn't matter.

 

This "fluffy vs. unfluffy" list argument, to my mind, is based off the notion that, as the most competitive codex, Space Wolves have the most players, the majority running strikingly similar lists, and, at the end of the day, people prefer to think of themselves as the scrappy underdogs rather than the faceless, conformist majority. I don't know why it's worried about so much. It's not the players' fault that they have an excellent codex. It's also not their fault that some choices are so amazing that they become automatic. As a non-Space Wolf player, do I see a lot of similarities? Absolutely. If your SW opponent tells you he's not running Loganwing, you basically know what he's bringing. So what? Your models, your army, your money. Do with them as you see fit.

[Wulfebane]

Forget about the notion of what you should or shouldn't be taking in your army. If you built your new SW army with 12 to 18 Long Fangs, Thunder Wolves and minimised Grey Hunter squads or added them to your list, then you need to realise the list you built is there for just for winning without a thought to originality or even the back ground material.

 

Says who? I can think of a dozen ways to make that fluffy, not that it in any way compares to how I build my lists.

 

 

Hero, no offense, but one outlook on our army is like saying there is one great company when there are in fact twelve. It's not a baseless statement, it's just going to require more information to come up with a reasonable counter...

 

More than 12. You've got a good portion of SW players that go with the 13th. Outside of that, you have people who use their own Wolf Lords, lost companies, pre-heresy, post-heresy, Wolf Lords that came before the current roster in the codex, all of which have their own fluff and tactics that are different from the current 12. And don't even get me started on the "counts-as" group...

 

Another thing I've noticed is that I have never encountered a single wolf list identical to mine. Everyone one fields different things. I never field wolf scouts or dreads anymore. I see plenty of lists where those units are a staple. I also don't think everyone's idea of spam is the same.

 

Likewise. There's all this talk of razorspam, ML-only LFs, and TWC overload, etc etc yada... I've yet to encounter any of these "stereotypical and cheesy" lists that are so controversial. Bottom line, HERO's post was grossly presumptuous and can in no way isolate this "fluffy vs unfluffy" debate any better than isolating a single person's heritage, customs or traditions. With a codex as good as ours, there's no "right way" to play a SW.

[Marshal Wilhelm]

Basically I am against one group saying another group is doing it wrong, which is usually "fluff" players telling "competitive" players off for not conforming to their vision of how 40K is to be played. Which puts me in opposition with my dear M2C and WLK :P

 

The thing is this: what GW writes is not translatable into a winning list, generally.

Why do people RazorFang, MeltaVet and Hammernator their lists up - because they are strong lists. Strong lists should be fluffy, as in, whatever is the best on table, should be what is 'the ideal' fluffwise. Tacs should be stronger, Assault Marines and Devs too. Bloodclaws shouldn't be "yeah, they are fighting, but on the next table over, *wink wink*" and so on.

 

People have conceived notions of right and wrong, which is fine, but want others to conform to it. It even happens in RL. I went for a job where I'd be going interstate and fixing machines. The boys were all heavy drinking party boys. When I didn't reply "getting drunk with the boys is coolzors" I shot myself in the foot with regards to getting the job. My nephew's mate who was a very good sparky apprentice was ostracised at work because he wasn't into footy and getting sloshed on the weekend. If people want to do these things, they are free to do them. But it seems funny to me that two decent workers were limited because they weren't yes-men to what the boss wanted from his crew. "You have to agree with me and commend my lifestyle for me to be comfortable around you." Really?

 

Basically, people need to be overt in what they want from their hobby time, so they don't get a shock and react badly to that.

Want to tell a grand story as de rigeur for your gaming time. Cool. Want to play finely tuned lists and play hard. Cool.

But telling people they are not "doing the faction right" seems odd to me.

 

You also don't tend to see competitive players ripping on fluffy players for "poor play".

 

I have long been reconciled to 40K and GW not being a perfect environment for my daydreams and fantasy to take place in. Realistic isn't running through high-powered small arms fire and chopping things heads off. The classic caption of the IG commander on top of the LR Demolisher saying "dry me closer, so I can chop it with my sword" somewhat sums it all up.

 

Similarly, Marines on the table are nothing like Marines in the fluff. I remember when Eldar were beardy and the bane of Marine players, who were quite offended due to the 'best faction' getting pwned on table by the Space Pixies.

GW had to buff Marines from t3 and sv4+ into t4 and save 3+ because they totally missed the fluff onto table continuity.

Other than Movie-MarinesTM, the closest depiction of the l33tness of Marines was from someone who had true-scaled his Marines [pre heresy World Eaters] and was using the C:DH for his force, with the Power armoured Marines using the old GK Terminator rules:

They had a 2+5++ save, s6 chain swords, and bolters were assault2 weapons. This much more suits the epicness of Marines, rather than the weedy Tactical Marine we get stuck with.

 

So if we can recognise that 40K is a suspension of disbelief, and that the rules don't accurately portray the fluff, why is there this big ordeal on trying to oblige people into playing "fluffy lists"?

Fluff ≠ rules, and therefore on table doesn't represent real story telling anyway:

 

a] If you played an Apoc game with a 1K Marines, even if you won, you could easily lose 500 Marines. Uh-oh, Chapter ruined....

 

b] In a 1500 pt game, you easily lose 15 Marines a battle. 1000/15 = 67 games. Chapter gone.

 

c] Most players use the Battle-Companies of their Chapter. Realistically, only three guys in the entire world are allowed to play Ultramarine Battle Companies.

 

d] In the recent WD, Ragnar Blackmane was killed fighting Red Corsairs. Uh oh, no one can use Ragnar Blackmane anymore, he's dead.

 

Now if we can work around these small stumbling blocks, it doesn't seem much different to also say 'I don't have to use a list on table as per fluff in Dex.'

If a-d are all overlooked, why is having lists that are not verbatim as per Codex fluff such a stumbling block?

 

"Oh it is totally silly to say only three people can have the Battle Companies for the Ultras, but you must strictly represent that force with 6 Tacs, 2 Assault Marine and 2 Devs squads, otherwise you are totally ruining the hobby. Sicarius didn't die, was just a flesh wound. I don't care that he was struck with a Nemesis force weapon that sucks his soul out."

 

We regularly play Blue on Blue games, perhaps even more than we play against Red factions. There is only so many times that they'd be 'on training exercises' or 'oh no, not another IG heretic who hasn't paid his taxes' and so on. But we don't make a stink about that.

 

Sure it would be great if fluff = rules, everyone had both an Imperial and a non-Imperial army, and so on and on. But this isn't the way it is. So why do we try to make fluffy forces [as per Codex fluff] something that must be adhered to?

'Yes it was a great game, my properly fluffy Wolf force, with not to many Razors or Fangs and with higgledy-piggeldy sized packs fought against the Blood Angels yet again and won...." ....

 

What I am saying is, do it your way, but don't get hung up on others not conforming to this. As nerds, I am sure we have all been picked on for playing D&D, or not being the best in sports class, or being pale skinned, etc. We all slightly diverge away from what society has deemed as 'normal', though thankfully nerdy is becoming cooler. Now if we didn't like the 'normals' picking on us for playing toy-soldiers, why do we repeat the cycle and pick on the 'competitives' for not not conforming to our expectations?

 

Any justification for that, can be also used by society for condemning us for playing with toy-soldiers.

"You're not doing it right"

"What is wrong with you?"

"Do you really understand what it's all about?"

etc.

 

Those are my opinions on the matter. :)

[Torin]

Good day brother,

 

Well this seem to be a heated topic. Playing SW is playing the viking way. Yes we attack with our axes & swords. But onces the are recruited to be SM they have been though on how to battle enemy accordingly. Depending on who you fight, if you are going againts DE.. you think you can kick their A*ses before you end up dead... any wolf lord would find the best solution to fight their enemy before they bring their wolves to fight. Yup fighting with axes is our way. I have been playing since 2ed. But times change, so does our opponent.

 

I dont see anything wrong playing with 3 Long Fang squad.. but i dont play them every time. I change according to the enemy force which im about to face. You as a lord.. would you want to see your pup get butchered... NO!! you dont. So we strategize.. when possible we play as much fluff as possible.. but it also depends on your oppoenent you are facing.. VS power gamer = less fluff..... friendly games = more fluff.

 

that how i see it. I play with a mix list.. i dont stick to one. As a wolf lord you want to cover you pup in every way possible.. but death cant be avoided.

 

well this is one of my list.. what do you think brothers.. this is might not be fluffy because it has 3 LF and TWC that can distribute wound...hihihiihii :P

 

1 Thunder Lord

Rune Armor Wolf Claw Storm Shield

Wolf Tooth Necklace Thunderwolf Mount Saga Beast Slayer

Wolf Tail

 

2 Rune Priest

Power Armor Rune Weapon Bolt Pistol

Meltabomb Living Lightning Jaw Of the World Wolf

 

3 Rune Priest 100

Power Armor Rune Weapon Bolt Pistol

Murderous Hurricane Living Lightning

 

 

Elites

 

1 Wolf Guard x 3

Powerfist x 1 Bolt Pistol Krak & Frag Grenade

Wolf Claw x1 Power Weapon x1

 

Troops

 

1 Grey Hunters x 8

Meltagun x1 Wolf standard Mark Of the Wulfen x1

Bolter& Bolt Pistol Krak & Frag Grenade CC Weapon

Rhino

 

2 Grey Hunters x 8

Meltagun x1 Wolf standard Mark Of the Wulfen x1

Bolter& Bolt Pistol Krak & Frag Grenade CC Weapon

Rhino

 

3 Grey Hunters x 6

Flamer x1 CC Weapon Mark Of the Wulfen x1

Bolter& Bolt Pistol Krak & Frag Grenade

Razorback w/t HB

 

 

 

Fast Attack

 

1 Thunderwolf Calvary x 3

Thunder Hammer x 1 Storm Shield x 2 Melta Bomb x 1

Krak & Frag Grenade CC Weapon Bolt Pistol

 

 

Heavy Support

 

1 Long Fang x 6

Missile Launcher x3 Lascannon x1 Plasma Canon x1

Bolt Pistol CC Weapon Krak & Frag Granade

 

2 Long Fang x 6

Missile Launcher x3 Lascannon x1 Plasma Canon x1

Bolt Pistol CC Weapon Krak & Frag Granade

 

3 Long Fang x 6

Heavy Bolter x 5

Bolt Pistol CC Weapon Krak & Frag Granade

 

TOTAL = 1749

MODEL= 49

 

 

Cheers Guys.... just my 2cents.

[Jarl Kjaran Coldheart]

(took out parts that would continue this already over-drawn debate)

 

@Willie: you do see that you said you have a problem with players "Basically I am against one group saying another group is doing it wrong", and then go on to do it yourself right? :D

 

poor, crazy Willie.

 

WLKier Bear

[Marshal Wilhelm]

(took out parts that would continue this already over-drawn debate)

 

@Willie: you do see that you said you have a problem with players "Basically I am against one group saying another group is doing it wrong", and then go on to do it yourself right? ;)

 

poor, crazy Willie.

 

WLKier Bear

 

:)

Police using force against people using force, makes police wrong? No.

Now I am not the police of this issue, don't get me wrong, but me saying "something is not right" after another started saying "something is not right" is not the same as me saying "something is not right" in the first place.

 

I am both rich and sane! :)

[dswanick]

You also don't tend to see competitive players ripping on fluffy players for "poor play".

I'm glad you said "tend to" instead of the expected "never", because you should hear some of the "commnets" I've recieved when I field my entirely fluffy and once-upon-a-time codex-legal Space Wolves Leman Russ Exterminator or Space Wolves "Furioso" Dreadnought. Comments not from my opponent who has agreed to allow me to field them, but from random passing "competative" players at the LGS. :)

[Captain Idaho]

Forget about the notion of what you should or shouldn't be taking in your army. If you built your new SW army with 12 to 18 Long Fangs, Thunder Wolves and minimised Grey Hunter squads or added them to your list, then you need to realise the list you built is there for just for winning without a thought to originality or even the back ground material.

 

Says who? I can think of a dozen ways to make that fluffy, not that it in any way compares to how I build my lists.

 

 

Making up back ground justification for the reason your army is built exactly the same as everyone elses on the internet (slight exaggeration but you get the point) which maximises your chances of winning doesn't equate to resembling actual established back ground material for the army in question.

 

I have no problem with an army built however an opponent wants, nor competetive or anything else like that. I'm a competetive player myself who takes part in tournaments and enjoy the challenge! I just don't think people should hide behind back ground information open to interpretation and just admit they want a powerful army that helps them to win. No shame in it.

[skoll]

I find this thread funny after a match I had last week.

 

I played a 2k point game against a nid player.

 

After taking half an hour to set up his forces he looked at my side of the table and went "thats it?" he literally called people from several tables away with "guys check out 2000 points of space wolves"

 

my list consisted of

 

Hq:

Ragnar

Wolf Priest

Rune priest LL Jaws(attached to long fang pack 1)

Rune priest termie armor Jaws MH (attached to long fang pack 2)

elites:

1 lone wolf termie armorth ss

4 wolf guard SB and 1 wolf claw (replacing power sword)(them and arjack go in LR with ragnar and WP)

arjack

Evy support:

2 LF packs 4 ml

land raider redeemer

 

troops

 

X2 grey hunter pack 2 meltas mark o wulfen + rhino

1 grey hunter pack on foot no upgrades.

 

 

in my opinion if you make your opponent go "what?" then you aint a cheesy ass.

 

I love space wolves because our ability to field multiple heroes. Because our few guys can make legends of themselves......20 ish kill points and 7 turns later Ragnar 2 rune priests and Arjack stood atop a mound of corpses...that was it , that's what was left of my army.But it still felt awesome.