New army recently bought - need feedback!

[Brother_Byhlli]

Hey guys. I bought a Blood Angels army on auction at my LGW during a celebration for the shop's birthday.

 

I suspect that much of what I got wouldn't be best used as Blood Angels and I'm curious what you would say to using some of it as Space Wolves.

 

I've spoken to a few of you about doing an all-Terminator army and, while I'm still keen to do that, having a few Grey Hunter and Long Fong packs kicking about hardly does me any harm now, does it?

 

^_^

 

So, I was hoping you might be willing to have a quick look at the thread I opened in the Blood Angels forum (which you can find by clicking here) and then replying with your thoughts on what I could salvage for Space Wolves.

 

I presume that if I buy a Pack or two of Space Wolf models, I can get enough bits throughout the sprue to make a vanilla Tactical Squad painted in the right colours look pretty Space Wolfey. Do you think that's reasonable?

 

Looking forward to your feedback - hopefully you guys can help me out.

 

Thanks in advance, brothers!

[red_starrise]

Well, the majority of it is usable, yes. The things that aren't w/out alot of work are:

1 Apothecary with exsanguinator and bolt pistol

1 The Sanguinor

1 Baal Predator with flamestorm cannon and heavy flamer sponsons

1 Librarian Dreadnought with close-combat weapon and force sword

1 Stormraven with twin-linked lascannons and twin-linked multi-melta (not usable at all, at least in anything but friendly games)

 

Usable w/ some work:

1 collectors edition jump pack model with power sword and infernus pistol

5 ten-man Tactical Squads with missile launcher and flamer, with plasma pistols on the Sergeants

3 ten-man Tactical Squads with missile launcher and flamer, with no upgrades on the Sergeants

1 ten-man Tactical Squad with multi-melta and melta gun, with no upgrades on the Sergeant

 

May not be usable:

1 5-man Sanguinary Guard Squad with detailed banner upgrade, two power sword and angelus boltgun, one power fist and infernus pistol, one power sword and infernus pistol, one power axe, angelus boltgun and banner upgrade

 

These will be usable w/ just a bit of model swapping or modifying:

1 5-man Devastator Squad with four heavy bolters, with melta gun and power fist on the Sergeant

1 5-man Devastator Squad with four lascannons, with plasma pistol and power fist on the Sergeant

1 5-man Devastator Squad with three heavy bolters and a missile launcher, with plasma pistol and power fist on the Sergeant

1 5-man Devastator Squad with three lascannons and a missile launcher, with no upgrades on the Sergeant

 

These should work as Skyclaws:

1 5-man Death Company Squad all with jump packs, with one thunderhammer, one power fist and infernus pistol, one power sword and infernus pistol, one plasma pistol and chainsword, one bolt pistol and chainsword

 

That's just my .02 tho, YMMV.

[Brother_Byhlli]

Thanks a lot for the quick reply.

 

What sort of work do you think the Tactical Squads would need? Obviously they need stripped and repainted, but I figure that a Tactical Squads that is, say one-half to two-thirds made of these models with the rest filled in by Grey Hunters models, maybe with a few details added in here and there on these models to make them more wolf-like would look pretty much fine. Do you think they'll need more work than that?

 

The Devastators are the models I'm most interested in for conversion to Long Fangs. How do people tend to run their Long Fang packs? If I use the missile launchers from the Tactical Squads I could do ten missile launchers and five heavy bolters. I would also have seven lascannons kicking about.

 

I have maybe thirty or forty Assault Squad Space Marines that haven't been painted up yet, so if I was going to build Skyclaws, I'd use them. Seems a pity to have the Death Company sitting there, all built up, and not use them. In fairness, though, they need some work even as Death Company. Their kit isn't actually legal for a five-man unit, so some changes would need to be made.

 

I'm making my assumptions based on the belief that Grey Hunters and Long Fangs often make up the backbone of a Space Wolves army, though I haven't yet explored them enough to be entirely confident saying that. Am I working on the right lines, or do I need a radical reassessment?

 

:)

[red_starrise]

Thanks a lot for the quick reply.

 

What sort of work do you think the Tactical Squads would need? Obviously they need stripped and repainted, but I figure that a Tactical Squads that is, say one-half to two-thirds made of these models with the rest filled in by Grey Hunters models, maybe with a few details added in here and there on these models to make them more wolf-like would look pretty much fine. Do you think they'll need more work than that?

 

Well, first off, due to GH not being able to take heavy weapons at all, that would mean you have to drop the heavies from the squads. Then you have to look at the dex & figure what you wanna kit your GH out for, I personally run a pack of 8 w/ a plasma gun, power weapon, mark of the wulfen & a wolf standard plus a wolf guard armed w/ a combi-weapon of some stripe & either a power fist, frost blade or thunder hammer. So as far as bolter & special weapons go you're good, but if you wanna do PF/PW/PP or Wolf Guard you've got some thinking to do in that instance.

 

The Devastators are the models I'm most interested in for conversion to Long Fangs. How do people tend to run their Long Fang packs? If I use the missile launchers from the Tactical Squads I could do ten missile launchers and five heavy bolters. I would also have seven lascannons kicking about.

 

I'm making my assumptions based on the belief that Grey Hunters and Long Fangs often make up the backbone of a Space Wolves army, though I haven't yet explored them enough to be entirely confident saying that. Am I working on the right lines, or do I need a radical reassessment?

 

Devs as Long Fangs is pretty easy just keep in mind that a LF pack can only be up to 6 men before any wolf guard additions, that's up to 5 heavy weapons. The way I personally kit mine out is one pack w/ 3 ML, 2 LC & one pack w/ 2 PC & 2 HB. My thinking is that both squads serve the same purpose based on their weapons (ie: the LC/ML is primarily anti-heavy infantry & vehicle, the PC/HB is primarily anti-light/medium infantry & tranpsort/hordes) thus I key them to be able to do the same range of jobs either split fire or cohesively because, face it, w/out bolter boys to soak wounds, the first one to get tossed as a casualty is usually the pack leader, so I also make sure they have about the same ranges as well.

 

Alot of people like to run 5 ML but I don't favor that kit out personally.

 

The backbone of a SW army is your Grey Hunters, Long Fangs are support & Blood Claws are your rabid dogs held tightly on chains.

[Brother_Byhlli]

Well, first off, due to GH not being able to take heavy weapons at all, that would mean you have to drop the heavies from the squads. Then you have to look at the dex & figure what you wanna kit your GH out for, I personally run a pack of 8 w/ a plasma gun, power weapon, mark of the wulfen & a wolf standard plus a wolf guard armed w/ a combi-weapon of some stripe & either a power fist, frost blade or thunder hammer. So as far as bolter & special weapons go you're good, but if you wanna do PF/PW/PP or Wolf Guard you've got some thinking to do in that instance.

 

Ok, cool. I hadn't picked up on the lack of heavy weapons in the Grey Hunters, but I realise now that you're absolutely right. That means I suddenly have significantly more Long Fang Packs or Devastator Squads than I had originally thought!

 

Are plasma guns a good idea with Grey Hunters? I realise that counter-attack means it's not quite as important to get a charge off and certainly against higher-Initiative units, having an additional round of shooting before combat is essentially free hits before you're forced to fight, but don't you feel that using a plasma gun instead of a meltagun somewhat limits the versatility of your units?

 

Devs as Long Fangs is pretty easy just keep in mind that a LF pack can only be up to 6 men before any wolf guard additions, that's up to 5 heavy weapons. The way I personally kit mine out is one pack w/ 3 ML, 2 LC & one pack w/ 2 PC & 2 HB. My thinking is that both squads serve the same purpose based on their weapons (ie: the LC/ML is primarily anti-heavy infantry & vehicle, the PC/HB is primarily anti-light/medium infantry & tranpsort/hordes) thus I key them to be able to do the same range of jobs either split fire or cohesively because, face it, w/out bolter boys to soak wounds, the first one to get tossed as a casualty is usually the pack leader, so I also make sure they have about the same ranges as well.

 

Alot of people like to run 5 ML but I don't favor that kit out personally.

 

The backbone of a SW army is your Grey Hunters, Long Fangs are support & Blood Claws are your rabid dogs held tightly on chains.

 

Ok, I see what you're doing with your squads. You think that having the ability to split targets means it's worth having a variety of weapons? Presumably, though, the first model that you take out the squad when you take a wound is the Sergeant. Doesn't that then mean you have to focus fire on one unit? I guess with your set-up, all your weapons are actually capable of focusing fire on the same unit. Of course, having bought what models I have, I'm probably going to be using missile launchers more than anything else - simply because I have so many of them. Two squads with five missile launchers, one squad with five heavy bolters and one squad with five lascannons. That gives me enough versatility depending on which army I'm fighting, right? Though it does leave me without any real Blood Angel Devastator Squads to speak of. I'll go move models around to find out how I want to put units together!

[eyeslikethunder]

I find mixing my LF's works better than one squad of this or that due to the Split firing makes it harder for opponents to block line of sight, stay out of range, avoid the unit in question or target the squad with weapons they hate most . If you are concerned that you are losing that too early due the first casualty being the SGT add a Wolf guard for extra wound.

 

I have a mix of melta and plasma. It depends mostly on the opponents you play plasma works better against low or medium armour vehicles/ 2+ save infantry where melta works better against multiwound t4/ high armour vehicles. Remember you always have your bolt pistols on GH even on the plasma/melta guys so they can shoot and charge if its best. I use the plasma on my objective sitter squad for the range and melta for the objective grabber squads.

[Brother_Byhlli]

Noted, thanks. That seems like sound advice! I'll keep that in mind while I try to split my models up!