Space Wolves 1k point army list HELP

[battlebeats]

So I'm green when it comes to Warhammer 40k and I've taken a liking to the Space Wolves. I've started up with a few friends and I'm looking for some experienced input on my army list.

 

We've started small doing 1000 point armies, My buddies have nids, blood angels, chaos marines (nurgle), 1k sons, space Marines, and Tau. I'm not trying to build my army to counter just one because I'll just end up failing against the others.

 

Here is what I have soo far:

-This group will be dropping in to the middle of the fight via drop pod

Logan Grimnar

2xWolf Guard terminator with dual wolf claws

Wolf Guard terminator Frost axe

Wolf Guard terminatorthunder hammer/ storm shield

drop pod with missile launcher

 

-This group moving up in a razorback

5x grey hunters one with power weapon and standard

Rune priest in terminator armor, chooser of the slain, wolf tail talisman, wolf tooth necklace

razorback with lascannon and twink-linked plasma gun

 

-Heavy support

2xLong fang with lascannon

Long fang with missile launcher

Long fang leader with power fist

 

I believe this army comes out to 997 points. I realize it's not very troop heavy but I foolishly started with terminators because people said they are great and to make them a troop choice I took Logan Grimnar. Since I already bought and started painting them this is what I ended up with... We do plan on eventually moving up to 1500/1750 but not until we get more familiar with our army's.

 

Once again this is my FIRST army and forum post. I know there will be some hella negative comments but what can ya do? Advice is greatly appreciated.

[hendrik]

welcome to the fang battlebeats!

 

first of all you propably found out by now all of those armies are really different to handle, the nids can swarm you while the tau will outgun you. for games less then 1500 i would never recommend going wolfwing. logan is just too expensive for a 1000 pts list, as are terminators in my opinion.

the way you've described it you're splitting up your forces, you're dropping 1/3rd right in front of them, 1/3rd moves onward and 1/3rd stays in the back. this makes it easy for your opponent to trow his entire list against a part of your list. do you have acces to other troops choices or models?

[toonarmy]

Welcome to the Fang!

 

I predict most comments will focus on the fact that termies and Grimnar are way too expensive at this army size. But seeing as you are committed I shall focus on what i would add to balance the list.

 

It seems like you aren't using the force organisation chart. Is this deliberately so?

 

Either way, you need more troop units. you are not going to be able to capture enough objectives with only 1 scoring squad and if they are taken out you won't be able to get any!!! To get this i would remove the rune priest as you have insinuated you don't want to leave out Logan Grimnar. This would free up some of the points for another unit.

 

You are also 1 marine short in your long fang squad to make it legal. and loose the power fist on the squad leader. Long fangs should not be in combat so 9 times out of 10 this is points wasted.

 

Overall I would say for my style you have put too many "toys" or expensive options on you units. If you are going to run termies at this points limit then I think you have to accept that they are your big hammer unit. everything else has to support them. For example tooling your grey hunters up with a power weapon and a really expensive razorback is investing too many valuable points. Similarly putting a death wind missile launcher on the drop pod for the terminators is too much at this limit. to work the unit you are shooting at must be within 12" away which may happen once per game but that is with a good roll for deep striking or a poor tactical decision by your opponents.

 

I'm trying to be constructive for you so please don't let what i have said deter you. At the end of the day everyone plays their army differently ;)

[Patrikthegrim]

Well your stuck with the terminators and logan it seems but thats not so bad. The rune priest doesn't need termie armor though and he can't fit in a razorback with terminator armor. So you gotta drop that Rzr or get rid of that termie armor. If you have to keep the termie armor drop the rzr and add another grey hunter. The talisman and necklace are personal preference but i dont use them. Your long fang doesnt a power fist either, they should never be in combat let alone with something you need a powerfist to kill. That powerfist is another grey hunter. If i was you my next buy would be grey hunters.

[battlebeats]

Thanks for the advice, this is exactly the kind of input I was looking for!

 

Are you saying that splitting up my army with Long fangs in the rear, termies dropping in, and now grey hunters and rune priest (w/o termie armor) moving up in a razor is a bad move? I was thinking it keeps my heavy support safe, moves my troops up quickly, and place my CQ termies right into battle. I think I've got alot more planning to do haha. I'll try and play with what I have for now and tweak as I progress.

 

Hmmm... starting to think I may scrap Logan and terminators, grab a few rhinos and grey hunter packs with Long fangs in the rear lead by a rune priest.

Also, is it really worth the cost for las cannons in 1k point? I'm currently the only one playing with a dedicated transport, my opponents are all slogging and jump packs soo far. I think my biggest fear is gonna be the blood angels...

 

Do space wolves need a fast attack choice? I know it's not "required" but would it be worth it in 1k? and speaking of which...how the hell do I get Fenrisian wolves? conversion from orc riders or w/e they are?

[hendrik]

Thanks for the advice, this is exactly the kind of input I was looking for!

 

Are you saying that splitting up my army with Long fangs in the rear, termies dropping in, and now grey hunters and rune priest (w/o termie armor) moving up in a razor is a bad move? I was thinking it keeps my heavy support safe, moves my troops up quickly, and place my CQ termies right into battle. I think I've got alot more planning to do haha. I'll try and play with what I have for now and tweak as I progress.

your spliting up your forces. what this means is that you're sending in roughly 500 pts at each time to deal with the opponent. here's an example of what i mean:

 

you drop logan and those wolf guard right in front of your enemy to take care of a unit. lets say their shooting takes out about 100 pts (that's 6-7 marines) the next turn your wolf guard will now be facing the whole 900pts -losses from the heavy fire from the long fangs on their own. you're allowing your opponent to overwhelm you.

look at how a wolf hunts in the wild, do they do it on their own? no, they work together like a pack,always supporting eachother in keeping up the chase, the hunt, the kill. a space wolf army functions exactly like that, we don't have things like paladins or nob bikers that can take a crapload of abuse besides thunderwolves,maybe so you need your packs to work together.

the longfangs stay in the back, that's great but long fangs aren't scoring, therefor you'll likely want to keep a "long range" grey hunter pack there to claim that deployment zone objective and hold it together with your long fangs. a great unit for this is a grey hunter pack in a razorback. since those guys will be sitting there the wole time anyway the only special weapon you'll want for them are plasma guns. then comes the element that keeps up the chase, you'll need to be able to dictate what your opponent will do, some mobile units such as greyhunters in rhinos or landspeeders(especially the landspeeder typhoon) are great for this.

[toonarmy]

I think what Hendrik is saying is that you are making it easy for your opponents to break down your force. Long fangs will most often be stationary at the rear and that is fine but by splitting up the rest of your force you are essentially giving your opponent only 1-2 targets at a time to focus on. The following, very simplified, explanation shows this.

 

Turn 1

Your drop pod comes down but you can't assault this phase and your drop pod can't shoot so essentially your unit up from has to weather the storm.

Your long fangs will shoot.

Your grey hunters in the razorback will move up. if it moves 6" it will shoot it's 1 shot if not you will move 12" and may be halfway up the board.

 

in this phase all that can shoot is long fangs at the back and maybe the razorback. All your opponent will see is a big scary unit of terminators right next to them so will plow all firepower into them and may even assault. At this points limit i think it unlikely that the terminators will all be gone this turn but they will take casualties and could be assaulted by a good close combat unit.

 

Turn 2-3

Your drop pod can now shoot but may not be in range you surviving terminators will either be in combat or assaulting into it.

Your long fangs will shoot again.

Your grey hunters in the razorback will move up more. if it moves 6" it will shoot it's 1 shot if not you will move 12". You grey hunters may bail out in turn 3 but they are safer within the razorback to be honest unless you can get into combat.

 

in these turns your long fangs continue to shoot and your razorback moves further up the field. As your terminators are now in combat they can't be shot at so either your opponent will move more units to assault them or he will focus fire on another unit. If i were to focus fire at this point i would probably target your long fangs if possible as that razorback is only putting out 1-2 shots per turn and the unit of hunters is a small one.

 

Turn 4-5

more combat for terminators they may have won and moved into the next by this point if they are still around..

Your long fangs will shoot again if still there.

Your grey hunters in the razorback will move up more if still there. if your still around you are going to be in assault range now so you will probably bail out and charge.

 

I think at this point your success will depend on whether or not your terminators were able to survive. if they didn't the whole of their remaining forces is going to turn and focus on your grey hunters and with such a small number they will be gone if this is the case, then any remaining long fangs are just a technicality. if the terminators survived then you may be able to win due to the fact your opponent will have to have thrown a large portion of his army at the terminators and lost them.

 

I know this is a long explanation but it should help you in identifying the fact that units need to work in synergy. at 1000pts i run 2 maxed out long fang squads but i also run 3 rhinos with 3 rune priests inside. what i am doing is making my rhinos the target of my opponent so that my long fangs can put out 6 missile shots and 4 lascannon shots a turn.

[battlebeats]

Ah I see what you're saying, I was mostly looking for my drop pod units to take out the enemy that would be the hardest to deal with later. I see that was kind of faulty thinking...

 

Long fangs in the rear, RzR back with grey hunters equipped with plasma guns, and maybe 2 packs of grey hunters in rhinos to move up? The more I hear about different tactics etc. the more I regret my army list lol. I am so excited to go grab some more units and buff up this list, although I could just proxy some units and see how it fairs. Since it's just friendly games I'm sure no one will mind.

 

In general you would recommend Long fangs for heavy support, and grey hunters for troops? As far as HQ's go I'm really attatched to this rune priest but open to suggestion. I'll revamp my list tonight and post it. Thanks again for the great insight!

[battlebeats]

toonarmy, very detailed thank you! I really appreciate the time you guys are putting in to help me out, I honestly didn't expect all this :(

[toonarmy]

No problem. i have ben lurking on here a while but only recently started posting. thought it was time i put something in myself. Expect more responses and help as everyone on here is friendly. Just remember there are loads of different strategies you can use, you just need to find one that suits you.

[hendrik]

proxying is definetly worth it if your mates are ok with it. now note you don't need to go mechanised, playing a droppod army can work just as good and is also a challenge. greymage recently posted a topic about droppod tactics and it is definetly an interesting army build

[battlebeats]

Thanks hendrik I'll check it out asap

[battlebeats]

alright new army list as mine failed...

-Razorback with twin las cannon (75)

* 6 grey hunters (90)

-rhino #1 (35)

*10 grey hunters, 1 standard, 1 mark of the wulfin, 1 power fist (200)

-rhino #2 (35)

* 9 grey hunters, 1 standard, 1 power fist (170)

* rune priest, wolf tail talisman, saga of the beast slayer (115)

-6 long fangs (1 is leader) 5 missile-launchers (140)

-6 long fangs (1 is leader) 5 missile-launchers (140)

total- 1000

 

this might fair a bit better as I can see my buddy's defiler behind this monitor

[Jonas Stromclaw]

The list looks excellent, but what special weapons do the Grey Hunter packs have? Were you planning on going totally bolters? That doesn't give you a whole lot of killing power. Here's my suggestion:

 

Drop the wolf tail talisman and either one of the standards or the Saga of the Beastslayer. This will give you 15 points to play with. Give the nine man GH pack a flamer: they can now take care of hostiles camping in terrain and do serious damage to any horde units like guardsmen or guants. The ten man grey hunter pack allows you to take a second special weapon there for free, so give it double melta guns. This will give you some good penetration against AV 14 armor like land raiders or monoliths and is also reasonably effective against heavy infantry. Or, if you think that ten Missile Launcher shots per turn is sufficient anti tank for your gaming area, take two plasma guns. These are still effective against some vehicles, but much better for killing heavy infantry. The 6 man Grey Hunter squad will, I suspect, be grabbing an objective and sitting on it, so give them a plasma gun to engage hostiles at range, or a flamer if you want to spend the points elsewhere. What ever you do, I would not suggest leaving them with bolters. These lads are ranged troops first and its the special ranged weapons, not close combat armaments, that make them shine. Welcome to the Fang and win many victories for Russ.

[Patrikthegrim]

I agree with Jonas i like this list a lot more than your first. Like he said you just need to get some special weapons on those grey hunters. Dropping the MotW and powerfist on that 10 man unit for some special weapons might be the way to go, Jonas also offered some other solutions to that as well. If you really want a dedicated CC unit don't overlook 9 bloodclaws with a wolf priest. A lot of people will say thats a bad idea i think but its worked on the table for me.

[toonarmy]

like the others suggest, you need to put a special weapon in the 10 man squad. the fact you gets second for free makes it even more cost effective. i would drop the Mark of the wulfen as i find it hit and miss and i love banners.

 

I understand everyones logic on the razorback squad. a flamer would be a nice addition. However I'm not sure it's entirely needed. if the squad are sitting in the razorback the majority of the game then they can't shoot out of the razorback so a flamer would be redundant. its a 50/50 choice really but if your tight on points this is what i would leave out.

[hendrik]

If you really want a dedicated CC unit don't overlook 9 bloodclaws with a wolf priest. A lot of people will say thats a bad idea i think but its worked on the table for me.

sure a bloodclaw unit works, i'm even trying to include one as ofter as i can but the point is greyhunters and wolf guard will easely outclass them. Berserk charge is a nice thing but after that first round of combat my claws are often struggling to survive because their low WS makes them so much easier to hit.

a grey hunter unit on the other hand makes a less impresive charge but with the ability to reroll 1's thanks to a the wolf standard for 1 turn and their better WS they easely outclass bloodclaws, especially when these too are led by a wolf priest (heck,because of the reroll 1's you're greyhunters almost have a 2+ save so to speak)

an often overlooked unit however are the wolf guard. usually people spend a lot of points on these guys to put them in TDA or give them the ever popular PF+combiweapon to become a wolf guard pack leader. but let's just look at their stats, for 205 pts you can get 10 wolf guard, 1 PF and 1 combiflamer. a simmilar equiped bloodclaw unit costs you 175pts, so thats a 30pts difference. for these extra 30 pts you lose berserk charge, but gain 1WS/BS, you're getting Ld9, but most of all these guys have 2 attacks from their profile, add another one for their boltpistol and these guys will now have 3 attacks, 4 when getting charged or counterattacking. that's a much more durable unit in close combat and even more devastating on the charge. the only downside of them would be that they aren't a troopschoice, but given that they are a close combat unit chances are rather high they either die somewhere during the game or end up contesting an objective rather then claiming it completly

[toonarmy]

I have never thought of that hendrik. you make a good point. At 1000pts though, 30pts extra is quite a lot but if battlebeats is going to take Grimnar then the wolf guard then become scoring which then makes them much more attractive. I still have to question their effectiveness however. The grey hunters would have fewer attacks but with the banner they would probably work out not too dissimilar in combat

[hendrik]

I have never thought of that hendrik. you make a good point. At 1000pts though, 30pts extra is quite a lot but if battlebeats is going to take Grimnar then the wolf guard then become scoring which then makes them much more attractive. I still have to question their effectiveness however. The grey hunters would have fewer attacks but with the banner they would probably work out not too dissimilar in combat

aye, but they would still have one attack less, hence i mentioned the wolf guard pack. i guess it comes down on what you like.

[SgtTelion]

Hey there! Welcome to the wonderful world of Wolves!

 

Might i suggest you take some time to read the Tactics article's on this site: http://space-wolves-grey.blogspot.com/

 

They guy who writes them (Adam I think his name is) Does so very well. By using these articles, i have become a much better player, used my wolves to their strengths, and stopped making poor Army Lists.

 

Trust me... Read it!

 

Good Luck!

[SgtTelion]

Oh, and drop the powerfist from the long fangs (you want to be trying to keep them out of combat, and if they do get hit, they will get torn apart, so the point on the powerfist can be used elsewhere - it's a static powerfist, unlikely to be used)

, and replace the power weapon with MoTW - That is my Opinion anyways!

 

Also, The long fangs... all missile launchers - its awesome lol.

Its worthwhile taking a Razorback with TL-LC for them. They probably wont get in it, but it can make ideal cover, and when you stop and think about it, its not bad value for points.

 

Also, my biggest bit of Advice when it comes to Playing a Space wolves army is this (and I AM A TERRIBLE player lol) ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS take as many Grey Hunters as you possibly Can. They are AWESOME.

That is all.

 

You know what they say, we all have em.(opinions that is)

[Vantius]

Here is my two cents, for what they are worth.

 

What everyone is saying is spot on. It is evident that you have done a little more research from the new list you came up with.

 

However, I understand the pain of wanting models you hunk you need, and not wanton the ones you have. Please don't be discouraged by what you read or what people say. First, there is no better place to play win less than favorable lists than with your friends. This might actually allow you to get some much needed experience using theless frequently used units.

 

Also, you can still use those termis, and Logan, And still have a decent list. Lone wolves in terminator armor. Logan can easily stand in as a wolf lord or battle/pack leader with frost axe. Don't be afraid to keep your troops on foot, or use drop pods. Rune priests can be given terminator armour, for a much needed invuln. The point I will make is that the models you have are not necessarily unusable, but rather they require a bit more thought to fit them into a solid list.

 

I'm not sure exact what else you have besides the terminators, but I would also recommend a space wolves pack or two for sure. You can make just about every Power Armored model in the codex with that box. If you are interested in a drop pod, the battle force could also be a good first purchase, with 20 troops and scouts being great additions to starting army.

 

Have fun with your army first. Terminators are fun to play and cool as hell to look at. Use them and polish your skills. If you don't, they will just collect dust...and that's no fun at all.

[battlebeats]

Question... If I have a unit with dual wolf claws... And they have 2 base attacks... In cc would I get 16 attacks? I figure two attacks, then 2 wolf claws, and each claw hits 4 times...

[Vantius]

No. You get 2 base attacks. Those use the special rules for wolf claws (or whatever close combat weapon you have). If a model has two wolf claws, then it receives an extra attack, putting a wolf guard at 3. If you are charging, you get another extra attack, making it 4.

[postal105]

Question... If I have a unit with dual wolf claws... And they have 2 base attacks... In cc would I get 16 attacks? I figure two attacks, then 2 wolf claws, and each claw hits 4 times...

you have 2 attacks base + 1 for charging + 1 for having the extra one so you get a total of 4 attacks period. but that is only on a charge if you don't charge you get 3 attacks with the special rules for the weapon.