Thunderwolf warlord

[SonOfThunder]

Hi all, I've been waiting for this codex since the rumours hit, mainly to build a TWC heavy force. I want to try different builds with the TWCs themselves, from barebones and lots of them to fewer and more tooled up. But my main doubt is the warlord for this force.

 

When you add the points of a stormshield  + thunderwolf + frost axe + wolf lord, you get the same as Harald. So if that loadout is what you want, Harald is the obvious answer.

 

Canis is kind of a TWC chaplain, but my feeling is TWC are already good enough that the rerolls are not too needed, and the lack of an invul save sucks, plus his stats are not really impressive. For a similar effect I'd rather get a wolf priest on a bike/JP and give everyone FNP6. Rerolling 1s to-wound with rending is a very good boost. Pity Ulrik can't get a bike. Or a thunderwolf :)

 

However I was thinking that maybe with rending and a 4++ save already in place, a wolf lord with 2 claws and runic armour can be more or less as resilient, depending on what he's shot with, but killier striking at initiative and one extra attack with shred to get more rends.

 

The wolf saga is very good however for a TWC heavy army, so having it guaranteed, and outflank, and his Ld for nearby wolves, Harald brings a lot of free advantages. What I don't like about him is that he strikes at Init 1 (I'd rather have a hammer in that case), and he can't take runic armour.

 

Then there's the discount option of getting a WGBL with runic armour, claw and shield, for 160. With W3, T5, 2+/3++ he's still able to tank a lot, although in this case probably the 30 point difference means Harald is just better.

 

Last time I played wolves I was using the 2nd edition dex, and I'm rather new to 6th/7th edition itself (came back to the fold around january '14, one game a month), so I lack the experience to judge these numbers.

 

I know the best way to find out is just playtest, and I'll be doing it, but still I'd appreciate any comments from savvy SW players :) Thanks!

[Ragnars Claw]

I'm torn between going with harald as he really buffs TWC or going for the pricier but better custom wolf lord. 

 

The custom wolf lord I'd go with something like: Fist, TWC, Runic Armour, Storm Shield but that would push him into the 220/230pts bracket at a guess (still waiting for my Long Fang codex edition....!!).

 

But then he would be able to tank wounds really well, much better than Harald. 

 

Tough call between the 2 I think. 

[SonOfThunder]

I think your combo is 215. Tanks a lot more, that's for sure. The claw combo is 205 and tanks less but kills more when against softer targets, and benefits from the higher init. With S6, rend and shred though, it can threaten anything. 

[Ragnars Claw]

215 is pretty good for that. 

 

The claw set up I like but just worry without a 3++. 

 

I know he has a 4++ but it just makes me uncomfortable. 

 

Having said that, with TWC now only being 55pts with a shield maybe it's not so much of a problem. 

[Spazmonkey]

Dont forget you can take a two with a storm shield and go for a look out sir as well.

[SonOfThunder]

Yup, the tanker can be tanked by his tankees, if that makes sense

[Malkuth]

For the same price as TH/SS and 15 points more than a pair of wolf claws, a wolf lord can take a wolf claw and a power fist. Both are specialist weapons, so he gets the extra attack and it makes him good against almost every opponent (S6 I5 or S9 I1). The only downside is having just a 4+ invulnerable save and the 220 point price tag (with TW mount and runic armour).

[skeletoro]

Thing about Harald is he lacks a 2+ armour save... sometimes I think GW needs an intervention!!!

[Lord Ragnarok]

For the same price as TH/SS and 15 points more than a pair of wolf claws, a wolf lord can take a wolf claw and a power fist. Both are specialist weapons, so he gets the extra attack and it makes him good against almost every opponent (S6 I5 or S9 I1). The only downside is having just a 4+ invulnerable save and the 220 point price tag (with TW mount and runic armour).

Why not Russ's armor for 15 pts more?

[Rune_Priest_Rhapsody]

 

For the same price as TH/SS and 15 points more than a pair of wolf claws, a wolf lord can take a wolf claw and a power fist. Both are specialist weapons, so he gets the extra attack and it makes him good against almost every opponent (S6 I5 or S9 I1). The only downside is having just a 4+ invulnerable save and the 220 point price tag (with TW mount and runic armour).

Why not Russ's armor for 15 pts more?

 

 

This is what I will most likely be running. TWL Armor of Russ, Claw and Fist. With the seriously awesome price reduction the TWC saw, you can throw him in with a tooled out pack and have yourself a seriously scary deathstar!!

 

End of Line

[Rift Blade]

Take it the next step & use it in the Champions of Fenris Detachemnt--all TWC get +1 WS.

[Fire Wolf]

I agree with Rift, I just played a game last night and the +1WS is fantastic.  And on the subject of dual claws use Morkai's Claws from the Relic list in the supplement, a lot of points but potent as hell.

 

Throw on the relic armour from that supplement...it doesn't state it's terminator armour, so give you Wolf lord IWND?  Powerhouse.

[Grimtooth]

I am seeing a lot of talk about Deatstar builds and frankly I think some of you are going to be disappointed soon. When TWC first came out, TWC Deathstars did run the roost for a bit, but people adapted it is became pretty ineffective pretty fast. You can expect the same to happen, albeit much sooner as nothing much has changed with TWC that makes them much more survivable then last addition. Sure some extra storm shields and whatnot, but high ap/high strength fire was not the main issue, it was massed small arms fire. So keep that in mind with your TWC builds.

 

Persoanlly, I am going to go with a more minimalist builds on my TWC lord and be very conscious in targeting my opponents forces with them as well as my standard tactic what I refer to as close support.

[Rune_Priest_Rhapsody]

For the way I play and the kind of games that my friends play, it is indeed a deathstar when you make a tough as nails Lord who's crazy powerful and has an expensive body guard to join him in slaughter!! i.e. A very thematic and majestic looking force worth of the annuls of the Fang!!

 

End of Line

[skeletoro]

Points cost makes them more survivable - survivability should be indexed according to points cost. Storm shields are now half price, and effectively half the price bikers pay for them.

[Rift Blade]

I hear you Brother Ramses. I'm still taking just enough to do the job for mine but like the others have said, less costly means more pts to spread around. Plus the fact that we can now take them in packs of 6 is helpful. Their primary role in my lists is distraction. THey're such fire magnets that it lets my GH do their job with a lot less hassle.

[d@n]

Harold death wolf is the obvious choice. Give all your thunder wolves a wolf claw and your getting strength 8 shred and rending on the charge that's pretty much going to kill anything in the game.

[Temper]

d@n,

Wolf claw armed TWC with furious charge are strengt 7 on the charge, S5 base +1S from the Wolf claw and +1S from furious charge. They will still be murdering things left and right, just not at S8.

As soon as I got my army together I am going to try a Wolf lord with runic armour, Storm shield, helm of durfast and black death.

2+ 3++ with 9 S7 ap2 attacks on the charge with reroll to hit. And hoping for saga of the wolf king for that dilicious furious charge .

At 235 points he is expensive, but he can solo tactical squads without much of a problem.

[Nova_chron]

Black Death is very tempting weapon and will see much use in my army I am sure but for now the unt making me smile at night is krom and 15 blood claws they killed Lysander and his 5 palls all TH/SS in two rounds of combat with krom dominating the challenge because of his warlord trait

[MeatGrinder]

Im leaning towards: TWM, PF, WC, RA. Im debating swapping RA for AoR, because I think 15pts for -5 int is probably worth it, but Im not sure I want to dump any more points into this character when he is already int5. Although always striking at least at the same time is pretty tasty, especially making characters hit at the same time as my power fist.

 

Do we think its worth going all-out on a character thats already 155 pts basic or try to keep him cheap as possible, considering how strong he is at his base strength?

[Grimtooth]

Points cost makes them more survivable - survivability should be indexed according to points cost. Storm shields are now half price, and effectively half the price bikers pay for them.

Nothing about their points costs makes their 3+ anymore survivable to massed fire. I played TWC Deathstars, in fact I played two of them either in individual TWC packs or one huge pack. The lords had their 2+, but the rest all had 3+ and massed bolter fire would whittle them Way much more effective then high str, low ap fire.

 

At my LFGS, we had the same view on TWC that we had with TDA; throw enough fire on it anD 1's will come up.

[skeletoro]

Their points cost  makes them more survivable to massed fire - exactly that. You get more models and therefore more wounds for the same points. The SS TWC are actually close to 2/3 the cost which is comparable to TWC being bumped up to 3 wounds per model. Except it is much better than that because they're not as vulnerable to ID as a 3W model, they are less vulnerable to big blasts and templates and they get half again as many attacks.

[Grimtooth]

No it doesn't because you do not wound allocate like before when we used to be able to make several distinct wound groups. The massed fire will go on closest model until it is dead and then they will go on to next closest model until it is dead. The points decrease may make their loss to points spent ratio better, but does not increase their survival one bit.

 

And again, people stopped firing high str, low ap weapons at TWC ages ago when it became more proficient to have Havocs or Flash Gits or Heavy Bolters or massed bolter fire force multiple saves.

 

Don't confuse efficiency of the points saving on TWC with their ability to survive. They still have a 3+ save and susceptible to massed fire forcing mass saves.

[Fray]

I agree with Rift, I just played a game last night and the +1WS is fantastic.  And on the subject of dual claws use Morkai's Claws from the Relic list in the supplement, a lot of points but potent as hell.

 

Throw on the relic armour from that supplement...it doesn't state it's terminator armour, so give you Wolf lord IWND?  Powerhouse.

 

It's definitely terminator armour.  The fluff text says it's terminator and the rule for the relic says it grants bulky, deep strike etc...

[skeletoro]

I wasn't talking about wound allocation shenanigans.

 

I'm not confused about this. You're talking about per-model survivability, and I am talking about per point survivability. Per point survivability is a lot more relevant because it tells you how well X many points invested into TWC will withstand incoming massed fire. They do it much better than before.

 

It's the same reason it would be misleading to say SB+PW WGTDA are more survivable than blood claws. Yes, each model is more survivable considered in a vacuum is tougher, but you get fewer than half of them for the same points spent.

 

Your point about massed small arms fire makes a quantitative analysis even more pertinent here. What is massed? How much small arms fire are we talking here? If your opponent can muster a huge amount of fire, it's because their units are cheap enough to allow this. But of course that begs the question: how does 'massed fire' perform against massed TWC?

 

A quick back or the envelope comparison:

 

Against a s3 AP- weapon, a TWC is 50% as likely to suffer a wound as a TDAWG or GH.

Same armour save as the grey hunter, but double the wounds. = 4 times as survivable for 2.9 times the cost - 40% more survivable.

Armour save is half as good as the TDA but twice as many wounds. 2x more survivable and only 1.2 times the cost - 70% more survivable.

 

Against bolters - only 2/3 as likely to suffer a wound, so less favourable to TWC than previous analysis

3 times the survivability as GH for 2.9 times the cost, it is close but the TWC are 4% more survivable.

1.5x the survivability of a TDAWG for 1.2x the cost - 25% more survivable.

 

Against s4 rending (shuriken catapults): wound the same as above

Vs grey hunters, GH save 4/9 of the time, TWC only 3/9 of the time, so TWC are 1.5x2x3/4= 2.25x as survivable for 2.9x the cost - GHs are 29% more survivable than TWC.

If the TWC take storm shields, TWC will save 6/9 of the time (GHs 4/9),  so are in total 1.5x2x5/3 = 5 times as survivable for 3.9x the cost:28% advantage to TWC.

Vs terminators:

TDA will save 2/3 of the total wounds they sustain (2+/5++) compared with 1/3 for unupgraded TWC, making the TWC 1.5x2/2= 1.5x as survivable for 1.2x the cost: TWC 25% more survivable for points spent.

If the TWC take storm shields this shifts to 3x as survivable for 5/3 the price: 80% advantage to the TWC.

note that if the TDAWG take TH+SS, they increase their survivability by 1/6 but increase their cost by 45%, yielding a 20% drop in survivability per point spent.

 

Yes, I am talking about efficiency but it's efficiency that allows you to have massed fire in the first place.