New Codex, New Gaffs

[Vash113]

So I've been poking around with the new Space Wolf Codex and noticed a few amusing mistakes and oddities here and there, some from rules, some from fluff. Here's what I've seen so far:

 

The Grand Annulus

-In the Ragnar series the Annulus is described as a massive inlaid floor, the entirety of each Great Company is able to stand within their designated section. The Codex describes the Annulus relatively similarly as a large floor in which each Wolf Lord is seated during High Feasts. However Logan Grimnar's sled is supposed to have the center stone of the Grand Annulus placed within but even a glance at the model and artwork suggests that the proportions are way off, for the annulus to be even large enough to seat the various Wolf Lords and their close retinues during feasts the center stone would be far too large to fit onto the chariot. Another explanation of the annulus is given in the White Dwarf that featured the Stormfang and Stormwolf rules which described the annulus as a table around which the Wolf Lords sit. It seems to me like a relatively easy detail to get right yet these various descriptions don't paint the same picture...

 

The Space Wolf Fleet

-8 Battle Barges and 30 Strike Cruisers? Really? The entire Ultramarines Chapter has what 3 Battle Barges and 7 Strike Cruisers? The Imperial Fists have 2 Battle Barges and 8 Strike Cruisers? This fleet description is simply entirely too large and contradicts previous estimates in the fluff which list the entire chapter as having 15 Great Ships, more than most Chapters complement of Capitol Ships but nowhere near the close to 40 listed in the codex.

 

Terminators Deep Striking

-I suppose there's no reason they couldn't but they generally wouldn't...

 

Murderclaws

-Every other melee weapon I've ever seen says either strength user, or strength +1, +2, x2 etc yet these list the strength as 7. This means the strength bonus from Furious Charge is useless as that affects only the strength characteristic of the model not it's weapons yet clearly the intention was for Murderfang to hit on strength 8 on the charge, the design notes in the White Dwarf with his rules state as much yet the Murderclaws don't allow for it. Hopefully this will be FAQ'd before long to make them strength +1 like the Wolf Claws they're clearly modeled after but we'll see.

 

Fenrisian Great Axe and Blizzard Shield... no Storm Bolter

-So if you look at the pictures of the Venerable Dreadnought model with axe and shield it clearly has a storm bolter mounted on the arm with the Blizzard Shield. Check it out: http://www.games-workshop.com/en-US/Space-Wolves-Venerable-Dreadnought

Yet in the rules the model replaces it's heavy weapon and dreadnought close combat weapon with built-in storm bolter with the Axe and Shield, no mention is made either in the unit entry or the weapon profiles later in the book that either weapon has a built-in storm bolter, heavy flamer or anything, it's not there. Yet whoever built and painted the Ven Dread gave it a storm bolter. Was this an oversight on the part of the modeler or the codex writer? I dunno, maybe it will be FAQ'd later to have a built-in storm bolter but at the moment the dread with axe and shield has no ranged weapon... oops.

 

Anyway those are just some things I've noticed so far, anyone else see anything glaring or strange in either the fluff or rules of the new codex?

[Commander Sha'son]

wolf guard as troops are out. Logan doesnt have that rule anymore. Terminators gain deep strike but lost drop pods.

[Squark]

wolf guard as troops are out. Logan doesnt have that rule anymore. Terminators gain deep strike but lost drop pods.

He's not referring to changes, he's referring to confusing wordings and outright mistakes.

[Bulldogging]

Harald Deathwolf has 4 Wounds on his page, but 3 in the profile page.

[Lucien Eilam]

The Codex describes the Annulus relatively similarly as a large floor in which each Wolf Lord is seated during High Feasts.

No it doesn't. It says that it's in the centre of the hall and that they're seated in the area of the hall indicated by the Grand Annulus. It doesn't say anything about anyone sitting on top of it, and you wouldn't describe the floor of a room as being "at the centre", would you?

[Squark]

Apparently the enhanced eBook lists the transport capacity of a land raider redeemer as 16; the paper codex has the usual capacity of 12.

[Vash113]

Harald Deathwolf has 4 Wounds on his page, but 3 in the profile page.

 

Yup I'd call that a gaff.

 

 

The Codex describes the Annulus relatively similarly as a large floor in which each Wolf Lord is seated during High Feasts.

No it doesn't. It says that it's in the centre of the hall and that they're seated in the area of the hall indicated by the Grand Annulus. It doesn't say anything about anyone sitting on top of it, and you wouldn't describe the floor of a room as being "at the centre", would you?

 

 

Why wouldn't you? It's not the whole floor, just part of it, and what does it mean to be seated "within the area of the hall indicated by their 'name-stone'" if they weren't sitting within the area of the floor the stone covered? What else would that mean? How would the area of the hall be indicated otherwise? I suppose they perhaps might sit in the area sort of facing their particular part of the stone but that's a strange way of wording it, it would more clearly indicate that if they were described as sitting arrayed around the annulus facing their company "name-stone." Also if it was a table why wouldn't the Wolf Lords just sit at it? Either way the indication in the codex is towards a floor inset, not a round table as described in White Dwarf.

 

Addendum:

 

Just checked the 3rd and 5th edition codexes and the 5th edition codex actually has more to say about the Grand Annulus:

 

"Each of the stone slabs is wide as a battle tank, and it takes a dozen of the strongest Space Wolves to lift just one. Utmost care is taken in their construction and installation into the Grand Annulus, for it is said that to shatter a name-stone is to condemn its Great Company to an ignominious end.

 

As Wolf Lords die their name-stones are removed from the Hall of the Great Wolf and taken to the Grove of Heroes, where they circle the oldest name-stone of all, that of Russ himself. Here they lie for eternity in huge concentric rings, a reminder of the heroic leaders of the Space Wolves across the ages."

 

So this just reinforces my point, even if it is a table each slab is as wide as a tank, assuming that means Predator not Land Raider that still makes the central slab absolutely huge and significantly larger than indicated by the model of Stormrider. Also the Grove of Heroes pretty well indicates that the slabs are worked into the floor, whether they were in the floor or a table in the Great Hall is perhaps debatable but it certainly suggests they also were floor insets in the Great Hall as well.

 

 

EDIT:

 

I noticed another fluff gaff. On page 6 the codex says: "The implants of the Space Wolves were developed from the genetic helix - later to be known as the Canis Helix - of Leman Russ." This indicates that the Canis Helix is nothing more than the genetic traits of Leman Russ apparent in the gene-seed, not a separate implant of it's own as described in previous Space Wolves literature...

[helterskelter]

The space wolves only made the wolf brothers, so unless you know the size of their heresy fleet, the bit about how many ships they have is speculation. Plus they are barely codex adherent now

[Lucien Eilam]

what does it mean to be seated "within the area of the hall indicated by their 'name-stone'" if they weren't sitting within the area of the floor the stone covered? What else would that mean? How would the area of the hall be indicated otherwise?

You must be a member of Jorge Luis Borges' Cartographers Guild.

 

…In that Empire, the Art of Cartography attained such Perfection that the map of a single Province occupied the entirety of a City, and the map of the Empire, the entirety of a Province. In time, those Unconscionable Maps no longer satisfied, and the Cartographers Guild drew a Map of the Empire whose size was that of the Empire, coinciding point for point with it. The following Generations, who were not so fond of the Study of Cartography saw the vast Map to be Useless and permitted it to decay and fray under the Sun and winters.

 

In the Deserts of the West, still today, there are Tattered Ruins of the Map, inhabited by Animals and Beggars; and in all the Land there is no other Relic of the Disciplines of Geography.

Also if it was a table why wouldn't the Wolf Lords just sit at it?

The Grand Annulus isn't the table or the floor. I don't read White Dwarf any more, but neither the codex nor the Ragnar books described it as being either one.

 

Sons of Fenris:

 

A large circular stone tablet hung at one end, the grand annulus with the symbols of each great company.

 

[…]

 

Like the grand annulus, the table within the great hall depicted the symbols of each great company, each one having an assigned position.

Like the grand annulus, but not the grand annulus. By some strange witchcraft, it seems the Space Wolves have managed to reproduce the same symbol in more than one place at a time.

[Vash113]

The space wolves only made the wolf brothers, so unless you know the size of their heresy fleet, the bit about how many ships they have is speculation. Plus they are barely codex adherent now

 

As I said in my previous post the Ragnar series specifies fifteen Great Ships, one for each Great Company and three reserve. It doesn't specify how many escorts and what not, just the capitol ships but 15 is still way shy of 38. Now yes that's Black Library not a codex but 15 is still a relatively reasonable number, larger than most codex chapter fleets but not absolutely enormous. 

 

As for the Heresy size fleet we can reasonably be assured that most, if not all of those ships are long gone. The Emperor's Gift describes the flagship of Logan Grimnar as the Scramaseax and describes it as the oldest and most powerful of the Space Wolves fleet and it was lost sometime between the 1st War for Armageddon and the initiation of Ragnar Blackmane for Logan's flagship in the Ragnar series is the Pride of Fenris. This pretty well indicates that the vessels from the Great Crusade and Heresy era have all been lost and replaced, not surprising given the Space Wolves aggressive nature (it not being uncommon for a company to trash their own ship and take another in the same battle).

 

Even if there were vessels remaining the Space Wolves Legion at the end of the Heresy had been reduced to roughly the size of two Chapters, as indicated in White Dwarf issue 26: "For the Space Wolves there was no real decision to be made, for the Sons of Russ lacked the numbers of their brother Legions and so remained intact, retaining the same structure as they had at their founding." Note this doesn't specify that the Legion was on the smaller end of the spectrum on average but that at the time it lacked the numbers of it's (remaining) brother legions. Much like the Salamanders then there just weren't enough battle-brothers left to really necessitate a division. Now this does somewhat contradict the opposition of Russ to the Codex Astartes detailed in previous material but doesn't necessarily retcon it, Russ may still have stood against the Codex but was not forced to adopt it like the Imperial Fists because unlike the Sons of Dorn the Sons of Russ weren't numerous enough to require splitting off multiple chapters. Unless the fleet somehow fared vastly better than the battle-brothers of the Legion and putting around the norm of 1 capitol ship of whatever class per company that's still only around 26-30 ships and likely half of those would have gone to the Wolf Brothers. Now yes that's conjecture but I'd still say it's a fair estimate.

[Amornar]

In my Ebook version Murderfang's big title on his entry is spelt Muderfang......you would think with how many times they correctly typed out "murder" they would have got it right with the giant font one......

[Inquisitor Kravin]

Vash, I wrote a really detailed response to your post but I'm afraid the machine spirit in my cogitator assembly had a fit of pique and obliterated it.

 

Short response is, assume all fluff is compiled by various Imperial personnel outside the chapter with varying degrees of "Blind Idiot" translation going on and you can sort of mash all the inconsistencies together.

[Cyrox]

Harald's wolf is incorrectly named 'Icefang' rather than Icetooth in his Army list entry on page 50.

 

Tut tut!

[Vash113]

 

You must be a member of Jorge Luis Borges' Cartographers Guild.

 

…In that Empire, the Art of Cartography attained such Perfection that the map of a single Province occupied the entirety of a City, and the map of the Empire, the entirety of a Province. In time, those Unconscionable Maps no longer satisfied, and the Cartographers Guild drew a Map of the Empire whose size was that of the Empire, coinciding point for point with it. The following Generations, who were not so fond of the Study of Cartography saw the vast Map to be Useless and permitted it to decay and fray under the Sun and winters.

 

In the Deserts of the West, still today, there are Tattered Ruins of the Map, inhabited by Animals and Beggars; and in all the Land there is no other Relic of the Disciplines of Geography.

 

The Grand Annulus isn't the table or the floor. I don't read White Dwarf any more, but neither the codex nor the Ragnar books described it as being either one.

 

Sons of Fenris:

 

A large circular stone tablet hung at one end, the grand annulus with the symbols of each great company.

 

[…]

 

Like the grand annulus, the table within the great hall depicted the symbols of each great company, each one having an assigned position.

Like the grand annulus, but not the grand annulus. By some strange witchcraft, it seems the Space Wolves have managed to reproduce the same symbol in more than one place at a time.

 

 

Firstly I have absolutely no idea what your getting at with the Cartographer's guild thing.

 

Secondly that now gives us three distinct descriptions of the Grand Annulus, I wouldn't say that one trumps the others but it does show clear inconsistency. Here's a quote from Battle of the Fang, page 27:

 

"Within the Chamber, twelve figures stood around the Annulus, the huge circle on the floor with the sigils of the Great Companies inscribed on panels of stone."

 

Note here they are described as standing "around" as opposed to "within."

 

In White Dwarf Issue 26 page 15:

 

"Within the hall of the Great Wolf there sits a stone table made up of the symbols of the Wolf Lords of the Chapter. This is the Grand Annulus..."

 

Table, floor, hanging tablet...

 

As for the same symbol in more than once pace sure, but that doesn't change their being only one Grand Annulus. There are other representations like it but so what?

 

Also White Dwarf issue 28 page 4:

 

"Beneath Grimnar's feet lies the center stone of the Grand Annulus. Arguably the most valuable relic on all Fenris, this stone is only removed from the Great Hall within the Fang in the direst of circumstances..."

 

Table, floor, tablet, each segment as wide as a tank, but the center stone fits into the floor or Stormrider... curious.

 

In my Ebook version Murderfang's big title on his entry is spelt Muderfang......you would think with how many times they correctly typed out "murder" they would have got it right with the giant font one......

 

Yea GW really seems like they need some decent proofreaders...

 

Vash, I wrote a really detailed response to your post but I'm afraid the machine spirit in my cogitator assembly had a fit of pique and obliterated it.

 

Short response is, assume all fluff is compiled by various Imperial personnel outside the chapter with varying degrees of "Blind Idiot" translation going on and you can sort of mash all the inconsistencies together.

 

Oh yes of course, GW's fluff has always been full of inconsistencies and it's generally taken that most of these are due to the broad inaccuracies, confusion, mythology and varying perspectives of the Imperium and it's various agents and agencies. Still it can be interesting to locate and consider those inconsistencies and occasionally there is a direct and purposeful retconn.

 

Harald's wolf is incorrectly named 'Icefang' rather than Icetooth in his Army list entry on page 50.

 

Tut tut!

 

Nicely spotted, I like Icefang more than Icetooth but some accuracy would be nice.

[frostclaw222]

It is possible that the larger "Wolf Lord" stones of the Annulus are, at their outer edge, in fact the size of tanks, and that the center stone, which is The Wolf That Stalks and a mere indicator as to the supremacy of the current Great Wolf, is in fact more a centerpiece lazy susan type thing, and could be considerably smaller, and therefore fit on Stormrider.

 

As for different depictions of the Annulus...let's remember these depictions are over the course of ten thousand years. In the Battle of the Fang, they're set in the floor. Later, they're described as being hung, and elsewhere they're described as being built into a table. 

 

All of these could be true at a given point in the Wolves' history. Maybe a certain Great Wolf decided that one of his Wolf Lords was too sloppy an eater to be using the Annulus as a bar table, and had the thing moved to a place of greater esteem. Heck, maybe it's kept that way for display, and only brought down for momentous occasions like Feasts or the Choosing of a Great Wolf. 

 

It's entirely possible all of these could be true over the course of ten thousand years. You'll notice that even over the course of a thousand years, the knot-work masks that Abnett wrote about in Prospero were considered antiquated and conservatively tradition in Wraight's Battle of the Fang. Yes, the Imperium itself is backwards and slipping ever further. The Wolves, however, have spent ten thousand years without their primarch, the Codex Astartes has taken hold elsewhere across the Imperium, and umpteen generations of Wolf Lords and Great Wolves have altered the way of things around the Aett. 

 

I can see it.

 

As for the fleet size: I think this is believable. I'll also point out that at no point does the text state that the fleet is all in good condition. I'd imagine, given the Rout's way of war, several of each Great Company's ships are undergoing substantial and significant refit at any given time, and that some may even be spoils of war that are still being cleansed of the presence of their former occupancy's "differing design aesthetic" whether that be Chaos iconography or something else. 

 

As for the Ragnar novels: Let's be honest. King was inventing quite a bit from whole cloth. Ranek keeps slipping between priesthoods, there are out-and-out fluff contradictions, and it was a different day in terms of fluff for the Wolves. So, yes, this might be a bit of a retcon in some respects from the Ragnar series. I'm taking that as a good thing, to be honest. Wraight and Abnett do Wolves I can't get enough of in their writing. 

 

As for the typos and whatnot...oops on Harald's mount, but the Wounds stat ambiguity is par for the course, and will get errata'd. 

 

The Ven Dread stormbolter issue I'm actually curious to see which way the wind blows on it. Same with the Murderclaws Furious Charge/S 7 dissonance. 

 

As for the Wolf Guard and drop pods...you can still shove them into drop pods. They're just not Dedicated Transports. 

[Vash113]

 

 

It is possible that the larger "Wolf Lord" stones of the Annulus are, at their outer edge, in fact the size of tanks, and that the center stone, which is The Wolf That Stalks and a mere indicator as to the supremacy of the current Great Wolf, is in fact more a centerpiece lazy susan type thing, and could be considerably smaller, and therefore fit on Stormrider.

 

Even if it's the outermost edge that's the size of a tank that still leaves the center stone vastly larger than the model indicates. As for the actual stone being smaller than the artwork shows I don't see why that would be the case, if so why wouldn't the art show that? Especially since the 3rd Edition codex rendition was supposed to be an observer's sketch of the annulus in detail.

 

 

As for different depictions of the Annulus...let's remember these depictions are over the course of ten thousand years. In the Battle of the Fang, they're set in the floor. Later, they're described as being hung, and elsewhere they're described as being built into a table. 

 

All of these could be true at a given point in the Wolves' history. Maybe a certain Great Wolf decided that one of his Wolf Lords was too sloppy an eater to be using the Annulus as a bar table, and had the thing moved to a place of greater esteem. Heck, maybe it's kept that way for display, and only brought down for momentous occasions like Feasts or the Choosing of a Great Wolf. 

 

It's entirely possible all of these could be true over the course of ten thousand years. You'll notice that even over the course of a thousand years, the knot-work masks that Abnett wrote about in Prospero were considered antiquated and conservatively tradition in Wraight's Battle of the Fang. Yes, the Imperium itself is backwards and slipping ever further. The Wolves, however, have spent ten thousand years without their primarch, the Codex Astartes has taken hold elsewhere across the Imperium, and umpteen generations of Wolf Lords and Great Wolves have altered the way of things around the Aett. 

 

I can see it.

 

Possible but IMO highly improbable, the Annulus is a great relic of the chapter, I sincerely doubt it would be casually moved around or modified.

 

 

As for the fleet size: I think this is believable. I'll also point out that at no point does the text state that the fleet is all in good condition. I'd imagine, given the Rout's way of war, several of each Great Company's ships are undergoing substantial and significant refit at any given time, and that some may even be spoils of war that are still being cleansed of the presence of their former occupancy's "differing design aesthetic" whether that be Chaos iconography or something else. 

 

I didn't say the size was impossible, just that it's inconsistent with other representations of the Space Wolves fleet. While possible though the size is somewhat hard to picture given the relative sizes of other first founding chapter fleets, but again, not impossible given the chapter's tendency to take new ships in combat.

 

 

As for the Ragnar novels: Let's be honest. King was inventing quite a bit from whole cloth. Ranek keeps slipping between priesthoods, there are out-and-out fluff contradictions, and it was a different day in terms of fluff for the Wolves. So, yes, this might be a bit of a retcon in some respects from the Ragnar series. I'm taking that as a good thing, to be honest. Wraight and Abnett do Wolves I can't get enough of in their writing. 

[Commander_Moustache]

The size of the fleet could be an indicator of how meny ships have been captured and I little idea that just popped into my head is perhaps Wolf Lords like to choose different ships based on thier personal preferance and company composition.

[Cyrox]

Don't forget, the wolves were only split once after the heresy, I don't see it as an entirely unreasonable bit of fluff if they do have a massive fleet. So what if they have more ships than the Ultramarines?

 

They have a lot more marines than the UM, so it stands to reason the Wolves would have a big fleet, and let's face it, who is going to tell them that they can't?

[Rune Priest Jbickb]

As to th annulus the size of the inside stone is somewhat irrelevant to the size if each if the 13 panels, they can taper down to whatever size the center stone is. The center sone could be 1 foot in diameter and cause no geometry issues with the end being as wide as a battle tank

[MaliGn]

There could even be a pattern of other stones between the centre stones and the tablets, or even just one large ring, into which the centre stone is set.

[Captain Idaho]

Uh. I can't accept the apparent sizes we're given for SW strength. It's so inconsistent with the information given the same book!

 

Fenris is a deadly planet, possibly one of the worst death worlds in the galaxy. Its people live as viking nomads most of the time with technology the equivalent of pre-black powder civilisations. Space Wolves are fiercely independent.

 

So where do they find the crew and ship yard personnel to man these massive amounts vessels? Who's giving the Space Wolves the resources to maintain these ships? Who's training these simple folk of Fenris?

 

A space bound Chapter with access to Terra itself or another with the entire might of Ultramar has a fraction of the amount of ships and recruits? Give me a break! I swear GW have lost all respect for SW and just pander to the frothing masses to give them "the best" at the expense of the soul of the Chapter background.

 

Now, I can accept this background if it's just ships in dry dock and the actual number of ships in active service was much more modest. But is that the case? Is it inconclusive or outright said the SW use them all?

[Squark]

To be fair, fleetbound chapters often have above strength scout companies; One of the ways new chapters are created is splitting a chapter that has grown too large in two.

 

The fleet thing is just someone be not understanding wlspace marine fleets at all, though.

[Urauloth]

Very often people who write fluff seem to have blind spots and I think in this case we're seeing one w/r/t fleets. You'd expect the wolves to have more strike cruisers than most chapters, the great companies need to operate independently, this is fine, and so on. The battle barges, however, what to heck. That's far too many. I don't think even the templars have that many, and they cheat at permitted ship numbers all the time.

[Heru]

Or it could be a case that we are seeing revisions in line with the new legion size retcons. Wasn't the last time the Ultra fleet size was listed before the Legions were made 100,000+ strong.

 

It could be we are seeing a revision which may also influence the size of the other first founding fleets post heresy. The Ultra fleet size may also be bumped up later on, as this might be a brand new idea.

 

Or the thought process could simply be that the wolves split the second least after the Heresy (Sallies as 1) and arguably took the second least amount of damage during it (Ultras as1).

[Captain Idaho]

40 Strike Cruisers in use though? Absurd.

 

To be honest I expect the Space Wolves to have a relatively weak fleet. It makes little sense considering who the Space Wolves are; they live on a sparsely populated death world of low technology tribesmen and are s Chapter with a penchant of falling out with everyone. How the hell are they building, maintaining and utilising these ships when the entire of Ultramar has 8 Strike Cruisers and 3 Battle Barges?