Thoughts after two games

[Valor]

So I got two games in last night, one of which was another Space Wolves army ( it started as a drunen dispute that got out of hand). While these are just first impressions, I am really happy with our codex. The points seem right for what the units are capable of, and there are really only a few bad choices in our codex. My list can be seen here http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/294931-1850-tourney/

 

Harold - Guy is a beast, plain and simple. Went head to head in a challenge with a more expensive wolf lord with an frost axe and pistol, armor of Russ, TWM with the re-roll in challenges saga. Harold won after 3 rounds with one wound left. The huge difference was the 3+ over his 4+. Even with the re-rolls, the better invuln won out. Granted a WL can also get a 3+, but Harold's price and furious charge to his TWC make him much better IMO. Second game Harold killed a pimped out Nurgle Biker Lord in two rounds without taking a wound:)

 

Wolf Priest - Re-rolls and FNP made the blood claws great. First game wasn't an issue since I chose infantry and was playing a marine heavy SW army. Second game though against chaos was hard. He had bikes, beasts, marines, and vehicles. I chose beasts, which made the blood claws struggle against his plague marines. I think paying the extra for Ulric is worth it, as you get plain ole Preferred Enemy, as opposed to missing out against a lot of targets in a mixed army like the one I played.

 

Rune Priest - Meh. He's cheap. Between my two games (first opponent also had a RP), all but Jawws was used. First game I rolled the -1 bs thing and the dumb nova and lightning. Lightning was ok, but that's the only thing I could cast due to a low dice pool. Opponent got lucky and got the wolf shooting thing, which did great. Second game I had shroud, and grabbed prescience. Shroud was worthless, prescience allowed me to hit a Land Raider with 4 Lascannons first turned, got lucky, and blew it up:) Rune Priests will be good if you run 2-3 ML 2's. If not, I wouldn't bother with them except one for prescience on your LF.

 

Lone Wolves - as much as I loved a Lone Wolf in TDA w/ a CF/SS last book, I don't it's viable to still give him a CF for tank hunting. I think a SS is an absolute necessity on them. TH/SS is going to be my go to build.

 

Grey Hunters - cheap 2xPG squad in the backfield did exactly what I wanted it to. Held objectives and helped protect my Long Fangs for 170 pts. My squad w/ ccw's and melta's in a pod also performed well. While a little more expensive then before, they still hold their own assault (hidden power axe in squad, WGPL w/ wolf claw). First game they took out murderfang before he could smash my Long Fangs, then easily handled a bolter only armed agree Hunter Sqaud. Second game they killed a Squad of Nurgle bikers! The points for them are fine, and the points I saved not including Ccw's on my other squad offset the cost.

 

Blood claws - blood claws out of a Stormwolf with a wolf priest = dumb amount of attacks. Like silly amount. A must include IMO.

 

Stormwolf - awesome. Buy 8 of these. Seriously though, upgrade the missiles to 2 Multi Melta's and your in business. The weapons jive so well together, ceramite armor for free, 16 transport capacity. I used as a dedicated transport to my blood claws, and used the Wolves Unleashed Detachment. First game I got outflank, and bother games i used the detachment to get auto turn 2 arrivals. Only issue is turn three when you hover to drop your claws your vulnerable, but jinkinf doesn't hurt as bed since everything but the hell frost is twin linked.

 

TWC - Ace. My favorite unit and did the most for me in my games. Anything short of an elite assault unit these guys will roll through. They plowed through Nurgle beasts and bikers in my second game. The toughness, amount of attacks, rending, and cheaper SS makes them amazing (as we already knew). AVOID STR 10 WALKERS!!! I made the mistake of assaulting a demon "hulk" thing? 13/13/11, init 2, 5 STR 10 attacks. No big deal, except for he had invisibility and I forgot that it applied in CC too lol. He insta gibbed 2 guys first round. I killed the the sorcerer, so next round I hit normal but with a lot less attacks, and no furious charge. I immobilized but he insta gibbed two more including my thunder hammer. Next round he insta gibbed Harold :( it was my mistake, but taught me a good lesson!

 

Long Fangs - 4xLC is cheap! Use them. Other squad was 2xHB, 2xPC. Even cheaper and a lot of dakka. Killed some stuff, but my LC did a lot more damage. I only split fired once, as I'd rather just have 4 LC's shooting at something then trying to get lucky with just one LC shot.

 

I ended up losing both games (curse you Maelstrom missions and my shifty objectives!) but 2nd games chaos ended with the hulk thing and one oblit, I still had my blood claws and priest, a grey hunter squad, both LF squads and priest, and a lone wolf. First game he ended with blood claws and his flyer, I ended with two squads of grey hunters and two lone wolves. Very happy with the new codex and already tweaked my list a bit. The codex I think is very balanced and fun. The doom gloom from a small handful do people is definitely over exaggerated.

[Frater Cornelius]

Interesting. I thought that TWC will be beasts along with Harald, especially given their price drop. Surprisingly I am not going to use either of them in my main list, since I am going more for a Engir Krakendoom styled list with ultragrit assault GH in rhinos, vindicators, blizzdreads in pods and all that mech jazz. Though I am planning to make a Harald Deathwolf themed list. I am curious how it performs compared to Krakendoom.

 

Good to see that the Stormwolf performs well as a gun ship, I am definitely including one in my list to keep the skies clear.

I will definitely try the Bloodclaw + Stormwolf combo. I wonder if dropping one GH squad is worth it to have a massive charge turn 3 (playing WUD detach because of reserve manipulation, beats objective secured on my eyes).

 

Anyway, thanks for sharing bud ;)

[Jaarl Stormfang]

Great post.

 

Do you think losing objective secured in favour of guaranteed turn 2 was a problem? Could objective secured have prevented defeat?

 

Are the blood claws numerous enough? Could you go into more detail about how the blood claw/stormwolf tag team worked?

[pedrogzc]

Thanks for sharing!

 

Your chaos rival was very lucky, it's strange the mauler fiend resisted two rounds of thunderwolves.

[Emperors Immortals]

I'd say it was a Decimator with a mark, maybe khorne. They get a lot of rules to keep them alive.

[Valor]

In my opinion, the guarantees reserves definitely outweighed objective secured. Objective secured is a great rule, but most of the time she two units are on an objective, one will be wiped out without a turn. I think there is a very short window will it will matter.

 

10 blood claws on the charge = 40 attacks, re-rolling more often then not from the priest (all the time with ulric). 15 = 60 attacks. That's absurd. I wouldn't go against against 2+ units with them, but anything witha 3+ and less than init 4 will get wrecked. The 10 man squad did great in their first charge (wiping a grey hunter squad game one, wiping two nurgle bikes and a sorcerer on a bike game two). The stay power though is a bit weak. Game one they were then shot up pretty good then countered charged by a 12 man blood claw unit, still survived a turn though. Game two they were bogged down for an extra turn by plague marines before killing them). Just be careful of counter assault units and they will be fine at 10 men size.

 

Just looked it up, his walker was a plague hulk. He rolled very well and saved a good amount of my glances/pens with his 5+ demon save. I finished him off with my blood claws + rune priest charging his immobilized ass with one hull point left. I may have been able to pull out a draw if I would have ran towards the objective but I had to kill out of principle lol:)