Thunderwolves. How to deal with them?

[angrom]

Just use inquisition henchmen unit of crusader with a priest and use sanctuary on them and watch him cry while you block half of his army  with a 180 pts unit

2+ invu save that can be reroll

[Captain Coolpants]

Just use inquisition henchmen unit of crusader with a priest and use sanctuary on them and watch him cry while you block half of his army with a 180 pts unit

2+ invu save that can be reroll

although that sounds good, all the opponent had to do in his initiative step is to move a wolf mount to base contact with the sanctuary priests and lol at you. And you'd need to be extremely lucky to roll and get sanctuary, and then to not roll a double of any kind and perils.

[Quozzo]

 

PS2. Not to mention BA priest (HQ Tax) can give our palies (w.ever) FNP much better than our Aphotecary, because of the +1 WS

The Narthecium is nice, but it's not essential. Draigo would appreciate it though.

 

It's a moot point as the +1WS is only affects Blood Angels. FnP would be nice though.

[IndigoJack]

I've been saying that from the start. Wraiths are TWC-lite. That said I don't consider them ott. They are dedicated solely to assault (no ranged presence) and cost quite a bit when equipped correctly (all shields + some hammers min). There are scarier things around, our draigo-centurions being one but heck even orks can throw down some balls out serious assaults. If you've ever had your entire army wiped away by a tide of boyz and klaws you know what I'm talking about.

 

Anyway if your dipping into allies then it really doesn't get better than invisible gating cents as far as counters go. 

 

I think you have it backwards. TWC are wraith-lite. Point-for-point, wraiths are more efficient. They hit harder (strength 6), ignore terrain (including dangerous terrain test), and come with a 3++. And for a measly 3pts, they'll swing like space elves too. While you certainly could arm every TWC model with a storm shield and hammer, you're now paying 85pts per model and you're going to feel it every time you lose one.

[Brom MKIV]

I disagree. Wraiths can't get s10 or make any decent deathstar. Wraiths also lack punch always have. Just last night I tied up a unit of 5 with 5 fnp tacs for 4 cc phases. That's very common IME. That doesn't happen with TWC. The unit only needs a couple hammers to wreck anything but storm shields on all models is the way to do it. Thing is people can't build wraiths wrong or rather let's say weak, but they can and do all the time with TWC.

[Spazmonkey]

Hi Guys... Thunder Wolves are honestly not that bad to take down.

Massed fire is your friend.

I am not familiar with Grey knights, but standard bolter fire will do the job. It dosnt matter if it is a 3+ armor or 3+ invuln, force enough saves and they will die.

 

People always seem to come up with death stars to take them down, but i'm telling you now 9 out of 10 kills I take are from standard mass fire.

[Reclusiarch Darius]

I disagree. Wraiths can't get s10 or make any decent deathstar. Wraiths also lack punch always have. Just last night I tied up a unit of 5 with 5 fnp tacs for 4 cc phases. That's very common IME. That doesn't happen with TWC. The unit only needs a couple hammers to wreck anything but storm shields on all models is the way to do it. Thing is people can't build wraiths wrong or rather let's say weak, but they can and do all the time with TWC. 

 

Wraiths don't need it though. Rending does the job just fine, and they are quite happy to wait several rounds of combat to make it happen. They get a tonne of attacks, all at S6 anyway (so even if they don't Rend, they still wound and forces saves at bare minimum), and even thunderhammers don't kill them reliably. Lash Whips also mean they go first every round of combat, against just about everything. 

Hi Guys... Thunder Wolves are honestly not that bad to take down.

Massed fire is your friend.

I am not familiar with Grey knights, but standard bolter fire will do the job. It dosnt matter if it is a 3+ armor or 3+ invuln, force enough saves and they will die.

 

People always seem to come up with death stars to take them down, but i'm telling you now 9 out of 10 kills I take are from standard mass fire.

 

Maybe if you play with rigged dice. Some simple maths;

 

20x bolter shots = 1 failed save

16x psycannon shots = 3 failed saves (a dead TWC and another wounded)

 

My above calculations assume you're in range, and there is no 2+ save Wolf Lord tanking shots at the front, at which point the chances of killing even one TWC drop to laughable (even with psycannon, you're fishing for Rends). 

 

TWC are insanely hard to kill, with normal firepower or with low AP. You need to inflict Instant Death on them (of which the only practicable means are 'Force' or Dreadknights who have S10). Wraiths are flat out broken, because they're even more stupidly powerful due to 4+ Reanimation. Both units absorb ungodly amounts of fire with no guarantee they'll even suffer meaningful casualties. 

 

Bolters barely do anything to normal infantry. They're great for cleaning up chaff, and killing MSU units. Tacticals are awful for a reason, their firepower hasn't been relevant since 5th edition. We at least get to shoot then assault, but GK's do pay for it with lower model and unit count. 

[angrom]

angrom, on 01 Mar 2015 - 11:54 PM, said:

Just use inquisition henchmen unit of crusader with a priest and use sanctuary on them and watch him cry while you block half of his army with a 180 pts unit

2+ invu save that can be reroll

although that sounds good, all the opponent had to do in his initiative step is to move a wolf mount to base contact with the sanctuary priests and lol at you. And you'd need to be extremely lucky to roll and get sanctuary, and then to not roll a double of any kind and perils.

Just put them in a land rider and let him do the first move then you are almost sure to be able to engage them first and as your unit is made of 13 models you can choose to make contact with all of them and put your priest in the back line. (as nobody will probably win the assault he won't be able to position against your priest) and even if he do so their large base won't allow him to contact the priest with more than one model and the priest still have a invu 3+ will reroll on fail save.

And to get sanctuay you don't even need to roll, use the sanctuary of your DK to buff them , easy

[Captain Coolpants]

Sanctuary is a self/unit buff

[angrom]

My Bad,

in that case just play stern in the unit he is also as good as any brother captain in melee

[Steel Angel]

Shrug Loth telepathy= invis--DK-IK-Termies = win

[calvin the wraithlord]

I see nothing wrong with just throwing a unit of normal strikes with hammers at them, 5 strikes with hammers on the charge is 10 insta kill attacks, you will lose the unit but as its all about damage control id rather lose them and wipe out his OP unit than risk my NDKs

[Reclusiarch Darius]

Shrug Loth telepathy= invis--DK-IK-Termies = win

 

They still go first and in melee you still hit on 5's, even if you're WS1. So, their sheer weight of attacks will mean they'll still hit, and any Rends will cost you. Also, they can shrug off anything bar S10, so you need 'Hammerhand' and most likely 'Force' active too (unless you're taking a whole squad of hammers). 3+ invul and possibly 5+ RP rolls is hard to break, even when you wound on 2's. 

I see nothing wrong with just throwing a unit of normal strikes with hammers at them, 5 strikes with hammers on the charge is 10 insta kill attacks, you will lose the unit but as its all about damage control id rather lose them and wipe out his OP unit than risk my NDKs

 

They'll kill every Strike before they can swing. No joke. Even without a single Rend, you'll just take too many wounds and fail your armour on most of the squad. And even if a few Strikes survive, they don't have enough attacks to break the 3+ invuls. 

[Ishagu]

Wolves aren't really an issue for grey knights.

A full strike squad with hammerhand, force and something as basic as prescience will probably kill 3/4 in a turn.

 

Dreadknights do well too.

 

Also, TW cavalry get really expensive fast if they ALL have shields and power weapons. This likely won't be the case.

 

Last week I played against some Wolves using my Ultras and a single tac squad removed two from a squad in a shooting phase, and put a wound on a third.

[Reclusiarch Darius]

Also, TW cavalry get really expensive fast if they ALL have shields and power weapons. This likely won't be the case.

 

They've gone down in price since their last codex, so no, they'll always take storm shields at minimum. You usually see 2-3 hammers or fists, just so they can take out 2+ save units. But base S5 Rending is enough to kill most things.

Last week I played against some Wolves using my Ultras and a single tac squad removed two from a squad in a shooting phase, and put a wound on a third. 

 

Hooray for RNG. Doesn't change the fact that under normal circumstances, Tacs do nothing to a TWC unit and get ripped to shreds when charged by them. 

[Lord Blackwood]

 

Also, TW cavalry get really expensive fast if they ALL have shields and power weapons. This likely won't be the case.

 

They've gone down in price since their last codex, so no, they'll always take storm shields at minimum. You usually see 2-3 hammers or fists, just so they can take out 2+ save units. But base S5 Rending is enough to kill most things.

 

While it is true that they have gone down in  price it is not true that every member of the unit will have a stormshield and it is very unlikely a unit will carry more than one fist / hammer. It is not cost effective to sink that many points into a unit. 

 

As someone who fields 2~3 packs of Thunderwolf Cavalry in most of my lists I can tell you right now that if you want to take other units you have to  vary your equipment you cant just take fists and hammers and full stormshields. 

 

Then again it is evidence from  your responses in this thread  ( and others)  that you  feel Thunder wolf Cav are these unbeatable ace unit  that just dosent die. 

This is not the case as  rolling 1s and 2s happens  but you seem to be increadibly bitter about your codex and angry about TWC for some reason.  

 

The general consensus among space wolf players is that  Cav is likely our best unit with three weaknesses 

 

They die to weight of fire 

They die to Str10 low ap 

If they are too expensive and too few they just get ignored while your opponent deals with whatever else you field

 

A min sized unit of Thunderwolf Cavalry  3 dudes with Stormshield Powerfist is 240 points 

Thunderhammer Stormshield is 5 points more per dude than that

 

You are either  uninformed as to these things or are just spouting off your frustration  without much heed for the responses you are getting.

[Reclusiarch Darius]

Or maybe I regularly play someone who knows how to build the unit properly. It's full storm shields, 2-3 fists/hammers. I've never seen anyone not take that loadout. It's not a waste of points, because you make the unit resistant to both small arms (doubly so if your Wolf Lord is in rune armour out front tanking) and low AP. Granted, TWC are still not as obnoxious as Necron Wraiths, but they're a close second. 15pts per model to make them not die to AP3- is a completely worthwhile investment. So is the fist/hammer mix, it lets them eat Terminators and MC's without relying on Rends (you still generally Rend a lot due to the attack output anyway). Usually its only 2, sometimes only 1 if he's a Wolf Lord in there with a thunderhammer. They're only 55 with a storm shield, that's cheap compared to Paladins or even Stormhammers (who are normally 45pts these days, only 1 wound and much slower with less attacks). They're also more flexible than Wraiths, due to their access to fists/thunderhammers. 

 

Sure, people roll 1's and 2's. But you cannot rely on bad dice as a strategy. 

[Lord Blackwood]

So your anecdotal experience trumps everyone elses ,even those who play the codex and field the units. Obviously I am wasting my time here. 

[Reclusiarch Darius]

So your anecdotal experience trumps everyone elses ,even those who play the codex and field the units. Obviously I am wasting my time here. 

 

Well if you're not gonna bother addressing any of my actual arguments, yes you are. I deal in facts. Either argue the facts, or don't bother.