Space Wolves and Competitions

[Aothaine]

I'm reading through the Space Wolves stratagems right now and I'm really confused. Why are they not represented more in competitions? They have solid stratagems. Sure they don't have the diciplines. But holy hell..

 

The following are power house stratagems I wish I could use with other factions: True Grit, Cunning of the Wolf, Lone Wolf.

 

So, why am I not hearing about 6-man aggressor squads getting Cunning of the Wolfed into the enemy lines with an Apothecary and right next to a phobos army? Am I missing something?

[Jorin Helm-splitter]

I would add keen senses to that list of stratagems.

 

I think wolves didn't see alot of play because we were the last of the first wave of marine books and it didn't have the boosts people expected. Fixing Marines has been a process this edition and we got alot of buffs fairly recently while knights and eldar got nerfed.

 

I do think if we had doctrines people would run wolves.

[NightHowler]

I personally believe that Wolves aren’t represented better in competitions because people don’t like to compete with a handicap.

 

While the wolves do have some nice stratagems, most of our powerful units are overpriced and our appropriately priced units offer nothing unique enough to make the army competitive.

 

I truly believe that no army is unplayable (i.e.: friendly games), but rules can make any army uncompetitive (I.e.: an environment where at least some people care more about winning than having fun).

 

This is only my opinion.

[PeteySödes]

Oof I’ll bite. I really don’t want to sound confrontational but have you played in tournaments?

 

Cunning of the Wolf has pretty good utility yes but it’s still one trick type of deal that a competent player will counter. They know in deployment and have a turn to pivot for the unit that is coming. This means that even the toothiest unit is going to be starved of targets. It works great for obj utility late game but is not a game winner if you weren’t in a good spot to begin with.

 

Lone wolf is basically the fluffiest of fun friendly strats and while super cool, not even remotely a competitive one. True grit is is also the so insanely situational as to might as well not exist. On all my games I honestly maybe could have used it twice in the last year. It requires you to use it in your shooting phase in combat at bolter stats. This means it needs to be something that in the best case, you charged, didn’t kill, didn’t fall back in the opponents turn, and is something worth bolter fire and CP in your turn. The list is so small as to what that even would be in competitive play I have no idea.

 

Your example you give is a turn two army and most ITC games, which sure is mostly US comp, you're either in a good spot or gutted by then. I’m also not sure what you mean by Apothecary as WP are going to be fight phase buffers and not shooting.

 

Short answer is wolves are fine in regular play but in cut throat comp, I hope you have a secondary goal...

[Rune Priest Jbickb]

And to follow on what petey said...

 

With all the new marines out there people are tooling their lists to kill marines. They have to when stats are showing they are 20+ percent of the meta. This means they are indirectly tooling to kill space wolves, which are more costly and have less rules to help them compete. Our stats are decent but not enough to compete with the lists available to other armies.

 

Sadly there is very little wolves can do that other marines cant do above and beyond with. It's a side effect of non codex chapters. So we must wait until hopefully chapter approved fixes our point issues and psychic awakening bumps our rules.

[ORKILL]

There is no reward for taking substandard power armor. Most other chapters do it better now. My tourney list uses 3 Wulfen Squads, 3 flyers, servitors and 5 characters. All models that can have an invul save do have an invul save. It seems I spend most of my hobby time playing while waiting on a new book.

[Aothaine]

Ahhh I see. I mis-read Cunning of the Wolf. I thought it allowed you do deploy them turn 1. But they arrive on T2. Fair enough. I can see your arguments here and kind of agree. But you can drop Lone Wolf on a surviving Aggressor. That is pretty damned awesome. Like getting a mini-character for 1 CP. 

 

I do really understand all of your points. No I have not been able to play in any tournaments recently. Maybe it just appears better on paper than what it actually is. Still, Space Wolves have some really cool tricks up their sleeves.

 

Thank you so much for the thoughtful responses btw! :D

[Guest]

The problem with the lone wolf strat is that you have to survive the onslaught with only 1 marine left, which is already rare. Then you have to use it after the turn is done, usually after an opponent turn and they will make will try to wipe that last model out before you can use it. Then it make your marine slightly more "killy", and 2 more wounds. However whatever killed his last squad he is now facing. So he would have done 1 or 2 more damage your attack turn (if he is in melee), but he is going to get wiped out by whatever he faced last time.

 

It's such a situational stratagem that even using it right is hard.

[TiguriusX]

Theory craft usually does not prepare you for tournament play.

 

As the saying goes...the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry

 

or no plan survives contact with the enemy

 

or the fampus poet mike tyson when he said everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth

 

Dive in and start playing games then come back and share notes and get more feedback

[Wolf Lord Duregar]

Well said, even me as a colossal 8th Ed n00b can see it sounds cool, might be fluffy but very hard to get any decent use out of.. Hopefully we see a return to a buyable Lone Wolf or something instead, in the future..

[GrFlur]

Reading all of this... I'm very happy to be playing for the fluffy side  

[Wolf Lord Duregar]

Reading all of this... I'm very happy to be playing for the fluffy side  

 

Usually  agood treatment for high blood pressure and having fun.. ;)

[NatBrannigan]

What is this fun you speak of? It has no place here!

 

Looking forward to our book I must say, some of the stuff Marines have gotten is really fun and I do like the upgraded characters that came in PA2, hope we can get some of that action. I really hope any rules we get aren't as over the top as the Marine ones are because they are slightly too good now. Quite like being the underwolf myself, just not quite as much as we are at the moment.

 

Plastic Ragnar is a shoe in for a new model but that'll be it. Shame because I quite fancy a Dread sized Primaris Arjac!