Returning Space Wolf player

[Sigvard]

Hail brothers of the rout! 

 

Long have I been adrift in the warp, lost to the light of the Allfather! 

 

Come, sit by the fire and regale me with tales of the Vlka Fenryka that I have missed!

 

So I have been out of the hobby since about 7th edition which is not so long in the grand scheme of things and the off the forum for roughly the same amount of time and I am thinking about starting fresh with 9th and have a few questions for these esteemed halls.

 

1) How is 9th as a rule set and is it a good time to come back?

 

2) How do the Space Wolves fair?

 

3) I left just as Primaris came into being and at the time there was lots of talk about them replacing the original marines. It seems this is slowly the way this is going - are Primaris Marines for Space Wolves where it's at these days? I have to admit I like the large size  of the marines and some the designs are super cool (looking at you Ragnar Blackmane!)

 

Finally thank you in advance -  it's weirdly daunting thinking about returning to the hobby - you forget how big the time and financial commitment really is.

 

Sigvard

[Bryan Blaire]

Come and sit with us at the fires of the Fang again, long-travelled brother, and tell us of what you saw in the void, and let the light of the Allfather welcome you home!

 

I’ll have to let others tell you about 9th, as I’ve only been able to have one game during the Edition.  Personally, I don’t find the mission scoring all that enjoyable.

 

The Space Wolves have their own Supplement to the Space Marines Codex (like it was back in 3rd Edition), with all their unique units being classic Astartes and a single unique Primaris unit (Hounds of Morkai), but without a unique model kit for that unit.  It’s not regarded as very good, as it’s based on the Reivers, which aren’t very effective with the current rules.

 

The Primaris haven’t moved to replace the classic Marines (except in those cases where named characters have undergone the Rubicon Primaris) - all the Primaris units are in addition to all the original classic Marines units, and it’s those classic Marine Space Wolf units (such as Bloodclaws and Long Fangs) that still provide uniqueness to the Space Wolves line of battle.  You can actually build classic Astartes units out of the Primaris bodies if you want to, but there are some (one?) Marine Strategem(s) that only affect Primaris (for whatever crazy reason GW dreamed up, the name(s) of the one(s) that target Primaris seem like they could also fit classic Astartes too), so you likely want to make sure they are distinguishable.

[Valerian]

Welcome back, Sigvard.  I've been away from the B&C for a while myself, but have been keeping my eye on things.  I'll throw in my perspective on some of your questions, for what it's worth, and I'm sure others will, as well, as they have time.

 

 

 

1) How is 9th as a rule set and is it a good time to come back?

 

I've played every edition of the game, and 9th is by far my favorite, (with some caveats).  I love how streamlined the core ruleset is; everything works more consistently than ever before, which really helps.  I'm happy with probably 90% + of how everything works these days.  

 

One of the best improvements in the 9e version of the game is what they've done with the Terrain Rules.  Terrain actually impacts the game again, in meaningful ways, that mostly make a narrative sense.  The terrain rules, in particular, are much improved over how they worked in the last few editions.

 

One thing they're doing these days, which has never been done before, is rebalancing points costs for units and weapons every now and then (at least annually).  That's super-helpful.  It also goes right along with the next point, below.

 

One things about 9e, though, is that it was heavily influenced by the competitive scene (big time!), and especially in missions and scoring work, borrowed heavily on what had been developed within the ITC community.  This is probably great for those that are competitive tournament goers, but added a lot of complexity to the game for us beer and pretzels basement players.  So, you've got your regular old Primary Objectives to try to accomplish in your mission, but now everyone also has 3 Secondary Objectives to 1) keep track of, and 2) build your Army List toward.  Again, this probably works great for tournament-level play, but is needlessly complex for casual play.  And, since this system is built into the Core Rules of the game, you can't get away with it in casual play without coordinating with opponents in advance and coming up with House Rule alternatives.

 

Likewise, there are other limitations built into the game that predominately predicated on tournament play: 1) the "Rule of Three" that prevents you from using the same datasheet more than 3 times in your army list, 2) despite having multiple Psyker units with the same power, you can't use the same Psychic Power more than once in a Psychic Phase (except for Smite, but even that is limited by increasing the Warp Charge with each attempt). 3) Smite scaling, 4) Limit of +1/-1 modifiers on To Hit rolls.  5) Coherency Checks in the Morale phase (to stop daisy-chaining in tournaments).  6) Limits to only 1 use of a Stratagem in a given phase.  I'm sure there are other examples, but these are the ones that immediately pop to mind.  Oh, also, some random elements have been removed (like random game length, and random mission generation); I don't mind these last changes, but they were clearly based on the needs/desires of tournament play.

 

Another added complexity to 9e (and 8e) is the addition of Stratagems, and boy are there a lot of them, for each army.  Stratagems definitely add heavily to what you need to be tracking throughout the game, but I think they're probably on the net-positive side of the game.  I've heard about some folks creating House Rules to limit the amount of Stratagems that you can bring to a game, so that's something casual gamers could consider to speed things up.  Quite a few old Unit and Army-wide abilities were moved into Stratagems, so I wouldn't get rid of them completely.  

 

So, to sum up, 9e is definitely a great version of the game to come back to, but, if you're a Casual gamer, you'll want to find like-minded players who are willing to House Rule some changes to make the game fit your needs a little better.

 

 

2) How do the Space Wolves fair?

 

 

I'm not a competitive player, so can't really speak to this, but they seem to be doing fairly well, if not a Top-Tier meta army.  We've certainly got the tools to do well.

 

 

3) I left just as Primaris came into being and at the time there was lots of talk about them replacing the original marines. It seems this is slowly the way this is going - are Primaris Marines for Space Wolves where it's at these days? I have to admit I like the large size  of the marines and some the designs are super cool (looking at you Ragnar Blackmane!)

 

The old version of Marines, now usually referred to as "Firstborn," are actually still completely viable.  GW's long-term goal may be to completely transition to Primaris units, but for now, at least, they aren't yet must have.  In fact, some of the best units right now are still among our older ones (Blood Claws, Thunderwolf Cavalry, Wulfen, Wolf Guard with Jump Packs, a Wolf Lord with a Jump Pack, Bjorn the Fell-handed, Njal Stormcaller, etc.).  

 

That being said, I'm in the process of transitioning my army to all-Primaris.  As you've already said, the larger size and some of the designs are way more appealing to me.  Also, I'm not sure the continued support for Firstborn units will continue indefinitely (they certainly aren't making any more of them).  The biggest limitation to Primaris right now is a lack of good mobility options; once they've caught up with Firstborn in that aspect, they'll be all set.  A case in point, see the Primaris Chaplain on Bike model - he's probably the most efficient and most effective Space Marines unit in the game right now.  Once we get Bike-mounted and/or Jump Infantry versions of Primaris Wolf Lords, Rune Priests, and Battle Leaders, (and so on), we'll be all set.

 

So, to be a little more specific for you, the following seem to be the "best" of the Primaris units currently being used in Space Wolves lists these days, (with the list of the best Firstborn units already noted, above):

 

Primaris Chaplain on Bike

Primaris Rune Priest (Librarian) (for those that don't take Njal Stormcaller)

 

Redemptor Dreadnoughts

Bladeguard Veterans  

 

Eradicators

Eliminators (with Las-Fusils)

 

Infiltrators

Incursers

Assault Intercessors

[TiguriusX]

Marines of all flavors are near the bottom currently

 

The best SW player attending events in person is Jaime Paris

He finished 4-2 at LVO but only made it 3 rounds before suffering his first loss (stat people track first losses as quality of codex and tournament performance)

 

SW are better than most of the other marines but it isn't enough to compete with other factions

 

 

The competitive game has just shifted too much for our old codex to keep pace

 

For example, Custodes came out recently and they basically hard counter space wolves with their relics and stratagems

 

 

SW are fun to play and outside of tournaments you should enjoy them...but have realistic expectations

Edited January 30, 2022 by TiguriusX

[Karhedron]

If you are concerned about competitive play, it is unlikely that GW will leave Marines languishing for too long without an update of some kind. Being a supplement of the main codex means that most buffs to Marines will buff us and we are petty effective by Marine standards.

 

But we do have plenty of fun stuff and we are as bold and wolfy as we ever were. The good thing about the current edition is that games tend to revolve around contesting mid-field Objectives which is where we tend to shine.

[Tokugawa]

1. Since you experienced 7th, every edition is a better edition for a player to coming back.

2. SW could make good use of many primaris units, but rely less on primaris units than some other chapters. Their exclusive kits like wulfen and TWC won't be replaced by primaris products soon, longfang(equivalent of devastators) and wolf guard(with jetpack, equivalent of vanguard)have good rules on competitive stage.

3. Marines in competitive 9th are not too good, not too bad. Difficult to win the 1-2 "most broken factions" in meta, but okay against other 15-20 factions. Rarely seen marine winning 200+ players super major, but often seen winning GTs. If rules of marine feel too weak and may harm the sales, buff from GW will coming soon. Because marine really sell.

[Sigvard]

Welcome back, Sigvard.  I've been away from the B&C for a while myself, but have been keeping my eye on things.  I'll throw in my perspective on some of your questions, for what it's worth, and I'm sure others will, as well, as they have time.

 

 

 

1) How is 9th as a rule set and is it a good time to come back?

 

I've played every edition of the game, and 9th is by far my favorite, (with some caveats).  I love how streamlined the core ruleset is; everything works more consistently than ever before, which really helps.  I'm happy with probably 90% + of how everything works these days.  

 

One of the best improvements in the 9e version of the game is what they've done with the Terrain Rules.  Terrain actually impacts the game again, in meaningful ways, that mostly make a narrative sense.  The terrain rules, in particular, are much improved over how they worked in the last few editions.

 

One thing they're doing these days, which has never been done before, is rebalancing points costs for units and weapons every now and then (at least annually).  That's super-helpful.  It also goes right along with the next point, below.

 

One things about 9e, though, is that it was heavily influenced by the competitive scene (big time!), and especially in missions and scoring work, borrowed heavily on what had been developed within the ITC community.  This is probably great for those that are competitive tournament goers, but added a lot of complexity to the game for us beer and pretzels basement players.  So, you've got your regular old Primary Objectives to try to accomplish in your mission, but now everyone also has 3 Secondary Objectives to 1) keep track of, and 2) build your Army List toward.  Again, this probably works great for tournament-level play, but is needlessly complex for casual play.  And, since this system is built into the Core Rules of the game, you can't get away with it in casual play without coordinating with opponents in advance and coming up with House Rule alternatives.

 

Likewise, there are other limitations built into the game that predominately predicated on tournament play: 1) the "Rule of Three" that prevents you from using the same datasheet more than 3 times in your army list, 2) despite having multiple Psyker units with the same power, you can't use the same Psychic Power more than once in a Psychic Phase (except for Smite, but even that is limited by increasing the Warp Charge with each attempt). 3) Smite scaling, 4) Limit of +1/-1 modifiers on To Hit rolls.  5) Coherency Checks in the Morale phase (to stop daisy-chaining in tournaments).  6) Limits to only 1 use of a Stratagem in a given phase.  I'm sure there are other examples, but these are the ones that immediately pop to mind.  Oh, also, some random elements have been removed (like random game length, and random mission generation); I don't mind these last changes, but they were clearly based on the needs/desires of tournament play.

 

Another added complexity to 9e (and 8e) is the addition of Stratagems, and boy are there a lot of them, for each army.  Stratagems definitely add heavily to what you need to be tracking throughout the game, but I think they're probably on the net-positive side of the game.  I've heard about some folks creating House Rules to limit the amount of Stratagems that you can bring to a game, so that's something casual gamers could consider to speed things up.  Quite a few old Unit and Army-wide abilities were moved into Stratagems, so I wouldn't get rid of them completely.  

 

So, to sum up, 9e is definitely a great version of the game to come back to, but, if you're a Casual gamer, you'll want to find like-minded players who are willing to House Rule some changes to make the game fit your needs a little better.

 

 

 

2) How do the Space Wolves fair?

 

 

I'm not a competitive player, so can't really speak to this, but they seem to be doing fairly well, if not a Top-Tier meta army.  We've certainly got the tools to do well.

 

 

 

3) I left just as Primaris came into being and at the time there was lots of talk about them replacing the original marines. It seems this is slowly the way this is going - are Primaris Marines for Space Wolves where it's at these days? I have to admit I like the large size  of the marines and some the designs are super cool (looking at you Ragnar Blackmane!)

 

The old version of Marines, now usually referred to as "Firstborn," are actually still completely viable.  GW's long-term goal may be to completely transition to Primaris units, but for now, at least, they aren't yet must have.  In fact, some of the best units right now are still among our older ones (Blood Claws, Thunderwolf Cavalry, Wulfen, Wolf Guard with Jump Packs, a Wolf Lord with a Jump Pack, Bjorn the Fell-handed, Njal Stormcaller, etc.).  

 

That being said, I'm in the process of transitioning my army to all-Primaris.  As you've already said, the larger size and some of the designs are way more appealing to me.  Also, I'm not sure the continued support for Firstborn units will continue indefinitely (they certainly aren't making any more of them).  The biggest limitation to Primaris right now is a lack of good mobility options; once they've caught up with Firstborn in that aspect, they'll be all set.  A case in point, see the Primaris Chaplain on Bike model - he's probably the most efficient and most effective Space Marines unit in the game right now.  Once we get Bike-mounted and/or Jump Infantry versions of Primaris Wolf Lords, Rune Priests, and Battle Leaders, (and so on), we'll be all set.

 

So, to be a little more specific for you, the following seem to be the "best" of the Primaris units currently being used in Space Wolves lists these days, (with the list of the best Firstborn units already noted, above):

 

Primaris Chaplain on Bike

Primaris Rune Priest (Librarian) (for those that don't take Njal Stormcaller)

 

Redemptor Dreadnoughts

Bladeguard Veterans  

 

Eradicators

Eliminators (with Las-Fusils)

 

Infiltrators

Incursers

Assault Intercessors

Sorry It has taken such a long time to reply,

 

Thanks to everyone for their input -  I have been looking at Templars as well but the more I read of their lore the more I realise Space Wolves are where I am going to be for the return to Warhammer 40k. 

 

Valerian -  thank you for such a detailed response. Yours is certainly a name I recall with some fondness from my time her previously. 

 

I think Primaris is where i am going to start looking initially, the aesthetic is so much more pleasing and I already have myself a Primaris Chaplain on a bike, some incursors, a Redemptor and some Eradicators so have the start of a list I guess. I am still drawn to jump troops and always used to enjoy a rockhard Wolf Lord with a jump pack followed by his retinue - the tales of Reinn Bloodhowl were glorious and notches on his frost axe were many. 

 

Either way it is good to be back in both 40k and back at the Fang...though the halls seem a little quiet these days...

[Karhedron]

I think Primaris is where i am going to start looking initially, the aesthetic is so much more pleasing and I already have myself a Primaris Chaplain on a bike, some incursors, a Redemptor and some Eradicators so have the start of a list I guess. I am still drawn to jump troops and always used to enjoy a rockhard Wolf Lord with a jump pack followed by his retinue - the tales of Reinn Bloodhowl were glorious and notches on his frost axe were many.

Jump Wolf Guard are a pretty good unit. The favoured loadout is usually most of the pack with a Lightning Claw and Stormshield and possibly a Thunder Hammer on the pack leader for extra hitting power. Your Wolf Lord can be armed and armoured to taste although Frost weapons now take up a Relic slot.