Return to the Fang

[Aegis Grimm]

Hail and well met brothers.  It has been a very, very long time since I last set foot in these halls.  My last game of 40k with my Wolves was in the final few days of 3rd edition.  When I started to read through the new 4th edition rules I was disappointed and wandered away from the game. I carefully packed my armies up and eventually time and life buried them away. 

 

Recently when moving, my son, who is less than half the age of even my most recent mini,  stumbled across my Wolves and Sisters of Battle and fell in love.  He was stunned that his old dad had these awesome "toys" I had never told him about and even more stunned to learn that I had painted them (I used to do commission work and sell figs online, so was a very good painter).  I showed him all the old codexes I had and he wanted to play a game.  I thought maybe now would be a good time to jump back into 40k and share this with my son, but now it was my turn to be stunned at what 40k is now.

 

9th edition is an absolute alien to me and I am not even sure I want to play this edition.  I enjoyed the focus on troops in 3rd edition with a mostly mechanized Grey Hunters based list.  Is this even possible now? How out of scale will the 3rd edition figures be now? Is everything I have obsolete?  Primaris? Cyberwolves? Intercessors? What is all this? Are there no rank and file troops anymore?

 

I have been reading many of the links stickied at the top of the forum but few deal with the knowledge gap I have now and would welcome any advice on getting up to speed.

 

Thanks for reading through this self indulgent trip down memory lane and obligatory old guy rant.

 

 

[WrathOfTheLion]

You can definitely play with those units still, Grey Hunters, Rhinos, Blood Claws, etc. are very much still in the game. I don't know if it's the best, but I've definitely had fun playing bigger units of bloodclaws charging at stuff and tearing things up.

 

The base sizes have changed a bit, mainly from 25mm to 32mm, but if you're not too bothered about it, you could get the new bases and use some poster putty to just stack and attach whatever bases your dudes are on to the new sized bases. The miniatures themselves should be fine for use, they may be smaller, but it doesn't matter for the actual game.

Edited November 26, 2022 by WrathOfTheLion

[dees]

Grey Hunters and Blood Claws can work in 9th but it’s not like it was from 3rd to 6th editions.   It’s the elite and fast attack units that are our power IMO.  I use 3 Blood Claws units to fill the troop slots and then have the heavy hitters elsewhere. 

[Karhedron]

Welcome back to the Fang, Brother. Grab yourself a flagon of mjod and take a seat by the fire. It is always good to see a Long Fang return.

 

At first glance, 9th edition will look like a very different beast to 3rd edition but there is lots of good news. Firstly, all your old minis are still legal and somewhat competitive. You do not have to swap to 32mm bases for your infantry, mine are a similar vintage and I still use them on the old bases. As a rule of thumb, if they came on that size of base when you bought them, it is still legal to use them.

 

The next piece of good news is that Space Wolves are one of the more powerful Space Marine chapters in 9th edition. This is because we are strong in the midfield with plenty of short ranged weapons and good melee capability. We also have better Dreadnoughts which are a very good unit in 9th. The midfield is important because of one of the big changes to the game, the introduction of missions. Games do not revolve so much around simply killing the other side (although that is definitely a part of it). In most games, there will be Objective markers distributed around the battlefield and you score victory points each turn for controlling them. There are other ways to score victory points such as killing the enemy and completing Actions but Objectives are vital in 9th edition games. It is possible to have most of your army killed but still win the battle on points. Think of it like "Rogue One", most of the assault force died but they managed to get the Death Star plans to the Tantive IV.

 

In terms of game mechanics, 9th edition is very different to 3rd edition but if you played 2nd edition, you will find some things familiar. Units all now have their own movement rate instead of everything moving 6". Also AP now works like the old saving throw modifiers. All units have varying numbers of wounds now, even vehicles. This means that you can even chip wounds off vehicles and big monsters with boltguns if you have to (although Multimeltas and Lascannons are far better at that job). It will take a bit of time to get your head around the changes so start with a few smaller games to familiarise yourself with the rules.

 

In terms of units, almost everything from 3rd edition has survived into 9th edition so all your old models should be useable. You may need to make a few adjustments as some units cannot take the same number of heavy or melee weapons that they used to. In terms of new units, there is a huge amount to chose from. Units that used to be just mentioned in the background like Wulfen and Thunderwolves are now units we can field. We also have unique aircraft in the form of Stormwolf and Stormfang gunships.

 

The biggest changes is the arrival of Primaris Marines. These are a new generation of warriors developed by Belesarius Cawl and introduced to existing Chapters by Roboute Guilliman (yes, the Imperium has a Primarch back). These new units fight alongside existing Marines so you don't have to replace anything. You can add new Primaris units to your army (if you wish) without invalidating any existing units. Primaris characters can lead old infantry and vice-versa. The only real restriction is that Primaris units cannot ride in older transports, they can only ride in their own Transports (Impulsors and Repulsors), not in Rhinos or Land Raiders. Some characters have even been upgraded to Primaris marines, check out the new, improved Ragnar as an example.