Space Wolves refresh

[Wraithwing]

52 minutes ago, lonewolf81 said:

shouldnt bloodclaws/greyhunter be the same kit like the EC troops? Then there is room for 1 more :) (Bjorn?)

Think it is really unlikely that they are a dual kit. The bodies and leg poses are all different for one. 

[LittlePlasticHomies]

Regardless of rules or intent, the lieutenant model looks more like a captain than most captains.

[Lord Nord in Gravis Armour]

5 hours ago, LittlePlasticHomies said:

Regardless of rules or intent, the lieutenant model looks more like a captain than most captains.

 

This one does, definitely. The original from Tooth and Claw looked like the barely-Wolfy Lieutenant equivalent he was meant to be. No cloak, no iron halo, and much less surface area covered by the wolf pelt.

 

It does make me wonder what they think they're going to do if they ever release an actual Primaris-scale Wolf Lord model. This guy pretty much stole all the expected bling.

[Ramell]

9 minutes ago, Lord Nord in Gravis Armour said:

 

This one does, definitely. The original from Tooth and Claw looked like the barely-Wolfy Lieutenant equivalent he was meant to be. No cloak, no iron halo, and much less surface area covered by the wolf pelt.

 

It does make me wonder what they think they're going to do if they ever release an actual Primaris-scale Wolf Lord model. This guy pretty much stole all the expected bling.

He does look fancy, but I don't think he's going to overshadow Ragnar on the tabletop. 

[Wispy]

Not overshadowing Ragnar but the Battle Leader is basically a fancy, wolf-headed backpack short of being Krom. They basically have the same knife, too.

 

 

 

 

 

Anyways I apologize for the semantics,  every special marine release got a cool, multipart character decked out to be exemplars of their respective chapters, let's leave it at that.

Edited 6 hours ago by Wispy

[Commissar Greif]

I suppose there's a sort of "middle ground" in the previous discussion in that while Battle Leaders are effectively Space Wolf Lieutenants, the Great Companies are typically larger in size than the companies of more codex-compliant space marine chapters (IIRC, the Blackmanes numbered around 170 marines and were the second largest of the Great Companies), so it's not outside the realm of possibility that a Battle Leader may find himself in command of a force the size of which would typically be commanded by a captain in any other chapter.

 

On a separate note, I'm surprised we've not seen any of the previews for the other new models yet. I'm suspecting a late May/early June release for the box, and with what's (supposedly) slated for release, I expected they'd have started showing things off by now. I have a theory they might move the SW previews from Monday to Wednesday, because Warhammer Community loves tacky jokes and "Wolf Wednesday" seems like something they would do.

[Wispy]

11 hours ago, lonewolf81 said:

shouldnt bloodclaws/greyhunter be the same kit like the EC troops? Then there is room for 1 more :) (Bjorn?)

I would have happily taken them as a dual kit given how I feared they were going the way of Death Company and becoming intercessors+upgrade sprue (and the fact that we've been building Blood Claws and Grey hunters outta the same kit for decade and a half anyways). But examining the poses and armour differences, they're pretty clearly separate kits.

Edited 6 hours ago by Wispy

[jaxom]

1 hour ago, Commissar Greif said:

On a separate note, I'm surprised we've not seen any of the previews for the other new models yet.

It'll probably be next week, once WarCom has gotten the EC out its metaphorical system.

[Commissar Greif]

1 hour ago, jaxom said:

It'll probably be next week, once WarCom has gotten the EC out its metaphorical system.

That's what I'm thinking. Either next Monday or this Wednesday, but I'm leaning a bit more to the former.

[Wispy]

2 hours ago, Commissar Greif said:

I suppose there's a sort of "middle ground" in the previous discussion in that while Battle Leaders are effectively Space Wolf Lieutenants, the Great Companies are typically larger in size than the companies of more codex-compliant space marine chapters (IIRC, the Blackmanes numbered around 170 marines and were the second largest of the Great Companies), so it's not outside the realm of possibility that a Battle Leader may find himself in command of a force the size of which would typically be commanded by a captain in any other chapter.

 

On a separate note, I'm surprised we've not seen any of the previews for the other new models yet. I'm suspecting a late May/early June release for the box, and with what's (supposedly) slated for release, I expected they'd have started showing things off by now. I have a theory they might move the SW previews from Monday to Wednesday, because Warhammer Community loves tacky jokes and "Wolf Wednesday" seems like something they would do.

Plus the Space Wolves don't have a 1st Company, they don't concentrate their super veterans in a single company or assign them to overarching Chapter Honour Guard like Codex Marines do. It stands to reason a Great Company could have a 'right-hand of the Jarl' who is technically "the equivalent of a lieutenant" but it essentially as veteran as any Codex Captain (with the swag and threads to match).

[SkimaskMohawk]

On 4/1/2025 at 3:03 PM, Evil Eye said:

Sadly heavy/special weapons are one of those things that seem to have fallen victim to scale/scope creep. In smaller games, a meltagun or plasma cannon in a squad could make quite the impact (and the added mobility and protection of a Rhino would make them even more scary).

 

Ya, the melta gun used to be able to one shot a land raider with a 50% chance to do it back in 4th and 5th after penetrating the armour; now it's got like a 50% chance of one shotting a venom and literally can't kill a rhino on its own. 

 

In the world of fully specialized squads of Marines, no FOC, and the mechanics of modern 40k, the premise of the tactical squad is a relic of an objectively better time.

[Nephaston]

1 hour ago, SkimaskMohawk said:

 

Ya, the melta gun used to be able to one shot a land raider with a 50% chance to do it back in 4th and 5th after penetrating the armour; now it's got like a 50% chance of one shotting a venom and literally can't kill a rhino on its own. 

 

In the world of fully specialized squads of Marines, no FOC, and the mechanics of modern 40k, the premise of the tactical squad is a relic of an objectively better time.

A 10 point gun essentially coin tossing a 250 point vehicle doesn't sound great, ngl. Then again, it also does sound like explosion central on the tabletop, which does sound appealing.

[SkimaskMohawk]

1 hour ago, Nephaston said:

A 10 point gun essentially coin tossing a 250 point vehicle doesn't sound great, ngl. Then again, it also does sound like explosion central on the tabletop, which does sound appealing.

Ya, i mean that land raider was fairly immune to a whole lot of everything else, including the generally far more efficient plasma gun. You bought the weapon (on the unit that costed 170 base in 5th) that was only good at killing tanks, got it within 6", and had a combined 20% chance of one shotting the heaviest vehicle in the game.  There's all the other factors of trading one of your limited scoring units for the land raider kill, getting in range and playing someone the melta was a liability against. 

 

But in 10th? That melta can't kill a rhino that's half the units points. In fact, a tac squad shooting both melta and multi melta in half range average 4.5 damage, about...half its wounds. 

 

And this is what I mean when I said objectively better time. The rules gave you a bunch of war gear options you could tinker with and make something effective for a specific role, which was mirrored in the hobby side; you could tinker with kits and make something special and specific. If you made a unit a dedicated tank hunter, it'd threaten tanks. It was harmonious. But the 10th/AoS hobby is you buy the unit for the role you want, no major choices to be seen, no feels bad mistakes in making illegal loadouts. So the rules follow suit, except there's a bunch of legacy units hanging out in limbo that don't fit with the modern system, that also miss out on any combos to inflate their functionality. The unit has no point any more. Stuff is very much not harmonious. And just because I'm gonna cop more dislikes no matter what,  the terrain, deployments and missions are all absolute :cuss: shows on top of what i mentioned about rules dilution and hobby connection to the game amputated.