Space Wolves refresh

[Redcomet]

58 minutes ago, Cenobite Terminator said:

I’m really happy for SW players… they must be very excited.

They are. Just saw 3 off them in a circle smelling each others…

 

Never mind, don’t want to scar you permanently 

[TheNicronomicon]

2 hours ago, Northern Walker said:

Really interesting balance between save and pure punchy for the wolf guard, unfortunately i suspect it'll be shields given the way the game is.

That’s fine by me, though. I have my SW Bladeguard to proxy for the shield Headtakers and I’ll be free to build two-handed weapon berserkers for my actual Headtakers squad! 

[jimbo1701]

I may be alone in thinking this but I still think the only update that has had more flavour than the firstborn equivalent is the black Templar crusader kit. Everything else seems to have fallen short to differing degrees. 
 

I do like that the blood claw pack leader is basically Lukas the trickster though. 

[StrangerOrders]

Wanted to ask folks two things after chewing on the article and preview for a bit.

 

Given what we have heard (7" Move, 3 shot, chainswords, OC3), what is your take or leave pts price for the new Grey Hunters? Because I am expecting they are getting a premium for all of that but I can't quite decide what my breaking point is.

 

Second, how realistic do you see the Head Takers' gimmick being in most games? It strikes me as very fiddly because your opponent could probably counterplay it pretty easily and they would need to be absolute murder to really scare off a bigger fish. I can't help but feel that I'll probably use it as a 'nice if it comes up but not betting on it' rule.

[DemonGSides]

1 hour ago, Commissar Greif said:

 

I thought there had been discussion of it some time in the past but with what other posters are saying, I think I was just misremembering.

 

There's been rumors of him all the way back to Magnus' release. I believe there was a rumor way back then that someone saw a bunch of the 40k primarch versions, including Magnus, Russ,  Mortarion and maybe another?

 

Nothing concrete or more recent tho beyond hope. Originally it was sort of expected that SW would close out the edition right behind EC. Something has obviously changed at GW HQ. 

[Aramis K]

Is it me or have they all got short torsos?

Primaris fixed the proportions of SMs, so they weren't all chest and belt and tiny head. But this lot seems to have lost their abs.

So, to me, all looking like lanky squats.

[Marshal Reinhard]

Looking more at them, its a bit interesting/peculiar that most of the armor variations we havent really had before is on the blood claws. The lack of kneepad rims, no armor on the backpack exhausts. Doubt theres gonna be an explicitly mentioned lore reason, much less a difference in crunch so I expect a lot of mixing and matching by modelers

[Indy Techwisp]

Please tell me the Space Wolves players aren't complaining after their half-preview had more stuff in it than 4 other Armies and the entirety of AoS.

[Karhedron]

20 minutes ago, DemonGSides said:

There's been rumors of him all the way back to Magnus' release. I believe there was a rumor way back then that someone saw a bunch of the 40k primarch versions, including Magnus, Russ,  Mortarion and maybe another?

 

Yes, the original Primarch rumours from 2016/17. One the preeminent rumour mongers of the day (Hastings) saw the concept designs for Magnus, Guilliman, Mortarion, Angron and Russ. We are now 4/5 of the original quintet although Fulgrim and the Lion have jumped the queue in the intervening years. Of course this was only concept artwork, not even finished designs so there has been plenty of time for stuff to change.

  

20 minutes ago, DemonGSides said:

Nothing concrete or more recent tho beyond hope. Originally it was sort of expected that SW would close out the edition right behind EC. Something has obviously changed at GW HQ. 

 

I think that timeline of EC - SW - End of 10th campaign was only ever an assumption from fans, it never came from GW. As such I don't think anything has changed, we just have a bit more visibility of the roadmap. Even up until a few months ago, people were insisting that 11th edition 40K would be coming this summer rather than next. I don't believe this was ever likely.

[Karhedron]

10 minutes ago, Indy Techwisp said:

Please tell me the Space Wolves players aren't complaining after their half-preview had more stuff in it than 4 other Armies and the entirety of AoS.

 

I can only speak for myself but I am over the moon about these reveals! To me, they are perfect and everything I was hoping the SW refresh would be. They are far above what I was expecting based on the BA release. The basic infantry are clearly space wolves and have plenty of distinctive decoration without going overboard or just slapping fur on everything. There are a good mix of helmeted and bare heads and a few nice pieces of older armour mixed in there. The new units like Headtakers and WGBL are fantastic. If this was all we were getting, I would be very happy but the knowledge we still have a Terminator wave to come is brilliant.

 

Although I have to say, I think I know where GW got the inspiration for the Headtakers from. But I am not sore, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. 

 

 

[Karhedron]

8 hours ago, TheMawr said:

Though of those the wolf guard battle leader in terminator armor doesnt have a miniature I just realise.

 

The Dark Angels lost their Terminator Lt so I would not be surprised if we do too.

[Focslain]

8 minutes ago, Indy Techwisp said:

Please tell me the Space Wolves players aren't complaining after their half-preview had more stuff in it than 4 other Armies and the entirety of AoS.

Model wise? No, they look fantastic. No issues with the look of the new kits.

 

Rules wise? This is a back/side-step in our individuality. Blood Claws are just Assault Intercessors (sgt can take a lightingclaw or 2), grey hunters are Intercessors and the HeadTakers are just better bladeguard. Good chance the terminators will have the same rules/kit as the codex marine versions. WGBL are LTs and good chance the Wolf Lord is just a reskinned captain.

Granted he is now anyway, but you get the idea.

 

I'll be sad when we lose our Long Fang unit, cause that's a stronger possibility now.

 

But personally I don't really have any fur in the game right now as I moved away from wolves being my main army at the tail end of 8th when Knights became their own force. 

 

So while I may not like it, I'm happy for those that are excited. At least the models look cool :cuss:. 

 

[Karhedron]

43 minutes ago, StrangerOrders said:

Given what we have heard (7" Move, 3 shot, chainswords, OC3), what is your take or leave pts price for the new Grey Hunters? Because I am expecting they are getting a premium for all of that but I can't quite decide what my breaking point is.

 

A good question. The thing to remember is that regular Intercessors now get 4 shots with Ap-1 as long as they don't split their fire. This means Assault 3 AP0 is actually not much to get excited about. This means that at the moment, it looks like both squads get the following:

 

Intercessors

4 shots, S4 AP-1

3 attacks S4 AP0

  

Grey Hunters

3 Shots, S4 AP0

4 Attacks. S4 AP-1

 

Basically it looks like GHs swap their shooting and melee profile relative to Intercessors so should probably be costed about the same, at least based on their offensive and defensive profiles. OC3 is good but Intercessors getting Objective Secured is also pretty tasty. M7 is nice, particularly if it applies army-wide (which it looks like it does). Do we know what special rules GHs get yet? I know BCs get to reroll wounds like Assault Intercessors but I didn't catch what GHs had going on. Overall, I think they should be priced very close to Intercessors. If they are more than 10 points higher for a 5-man squad, they will not see play IMHO.

 

43 minutes ago, StrangerOrders said:

Second, how realistic do you see the Head Takers' gimmick being in most games? It strikes me as very fiddly because your opponent could probably counterplay it pretty easily and they would need to be absolute murder to really scare off a bigger fish. I can't help but feel that I'll probably use it as a 'nice if it comes up but not betting on it' rule.

 

It is a really cool and fluffy rule. I think it is useful as even if it can be countered, it basically means you opponent will be scared to move Unit X anywhere near these guys. Even if they never get to use their rule, they have still had a big effect on where your opponent deploys and moves. Many armies rely on one or two key "brick" units to contest the centre of the table. If you can scare those units away or significantly increase the damage they take from going there, that can have a huge impact on your opponent's play. They are a flexible spoiler unit that can really mess up armies that rely heavily on a few key hammer units.

[Dried]

18 minutes ago, Karhedron said:

 

I can only speak for myself but I am over the moon about these reveals! To me, they are perfect and everything I was hoping the SW refresh would be. They are far above what I was expecting based on the BA release. The basic infantry are clearly space wolves and have plenty of distinctive decoration without going overboard or just slapping fur on everything. There are a good mix of helmeted and bare heads and a few nice pieces of older armour mixed in there. The new units like Headtakers and WGBL are fantastic. If this was all we were getting, I would be very happy but the knowledge we still have a Terminator wave to come is brilliant.

 

Although I have to say, I think I know where GW got the inspiration for the Headtakers from. But I am not sore, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. 

 

 

Love it too! And me too the new minis will fit perfectly with what I have done with the primaris.

My bladeguard Veterans are quite similars with the Headtakers. 
 
I have my own helmets which some are quite similar too :

And I converted my Intercessors and Assault Intercessors as Grey Hunters and Blood Claws too.
There are some difference but all those new minis wi will fit quite nicely with my army!

And I love the mix with old and new stuff. It looks like the best of both world honestly.

Edited Thursday at 02:13 PM by Dried

[DemonGSides]

36 minutes ago, Marshal Reinhard said:

Looking more at them, its a bit interesting/peculiar that most of the armor variations we havent really had before is on the blood claws. The lack of kneepad rims, no armor on the backpack exhausts. Doubt theres gonna be an explicitly mentioned lore reason, much less a difference in crunch so I expect a lot of mixing and matching by modelers

 

They've already explicitly mentioned the lore reason. They're younger SW who wear lighter armor so they can get into the fight faster.

 

That being said I think both kits are great foundations for just turning whatever unit in Codex: SM into a space wolves unit and I only wish the BA and DA had been given an equivalent modelling opportunity. 

 

Instead BA got super shafted and DA got wallet shafted.  A big bummer but I am happy for SW.

[Jukkiz]

would been nice time to bring back update lukas, but alas

[Robbienw]

4 hours ago, Orange Knight said:

And again, this is the best the Space Wolves have ever looked. Some of the models are simply fantastic. The old 40k and Horus Heresy ranges don't hold a candle to these.

 

 

That's not saying much. 

 

The 30k SW units are the poorest legion units in the 30k range, mainly because there was little interest in the FW studio in the legion and little effort was put in.  

 

The 40k stuff is either very old, or comes from the wolfy mcwolf era when space wolves became a caricature.

 

Going back to the bloodclaw/grey hunter/longfang/wolfguard paradigm was obviously a sensible thing to do.

[Brother Carpenter]

And just spotted these.

 

Different knees.

 

Loving it.

[TheNicronomicon]

52 minutes ago, Karhedron said:

Basically it looks like GHs swap their shooting and melee profile relative to Intercessors so should probably be costed about the same, at least based on their offensive and defensive profiles. OC3 is good but Intercessors getting Objective Secured is also pretty tasty. M7 is nice, particularly if it applies army-wide (which it looks like it does). Do we know what special rules GHs get yet? I know BCs get to reroll wounds like Assault Intercessors but I didn't catch what GHs had going on. Overall, I think they should be priced very close to Intercessors. If they are more than 10 points higher for a 5-man squad, they will not see play IMHO.

That's assuming we still have access to those units--in older editions Wolves have been locked out of tactical and assault squads along with Apothecaries and Chaplains and others. Beyond excited for the models and the codex but I'm curious to see what kinds of restrictions we'll have to grapple with as far as list-building goes.

 

I would have thought the Grey Hunters would be the better shooting unit and Blood Claws the better melee unit. I'm happy they kept their CC loadouts, though.

[TheNicronomicon]

43 minutes ago, Jukkiz said:

would been nice time to bring back update lukas, but alas

He'll always be in our hearts....right next to the grenades

[ZeroWolf]

Remember there is still more to come from SW, this isn't everything they're getting.

[Karhedron]

8 minutes ago, ZeroWolf said:

Remember there is still more to come from SW, this isn't everything they're getting.

 

Current rumour from Valrak is a Terminator wave consisting of new Logan, Arjac, Njal and a squad of Wolf Guard Terminators. As always, just rumours until confirmed otherwise but he has been on the money so far.

[Karhedron]

25 minutes ago, TheNicronomicon said:

That's assuming we still have access to those units--in older editions Wolves have been locked out of tactical and assault squads along with Apothecaries and Chaplains and others. Beyond excited for the models and the codex but I'm curious to see what kinds of restrictions we'll have to grapple with as far as list-building goes.

 

That is a good question. I am rather hoping that we do not lose access to regular Intercessors as I have 20 of them and I am quite pleased with how they turned out. I guess that we will just have to wait and see.

[Wraithwing]

2 hours ago, Karhedron said:

 

I can only speak for myself but I am over the moon about these reveals! To me, they are perfect and everything I was hoping the SW refresh would be. They are far above what I was expecting based on the BA release. The basic infantry are clearly space wolves and have plenty of distinctive decoration without going overboard or just slapping fur on everything. There are a good mix of helmeted and bare heads and a few nice pieces of older armour mixed in there. The new units like Headtakers and WGBL are fantastic. If this was all we were getting, I would be very happy but the knowledge we still have a Terminator wave to come is brilliant.

 

Although I have to say, I think I know where GW got the inspiration for the Headtakers from. But I am not sore, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. 

 

 

 

Surely you mean they copied mine Karhedron? 

 

[HeadlessCross]

9 hours ago, Orange Knight said:

What a fantastic range. This is the best the Space Wolves have ever looked!

 

Some better pics:

 

 

 

 

Oh cool, Grey Hunters are losing the special weapons