Looking at starting 40k again with 11th

[Megalodon]

Just browsing through things as I ponder getting back into 40k with 11th, it seems all my firstborn Wolves are completely gone from the codex. 

Well there are Blood Claws and Grey Hunters, but there is no customization left apparently. Long Fangs are gone too, wow.

So do we have to use units from the Space Marine codex for special and heavy weapons punch?

 

At a glance army building looks confusing, any help or advice for and old wolf would be appreciated. 

Thanks

 

[SvenIronhand]

1 hour ago, Megalodon said:

So do we have to use units from the Space Marine codex for special and heavy weapons punch?

Yes.

[Karhedron]

Welcome back to the Fang brother. Pour yourself a flagon of mjod and take a seat by the fire while we discuss strategy.

 

You are broadly correct. Space Wolves get most of the units that regular Space Marines do and sprinkle in a selection of bespoke units. Blood Claws and Grey Hunters broadly resemble their old incarnations but have fewer options. Also they are limited to 10 or 20 man squads. For this reason you might also want to include some Intercessors in your army as they can be taken in 5-man squads which makes them handy for taking Objectives or performing actions.

 

On the other hand, some of our units are very good. Wolf Guard Headtakers are a definite upgrade on Bladeguard and combine very well with a Wolf Priest or Wolf Guard Battleleader. Wolf Guard Terminators are more of a side-grade to regular Terminators but can be led by Arjac or Logan Grimnar who both have very good rules. We also have our custom Dreadnoughts and Bjorn in particular is a popular choice due to the fact that he generates an extra CP each turn.

 

Space Wolves have always had most of the same tanks are regular Marines and this is still broadly true. I favour things like Vindicators for anti-everything firepower and a Land Raiders for a mix of anti-tank and Transport capacity. Gladiator Lancers and Ballistus Dreadnoughts are also popular for fire support.

 

Building armies in 10th edition is actually much easier than in previous editions as the old Force Organisation chart is gone. You just need 1 Character to be your Warlord. You can then buy as many units as you like, there is no longer a restriction of 3 Heavy Support as those categories are gone. The only restrictions are no more than 1 of any Epic Hero (named characters), no more than 6 of each type of Battleline Unit (Troops in old money) and no more than 3 of any other type of unit. This makes it very easy to build themed armies. If you want to build and Iron Wolves armoured company, it is easy to load up on tanks and transports. You cannot field more than 3 of each data sheet, so no more than 3 Vindicators for example. But you are perfectly free to have 3 Vindicators and 3 Land Raiders and 3 Repulsors.

 

The last step for your army is to pick your Detachment. This is what adds the "flavour" to your army. Each Detachment lists a special rule for the army, 4 Enhancements and 6 Stratagems. The army rule may apply to all units or only a subset. Some apply a simple buff, some provide a set of one-off boosts you can choose from at the start of a Turn and some provide ways to unlock bonuses.

 

Space Wolves are free to use any of the standard Astartes Detachments as well as the custom Space Wolves Detachments. One popular option is the Stormlance Detachment. This is a fast-attack themed Detachment and is based on the White Scars favoured approach to mobile warfare. However it also works very well with Thunderwolf Cavalry. I quite like Space Wolves "Beastslayer" detachment as it is nice and simple to use. All units in your army get Lethal Hits when targeting Vehicles or Monsters. If you kill more than 50% of your opponents Vehicles and/or Monsters, you army then get Lethal Hits against all targets. I like this Detachment as the rule is a simple but useful buff that helps to kill tough targets. It allows me to go a little light on anti-tank firepower while giving my infantry a chance to drag down even big targets by weight of numbers.

 

The final caveat is that a lot of things could be changing with 11th edition so you might want to avoid buying too much stuff until we get a better idea of how the new edition works. Pick some units that look fun and or have good rules in the codex as these are likely to remain for the time being.

[Megalodon]

Thanks for the reply Karhedron, I appreciate the info. It definitely gives me some stuff to mull over while I wait on 11th. 

 

 

 

[SvenIronhand]

Yeah, Karhedron basically gave the best response you're going to get here.

[Wolf Guard Dan]

If you have the firstborn blood claws and grey hunters (and old terminators) you can probably use them with their current datasheet as long as the wargear and base size is correct.

Space Marines will likely have a new codex in the next 6 months. Anything not released after primaris appeared is at risk of refresh (or going away). Rhino chassis and land raiders could get redone at some point. You’re safer getting the primaris floating vehicles if you’re worried about further scale changes. Space wolves supplement probably won’t get updated early. I suspect we will get updated bespoke dreadnoughts at that point. And maybe Ulrik updated. *fingers crossed* Maybe even a helfrost long fang unit. I’m trying really hard to put that one into the universe. Oh and potentially updated wolf cavalry. Those units (minus long fangs) weren’t phased out in the most recent codex but could be upscaled. 

 

I’d recommend getting the new characters assembled and painted while you wait for the new edition. The nice thing is GW has made an effort to make everything playable. So if there’s a unit you love you should be able to play with it. 

 

Welcome back. 

[Jorin Helm-splitter]

One thing to keep in mind is that our characters can only join our units. So logan can join wolf guard terminators but not assault terminators, and Ragnar can't join bladeguard or intercessors. I think it's the tradeoff for the amount of unique stuff we get but I think in your position it's good to know well you're figuring out your collection. If you have bladeguard for example you can still take vanilla characters with them (or you can add some bits and make them headtakers).

 

I also came back during this edition (the army box was basically perfect for me), and my suggestion would be not to worry about buying stuff first. Use your grey hunters as grey hunters just tell people to ignore the weapon options that they can't have. Learn the game first and make sure it's a still a good fit I spent more than I intended to, but I've been having a lot of fun. Also experiment with detachments because they do change things up, and it looks like they will continue to be a major part of the game. 

[Kassill]

Welcome back! 

We got a pretty decent refresh last year and i will say if you can find that box anywhere its a solid grab. Plenty of models to work on while you wait for the new edition. The other safe buys would be Logan, Arjac, wolf guard terminators for sure. Every kit we got is a treat to build and paint. 

I'll echo some of what has been said, for any range punch we lean on codex space marines as we are at this time a supplement. Vindicators, predators, gladiators (lancer mostly) repulsor, repulsor executioner are all commonly seen filling the anti-tank roles/shooting platforms. Dreadnoughts are decent, ballistus dreads and redemptors sort of rise and fall periodically but never bad options. 

 

List building is honestly super easy as long as you have a warlord (character) you just fill in the rest of your 2000pts with whatever you like, max of 3 units of each datasheet (battle line like...6? but i have yet to see a SW list max that). So like your list could be 3-4 characters, say logan is the warlord, some intercessors and bloodclaws as battline, a few tanks for shooting and then a few of our beefier melee options in thunderwolf cavalry and terminators, then sprinkle in some scoring pieces like scouts and fenrisian wolves and bang you got an army. 

 

I'd like to say we are a melee army but a lot of what you will see is "jail" armies or pressure armies where the goal is to push as many high toughness models with invuls into your opponent and try to "jail" or limit their ability to play the game while you score with secondary units like scouts, lieutenant w/combi weapon etc. We aren't the punchiest army or the shooties army so we exist in this gray area.

 

Saga of the Greatwolf detachment and Gladius are probably the best "all comers" detachments we can take as they offer stratagems and rules to help in both shooting and melee as well as some movement stuff, Stormlance is a popular go fast jail/pressure detachment (basically its all gas no brakes but lacks damage amp abilities). Sadly our book was uhhh...not the greatest when it comes to detachments. They are ok for like narrative play or just beer n pretzel basement hammer. 

 

I kinda rambled but I'd say grab one of the newer kits or the big box if you can find it, take your time re-engaging the hobby side and toss up some batreps on youtube to watch how the game plays these days, Tabletop Titans is good or anything like that. 

[DanPesci]

Welcome back!

 

As someone who's been playing wolves since 5th, can appreciate that modern wolves look a lot different on paper, wont repeat too much of what people have already said tactics wise.... but some 'using old models' advice from someone who has rebuilt twice whilst trying to keep my army primarily 'firstborn' and feel like wolves of old in the new ruleset (I refuse to play intercessors or use the non-SW detachments):

 

 

Character wise we unfortunately lost the 'pack leader' options of old (outside of legends), which sucked. But the battle leader/wolf priest generic characters are both still great, and cheap enough that you could throw a few into a list. Our named options are also still pretty decent.

 

Grey Hunters & Blood Claws are still both there and totally viable options, you just have way less upgrade options now. (Old models are still fine to use outside of anything bar a tournament, size wise theres a different but I dont think most people would mind in a casual game)

 

The main effect the latest release had on me was basically nothing can go inside a rhino or razorback anymore, which sucks if you had those previously

 

Long Fangs are gone (again, outside of legends), but you could run old models as devastator marines for not quite the same flavour. I have a unit of converted gravis lads with volkite cannons that I use with the eradicator rules in casusal games now and then as my 'long fangs')

 

I've heard rumours that we may be getting a new long fang kit but id imagine if they DO itll be a new Gravis kit

 

Vindicators, predators and land raiders are all still decent enough though to fill out the heavy support role, but all their datasheets are in Codex:SM

 

Dreads are still fine and usable, for now you don't need new redepmtor chassis ones, bjorn, murderfang and the ven/wulfen dread all have their uses.

 

Terminators are still great, but are more of a defensive unit these days. Logan if you want him needs a big rebase (or the new model), as his base is now bigger than bjorns 

 

Headtakers are our new version of power armour wolf guard - they come in a choice of sword n board or dual weapon, so old wolf guard/vet models kitted out in this way make for great stand ins (but bases will be larger). Any kind of power weapon works for them too so if you have any old claw/sword/axe pack leaders etc they can stand in.

 

Wolf scouts aren't in the codex but we now have a new option for them from the kill team release

 

No dedicated swift/sky claws (outside of legends) - you can run primaris equivalent but they lack SW flavour

 

So although at first it may seem like e flavour/options aren't there, a lot of our old units still are in some form (bar LF), and you still get the units, just not the plethora of choices we used to have back in the day to put ON said units (the loss of wargear options really did us in on that front).

 

 

NOTE - LEGENDS

 

Some, if not all, of the previous flavour we had can be found in legends. Which are totally usable outside of competitive play.

Long Fangs are in there, as are the very short lived morkai, skyclaws, and (most importantly for me) the old WG Pack Leader choices. I have way more fun with my wolves in non-competitive games that allow legends. They aren't necessarily crazy OP but they at least feel more like how I used to play back in the day, and if you're looking for a few casual games to get you back in would be a good way to get some use out of older models still

 

 

 

DETACHMENTS

 

Best 3 for me are:

 

Great Wolf - Newest detachment and flexible as lets you go through 3 different doctrines, but needs more planning

Beastslayer - Good all round detachment, lets you kill the stuff that is typically hard to kill (vehicles etc) easier without much forward planning.

Hunter - A fun detachment that to me feels like 'old' wolves due to the +1 to hit rule, probably not as competitive as the two above but definately one to try on a more fun game

 

 

Edited March 30 by DanPesci