March of Wolves: Troops

Space Wolves Troops
By: Alan B.

With troops I always take a look at who gets the most bang for the buck, or points so to speak.  In the space wolves codex it is mostly a choice between hunters or claws with some additions.

Now the real meat of the decision for me always centers around the options that you can build on. 

Grey Hunters:

With 5^th being a mech heavy environment I have always seen the preferred build out of the hunters in units of 10 with the 2 meltaguns.  Unlike their generic sm brothers the SW are blessed with 2 special weapons instead of one heavy weapon.  For an army that is designed to get up close and personal this is the option that I would choose.  Also one that I have played my IG and GK against frequently at many a GT and RTT.  With the options of the Melta and the PF and one with mark of the Wulfen  you are ready to open up the outer crunchy shell and get into the meat of the transport.  Arguably, Grey Hunters are the best troops in the game and can often handle any situation you throw them into.  They can move 12" dump out of a Rhino, rapid fire and when they get charged they use counter charge to gain +1 attack, who says you can't have it all!?... Don't leave home without them!

Blood Claws:

If you are into the mob mentality then you may prefer the claws in groups of 15 with the land raider crusader to get the extra attack with Berserk Charge, but for me without multiple power weapons in the squad this to me is nothing more than a, “who can roll more dice contest”.  Furthermore if the land raider gets popped in round one then you are hoofing it across the field and it becomes a shooting gallery for your opponent.    Now they can get Lukas in a squad for a whooping 140 points.  However, any veteran opponent is just going to isolate the squad that he is in and shoot them down and stay out of cc with him.  Been there, done that. The other thing about Blood Claws is that they do lose a point of WS and BS as well as needing a Wolf Guard to join the squad to get rid of the headstrong.  That said, Blood Claws joined by Ragnar can beat some face in!


Wolf Guard additions:

The interesting piece added to the equation is the Wolf Guard Pack.  These can be purchased and assigned to the squad, but only one per squad.  They act in the same manner as squad leaders increasing the leadership of the unit up to 9, and cannot leave the unit that they are joined to. For options that each can take, the combi-melta and PW/PF combo is used often as well as the thunder hammer or wolf claw. This is another way to get 2 meltaguns into a razorback squad instead of the ten for a 2 for a rhino mounted unit.  The fact that they get melta bombs or 5 points makes it great if their melta guns in the squads don’t cut it.  In the course of playing at events, I have never seen them with jump packs or on bikes.  Although very cool in the fluff and storyline, I haven’t seen anyone used them effectively  on the battlefield.  I have only seen Arjac Rockfist once or twice and both times he wasn’t worth his 170 points.  I have seen the Wolf Guard as their own pack with different build outs for crazy wound allocation madness but that build really requires Logan to unlock them as troops.  When I have seen Logan wing armies it can be effective, but more often then not it just makes 1-2 big units of Wolfguard scoring, something like super-Grey Hunters.


Transports:

Now what analysis would be complete without looking at the transports!  Mech is king is 5^th and the most of have seen and played against is the razorback spam of the SW.    The weapon of choice here seems to be the lascannon and twin linked plasma gun.  It is the best bang for the buck for long range engagement to compete against IG mech line tactics or to get the drop on GK or BA in the mid-range shooting gallery.  Otherwise the rhino is there for the general that likes to play with the 10 man squad with 2 dedicated meltaguns.  I truly believe that if they had kept the drop pods at 12 men, instead of going to 10 we would have seen a totally different build out on competitive SW lists. I have seen Wolf Guard attached with terminator armor to 8 Grey Hunters with Melta and it is pretty nasty thought. All in all I think that the razorback list is the most devastating and mobile of the group, but don't ignore 10 dudes in a Rhino or you will pay!

Well, I hope that you enjoyed my opinion of the puppies in space.  Although I have never played with the list.  I have played against it more than any other army and learned to respect it.  I would love to hear how you play your dogs and why you make the choices you do….

How do you use your Troops sections