Space Wolves again...and Grey Knights??!!

Sup guys.  Wow have the releases been hopping lately from GW.  This last weekend we saw the release of the new Space Wolves codex and coming up on the heels of its release the rumors are telling us that Grey Knights are next.  Rumor no more as various websites and 40K talking heads have confirmed the rumor not to mention a buddy of mine just shot me a pic of next weeks White Dwarf with you guessed it, Grey Knights on the cover.  So before I start with this whole Grey Knights mess, I wanted to give my first impressions of the Space Puppy book.  On first impression the book is great.  It manages to keep a lot of the flavor of the old dex and bring the costs in line with other newer space marine books.  Instead of the beefed up chapter master, they get the beefed up thunderwolf lord with access to runic armor and storm shield at a points discount.  Not just that but thunderwolf cavalry are now cheaper and thus easier to take in lists that will not sacrifice a lot making them perfect bodyguards for your lords.  The new flyer is also very good with the transport one being the true winner allowing you to take 16 models or 8 terminators and still providing great supporting fire once the cargo has been delivered.  The new murderface Dread has great rules and wont cost you an arm and a leg to use.  I can only hope when blood angels are redone they get a special dread too.  The supplement just improves on the rules and gives you the type of flexibility that I as a CSM player can only dream about.  You want to run 6 wolflords, go for it.  You want to run a scout army, do it.  Space Wolves always get great books and this is no exception.  Yes grey hunters got nerfed a bit but you have to realize that they were way under costed compared to other marines (hint, hint CSM).  They were brought in line with other imperial marines and for the most part the strength of the codex and supplement really hides this short coming.  About the only bad thing I would say about the space wolves release is the Grimnar santa sled.  I don't know if someone at GW is hooked on history channels Vikings but making a chariot look like a mini viking longship complete with shields on the side is just horrible.   Overall though the pups got a pair of great books. 

And now Grey Knights??  Wow what a surprise this was.  Right on the heels of the Space Wolves release we get codex Grey Knights.  No models for this release just updated rules which is ok in my book.  There are several armies that need to be updated and a quick rules update to an army that already has great models is good for the hobby.  Release new models with white dwarf rules and your good to go.  Now as expected the grey knights are indeed getting the nerf treatment with the rules leak that I have seen so far.  Removing all inquisition models, most of the special characters and rules, changing psycannons to salvo weapons, losing psybolt ammo are few of the nerfs that are coming.  Along with this a price reduction on all models and some new items including a force weapon gun, awesome formation and maybe the calls of this book sucks could be premature.  We only have a couple of days left until the book is released and so everything will be confirmed. 

Pics are of my almost complete Storm Raven for my blood angels/space marines.  I am hoping to get this army done by October.

My Skyrar's Dark Wolves Campaign List

Hi guys, well for the campaign I am settling on the following list. The list still utilizes my deathstar HQ unit but to a lesser degree, no 2+ saves due to trying to keep the point cost down and getting 2 heavy support choices. In my last couple of games using them, I really liked what drop pods brought to my list, it gave my troops the capability to contest anywhere on the table which is something that was lacking when I ran the pure foot lists. I really do not want to use Rhinos or the dreaded Razorback as then I'm just running a Net list. My list is as follows -

1500 Pts -Initial 1500pts Campaign Skyrar's Dark Wolves

HQ: Wolf Lord in Power Armour (1#, 215 pts)
1 Wolf Lord in Power Armour, 215 pts (Unit Type: Cavalry; Frag Grenades; Krak Grenades; Power Armour; Belt of Russ; Wolf Tail Talisman; Thunderwolf Mount; Bolt Pistol; Frost Weapon x1; Acute Senses; And They Shall Know No Fear; Counter-attack; Independent Character; Rending in CC only; Saga of Majesty)

HQ: Wolf Lord in Power Armour (1#, 205 pts)
1 Wolf Lord in Power Armour, 205 pts (Unit Type: Cavalry; Frag Grenades; Krak Grenades; Power Armour; Thunderwolf Mount; Storm Shield x1; Thunder Hammer x1; Acute Senses; And They Shall Know No Fear; Counter-attack; Independent Character; Rending in CC only)

Fast Attack: Thunderwolf Cavalry (1#, 105 pts)
1 Thunderwolf Cavalry, 105 pts (Unit Type: Cavalry; Acute Senses; And They Shall Know No Fear; Counter-attack; Rending in CC only; Wolfkin)
1 Thunderwolf Cavalry (Frag Grenades; Krak Grenades; Power Armour; Thunderwolf Mount; Storm Shield; Frost Weapon)

Fast Attack: Fenrisian Wolf Pack (10#, 80 pts)
10 Fenrisian Wolf Pack, 80 pts (Unit Type: Beasts; Vicious claws and fangs; Counter-attack)

Troops: Grey Hunters Pack (11#, 205 pts)
10 Grey Hunters Pack, 205 pts (Unit Type: Infantry; Frag Grenades; Krak Grenades; Power Armour; Bolt Pistol x10; Bolter x8; Close Combat Weapon x9; Meltagun; Power Weapon; Plasmagun; Acute Senses; And They Shall Know No Fear; Counter-attack)
1 Drop Pod (Unit Type: Vehicle (Open-topped); Transport Capacity: 10 models; Storm Bolter; Drop Pod Assault; Immobile; Inertial Guidance System)

Troops: Grey Hunters Pack (11#, 205 pts)
10 Grey Hunters Pack, 205 pts (Unit Type: Infantry; Frag Grenades; Krak Grenades; Power Armour; Bolt Pistol x10; Bolter x8; Close Combat Weapon x9; Meltagun; Power Weapon; Plasmagun; Acute Senses; And They Shall Know No Fear; Counter-attack)
1 Drop Pod (Unit Type: Vehicle (Open-topped); Transport Capacity: 10 models; Storm Bolter; Drop Pod Assault; Immobile; Inertial Guidance System)

Troops: Grey Hunters Pack (11#, 205 pts)
10 Grey Hunters Pack, 205 pts (Unit Type: Infantry; Frag Grenades; Krak Grenades; Power Armour; Bolt Pistol x10; Bolter x8; Close Combat Weapon x9; Meltagun; Power Weapon; Plasmagun; Acute Senses; And They Shall Know No Fear; Counter-attack)
1 Drop Pod (Unit Type: Vehicle (Open-topped); Transport Capacity: 10 models; Storm Bolter; Drop Pod Assault; Immobile; Inertial Guidance System)

Heavy Support: Long Fangs Pack (5#, 125 pts)
4 Long Fangs Pack, 125 pts (Unit Type: Infantry; Frag Grenades; Krak Grenades; Power Armour; Close Combat Weapon x4; Missile Launcher x3; Plasma Cannon x1; Acute Senses; And They Shall Know No Fear; Counter-attack; Fire Control)
1 Squad Leader (Unit Type: Infantry; Frag Grenades; Krak Grenades; Power Armour; Bolt Pistol; Close Combat Weapon; Acute Senses; And They Shall Know No Fear; Counter-attack; Fire Control)

Heavy Support: Long Fangs Pack (5#, 155 pts)
4 Long Fangs Pack, 155 pts (Unit Type: Infantry; Frag Grenades; Krak Grenades; Power Armour; Close Combat Weapon x4; Heavy Bolter x1; Lascannon x3; Acute Senses; And They Shall Know No Fear; Counter-attack; Fire Control)
1 Squad Leader (Unit Type: Infantry; Frag Grenades; Krak Grenades; Power Armour; Bolt Pistol; Close Combat Weapon; Acute Senses; And They Shall Know No Fear; Counter-attack; Fire Control)

Total Roster Cost: 1500

I might change the make up of my Long Fangs maybe adding a 4th missile Launcher or dropping a Lascannon for another Plasma cannon but we shall see. Let me know what you guys think...

Playing the so-called Net list....

Ok, Ok, Ok, so the past few months I have been going on about playing with my pre-hersey Thousand Sons army but lately I got the bug to play my Chaos Space Wolves again, though this army is not completely painted, its about 75% done with only about 20 models left to paint. I am like Bill from the Gamerslounge, I hate playing with an unpainted army. When last I played the army, it had virtually no mech; though its argued I'm playing a so-called net list because of my 3 wolf lords, I have yet to see one played with no mech or drop pods. The 3 wolf list I started playing back before it became all of the rage and due to that rage I found myself not wanting to play it as I hate to be called a power gamer.

The group of friends I play games with are not what you call "power gamers", they are pretty much the beer and pretzel gamer with limited time (only 1 day a week) to indulge in a hobby that they love. I love the atmosphere for this reason as it allows me to take crazy unbalanced lists and still have a good time even though I lose with them. I wanted to try the wolves with drop pods as the times I played with my army, my opponents would concentrate all fire on my wolf lords and by the time they got into combat, they had lost their dog bodyguard and already lost some of their wounds. I figured that by dropping say 2-3 drop pods in turn 1 my opponent would have to concentrate on them thus allowing my wolf lords and my long fangs time to either start taking out vehicles or assaulting squads. In 1750, I could only get about 4 drop pods full of grey hunters so I might try either running cheaper long fangs or cheaper Lords as I want to drop 5 drop pods. We usually play 1750 so that is what I build my lists for.

Last week I played against an Eldar player, playing 1850 points; football (auto tie mission), with spearhead deployment. The eldar player has been using his army for almost 2 years now and has become one of our better players. He runs combination footdar/mech list but for this game he wanted to try something different so he opted for a complete Footdar army complete with 10 Wraithguard.

The game was extremely close and ended in a predicable tie however by all regards, my opponent should have beat me. Was it the power of my codex or my opponent just having bad luck. You want to know what the deal was? I had 2 long fangs squads left, he had practically tabled me and I caused his last scoring unit to run off the table due to the fact my long fangs were able to split fire. No other army has this ability, to be able to do it and for so cheap. I am still trying to learn the army (this being my 5 game with them) but having so close games where I would have lost if I was using any older codex really makes me want GW to finally update all of the codexes to 5th edition. Its no small wonder why Space wolves are so popular. I will probably finish painting the army before I play them again.

Right now as I mentioned in my last post, my local GW is running a month long campaign. I wanted to play chaos as I think my friend will be running his wolves and so I wanted to run something different. I thought about running my Thousand Sons but with a 1250 point limit, I would be really limiting myself in choices. I decided to pull out my old army, my first Chaos army and first army that I had actually finished painting.

I decided to bring out the Nightlords. I will post the list I am running in my next post along with results of my first games with them. It's been about a year since I pulled them out, as this is a fun campaign, it just sounded like fun to use these guys again. Who knows maybe they will surprise everybody like they did when I ran an all raptor kill team during the Kill team tournament we had and actually took 3rd place. Pics are of my Chaos Space wolves, 2 of my Thunder Lords, some dogs, and a grey hunter squad.

Tournament Time...

2 Saturdays ago marked our local GW's Single elimination tournament. A 2000 points win at all costs tournament in which a loss means your out. The TO of this tournament did the same setup when he did the kill team tournament that he ran a couple of months ago. I wasn't expecting this type of setup, I at least wanted to be guaranteed 3 games and me being so new with my army, I wasn't expecting to win it. What I can say is that I prepared for Kill points and pitched battle as the TO told us that the tourney would be using these setups and my army was very stingy in the kill point department with my opponents needing to kill squads to give up one and only having 1 vehicle which was my venerable Dred. My list consisted of the following -
Wolf Lord on Jugger...ah thunderwolf with frost weapon, belt of russ, runic armor, bolt pistol
Wolf Lord on Thunderwolf with Thunder Hammer, Storm Shield, runic armor
Wolf Lord on Thunderwolf with Frost weapon, Storm Shield, runic armor, and saga of the wolfkin
All 3 had 2 wolf body guards and joined a 14 Wolf squad
Rune Priest with Murderous Hurricane and living lightning
Blood claw pack (13) with power weapon
2 Grey hunter packs with power weapon, plasma gun, melta gun
Venerable Dred with Assault Cannon
2 Long Fang squads, 1 with 3 missile launchers and 2 Plasma Cannons, 1 with 3 Lascannons and 2 heavy bolters.

My First game was against an Ork player. Again all I can say is OMG!!! My opponent brought a tough list with 2 15 ork commando units, one led by Snikrot. I gave him first turn as I wanted to see what he was going to do and I wanted to deploy my Long Fangs in the best position that I could. He deployed his hammer unit of Nobs with his warboss in the center of the table. This was the unit that I need to make disappear as I know the power of the unit. Big mistake my opponent did was not to deploy them in his battle wagon opting instead to have them go on foot. He put his big unit of burnas in the wagon which I immobilized in turn 2 thus causing my opponent to have to footslog it.

After taking out his nob squad and then the unit of 3 killer kans, the rest was clean up. The only threat my opponent had was his 2 commando squads which didnt come in until turn 3 and were thus left with taking out just a long fang squad that I let him have. My Wolf lords performed exactly like they had in my last 2 games, just destroying everything they touched. By turn 4, my opponent conceited the game and I scored a mighty 8 kill points and he scored 1. Another victory for my chaos space wolves.

Next game was against the guy who ended up winning the tourny who played a blood angel army that amongst my opponents would be the toughest I would face. The game was pretty even with both of us having a very good hammer unit that if used properly could change the outcome of the game. I started very strong by killing 1 of his Baal Preds and stunning his landraider. He responded by taking out my blood claws and a grey hunter unit with my rune priest. This was just dumb, as he lost 3 jump troops including his Sang priest due to murderous hurricane. My opponent just rolled incredible and I just rolled horribly. This one assault squad accounted for both my Grey Hunters squad and would have kept going if I didn't split one of my lords from my hammer unit to deal with them.

I wasn't the only one rolling badly, my opponent actually ended up immobilizing his landraider and his other Baal Pred. Even though I had lost 3 of my units, it still was a close game until I made a huge mistake. I didn't account for the 2 inches that a unit gets for disembarking from a vehicle, that 2 inches gave my opponent's death company and chaplain to reach one of my lords dogs as I had broke from cover trying to assault another one of his assault units which I couldn't reach due to a bad fleet roll. After the assault phase was done, I had lost all of my dogs as he got his death company and his assault squad in assault with me and put 2 wounds on my 2 lords. My lords fought back and cut down almost half of both huge squads but were eventually brought down. If my 3rd lord was still in the unit, the assault would have definitely gone my way. The game went on until turn 6 with me almost tying it but again due to a low fleet roll, couldn't get to his last baal pred with my remaining Wolf Lord. I lost 7 to 6. Ah well, it was a good game but it goes to show that my army is not unbeatable. Its definitely a hard list and one that is fun to play. It was a great tournament and even though I didn't win I was awarded a Black Library book and an audio book. Pics are of my almost finished Thunderlords and 5 of my 15 Bloodclaws.

Test 1...

Today was the first day I took out my Chaos (space wolves) army for a "test drive". All I gotta say is OMG!!! This first game with my Space Wolves was definitely a surprise for me, I knew that the list was going to do well but I expected to tie or lose until I got the hang of the list.

What I didn't count on was how forgiving the army was. My first game I played a very good Black Templar player who has been using his army for years now and is a very accomplished player.

I actually played him during a tournament last year and he soundly beat my Thousand sons army with the same army. I deliberately held my "hammer" unit of the 3 thunder lords and their dog retinue on the right side of the table away from his sword brethren terminator squad in a landraider whom he deployed on his right side. I threw them a bone by letting them munch on my blood claws squad which he charged and killed all but one of them. I then assaulted them with my venerable dread after shooting them up with a squad of grey hunters. My Dread actually ended up holding up the squad until turn 5 which effectively took them out of the game until my lords could get over to that side. My 2 mistakes was deploying my 2 long fangs squads with for all of their trouble only killed 1 rhino and maybe 6 neophytes. They really didn't contribute much to the game as by killing the landraider the game would have been easier for me. My second was a missed assault with my dogs and my lords by failing a roll to assault 3 squads at once having him in return assault me.

This action killed all of my dogs thus giving him a kill point and possibly could have lost 1 or 2 of my lords, thank goodness for 2+ saves as my opponent put about 15 wounds on my lords, wounding 2 of them. After these mistakes though my 3 lords accounted for 48 dead marines including the emperors champion and his marshal. I hope to have more of the army painted before next Saturday in time for the tourney, at least I dont have to have the whole army done by then as the tourney organizer just wants the armies to be WYSIWYG... Pics are of my 3 Thunders lords about 40% done.