Early Space Wolves Tactica against the rumored Dark Goth Chaos Space Elf Perverts (Dark Eldar)!

Like a angry swarm of hornets the Warhammer community is getting even more impatient and nervous now that the Dark Eldar rumors turned out to be a fact and not fiction. Congratulations, long-time Dark Eldar players, this is an update well-deserved.

Coolness factor: Bred with Daemons!

I am also salivating at the beautiful new models, but the unit that I really want to see the most are the new Mandrakes. They probably won't have the same cool rules as they do in their current (as of right now) codex, but I can picture them having a rule similar to the one Ymgarl Genestealers have. Except, hopefully you'll be able to run more than 1 unit of them. Also, needless to say - THEY LOOK SO COOL.This sketch also proves that the Mandrakes are also on the cover of the new Dark Eldar codex. What is known so far is that they apparently "have a shooting attack that gets stronger with every kill they make".

But enough with all the rumor jibba-jabba. I am not the person to talk to about their new codex or tactics. This post is supposed to quickly jot down the various ways that we, the Space Wolves, can deal with the new wave of Dark Goth Chaos Space Elf Perverts. This post need to be taken with a grain of salt, since we don't know about all of their special units and upgrades. This is a basic guide that will give you some helpful tips and tricks against the essence of the Dark Eldar. Once the codex is available I will revisit this post and add new ways to sink your teeth into their pale throats. So if you'd rather fight and kick the Dark Eldar's ass than pray they don't take you alive make sure you read the Early Space Wolves Tactica against the rumoured Dark Goth Chaos Space Elf Perverts (Dark Eldar)!  

Da Odd Boy Out!

Wuz dat, Bozz? We can call da Waaagh on da first turn??

AND we can Waaagh evry turn we wants to unless we'z decide ta fight and krump each uvur? We can hav as many Boyz in da mob as we wants to? We take less time ta moov!!?
Wait. Wut do yer mean "No dakka"??? I can't use my shoota? WE'Z NEED MOAR DAKKA!


Hehe. My friends Will and John were playing a friendly Warhammer Fantasy battle - Orcs versus the Empire. I just happened to have a single painted Ork Boy with a Shoota from my painted 1,000 pt. Adepticon list and I decided to have some fun. The boy was subbing for this unit's champion and although I only managed to see the first turn of the game, this unit was the only one that managed to call a Waaagh.
And it was totally because of their future cousin.

Are Space Wolves Overpowered?

Are Space Wolves overpowered? 
The question was haunting me after a 2,000 pt. game I played against Chaos Space Marines a few days ago.
It didn't hit me because I thought they were overpowered, it is what my opponent thought... and it sort of got to me. Space Wolves are my second army and like my Orkz I decided to play them because of their style, look and fluff. It was not a specific mechanic, it was not a specific unit (although I fell in love with the Rune Priests and Thunderwolf Cavalry)... it was the whole army in general that got to me. I love the way they are supposed to be played - brave, heroic packs that fight for glory and use their cunning instincts to surround and trap their enemy.

It is what I do, what my list was designed to do and what won me that one game. I simply played my army the right way.
 But it just sucks that after you win a game in which you gave your best as an army general and a sportsman to have your army be called overpowered. It just makes the victory sour when you know your opponent is thinking that the only reason you beat him was because of your army and army list.. 

I was playing against a very powerful Slaanesh-themed army with some Noise Marines, Chosen, Slaanesh Terminators, Defiler, Chaos Sorcerer, Raptors, a Chaos Lord and a Demon Prince with Wings. There were 2 Rhinos on the board and one was outflanking. The Terminators were going to Deep Strike. He also had 2 units of Obliterators - I think 1 and 2..Three HQs, but that was because it was his Planetstrike list. No biggie.
A lot of people think that Chaos Space Marines are outdated... and they are right, of course.  

However, from the games that I have played against them, even a fairly new CSM player can give Space Wolves a run for their money. They are just a lot of units that can give us (and especially Thunderwolves) a bad day - Defiler with their S10 attack are deadly. Khorne Berzerkers are very mean even against Thunderwolves on the charge and hit us on 3s and wound on 4s before we can say "Aaargh!". Chaos Lords have some scary equipment options, their Terminators are cheaper than ours and can Deep Strike and Slaanesh-devoted armies are just as killy in close combat PLUS have a higher initiative than us. 

My List? Notice how I do not play Razorspam or Thunderwolf Spam. My list is simple:
2 Rhinos with 9 Grey Hunters and 2 Rhinos with 8 Grey Hunters. They all have a guy with a melta gun, Wolf Banner and Mark of the Wulfen. All four squads of Grey Hunters have a Wolf Guard with a combi-melta and a Power Fist and two have a Rune Priest. One has Living Lightning, Murderous Hurricane and a Chooser of the Slain, the other one has Living Lightning and Jaws of the World Wolf (useless against Slaanesh!). A squad of Long Fangs with 5 Missile Launchers were accompanied by my fifth Wolf Guard in Terminator Armour with a Cyclone Missile Launcher. And the "cheese" - 5 Thunderwolves with different equipment and a Wolf Lord on a Thunderwolf with Saga of the Beast Slayer, Frost Axe, Runic Armor and Belt of Russ.
Oh, and a Vindicator.

Is it a good list? Yeah, I think so. It uses a lot of Grey Hunters, which are really good. I have the Vindicator in the middle, surrounded by two Rhinos to hide side armor. The Thunderwolves start in a flank, getting cover from one of the Rhinos and my Long Fangs are in a building in the center of my deployment zone where they can support my army with 7 Missiles a turn. The Thunderwolves are always a tasty distraction which absorbs a lot of fire or a scary unit in my flank, which forces my opponent to pay more attention on the other flank. My Rhinos move as a group, leaving only when they can unleash their Rapid Fire bolters and prepare for a Counter Attack. If they survive, they will be joined by more Grey Hunters. \(o_O)/

At what point does an army become overpowered? Or are there just certain abusive lists that are overpowered? I am aware of point-and-click razorspam lists that require no skill to play (no matter what "competitive players" think), but the list that I field is pretty far away from that type of play. There are a lot of other units that I would love to field - Arjac Rockfist, Njal Stormcaller, Lone Wolves, Fenrisian Wolves.. but I either don't have the models or a way to play them (for example - a drop pod or a Land Raider for Arjac/Njal). The list that I field is close to one of the possible combinations for Adepticon 2011 and it is intended to be able to face all challengers, yet I enjoy playing it and think that other people should also enjoy playing against it. This was supposed to be a friendly game, but my opponent got frustrated by my luck and his own misfortune. Add the fact that he had never played against Space Wolves before (even though I'm a SW newbie) and I am afraid that he will never play me or my army ever again. I am afraid now that if I play more people they will think the same thing.. I play in a very new Games Workshop store and the community is still small and young so I don't want to be "that guy".

Make sure to read the battle report below: 

Rune Priest Conversion

Still haven't thought of a name for this bad boy yet, lol.

When a failed Dungeons and Dragons night turned into a "Let's assemble Grey Hunters" night I found myself finally pinning a normal bolt pistol hand on my Rune Priest model. I still don't get why you only get a Plasma Gun option in the Space Wolves Rune Priest blister! Their shooting powers are the best, why pay extra for a weapon you're not likely to fire at all during a game? From there I decided to do some minor conversion since having two identical looking Rune Priests would be silly. It started with adding a wolf tail to his Force weapon and then I looked at his face and decided that he needed a wolf skull instead.

I fugured it would look nice, especially if I do some glowing effects inside and around the eye sockets - something orange, perhaps. And then a rune or two in the middle of it. The wolf skull can be found all over the Grey Hunter sprue and the wolf tail on top of his head was cut from the "beakie" Grey Hunter helmet. Some crappy Green Stuffed fur around the whole thing to cover any imperfections and voila!

I'm still thinking of a name for him, so if you have any ideas feel free to comment!

Jacked up and good to go!

These past days I realized I am pretty much done with building Space Wolves for my Adepticon 2011 team. All that is left for me to build is a second Rune Priest, a second Long Fangs pack and my Wolf Lord on a Thunderwolf. Of course, I have been helping my other teammates with their projects too and I did build a Grey Hunter or two for their parts of the list.

And then it really hit me. I had been building models and playing small games for the last three or four months without doing any considerable amount of painting. Part of the problem was that we didn't have a paint scheme to play around with and we never really sat down to come up with anything.
The thing with Space Wolves is that people paint them so differently. That's great! Also, a lot of people seem to be split between having really grey marines... or miniatures with prevailing light blue on them. Honestly, go look at some pictures on any forum and for each post you will see a brand new way to paint Space Wolves.
The paint scheme that I tried to find (and when I did I always disliked a few steps or my teammates didn't like it) was something in the middle - blue with enough gray to make the models look damaged and grizzled. I wanted the power armor to be bright enough so that  any battle damage was visible and just blue enough to contrast with the orange on the model.

This Saturday I picked out a test model from my case. In this case it was this poor Grey Hunter who received a Storm Bolter (making him a Wolf Guard, I guess) before I had any idea what the cool looking weapon was. It was a busy day and around the paint bar there were some really good painters so I started asking them how they would paint Space Wolves. I shared what I needed and I more or less received it. I slowly started painting the miniature and the more I painted, the more I liked it.  I was not giving it my 100%, but I tried to put in enough effort to make it look nice and see if my teammates would approve of it. In the end, I was really happy with the result.
Now, obviously the model is not completely done. I still need to finish the shoulders and weapons, maybe even play around with the fur. When this is done I will start painting battle damage - chipped paint on the armor, mud, grease, etc. 

Space Wolves Paint Scheme MKI

"Huh? What is this Terran green stuff?"

Undercoat - The miniature was primed Chaos Black.
Base coat - The whole model was covered in Shadow Grey. The shoulders was painted Mechrite Red and the weapons dry-brushed Boltgun Metal. The whole model was then washed with Badab Black.
Power Armor - After the model had dried, I painted Shadow Grey over it, carefully leaving some darker areas where different pieces of the armor meet, the recesses, etc. to give it some depth. Then I slowly started to mix Shadow Grey and Space Wolves Grey in layers. First it was a 2:1 ratio over the whole model, leaving some of the previous layer, then a 1:1 around the edges and where the light was hitting the model. Finally, a highlight of Space Wolves Grey was done on the whole miniature.
Shoulders - When the Badab Black dried on the Mechrite, I added a 1:1 Mechrite and Blood Red mix, leaving the darker red around the edges. A final coat of pure Blood Red was applied over the previous layer.
Eyes - The eyes were painted Chaos Black as a foundation over whatever had gotten on them while I was painting the power armor. Mechrite Red was painted, leaving the black around the edges and then Blazing Orange was applied over the Mechrite Red. A fine, thin line of Skull White was then painted in the middle of each eye and then the whole thing was painted with 'Ard Coat.
Fur - To contrast a little with the power armor, the fur needed to be slightly orange. Scorched Brown was appied as a foundation. After that dried I dry-brushed two heavy coats of Vermin Brown, then washed with Devlan Mud. This was followed by a light dry-brush of Bleached Bone and then some Skull White around the tip of the tail.
Weapons - Simply Boltgun Metal washed with Badab Black and then highlighted with Chainmail.
Golden details - Calthan Brown then Burnished Gold (because I didn't have Shining Gold). This was washed with Devlan Mud and then a second coat of Shining Gold is to be applied.
Skulls and teeth - Calthan Brown and then a Bleached Bone dry-brush. After a Devlan Mud wash I touched up with Bleached Bone again and highlighted with Skull White.

I really like it and so did my teammates. I like the subtle blue and orange contrast, how realistic the eyes look and just the color of the power armor in general. I need to work on better brush control (I'm coming from a year of playing and painting Orkz, remember?) and highlights on the armor, though. I am still getting used to it and need to learn about the separate pieces. Though, when we actually do paint our Space Wolves a lot of these steps will be simplified by our nifty Citadel Spray Gun. We are going to paint some more test models each and see if we can add or change anything, but for now this seems to be the first step to painting our army.

A Gentleman's Ones

""Gentleman's Ones" is an expression commonly used among friends here to describe those devious double-ones required to pass a morale test when everything has otherwise gone horribly, horribly wrong. It's an admission that one doesn't really deserve to be on the table, but just might continue to fight anyway."
- from A Gentleman's Ones

 If you still haven't visited this marvelous blog, now is your chance. Check out the awesome models that B. Smoove has painted, his beautiful 3D interpretation of Space Hulk and all the other crazy projects that, without a doubt, will blow your mind.

And now I will share with you MY "Gentleman's Ones"

1. This one was recent. I was playing a 1750 pt. game using my buddy's Ork list against a very nasty Imperial Guard player who knew he was going to face Orkz and thus fielded tons of heavy bolters. His list consisted of 2 Leman Russ squadrons (not sure which type), a Psycher Battle Squad in a Chimera and then a bunch of other vehicles, few Sentinels.. Overall a pretty good, annoying list.
The list that I ran was fairly simple - 2 Warbosses with PKs - each with 10 Nobz (Painboy, Waagh banner, one with PK and everyone else with Big Choppas). One of them was in a trukk, one in a Battle Wagon with a Deff Rolla. There were two units of 30 Boyz with Nobz and Zagstruk with his Stormboyz was in reserve. Notice how the Nobz are not really kitted out for mean wound allocation!
So first turn I see a squad of Boyz whittled down to 3 Boyz and a Nob (they make their saves) and the Trukk is glanced and stunned from Heavy Bolters.. or something.

Yes. My Nobz had the balls.

My army advances and does nothing. Until the end of the game one unit of Boyz will never get in close combat and the Trukk will always be stunned, shaken or immobilized but never wrecked or destroyed. Zagstruk shows up and assaults a Leman Russ squadron, wrecking all 3 vehicles. Next turn he ends up being the only survivor and will wreck a Chimera before getting shot to death. The 3 Boyz and a Nob squad becomes just a lonely Nob who ends up killing 2 vehicles in the next 2 turns all by himself AND survives the game. However, it all seems lost when my closest Nob squad gets hit with his psychic power and their Ld gets reduced to 2. They get shot.. a LOT.. . I roll like a 9 or 10 and use my boss pole to re-roll the moral save... and BAM! A GENTLEMAN'S ONES!

I then start screaming WAAAAAAAAAAAAGH! from joy and proceed to humiliate his Leman Russes. I really needed that save, because my whole army was being kited around and when I made it, it really changed the game around for me. Final result was 7 KP to 2 for me - He got a point for killing my Battlewagon and Zagstruk's unit. Silly Guardsmen.

But then you'll probably say "But Vlaaaaaaaaad, you had a boss pol and that was not faaaaaair!"
Well, then... sit tight for I have yet another story to tell! : )

2. Da Sevun Bloo Boyz
The store had a pretty big Planetstrike game in which everyone brought 1,000 points of their army. My team was playing Attackers and for most of the game my Boyz were pretty much unharmed. A turn or so before the game ended I had a unit of 25+ Boyz with a Power Klaw Nob and they were headed for this tiny sandbag bunker in the middle of the map. Now, in Planetstrike Attackers touching an objective count as controlling it and it just so happened that my Orkz were the only ones around AND this little bunker was the tiebreaker. What was in the bunker? Genestealers and Scarab Swarms. My Boyz WAAAAAGH and multi-assault them sustaining minor injuries due to lucky rolling. So far so good.

Next turn they get assaulted by..
Ultramarines Terminators
Blood Angels Assault Squad
Corbulo
A few Tactical Marines
NECRON WARRIORS - Yes, that's right. They assaulted me since they had nothing to shoot at.

Uh-oh. I get to watch my Boyz dieing like flies before they can even strike back. However, Mork was watching over me and he made sure that 7 Boyz remained. Their attacks killed a few Scarab Swarms, but the damage was done. I had to allocate wounds on my Nob and he ended up dieing so that meant no bosspole morale re-roll for me. ;_; Luckily my boyz were not Fearless, which would have meant taking like 15 armor saves. Yikes. Combat ended and I needed to take that impossible morale save. It was the very last turn of the game (Defenders didn't get their turn because they had the points advantage and we were running out of time).. and I rolled A GENTLEMAN'S ONES.
My brave Ork Boyz decided to stay and fight for this meaningless little bunker. Was it because of sheer stupidity or blood lust? Probably.

Da Sevun Bloo Boyz

Later that same day I repainted those seven Boyz from red to blue. After all, Orkz believe that blue brings luck to their race and they WERE lucky to survive that meat grinder.
Since then, I started painting my Orkz blue. My painting skills have evolved since then but these little guys are always in the front lines of one of my Ork Mobz and no matter the tactical situation, I always, always remove them last. They have never stopped working for me.

I haven't had any Gentleman's Ones with my Space Wolves, but I believe that when I start playing with them more often they will also get to experience the epic power of the double ones.

Narwhals, Narwhals Swimming in the Ocean...

.. causing a commotion, 'cause they are so awesome!

So I heard you liek S10 AP2 to the face?

Not a whole lot going on these day with college classes and attempts to find a job. I did, however, get a nice deal on a built Vindicator from a younger customer at the store. Funny story, I gave him the same Vindie kit during last year's Christmas Secret Santa and now it came back to me. The condition that I got him in was slightly average to below average, but then again it was built by a little kid, hehe.
So.. I grabbed some Green Stuff and off I went on a repairing spree, filling out all the gaps there were.

And then.. I started cutting it with the hobby knife!
I guess I just like the slightly damaged look of my vehicles and guys. They should look like they fight constantly and without rest all the time.
So anyways, this bad boy is going to be called Narhval, which is the northern way of saying "narwhal". My plan for this Vindicator is to green stuff a pretty big narwhal horn and mount it inside his cannon like a ginormous harpoon.

In other unrelated news, I managed to grab some sweet bits from an Ogre Kingdoms player - their battalion box is PERFECT for the feral Space Wolves - tankards filled with mead, juicy ribs, barrels of ale and even bear traps. I got a score of each for any future conversions.