Greetings brothers, I am Wolf Lord Ferthast, the newest addition to the writing team on this blog. I've been playing 40k for roughly 7 years and have been playing space wolves for 4 of them. I love everything about our army, from the epic sagas in the fluff, to the exhilarating victories and crushing (yet still epic) defeats that come with playing them. I do not claim to be an expert on them in any respect but I have had my fair share of experience with the Vlka Fenryka and that is what most of my articles will be about--my experiences. To start off I thought I'd touch on one of my favorite units/models/fluff in the entire game. The rune priest has long been a favorite of mine, and has only gained esteem since 6th edition came out. I have a list that I like to run for both fun and in some competitive games. This list is incredibly entertaining to play no matter if you win or lose and at the very least will get a chuckle out of you and a few obscenities from your opponent when you JAWS his hive tyrant, daemon prince, etc. So here Is a 1500 point list:
HQ: 735 pts.
· Rune Priest-( runic armor, master of the runes, chooser of the slain,melta bombs)= 185pts.
· Rune Priest-(runic armor,master of the runes,chooser of the slain)= 180pts.
· Rune Priest-(runic armor,master of the runes,wolf tooth,chooser of the slain)= 190pts.
· Rune Priest-(runic armor,master of the runes,saga of the beastslayer)= 180pts.
Troops: 495 pts.
· Grey Hunters (x10)-(meltagun (x2), wolf standard) =165pts.
· Grey Hunters (x10)-(meltagun (x2), wolf standard) =165pts.
· Grey Hunters (x10)-(meltagun (x2), wolf standard) =165pts.
Elites:85 pts.
· Wolf Scouts (x5) –(melta gun)= 85pts.
Heavy Support: 185 pts
· Long Fangs (x6)-(plas cannon (x3), laz , missile) = 185pts
The Fluff:
I find the idea of thirty grey hunters charging across the battlefield, bolters spitting death and chainswords roaring, while rune priests wade through storms of fire, sending bolts of lighting into the enemy ranks very appealing. This army list has a lot of potential for some epic showdowns between a rune priest and a greater daemon, a chaos sorcerer, or even a hive tyrant. Nothing is more satisfying than using your runic weapon to insta-kill a hive tyrant. I personally don't like to use vehicles in my army, as I feel it doesn't quite fit the warriors of Fenris, who prefer to feel the hot gore on their faces rather than let a machine have all the fun. This list is epitomizes what I think a Space Wolf assault would look like. Anyway, enough of the fluff, let's get down to the guts and bolts.
The Tactics:
Rune Priests:
These magic wielding bad asses are kitted out to be as durable as possible while dishing out some serious hurt to your enemies. I usually field one in each squad of grey hunters and then either add the fourth to one of the squads or put him with the wolf scouts. For obvious reasons you would place him in the center of the squad. Lets talk about the buffs he adds to the squad. Your rune priest gives you a 5+ to deny the witch and on top of that you have the 4+ nullification of his staff. These two things combined means that enemy psykers are going to have more than a little trouble affecting your squads. This alone is worth taking the rune priests in my opinion as so many armies have been given some disgusting psychic powers. The second great perk is that you have a character who is pretty decent in CC, who can insta-kill, wound daemons on a 2+, and tear through weaker unites like a snow yeti through a guardsman.
Psychic powers:
- Take either Living Lighting or JAWS as your first psychic power, depending on how close you plan to get to the enemy during that game.
- For the second, I would recommend rolling on the divination or biomancy tables. You ideally want at least one power that buffs your unit as a whole so they survive to get into close combat.
- The third point is completely disregard the first two points if you just want to have fun and go crazy picking your psychic powers.
In summary, rune priests combine the offensive power of a small tank, the durability of a Nokia cell phone, and the ability to continuously frustrate your opponent and bring utter delight to you in one conveniently sized package. And you can have four of the blood bastards!
Grey Hunters:
Not much to say about these guys. Any wolf lord worth his salt (do they even have salt in the 41st millennium?) knows the capabilities of these bolter touting, chainsword wielding savage as hell soldiers. Just expect them to perform better with a rune priest in their ranks. Oh, one minor downside, they will be shot at more...a lot more probably.
Long Fangs:
Aside from the melta guns in each grey hunter squad, this list was lacking in some serious fire power. So I added the long fangs. In my opinion they are one of the best heavy support choices in the game, and many many many others have said the same. This particular load out I've found to be very effective against all but the heavily mechanized lists like Guard. The plasma cannons are excellent for softening up terminators or anything with an armor save really; and the laz cannon and missile launcher give the army a slight anti-armor boost. Keep 'em in cover, keep 'em shootin', and they'll do their job.
Wolf Scouts:
I love wolf scouts! They were better in the last edition when they could assault from outflank but they still kick plenty of ass when utilized properly. They are great for getting that last minute line breaker or even contesting an objective deep in the enemy deployment zone. Add a melta in there and you can pop a tank a good percent of the time. Add a rune priest with JAWS or vortex of dome and now its a party! If I roll well on the psychic powers I'll usually put a rune priest with vortex of dome or a similarly short range but effective power in reserves with the scouts. I can not count the number of times this one unit has pulled my butt out of the daemon fire.
Well that's it for my first article. I hope you guys found it helpful, interesting, or at the very least slightly amusing. I would highly recommend trying at least a version of this list if you haven't already. Until next time brothers. For the Wolftime and for Russ!
--Ferthast
