Wulfen Rules
If you're looking for information about the Space Wolves Wulfen unit, please read this Wulfen Tactics article.
War Zone Fenris: Curse of the Wulfen is a set of two books.
The first book tells the story of the Space Wolves Great Companies and their fight to retrieve the Wulfen and the Chaos Daemons who seek to take advantage of their divided attentions.
The second book is packed with new rules and formations for Space Wolves and Chaos Daemons.
For obvious reasons, we're only going to look at the Space Wolves stuff!
Please note that all army lists included here are using the minimal number of units required in order to demonstrate how feasible the detachments are in a competitive environment.
Wolf Claw Strike Force
The Wolf Claw Strike Force represents the typical structure of a Space Wolves army. It consists of at least 1 Core, 0-5 Command and 1+ Auxiliary detachments. So once you have your Core, you can bolt on additional detachments quite easily.
Counter-Charge looks great on paper!
At the end of your opponent’s Charge subphase, you can charge any of your unengaged units into close combat with an already engaged enemy unit.
So if your opponent charges their Striking Scorpions into a pack of Grey Hunters, flanked by a pack of Blood Claws. The Blood Claws would then be able to attempt to charge the Striking Scorpions in your opponent’s Assault phase!
Greatpack
Wolf Lord or Wolf Guard Battle Leader
0-1 Wolf Guard, Wolf Guard Terminators or Thunderwolf Cavalry
1-3 Blood Claws, Sky Claws or Swift Claws
0-1 Lukas The Trickster
3-5 Grey Hunters or Land Speeders
1-2 Long Fangs
0-3 Wolf Scouts
0-2 Lone Wolves
Right away, we can see that we need to pay a 'tax' by taking certain units we may otherwise be hesitant to field in a competitive army.
Blood Claws, Grey Hunters, Land Speeders and Long Fangs are all units we may not wish to take, depending upon the composition of your army.
I appreciate that Games Workshop have tried to create a themed detachment, but that doesn't help us when it comes to winning our games.
We attempted to build a couple of forces using the Greatpack.
One was a Drop Pod force based on this army, which consisted of a Wolf Lord, Wolf Guard, Blood Claws, 3 packs of Grey Hunters and a pack of Long Fangs, all in Drop Pods.
We then added Ulrik The Slayer, a Stormfang and Murderfang as Auxiliaries.
The only issue with this force is the lack of tough and hard hitting units, such as Berserker Dreadnoughts (a Venerable Dreadnought with Great Axe and Blizzard Shield). This is because Dreadnoughts can only be taken in an "Ancients of the Fang" Auxiliary detachment.
We found ourselves taking a Wolf Lord and Murderfang instead.
The army didn't feel particularly strong.
The second force we built from the Greatpack was more aggressive, which consisted of a Wolf Guard Battle Leader on a Thunderwolf, Thunderwolf Cavalry, Blood Claws in a Drop Pod, Grey Hunters in a Rhino, 2 Land Speeders and a pack of Long Fangs.
We then added Stormfang and Murder Pack Auxiliary choices.
It's not a bad little army.
However, we're feeling ourselves drawn to the standard Combined Arms detachment and Company of the Great Wolf detachment for more creative freedom.
I guess time will tell how good Counter-Charge is and if we really want to jump through so many hoops to get it.
Legendary Greatpacks
The following Core detachments are variations on the Greatpack, each with unique requirements and special rules. Each are based on the Great Companies within the Space Wolves Chapter. Many require your force to be led by a special character Wolf Lord or a Wolf Guard Battle Leader.
The Firehowlers
1 Wolf Lord or Wolf Guard Battle Leader
1 unit of Wolf Guard
2-4 units of Skylcaws or Swiftclaws
2-4 Grey Hunters or Land Speeders
0-1 Long Fangs
0-1 Wolf Scouts
0-2 Lone Wolves
The Wolf Lord, Wolf Guard Battle leader and Wolf Guard must be equipped with Jump Packs or Bikes
Bonuses:
Leadership check or enemy can't fire Overwatch. ATSKNF or Fearless immune.
Re-roll failed charges
Roll 10 or more to charge and get Furious Charge.
If you want an army of Bikes or Jump Packs, then this Core Detachment is for you! You're definitely not taking Grey Hunters, you'll want fast moving Land Speeders to support your Bikes and Jump Troops. Mostly, you'll want Bikes though.
Obvious Auxiliaries include Stormfangs and Heralds of the Great Wolf (on bikes) to join your Swiftclaws and Wolf Guard.
Lack of Thunderwolf Cavalry could be made up for with some allied Imperial Knights.
The Ironwolves
1 Wolf Lord or Wolf Guard Battle Leader
0-1 Wolf Guard or Wolf Guard Terminators
2-3 Blood Claws
2-4 Grey Hunters or Land Speeders
1-2 Long Fangs
0-1 Wolf Scouts
0-2 Lone Wolves
Every unit must have a Dedicated Transport to carry all models in that unit.
Bonuses:
+6" for all vehicles when moving flat out.
-2 Leadership for enemies from Tank Shocking vehicles.
Units may disembark from Transports that moved 12"
All vehicle weapons and upgrades are FREE
To get the most out of this formation we want to get as many FREE vehicle weapons and wargear upgrades as possible.
So we're looking at Razorbacks. But let's not forget that a Stormwolf or Drop Pod can be taken as a dedicated transport too!
The big downside is that we must take 2 units of Blood Claws. Although we can abuse the Long Fangs to get more cheap Razorbacks.
Please note: Free vehicle upgrades DO NOT pass to Auxiliary detachments.
Wolf Guard Battle Leader on a Thunderwolf Mount with Storm Shield, Runic Armour and Powerfist, 2 Fenrisian Wolves.
5 Wolf Guard Terminators with Thunder Hammers and Storm Shields in Land Raider with Multi-Melta, Extra Armour, Hunter Killer Missile (free upgrades!)
2 Land Speeder Squadrons with Multi-Melta and Typhoon Missile Launcher (free upgrades!)
5 Blood Claws with Flamer in a Razorback with Lascannon and Twin-Linked Plasma Gun, Extra Armour, Dozer Blade, Hunter Killer Missile (free upgrades!)
5 Blood Claws with Flamer in a Razorback with Lascannon and Twin-Linked Plasma Gun, Extra Armour, Dozer Blade, Hunter Killer Missile (free upgrades!)
2 Long Fangs (1 Wolf Guard upgrade) in a Razorback with Lascannon and Twin-Linked Plasma Gun, Extra Armour, Dozer Blade, Hunter Killer Missile (free upgrades!)
2 Long Fangs (1 Wolf Guard upgrade) in a Razorback with Lascannon and Twin-Linked Plasma Gun, Extra Armour, Dozer Blade, Hunter Killer Missile (free upgrades!)
Add Stormfang Auxiliaries for more firepower!
My only concern is how this compares to the Space Marine Company Core detachment which gives you Razorbacks for FREE, although you then have to pay for the weapon upgrades.
The other approach to the Iron Wolves is to get ask many units in Rhinos (with free extra armour, bull dozer blades, extra storm bolters and hunter killer missiles!) as possible and drive them 24" across the board. That goes for your Wolf Guard's Land Raider too!
However, if your lightly armoured transports get popped on Turn 1, before they get to move, then you're in for a very tough time.
The Drakeslayers
1 Krom Dragongaze or Wolf Guard Battle Leader
1-2 Wolf Guard, Wolf Guard Terminators or Thunderwolf Cavalry
2-3 Blood Claws
2-4 Grey Hunters or Land Speeders
1-2 Long Fangs
0-1 Wolf Scouts
0-2 Lone Wolves
Restrictions TBC
Bonuses:
Monster Hunter
Stubborn
Furious Charge if Krom in play
Preferred Enemy (Characters)
If one friendly unit from this formation makes a successful charge, all other Drakeslayer units can re-roll failed charges.
Much like the standard Great Pack with a whole heap of benefits. Especially when it comes to charging. Combine this with Counter-Charge and you have a truly ferocious pack of wolves!
We modified the second Greatpack force we wrote earlier to the following:
Wolf Guard Battle Leader on a Thunderwolf, Thunderwolf Cavalry, Blood Claws in a Drop Pod, Blood Claws in a Rhino, 2 Land Speeders and a pack of Long Fangs.
We then added Stormfang and Murder Pack Auxiliary choices.
If you've come up with a strong Greatpack list, I recommend taking The Drakeslayers instead, just for the charge benefits and to make Counter-Charge even better.
As for Krom Dragongaze, he's not a bad Wolf Lord. But he's not a GREAT Wolf Lord, which makes me want to take a Wolf Guard Battle Leader on a Thunderwolf instead.
The Deathwolves
1 Harald Deathwolf or Wolf Guard Battle Leader
0-1 Canis Wolfborn
1 Thunderwolf Cavalry
2-3 Blood Claws, Sky Claws or Swift Claws
2-4 Grey Hunters or Land Speeders
1-2 Long Fangs
1 Wolf Scouts
0-2 Lone Wolves
0-1 Fenrisian Wolves
Bonuses:
Outflank.
When making reserve rolls, make a single roll for ALL Outflanking Deathwolves units. You can re-roll this. On a successful roll, all Outflanking units arrives from reserve and gain the Stealth special rule this turn.
Roll 2 dice and pick the highest for Sweeping Advances.
Well.. I'll just Outflank as much of my army as possible then!
Wolf Guard Battle Leader on a Thunderwolf, Thunderwolf Cavalry, 2 Blood Claws in a Rhino, 2 Land Speeders and a pack of Long Fangs and a pack of Wolf Scouts.
Long Fangs and Wolf Scouts (with cloaks and Sniper Rifles) can hunker down in terrain or in a fortification... and wait.
It's tempting to take Outflanking Lone Wolves, as well as Canis Wolf Born leading a pack of Fenrisian Wolves as well.
Obviously, this isn't a competitive army. But it's a fun and chaotic army to play. Honestly, where will all this stuff arrive? The left flank or the right flank? Who knows.
Don't forget that ALL Space Wolves have Acute Senses, allowing them to re-roll which table edge they arrive on from Outflank. So you could ensure that the majority of your force arrives on one flank.
But you could build some interesting deployment tactics around all this. Especially if you force your opponent to set up first!
The Blackmanes
1 Ragnar Blackmane or Wolf Guard Battle Leader
1 Wolf Guard, Wolf Guard Terminators or Thunderwolf Cavalry
3-5 Blood Claws, Sky Claws or Swift Claws
0-1 Lukas the Trickster
4-6 Grey Hunters or Land Speeders
1-2 Long Fangs
1 Wolf Scouts
0-2 Lone Wolves
Bonuses:
Any unit that can take a Drop Pod as a dedicated transport may take one for free (upgrades cost extra).
All Drop Pods arrive by Deepstrike Reserve on Turn 1.
All Blood Claws, Sky Claws and Swift Claws re-roll to hit in close combat while Ragnar is in play.
Fearless and Feel No Pain (6+) on the turn units disembark from a Drop Pod.
FREE Drop Pods! And they all arrive on Turn 1. Looks like we're building a Drop Pod army then...
Let's take the Drop Pod force based on this army again, which consisted of a Wolf Lord, Wolf Guard, Blood Claws, 3 packs of Grey Hunters and a pack of Long Fangs, all in Drop Pods.
Ragnar Blackmane
1x 5 Wolf Guard with 5 Combi-Meltas in a Drop Pod,
3x 5 Blood Claws with Flamer in Drop Pods
4x 5 Grey Hunters with Melta gun and Chainswords in Drop Pods
1x 5 Long Fangs with Multi-Meltas in Drop Pod
1x 5 Wolf Scouts with Melta gun
Auxiliaries
Wyrdstorm Brotherhood - 3x Rune Priests, Helm of Durfast
Arjac Rockfist
This comes to 1500pts.
There's a heck of a lot of infantry units going down.
The only issue is that the lack of tough, hard hitting unit in this army. Even when joined by Arjac, the Wolf Guard will struggle.
Although the Rune Priest may put out plenty of Strength 7 shots to deal with monstrous creatures and lightly armoured targets.
The 'tax' which forces us to take Long Fangs and Wolf Scouts is a bitter pill to swallow when we have to buy so many Blood Claws and Grey Hunters in Drop Pods to emphasise the strengths of this detachment.
This force also suffers from the fact that there are no Berserker Dreadnoughts or Thunderwolf Cavalry. Although Bjorn The Fell Handed in a Drop Pod would be a fun addition.
Yes, the option of Thunderwolf Cavalry is there, but in a Drop Pod themed force, they wouldn't fair well if left totally on their own for a turn of enemy fire.
I really want to get Ulrik The Slayer in here too, to buff all the infantry around him. But it's hard to cram in the good stuff you need when so many points have been spent on so many small units. It doesn't help that Ragnar isn't cheap either.
I'm determined to squeeze something good out of this Legendary Great Pack. It may just take some time.
The Champions of Fenris
Please Note: This does not appear to replace The Champions of Fenris codex supplement and is in addition to all existing rules.
1 Logan Grimnar or Wolf Guard Battle Leader
0-1 Arjac Rockfist
2-3 Wolf Guard, Wolf Guard Terminators or Thunderwolf Cavalry
3-6 Blood Claws, Sky Claws or Swift Claws
4-8 Grey Hunters or Land Speeders
2-3 Long Fangs
0-1 Wolf Scouts (TBC)
0-2 Lone Wolves (TBC)
Bonuses:
Fearless
Once per turn choose a special rule - Furious Charge, Monster Hunter, Preferred Enemy, Relentless, Tank Hunters. All Champions of Fenris within 12" of Logan Grimnar receive this special rule until your next turn.
All Wolf Guard Battle Leaders, Wolf Guard, Wolf Guard Terminators and Thunderwolf Cavalry have +1 Weapon Skill.
This is a MASSIVE detachment. Running Logan Grimnar on Storm Rider, alongside 3 packs of Thunderwolf Cavalry with any of the above skills cast on them would be amazing, but the 'tax' of spending points on all the other stuff would outweigh any of these benefits.
Heralds of the Great Wolf
1 Wolf Priest
1 Rune Priest
1 Iron Priest
So I have to buy 1 Wolf Priest, 1 Rune Priest and 1 Iron Priest when I'm likely to only want one or maybe two of the above in my army?
That's frustrating.
Wyrdstorm Brotherhood
2-5 Rune Priests
Harness Warp Charges with 3+ when using Tempestas discipline.
Every turn choose a Rune Priest of the formation. That one gets the following power:
- Living Storm (WC3)
24", S7, AP- Assault 2D6, Shock (For every 6 you get +2 hits). Add +1D6 attacks to the power for every Rune Priest in the formation beyond the 1st.
This formation is all about the Tempestus powers and the free Living Storm Power.
If you had 5 Rune Priests in this formation, that would result in 6D6 shots.
That's an average of 21 shots, resulting in 14 hits (+3 extra for rolling 6s). So that's 17 Strength 7 hits.
Want more accurate shots? Take The Helm of Durfast on the Rune Priest who will be your 'eye of the storm' for re-rolls to hit. You can ignore Cover Saves while you're at it too.
There are other powers they could cast as well.
The Wyrdstorm Brotherhood does not have to remain as a single unit. So you can spread these Rune Priests throughout your army.
Spear of Russ
1-2 Iron Priests
1-5 Predators, Whirlwinds or Vindicators
1-5 Land Raider, Redeemer or Crusader
One vehicle at 6" of one of the Iron Priests gets one of the following rules: Tank Hunter, Monster hunter, Precision shots, Preferred enemy.
All vehicles get the Power of the Machine Spirit rule if at 12" of one Land Raider.
It feels as though they wanted us to take a Land Raider and 2 Predators. Unfortunately, Sicaran Battle Tanks from Forgeworld are still so much better than Predators. Whirlwind Scorpius from Forgeworld is better than a regular Whirlwind. Vindicators are very hit or miss (quite literally!)
So there are better tanks available which make this Auxiliary detachment too expensive or not as effective.
Ancients of the Fang
1 Iron Priest
2-5 Dreadnoughts
Dreadnoughts form a vehicle squadron, re-roll to hit rolls in close combat and have It Will Not Die within 6" of the Iron Priest.
Dreadnoughts make all Space Wolves within 6" Stubborn.
It's frustrating that you can't place these Dreadnoughts in Drop Pods, because they are a squadron.
Due to the re-rolls to hit in close combat, combined with It Will Not Die, we're inspired to take 2-5 Dreadnoughts with the Venerable upgrade, Great Axe and Blizzard Shield for maximum survivability and close combat carnage!
Wulfen Murderpack
2-5 units of Wulfen
Add +1 to the Curse of the Wulfen roll for every unit on the battlefield (TBC)
There is also a 7+ result for Hunt and Kill tables:
Hunt: Affected units can move twice this turn.
Kill: Affected units get +1A
Wulfen units get an additional attack for every roll of a 6 to hit in combat.
We know that Wulfen are good, but this little boost to their tables and being able to generate extra attacks is very good indeed.
Wolfkin
2-5 Units of Fenrisian Wolves
Monster Hunter
Outflank
You can merge the units to form 1 big pack of wolves. If they number over 20, they all get +1 Attack.
If within 12" of the left or right table edge, any Outflanking Space Wolves units can arrive from Reserve on that table edge instead of rolling to see which table edge they arrive from.
Personally, I've never been a fan of Fenrisian Wolf Packs. However, this formation seems ideal as an Auxiliary to a Deathwolves Legendary Greatpack.
I would still only run 5 of them, led by a Cyberwolf (to bark challenges!).
CONCLUSION
The new formations haven't addressed the fundamental challenge of a Space Wolves army - which is getting across the board quickly in order to take the enemy head on. But also having the tough, hard hitting units to affectively do this.
That's why Thunderwolf Cavalry is so good, because it overcomes these issues.
Firehowlers, Ironwolves and Drakeslayers Legendary Greatpacks show signs of promise.
Firehowlers are fast, Ironwolves can be fast and/or Zzap things. Drakeslayers are stubborn and fierce.
They all seem fairly solid, even if the abundance of Blood Claws and Land Speeders is a frustrating tax to pay.
The Deathwolves are just whacky!
The Blackmanes have too many 'tax' units for my tastes.
The Champions of Fenris Legendary Greatpack is just too expensive in points.
Ancients of the Fang and the Wulfen Murder Pack have great potential, as they consist entirely of strong units.
If you have a big collection of Space Wolves, you'll have great fun trying all this stuff out. However, if you're the kind of player (like me) who builds a competitive 1,500pts - 2,000pts force, you may find the restrictions rather frustrating.
I'm seriously leaning towards the standard Combined Arms Detachment and The Company Of The Great Wolf Detachment from The Champions of Fenris supplement book for building my Space Wolves armies, then bolting on an Ancients of the Fang or Wulfen Murder Pack auxiliary formation.
Or I may just take Wulfen Packs as my compulsory Elite Choices...
For more info about these formations and more army lists for each of the Great Companies, please see The Space Wolves Players Hand Book.