I got an email this week asking about a cheap Space Wolves army.Basically, this kid wanted to build a Space Wolves army on the cheap.
I sympathise, because this is an expensive hobby and often take the fact that I'm a grown man with a salary for granted. I was once a poor teenager with pitiful wages and my parents wouldn't buy me any toys either.
Fortunately a Space Wolves army can be the cheapest army in Warhammer 40K!
A little while ago we talked about building a Logan Grimnar terminator army. Now that I've got my first 1500 points complete, I wondered if this was worth a shot.
While my Space Wolves terminator army list was more of a comparison to the Dark Angels Deathwing to see who could do a terminator army better, my good friend Neil Kerr, came up with a slightly beardier list, like so:
Logan Grimnar
Wolf Guard Squad:
Wolf Guard 1: Terminator Armour, Storm Shield
Wolf Guard 2: Terminator Armour, Combi-Melta
Wolf Guard 3: Terminator Armour, Chainfist
Wolf Guard 4: Terminator Armour, Combi-Melta
+ Drop Pod with Deathwind
Njal Stormcaller
x 3 Wolf Guard Squads:
Wolf Guard 1: Terminator Armour, Storm Shield
Wolf Guard 2: Terminator Armour, Combi-Melta
Wolf Guard 3: Terminator Armour, Chainfist
Wolf Guard 4: Terminator Armour, Combi-Melta, Wolf Claw
Wolf Guard 5: Terminator Armour, Cyclone
As you can see, there's a lot of melta, lots of close combat weapons, and plenty of cyclone missile lauchers, plus two badass characters to kick the snot out of people. You could even swap the cyclone missile launchers for assault cannons if you were feeling particularly short ranged and brutal -or if you didn't want to fork out for the Cyclones from a Bitz Service.
Cheap Space Wolves Shopping List
- Logan Grimnar blister
- Njal Storm Caller blister
- 1 Drop Pod boxed set
- 4 Space Wolves Terminator boxed sets
Games Workshop retails this at £140, which is really good.
But, if I'm going to buy this, I'll do it online with an independent retailer. I might be a salary man, but this hobby still isn't cheap.
32 comments:
March 26, 2010 at 7:35 AM
It's sad because a single box of 10 pups ends costing me the equivalent of that D:
But that's because a lot of factors I should not mention here as it's off topic.
The thing I like about the Logan-Wing army it's not it's comparative cheapness... but that it's frakking easy to carry with you to another place for a game xD
March 26, 2010 at 7:49 AM
Don't forget that Logan can give relentless, so heavy weapons in his squad is not a bad idea:) the list needs some shuffling for that, but being able to fire that assault cannon as assault is cool:)
March 26, 2010 at 7:53 AM
Terminators and move and fire their heavy weapons anyway.
March 26, 2010 at 8:19 AM
This army is going to be my next project after April to serve as a new 1500 point list and an upgrade for Apoc battles for my current force.
March 26, 2010 at 9:16 AM
Nice and cheap but Not making the best out of the space wolves imo. Just one box of pups has given me enough bits to flesh out some old marines and black reach doods. The cost comes from getting the high elf lions and greenstuffing them up to make TWC - I wish i had used blood crushers instead but they look ok :D
March 26, 2010 at 9:57 AM
Facepalm! Termies gets relentless, forgot about that:) Was thinking of the mayhem that is a long fang squad with five heavy bolters led by Grimnar and using relentless. It's an idea I want to try out:)
Would the army use deep striking? If it does, why not drop the drop pod and add a terminator instead? Saves you one big model and if you squeeze the points a bit you can get a cyclone launcher in that squad too.
Sounds like a fun and crazy list for sure. Bet it makes the Dark Angels players envious:)
March 26, 2010 at 10:37 AM
I went with:
Logan
1 Space wolf battle-box
2 terminator squads
2 Devastator squads
3 Black reach dreadnoughts.
That gives a charachterful army of:
Logan
4 Terminator Bodyguards
WG Battle leader (terminator)
8 WG
Drop pod
5 WG terminators
(assembled as suggested on this site)
6 Long fangs
6 Long fangs
5 Scouts
Dreadnought
----
I guess I could save on 1 box of devastators and just get MLs from ebay.. and skip 2 of the dreadnoughts (since they dont enter in the list).
Anyways, think it very cheerful with the diffrent wolf guard, long fangs, scout (veteran)units, maxed out with SW bits.
Dreadnought is also cool for adding SW bits..
/mordiano
March 26, 2010 at 10:39 AM
There is also another way to get a good cheap army as well...not as cheap as that but troop heavy...
2 Space wolf Battleforces gives you 40 Marines and 10 scouts as well as 2 Drop Pods...180ish bucks...(american...yeah silly american I know)
This can make a decent army...
Use that to Make a Battleleader with all those little combo points then the 70 point verson...3 guys as wolf guards and the other 35 for 8 man squads with meltas and the such... that would leave you will 11 wolves left...make a Blood Claw pack and you are good to go...
gives you 4 troop choices right there and 2 Drop Pods...
Give the scouts Meltas and outflank them and tear up that back armour...
that is about a 1250 list right there...
If you want add in Njar or Grimnar...for extra bite...and break the 200 dollar mark
March 26, 2010 at 10:54 AM
140 GBP sounds undercosted; not denying that a Wolfwing army can be done for super cheap.
Realizing model prices are not the same in various countries...
Box of Termies is $50 (USD), which is about 34 GBP; the four boxes alone come to almost 140 GBP.
But I digress...
You can probably do it even cheaper. Various bits dealers should have Assault on Black Reach terminator squads for much less than a box of 'regular' Terminators.
In US Dollar figures:
Termies = $50 (~34 GBP)
AoBR Termies = $15 (~10 GBP)
A box (or two) of Space Wolves terminators will give enough extra arms and 'gubbins' to fantastically "wolf-up" those plain AoBR termies.
What I did was used the SW arms/shoulder pads on the AoBR termies simply by cutting off the 'peg' on the latter. Interestingly, when you cut off the peg, there is still a small raised circular area on the shoulder join that snugs up with regular terminator arms perfectly.
Budget Gaming is always a good idea; thanks for the post!!!
March 26, 2010 at 11:55 AM
@Flekkzo: I think the idea behind having a drop-pod is to ensure a unit arrive in on turn 1. I'd be a bit worried that the unit would get shot up myself, but otherwise I quite like that list.
March 26, 2010 at 12:11 PM
Thanks so much for this!
i just tally'd this up over at wayland vs game workshop and the I would save close to 120USD!!!
Ps i live in the United States and games workshop prices have always seemed ridiculously expensive
PPS, Yes I did convert from Pounds Sterling to US Dollars, so my numbers are not off lol
March 26, 2010 at 12:31 PM
Hes got the pod so that he can deepstrike with Grimnar and the 4 man squad. Remeber space puppies cant teleport they need a drop pod to deep strike.
March 26, 2010 at 1:35 PM
@Lontt - Ah yeah I forgot about that. Damn superstitious dogs :P
In that case flekkzo I was wrong :)
March 26, 2010 at 2:13 PM
Chris, check the price on Maelstrom as well. They have a discount voucher at the minute.
I'm also tempted to do a wolf wing. I played one at the GT Final and it was quite tough to deal with.
March 26, 2010 at 4:16 PM
That's a nifty little army! I'd probably swap out a few combi-melta's for combi-plasma's. In fact I think I'll test it out with my Chaos terminators as I have 30 of them build and ready to go; I'll just swap out the Cyclones for assault cannons.
The Reaper Wing will get a playtest next Wednesday! Should be fun.
-Jim
March 26, 2010 at 7:17 PM
Wow. Looking at Wayland Games, SW Termie boxes are 20 GBP, about $30 USD. If they shipped to US, it would probably still be cheaper than standard MSRP here in the States.
You lucky people in England. ;-)
March 26, 2010 at 7:49 PM
I thought Wayland Games shipped worldwide? If they don't, I know that Total Wargamer does.
March 26, 2010 at 8:53 PM
Wayland does ship worldwide, got most of my wolves there. Takes 6 days to get it to Canada, and northern Canada to boot. Great time for any other Canucks to order as well, think my last order was 1.58 pound to canadian dollar.
March 27, 2010 at 1:29 AM
Wayland does ship to the United States MJ, the whole army should ship for 3.50 GBP, thats the number i got when i added everything up,
Hope that helps
March 27, 2010 at 4:27 AM
Thats pretty funky :)
March 27, 2010 at 6:06 AM
Just be careful ordering large bulky items from across the pond. I ordered some bits from the US and it cost very little to post but then Her Majestys Customs sent me a rather nice letter saying I owed them a wedge of cash. Just food for thought as I don't know what US customs are like.
March 27, 2010 at 9:14 AM
Bradimus, that's exactly why I'm forced to order from GW, since somehow they bypass the customs office (my last package was put on custom's disposal on a Sunday's night and "recovered" and sent to my home on Monday at 4am, quite weird, isn't it?).
Everything else that comes through regular mail or non-FedEx couriers (like DHL) go through customs, making your packages elegible for a 52% charge (that includes both the value of the product and the shipping when they estimate that ammount) and the 21% tax, but it's calculated on that new "152%" ammount.
March 28, 2010 at 11:08 AM
Anyone tried this army against Eldars?
Any hints? Any strategy tips or deployment tricks?
March 29, 2010 at 2:19 AM
Also as I understand Njal and Logan can't be in same army - they have same sagas.
March 29, 2010 at 3:01 AM
Afraid they CAN be in the same army.
In the FAQ it states that special characters are exempt from this as they're powerful individuals in their own right...or something to that extent.
March 30, 2010 at 1:03 PM
Thanks for pointing out that Wayland does ship to US. I missed that the first time looking at their shipping costs - missed the whole "for the rest of the world..." as it started in the middle of a paragraph rather than starting as its own new paragraph.
I'll have to look into it deeper next time I'm in for a big purchase.
November 25, 2010 at 7:53 AM
While this is a decent enough start, there should probably a blog to see how this cheaper army can be upgraded for a more efficent force. As I believe Njal is a massive points sink when you can get 2 Long Fang squads almost entirely decked out with missles for his terminator price.
Can Njal be better then nearly 280 points worth of missles and many more wounds? Perhaps even with Logen leading them to provide relatively mobile firepower or a static suppression fire to flag up those light transports. Personally, I would say yes, as Njals abilitys are fairly condictional. Since the ruling on the first two abilitys make it useless if they go first.
Thats something worth discussing about.
AngryMarine
February 13, 2012 at 5:06 PM
A friend gave me a 10 wolf squad of 13th squad storm-claw space wolfs under the new codes can I use the sky-claw rule as both are jump pack space wolfs? Also he gave me the Wulfen space wolf can I run him as a lone wolf for battle purposes?
Chas
February 23, 2012 at 9:22 PM
Is this list even legal???
Page 81 of the codex states under The leader of the pack rules that no 2 charcters can have the same weargear combination, psykic power or saga... Yet both these models have Saga of the Majesty.
Is this allowed?
April 2, 2013 at 9:24 AM
"I might be a salary man, but this hobby still isn't cheap"
buddy you cannot imagine how much I understand you :)
I am a salary man as well, and still there are times when we salary men have to put stuff on "wish list"... when you go to school you get no money and you have less issues to face... then you leave school, you start working and you eventually have the money you were looking for... but you have to count the coins :D !!
btw, great work on these lists - I am mainly a painter, probably never be a player but I enjoy your lists :)
April 28, 2013 at 2:01 PM
good read but out of date.. needs updaying..
May 13, 2013 at 5:37 AM
Hi guys,
First things first: awesome Blog.
Coming to a cheap army setup list i was wondering, what i could use in a 600pts game with no Named characters.
Personally, i would go for 3 Grey Hunter Squad with Droppods and Wolf Guard Terminators as Squad Leaders and a Rune Priest.
What would you modify and/or change?
Thnx.
Chris
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