Goatboys Space Wolves

Hi, Goatboy here throwing down a Guest article talking about my current favorite army right now, Space Wolves.

I know my usual Space Wolves lists look a lot different than some other current play styles, so I wanted to go over my choices and explain why I feel they create an exciting and pretty successful list. I also want to mention some trends I am seeing and why I think they are not the best choices at this time.

First of all, let me throw down 2 lists, one for 1750 points and the other for 1500 points. In fact the 1500 points army would be the list I will most likely take to Las Vegas next year.

1750 - Thunder, Thunder, Thunder WOLVES HOOO!!!

HQ: Wolf Lord, Thunder Wolf, Saga of the Bear, Thunder Hammer, Storm Shield, Wolf Tail Talisman, Fenris Wolves X 2 - 265
HQ: Wolf Lord, Thunder Wolf, Saga of the Warrior, Frost Axe, Storm Shield, Runic Armor, Wolf Tail Talisman, Fenris Wolves X 2 - 280
HQ: Canis, Fenris Wolves X 2 - 205
Troops: Fenris Wolves X 15 - 120
Troops: Grey Hunters (10), Meltagun, Flamer, MoW, Rhino - 205pts
Troops: Grey Hunters (10), Meltagun, Flamer, MoW, Rhino - 205pts
Troops: Grey Hunters (10), Meltagun, Flamer, MoW, Rhino - 205pts
Heavy: Long Fangs (6), ML X 3, HB X 2 - 130pts
Heavy: Long Fangs (6), ML X 3, HB X 2 - 130pts

Pts: 1745

1500 - Smaller Thunder Thunder Thunder Wolves HOOO!!

HQ: Wolf Lord, Thunder Wolf, Saga of the Bear, Thunder Hammer, Storm Shield, Wolf Tail Talisman, Fenris Wolves X 2 - 265
HQ: Wolf Lord, Thunder Wolf, Saga of the Warrior, Frost Axe, Storm Shield, Runic Armor, Wolf Tail Talisman, Fenris Wolves X 2 - 280
Troops: Grey Hunters (10), Meltagun, Flamer, Rhino - 190pts
Troops: Grey Hunters (10), Meltagun, Flamer, Rhino - 190pts
Troops: Grey Hunters (10), Meltagun, Flamer, Rhino - 190pts
FA: Fenris Wolves X 15 - 120
Heavy: Long Fangs (6), ML X 3, HB X 2 - 130pts
Heavy: Long Fangs (6), ML X 3, HB X 2 - 130pts

Pts: 1495

As you can see, both lists revolve around a massive assault element, followed by a large amount of back up in 3 large troop choices as well as a good mix of anti vehicle with anti infantry. What ends up happening with these types of lists, is that the opponent is involved with the big fist of doom for 2 to 3 turns, giving you more then enough time to get all your troops into position. This also lets your Long Fangs get a few more turns of shooting that they might not otherwise have also.

Space Wolves is one of the few books that can really gives us, Super Heros. We actually have characters that seem greater then life. In fact, that is one of the reasons I play this army because I feel it gives me the type of Chaos Lords I would really want to play with/ I am also an extremely aggressive player and this type of lists gives me the playing style I enjoy to throw down with.

The way I play this list is the hammer unit (dogs + Spiderman, Thor, and Wolverine) is going straight at my opponent. The other parts move into positions to deal with any survivors that might make it out of the Superhero Team book beatdown that is coming towards them. It is a pretty straight forward list and it rewards players who have good target priority skills as well as those who are not afraid to lose 250+ point characters.

Different armies provide different challenges for the list. The new Blood Angels book really only has a few things I am worried about. A Blood Taloned dreadnought will always be a pain, as they can easily kill all your dogs and then slowly start to put wounds on your super heroes. Fear the Darkness is another one of those really good psychic powers versus half the armies in the game so it is another thing to have to worry about. This is why you see 2 to 3 Wolf Tail Talismans in the super unit. The assault troops are not much better then your own and for the most part, your Super Heroes can take out just about anything they throw down. Go for the throat and don't look back versus the Blood Angels. Space Wolves love an army that gets closer.

Imperial Guard can be a completely different game. If you are going first, start on the board. If you are going second, go ahead and reserve/refuse flank. If they are playing a blob army, then just throw your Super unit into them. They should do more then enough wounds to hamper the crap out of it and still leave guys to kill during your opponents turn. If you are playing the Mech Imperial Guard build, move up and split out your guys to hopefully kill 2 to 3 chimeras/squads as you break out. The Long Fangs will come in handy to pop stuff and hopefully your Super Unit can keep them busy for awhile. If they get 2 good rounds of shooting there isn't a whole lot you can do. The WolfTail Talismans are there to stop Psychic Battle Squad nonsense too.

Marine builds are usually ok. If they are running a Vulkan spam list, just know your Thunder Wolves don't care about strength 8. Go after the Land Raider that is housing the Thunder Hammer termies, get them to come out and pop them. You have a ton of attacks that hit first, and any one or two guys you get rid of means you will most likely crush and win combat. Thunder Fire cannons can be annoying as they slow the unit down, if they are bothering you split up and just run at them in 2 to 3 units and hope for the best. You have much better assault elements and ways to easily kill 5+ guys per assault. You also do not fear Power Fists so just run in like the crazy Wolves you are. The massed Razorback spam you are seeing is also not that big of a deal, as you have a big unit that can multi assault a large batch of them as well as they needing to only drive 6 to be effective. Your long fangs can also go a long way by popping them. Also your 10 man squads will easily destroy any of those 5 man weenies that pop out of their hard candy shell.

Orks are a problem for this army, as deff rollas can auto kill your characters as well as nob bikerz being an extremely hard unit to crack. Two of them spells trouble and you have to play extremely smart and efficient to try and deal with them. If they are playing one unit, throw your hammer into it and hope you can spam out a ton of wounds. Have your Saga of the Bear touch the warboss and hope your other guys can throw down a ton of wounds into the squad to have a mutual destruction effect. You have an extremely good invulnerable save so you should be ok. Lootas are also a problem as they have the range as well as the strength to put a ton of wounds into the squad and take out your floating wounds. The boys are not that big of a deal as a dog charge should easily put 14+ wounds into a squad of guys, not including any of the super heroes.

Eldar are a really annoying list to throw down against. A rune priest would be a big help, but most of the time they are not killing your opponent so I have taken them out. Eldar players if you want to know a great secret to kill Space Wolves, tank shock. Their leadership is lower and with 3 to 4 tank shocks a turn, you can easily break the army and chase them down the board. If you are playing versus a lot of Eldar locally, then you might want to look at a Rune Priest somewhere in there. A 100 points isn't too hard to get and you can dumb down some of the characters to fit one in. This is why I have been paying Long Fangs as I need some long range fire power to go out and touch some of those jerk flying machines.

Tau are another annoying list, as it really takes you getting there. If you roll low fleets as well as low difficult terrain, expect to be whittled down by massed plasma and missile pods. Also if they are rolling well on the 4+ saves on vehicles look for a long game. This is one of those armies that just needs some small point tweaking as well as unit changes up to be a much more viable list. It is a shame as they are one of the more interesting looking armies out.

Dark Eldar can be a big pain as they have lots of speed as well as some annoying heavy fire power. Just try to get there and punch as many of them as you can. It is the same with Necrons as once you get there don't expect to stay in combat as you crush a ton of the robots too. A lot of the older armies suffer from being over costed and this type of lists punishes those by having a nice amount of troops, long range fire power, as well as some of the better assault elements you could ever see in the game.

So there you have it, my thoughts on my list and why I like to play it. Space Wolves is one of the few books that really gives you the Super Characters you read about in the stories and the fluff. I think GW did a great job letting the Thunder Wolf keep your character alive versus a hidden powerfist. I think some of the other Space Wolves lists become to reactionary and really are missing the ability to really hurt an opponents army instead of just reacting to it.

If all else fails, mob the enemy with a ton of hitting. Plus you have two super characters that can hurt a ton of stuff still. I wanted to show lists that don't suffer from reduced points level games and still give you an insane amount of punch. Plus 3 fat scoring units should do well versus most things.


Adam: So there we are. Words of wisdom (and brutality) from the Goatboy himself.

While I'm concerned by the lack of power fists and Wolf Guard as well as some flamers appearing where I'd rather have melta guns, it looks like quite a fun list to run.

Even so, there's a lot of units in there that most of us haven't gotten around to building yet. So it goes to show, if you want to play an army competitively, you need to get Everything and furiously paint it so you can play with Whatever you want Whenever you want!

I've always been a big fan of the Space Goats army for the simple fact that they can be used to represent absolutely anything in power armour. It's slightly wrong, but very convenient. They may not be the most conventional or the prettiest army you'll see, but if it's pure playability you're looking for, you'd do well to follow Goatboy's example.

As for his Space Wolves army list, I'll leave that to you to decide. Either way, it's worth taking for a spin and I shall certainly be giving his Thunderwolf Character Cavalry unit a go!