As I won't be talking about my 5th game at BotC, I thought I'd explain some trends I keep seeing in the game when it comes to being able to kill stuff and kill lots of it.Now there's been some debate lately about players fleeing the Space Wolves Codex like rats from a burning ship to go and play Grey Knights. Speaking for ourselves, we've seen nothing but a further increase in Space Wolf players and Blood Angels players these last few months.
However, with the tournament scene now full of Space Wolves, Blood Angels, Grey Knights and Deathwing terminator armies, the game is turning into a battle of the armour saves.
Now statistically a Space Marine should fail 1 in 3 saves and a Space Marine Terminator should fail 1 in 6 saves. But this never seems to be the case when I've been playing at tournaments lately. It's more like 1 in 6 and 1 in 12. That before you take Blood Angels' tendency to have Feel No Pain into account.
So all the kills really come down to power weapons and power fists. Especially power fists, because the inflict so many more wounds due to their high strength.
In my recent game against Brett's Blood Angels he said "My god, you have so many powerfists!" but as it turns out, I had just as many as he did. The difference was The Wolf Standard, which allowed me to get re rolls on my 1s for a single round. But this made all the difference when it came to kills.Similarly, I played a game against James' Dark Angels where he charged 2 combat squads into a Grey Hunters pack. Both combat squads were led by a Veteran Sergeant with a power fist and boy did he give my Space Wolves a battering!
Sure, he died eventually, but not before taking a terrible toll on my squads over a couple of rounds of combat. And it was all down to him having 1 power fist more than me.
Also, with everyone getting a 3+ or 2+ save, is the Mark Of The Wulfen really as tasty as it once was? Even with re rolls using the Wolf Standard? Possibly not. I'd rather have the rerolls with the Power Weapon for the same points against all these Marines.
CONCLUSION
You'll be pleased to know that Space Wolves still have their place in the Marine Wars and it's still about playing defensively (or counter-defensively) and smashing people in the face with the Wolf Standard to give some added clout in close combat. That's whether you're charging Grey Knights or Blood Angels.
Obviously, Grey Knights give us a hard time, but they can be beaten in close combat...so long as they're not Paladins. In that instance, you just need lots of melta guns and lascannons hitting them instead.
I know I've talked about close combat, but my thoughts extend to shooting as well. Statistically you should be able to kill things with enough bolter fire, but sometimes it just doesn't happen. That's when you need the high strength, low AP guns to ignore armour saves and inflict those wounds.
So in conclusion, maybe now's the time to try out a Power Weapon in your Grey Hunters pack instead of the Mark Of The Wulfen? I'd like to take an extra Power Fist, but for +25pts and only 2 attacks on the charge, it's really not worth it.
I'm going to stick a couple of lascannons into my Long Fangs packs as well. Let's see how those Grey Knight Paladins like that!
9 comments:
August 15, 2011 at 2:00 PM
'Ard Boyz wrapped up this weekend and I could comment. My opponents were Vanilla Marines, Blood Angels, and Vanilla Marines.
The only things getting into close combat were squads that got "jumped" or my Thunderwolf Cavalry. I found that blood angel guys are quite hardy and give Grey Hunters fits with good FNP rolls. I have been running MotW in my 3 main squads (two five man are minimum staffers in a Lazorback).
My vote would be to try out the power weapon from here on. The power fist on a standard Grey Hunter is a waste with only 1 swing (more like whiff...) per turn. Yes, you can get wolf guard, buy 43 points for the two attacks and a one shot special weapon kinda stinks, IMO. Yes, the added leadership is nice, but I feel it's not worth it. 3 Lone Wolves in TDA/SS/CF saved my bacon plenty of times. Getting TWO Iron Clads first turn in the deployment zone was a sweet, sweet feeling knowing I had three lone wolves that ran on the table and jacked them up. Hello, goodbye... Iron Clads and Drop Pods.
Powerfists just don't fit in a more competitive list for wolves unless you are going into the Wolf Guard route, but given their cost and point sinks, I'd rather have the two plasma guns popping out of a Rhino hatch versus the fists.
Remember, we get fleet, 12" charging S10 Thunderhammers. Use and abuse them. My Thunderlord never died and cleared out so my HQs, Land Raiders, and heavy hitting squads alone. Dude was all star and will get the higher honors of a paint job and permanent gluing on his weapons (currently magnetized). Never leave home without one!
Looking forward to the discussions. Love the blog!
(PS, I came in third at 'Ard Boyz. Draw, Massacre, Minor Victory and a crap ton of the optional BPs went in my favor)
August 15, 2011 at 8:03 PM
Yep. Makes all these non-3+ armor save armies with no power-fists pretty sad doesnt it. The game is always about SM versu SM.
August 15, 2011 at 9:50 PM
I've been running 8-9 Grey Hunters with MoW, power weaopon, Wolf Standard, melta, and a WG with combimelta and powerfist with great success. I agree, the powerfist on a Grey Hunter is a waste of points.
August 16, 2011 at 2:30 AM
Although 1-2 attacks isn't great, when you pop Kharn with your sole attack 25 points doesn't seem too expensive.
August 16, 2011 at 11:53 AM
Couple of questions really:
1. Is there anywhere on the blog that talks in general about "playing defensively" as a SW player? I know there are lots of bits here and there, but having a central article would be ideal. There may be some older stuff, but maybe an updated one could be useful? Maybe with some diagrams like you get with American football? Just throwing it out there!
2. How have people found plasma cannons? Adam mentions getting a couple of lascannons, but I have found one plasma cannon in each of my three LF squads to be highly effective. They are accompanied by 3 razorbacks, 2 with lascannons and 1 with heavy bolter.
3. Adam, how has your Vindicator been doing? You mentioned in a previous blog about using it to take care of those enemies with good saves.
As a newish player still I'd welcome feedback on those questions. - Scott
August 16, 2011 at 1:34 PM
Plasma Cannons, in my opinion, are quite nice. I take one in both of my Long Fang Squads, and they've easily earned their points back over and over with well-placed plasma blasts.
For diagrams, Vassal might be a good idea.
August 16, 2011 at 5:18 PM
Sorry, but I'm just now convinced about conventional power weapons replacing MoTW. Its a battle of 4's and rolling 4's, thats alot of 50% being tossed around.
And after your to-hit rolls and your to-wound rolls...that PW suddenly doesn't seem as awesome. I'd rather take my chance with MoTW and go for dice saturation and not to mention, the more dice I roll the more likely I'll be to get a 6. Or on the other hand, more likely to get a 1 which I can then re-roll to hopefully do some good. (This also prevents rolling that painful 1 for the MoTW check!)
August 17, 2011 at 4:14 AM
Plasma cannon give you a weapon that's good against heavy infantry, but that's something that Space Wolves can do with plasma/melta Hunter squads anyway.
We use Long Fangs the way other Chapters use twin autocannon dreadnoughts. They suppress and kill armour, allowing our troops to eat the soft tasty filling.
Defensive with Space Wolves? We're defensive in the sense that we get into the enemy face, mutilate him with boltguns and then whack him with counter-charge. We don't have the long range shooting to stand off and let the enemy come to us.
August 22, 2011 at 1:33 PM
The "PW vs MotW" has been a debate for awhile. For myself, I ran some "dice simulations" to test it out. Assuming a 4 to hit and 4 to wound (a "common" scenario) I found that MotW gave me about the same number of "armor ignoring" attacks as the PW. PLUS MotW also gave (on average) 1-2 additional "regular" Wounds. Maybe it's just the way I roll, but I always seem to get 5+ attacks with my MotW model. I still advocate that MotW is better than "just" a PW.
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