Bran Redmaw

Unit Name: Bran Redmaw

Unit Type: HQ Choice.

Unit Deployment: In a transport or in reserve

Unit in play: Assault orientated HQ

Unit is most effective against: Infantry and light tanks.

General Discussion: We have a new addition to the list of space wolf characters that have been immortalised as a playable model, Bran Redmaw is here and he is interesting.

For 210 points you get a very decent return on your investment in my opinion. He has a generic statline for a Wolflord, nothing crazy here. On the whole, he has a good load out of wargear and his codex equipment puts him at 190 points without trying to put a price tag on any of the special rules or support powers. He comes with a decent set of saves 2+/4++ which leaves him fairly solid from incoming fire especially when he is in a squad. Bran’s weapons are fairly average for a Wolf Lord. With a bolt pistol, a special two-handed frost axe and a wolftooth necklace he can get in the hits in against even the toughest characters.

Redmaw has quite a few little buffs that maximise your army. He gives one squad of Grey Hunters the ability to infiltrate or outflank. This is an amazingly useful ability. I like wolf scouts, but I would prefer if they could be a scoring unit and were Grey Hunters instead. When I drop a squad of ten Grey Hunters with an attached Wolf Guard in your half of the board with two meltaguns you need to be worried. Immediately Redmaw’s army puts the pressure on the enemy and if you can get a solid deployment you can rip through some choice targets.

If you enjoy harassing the enemy in their own half of the board then you will love Bran’s last little trick. He has Saga of the Hunter and can outflank with Fenrisian Wolves. I do find these wolves sometimes hard to use but I think this may make them simpler to work with. You will lose the ability to charge them a foot but they are really here to be a Redmaw delivery system. This squad would be a great harrier of fire support and once the commander has a turn for the strange even vehicles will not be safe.

The Curse of the Redmaw is divisive rule and I am still in two minds about it. Depending on the roll of a dice your commander may mutate from an interesting space marine to a powerful Wulfen beast. Instead of a commander with 1+D6 attacks you receive a statline that would walk through all but the toughest models with all of the best survival boosting rules. The beast is a Monstrous creature with Furious Charge, Fleet, Eternal Warrior and Feel No Pain. It will do a great deal of harm to even the toughest armour and makes a pack of wolves outflanking a major threat. The Redmaw has one let down it lacks any saves. While Feel no Pain offers some mitigation it is not enough. As an independent character with an effective 4+ save you need to keep the number of models in base to base contact low otherwise he’ll be easily dragged down by weight of numbers.

When it comes to playing him as a unit Bran Redmaw is problematic. While the Lord is better at weathering fire he is slower moving then the Redmaw and is useless at eliminating vehicles. His added extras are quite interesting but in general I think that he makes the army far more difficult to play if you make full use of his abilities. It makes the list highly dependent on situations, it will make a guard player shake in his boots but space marines or grey knights will just tear you apart. I would make full use of infiltrating Grey Hunters but I think keeping the Redmaw in one your Grey Hunter squads is a better use. Even if you just buy him to infiltrate or outflank a unit then I think he is worth it.

Redmaw’s Great Company: I want to take a second to talk about the other part of Space Wolf fun in the latest Imperial Armour volume. There is an IA formation available of either Bran Redmaw or a Wolf Guard Battle Leader leading a group of Landraider mounted Grey Hunters for an extra 25 points. I really liked the look of this straight off the bat. Landraiders are very, very hard to kill and having four of any flavour on the board makes it rather interesting. I wouldn’t use Bran Redmaw with the formation as he doesn’t gel with the army. His points make him a little bit too pricey for the list and his buffs and powers don’t match the feel of the army list.

The formation must deploy within a foot of the Landraider that the HQ choice is sitting in but that isn’t a major loss. With a little care you can place the tanks in such a way to ensure good fields of fire and ease of movement for your opening turn. Keeping two land raiders close together as they charge forward allows you to turn your Space Wolves a little feral. Any unit within 12” of the HQ model or his tank get Furious Charge. For an extra few points on top of the base cost of the entire formation this can improve the efficacy of your units by quite a bit on the first turn of combat. There is another rule to take into account; the entire formation suffers from the Rage rule while within 12” of the enemy. This is a little trickier then you might think but it allows for a sneaky pre-measure in the movement phase to see if the rule applies. It appears to me you get the best of Space Wolves and Blood Angels with this list.

I enjoy moving two ranks of Landraiders across the board. Using the machine spirit to the full nothing is safe. Crusaders can rush forward and pop smoke to keep themselves safe. While usually the idea of car-park lists makes me nervous but by taking a mixture of Crusaders and Phobos pattern Landraiders you can make a strong go of tearing apart anything you could face. The Godhammer lazcannons can make mincemeat of most armour while the crusaders pulverise troops before the Hunter squads charge into the fray. It is an expensive way to play but I can’t see anything but Titans and Super Heavy thanks making a dent in them at range. Meltaguns up close are always a threat but you should have the troops unloaded and up in their faces by then. It is fun to play and while I need more time to tweak it I would be happy to try it out in a tournament that allowed IA.