In our Faction Focus series we take a look at the game’s factions and talk about their rules, their units, how they play, and what competitive lists for the faction look like. This is part of a larger series of articles in our Start Competing series. In this article we’re looking at the Sons of Russ, the Space Wolves.

Changelog 

• 2025-12-08 – Updated with the new Codex
• 2024-09-05 – Original publication.

Why Should You Play This Faction?

The Space Wolves are one of the most storied of the First Founding chapters of Space Marines, with a unique history and style. The Space Wolves actually have the honor of having had the very first Codex, released all the way back in 1994 at the start of 2nd edition. Since then they’ve been one of the most popular chapters in the game, with a host of custom rules and characters. In particular, they tend to excel at melee combat, with support from a wide variety of special characters and their vaunted Wolf Guard Terminators. If you like the idea of running space marines with a Norse/Viking aesthetic, the Space Wolves are likely the chapter for you.

Army Rules

Space Wolves are a Space Marines subfaction and so have Oath of Moment as their army rule, but they also have several other rules specific to them.

Oath of Moment

At the start of your Command phase, pick one unit from your opponent’s army and until the start of your next Command phase, your marines can re-roll hit rolls against that unit. This is a very solid ability and really lets you focus down key threats, punching up with sheer volume of hits and allowing even units with a small number of attacks to convert a large number of those into damage.

Curse of the Wulfen

While this unit is within 6″ of one of your friendly Space Wolves Character models (excluding WULFEN models) or within 12″ of a friendly WOLF PRIEST model, if it’s not Battle-shocked, add 1 to the OC of INFANTRY models in the unit and add 3 to the OC of VEHICLE models in the unit.

By default, your Wulfen units – Wulfen with and without Storm Shields, Murderfang, and the Wulfen Dreadnought – all have OC 0, meaning they can’t hold objectives or attempt actions. This essentially gives you a way to mitigate that by keeping characters nearby, which can be extremely important when you need those fast, damaging units to scrap near the middle of the table. That said, characters can’t join those units so this isn’t going to come up that often when your Wulfen act more like a melee missile you can fire into the opponent’s flank.

Sagas

Space Wolves Detachments have Sagas, which apply a rule and can be completed to provide an additional effect.

Sons of Russ

Your army can’t include any ADEPTUS ASTARTES units from any other Chapter. You can’t use Space Wolves Detachments with units drawn from any other Chapter.

Detachments

You have four Detachment options specific to Space Wolves, each focusing on a different style of play and unit.

Saga of the Hunter

This encourages you to put lots of Blood Claws and Grey Hunters of the table for a melee Infantry horde build – you’re rewarded for outnumbering your foe in combat, or coordinating a strike with multiple units. It also has the simplest Saga to complete out of any of the three Detachments, allowing you to ramp up the power in the mid-game.

Saga of the Bold

This is a Herohammer Detachment, rewarding SPACE WOLVES and ADEPTUS ASTARTES CHARACTER units with powerful abilities. It has the most intricate Saga of the three, but also the one that most rewards cunning planning, and gives you a huge power boost if you succeed at it.

Saga of the Beastslayer

This Detachment is designed for brutally murdering your opponent’s juciest targets, be they VEHICLE, MONSTER or CHARACTER units. It sports by far the most powerful “baseline” Detachment rule prior to the completion of a Saga, and also has some very strong all-rounder Enhancements and Stratagems.

Champions of Fenris

The Space Wolves Grotmas Detachment focuses on Wolf Guard Terminators and has some nifty tricks. That said, it has some issues with leader compatibility: As it stands, this is a Terminator-themed Detachment for a faction with special Terminators, but there are no generic Characters who can join Wolf Guard Terminators, so half the Enhancements don’t even work with the faction’s iconic unit!

Five Things You Need to Know

• The Codex Detachments are Still Among Your Most Powerful Options. The Detachment options in Codex: Space Wolves are decent, but of them only Saga of the Beastslayer has real competitive juice, owing to a solid Detachment rule and some very good Stratagems. Otherwise, the Gladius Task Force and Stormlance Task Force are still both very powerful options for your Space Wolf armies, with the former offering a ton of tactical flexibility and generic power while the latter super-charges your Thunderwolf Cavalry to make early game charges and stuff your opponent in their Deployment Zone.
• Almost all of the Space Wolves units are pretty good. There aren’t a lot of duds in the Codex supplement – most of the characters and units in the book are at the very least playable if not very good. You have a lot of pieces to work with here, and many of them will work in more than one detachment.
• Thunderwolf Cavalry are still amazing. While they’ve lost the support of Wolf Guard Battle Leaders, Thunderwolf Cavalry more than make up for that with their raw damage output and the ability to throw a mass of tough, 4-wound cavalry at opponents. When you hear the term “wolf jail,” it’s made of these guys – 12 to 18 Thunderwolf Cavalry, jamming an opponent in their Deployment Zone early, doing damage and forcing them to dig their way out.
• Don’t sleep on Terminators. While terminators aren’t amazing in standard marine lists, Wolf Guard Terminators can bring a lot to the table. Their ability to get 4 wounds with a Storm Shield and take -1 to wound on incoming attacks is huge, but on top of that they come with master-crafted power weapons, giving them 4 attacks each at S5, AP-2, 2 damage – a worthwhile replacement for power fists. Current competitive lists run 10-model units of Wolf Guard Terminators led by Arjac Rockfist for extra damage and the ability to fight on death free.
• Not all of your rules apply to everything. One particularly nasty wrinkle here is that a number of rules in this book – Detachment rules and Stratagems in particular – only affect SPACE WOLVES units and not ADEPTUS ASTARTES units. If you’re taking a mix of generic units from Codex Space Marines with your Space Wolves, you’ll need to keep on top of which rules apply to which unit to avoid misplaying.

What Are the Must-Have Units to Start This Faction?

You’ve got more options than you’d think these days when it comes to building a Space Wolves army but all of the top lists right now tend to share some common units. First off, there’s Ragnar Blackmane, one of the nastiest melee units in the game. Ragnar can either pair with a unit of Blood Claws or a unit of Headtakers, and the latter unit really appreciates being given the ability to advance and charge.

Bjorn the Fell-Handed is another common addition to Space Wolves armies, combining a tough chassis (he’ll almost never be wounded on less than a 4+), with fast movement (9″), solid melee and the fact that he gives you one extra CP each Command phase. He’s lost his aura ability to increase the cost of Stratagems for nearby units, but now Logan Grimnar has that ability, and it makes him a very common include in top Space Wolves lists as well. He generally runs solo while Arjac joins the big Terminator unit, and his once-per-game ability to come in from Strategic Reserves a turn early is huge for outflanking an opponent with a key unit or dropping in a unit of Terminators on the first turn.

Although not the only way to build a Space Wolves army, Thunderwolf Cavalry are still the best MOUNTED unit any marine army can field. They’re fast, durable and throw out more damage than ever. Whether you’re running Stormlance or Beastslayer, you’ll likely want multiple TWC units running around in your army.

Wolf Guard Terminators are also a popular pick these days – a ten-model unit led by gives you a ton of punching power and durability in a unit that can hold objectives and scrap in the middle of the table fairly reliably. When you see them they’re typically being led by Arjac Rockfist, who gives them the ability to fight on death and has some nasty melee output of his own that’s very good at taking down big knights, since they’re also CHARACTER units.

Depending on what you’re running, the Iron Priest can have play as well, though since the changes to his datasheet ability he’s no longer the terror he once was – now he only makes a single gun on the vehicle he repairs [RAPID FIRE 1], limiting his effectiveness. That said, he’s still very solid at getting the most out of something like a Reuplsor Executioner, where you only care about getting more shots with the main gun.

There’s still plenty of room in Space Wolf lists for Wulfen, particularly those with Storm Shields to give them any semblance of durability. If you’re taking them, you almost certainly want a Wolf Priest or two around for their aura abilities, and they also just make good leaders for your Headtakers units as they’re able to resurrect dead models each Command phase.

How Does This Faction Secure Objectives?

The same way as regular Space Marines, usually. Most competitive Space Wolves armies pack a unit or two of Intercessors or Infiltrators to sticky objectives and keep enemy units out of the backfield, and if you can manage to fit a unit of Scouts in the army, they’re not bad to have, either. This can be a trickier question if you’re running Wulfen as they’re OC 0, but you can mitigate that with a nearby character or, better yet, a Wolf Priest.

How Does This Faction Handle Enemy Hordes?

In melee, mostly. While they’d rather fight marines, master-crafted power weapons are great for slicing through marines and other mid-to-heavy infantry. Thunderwolf Cavalry also have enough attacks to do a very solid job into enemy infantry but your real stars here are going to be Blood Claws led by Ragnar, who can run in units of up to 20 models and can throw out some powerful attacks

How Does This Faction Handle Enemy Tanks and Monsters?

This is a trickier proposition – you’ll need to balance with the army is best at doing against what it needs to do against some threats. Taking out knights in that respect can be a real challenge. Fortunately, Saga of the Beastslayer gives you the help you were asking for, providing [LETHAL HITS] for extra damage control. That said, as with controlling objectives, nothing is forcing you to take only Space Wolves units and plenty of Space Wolf armies also pack Vindicators, Ballistus Dreadnoughts, and Gladiator Lancers, all of which really like that [RAPID FIRE] buff they can get from the Iron Priest.

Playing This Faction

How you play Space Wolves will depend heavily on which Detachment you’re bringing, though generally speaking you’re likely to be taking an army that’s got more than a few fast melee units to scrap with – Thunderwolf Cavalry are your big guns, but they’re likely to be supported by Blood Claws or Headtakers + Ragnar, Wulfen, and a Terminator brick to scrap in the middle of the table. This is something you can support with Bjorn the Fell-Handed and Grimnar, with the former giving you extra CP and the latter forcing your opponent to overspend if they want to use Stratagems against your toughest units.

That said, you don’t need to reinvent the wheel: Infiltrators, Scouts, Intercessors, and Combi-weapon Lieutenants are all solid, reliable ways to hold objectives and do actions, and you’ll want some in your list to hang back and score while the rest of your army surges forward. Likewise if you need vehicle support, the Space Marine armory gives you plenty of options to work with.

“Wolf Jail” isn’t quite what it used to be, but the concept is still sound: You take multiple, large units of Thunderwolf Cavalry with the ability to advance and charge, point them at the enemy, and then send them that direction. The idea is to block the enemy in their own deployment zone early, forcing them to spend multiple turns fighting through TWC, Wulfen, and other large threats (Wolf Guard Terminators and Blood Claws can also take part), while the rest of your army moves around the table unimpeded, scoring VP and claiming a lead.

There are generally three Detachments you’ll want to consider with Space Wolves when building a competitive list:

• Gladius Task Force – The basic Space Marines detachment is still just generically powerful enough to be a go-to for Space Wolves. The ability to have your entire army Advance and Charge in a single turn with Assault Doctrine is huge for dumping multiple units into their lines at the same time, and Honour the Chapter amps those units’ attacks up to 11.
• Stormlance Task Force – The Detachment Wolf Jail lists tend to rely on because it gives all of your units the ability to advance and charge, and has a number of stratagems to buff MOUNTED units, AKA Thunderwolf Cavalry. You’re running at least 12 TWCs if you’re playing this Detachment.
• Saga of the Beastslayer – The Space Wolves’ Saga of the Beastslayer Detachment won’t let you advance and charge but gives your units the ability to punch up more effectively and has a host of useful stratagems for moving around the table and fighting into bigger targets.

Currently, Gladius Task Force has fallen a bit out of vogue since the change to Iron Priests was made and Saga of the Beastslayer has become more important with the ascendance of knights in the meta.

Finally, a note on Logan Grimnar: His ability specifies that you have to bring in a unit from Strategic Reserves, not just Reserves. This means that if you want to bring a unit of Wolf Guard Terminators with Arjac in on the first turn with it, you have to specifically place them into Strategic Reserves (they can still use the Deep Strike rule when arriving), and they’ll end up eating most of your 500 point limit on Strategic Reserves when you do this. You can get around this in Saga of the Beastslayer by using the Coordinated Strike stratagem to put a unit back into reserves on the first turn as well.

Sample List

We’ll cover more lists in the Detachment Focus articles, but here it’s worth looking at a single list for the Saga of the Beastslayer Detachment.

Hunter Nichols’ List

Hunter took this list to a 5-0-1, fifth place finish at the 2025 Lone Star Open, beating Custodes, GSC, Marines, Aeldari, T’au, and Space Wolves along the way.

Hunter's List - Click to Expand

There’s a little bit of everything here, with a solid mix of melee and ranged damage, all of it more than capable of dealing with knights or vehicle-heavy Death Guard lists. The Infiltrators here hold your home objective and screen out nasty threats while securing a forward path for your Wulfen and Thunderwolves. When you take them in units of 3, Thunderwolves become less about wolf jail and more about having a strategic unit that can tear apart key threats. On average they’ll dump 6 damage into a knight with just their wolf weapons on the charge and you can double that by using the Unbridled Ferocity stratagem to give them +1 to wound. Here Ragnar joins the Headtakers and can ride with them in the Repulsor Executioner, while Arjac joins the Wolf Guard Terminators and Grimnar runs solo, on the table as a disruption piece and able to use his ability to bring a unit in from Strategic Reserves early.

Final Thoughts

The Space Wolves are among the stronger Space Marine factions, having bespoke units suited to a number of different tasks and armies. Whether you want to go heavy on Thunderwolves with a Stormlance Task Force or mix it up with more Infantry, you have multiple relatively competitive options to choose from. It’s a good army and the wave of new models added in tenth edition look great.

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