Detachment Focus: Saga of the Bold (Updated August 13, 2025)

In our Detachment Focus series we take a deep dive into an army’s Detachments, covering what’s in them, how they play, and how they’ll fit into the broader meta and your games. In this Detachment Focus we’re looking at the Saga of the Bold Detachment from the Space Wolves.

Herohammer has always been a big part of playing Space Wolves, with the larger-than-life Characters from their lore coming to life on the tabletop and making your enemies rather less alive. As befits a new book for the faction, there’s a whole Detachment dedicated to these heroes – the Saga of the Bold. Let’s find out how it comes together on the tabletop.

Changelog: 

• 2025-08-13 (Current): Added a list.
• 2025-05-24: Initial publication

Detachment Overview

Saga of the Bold is a herohammer Detachment for the Space Wolves, through and through. At game start, all of its rules are limited to Characters and the units they lead. However, if your Characters complete inspiring Boasts, they can charge the entire army up to the max, after which you can sweep through foes with abandon. Playing this army is going to have two stages – early turns where you work to set up successful completion of your Boasts, then an orgy of violence once you can turn your attention to sweeping through the foe. It also rewards players that want to go big with some of their units; large squads lead by an inspiring champion play better here than anywhere else in the Codex.

Detachment Rule: Heroes All

All Space Wolves Detachments have a two-part rule. The second part is a Saga, which gives you conditions to activate a more powerful version of the rule.

Heroes All allows you to re-roll one Hit roll, one Wound roll, or one Damage roll each time a SPACE WOLVES CHARACTER unit is selected to shoot or fight. If your Saga is completed, any ADEPTUS ASTARTES unit can re-roll one Hit, Wound, and Damage roll when selected to shoot or fight.

The Saga of the Bold activates each time a SPACE WOLVES CHARACTER unit from your army completes one of a list of four actions. Each time they do, that unit achieves a Boast, and once three or more different Boasts have been achieved your Saga is completed. The requirements are:

• Your Hide as a Trophy: That unit destroys your Oath of Moment target.
• Slay Them All: That unit destroys your Oath of Moment target, and that is the second Oath of Moment target destroyed by that unit in this battle.
• Overrun Their Position: At the end of either player’s turn, that unit is wholly within your opponent’s deployment zone.
• Hold the Line: From the second battle round onwards, at the end of your Command phase, that unit is within range of an objective marker you control that is not within your deployment zone.

These are pretty achievable goals. You will note that it’s not possible to complete the Saga before your round 2 Command Phase at the earliest, so bear that in mind. Most of the time your SPACE WOLVES CHARACTER units are going to be melee-focused, with your various punchy characters leading units of Blood Claws and Wolf Guard, but Bjorn is also a character model, so look out for opportunities for him to finish off an Oath target at range. Both Arjac and Logan are Terminators, too, so consider using their Deep Strike ability to get an early incursion into your opponent’s deployment zone. Logan’s ability to provide a turn 1 Deep Strike is especially helpful, and if you manage to land a charge, even better. Expanding both the range of units that the Detachment rule works on while also making it much  more powerful is a great incentive to complete the Saga early.

This is all pretty similar to the Champions of Russ Index Detachment, but there’s a (positive) subtle change to be aware of; there’s no delay on the Saga completing once three Boasts are met. That can be very powerful if you can set to complete either Your Hide as a Trophy or Slay them All with your first unit that Shoots or Fights in a phase, as then the rest of your army gets the re-rolls.

One final thing – while the Detachment Rule only cares about you achieving three different Boasts, there’s nothing stopping your units from achieving Boasts that have already been done by others. This matters for the Enhancements, several of which care about Boasts being completed.

Enhancements

There’s a reasonably strong set of Enhancements here, which as you’d expect from a Detachment focused around characters.

• Braggart’s Steel (20pts): This gives a SPACE WOLVES Character +2 Strength on their melee attacks, and if their unit has achieved one or more Boasts, +1D as well. This is obviously very limited in who can take it (realistically, it’s only Battle Leaders that will), but is very powerful thanks to Boasts being able to be achieved multiple times. All you have to do is move a Battle Leader with some Headtakers to stand on your natural expansion objective turn 1, then boom, turn 2 onwards you’ve got a S10, 3-damage thunder hammer, just like the good old days.
• Skjald (15pts): This one is a miss, though it’s not really its fault. This gives you 1CP each time a SPACE WOLVES CHARACTER completes a boast while the bearer is on the battlefield, which would be fantastic were it not for the fact that you’re probably taking Bjorn in this Detachment 100% of the time, which makes it irrelevant. It’s such a strong CP gain effect at a low price that it genuinely opens up the possibility of not taking Bjorn (it can also go on any ADEPTUS ASTARTES Character, so a good choice for a combi-weapon Lt), but mostly you take Bjorn.
• Hordeslayer (15pts): Another upgrade for a Space Wolves Character, this one giving +2A if there are more enemy models than friendlies within 6”, or +3A if the bearer’s unit has completed a boast. A bit less exciting than Braggart’s Steel, especially as it’s very hard to get it working into something like Knights, and probably sees limited use unless you end up wanting two Headtaker MSU/Battle Leader units.
• Thunderwolf’s Fortitude (25pts): Upgrades any Adeptus Astartes Character, and lets them get back up on 3W on a 2+ the first time they die. This effect is always good, and the main question here is whether you’re taking it on a Codex Character where the utility is high or a Battle Leader so you can aggressively pursue Boasts. I’d lean towards it being best on a Lieutenant with combi-weapon as a supreme utility piece, but could see other options working too.

Stratagems

In line with the Detachment’s theme, all but one of these are restricted to CHARACTER units, some of which are Space Wolves only, some which can be used for any Astartes unit. They are also all Epic Deeds, which is a very funny bit, but does slightly add to our confusion about what the hell those tags are even for at this point.

• Inspiring Presence (Epic Deed, 1 CP): This is used in the Fight phase to give any Adeptus Astartes Character unit Lethal Hits for a phase. This is good clean fun, and you could look at some Bladeguard with a Judiciar to work with this or dump it on some Headtakers.
• Champion’s Guidance (Epic Deed, 1 CP): This is used in the Shooting or Fight phase to give full hit re-rolls for a Space Wolves Character unit. This is obviously much more limited in who you can target, but it’s very good in some of the places, most notably letting Ragnar and some Blood Claws go full re-roll everything mode to turn any threat into a fine mist.
• Birth of a Saga (Epic Deed, 1 CP): This is used in your Command phase to give either a Wolf Guard Terminator Pack Leader or a unit of Headtakers the CHARACTER keyword for a turn, letting them benefit from other Stratagems and the Detachment Rule, and achieve Boasts. This is useful to have available, especially because of the relatively limited suite of Leaders for Wolf Guard Terminators. It makes a five-model unit of Terminators an interesting pick because if your opponent leaves a gap, you can switch this on while they’re in Deep Strike then drop them in for an easy Boast.
• Alpha Strike (Epic Deed, 1 CP): Used in your Charge phase. An Adeptus Astartes Character unit that Advanced can charge. Yes.
• Heroic Resolve (Epic Deed, 2 CP): Used in your opponent’s Shooting phase after they pick a Space Wolves CHARACTER unit as a target. Reduce the damage characteristic of incoming attacks by 1 until the end of the phase. This is very good, particularly on Wolf Guard Terminators with 4 wounds each from their Storm Shields. It incentivizes you to go for some big units of stuff, but while Terminators are the obvious draw, this is also terrifying in some matchups when applied to 20 Blood Claws with Ragnar. It can also help out Bjorn or Murderfang in a pinch too.
• Countercharge (Epic Deed, 2 CP): Used at the end of your opponent’s Charge phase to let an ASTARTES CHARACTER unit declare a Charge against an enemy unit within 6”, bringing back some of that old school Heroic Intervention energy. This is always a strong thing to have access to, and this might actually be the best Detachment this particular Stratagem has appeared in, so it has a real shot of being relevant.

Playing This Detachment

The first key thing with this Detachment is making sure you have a plan to complete your Saga on turn two. This is very achievable; taking out one Oaths target with a Character unit should be well within your grasp, as should staging a unit forward onto an objective. From there, you can tie things off one of two ways – using Logan to sneak a Character into the Opponent’s Deployment Zone, or taking advantage of some enemy Infiltrators to line up a double tap on Oaths. Once activated, its murdering time – you can start committing with your non-Character threats, and you can go hard with whatever big unit you’ve brought, relying on Heroic Resolve and Countercharge to let them bully the opponent into oblivion.

Otherwise, you’re going to want to bring Characters, and lots of them. The good news is that you have lots of great options. Bjorn the Fell-Handed is more or less an auto-take here for his ability to give you extra CP. Likewise, Grminar is a huge asset, and Terminators with Arjac have a ton of play as well. Ragnar’s another auto-include, and you can choose to take him with either Headtakers or Blood Claws.

Strengths

• Characters. The good news is that your character options for Space Wolves are very good, and this makes them better. There’s good synergy here for the Epic Heroes in the book.
• Melee. There’s some very strong melee buffs here, and the ability to advance and charge is always huge.
• Stratagems. You have access to some powerful stratagems here which can disrupt enemy plans with -1 damage or the ability to counter-charge.

Weaknesses

• Reliance on Leaders. You’re going to pay more points for every unit to include a Leader and relying on them means you’ll end up low on drops if you try and squeeze in any big blocks. You’re also giving an opponent cause to take the Assassination fixed secondary.
• Aggressiveness. This Detachment demands very aggressive play to activate the army rule, which can be rough into some armies.
• Very CP hungry. There are multiple 2 CP Stratagems here you’ll actively want to use. The good news is you want to bring Bjorn.

A Sample List

Saga of the Bold is not the best way to run Space Wolves right now – there are some good tricks here, but generally you get more value out of other Detachments which don’t lock you into running characters.

Nik Bell’s List

Nik ran this list at the Kent Major in early August, finishing 26th at the 99-player event with a 4-2 record, losing to Sisters and Thousand Sons while beating Custodes twice, Drukhari, and Tyranids.

I Prefer Italics - click to expand

There are seven Characters in this list and frankly only the Wolf Guard Battle Leader is something you wouldn’t normally see in other Detachments. Arjac joins one of the Terminator units and Grimnar joins the other, and one can drop onto the battlefield on the first round. That said, the army might have been better running Arjac with a 10-model brick of Terminators, as they’re just going to get more value out of both the turn 1 drop ability from Grimnar (who can just go by himself) and the -1 damage stratagem.

Having Skjald here on the Iron Priest seems a bit redundant, but it’s relatively cheap and good insurance in case Bjorn goes down early, which is fairly likely in a meta choked with knights and Death Guard shooting. Still, with an extra 5 points available, you could swap it out for Braggart’s Steel on the Wolf Guard Battle Leader for more melee punch there if you wanted. Though I think having a second CP source is a smart play here.

Ragnar here joins a unit of Blood Claws to give you a fast melee threat while the Battle Leader joins the unit of 6 Headtakers. The Ballistus and Gladiator give you two solid shooting threats for the Iron Priest to buff, and the Thunderwolf Cavalry give you fast, dangerous melee threats to capture distant objectives and harass vulnerable enemy units, though they’re definitely among the odd units out here with no way to gain the CHARACTER keyword.

Final Thoughts

Saga of the Bold nails the Space Wolf vibe, with your brave heroes inspiring the rest of your force to greatness. It’s also a very powerful detachment with lots of combo potential, and we look forward to seeing how people get the most out of it. Space Wolves character units are very good, and while this isn’t the best or most competitive way to play the faction, it’s still very playable.

Have any questions or feedback? Drop us a note in the comments below or email us at contact@goonhammer.com. Want articles like this linked in your inbox every Monday morning? Sign up for our newsletter. And don’t forget that you can support us on Patreon for backer rewards like early video content, Administratum access, an ad-free experience on our website and more.