With a great howling and gnashing of teeth, the Space Wolves are unleashed upon the battlefields of the 41st Millennium with a new Codex and a whole wave of new plastic kits, spearheaded by an Army Box that’s going up for pre-order today. Games Workshop have sent this our way, and today we’ll be unpacking what’s inside for Fenris fans, starting in this article with the Codex.

We would like to thank Games Workshop for providing us with a review copy of the army box and Codex. We have also been provided with a provisional Munitorum Field Manual update for Space Wolves, which we have used when writing this article. These points are subject to change until they are published on Warhammer Community.

Army Overview

Space Wolves are fearsome and aggressive warriors who favour melee combat over ranged warfare, and are led into battle by legendary heroes. Their Chapter is also “organised” much more loosely than most, with each Wolf Lord leading a great company of armoured champions, which can be far larger than one organised along the boring lines of the Codex Astartes.

This new Codex reflects all of this – the unique units and Detachments favour melee over ranged combat (though there’s still some support for the latter), unique Character options (Epic Heroes and otherwise) are a key part of the book, and there’s also more of a focus on large blocks of Infantry than in most Marine codexes, with their unique Battleline options offering significant power, but coming as packages of ten models minimum.

This is all good stuff, and should make Space Wolves players happy. What’s probably going to be a bit more controversial is that the book also captures the extent of the Wolves divergence from the Codex Astartes. There’s no cross-compatibility between the Leaders/Units in here and those in Codex Space Marines, and in each Detachment some proportion of the rules only work on units from this book, rather than any Adeptus Astartes unit.

The upside of this is that it allows the boat to be pushed out on the power level of some units, but the downside is that it’s likely to substantially shake up existing armies that want to use the new Detachments, and if any part of the book doesn’t land, it’s going to feel like Space Wolves have been hard done by compared to other Chapters. Realistically, this probably should have been how all non-compliant Chapters were handled, but as ever it sucks slightly to be the first army where GW have figured out a new way of balancing stuff.

With all that in mind, the following are five standout features of this book:

• Heroes: The unique Space Wolves Characters all stand out, pretty much all having a place in lists.
• The Pack: Grey Hunters and Blood Claws are hard units to get right in a 10th Edition model, but this book feels like it nails both of them.
• Vibes: The Space Wolf vibes are also on-point here, with both Detachments and units feeling right for the army, and the greater separation from general Astartes encourages you to build an army that feels very distinct.
• Thoughtful Design: As above the new separation from the main Codex is well thought through from a balance point-of-view, even if there are likely going to be some teething issues.
• Saga of the Beastslayer: If you want to go straight to the competitive races with a new Detachment from this book that rewards you for being wolfy, this is your friend.

We’re less keen on:

• Iron Priests: If, on the other hand, you want to dip into this book for one broken datasheet to min-max your existing army with for a few months until it gets nerfed, use this one. There are going to be some Ironstorm Spearhead builds that suck to play against coming to a table near you.
• Lack of Leaders: Unless there’s some big errata coming, the separation from the Codex Astartes has some weird side effects like there being no generic Leader option for Wolf Guard Terminators, and no way of sticking a Librarian/Rune Priest with Power Armoured units.
• Risk of Confusion: All the rules separation is done in line by selective use of either ADEPTUS ASTARTES or SPACE WOLVES from rule to rule, which is going to confuse the hell out of some people. Putting a pin down now – there are going to be some really rough conversations at RTTs as you have to explain to a new player that half their list doesn’t actually work the way they think it does, because a bunch of units in their Space Wolves army are not actually SPACE WOLVES.

Army Rules

Space Wolves armies have a few shared Army Rules, inheriting Oath of Moment from Codex Space Marines (providing re-rolls to hit for your army against one target per turn), and also packing a couple of their own.

Curse of the Wulfen

All Wulfen units have a baseline OC of 0, but this rule means that if their unit is either within 6” of a SPACE WOLVES Character (excluding other WULFEN) or 12” of a WOLF PRIEST, and they’re not Battle-shocked they go up to either OC 1 for Infantry or OC 3 for Vehicles. This is a nice improvement for them, letting you get a bit more value out of your frenzied killers, and is especially good in Saga of the Beastslayer where an Enhancement lets a Character join a Wulfen unit.

Sagas

Each of the three Space Wolves Detachments is themed around a Saga, which sets conditions for completion, after which your army gets some exciting bonuses. There’s no actual “mechanical” army-level part of this rule, but Sagas are name-checked in the Army Rules section because some Datasheets interact with them.

Detachments

The Space Wolves Codex adds three new Detachments, joining the regular Space Marines Detachments, and the Grotmas gift of Champions of Russ.

As always, we’ll cover each of these in a separate Detachment Focus that you can find linked below alongside a high-level description of each. This time around the internal balance between these is ehhhh not the best – I’m pretty comfortable that Saga of the Beastslayer is the strongest by a decent margin, Saga of the Bold is in a comfortable second place, and Saga of the Hunter trails behind. Saga of the Hunter isn’t unplayable or anything, but it’s very much the kind of Detachment where you’re working hard for effects you can get easier elsewhere, whereas the other two are giving you a strong lift that really sells their unique tools.

Anyway, the Detachments:

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.

You also still, theoretically, have access to Champions of Fenris from Grotmas, but this either needs a big re-write or there are some other rules changes coming to add Leader cross-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 iconic unit!

Datasheets

Normally we distinguish between new and updated Datasheets when talking about new Codexes, but almost every Datasheet in this book has changed significantly, to the point that there’s not really any reason to separate them, so we’re just going to talk about them all. Before doing that, we need to go through our traditional roster of the fallen, which is a long one this time. Unsurprisingly, various resin Characters and off-brand versions of firstborn units depart for the big Fang in the sky, along with a few more surprising ones.

The Departed

• All Thunderwolf Characters. Which kind of sucks, but the unit has been given a big boost to its baseline power that compensates.
• Regular Wolf Guard, who are functionally replaced by Wolf Guard Headtakers
• The Cyberwolf. No more Leaders for Fenrisian Wolves.
• The Space Wolf planes. Just use them as a Stormraven.
• Sky Claws
• Long Fangs
• Wolf Scouts
• Terminator Characters
• Krom Dragongaze
• Lukas the Trickster
• Logan on Stormrider
• The really baffling one: Hounds of Morkai. We have no idea what’s up here, given these are the most recent plastic additions to the range.

Datasheets

Sad bit done, now the good stuff – new toys! Worth noting as a general point – every single Infantry model in this book has 1” of extra movement compared to what you’d expect, so Power Armour at 7” and Terminators at 6” move. Speedy Wolves.

Characters

Logan Grimnar

Leading the charge of new plastics for the Space Wolves is a new version of Logan Grimnar, an absolute unit of a Terminator hero accompanied by a pair of wolves. He is, unsurprisingly, a nasty melee beatstick, and a huge annoyance to your opponents while alive thanks to having a 12” CP tax aura, which you can stack with a Caladius Assassin if you’re feeling spicy. Even better, he has the ability to let one unit arrive from Strategic Reserves as if it was a turn later each turn (so functionally relevant on turns 1 and 2), which you can potentially use to turn one Deep Strike him in an annoying position, and force some extreme early caution from foes. He can only Lead Wolf Guard Terminators, but this is honestly pretty optional – he’s very tough by himself, and adds enough value just as a mid-table presence that you’ll probably take him solo a lot of the time. He’s also 100% mandatory in Saga of the Bold, as the ability to manipulate Reserves makes it far easier to complete their Saga.

Njal Stormcaller

Njal’s new plastic kit sheds his Terminator armour, leaving him as a power-armoured Leader for Grey Hunters, Blood Claws or Wolf Guard Headtakers. The former two are the ones you’re really looking at here – his Leader ability gives auto-6” Advances and Assault on all shooting, making Grey Hunters surprisingly nasty all-rounders (particularly with Njal’s powerful volume shooting factored in), and supporting the Advance/Charge of Blood Claws. He also has a unique added effect on hitting a non-VEHICLE/MONSTER unit with his shooting attack which is a 6” reduction in their shooting range till your next turn. Unfortunately, they’ve been too cautious on the limits for this – it’s capped at a minimum of 12”, and bluntly there’s almost nothing where this is going to make a huge difference with that in mind, especially as his range is only 24”. The sweet spot for this would have been cutting melta and flamer stuff from 12” to 6”, as it is now, it doesn’t super matter outside of maybe against Taktikal Brigade and Noise Marines. Strong Leader ability and decent stats though, and quite a few of the Detachments (plus Stormlance) reward him.

Ulrik the Slayer

Ulrik is another Leader for the three power armoured INFANTRY units, and gets re-worked to interact with Sagas, somewhat. At the start of the battle, you choose either MONSTER, CHARACTER or VEHICLE for his Slayer’s Oath, and if the unit he’s leading destroys a unit with the relevant keyword, they count your Detachment’s Saga as having been achieved for the rest of the battle. This works super well in Saga of the Beastslayer, but is good in all three Space Wolves Detachments. In addition to just the Saga effect, he also gives his unit +1 to hit in melee all the time, and +1 to Wound against the keyword you chose for the Slayer’s Oath. Finally, he gets a small boost to his own output, with his Artificer Crozius now getting ANTI-MONSTER/VEHICLE 4+. A small unit of those with the dual weapons feels like a plausible place for Ulrik, as he’ll ensure they absolutely dunk something when they come out to play.

Bjorn the Fell Handed

The legendary Dreadnought Character is still going strong here, and will probably see more play than ever. This is because now that Logan is sporting the Vect Aura for the army, Bjorn instead hands you a bonus CP in your Command Phase, which is essentially always good on a unit that adds value in its own right. Bjorn’s durability gets a bit of a sidegrade (no more half damage but now gets an Invulnerable save and -1 to Wound against attacks with S higher than his T), but is still extremely hard to kill and quite deadly on the offence, so a great include in almost any flavour of list.

Ragnar Blackmane

Ragnar is a nightmare melee blender who can join either Blood Claws or Wolf Guard Headtakers. He gives melee Wound re-rolls to the former (they have built-in Advance/Charge now), or adds Advance/Charge to the Headtakers. Much stronger with the Blood Claws, where he significantly ups both their and his own damage output, whereas sadly the Headtakers datasheet is a bit cautious and doesn’t let an attached Character benefit from their Devastating Wounds.

Arjac Rockfist

A very wide man who can lead Wolf Guard Terminators, providing a 4+ Fight on Death, and also being a nasty killer in his own right, with re-rolls into Characters, built-in Precision, and Anti-Monster/Vehicle 3+. Not sure you ever really need him, but he does appreciably broaden the targets for a unit he joins.

Wolf Priest

A Chaplain/Apothecary hybrid that can join the three power armour Infantry units, adding a bit of extra melee heft via +1 to Wound, and reviving a model in your Command Phase. Not super flashy, but seems decent enough with Grey Hunters if he’s cheap, as the combo of +1 to Wound and re-rolls is a classic way to set up a universal blender. Also helps keep Wulfen in check if you bring any, and interesting in Beastslayer as an option for Leading the volume variant of that Datasheet.

Wolf Guard Battle Leader

A sort of Captain/Lieutenant hybrid here, granting his unit Sustained Hits 1 and re-rolls of 1 to hit while targeting a foe within 6” (so always in melee). Also a fairly tasty melee statline in his own right, quite durable for a “cheap” tier Character, and Fights on Death on 2+. Also the model is incredibly sick. Theoretically good with Grey Hunters but probably third in the queue behind Ulrik and Njal, so probably where you see these is with small Headtaker units as very efficient trade pieces

Iron Priest

Ughhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. We were doing so well.

Space Wolves get a special Techmarine, who swaps out the normal ability to give a Vehicle +1 to hit to instead provide Rapid Fire 1 on all its guns. This is wildly variable in how much of an impact it makes for different vehicles, which makes it a balance nightmare. Something like a Gladiator Reaper barely notices, but apply this to a Predator Annihilator and suddenly you’re doubling the number of Lascannon shots it’s putting out, and letting it get two shots from its hunter-killer missile to add insult to injury. Other strong recipients include Gladiator Lancers, Ballistus Dreadnoughts, Storm Speeders Thunderstrike and Hammerstrike, regular Land Raiders, and of course the ever-looming Stormraven. It even works with Firing Deck, as currently worded, so look forward to people working out what the dumbest thing you can set up with that is (though I don’t believe for a second that interaction will survive the first time the baleful gaze of the FAQ gods falls upon this book).

This buff is an extreme bargain if it stays anywhere like the printed price tag, and Space Wolf-powered versions of Ironstrom seem like they’re on the menu off the back of this datasheet alone.

Murderfang

An extremely angry box that rips things into pieces in melee, gives nearby Wulfen (including himself) Fight on Death on 4+, and has built re-rolls for Advances and Charges. The last ability makes him a decent Strategic Reserves threat, which you can lean into in Beastslayer thanks to their ability to pull a unit into Strategic Reserves if they’re near a Battlefield Edge. Where he really shines though is in Bold, providing a CHARACTER wrecking ball that benefits from a bunch of the Stratagems and can tick off Boasts for you.

Infantry

Blood Claws

Angry hordes of chainsaw-wielding youths, with built in Advance/Charge to really put the fear of Fenris into foes. They come as either a ten or twenty, and upgrade options are essentially non-existent – it’s just lots of bodies at a cheap price point, if the back of the book is to be believed, currently rocking in as cheaper than a 20-model Black Templar Crusader unit. They’re much more bare bones than Templars, and harder to hand a Feel No Pain to, so I suspect spamming a whole army of them is less appealing, but one unit (medium or big) with Ragnar (to amp up their output) feels realistic as a sort of wrecking ball.

Grey Hunters

Grey Hunters return to their cherished long-held position of being regular Marines, but better. Seriously – they’re faster at 7”, get both a ranged and melee weapon, and get the reliably excellent datasheet ability of re-roll Wounds against targets on objectives (or 1s otherwise), which is super good for a unit with multi-phase output. They’re even just OC3 each. Why not?

There is a price for all of this – like Blood Claws, what you see at the baseline is pretty much what you get, with only the sergeant getting a few upgrades, and more importantly these only come in a unit of 10, because they’d be completely busted if you could take lots of 5s of them. As it is, that creates a nice tension between them being extremely high quality for regular infantry, but also requiring a fairly inflexible minimum commitment. For my money, there will be builds where they get there with Ulrik or Njal, both of whom push their flexibility and output to a point where the squad is worthwhile, and they’re extra strong in Beastslayer because they’re high volume in multiple phases, so love Lethal Hits.

Wolf Guard Headtakers

Wolf Guard Headtakers are essentially your choice of either Bladeguard or Chosen for Wolves, giving them an elite melee option that’s compatible with their Leaders. You can either take sword/shield (in which case they’re very Bladeguard), or two weapons if you want to just smack stuff with 6A per model. Their special rule is that they get to pick a unit to be their prey at game start, and the Headtakers get Devastating Wounds and Precision against them, picking a new target if they’re eliminated. This isn’t quite as exciting as it sounds, as they’ve been pretty careful to stop it being possible to get Wound re-rolls on them, and they don’t confer it to an attached Character, but it’s not bad, and a decent psychological weapon to boot. Of the ways to run them, I’m hottest on taking the dual weapon ones with a Battle Leader, as it’s a very cheap package that will flatten quite a few targets, but I’m sure other options will exist.

Also, puppies. For a 25pts premium, you can add a squad of three wolves to go with three Headtakers, who split off to be their own unit prior to deployment. They’re mostly just space fillers, but do get OC1 if they’re within 6” of a Character, so can be a great throwaway tool to pick up an early Area Denial or Establish Locus or something, at half the price of buying a separate unit of five wolves. This is definitely another appeal of taking cheap MSUs of Headtakers with a Leader as trade pieces, as you get to add some extra utility in alongside them.

Wolf Guard Terminators

Extra durable Terminators here, getting the option to take storm shields across the board for 4W, and having -1 to Wound against them when an attack’s S exceeds their T. The tradeoff is that their baseline offensive output is a master-crafted power weapon instead of a power fist, so less able to deal with high-durability targets. You can mitigate that somewhat by giving the leader a big scary axe, and one model per 5 can take an assault cannon and power fist, but you’re more aiming for the tarpit/brawling potential rather than an alpha strike unit (though as with a lot of things in this book, Beastslayer smooths that out considerably). MSUs are kind of fine as slot fillers, and in Bold I can see taking a full unit with Logan, as access to a -1D Stratagem there can combine with early Deep Strike to thoroughly trap an opponent in their deployment zone (and there’s a Lethal Hits stratagem there for them too).

Wulfen

Wulfen finally join the split datasheets club, now coming in regular and storm shield flavours. Both share an honestly kind of disappointing defensive statline of T6 2W, but they’re at least speedy at 9”, and can now gain OC if they’re near a Character thanks to “Curse” of the Wulfen.

The lack of a Feel No Pain is the killer for the regular flavour, as they only have a 4+ save, so are very fragile. They are also cheap, priced at 90pts for 5, which means you may well see them in a similar role to what Skorpekh are doing in Necrons right now (with the added similarity of being able to take built in re-roll 1s to hit if they forego a stormfrag launcher). One squad hiding behind a wall in the mid-board is going to force a lot of enemy stuff to play cautious, and there are plenty of things they’ll trade decently into, even if they’re not exciting as a centrepiece.

The storm shield build is slightly pricier, but obviously more appealing to plan around with a 4+ invulnerable save. They also come with wulfen-brand thunder hammers, which are nifty – the attack count is low, but they’re flat damage 3 and anti-Vehicle/Monster 3+, so if you go for the hit re-roll option, they’ll reliably clip some wounds off almost anything. Any Vehicle/Monster they hit also gets bonked on the head for -1 to hit until your next turn, which can help avoid reprisals. They’re an odd little unit, but a full squad with a Battle Leader in Beastslayer (via an enhancement to let them Lead Wulfen) feels interesting, especially as the Battle Leader gives them re-roll 1s to hit, so you can afford to take the auto-launchers.

Other Units

Thunderwolf Cavalry

Thunderwolf Cavalry may have lost their Leaders in this book, but fear not – they’re still great. The loss of buff access has been compensated for by rolling a bunch of possible boosts into their datasheet, allowing them to move faster (12”) and hit harder. Much harder – their wolf guard weapons are now S5 AP-2 D2 at baseline, and still get +1D on the charge. That makes them a nightmare for enemy heavy infantry, as even a squad of just three of these represents the possibility of severe carnage, and if you can find any way to give them +1 to Wound then they threaten almost anything. They’re also cheap, especially MSUs which are only 100pts.. You can use these effectively in both Hunter or Beastslayer in this book, and they’re prime options alongside the Iron Priest if you just want to cherry pick out some datasheets to go in other Detachments. They’re good in Ironstorm, and should still thrive in Stormlance, and I expect to see a Stormlance build with these plus a Stormraven/Iron Priest tag team to show up on my desk before too long.

Venerable Dreadnought

The two builds of the Space Wolves axe Dreadnought survive, which is great news for people who want to do “whoops all dreadnought” builds. The Venerable Dreadnought can take a nice durable/deadly melee setup of axe/shield, and has a relatively useful +1” to Advance/Charge aura, which makes them good support for any Strategic Reserves charge plans, as bringing them in alongside Murderfang could be hilarious. Depends on the price whether that sees play – as printed, it’s probably too high.

Wulfen Dreadnought

The angrier Dreadnought build foregoes the +1 Advance/Charge aura in favour of a 6+ Feel No Pain and a super Blood Surge, getting to move d6+2” towards the enemy after losing a wound to shooting. That’s a nice tool for pressuring the foe, especially with the shield to provide an Invulnerable Save, and while you don’t ever really need them, they’re pretty funny.

Fenrisian Wolves

If you want some throwaway dogs, and are not including Headtakers, you can buy a unit of five, if you like. Never bad to have cheap ways to add a drop.

How They Will Play

Aggressively, obviously. Pretty much any Space Wolves army is going to be mobile; even if you’re not going straight for the throat with an all-out charge, you have plenty of mobility to leverage getting into position, and can set up a fairly nightmarish mid-game for most opponents. Once battle is joined, it’s all about getting the right units into the right targets – Space Wolves have some all-rounder threats, but many of their units excel when they’re picking the right fights, so you want to use that mobility to set the terms of engagement, and tear the opponent’s throat out. If things start to go awry, you have your powerful heroes to try and save the day, and you’ll definitely see Characters as centrepieces of Space Wolves armies even more so than in other Chapters.

Example Army List – Stormlance Task Force

Army List - Click to Expand

Normally for 10th Edition Codexes the army lists all live in the Detachment Focuses, but because Space Wolves are (begrudgingly) subject to the Codex Astartes, they have a host of existing Detachments to choose from, and we wanted to show off an out-of-the-box option for building a competitive list with the new book.

Unsurprisingly, Stormlance Task Force is the name of the game. The existing strong synergy this Detachment has for Thunderwolf Cavalry remains, and while they’re not going to be the core of an army any longer, 3×3 is still a minimum take in Stormlance. You can even keep the ability to launch one unit into battle from Reserves turn one – their Leaders may be gone, but Logan gives you that capability (and is a fine inclusion as a solo threat in any aggressive army). Njal also thrives in Stormlance, as obviously auto-Advance 6” is great with Advance/Charge, and he helps the Grey Hunters be an absolute menace here.

The other reason that Stormlance looks better than ever for Space Wolves is that the Stormraven Gunship was already a menace in this Detachment thanks to Ride Fast, Ride Hard making it ultra durable, and its gun loadout makes it a fantastic user of the new Rapid Fire buff from the Iron Priest. It will rain fire from the skies and annihilate your foes, which is generally good news for you.

Final Thoughts

Wings: This book has required much deeper consideration than the average Marine one, and I’ve ended up fairly hot on it. Fundamentally, the lists I’ve devised for two of the three book Detachments feel real, and there are strong builds available with the existing Marine stuff as well. All of these make active use of some of the cool toys from the book, and feel pretty on-point thematically, so that’s got to count as a win.

I do think the shock to the system for people with existing armies is going to be much harsher than for any other Marine build as well, which I expect is going to leave a sour taste for some people. The massive number of departing units plus the unusually harsh restrictions on Leaders is going to shake things up heavily for some players, and I think there are a few more units they needed to put kits out for if they were going to go this route, most notably a generic Rune Priest and a Terminator Character. It’s bizarre that there are no non-named Leaders for Wolf Guard Terminators, and I’m hoping that at least a few Characters (probably just Terminator Captains and regular Librarians) get grandfathered into Leader compatibility by an FAQ.

At least these decisions are in service of something. I think having access to that balancing lever, and thus being able to push units like Grey Hunters harder, and add some nuance to the power budget of the Detachments is very helpful, and I assume the next time around the Codex train this is going to be the standard for non-compliant Marines. Making me actively want to put Grey Hunters in a list without them also being totally busted in some way is no mean feat, so good job on that one. The power budgeting isn’t always perfect (Saga of the Hunter is so much worse than the other two), but a first try with a new lever rarely is.

Overall, a solid B+ here. I am generously subtracting only a small number of points for the abomination that is the Iron Priest on the assumption it only lasts a few months. Don’t screw me over on that one GW.

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