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Since they became the first Space Marines chapter to receive their own Codex all the way back in 2nd edition, Space Wolves have been among the most popular space marine chapters. Known for their martial prowess, ferocity in combat, and occasional boasting, Space Wolves mix the aesthetic of viking warriors with the sensibilities of the Adeptus Astartes (with a dash of werewolves thrown in for good measure). The Space Wolves have had a bit of a rocky road through competitive play but have recently re-emerged as a force to be reckoned with in 9th edition.

Chapter Overview

Way back in 2nd edition, Space Wolves were the very first codex for Warhammer 40,000 – if you like to complain about codex creep or “unfinished” editions, these are the guys to blame for that whole process starting! The Wolves of Fenris are a storied Chapter, with their Primarch Leman Russ appearing in the original Rogue Trader rulebook (in a very different form) and even having a model, something not to be repeated in regular 40k until 7th edition. Their divergent nature was evident even in 2nd edition, especially when Codex: Ultramarines came out and showed us what the template for a regular Space Marine Chapter would be, and they’ve only shied away from the Codex Astartes more since then with the addition of units like the Wulfen and Thunderwolf Cavalry. Here in 9th edition, we’re at something of a halfway house – Codex Supplement: Space Wolves is once again a supplement to the main Codex: Space Marines, like in 3rd edition, but it retains one of the longest lists of unique datasheets, with several replacing core Space Marine units outright.

On the table the Space Wolves are a combined arms force like other Space Marines, though they favor close combat where they can make the most of their ferocious melee abilities. Our resident hairy Viking Jon “JONK” Kilcullen is here to take us through how they play and talk about their unique strengths.

Strengths

• Close combat: The combat doctrine, the detachment ability, the relics, the psychic abilities and the warlord traits are all geared to give you the best possible outcome when you reach combat. This is where Wolves do their most damage.
• Characters with aura support: Wolves bring the heat when it comes to named characters; there are a wealth of them and, unlike 8th edition, a lot of them are actually pretty good.  Even when playing a successor chapter, the basic characters running around with multiple auras are allowed to fill many different roles for very competitive price points
• Strong chapter tactic: Kind of speaks for itself. Having the ability to heroic with any unit in the army and move 6 inches with characters for free opens up a lot of options and counter play. +1 to hit after charging, being charged or performing a heroic also increases the reliability of the Wolves’ combat – most of the time you’re gonna be hitting on 2s, which with a re-roll 1s to hit aura will mean you’re as close to guaranteed hits as Warhammer gets.

Weaknesses

• Weak Warlord traits: For the most part you will just be using the Warlord traits from the core Codex: Space Marines, because they are just much better, which is a sad downgrade from 8th edition where Wolves had some great traits of their own.
• Shooting: While there are a couple of decent stratagems to help your shooting for the most part other factions do it much better and more reliably.
• Relics/Sagas: For the most part the relics and Sagas unique to this book are pretty narrative focused and have minimal competitive value. There are a couple pretty decent ones but the way in which you complete deeds leaves something to be desired.

Rules

Chapter Tactic – Hunters Unleashed

Each time a model with this tactic makes a melee attack, if that model’s unit made a charge move, was charged or performed a heroic Intervention this turn, add 1 to that attack’s hit roll.  Units with this tactic are eligible to perform heroic interventions as if they were characters. As mentioned in the Strengths section above, this is a strong tactic – your melee attacks hit extremely reliably, and your opponent is never safe trying to steal an objective from you without getting a Fenrisian fist to the face.

Doctrine – Savage Fury

If your army is 100% Space Wolves, you gain the following additional ability on all models with the Combat Doctrines ability:

While the Assault Doctrine is active, each time a model makes a melee attack, an unmodified hit roll of 6 scores 1 additional hit

This is a strong doctrine that comboes well with the Chapter tactic, encouraging you even more to pile into melee.

One thing to note is that there was previously some controversy over whether this doctrine could be accessed when your army was not actually in the Assault Doctrine, such as by use of the Instincts Awoken ability or the Adaptive Strategy stratagem. This argument hinged on a wording technicality, but as of the most recent FAQ to Codex: Space Marines it is confirmed that you do get your doctrine bonus. This makes adding a Librarian to your forces much more worth it in order to get one unit into the Assault doctrine right away.

Stratagems

Wolves have their own set of unique stratagems in the Codex Supplement. While there’s some great stuff in here, 8th edition Wolf players will mourn the loss of the Psychic Awakening stratagems which have disappeared – you get quite a bit less here than you did there.

Battle Tactics

• Go For The Throat – 2CP – Use this Stratagem in your command phase if the Assault Doctrine is active for your army.  Until your next command phase, each time a Space Wolves model from your army makes an attack with a pistol or melee weapon, on an unmodified wound roll of 6 improve the armour penetration of that attack by 1. This bonus is cumulative with combat doctrines. You can only use this stratagem once per battle. Why on earth is this 2 CP?  F-
• Cunning of the Wolf – 1CP –  Use this stratagem during deployment. Select one Space Wolves infantry unit from your army.  All models in that unit gain the Outflank ability. Great for opening up “true” Outflank instead of the limited Strategic Reserves version, especially if you have something > 10PL you wanted to bring in. B
• The Emperor’s Executioners – 1CP – Use this stratagem in the Fight phase, when a Space Wolves unit from your army is selected to fight. Until the end of the phase, each time a model in that unit makes a melee attack against a Thousand Sons unit, you can re-roll the hit roll and you can re-roll the wound roll. Great against Thousand Sons, worthless against everything else. At least having their own Codex means you’re marginally more likely to see Thousand Sons on the table than most CSM Legions. A-/F depending.
• Savage Strike – 1CP/2CP – Use this stratagem in the Fight phase, when a Space Wolves unit from your army is selected to fight. If that unit made a charge move this turn, then until that fight is resolved, each time a model in that unit makes a melee attack, add 1 to that attack’s wound roll. If that unit has 5 or fewer models, this stratagem costs 1CP; otherwise it costs 2CP.  A strong stratagem against anything that means you’re punching up into high Toughness. A
• Healing Balms – 1CP – Use this stratagem at the end of your Movement phase. Select one Space Wolves infantry, biker or cavalry model from your army within 3″ of a friendly Space Wolves Wolf Priest to be healed. That model regains up to D3 lost wounds. Each model can only be healed once per turn. It’s not a bad stratagem on its own but all other Space Marines get the Chief Apothecary/Selfless Healer combo to do this cheaper and better. D
• Pack Hunters – 2CP – Use this stratagem in your Charge phase.  Select one enemy unit within engagement range of any Space Wolves units from your army. Until the end of that turn, each time a friendly Space Wolves beast or cavalry unit declares a charge that targets the selected unit, roll one additional D6 and discard one of those dice. Until the end of the turn, each time a friendly Space wolves Cavalry model makes an attack with its crushing teeth and claws against the selected unit, and each time a friendly Space Wolves beast model makes an attack with its teeth and claws against the selected unit, you can re-roll the wound roll. Cool if you’re running Thunderwolf Cavalry. B

Epic Deeds

• Cloaked by the Storm – 2CP – Use this stratagem in your Psychic phase, after resolving the effects of a psychic power from the Tempestas discipline manifested by a Space Wolves psyker model from your army. Until the start of the next psychic phase, each time a ranged attack is made against a friendly Space Wolves unit within 6″ of that psyker model, subtract 1 from that attack’s hit roll. This is a very near mandatory stratagem for the Dreadnought list and can be very helpful in specific matchups. B+
• Deed Worthy of a Saga – 2CP – Use this stratagem in any phase, when a Space Wolves character model (excluding vehicle models) from your army that does not have a Warlord trait meets the requirements for a Deed (pg 49). At the end of the phase, until the end of the battle, that model gains the saga ability associated with that deed. Just too expensive for what you actually get from a Saga.  D

Requisitions

• A Trophy Bestowed – 1CP –  Give a successor a proper Space Wolves relic. There’s some really strong Wolves lists out there using successor rules, and this is critical for gettign the Armour of Russ into those lists. A
• Thane of the Retinue – 1CP – Give a Sergeant Pack Leader either Master-crafted, Digital Weapons, Morkai’s Bolts, or a Frost Weapon. Like with all the other versions of this your most likely use is to give a Sergeant some kind of master-crafted weapon. A bit better than the other versions because frost weapons are just the same thing as Master-Crafted but better, and you can make S5 D2 lightning claws which is not bad at all. B
• Warrior of Legend – 1CP- Use this stratagem after nominating a Space Wolves character model that is not a named character to be your warlord; your Warlord can get one extra trait which must be from the Space Wolves warlord traits table. Each warlord trait in your army must be unique (if randomly generated, re-roll duplicate results). In Wolves you also get access to any relevant Sagas, assuming you have multiple Wolf traits. Good for comboing something like Imperium’s Sword with Hunter on a beatstick character. A

Strategic Ploys

• Bestial Nature -1CP – Use this stratagem in your Command phase if a combat doctrine is active for your army. Select one Space Wolves infantry, cavalry, or biker unit from your army.  Until the start of your next Command phase, that unit gains the bonus of the assault doctrine instead of the active combat doctrine. This is one of the better stratagems in the book as it allows you to immediately get a unit such as Thunderwolf Cavalry or Wolf Guard kitted out like Vanguard Veterans into the assault doctrine to use Savage Fury. A+
• Counter charge – 1/0CP- Use this stratagem in your opponent’s Charge phase.  Select one Space Wolves unit from your army. Until the end of the phase, that unit is eligible to perform a Heroic Intervention if it is within 6″ horizontally of an enemy unit, and when performing a Heroic Intervention with that unit, you can move each model in that unit up to 6″.  All other rules for Heroic Intervention still apply. 1CP for most units, 0CP for characters. Actually getting to use it is 50/50, but the threat of having a 6″ heroic is enough to give you a surprising amount of contrl over an objective, or force your opponent into fights they didn’t want. B
• Keen Senses – 1CP – Use this stratagem in your Shooting phase. Select one Space Wolves infantry, biker, or cavalry unit from your army. Until the end of the turn, you can ignore any or all hit roll, ballistic skill and weapon skill modifiers, and each time you make a charge roll for that unit, you can ignore any or all modifiers to that charge roll. This is a very good stratagem, especially after the core rules change to Difficult Terrain which means you get to ignore it again. A

Wargear

• Runic Wards – 1CP – Use this stratagem in your opponent’s Psychic phase, after a psychic test is passed for an enemy Psyker unit.  Select one Space Wolves unit from your army within 12″ of that Psyker unit. The unit you selected can attempt to deny that psychic power by taking a deny the witch test as if they were a Psyker. A solid utility stratagem to get an extra Deny on the table. B+

Warlord Traits/Saga

Space Wolves get their own table of 6 Warlord traits, as below. The unique spin here is that as well as getting a trait, you can unlock a Saga bonus by completing a specific action in-game, called a Deed. All the bonuses are a 6″ aura that affects SPACE WOLVES CORE, and they start from the end of the phase – so worth bearing in mind these won’t trigger immediately and e.g. allow you to unlock advance and charge for units you want to charge this phase with Hunter.

1. Beastslayer – +1 attack/to hit/to wound vs vehicles and monsters. The Deed is killing an enemy monster or vehicle with this model, getting you an aura of +1 to wound vehicles/monsters with melee attacks. Better than it was in 8th; how good it is depends on the meta and whether there’s enough vehicles/monsters out there that you’ll get to use it consistently. B
2. Wolfkin – D3 extra attacks instead of 1 for Shock Assault, and you get it even if you didn’t charge/get charged/Heroic. Strictly worse than it used to be and no longer gives an aura of +1 attack, instead you just get always-on Shock Assault which isn’t as good, though the Deed is very easy (destroy an enemy model in melee). C
3. Warrior Born – Always fight first. There are better options but it has its uses; gets a bit better after the new FAQ on fights first/last since you can’t be stopped from interrupting (at worst you cancel out with a fight last). Your Deed is killing an enemy character in melee which unlocks fight first as an aura. B
4. Hunter – +1 advance and charge rolls, plus gives you advance and charge, and allows you to fall back/advance and charge. Probably the best trait here, giving you a way bigger threat range, plus completing the Deed (successfully complete a charge) unlocks advance and charge and fall back and charge as an aura.. B+
5. Aura of Majesty – +3″ to auras. The Deed is simply being within range of an objective more than 6″ from your deployment zone, and unlocks an aura to auto-pass Morale. The bonus stacks with itself so your Saga aura is 9″ of a fearless bubble which is ok, and +3″ range on your other auras can help manage them, but you tend to see this more at the mid-tables. C+
6. Resolve of the Bear – 6+ to ignore wounds and no rerolls to hit or wound when targeting this model.  An interesting trait to use with Deed Worthy of a Saga stratagem if a psyker model from your army loses a wound to perils; the Saga gives you a 6+ ignore wounds aura, which is definitely not nothing especially since you can’t get an Apothecary normally. B-

Psychic Powers

In line with other Chapters, the Space wolves have their own psychic discipline. Regular Librarians can pick from this or the Librarius or Obscuration disciplines (depending on what type of Librarian they are), while Njal Stormcaller must pick from the Tempestas tree.

1. Living Lightning – WC6 – Similar to last edition it does D3 mortals to the closest visible unit within 18″,  then bounces to the next closest target within 6″ of the original unit for 1 (on a roll of 2-4) or d3 (on a 5-6) mortal wounds. As gimmick smites go it’s not bad but this will just never be taken due to how strong the other powers are. C
2. Murderous Hurricane – WC6 – 18″ range and no line of sight requirement; stops one enemy unit from being able to Overwatch (unless they’re wholly on a piece of terrain) and the unit fights last. One of the big 3 powers here – being able to turn off Counter-offensive at range is great. A+
3. Tempest’s Wrath – WC6 – Pick a unit within 24″ and that unit suffers -1 to hit (both ranged and shooting). Not as good as it used to be due to how hit modifiers work this edition, and like Living Lightning there’s 3 powers ahead of it. C
4. Instincts Awoken – WC6 – Pick a SPACE WOLVES unit within 18″; that unit either counts as being in the Assault Doctrine or get extra AP on unmodified 6s to wound if you’re already in the Assault Doctrine. A near must include if you are running a combat heavy Wolves list, since it’s another way to unlock the Doctrine bonus. A+
5. Storm Caller – WC6 – Gives all Space Wolves models within 6″ of the psyker the bonus of Light Cover. The final big 3 spell Dreadnought-heavy or Cavalry lists. A+
6. Jaws of the World Wolf – WC7 – The second gimmick Smite and the worst power here; you pick one enemy unit within 18″ and visible and roll a d6 for each model in the unit, and do a mortal wound on 6s, or 5s if you rolled a 9+ for the Psychic test. A whole lot of work to do 5-10 mortal wounds to your absolute optimal target, a full size squad of Boyz.  Do not even bother with this one. It’s terrible. F-

Relics

The relic section has 2 very good relics mixed with several pointless ones. For the casual player there is some fun flair with the weapon relics but once you move into the competitive realm everything here is pretty weak outside of the Wulfen Stone and Armour of Russ.

• The Armour of Russ: You get both the ability to make an enemy within Engagement Range fight last on top of a 2+/4++ save profile. One of the 2 relics really worth taking. A+
• The Wulfen Stone: The bearer gives an aura of reroll failed charges for CORE within 6″, and once per game you can pick a Space Wolevs unit within 6″ to get exploding 5s in combat instead of 6s if the assault doctrine is active. If you are looking for reliable charges this is where you start. A+
• Fireheart: A relic plasma pistol with S9 AP-4 that does flat 3 damage. Whatever, don’t waste a relic slot on this. C
• Black Death: Replaces a power axe, gives D6 additional attacks but they’re only S+2 AP-2 D1. It’s cute but you’re never going to take this, there’s way too much variance and it doesn’t even hit that hard.  F
• Mountain Breaker Helm: On a roll of 2+ it does D3 mortal wounds to a model in engagement range. This happens after fighting and before you consolidate, so it’s ok for punching wounds through something you didn’t quite kill, but you’re not likely to have a CP or slot spare for this after you take stuff that’s actually good. C
• The Storm’s Eye: An aura that does 1 mortal wound to models within 12″ of a psyker on a 4+, after you cast a Tempestas power. Way too cute for too little actual effect. D
• The Pelt of Balewolf: -1 to hit and wound on this model. This is just kind of there. C

Special-Issue Wargear

• Adamantine Mantle. Lets a model ignore wounds on a 5+. A solid boost in durability for a character, and best on characters who don’t benefit from taking artificer armour. C
• Artificer Armour. Gives the model a 2+ save and a 5+ invulnerable save. Fantastic for models with power armour saves who need the durability boost, i.e. bike and jump pack characters, especially those that don’t already have an Iron Halo. Storm shield characters can get down to a 1+ save by taking advantage of this. B
• Master-Crafted Weapon. Increases the damage characteristic of a non-relic weapon by 1. In Space Wolves you have frost weapons right there which does the exact same thing but better. C
• Digital Weapons. The model gets to make an extra attack every time it fights using the generic close combat weapon profile and if that attack hits, the enemy takes a mortal wound on top of the other damage. Not worth the CP or relic slot. D
• Wolf Tail Talisman.  4+ save vs mortal wounds for the model/unit.  If the meta drastically shifted towards a heavy mortal wound spam, this would increase in value. For now it’s a niche relic that is probably just better done by taking Hounds of Morkai. C
• Frost Weapon.  +1 damage and strength for either lightning claws, power axes, or power swords – and you can stack with master-crafted versions if the model has them. Throwing this on a lightning claw changes the maths on one pretty well, or even potentially a pair. A
• Runic Weapon. Librarian only; you get +1 Strength for your force weapon and +1 to Deny rolls.  If you are not using Njal this is decent for boosting your psychic defence. C+

Chapter Approved – Secondary Objectives

Space Wolves have access to 4 codex specific secondaries, two from Purge the Enemy and two from No mercy, No Respite. These add a bit of unique game play to the Wolves and are mostly suited to what the faction is built to do: Hand-to-hand combat. That said, they’re mostly mediocre.

Purge the Enemy

• Glory Kills: Score 2VP if you kill a character, score 1VP if you do at least 3 wounds to a character. Score 3VP if a monster was destroyed, score 1VP if you do at least 3 wounds to a monster.  Very situational, obviously pretty good into a monster mash style list that is character heavy.  You are mostly better off just going with assassinate. C
• Heroic Challenge: You score 5VP for issuing a challenge with a character to a character and then killing that character, killing it in melee and finally killing it with the issued champion. This one is needlessly difficult and pretty pointless. It is far far too easy for your opponent to stop you from scoring this outside of tabling them in which case you are likely winning anyways. Better suited to tooling around throwing your generals at each other in casual play than for trying to squeeze out points in competitive. C

No Mercy, No Respite

• A Mighty Saga: There’s a whole laundry list of stuff here that comes down to your Warlord achieving things in melee – taking wounds off a MONSTER or VEHICLE, killing a MONSTER or VEHICLE, killing an enemy CHARACTER, destroying 5+ models, being in range of an objective wholly in your opponent’s deployment zone at the start of the Command phase. You get 2 VP per thing you complete each battle round, to a max of 5 per battle round, so there’s high scoring potential, but if your Warlord dies it’s game over – which makes it pretty risky. F
• Warrior Pride: Score 3VP if you have 2 units in Engagement Range at the end of your turn, or if you had 2 units complete a charge move in your turn. This one fits what the Wolves really want to be doing and has some fringe uses. It is best used in a Thunderwolf Cavalry heavy list where you can push aggressively and keeping making charges, but overall is a bit too risky as it forces you into very specific play styles that your opponent can play around and set you up for poor plays that have to be made. C+

 

Units

As we all know, Space Wolves have a huge amount of unique characters and units that really allow you to make this feel more like a space wolves army and less like another Space Marines army. From this point on we’ll drop the rating system since that particular tool isn’t as useful when it comes to evaluating units. Most of these will come down to the list you’re trying to build and how you’re apt to use them, though there are some choices that are clearly better-suited to competitive play.

HQ

Logan Grimmnar on Stormrider

The longest serving Chapter master of Fenris, Logan Grimmnar has come back from obscurity to lead the forces of Fenris after spending almost the entirety of 8th edition on the bench. Through most of early 9th edition, Grimnar was a mainstay in competitive Space Wolves lists but as the edition rolls on and more and more deadly threats are introduced to other armies he’s become harder to field, instead crowded out by cheaper options.

In the 9th edition Supplement, Grimnar now comes with Angels of Death and, more importantly, Swift Hunters, which allows him to declare a charge in the turn in which it advanced, plus he can also can pile-in and consolidate an additional 1″. This is pretty much the one rule Wolves needed last edition and now Logan has it, allowing him to get where he needs to go and close gaps quickly. Equipment-wise he comes equipped with the Belt of russ (4+ invulnerable save) and his trusty Axe Morkai which is both reliable and versatile. Grimnar’s The high king of Fenris ability means that if you choose Logan to be your Warlord his deed is considered to always be complete. His warlord trait is Aura of Majestry which makes everyone within 9″ of him fearless. It’s better than nothing, but it’s not particularly useful (Space Marines generally lack the kind of dirt-cheap, low-Ld horde units you’d need to make this worthwhile). Like all other Captains you get the re-roll 1’s to hit aura for CORE units within 6″ and he comes stock with the Chapter master ability to grant a CORE or Character unit full-re-rolls each turn (if he’s running too far afield from your army, he can still use it on himself).

While Grimnar’s model is amazing and has aged well, the edition has somewhat passed him by. If this article had been written in the early days of 9th edition I would not have been able to shut-up about just how strong he is, but these days he’s more of a liability. The current meta in 9th edition is just too dangerous and the fact that it is not getting any less dangerous means Logan for the most part will continue to be a visual centerpiece on the shelf come tournament day.

Grimnar on foot isn’t worth your time.

Njal Stormcaller

Njal returns this edition with a pretty sub-par statline but has some pretty solid abilities to bolster his case, making him a model typically worth looking at when building Wolves lists. Lord of the Tempests gives Njal +1 to his Psychic tests and Staff of the Stormcaller let him re-roll his Deny the Witch tests, making Njal a strong psychic presence on the table, both offensively and defensively, and make him a very reliable caster. Njal’s biggest issue is that he only knows two powers (though he can Deny two per phase), which is a bit lame for the iconic Chief Librarian of the Space Wolves. If you are running a standard wolves list and need a decent psyker he most likely can make up his points.

Bjorn The Fell-Handed 

Bjorn got a bit better entering into 9th edition now that he comes with Duty Eternal to improve his longevity. However the lack of an invulnerable save ultimately does him in – by the time you’re in position to need the damage reduction, you’re usually just going to die anyways to the D3+3 or D6+2 guns aimed your direction. Bjorn comes with a Rites of Battle Aura and you can use Wisdom of the Ancients to give him Tactical Precision, making him a potent force multiplier for say, a number of Redemptor dreadnoughts. While that’s interesting, Bjorn hasn’t changed much and he’s brought down by being too many points to be worth including most of the time.

Arjac Rockfist

Arjac is a relic from a more Enlightened Age. He comes with one of the few 3+ invulnerable saves in the Space Marines army thanks to Anvil Shield and along with it the WOLF GUARD keyword, which now means… absolutely nothing (I am totally not mad about this). (Rob: Let the record show that JONK is furious about this. Please put it in the newspaper that he was mad). In 9th edition Arjac seems to be geared towards character duels and monster hunting as his hammer Foehammer increases damage to flat 4 against those targets and his ability Champion of the Kingsguard allows Arjac to reroll all hit rolls when targeting a character. That’s a nasty one-two punch.

Overall, Arjac is pretty durable but slow, though he’s very reliable once he arrives in combat. Unfortunately in a world where you are pretty limited on your HQ slots, Arjac doesn’t quite make the cut.

Ulrik the Slayer

There unfortunately is not a lot to say about Ulrik as he just does not have any real standout rules outside of Slayer’s Oath which only occurs if he kills a character or monster. Slayer’s Oath just allows Ulrik to inspire his litanies without needing to roll, which will tend to be long after you really need them. A marine from the before times (the days before Primaris) that is most likely on the way out and his rules and stat-line feel like it.

Ragnar Blackmane

Much like Grimnar, if this article was written at the start of 9th a lot of this article would revolve around Ragnar as he was extremely good before the 9th edition Space Wolves Code Supplement released. Unfortunately with the new rules Ragnar suffers more than almost any other unit in the book – he’s lost the ability to fight twice, both through Honour the Chapter (which now only affecting Assault Intercessor Squads) and by losing the ability to fight a second time on death through Only in Death Does Duty End. These hurt him more than anything else.

He still comes with great rules, however: War Howl allowing CORE units to re-roll failed charges within 6″ of Ragnar is a great way to increase your reliability in the charge phase and Battle-lust really helps your army travel even further during the Fight phase, which is pretty important for any combat army – Movement is life. Ragnar himself is still coming in with 10 attacks on the charge with his strength 6, AP -4 2-damage Frostfang, which is absolutely no joke. Ragnar’s combat prowess took a hit but he’s still incredibly reliable. Most of the issues now revolve around him being a Captain and not having access to the Chapter Master upgrade, which means he can not give full re-rolls to any core units. You now either have to take a Chaplain along for the ride or you need to take a second Captain and upgrade them to Chapter Master for the benefit, and neither is very efficient. This leaves Ragnar in an odd spot on any highly competitive army roster – he’s more a nice-to-have than a must-take and so most of the time you’re likely to end up fielding a stock Chapter Master instead.

Krom Dragongaze

Harald Deathwolf

The other guys of the Space wolves codex, both are Captains and suffer from the same issues Ragnar does but are also less well-equipped meaning you will just never see either of these models on the table. Krom just has no reason to not be a Legends model at this point; most people have forgotten he is even a list option. Harald has some pretty interesting flavor and I often come back and look at him wishing I could fit him in to my lists, but ultimately there are just better options. Mantle of the troll king makes him pretty hard to pull down when combined with his storm shield.

Canis Wolfborn

We have reached the end of our unique HQ characters and we end it off with THE Company champion of the 6th legion, Canis. Canis has several pretty strong rules, an almost competitive price point and a decent statline. The big downside to Canis is that he really does not give much aura support to core units outside of Born of wolves, which gives an additional 2 attacks to flurry of teeth and claws and 1 attack to teeth and claws/crushing teeth and claws. Honour or Death allows him to now heroically intervene at 6 inches and his final ability is Martial Superiority, which makes him fight first if he’s within Engagement Range of any enemy CHARACTER units. This is no fight last, but it does help shore up a weakness of Heroic Interventions in 9th by giving you a means to ensure you’ll fight before some of the units you’re intervening against.

Canis is a very cool character riding a very big Thunderwolf however this edition has mostly passed him by.  Your characters need to really pack a punch, have great durability and offer support for your other units, particularly if they’re going to cost you more than 100 points. Canis misses out on the second entirely and mostly the third element.

Troops

Although many Space Wolves units have been folded into the core marines Codex, the two custom Troops choices – Blood Claws and Grey Hunters – have stuck around. I am still a fan of these unique troop choices and I enjoy that we get these options.

Blood Claws

Moving up to 2 wounds per model and having a fairly competitive price point (18ppm) makes this unit a pretty strong candidate to include in your army when you need a cheap action unit or backfield holder. Being able to include a Wolf Guard Pack Leader in the unit really helps make them a versatile addition: A single storm shield on a 3-wound terminator can slant a lot of math in your favor when it comes to wound allocation, requiring opponents to invest way more quality shooting into the unit than they would otherwise want to in order to shift them off an objective. As a wolves player this is what your list is all about – trying to make every unit require an annoying amount of shooting to remove, buying all your other units just a little more time to cross the table. Blood Claws still have two rules – Beserk Charge and Headstrong – which give them an additional attack on the charge and force them to declare a charge if they’re in range to do so and don’t include a Wolf Guard in the unit.

Grey Hunters

Grey hunters are your basic tactical marine equivalent except they also have the option to take a Wolf Standard which allows them to re-roll 1s when they advance or charge. It’s not actually a bad option but I personally have always favored the more combat-oriented Blood Claws instead.

Elites

This is the most value-loaded section of the space wolves Codex. There’s a ton to cover here but this is typically where Space Wolves lists are made or broken. A battalion Detachment gives you 6 elite slots and you will often find yourself taking all 6 slots when building a Wolves list.

Wolf Guard/Wolf Guard Terminators

This is the current apex predator of Codex Supplement: Space Wolves. Wolf Guard find their way into almost every successful competitive list. They’re incredibly versatile, and their vast weapon and loadout options makes it nearly impossible to not include them in a list. Standard Wolf Guard are very competitively costed at 19ppm with an addition +2ppm for jump packs and it’s hard to find a more threatening version of Vanguard Veterans among all the Space Marine chapters, particularly once you start piling on the stratagems, relics, deeds, and the Space Wolves’ chapter tactic (or successor options). All these together make for a group of incredibly deadly, durable, reliable marines. Combining the Hunters Unleashed or Born Heroes effect to get +1 to hit on the charge with the Savage Strike Stratagem give you a unit that hits on 2s with lightning claws and re-rolls wound with +1 to wound, which is already an extremely reliable unit for doing damabe before you take into account effects like Savage Fury or the successor tactic Whirlwind of Fury. There are also several key stratagems you’ll end up using with this unit, such as Keen Senses to ignore negative modifiers, Bestial Nature to put the unit into Assault Doctrine and trigger Savage Fury and the extra AP bonus, and Counter Charge to threaten opponents with a deadly combat unit that can heroically intervene and move 6 inches doing so. This last one is more a bluff/threat than something you’ll actually want to do but it’s nice to have as an option and sometimes the best tricks are the ones you don’t have to use (please make sure to inform players that you have this ability in advance; no one likes a “gotcha hammer” player). It’s hard to even narrow down a small set of uses for this unit as everyone has their own take on what weapons they need, how many shields they bring, etc. Often you’re going to tailor your Wolf Guard to your local meta more specifically, or to the event you’re attending. Having a unit you can do this with is one of the key reasons why the Space Wolves remain one of the most competitive marine factions.

Wolf Guard Terminators have a slightly different role as they are more of a board control unit that you can use to take up space and hold objectives while pushing out a lot of horde-clearing fire power while being just dangerous enough in combat to make people not want to charge them. Fury of the first allows them to get an additional +1 to hit in combat which, when combined with Hunters Unleashed will allow you to offset the initial -1 to hit with weapons like thunder hammers and then still hit that all important 2+ weapon skill mark.

Lukas the Trickster

Lukas is an odd character and always has been; he’s in one of the most competitive slots for Wolves and ultimately that means he’s not going to see play competitively. He does have some pretty funky rules however and would be pretty wild in a all Blood Claw keyword list allowing them to re-roll hit rolls with his Blood Claws Hero Aura. Lukas comes with Pelt of the Doppegangrel and The last laugh which gives him always-on Transhuman Physiology (rolls of 1-3 to wound always fail) and allows him to explode and do D6 mortal wounds if you beat your opponent in a roll-off when he dies to a melee attack. A cool model and a cool idea but not particularly competitive.

Hounds of Morkai

This is an interesting unit for Space Wolves; the Hounds are essentially a chapter-specific unit of Reivers, but specialized in hunting Psykers. They do a pretty good job of it and if you are in a meta that is heavily slanted towards mortal wounds via the psychic phase this is the unit for you. They can be taken in unit sizes of up to 10 and come stock with 2 wounds and Runic Totems, which prevents them from being the target of psychic powers unless they’re the closest target and lets them ignore mortal wounds in the Psychic phase on a 4+. Hunters beyond death lets them ignore the Look Out, Sir rule when targeting psyker units and gives them +1 to hit and +1 damage when targeting those psykers, making them very dangerous against Thousand Sons, Grey Knights, Chaos Daemons, Tyranids, and Craftworlds Eldar. Finally their Morkai’s Howl ability gives enemy psykers within 18″ -1 to their psychic tests, which bumps up to -2 within 6″. They’re a bit pricey at 22 points per model but in the right meta these can be a very strong play, and with Thousand Sons and Grey Knights about to hit the scene again they’re likely to see more play. Against some armies they’ll very easily make their points back in value and opponents may be forced to play around their auras.

Wulfen

Wulfen are one of the most misunderstood units the wolves have to offer, and historically are responsible for an outsized share of the blame for why Space Wolves win rates were so low in 8th edition. Even as someone who has continually been at war with my Fenrisian peers about their utility, I can say that, for a brief moment in 9th after the Index was published and before the 9th edition Codex was released Wulfen had a bright outlook. But right now they’re a unit struggling to find their place in lists. They didn’t gain any wounds in the transition to 9th edition despite hope that they might, they lost their ability to Advance and charge, and they lost the 3+ invulnerable save from their storm shields as they moved to be in-line with other storm shield options. They also lost the ability to fight twice they’d enjoyed in 8th and being on the outside looking in with the CORE keyword means they have almost no support from character auras, which absolutely guts their ability to compete. On to of that slap on Bestial Rage, which prevents them from doing actions and we have a unit that is pigeon-holed into a very narrow role that other units can often accomplish more effectively. The only upside is that they kept their Wulfen Howl, which gives them and friendly units around them the ability to re-roll charges, and the Savage Killers rule, which means they count as always being in the Assault Doctrine and as having charged.

And for all of this, they’re still too expensive, weighing in at 27 point base and 38 points for the storm shield + thunder hammer combo, a high cost considering everything they lost.

Wulfen Dreadnought

Here’s a much more viable Wulfen model to consider. The Wulfen Dreadnought comes in at 120 points base and 125 for great axe/shield, making it competitively priced for what it has to offer. The Wulfen Dreadnought still struggles from the issue of being in an extremely competitive battlefield role but if you need some very durable, threatening models that require high quality fire to bring down these units are worth a look. Duty eternal combined with the 4+ invulnerable save and being T7 make these problematic to remove. That said, even with 8″ Movement they’re a bit difficult to deliver to combat but if you design a list to take advantage of them, there is almost certainly play with these models.

Murderfang

This model hasn’t changed much from 8th edition; it still gets a ton of attacks on the charge (8 to be exact), it still re-rolls failed charges, and the Murderclaws still do flat 3 damage and re-roll failed wound rolls. As another Wulfen dreadnought of sorts that also gets Duty Eternal and is T7, Murderfang can be a bit of a glass cannon as he lacks the invulnerable save but he does have the CHARACTER keyword, meaning you can protect him with the Look Out, Sir rule until he is ready to pop out and kill something. 150 points seems like a pretty fair cost for the Old Man Murderdreadnought.

 

Fast Attack

Here is where you can really feel the uniqueness of the Space Wolves army – there’s nothing like these units in any other book. Sure, everyone has special terminators these days, but you don’t see Salamanders riding to battle on giant lizards, or Dark Angels riding in on giant uh, swords.

Fenrisian Wolves

“There are no Wolves on Fenris” makes plenty of sense to me – they’re on every other planet now, using heretics as chew-toys. Fenrisian wolves got quite a bit better with the release of the Codex Supplement, which is great because they are such a cool unit to see on the table. Since they all come with Swift hunters they now can Advance and charge, which greatly increases their threat range. Having the Beast keyword in 9th really helps them as well as it means that they can move through ruins just like infantry. They can be taken in units of 5-15, while they are moderately decent in combat and cheap. Their weak save combined with their low leadership means they’ll only see sparing play, however.

Cyberwolves

Just like the Ffenrisian wolves these models get Swift hunters and the Beast keyword, but what makes this unit much better is the unit size of 1-5 and having a 4+ save instead of 6+. What makes the unit size so good is that you typically will take 2 units of 1 model or 1 unit of 1 model and use this unit for all sorts of very annoying things such as blocking out enemy units attempting to deep strike or outflank or rushing out onto objectives early and forcing your opponents to waste firepower removing them. They’re amazing units for playing both primary and secondary objectives and many top Space Wolves players will routinely tell you that a Cyberwolf was the start of the list after a game. It’s crazy to think that a 15-point model would have this kind of impact but, played correctly, it’ll happen. Great unit with an amazing value and perfect price point.  This unit is in many of the best lists around the world and they’ll show up again later in the strategy section of this article.

Thunderwolf Cavalry

Another unit that was absolutely wonderful at the outset of 9th edition and if we were still living in that world I’d be gushing about them. Unfortunately for Thunderwolf Cavalry times have changed; 4-wound models just do not live as long as they used to with the proliferation of weapons that do either D3+3 of D6+2 damage. These weapons are absolutely devastating for Thunderwolf Cavalry, who come in at 45 points per model base and 55 with a claw and shield. It’s extremely difficult to find value in a unit that runs more than 50 points per model and still frequently loses a model every time it feels a 4+ save. That said, in the right meta they’re as good as they’ve ever been and if you find yourself playing in a lower-powered environment or dropping in for a casual game, sub in some Thunderwolf Cavalray and have some fun. Thunderwolves have both the CORE keyword and the Swift Hunters ability, the latter of which gives them a very wide threat range. As with Wolf Guard TWC are highly customizable and can be tailored to nearly any meta. The only Stratagem that really affects them is Pack Hunters, which is pretty situational but when you really need a charge to go off and you really need to kill a unit, it’s worth the 2 CP.

Skyclaws

The jump pack version of Blood Claws, they come in with a ton of attacks on the charge thanks to the Berserk Charge rule and between their options and the Wolf Guard Pack Leader there’s a lot of diversity in their potential loadouts. Coming in at 20 ppm Skylcaws are a pretty cheap unit that can be ideal for performing actions like Retrieve Octarius Data and scoring secondaries like Stranglehold or Engage on All Fronts. They’re a quality option if you need action units.

 

Heavy Support

Space Wolves have one bespoke Heavy Support unit choice but it’s a good one.

Long Fangs

Long Fangs are essentially no different than standard Marine Devastators except they can include a Wolf Guard or Wolf Guard Terminator model in the unit, which makes a world of difference as you can tack on an annoying 2- or 3-wound model with a storm shield and give the unit some extra damage cushion before it starts losing combat effectiveness. You can also take more heavy weapons than normal, since you can have 4-5 Long Fangs in the unit and all of them can take a heavy weapon if they want to. Long Fangs benefit greatly from Keen Senses, which helps them ignore the penalty for moving and shooting heavy weapons the turn they arrive on the table. Long Fangs are a high quality unit, and taking 1 or 2 units in a drop pod equipped with multi-meltas or grav-cannons can be a strong choice these days.

Aircraft

This will be very quick. Both the Stormfang Gunship and the Stormwolf are horrible choices and massive point sinks. You pay a lot of points for what are ultimately pretty fragile vehicles. There is almost no way you are going to make your points back with them. If you want to run flyers so badly, look to the standard Codex Marines options instead.

Playing Space Wolves

The Space Wolves have some of the most reliable combat units in the game as well as several niche units with tons of versatility backed up by durable, high-quality shooting platforms. Unlike the poor Blood Angels, Wolves can actually bring shooting and have it do what they need it to do during a game. Unlike White Scars, Wolves have the durability to last through the first couple of turns and are able to deploy on the table almost all the time. At any given time Wolves can feel like both of these factions combined, however they have the tools to deal with each of those factions via relics – particularly the Armour of Russ giving you the advantage in the game of who gets to hit first – and a strong psychic tree.

Space Wolves are very well suited to 9th edition mission and secondary play; it ends up being very hard to choose against them and their secondaries are usually going to be tailored to being in specific places instead of trying to kill specific things. Until recently there was really no army in the game that Wolves were worried about choosing secondaries into and there was no game that was not winnable if you played it right, although Drukhari and Ad Mech have changed that a lot either by being able to beat Wolves at their own game of fast-moving combat, or just sit and dakka them off the table. Hopefully there will be some more work done on balancing these two factions in future, but I still like Wolves’ chances if you are a true die-hard. This army is unforgiving to play and extremely unforgiving to play against; what I mean by this is that, like any combat army, movement is life and making an error in your movement phase or an error in your charge sequence priority will essentially cost you the game vs a capable opponent and on the other side of it, Wolves put so much pressure on players that if your opponent makes any movement or deployment errors the game can quickly slide away from them. Trying to dig out Wolves once they have arrived is a nightmare and really by the time someone does, the mission primary has gotten away from them. It takes a massive amount of play time and strong understanding of game planning to get the most out of Wolves especially now, but if you take it one game at a time and put the work in, you can make this faction work for you and it will feel truly rewarding.

I have assembled the all-star crew to give you the best chance to understand how players get the most out of this faction. Currently the top 2 space wolf players in the ITC are Jaime Paris and Robbie Triplett both of which are over 1000 ITC points; since I have not been able to compete due to covid restrictions I have been cheering these 2 guys on all season. They have similar lists but they are different for very specific reasons related to the meta they see.  Finally I will also include my own list which was featured in my return to competitive play article which I believe can address many of the same issues these 2 are addressing.

Key things to Remember

• Movement and positioning:  You will want to deploy and move with-in your game-plans design.  There are a lot of aura’s to manage here, including the librarian’s cast ranges and his own cloaked by the storm stratagem. You want to always know where your key units need to move before you move anything and you need to understand which units need which buffs from which units.  Evaluate this information in deployment and while your opponent is moving then move with purpose in your turn.
• Command phase sequencing:  There are a lot of stratagems that must be used in the Command phase and almost all of them are critical game changing things.  The chapter master’s re-rolls/chaplain’s litanies have specific ranges to their auras so you will always want to plan ahead so you are ready to have the right buffs on the right units at the right times. Have a plan before you go into each turn and be willing to make adjustments as each phase moves on.
• Completing deeds:  So many people including myself will often forget that you have even completed your deed and now have access to things like advance and charge or a feel no pain aura. Seems like a critical thing to remember but it is not something you complete every single game so just remember to watch your characters and then position your models the best way to take advantage of this in the following turn.

Lists

Jaime Paris

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The Standout Features

• • Strong character support while being very dangerous threats themselves
  • Double Long fangs for added pressure
  • Dreadnought castle

This list is the result of an entire season of data and training to arrive here, Jaime has been running a core list like this for a long time now and has made some interesting changes since his last big showing that we wrote about in Competitive Innovations. This list is what he has decided to bring to Charityhammer (a charity event run in the northwest USA that brings together many of the top North American players in the ITC) and he believes it gives him the best shot to compete with the best of them. There was a lot of talk about this list during lockdown era, but now it has started making its rounds on the competitive scene, lead by Jaime and Robbie.

The list gets full value from its MVP, the Librarian. He is the lynch-pin unit here; the list just does not function without him even though realistically he’s only needed for the first 2 turns, which helps a lot since he is sitting on 4 wounds and pretty easy to kill over two turns. Using Stormcaller to get all the vets up to a 1+ save as well as increasing the Dreadnoughts’ saves drastically increases the survivability early on. When you combo this with Cloaked by the Storm to get a -1 to hit aura up around the librarian it becomes even more durable in a pinch (typically you don’t want to do this but if the shooting you are facing is on the extreme side, you will gladly spend the 2 CP). On the offensive side the librarian has Murderous Hurricane ready to go to help dictate where and when the wolf guard go in, making an enemy unit fight last and denying Overwatch. The final key here is which Space Wolf unique relic Jaime decided to take, the Armour of Russ. If Murderous Hurricane fails you have the back up aura to come in and brute force something into fighting last or being able to combo two units to fight last. This can be a crippling blow to many armies when you have several units of wolf guard in combat and there’s no way to interrupt it. Typically once wolves are in at near full health, the game is pretty much over. I am definitely a believer in the AOR librarian after having a couple conversations with Jaime about it, as you will see later on, I have been influenced by him as well in my list.

The choice to upgrade the Captain to Chapter Master is an interesting one that I strongly agree with. When you look at how this list is designed you can see the value here when you are trying to combo double exploding 6s (via Savage Fury and Whirlwind of Rage) with chapter master re-rolls. This can get pretty out of hand especially considering you are re-rolling failed wound rolls with all those lightning claws as well. The Captain is not just there for aura buff, though – as Jaime has said, every character needs to be a serious threat as well. He is squeezing as much combat out of this army as he can. That means that the captain is running around with dual claws that are upgraded using the Frost Weapon special-issue wargear. This pumps the claws up to 2 damage.  Taking Imperium’s Sword bumps up the strength, attacks and allows him to re-roll failed charges meaning your captain will be sitting at 8 attacks on the charge at strength 6 -2 2 damage re-rolling wounds.  The choice of warlord traits is pretty crucial here as Hunter combined with Imperium’s Sword means the threat range on this character is immense while his damage is also crazy, now once you also add in the deed and chapter master rerolls you really have a complete character that is doing as much as possible to get you to the win.  You will see all 3 of us run the exact same set-up, whether one influenced another or not we arrived at the same destination and do not want to leave. It’s a very strong combination.

The Final character in this big 3 is also kitted out for both damage and aura support. The primaris chaplain is an important part of increasing the reliability of the wolf guard, adding Canticle of Hate, Litany of Hate and Litany of faith while also taking the warlord trait Wise Orator to nearly guarantee canticle will go off when he needs it to push the charge roll math in his favor. If Jaime absolutely needs to ensure a charge has the highest chance to succeed he spends 1 CP and uses Commanding Oratory to auto cast Canticle/Litany of hate. Taking Benediction of Fury now makes the chaplain a real threat in combat to continue the army’s theme.  Me and Robbie do not take the chaplain as we feel he is not really needed but Jaime is sticking by it to add that layer of reliability to his list.

The inclusion of 2 units of Long fangs with grav-cannons is the biggest change for Jaime here, dropping them in with the pod and taking up quite a bit of space while also being able to drop them at a range of 30 inches and now creating a back-field heavy support platform.  These 2 units will put out 32 shots that increase in damage if the enemy unit has a save of 3+ or better, very good into our current meta espeically with a stock -3AP profile, now it gets around those pesky Ad Mech and Sisters troops that can ignore -1/-2.

Combine all of the above and you have a very dynamic threatening core that can respond to most threats in the current meta. This style of play rewards people who have extremely strong deployment and movement mechanics who can recognize mistakes and capitalize on them. It’s aggressive and uses multiple threats to entice opponents into making the kinds of target priority mistakes which you really can not afford to make. Opponents have exactly one turn before combat reaches them so there is a massive amount of pressure on them out of the gate.  Like all these lists it will play the primary very well and easily score points via the No Mercy, No Respite secondary choices.

Robbie Triplett

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The Standout Features

• • The Dred castle
  • Sky-claws
  • Character support

The first list to move away from Long fangs and instead pile in a ton of cheap action units that can deepstrike for free or start up the table, a list really built to play the mission secondaries and give Robbie a ton of options as to how and when he scores these.  This is clearly working for him as he has gone over 1000 points in a very competitive region.  The list puts a lot more support out there for the dreadnoughts to keep them up and keep them firing at max efficiency while using his strong combat units to counter charge anything that gets too close.  One big change here as well is the fact that Robbie sticks with the founding chapter instead of choosing to move on and run the successor traits me and Jaime both put a lot of value in.

While this looks similar to Jaime’s list, functionally it plays so much differently as it has different forms of shooting, and much different units to perform actions with, of all the lists this one is the most geared towards playing secondaries hard.  The lone cyberwolf that could is of-course in the list as all of us will tell you, when you need it, it never fails you.  The Sky-claws are a pretty neat unit to pull up into play here and equipping 3 of them with flamers means they put out a decent amount of horde clearing fire while being very dangerous on the charge.  Strong choice, if not quite fragile, this unit would take a lot of play to get used to playing properly and almost certainly will be the unit most people struggle the most with to get right.  This list is coming in very low on Command points so the second thing you really have to be careful with here is how and when you spend these, often newer players will be quick to spend CP on re-rolls that often do not change the math much, or spend it on a neat stratagem that hardly increases the units efficiency.  You need to strip all but the most important stratagems away and you really have to think twice before you use the CP for a re-roll unless it will slant the outcome of the game.  This same idea goes for all of our lists as they run low on CP very quickly if you are not paying attention.

Much like all of our lists the characters really do a lot of the heavy lifting here and we all have our own takes on which characters to add and which to drop but the 2 key units will always remain the same:  Never leave home without a librarian and a Chapter master, these are lynch-pin units that carry the wolves to victory.  When you go up to 4 dreadnoughts in a list, at that point you are getting the maximum value from being able to add a Primaris techmarine.  He will always have someone to buff or fix and it is critical you keep these things alive as long as possible to buy the rest of your list the time it needs to dominate the secondaries.

Jon Kilcullen

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The Standout Features

• • Chapter tactics combined with Savage fury making for a very strong combat phase
  • Durable army that can go out and contest objectives and play the secondary game very well
  • The Claw master which adds a lot of aura support while being incredibly dangerous in combat

Both myself and Jaime have been running a space wolves successor instead of the founding chapter; choosing to take Born heros and Whirlwind of rage which on the charge gives you +1 to hit and exploding 6s to hit.  When you combine this with Savage fury you have the potential to really wrack up the hits on a unit that is in the assault doctrine.  Chapter master re-rolls or a chaplain are needed with this style of play which is why you see both of us put such value on the first.  This list is a lot different than the last 2 and brings far less shooting but makes up for it with durability and an excess of combat units.  With saying that it must go about playing the game a bit different, I have always been a fan of taking secondaries that do not require me to kill anything but instead stand places and score points.  This allows me to play right into the strong suits of this list, which is board control and threat projection.  The Blade guard are all inside impulsors which are mostly hidden, the wolf guard are also deployed on the table to threaten the mid field objectives as a counter charge threat.  The incursors are used to either wall off enemy infiltrating units, or to start up the table to put pressure on opponents by wracking up early primary/secondaries.  The Cyberwolves help with many different things, when I require a back-field objective holder one of them can do it, if I need an early engage or objective I can send one out turn 1 to grab it, just like I can when picking Oaths of the moment.  There are a ton of very interesting plays you can make with these small 15 point units that all net you great value.  If I had the points I would run 3.  The long fangs are the unit that requires opponents to deploy  and to move turn 1 with the idea they need to respect my possible drop.  The unit is great for taking up space and move blocking enemy units while also putting out quality fire using Keen senses.  

Its a fairly simple list but it requires very strong fundamentals as movement and mission play are critical to the success of this list.  You will want to take secondaries that synergize with board control, look at things like ROD, Oaths of the moment, Raise the banners, Engage on all fronts, Mission specific, and/or Stranglehold.  Focus on your early game plan, be very precise with your characters movements and where they need to be next, look for easy units to spring board your army off of and activate the Deed of the hunter this will allow you to respond to any threat anywhere on the table at this stage.  The early game you will really rely on the Librarian to keep up the cloak so you can have -1 to hit and constantly keep the Stormcaller up as long as possible, both will combine to artificially add durability to this already pretty tanky list.  You will always want to be dictating where and when you get engaged in combat and will always be trying to trade up with your units, this is immensely hard to do vs an army like Druhkari but it is not impossible. Depending on the matchup you will want to mostly just hide and toss out a cyberwolf to the mid table then another to a side objective and just see what happens, you have secondaries that just let you score while sitting there so often times this is possible to do to buy yourself a turn and then react to what your opponent decides to do.

Where to Read More

This article is of course paired with the main Start Competing: Space Marines where you can find coverage of the core book, or check out other faction articles if you’re interested in multiple supplements and trying to make your mind up. As ever, if you have any questions or feedback, shoot us an email at contact@goonhammer.com.