Feast of Blades '13

Saturday, July 21, 2012

6th Edition Competitive Space Wolves: Grey Hunter/Wolf Guard Tactics

Hey all, Kevin here to rundown  the current codex line up in order to better understand what we get to face in this edition. Now I will say I am not a space Wolves player but they are starting to look good to me for one reason...Grey hunter spam

Now Grey Hunter spam is nothing new, a bunch of these mean guys in a rhino rush style list has always been popular, made tournament worthy by Tony "The Kid" Kopach on many top tables in the past few years of 5th edition. I use to play Space Wolves A LOT. They were always common and I believe I have played a Space Wolf list in about 85% of tournaments I have played in.....we all knew they were popular, especially in the pre-GK era....so what got so good?

Well with the way the meta is flowing the standard rhino/grey hunter spam list has always been popular and it has gotten even better. Midfield presence and torrent of fire are important in this new rule set (if the way we see the meta going stays true). These guys can lay down a lot of fire and even have decent assault presence and stability. These guys are going to be a staple.

We also saw the usefulness of Wolf Guard have gone up extremely. With the  ability for drop pods to be embarked by terminator armor sticking a guy with a 2+ save in each drop pod of 8 grey hunters is huge. By manipulating the fact that the guy in front must die first rule we can now have a simple wolf guard with terminator armor take all of the shots away from the unit leaving the greater grey hunter unit unscathed for the most part.....this simple tactic will make these units very effective in this edition. The kid can smile.... By having an empty pod we can make sure we get atleast three of these pods down on turn one.

He can also smile since Njal got so much better with that golden 2+ save and the ability to have psychic defense on a 3+.....but not only on units with in 6" but every power, including blessings, with in the 24" range. He also can know divination as well as other book powers.....a very useful character....

Now I do like to talk down the use of missile launchers since they only can fire one shot (aka one hullpoint) and have an effective -1 to last editions chart....so they are not as good. Yet since they can throw 5 of them cheaply in a unit they can lay down enough fire to be anti hull point effective.....so this is what I would run at 1500

HQ
1. Njal

Troops
x8 Grey hunters, plasma gun, mark of wulfen
- wolfguard w/ combi plasma/ melta bombs
- drop pod
x8 Grey hunters, plasma gun, mark of wulfen
- wolfguard w/ combi plasma/ melta bombs
- drop pod
x8 Grey hunters, melta gun, mark of wulfen
- wolfguard w/ combi melta/ melta bombs
- drop pod
x8 Grey hunters, melta gun, mark of wulfen
- wolfguard w/ combi melta/
- drop pod

Heavy Support
1. Long fangs x5, x5 missiles\
- drop pod
2. Long Fangs x5, x5 missiles

So the best list? Maybe...maybe not...but I am tempted to run this as it seems effective...
(thanks for reading and please comment and subscribe)

14 comments:

  1. I am not sure about power fists on Wolf Guard anymore, it means they will strike last in a Challenge

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  2. There are two things that I must have missed in reading the rules. I'd greatly appreciate if you guide me to the place where i can find the rulings. First, where did you find that a terminator can now embark inside a rhino? Also, can you explain or show me where I can find where it states that the first model (in this case a wolf guard in terminator armor) can take all the shooting wounds until he dies before have to allocate to the next closest model? Your help would be greatly appreciated.

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  3. Interesting list, and it'll be interesting to see how it performs.

    Njal is definitely great psychic defense, but it expensive compared to a basic rune priest.

    I'm surprised you've not taken any standards, they are still helpful for squads moving forwards. I normally think if a squads got a powerfist it wants to eventually make it to combat and a standard would be useful.

    I'm still figuring out the best use for transports, is it 12" and get out turn 1, or 18" and get out turn 2. However what I've been trying out is a squad that advanced to mid field. By dropping the rhino I get to fill out the squad to 10 grey hunters plus the wolf guard, allowing 2 plasma guns plus a combi-plasma.

    Jaime: The terminator taking all the hits until he dies comes from the section on wound allocation where the unit has different saves (p15). In the example of a terminator at the front of the grey hunters you would keep rolling the terminator's save until he died.

    First I've heard of terminators going in a rhino. I could see nothing in the FAQs that would overrule the terminator section in the space wolf codex (p61) that states that "Models in Terminator armour count as two models..., and cannot embark Rhinos or Razorbacks". Would love to be proved wrong.

    Rathstar

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  4. @IDICBeer I only added them since I had the extra 40 points and they only cost 10 points on the wolf guard.....fists would be useful in the units just in case you do see a 2+ save in combat and 100 points for the GH to take them was too much....

    @Jaime...Well I do not have my rulebook or the FAQ's on me but I believe they made terminators just count as bulky, like jump packs, that make them take up two transport spots instead of one. therefore what would stop them from getting into a rhino? Remember to forget everything from 5th edition since its a new game. Yet this is the one thing that after I wrote the article I felt that I could be wrong. I do know for a fact jump packs can although

    @Rathstar. In my games in 6th moving 6, getting out 6 and shooting has worked the best for me. Yet I do it with sternguard who now can shoot thier ap4 30" range bolter shots at 15" rapid frie range which does the trick usually....from there the rhinos just run los blocking at that tends to work well enough....and since I was building this list I deemed fists were more important than the rerolls yet since the WG will probably die that could be an issue

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  5. Scratch that I found the part in the rulebook that overides the fact that they are bulky as well as the jump pack part. It was on page 72. In this case the wolfguard would either have to run up and join the unit or just do what rathstar says and run foot units of 10 men which would work better

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  6. Thank you for the response, it's greatly appreciated. I'd definitely like to hear how this list does as it does look fun.

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  7. Njal isn't a great option for a rune priest. IMHO, you get two priest in his stead, can pump out two PSAs a turn and while you are down a point in runic weapon potency you can use both weaker runic weapons on the same power giving a much better result overall.

    Am I wrong in this or has Njal's abilities come home to roost. Does his unpredictable power give anything better then it did last time?

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  8. Multiple Runic Staff do not stack (as per the Space Wolves FAQ). However I agree with you that 2 rune priests are better than Njal. I prefer to have 1 rune priest in my list and spend the extra 100 pts on other stuff. In the above list I'd put it towards a 3rd long fang squad (or just changing 2 x 5 missiles to 3 x 4 missile squads and putting some weapon upgrades on 2 of the grey hunter squads).

    Rathstar

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  9. I don't see anything of the sort in the FAQ rathstar. I just downloaded the newest version and it's got nothing preventing runic weapons stacking.
    If I am wrong please point it out as I do enjoy using 2 rune priests on the board and this may come up.

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  10. Jack inthe rulebook I do know it says hoods cannot stack but I do not believe it mentions it in any of the FAQ's. Where did you find this Rathstar?

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  11. 1st column of the Space Wolf FAQ (first item after the title ERRATA), it changed the Runic Weapon rules. It says:

    Replace the fourth sentence with: "Furthermore whenever an enemy model succeeds on a Psychic test within 24" of one or more models with a Runic Weapon, roll a dice [...]".

    Rathstar

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  12. Grand, have missed that one for years. It has never come up yet.

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  13. yeah stuff like that happens, I especially make myself look like a fool when I post things on here and I get a rule completely wrong but it happens when our rulebook is as big as the bible, and about as confounding haha

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  14. terminators cannot embark in rhinos it clearly states this under terminator armor, but they can go into drop pods as there is no restriction only that they take up 2 slots (bulky)

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