Nick speaking,
After seeing a very exciting battle report over on
Fritz's blog, where he is taking on a drop pod based Space Wolves army with his five Tervigon bug list (must get myself some more Tervies), it got me thinking about drop pods..
I don't currently own any drop pods, I did borrow a couple of my mates pods once when the Wolves Codex hit, but that ended in a disaster, when I scattered 12" of the table and rolled a one on the mishap chart! Since then I have stayed away from pods, not just because of the mishap, I have been tying to just use the models I already have.
My local gaming group of friends are pretty open minded, and I am sure that if I proxy a few reasonably sized plastic cups as pods, they wouldn't mind. They understand that before I make any commitment to buy loads of pods, I would like to experiment with them a bit first to see if I like the way the army works with them.
In the said Fritz's battle report, Fritz describes his opponents list as "The ‘Wolf list was interesting to say the least- two full long fang squads with a mix of las and missiles, three pods of Grey Hunters with Arjac, and two big thunderwolf units with wolf lords in each."
I don't know whether he meant a good or bad 'interesting', but during the report he did ask the question. "First group goes down pretty quick, Arjac’s group takes some wounds but turn out is really hard to kill since they pop off a wolf banner allowing them to re-roll misses and failed armor saves on a “1”. Space Wolf players, tell me why you aren’t playing this build?"
I suppose the obvious answer would be that you can get lots of other cool stuff for the points Arjac costs? After all, he is nearly the price of two Rune Priest right? Well, I have never played with Arjac or drop pods before, so I thought I would try and have a go with a list similar to this. Fritz's game was at 2000 pts, but my buddies and I play at 1750pts at the moment, so my first job would be to copy and adapt the list to that...
First up, I had to go with three drop pods so that I could have two coming in on turn one, and the third one coming in as a back up later in the game, I figured that the third pod would come in on objectives for objective based missions, and would join the other two pods up front if it was Annihilation. I also figured that the Grey Hunters in the pod would need to be at full strength to take any enemy shooting after they pod down and to take advantage of the 'free' extra melta gun. Ideally I would like Mark of Wulven etc in the unit, but to keep the points down I just went with the two melta's and a Wolf Standard in each.
If I was going to run with Arjac, I would have to include at least two more Wolf Guard, and the Combi-Melta/Powerfist would be my preferred choice. Heavy support would be two packs of Long Fangs with three missiles, one Lascannon and a pack leader in each. Not exactly maxed out, but I need to cut points somewhere.
That leaves me with 615pts for the two Thunderwolf packs! Fritz mentions 'two big Thunderwolves with a Wolf Lord in each', He doesn't say maxed out, and judging from the pictures, it looks like the 'big' units are just three strong in each. I worked out that if I only took one Lord with a TH/SS, I could afford two packs of three Thunderwolves.
Here is my final list...
HQ
1 x Wolf Lord/Thunder Hammer/Storm Shield/Thunderwolf (205)
ELITES
2 x Wolf Guard Pack/Combi-Melta/Power Fist (86)
1 x Arjac Rockfist (188)
TROOPS
3 x Drop Pods (105)
10 x Grey Hunters/2x Meltagun/1x Wolf Standard (165)
10 x Grey Hunters/2x Meltagun/1x Wolf Standard (165)
10 x Grey Hunters/2x Meltagun/1x Wolf Standard (165)
FAST
3 x Thunderwolf Cavalry/1x Storm Shield/1x Power Fist (205)
3 x Thunderwolf Cavalry/1x Storm Shield/1x Power Fist (205)
HEAVY
5 x Long Fangs/3x Missile Launcher/1x Lascannon/1 x Pack Leader (130)
5 x Long Fangs/3x Missile Launcher/1x Lascannon/1 x Pack Leader (130)
Points 1749
The Long Fangs do their usual, the Thunderwolves charge forward and the Grey Hunters pod in with Arjac. The third pod is the back up pod, depending on the mission! Battle reports and findings to follow...
EDIT:
Thanks to Vladimir Valchev (AKA Skarvald the Troll-faced from
Wolves for the Wolf God)
for pointing out that the final list above is illegal, lol. So yes, you can only have ten men in a Drop Pod, and of course Arjac will count as two as he is in Terminator armour! He has suggested that I remove a few of the illegal Grey Hunters, which sadly means one meltagun, and use the points to max out the Fangs with another missile in each pack. That leaves ten points for a Tooth Necklace for the Lord, allowing him to hit vehicles on a 3+ even if they have moved at full speed, which I have to be honest, is something I hadn't really thought about before.
So thanks again Vladimir, and I think I will use his suggestions, as they all seem to make sense. Here is my new final list...
HQ
1 x Wolf Lord/Thunder Hammer/Storm Shield/Tooth Necklace/Thunderwolf (215)
ELITES
2 x Wolf Guard Pack/Combi-Melta/Power Fist (86)
1 x Arjac Rockfist (188)
TROOPS
3 x Drop Pods (105)
9 x Grey Hunters/1x Meltagun/1x Wolf Standard (150)
9 x Grey Hunters/1x Meltagun/1x Wolf Standard (150)
8 x Grey Hunters/1x Meltagun/1x Wolf Standard (135)
FAST
3 x Thunderwolf Cavalry/1x Storm Shield/1x Power Fist (205)
3 x Thunderwolf Cavalry/1x Storm Shield/1x Power Fist (205)
HEAVY
6 x Long Fangs/4x Missile Launcher/1x Lascannon/1 x Pack Leader (155)
6 x Long Fangs/4x Missile Launcher/1x Lascannon/1 x Pack Leader (155)
Points 1749
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