Sunday, January 24, 2010

More Space Wolves

Alright. First pic here is my kitbashed Thunderwolf Lord. This is my second Wolf Lord so far, and I think I will follow one of my friend's suggestions and call him MC Hammer. 6 s10 power weapon attacks on the charge is nothing to sneeze at, especially when you can ensure that he always hits on 3+.







This is my first wolf lord, Heihachi. I hope my poor paint job doesn't spoil the resemblance. I usually run him with either Warrior Born or Saga of the Bear, depending how I'm feeling. Both have their advantages, as being killed by a hiding powerfist is never fun, but wiping out a squad before they can strike has it's perks too.







This is the same TH/SS Wolfguard that I took pics of earlier, but with a better picture quality. This is one of the few models I've painted that doesn't look like absolute crap, so enjoy!










And here is my Wolf Priest. Runs along with skyclaws and makes sure they behave. Simple enough to convert from a Jump Chaplain, new head, new staff of office, little wolfy talisman. DONE!
If you'll notice, His foot is a little... absent. When I got the model, his leg just ended in a blob, so I called up Gw and they sent out a replacement. I still thought that the defective model had character though, so i tried to clip the blob that was his foot off in an attempt to give him a peg leg. Strange, I know. The end result was that I broke my favorite clippers.

Techmarine on "Thunderwolf"


My yet to be named Iron Priest on his "Thunderwolf". I didn't think that a techmarine would run around on a biological mount, and though it may be confusing since an Iron Priest can also take a bike mount, I think once I have it painted up with a wolfy-looking paint job, it'll look more believable. I didn't want to shell out loads of cash for a techmarine when i was just going to use him from the waist up, so i made my own from the rhino driver front chest plate and shoulder pad, and i modelled his backpack from the space marine command sprue and the servo arm from the rocket launcher backpack. Simple, easy, and using almost exclusively leftover bits. Pretty effective, and beats spending 40 bucks on Canis and 20-30 on a techmarine.

Thursday, January 21, 2010

Random Thoughts: Haven't Posted In a While

First off, this model is beautiful. So Beautiful that it is going to take up over three quarters of this post.

On to the random thoughts- I did promise them after all.
I got my first two games with a wolf lord on thunderwolf today. He absolutely destroys. His loadout is runic armour, TH/SS and a thunderwolf. In my first game, a 1k vs eldar, he killed eldrad, some guardians, a squad of fire dragons. Not bad all things considered. Second game, 2k vs Blood Angels. He squashed a Baal Predator and then got charged by Dante and a ton of jump marines. He flattened a few jump marines and batted Dante out into orbit-not bad for a first run. Then he got chainsworded to death by normal troops. Did I mention Dante had the charge? I can't imagine a unit of these guys-they are deceptively fast, even through cover, and one character mounted on one does a great deal of damage... a unit with a character seems like it'd be a little broken.

Tau- Lots of talk going on about them getting a new codex sometime within a year. This has me really excited. With all the ridiculous stuff the new IG, Nids, and supposedly Blood Angels are getting, Tau should be able to rise back to being directly comparable with the best armies. I've personally never understood why an army that is widely and correctly perceived as the worst close combat army in the game has only mediocre shooting ability as well. After playing Tau for about a year and Space wolves for what I would assume is 6 months, I can honestly say that the wolves are better at shooting and impossibly better in close combat. Now, I know the reaction most IG or marine players have hearing Tau whine about their Ballistic Skill. Most will say that the increased strength of the basic Pulse Rifle is enough to make up for this.... I'm not so sure. Compared directly with Guard Veterans, guard veterans win by quite a bit. Vets are 3 points cheaper base. Let's just assume that a pulse rifle is worth 3 points more than a lasgun(It's not, really). So now we're equal, right? Well Vets have a better BS, WS, and I. Lets say the additional BS is worth 2 points, and the additional WS and I are 1 point together- a decent price I would think. Now the FWs are down by 3 points. Considering that the Vets come with a Ld8 character standard, and include the option for special weapons, I'd say the Vets are an absolute steal.
Now lets compare the Fire Warrior to a Grey Hunter. The Grey Hunter costs 5 points more, but for 5 points he gains 1BS, 2WS, 1S, 1T, 1A(extra CC weapon), and has increased leadership and a better save. A Fire Warrior has +1S and 6" more range- thats it.

That said, here's what I think the new Firewarrior squads will look like-70 points for 10, including a Shas'ui and EMP grenades standard. Similarly, I think that the Devilfish needs a massive overhaul to be effective. Currently, at 80 points starting cost, It's kind of useless. Most players need to upgrade it heavily to make it more durable and killy- mine usually run 120 points and that's the only effective way I've run them. Considering that Marines can get a AV13 Tank with a S10 large blast for a few points cheaper, the Devilfish better see a points drop of at least 30, and hopefully 40 points. I think 80-90 points(upgraded) is a fair price for what the Devilfish really does-carting around firewarriors so they can Rapid Fire or grab an objective. This would decrease the cost of my usual firewarrior squads from 240 points to 150-160, quite a hefty discount really, and I may need to rethink whether that would fall in line with recent codex power.
Well it's going on 3 am here, better get to bed.