Hey everyone, Reecius here with the first part of our Space Wolves Codex review. The first part will focus on Special Rules! Check the Tactics Corner for more great articles.
The Sons of Russ are here, awooooo! Let’s take a look at what they have to offer. And remember, you can get all of these items at a nice discount from Frontline Gaming in our web-cart with FREE shipping for orders $99 and up!
Rating System
- Competitive: This is a codex entry (unit, stratagem, item, etc.) that has a place in essentially any competitive list built with this faction regardless of unit choices or is the source of a significant force multiplication effect for other units.
- Efficient: This is a codex entry that can stand on its own merit in a matched play list but works best when combo’d up with other units or in specific situations to become very powerful but may not always be seen.
- Situational: This is a codex entry that may not pass as competitive on its own merits but can be made effective in a creative list, as a meta-buster, or in a specific combo or scenario where it ratchets up in power to potentially very high strength but otherwise will not be seen very often.
The Space Wolves are a very cool faction, with lots of strong shooting and melee options. Their strengths we found in playtesting were there Characters and the overlapping buffs you could get on their various units to crank them up to an 11.
We’ll take a look at their Special Rules first as this is where you get the most differentiation between various flavors of Space Marines.
Hunters Unleashed, the Space Wolf “Chapter Tactics” is great. The +1 to hit on the turn you charge is obviously quite useful, particularly for models with weapons that have an inbuilt -1 to hit such as Power Fists and Thunder Hammers or for units like Aggressors and Terminators much scarier. It also makes your basic infantry units such as Grey Hunters and Blood Claws much more efficient on the charge. However, the real strength of this rule is the second part, allowing Characters to Heroically Intervene from 6″ away! That is VERY good. Many people still do not fully understand how it works. You always Heorically Intervene in your opponent’s charge phase if able to, even if you aren’t the target of a charge or if they make any charge moves. So, if you are within 6″ of your opponent’s army with your Characters in the charge phase, yo just walk right in to combat and, you do not trigger Overwatch, either! It is very powerful, and even better on models that have the ability to ignore other models such as those with a Jump Pack. Competitive.
That’s it for the first part! Next time we’ll be back to look at the Space Wolf Stratagems!
And remember, Frontline Gaming sells gaming products at a discount, every day in their webcart!
Hold on, what about that thing with the Sagas where they become auras after completing a minigame?
The print dex doesn’t match with what is on the Community site. I am removing the part about Warlord Traits for now to avoid confusion.
That is just weird. Any idea what is going on? Are sagas just regular warlord traits in the book?
I am sure GW will answer the question, soon.
Was there supposed to be warlord traits in this article?
See the above comment.
Lots of people have asked for the Heroic Interventions to be FAQed. That’s what the official FAQ email address is for.
It seems strange what one person does on a live podcast and suddenly this is the way to play. Really strange after 31 years, that some-one finds a new way of charging in their opponent’s turn miles away from any charges that have done. Until then this was barely mentioned and never got past a judge’s intervention.
Yeah, I don’t like the way Heroic Intervention is being ruled- it’s very counterintuitive, and it is by no means the only way to read the text of the rule. I really hope that GW shuts it down with an FAQ, because that’s pretty clearly not what the rule was intended to do.
It’s a nice thing for melee…let melee players have their nice thing. Emperor knows we don’t need another kick in the pants with the next FAQ.
No, it is PRECISELY what the rule was intended to do. I say this because I asked. I didn’t think it worked the way it does, either and when I got confirmation was surprised. However, once you get used to it it isn’t a big deal, honestly. Like Zeev said, it is a nice benefit for melee armies and something you just have to learn to play around.
So Heroic Intervention, the rule about characters leaping in to protect their nearby comrades, is actually secretly a second charge phase in the enemy turn that ignores overwatch and GW intentionally designed it that way but wrote the rules in an incredibly ambiguous manner?
Sorry, Reece, I don’t buy it.
Eh, whatever. Believe me or don’t, your choice. The people that wrote the rule told me that that was intent and so I had to eat crow becuase I didn’t think it worked the way it does. When I was told point blank that yes, you actually can intervene even if no one near your character charges, it came as a surprise to me, too. But that’s what it is. So, again, believe me or not, it doesn’t matter much, honestly. Unless they change their stance in an faq or what have you, that’s what that rule says and means for now.
I guess I just don’t automatically take all things people say at face value, because most people have multiple reasons (some of them hidden, some of them unconscious) for the things they do. It seems extremely plausible to me that GW wrote the rule, didn’t realize it could be interpreted that way, and then after the fact rationalized it into being “well yes of course we meant it to do that” because it makes them look smarter. That seems like an extremely likely scenario to me.
You sure you don’t just think that because pointing out a mistake from someone else makes you look smarter? Seems like a likely scenario to me.
Are you sure you aren’t just saying I’m saying that to try and look clever yourself? We can play this game all day, but it doesn’t get us anywhere.
Again, the how or why of it isn’t super relevant. If you read the rule with the knowledge that yes, that was what they meant then it reads quite clearly. It is just when people smack into it and it catches them off guard that it elicits such a strong reaction to it.
RightO. Seemed to me is EXACTLY as intended. As a Character your job is to command, order your army about and lend your might where needed. So jumping into a combat to help your mates makes perfect sense. 3″ is like 10′ of real space, and for those with the Canix Helix being more aggressive works for me. Incidentally as great as this sounds I RARELY remember it! Old school players still struggle with a few newer nuances. Hjolda!
The RAW needs to be rewritten to reflect the intent. Literally have not met someone who read it realized how it could be used. I assume most people learned about it in game from their opponent (who probably learned about it from their opponent.) It’s like a build in gotcha moment.
It does, and that is a fair point. We had two players at the BAO–two very good, seasoned tournament players–who got caught totally off guard by it. However, when you read the rule it is quite clear that that is how it works. It is just counter-intuitive.
Like I said, I read it wrong, too so I totally get it.
But, again, once you get used to it it is no big deal. You just always make sure to keep units more than 3″ away from enemy characters if you don’t want them jumping in to combat. With Wolves, though, it is a LOT harder to do which is why the rule is so strong for them.
Wait, lol, are you insinuating that because I got surprised by it on a show that that is why it plays the way it does?
Haha, what? That’s absurd and it doesn’t even make sense, either. I was wrong about it. I read it the way many had but when I reached out to GW for clarification they confirmed that yes, it is meant to allow characters to jump in to combat–heroically–in your opponent’s turn.
So, I was WRONG about it on that show, lol. I was educated on it and that is why we yanked the episode as it was causing confusion. So, haha, no, we didn’t influence things and I didn’t play it correctly anyway, so your assertion is just flat wrong on multiple levels.
And how can you can say it never got past a judge’s intervention, lol? Have you born witness to every incident? Of course not and further, the rule plays the way it reads. It’s just that it feels weird the first time it happens which is what causes confusion.
Face it Reece, the keyboard warriors have cast you as the villain. Everything they hate about 40k is now personally your fault. And they believe you’re trying to hurt them specifically. The rage displayed on forums because you said something was awesome is ridiculous.
You’re the Boogeyman. And not the John Wick type, more the Nancy Pelosi type.
Lol!
Man, it is so weird to try and convince people you don’t have as much sway as they think you do. Typically it is the opposite, where you have someone pretending to be more influential than they are but it is truly weird for people to blame us (and often specifically me) for things that are wildly out of my sphere of influence, lol.
And it also makes no sense from the perspective of using that information intelligently. If I actually did have this degree of influence over things, attacking me would certainly not be a wise move if i truly was able to and out to get certain factions, haha.
Ah man, it is silly. But, whatever. Thankfully I have thick skin and this stuff doesn’t bother me much.
It’s a psychological thing, Reecius. You see this kind of behavior in so many other areas too.
Video games like WoW and LoL are perfect examples of this. Typically the “face” of those games (the spokesperson / community manager) are often the ones that get blamed the harshest.
It is our inherent human ability to find patterns and causation in data. So it is a human trait to associate blame with people like yourself. To them it makes sense.
It’s an example of the logical fallacy Affirming the Consequent.
“I saw Reecius play testing my army.”
“My army was nerfed.”
“Therefore, Reecius got my army nerfed.”
The worst part is that they have no real data to go off of except how they *feel* about it. Such feelings often stoke stronger feelings as it gets passed from one person to another. These things spread quickly on the internet and often get twisted quickly.
Suddenly a guy, who knows a guy, whose brother heard it from a dude, who got a PM from a Gamesworkshop employee, who is best friends with Duncan, who knows a guy that knows Reecius, personal heard that Reecius changed the rules.
This kind of treatment has never left us as a society or species but the internet makes it easier to spread and see.
“It’s in you’re nature to destroy yourselves…” – The Sperminator