Email in: A Space Wolf Army list with questions

"Hello Will,

I've been staring at your blog for quite awhile now reading the various army lists and strategies. A bit about me, I'm a Journalist in the US Army (Hopefully no grief) :) and I started dabbling in WH40k Tabletop about a year ago with a friend. Long story short we both got stationed in opposite areas and now we are about to be 15 minutes apart in Germany! So I'm trying to conjure a competitive unforgiving list. I'm not as skilled as much as I would like to be. The two lists that are intriguing me are the BA Jumper type probably one with DEVS. The other list is a Space Wolf one I just created and would really enjoy your critique.

Space Wolves

2x Rune Priests- Living Lighting and Murderous hurricane
1x Rune Priest- Jaws, and Murderous Hurricane
3x Rifleman Dreads (Do I need extra armor?)
3x Long Fangs x5 Missiles
3x 9 Grey Hunters, instead of 10 so I could fit Rune Priests in the Rhino with them.

All of the above puts me at 1827. If I wanted to go to 2k I was going to throw in 1x 5 Swift Claw Biker pack, with an swiftclaw attack bike, Melta and MM.

Okay the idea of this list is, first lay down 3 chooser of the slain markers to avoid infiltration to closely. At the beginning have the rune priests advance with the grey hunters. Not close enough to be shot at, but further ahead then the support. Spam Murderous Hurricane and get them tangled up with difficult terrain tests while the missiles and Rifleman Dreads tear them to pieces. You can withdraw slowly like this as well. The Bikers would be the QRF (Quick Reaction Force) to anything flanking etc.

Well this was my idea, I'm quite inexperienced when it comes to this right now. Please let me know what you think.

Thanks,
Brian"

Hey Brian. The list is pretty decent but needs some tweaks I feel. I feel like you're trying to make a shooty force with a delaying midfield? Not something with combat firepower but something to disrupt your opponent? If so we need to up how much firepower you have and add some extra mobility to your force. Swift Claws aren't really the ideal choice because they can't take meltaguns and use them without a Wolf Guard and don't really add much. The better and more disruptive options would be Wolf Scouts or Land Speeders but since you only have FA slots, we'll go with Land Speeders. We also want to add LasPlas RBacks to the LF for more firepower but that's going to run us out of points quickly. Furthermore, the 3 Priests need to be different in terms of powers/wargear thanks to the Space Wolf codex special rules. Whilst I know you want 3 to slow your opponent as much as possible, two is a much more viable number in terms of getting the powers you want and psychic defense coverage. You just don't gain as much for the 3rd.

Let's try something like this then:

Priest w/Tempest, Hurricane, Chooser
Priest w/Hurricane, Lightning, Chooser
3x Rifledread
2x9x GH w/meltagun, MotW, Banner, Rhino
10x GH w/2x meltaguns, MotW, Banner, Rhino
3x MM/HF Land Speeder
3x5x LF w/4x ML, LasPlas RBack

And that should take you to just under 2000 points so there are points for some upgrades like Power Weapons on the GH squads or Sagas on the Priests. The Dreads don't need EA because they aren't moving forward with the army to actually close with the enemy but rather wishing to sit back and shoot for as long as possible. They are great to tie up units which can't kill them but would rather shoot than engage in combat. To drop this down to 1850 or 1750 lose a Speeder and Rifledread and shave a few upgrades. How's that looking Brian? Still keeping with your concept?