Okay, so Kirby forwarded on this Space Wolf email to me to have a go at so lets see what we can do!
[quote]Hi Kirby!
Well, after horrible sessions with TWC, I decided give Swiftclaws a chance. So, can you give some advice about it? Do you think it would work? I mean, the bikes would go after scoring units, while the scouts would go after tanks, heavy support, while the Wolf Lord would either help the Swiftclaws, or strike certain enemies(such as Demon Princes).
Squad 1:
Swiftclaws Pack
1 Regular
1 Meltagun
1 Powerfist
1 Multi Melta
1 Wolf Guard with Bike/Power Fist/ Combi Melta
1 Wolf Lord with Bike/ Thunder Hammer/ SS/ Wolf Tooth Neclace/ Wolf Tail Talisman/ Saga of the Bear/ Runic armor
Squad 2:
Swiftclaws Pack
1 Regular
1 Meltagun
1 Powerfist
1 Multi Melta
1 Wolf Guard with Power Fist Combi Melta
Squad 3:
1 Rune Priest Jaws/ Living Lightining
1 Wolf Guard combi Melta/Powerfist
4 Grey Hunters
1 Grey Hunter Meltagun
1 Mark of the Wulfen
1 Power Fist
Rhino
Squad 4:
1 Rune Priest Jaws/ Murderous Hurricane
1 Wolf Guard combi Melta/Powerfist
4 Grey Hunters
1 Grey Hunter Meltagun
1 Mark of the Wulfen
1 Power Fist
Rhino
Squad 5:
1 Wolf Guard combi Melta/Powerfist
4 Grey Hunters
1 Grey Hunter Meltagun
1 Mark of the Wulfen
1 Power Fist
Rhino
Squad 6 and 7:
5 Long Fangs Missile Launchers
Squad 8:
4 Scouts
1 Scout with Meltagun
Thanks for the help!
Ranwulf[/quote]
First things first, I'm gonna be as polite as possible here: FORMAT YOUR LIST SO AS IT IS READABLE AS PER FOC SLOTS AND ACTUALLY LIST POINTS AS WELL. I almost missed the second Rune Priest, only got him the third look through, I got the second long fangs unit the 5th time through and have noticed the WG in the second Swiftclaws Squad has no Bike listed...Formatting so we can understand what's been brought and what hasn't been brought and where and how many points it costs so as it jogs our memories and we can just auto respond without wanting to hit delete would be greatly appreciated, I am sure all the authors agree here for all emails sent to us (it's as much a time on our end issue as anything else as well).
Yeah, that was polite Ranwulf. :)
I've reformatted the list below and taken the time to point it all up so as we can see the list a bit clearer (remember that the strength of Wolf Guard is that you can assign them at the beginning of every battle, they don't need to ever be fixed intoa specific unit, how you assign them each game affects how they make an otherwise ordinary unit more specialised) and then be able to have a look at the list properly:
Ranwulf's Swiftclaws 1850pts:
HQ 1a): 1 Wolf Lord with Bike/ Thunder Hammer/ SS/ Wolf Tooth Neclace/ Wolf Tail Talisman/ Saga of the Bear/ Runic armor - 265pts
HQ 1b): 1 Rune Priest Jaws/ Murderous Hurricane - 100pts
HQ 2a): 1 Rune Priest Jaws/ Living Lightining - 100pts
Elites 1): 3 Wolf Guard w/ combi Melta, Powerfist
2 Wolf Guard w/ Power Fist, Combi Melta, Bike - 285pts
Elites 2): 5 Scouts, MG - 85pts
Troops 1): 5 Grey Hunters, MG, MotW, PF
Dedicated Transport: Rhino - 155pts
Troops 2): 5 Grey Hunters, MG, MotW, PF
Dedicated Transport: Rhino - 155pts
Troops 3): 5 Grey Hunters, MG, MotW, PF
Dedicated Transport: Rhino - 155pts
Fast Attack 1): 3 Swiftclaws, 1 MG, 1 PF
attached Attack Bike w/Multi-Melta - 150pts
Fast Attack 2): 3 Swiftclaws, 1 MG, 1 PF
attached Attack Bike w/Multi-Melta - 150pts
Heavy Support 1): 5 Long Fangs w/ 4 Missile Launchers - 115pts
Heavy Support 2): 5 Long Fangs w/ 4 Missile Launchers - 115pts
Total Points = 1830pts...
So, lesson here: FORMAT. 1850pt army that adds to 1830pts...no idea where those points are meant to be...
Do I think a Swiftclaw based force could work...maybe. I've always run TWC myself as the BC Bikers aren't great in comparison. One thing to note when running TWC lists is they will get killed, and killed relatively fast, it's not a sign of a poor unit but rather a list not balancing them with the rest of the list to a synergistic whole, so maybe that's why you had issues with TWC? I would love to know the issues there in any case.
So, what can we do then with this list.
i) I find it interesting that you want a Swiftclaw based force but that you haven't actually committed to them. So on my first try with the list I maxed them out and ran out of points horrendously fast. So back to the drawing board I went.
ii) There are a lot of upgrades throughout the force which are chipping away the effectiveness of the force imho, such as 5 man combat beasty GH's that are also melta units, a load of points on 5 guys (the WG is fine) where in a combat against a dedicated assault unit you die before you get the chance to attack back...yeah, we can trim points there.
iii) The scouts seem like an impulse add, there's no redundancy to them so no reliability, so it's iffy as to if we do keep them or not, at least in the current form.
iv) The WG seem a bit overpriced especially as you haven't committed to 9 man GH units with an attached WG to lead the troop squads and Powerfists on Grey Hunters are the same cost as those on a WG but with 1 less attack total so we can ditch those and that frees up points if we keep the PFist on the WG. MotW is nice, but again, we can ditch it and rely on other aspects of our force for anti-infantry. We can probably ditch a Rune Priest as well. The Lord is 10 points cheaper then a TWL and I'm tempted to just reccommend you run the TWL by the side of the force, he is nasty and can do alot of damage and is fairly survivable as well so yeah...we'll keep to the theme style you have presented however. The WG are gonna be costly fast though, you do pay a premium for them to outfit them on bikes so that needs to be fiddled with. You possibly don't need a Wolf Lord at all, we'll see.
List 1 attempt saw me max out points way too fast, and sit down and address elements I needed in the force. these are:
Support, Anti-Psykers, Swiftclaws (preferably 3 units for theme redundancy and saturation), suppression. Disruption down the flank or wherever the Swiftclaws will boost to in support, supported assaults/attacks. This lead to the following list:
1,850pts Taaks Swiftclaw + Support Space Wolves:
HQ 1a) 1 Rune Priest, CotS, Living lightning, Tempests Wrath, Bike - 145pts
Fast Attack 1) 5 Swiftclaws, MG, Attached Attack Bike w/MM - 175pts
Fast Attack 2) 5 Swiftclaws, MG, Attached Attack Bike w/MM - 175pts
Elites 1) 10 WG, 1 BP+CCW, 7 BP+Combi-Meltas, 2 TDA+PW+SB+CML
Dedicated Transport: Drop Pod w/SB - 340pts
Elites 2) 6 Wolf Scouts, BP+CCW MB's, 1 MG, 1 MotW - 145pts
Elites 3) 6 Wolf Scouts, BP+CCW MB's, 1 MG, 1 MotW - 145pts
Troops 1) 5 Grey Hunters, Flamer - 75pts
Troops 2) 5 Grey Hunters, Flamer - 75pts
Troops 3) 5 Grey Hunters, Meltagun
Dedicated Transport: Rhino - 115pts
Troops 4) 5 Grey Hunters, Meltagun
Dedicated Transport: Rhino - 115pts
Heavy Support 1) 5 Long Fangs w/ 4 ML's - 115pts
Heavy Support 2) 5 Long Fangs w/ 4 ML's - 115pts
Heavy Support 3) 5 Long Fangs w/ 4 ML's - 115pts
Total = 1,850pts.
Okay, so looking at it, there's a few things that look a bit odd. First off, no Biker WG as they are just too damned expensive (with PFist and Combi-melta I can almost afford another 3 naked Swiftclaws!). I didn't include a PF in the Swiftclaw units as they are gonna chew through light-infantry solidly and maybe bust some armour open. The Rune Priest hops in one unit so they can reliably dual-melta, the second unit sucks it up and goes nuts a bit more often, at least until the Rune Priest jumps across to them. The Rune Priest has Living Lightning as an option for fire support on the move, but Tempests Wrath is also there for use against jumpers and deep strikers and speeders (there's more and more in armies these days so it is getting to be quite good - BA DoA lists and Daemon players hate this power!).
The Long Fangs give you fire support. The WG give you fire support and melta options. The Swiftclaws, scouts, disruption WG and rhino GH's all move forwards in a combined attack style. The WG ideally split to have a combi-melta WG in each of the MG+Rhino GH units (2 split off of the 10 WG here), 2 combi-meltas split and attach to the Wolf Scouts (4 split off total from the WG now), the 2 CML+TDA WG split off and join the foot GH's with flamer to give you another two fire support units (with the 3 units of LF's you thus have up to 8 different targets taking 2 krak missiles a turn {or frag missiles for infantry}) (6 split off total now), leaving you with 3 combi-melta WG and a normal WG in a drop pod. The normal WG can split off to a LF unit to give it a bit more survivability. Now you have a suicide melta unit in a drop pod which you can drop down to provide cover to the point of attack your main force will push towards. The scouts all have Melta-bombs and pack an MG with an attached WG combi-melta you have 2 dual melta units here, and alongside the tri-melta of the Drop Pod unit and the dual melta of the Swiftclaws, you have a goodly amount of melta to support the attack against heavily armoured opponents. The Wolf Scouts are actually quite good in combat as well with BP+CCW and the WG in there as well as a MotW rending scout, it's alot of attacks from a relatively small unit. You're looking at combined charges and torrented attacks rather then a few special weapon attacks to win the combats.
And there you have it, that's how I'd run a Swiftclaw based force. As a combined arms style force utilising disruption, turbo-boosting mobility and fire support/outflanking close support to work away at the enemy. It requires a bit of finesse and Wolf Guard being Wolf Guard, there's no reason why you can't just run all 10 in the pod for the drop, but you really want to maximise their abilities to turn average units into far more specialised units. It's different to many of the lists I run in terms of units, but with a bit of practice it should do quite well for itself.
What do the rest of the community think? How would you run a Swiftclaw based force? What would you change in either mine or Ranwulf's list? How would you approach it as an army concept?
All the best everyone,
Auretious Taak.
