With much of the Space Wolf codex being out in the open already and all the usual hoopla about any new codex accompanying it, there is much talk of the Big Bad Wolves!
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I am not writing this to frag them or anything, I rather like the wolves and like many must resist the urge to build a SW army myself. However, I would like to help ease the apprehensions of my fellow Chaos players out there by pointing out a few nice features our army.
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First off, our buddies and best overall troop choice, the Plague Marine, has little to fear from the Sons of Fenris mostly due to our favorite peice of wargear; the Blight grenade. Hey Bloodclaws, you have +2 attacks on the charge? Well not any more. Your Character gives the squad +D3 attacks on the charge? Oh well, Blight Grenades.
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While this gives our bloated bundles of joy an edge versus most standard units out there, it doesn't stop them from going first with their I4 like their Astartes brother, forcing us to survive an assault from the whole unit before answering back. Often times as you know the Plague Marines will remain on their feet and for the most part ... uh ... Healthy.
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Now, just as you would see fighting codex Marines, a unit of 10 Marines will be held pretty nicely for a few turns in a grinding match with 7 Plague Marines. This may be a little harder with the addition of Wolf Guard along side their sergeant. While I have gone without champions or power weapons in my Plague Marine squads to much success for some time, I may explore using a power weapon or fist to help add a little extra killing power to compliment my squad's survivability.
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I think the idea when running your Plague Marines against SW is to get them into a position where the Wolves' player will have to make a decision about whether to charge you and attempt to take out your melta gun threat or ignore you and accept the fact that your Plague Marines may take out his support of overrun objectives. If he decides to get locked into combat with you, attrition will be on your side for a couple turns. This is the time to countercharge with a daemon prince, lord, zerks or whatever you big CC support is. This makes sense because it denies them the best benefits of a charge and allows your hardest hitting units the chance to do the most damage, turning the tide of the fight and possibly forcing him to commit more forces to the fight, pulling them away from their intended purposes.
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Battles will be much harder fought for many of our other cult troops out there. The noise Marines have an upper hand in mobile shooting, but AP5 doesn't cut it with the small number of Noise Marines we can field. Noise Marine will also strike first in CC, but once again, even against Space Wolves, they will be outnumbered most of the time. The best way to use them would be to punish the Wolves with S8 AP3 blasts and move away with withering fire when they approach. Due to the possibility of scattering however, I don't think it is a solid plan.
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Thousand Sons have the advantage of AP3 bolters. If two squads can move up and dump all their rapid fire on a single squad of Wolves it will more than likely blow them away. The danger here is that TS have less attacks base and are slower in CC than SW, a bad combo when they inevitably get charged.
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Our good friends the Berzerkers suffer the same problem I see them suffering right now. How do I get into a position to get the charge? Nobody will willingly let Zerks charge them. It just hurts too much. This can be an advantage however, in the aspect that even the wolves won't want to get into a situation where the Zerks get the charge allowing you to use strategic movement with your zerks to influence his movements. I like the idea of using Plague Marines and Zerks in a match against SW as they are more likely to charge PM, which puts them in position for a furious assault.
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As always, there will be smart Wolf players who will counter these ideas and there will be Chaos players who find other ways. We also don't know what every unit in their codex is capable of, but I hope that the ideas I have presented may get a few wheels rolling in the right direction and click on a few light bulbs. I look forward to the SW release and I look forward to taking a few pelts for the Dark Gods. Feel free to share your thoughts and ideas.
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