Walk The Dog

Greetings

Hot on the heels of the new Space Wolf codex, comes the first in a a long line of silly lists.

First, lets take a quick look at what has changed. The poor space pups got taken to the vet when 7th was released, and came away with only their tail between their legs. They lost all their unique and quite powerful psychic powers, in addition to what was one of the strongest psychic defence items in the game. They also suffered from not having great anti-air, and having a lot of points invested in close combat units/abilities which no longer worked so well.

In the new book, the unique psychic powers are back, but at severely reduced usefulness. Units in general got cheaper, but lost some value. So overall it's a fair trade, but with everything more up-to-date.
The nice changes are the addition of some flyers, some new and rather fancy dreadnought variants, the most game-breakingly overpowered unit ever in the form of the Space Wold Drop Pod, and finally the removal of the infuriatingly finicky "exclusive wargear" rule. Now all the space wolf characters can take whatever weapons they want without worrying about turning up to battle wielding the same storm shield as someone else.

Also in the book is a special detachment that allows 6 HQ choices. You know what that means...


Wold Lord: Runic Armour, Storm Shield, Power Fist, Thunderwolf
Wold Lord: Runic Armour, Storm Shield, Power Fist, Thunderwolf
Wold Lord: Runic Armour, Storm Shield, Wolf Claw, Thunderwolf
Wold Lord: Runic Armour, Storm Shield, Wolf Claw, Thunderwolf
Wold Lord: Runic Armour, Storm Shield, Black Death, Thunderwolf
Rune Priest: Level 2, Bike, Melta Bomb

5 Grey Hunters: Rhino
5 Blood Claws: Rhino

3 Thunderwolves

Sammael
3 Ravenwing: 2 Meltaguns; Attack Bike: Multi-melta

1850


Rather unsurprisingly, everyone holds hands and jogs up the table in one big fur-blob.

Wolf Lords got a bit better, gaining a wound, an attack, much cheaper storm shields, and can double up on power fists. Wolf claws on thunderwolves also got a bit better, now offering an additional point of strength on top of rending and re-rolling wounds.
The Black Death is a fun little weapon, just about strong enough to still beat up heavy units and tanks, but can also carve huge chunks out of any type of infantry. On the charge, that Thunderlord has 9 Str7 Ap2 attacks.
On top of all that, the Thunderlords have been to see Cesar Millan and are now able to behave themselves in the company of others.

The Rune Priest took a big drop in points to make up for the nerfbat. His psychic defence is still pretty good for the unit, and will most likely just be rolling on divination.

Grey hunters and Blood Claws are exist because they have to. They don't even have Object Secured, so will be spending most of the game in reserve, hoping no one notices them turning up to the battle late.

The 3 other Thunderwolves are there to be meat shields for the Wold Lords. Which is a bit unfair, as they also got a points drop and access to cheaper wargear.

The Ravenwing are the actual scoring troops in the army, who will also be hiding in reserve, or being thrown in front of a land raider on turn 1.

Sammael is the sneaky dog walker entrusted with making all these fleabags work.
He gives the fur-blob Fearless, Hit & Run, and Scout. That's the nasty bit: Everyone is going to be on the halfway line before the game even begins. If you can't get away fast or do some serious damage in a single shooting phase, you are going to get all kinds of rabies.


So what's the downside? There must be a weakness somewhere...
Well, there are lots problems with this list:
Only Sammael has Eternal Warrior, so any Str10 hits need to land on him. And there is a lot of Str10 about the place these days.
The fur-blob can't run/turboboost due the mixed unit type, but that's ok as Sammael has a Plasma Cannon which will usually have a target.
Flyers: Dogs can't look up, so they just pretend the flyers don't exist.
Scoring units are a bit slim. This list wins by killing everything, objectives are a last resort...
Tactics: Sammael has brought with him a large supply of tennis balls, which he will fling into the enemy battle lines. Your opponent will be shocked and dismayed when you pull the cunning stunt of only charging forward into combat over and over and over again.