"For the Sword!" Tournament: Pat's Space Wolves by Patrick Eibel
One of the greatest challenges in selecting a tournament army is picking a versatile force while still maintaining the flavor of your army. In this tournament, I had the opportunity to field a 1,500 point version of Ferin Ironhammer’s detachment. I will discuss why I picked what I picked and how successful I was. Selecting an army definitely reflects personal tastes, but hopefully my thought process may be of use as a guideline.

One of the strengths of the Space Wolves is their brutal ferocity in hand-to-hand combat. I wanted to maximize this advantage by having two tooled-up Grey Hunter squads led by characters. The True Grit advantage would mean that even the bolter carriers would get an extra dice in assault. These squads would fulfill the Troops requirement.

A 1,500 point Space Wolf army requires a second HQ choice. I opted for a Venerable Dreadnought as the Old & Wise ability would help ensure I would go first. Likewise, I chose the Scouts because of their ability to sneak in from the other side. I was hoping to cause some crossfires, but as it turned out this infiltrating was even more useful than expected. The next choice was a pack of Long Fangs with missile launchers and a lascannon. The missile launcher is one of the most versatile heavy weapons as it can dispatch lightly armored troops and heavily armored vehicles equally well. 

Here is the army list I used for the tournament:

• Ferin Ironhammer. Venerable Dreadnought w/ twin-linked heavy bolter, heavy flamer, smoke launchers (168 pts)
• Wolf Guard Battle Leader w/ power weapon, plasma pistol, frag grenades and meltabombs (86 pts)
• Wolf Scout pack. Two w/ power weapons, one w/ meltagun, all w/ frag grenades (125 pts)
• Wolf Guard w/ plasma pistol, power weapon, wolf pelt, frag grenades amd meltabombs (57 pts)
• Grey Hunter Pack. One w/ power weapon, one w/ meltagun, one w/ plasma pistol, three w/ bolters, one w/ power fist and Wolf Totem. Rhino w/ searchlight and smoke launchers (284 pts)
• Grey Hunter Pack. Two w/ power weapons, one w/ plasma pistol, three w/ bolters. Rhino as above (261 pts)
• Land Speeder  Squadron. Three Land Speeders w/ multi-meltas (195 pts)
• Long Fangs. Three w/ missile launchers, one w/ lascannon, plus Veteran Sergeant (203 pts)
• Vindicator w/ searchlight (121 pts)

What happened?
My first three opponents were Marines, so I was glad I took all the heavy weapons. Most of my army performed as expected, and I won the first two games handily and lost the third (against Kenton) by a narrow margin (the result of an assault army meeting a shooty army–very even). The biggest lesson learned in these battles was that Salamanders should NEVER charge Space Wolves. Between the counterattack ability and the higher initiative, there wasn’t a single Salamander left to take a swing.

The final battle was against Jeanette Hill's Ulthwe Eldar. I was particularly nervous about this battle because 1) I don’t play Eldar that often and 2) there was a Wraithlord and Wave Serpent full of Banshees on the board. In the end, neither of those units were a real factor and I won the game by having a Grey Hunter squad and the well-timed Scout squad charge the Seer Council in the back lines. Not only did they all fall to my power weapons, but I now had two intact units and a Rhino to claim victory points under the conditions of the Recon mission.

The tournament was great fun, and not just because I came in second. You get a real sense of validation when your army performs well against a variety of opponents. I am already putting together an army with a Bike Squad and an Attack Bike and looking forward to the next tournament.

Related Pages
Running a Tournament by Paul Hill
 

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© Copyright Patrick Eibel, November 2000. Used with permission.
 

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