Wulfen Counter Tactics

They have 5 attacks with strength 5 each on the charge.
With Frostaxes, they hit at strength 8, but only initiative 1 after the first round.
They have 2 wounds each, but only a 4+ armour save - unless they took Thunder Hammers and Storm Shields, giving them a 3++ and strength 10 on top.
Claws give them strength 6 and 4 attacks, 6 on the charge, at no downsides.
They can have strength 4 assault 3 grenade launchers that also give them assault grenades - without needing to actually fire them.
They are bulky, but can take a flying Land Raider as a transport.
They can give one out of six buffs (three different ones, depending if the affected unit is locked in combat or not) to other Space Wolves units - not other Wulfen though.
In the unlikely case that one is killed in close combat, he gets to strike back with all of his attacks, even if he already used them this turn.
In a formation that consists of 2 - 5 Wulfen squads, they get to move twice, and also can charge on the opponent's turn if the target unit is already locked in combat.
Their only real weakness is their high points costs - and even then, three Wulfen with hammers and shields and two with axes and launchers are only 230 points.


So, how are we going to fight these things?

Any ideas?

Drown themm in poison. They will still fail that 3++ often enough if you keep shooting.

They are damn expensive and every dead one will hurt him. So poison is the way to go.

dissie ravagers and drown them in ap2

They either have a 4+ or a 3+ invul safe, AP 2 doesn't really help much.

Oh poo

You don't need disintegration weaponry. Splinter canons are enough. They die like Marines if they got the shields while being much more expensive.

Splinter weapons kill marines just fine. The same goes with the Wolfen. Who are expensive.

I am not worried about them at all

stilgar27 wrote:

Rokuro wrote:

In other words: SHOOT THEM!

4 toughness, 2 wounds, 3++, FNP. 24 poison shots should kill one, or 5.5 lances.

Well, some people are not so optimistic about it.

If you play MSU lists I wouldn't fear them. I plan on picking some Wulfen up myself but mostly because they're going to be such a hardhitting unit that can take on gargantuan creatures, monstrous creatures, death stars, and armor values. For my Dark Eldar, they'll go down easily enough to a high volume of shots and if they get to charge a unit, I won't lose any sleep over a dead venom or 5 man warrior squad. I don't see them getting to kill more than 1 or 2 units a game so they're paying too much for that against us.

Elite close combat units in 4+ armour really aren't that scary for Dark Eldar. Just fly away and shoot them with poison. I really do not understand why this unit exists in their current form. Seems to me like they should have three wounds, be beasts, and look like the Forge World Skin Wolves wearing greaves, pauldrons and gauntlets with Space Wolf runes and stuff on them. They look like someone stuck armour plates onto Teen Wolf with these models.

Mr Believer wrote:

Elite close combat units in 4+ armour really aren't that scary for Dark Eldar.  Just fly away and shoot them with poison.

The armor is not the problem, the Storm Shield is.

Mr Believer wrote:

I really do not understand why this unit exists in their current form. Seems to me like they should have three wounds, be beasts, and look like the Forge World Skin Wolves wearing greaves, pauldrons and gauntlets with Space Wolf runes and stuff on them. They look like someone stuck armour plates onto Teen Wolf with these models.

The idea is pretty simple: Make the new models look more badass than the old ones, and make their rules MUCH more powerful. GW has been doing that for a while now.

For comparison, these were the 3rd edition Wulfen:


And what could they do?

WS 5, BS 0, S 5, T 4, W 1, I 5, A 2, Ld 10, Sv 3+
Squad size: 5 - 15. Cost per model: 24 points.
Armed with two Hand Weapons; no further options, and no grenades.
In the movement phase, they must move 6+D6'' towards the closest enemy unit. This becomes optional if a Wolf Priest is joined to them. And no characters other than Wolf Priests are allowed to join them.

Going to play against them tonight. Poison will be my bet

Good luck and happy hunting!

One "lucky" dark lance shot is a dead wulfen. They 50 points with hammer and shield so 5 is 250 points. That is close the price of 2 ravagers or 6 dark lance shoots. Quick math, 4 out of the 6 shoots hits and of the 4 hits 3,33 wounds. The 3++ save saves 2 so 1 dead wulfen... That would take a lot of DL shots.
A venom plus 4 warriors and one with blaster shots 12+4 poison shots and 1 blaster shoot. 16 shots gives about 10 and 5 wounds than. The blaster gives 0,6667 hits and about 0.59 wounds... With the 3++ save that's 1,6 wounds the feel no pain saves about 0,5 wound. So if you are lucky 1 wulfen dies...

Well I must say! Those wulfen are tough. My opponent ran 5. 4 with thunder hammer and storm shield and the other pack leader with frost claws.

He made a good number of saves with them! I threw a lot at the unit and at the thunder wolves , let's say that they did some work.

The things that worked best were instant deathing them with lances and a harlequin solitaire that guy was great with his invulnerable save and eternal warrior.

Can't wait to see the battle report!

Mr Believer wrote:

I really do not understand why this unit exists in their current form. Seems to me like they should have three wounds, be beasts, and look like the Forge World Skin Wolves wearing greaves, pauldrons and gauntlets with Space Wolf runes and stuff on them. They look like someone stuck armour plates onto Teen Wolf with these models.

I hate the models too but it's all to tied in with their novels/Warzone Fenris book, and a larger plot I imagine they'll use to build up to the chaos marine release next summer.  It hasn't really sunk in yet though that in the fluff (and on the tabletop) the wulfen curse is contagious.

I expect spacewolf players are going to realize quickly that these guys are just as valuable as force multipliers, and start using them as lynch pins along side units which receive the most from these buffs.  Most of those units (like bloodclaws) are underutilized and have new, surprisingly effective formations.  All that Strength 10/AP2/3++/FNP on the Wulfen is just a bonus  

Luckily most of that isn't going to effect MSU (dark) eldar players too much.  We're going to be playing objectives, plinking at them, and running (bravely) away when they get too close like we would against any power armour.  We'll just have to remember how big their threat range is.  Long fangs will probably remain a more serious threat to our little niche.

What does rustle my jimmies though is that wulfen are a serious counter to 1 of our (2?) remaining effective strategies - which is the grotesque bomb.  With a fast attack drop pod, 5 tooled up wulfen can get on the ground (buffing any space wolves near by) for about the same price as 4 naked grotesques and the mandatory Haemy/web way portal.  If any of those wulfen have thunder hammers (and 2-3 will) they're going to go through those grots like wet paper.

Grotesques are really the only unit in the codex I use any more.

Played against wulfen last night, they die easily enough with enough shots, the thing I have trouble stopping is his Calvary, and something gave him the ability to move twice? He charged me turn 1 before I even moved, completely across the board! Someone explain how that worked plz?

It's the wulfen murderpack.  Basically you add +1 to the curse roll for every "unit" on the table (this needs to be clarified).  If it's 7+ anything within range (6-12") can move twice.  If they're in melee they get +1 attack instead.

http://forum.spikeybits.com/showthread.php?29784-Readable-Space-Wolf-Rules

search in your browser for murderpack, there is a lot on that page.  Check out the Firehowlers and Wolfkin formations though while you're there, I have a feeling we're gonna see a lot of first turn charges with the help of the wulfen.

I'm curious how your opponent had his wulfen geared?  There is already a debate as to whether  minimizing the cost and getting a murderpack on the table is worth sacrificing all that AP2/3++.

I'm planning on assembling a kit of wulfen today and still going back and forth on loadout myself. Leaning towards leader with claws and stormfrag autolauncher, 1 with great axe, and 3 with hammer/shield. The shields add significantly to their durability and allow you to run out of cover more, but boy does the unit get expensive quickly.

It would kill just about any unit in the game including imperial knights, but I'm not sure how easily it will get into combat and it's the cost of a land raider.

Let's do some Mathhammer. a 65 point Venom with 24 poison shots from 36" takes on average ~2 wounds, so 1 wolf rider with a storm shield, which is ~77 points, in one turn. 3 Venoms (195pts) take away 230 points unit of 3 wolves. Yes, they may be moving damn fast, but normally you'll have at least a turn to shoot at them, and they can charge only 1 Venom at once. Problems bro?

asp wrote:

Let's do some Mathhammer. a 65 point Venom with 24 poison shots from 36" takes on average ~2 wounds, so 1 wolf rider with a storm shield, which is ~77 points, in one turn. 3 Venoms (195pts) take away 230 points unit of 3 wolves. Yes, they may be moving damn fast, but normally you'll have at least a turn to shoot at them, and they can charge only 1 Venom at once. Problems bro?

You know venoms only get 12 shots each, right?

Also, I think you're talking about thunderwolf cavalry and not wulfen. If you are, then a thunderwolf cavalry with shield costs 55 points. If you're not, then a wulfen with shield costs 50 points. Either way, I feel like there are a lot of math mistakes here.

You can charge multiple units at once, too. I frequently do so with my own TWC because of their large bases and huge movement distance.

Ya it takes about 130 points with of venom shooting on average to kill a wulfen with storm shield (and thunder hammer) - who's 50 points.  You can always get lucky of course - but I never seem to.  Many players are going to skimp on shields though, so typically you'll only have to overcome that 3++ 2-3 times and the rest should be lance bait.  Alternatively you can try to get around them so that the shield bearers are not the closest model to lances.

Although they have some special mobility rules, wulfen are still pretty slow.  Stormwolves are the only dedicated transports at 215 points a piece, and while those flyers are kind of awesome I doubt anyone is paying that.  Fast attack drop pods are probably the best bet but if you wanted one of the new detachments, these will come with an allied detachment tax.

The murderpack gives the wulfen another strategy though where most everything starts on the table and the wulfen boost the movement of anything nearby for a 1st turn charge.  You can go with cheap tarpit unit like fenrisian wolves (which now come in "alpha" packs of up to 75... with +1 attack each and monster hunter) and rely on the wulfen to catch up for harder targets, Thunderwolves for a more effective small unit, or swift claws to split the difference (I'm a fan of the new swift claws formation myself).

I really hope GW continues to move towards more complex rules and units with multiple roles in their future releases.  I just hope they tone it down a bit and don't give them all strength 10 ap2...

lessthanjeff wrote:

asp wrote:

Let's do some Mathhammer. a 65 point Venom with 24 poison shots from 36" takes on average ~2 wounds, so 1 wolf rider with a storm shield, which is ~77 points, in one turn. 3 Venoms (195pts) take away 230 points unit of 3 wolves. Yes, they may be moving damn fast, but normally you'll have at least a turn to shoot at them, and they can charge only 1 Venom at once. Problems bro?

You know venoms only get 12 shots each, right?

Also, I think you're talking about thunderwolf cavalry and not wulfen.  If you are, then a thunderwolf cavalry with shield costs 55 points.  If you're not, then a wulfen with shield costs 50 points.  Either way, I feel like there are a lot of math mistakes here.

You can charge multiple units at once, too.  I frequently do so with my own TWC because of their large bases and huge movement distance.

Yes, you're right on the poor calculations So, two Venoms take down a rider. However, it still looks very beneficial for the DE player - and with some above average rolls you can kill two or three. About the charges - I meant if you put your Venoms far enough from each other, opponents' cavalry can only charge one at once.