Countering Space Wolves Blackmane list

This Saturday I'll be playing in a small tournament at my local shop. I feel confident in my list against most armies. I am however 0-2 against my buddy's drop pod Space Wolves. For those not familiar, Blackmane's are a core from the Wolves unleashed book that grants the Wolves free drop pods (that ALL arrive on turn 1) and rerolls in combat to blood claws. He pairs this core with scouts, Wulfen with hammer and shield, and deep striking heavy flamer speeders.

My list is a dark artisan formation, a grotesquery, 4 venoms, 6 sqauds of 3 reavers with caltrops and heat lance, and a lone ravager with triple lance.

The venoms and reavers squads have been eaten up by flamers from the Blood Claws every game and it's cost me board control and with so much jinking after his first turn my damage has been far to low to handle his squads before the Wulfen arrive to hammer my grotesquery. Also, getting rid of 8 drop pods has been a challenge as AV 12 isn't the easily handled after the reavers are gone

Maybe keeping units in reserve it might help?

I've got a scrim with him today and that's what I'm going to try. I'm thining with only starting the Dark Artisan and grotesquery on the board..maybe the ravager. His anti-tank shooting is primarily 2 squads for multi melta long fangs. They arrive by pods so there first turn isn't as brutal as it could without relentless. Still, one multi melta getting through could easily result in the ravager being gone.

castle the big stuff in a corner to make him drop in bad positions and reserve the rest

Looking at what comes in the Blackmanes, I'd say tool up with some Template weapons. COnsidering theres a lot of combat happy in that list, having unit which can both tarpit and hope to get some kills in Overwatch would be useful.

doriii wrote:

castle the big stuff in a corner to make him drop in bad positions and reserve the rest

Nailed it.

He has alpha strike therefore you must beta strike.
After he drops he loses mobility and can be slaughtered piecemeal.

Yeah, that definitely worked. I managed to kill most of his blood claws with grotesques before the wulfen got there to hammer time them into last year. A lucky roll for +1 strength helped get rid of a drop pod or two as well. Dealing with that much AV 12 is a real pain but, the heatlance worked well when they came in to pop the few pods in my deployment zone. It was still a close game. I need more anti tank.