I take some time to look at the math behind the upcoming Wolf Claws to help you decide whether to re-roll to-hit or to-wound.

No matter how much I'm looking forward to modeling up and playing a Gears of War themed Guard army, I will always have a soft spot for my Space Wolves. I love their fluff, I love their playstyle and I'm going to love them more once they arrive in October.

Of some interest to me are the Wolf Claws, the Space Wolves version of Lightning Claws. According to several rumor sources, these will allow you to choose whether to re-roll the to-hit roll or the to-wound roll. The question is, which is better? Let's take a look:

Single Dice Rolls and Re-rolls

The image above shows for each dice roll the normal percentage, the additional chance by re-rolling it, and the total change of success. This is the basis for the following table, which compares all of the dice rolls in close combat:

Side-by-Side Comparisons

First, the terminology: when you see 3+r | 2+, that means 3+ to hit with a re-roll, followed by a 2+ to wound. So on the first row, you can see that if your roll is going to be a 3+, then a 2+, it's better for you to re-roll the 3+. Second, you can see that for rows where the requirement is the same (3+ to hit and to wound, for example), it makes no difference. That's simply rules of math: 3 x 2 is the same as 2 x 3.

Implications

Obviously, if you look at the chart for just a little while, you'll see a pattern emerging: in all of the comparisons, the re-roll is best utilized when it is used for the roll least likely to succeed. So given the choice between re-rolling a 4+ or a 2+, you want to re-roll the 4+.

Of lesser but still notable importance: how often are Wolf Claws advantageous over Lightning Claws and by how much? If you look at the chart, you'll see that of the 15 roll combinations there are six cases where they make a difference. And where the choice to re-roll to hit instead of to-wound is advantageous, the gain ranges from negligible (about 2.8%) to reasonable (about 13.9%).

Usage and Bottom Line

In gameplay, the Space Wolves player will want to do some quick thinking ahead before the dice are rolled to determine which roll will be more difficult and then declaring the re-roll to be that one. So if you will have to roll a 4+ to hit, then a 2+ to wound, re-roll the hit. But if you're rolling a 4+ to hit, then a 5+ to wound, re-roll the wound.

Wolf Claws are a fun and solid addition to the Space Wolves arsenal of weapons, and the re-roll choice they provide should always be used to re-roll the harder and I look forward to seeing them shred up enemies on the field of battle!

I wouldn't claim to be the best Space Wolves player by any means. In fact, I was pretty mediocre as far as strategy was concerned. But I always preferred mobility for my wolves over any sort of static gunline. My troops were usually mounted, and my tanks usually did all of my long-range fighting. In my full collection, I have five tanks, two being Predators, two being Rhinos and one being a Razorback or third Rhino. When I played and collected Space Wolves, I wasn't exactly flush with cash. And really, when you play this game, not many people are. So I had to be flexible:

On the Prowl

Anything 1500 points or below only ever saw one Predator in the field. And the reason for this was that I loved my troops too much to sink points into something that I knew would get one-shotted.

My Predators, one of which has lascannon sponsons and the other with heavy bolter sponsons, generally played the role of bullet magnet. I wanted my opponents to shoot at this tank so that my Rhinos would last the extra turn. Lascannons scared most kiddies that I played against, so I'd field the TL LC with the HB sponsons or the AC with the LC sponsons. That way, there was always that “threat” of a lascannon running around on the field, drawing attention.

On the Warpath

My Rhinos were critical machines, even with transports being certain death to occupants in 3rd and to some degree 4th edition. But with the 5th edition has come a vast improvement to transports, so these babies are even more critical than ever before.

The Razorback collar and gun see little, if any, action. I keep the top hatch of the Rhinos separate so that if I want to field a 3rd Rhino I just swap out the top bits. But I like the model.

The Lone Wolf

I only have one of these, and it pretty much serves a singular, suicidal purchase. I basically just choose one tank at the beginning of the game and have my Landspeeder tank-hunt it. After that, I don't care what happens to it. It's a 65 point homing missile, and more often than not gets maybe one shot off before it goes down. I actually bought an Attack Bike but never assembled it to replace my Landspeeder but never got around to it.

This last shot reveals a slightly interesting truth — I was and probably will continue to be a sprue painter. For as long as I can remember, I painted most of my plastics while they were in the sprue, and then assembled them afterwards. It has its advantages and disadvantages, but overall I prefer it over pretending that I can reach into the dark recesses of various models and paint them perfectly.

The venerable dreadnought has the honour of being the only piece I've ordered from Forge World. And I bought it despite the fact that it was entirely not feral, fanged, crazed or otherwise Space Wolfy. It was just too good a model.

I chose the plasma cannon as its weapon, but I'm not quite sure why. It's deathly expensive, and I'd probably say that the new rules for Plasma Cannons are actually worse off when you have BS 5. Maybe I just chose it for the look — it's undisputeably one of the most bestial plasma cannons out there. And it absolutely dwarfs the plasma cannons on the sponsons of the Leman Russ Demolisher to the point where it makes me weep a bit to think that in game terms, they spit out the same stuff. In fact, it's probably big enough to compete with the Executioner plasma cannon in the new IG codex. Too bad mine's not Heavy 3.

There isn't much to say about the claw, except that it was a bit of a pain to put together and position. It also has a paint chip just off the edge of the photo. Standard fare though.

To make things easier (and more fun!) I've kept the Venny in four pieces: you can see the legs with the torso mount and pin for rotating around — there may be arguable game advantages to have a torso that can actually spin around (ie. when the poor bugger's immobilized). I also never glued his arms in place, so they could be pulled off for Weapon Destroyed! results or exchanged for other arms (which I definitely don't have).

Space Wolves, like many armies, had a few aces up their sleeves. And my beloved Wolf Scouts were definitely one of them. They were the first scouts to get a game-changing version of infiltration. And unlike vanilla Space Marine scouts, these ones were armed to the teeth.

Playing against Wolf Scouts was like ... losing a Slap Bet. And it often played out in one of two ways. You see, some players had no idea what it really meant to “Operate Behind Enemy Lines.” I'd tell them about it, leave the scouts on the side of the table, but when they came on, what followed was something like this:

The second scenario was that they knew it was coming — perhaps they had seen it coming before — and they would over-prepare for it. But their knowledge of what the scouts could do didn't lessen the blow:

To the Teeth!

What made them sting so much was their armaments. The squad could take an assortment of power weapons and plasma pistols to destroy devestator squads, or they could field a meltagun and equip meltabombs to dispatch tanks pounding away at my Grey Hunters or Blood Claws. Just awesome.

Yet another vicious kick to the squad was the ability to field a Wolf Guard Pack Leader to lead them. The Space Wolves armoury allowed them to field a punishing variety of equipment ... or just a power fist. And that was often enough.

Finally, I'd painted up a couple that had snipers, but I never used them. The way that Space Wolves utilize scouts just wasn't jiving with snipers. But perhaps the 5th edition codex will change that.

I should take a moment to explain something. I have the models for the Space Wolves' special characters, but they're all lying in my bitz box, unpainted. Back in the day, when I played 40K (hey, that rhymes!) special characters were one of those things that was ... discouraged. You could see it in each codex, where said special dudes were jammed into the back of the book after the entire army list. They were realistically fluff with stats, as opposed to actual gaming pieces.

So when I peaked into the 5th edition codex for Space Marines - and soon after Imperial Guard - I have to admit that I was shocked. They were right there next to the rest of the army list entries! Blasphemy! The bottom line is that right now, I just don't have any HQ models that are beyond a pimped out plastic dude.

Take for example this guy:

We're talking about a mini made from a combination of bitz I had lying around. Legs from an assault marine, the helmet strapped to his waist (we'll say that he thinks people who wear helmets are wimps) is from a Chaos space marines box, most of the accessories are from the Space Wolves sprue ... the list goes on.

For weapons, he's got a bolt pistol and frost blade. 90 percent of the time, he's a Wolf Guard Battle Leader with those and frag grenades. He weighs in at just 88 points, and gets me six S5 power weapon attacks on the charge. If he dies? So what, he's 88 points.

The other battle leader I have a bit of a mystery to me. If I could go back five, maybe six years, I'd ask my former self, “what on earth is this guy???” Let's be real here: he's a Space Wolf with an inquisitorial shoulderpad (I concede that I liked the gold shiny bit on the top). Because feral, fanged, ass-backwards deviant space marines aren't suspect to the Inquisition ... Moving along, I find his weapon load out to be ... intriguing. A combi-melta and a lightning claw? Most intriguing.

Looking ahead to 5th edition, I asked the manager at the local GW (the one I used to work at) how many players these days use special characters. “A fair number,” said he. Given that I'm the kind of player who hated gooby play, I suppose I'll need to adjust my game strategy to suit this evolution. I admit that even looking at my own army list, I could upgrade these sub-100 pt Battle Leaders into 125+ point monsters (15 pts for the extra wound is probably worth it, compared to taking one more space marine).

And I'd be lying if I said that I didn't like the 5th edition Storm Shields. Extra pictures after the break.

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Wolf Guard were always a weird part of the Space Wolves codex. It was a strange cross between fluff and game terms, except that GW decided to nuts with fluff. Because upgrading models to Veteran Sergeants like everyone else was too easy. Because saying that the dudes in Terminator Armour were the best of the best and that's why they got to wear the cool kids clothes just wasn't enough. Because the 40K universe needed Captain-level Space Marines that could pick up a Plasma Cannon and yell out to the universe, "YES WE CAN!" (and yes, even in 5th edition, a Wolf Guard Battle Leader can take a Plasma Cannon :S)

These are my Wolf Guard. They're marked by black on the right shoulderpad, and yellow on the left. Some of them are in power armour, which more or less guaranteed that they would lead my suicidal Scouts squad, or they led a Blood Claws squad.

I bitz-ed this Wolf Guard Pack Leader because I was short a model one game. For his weapon, I used a Dwarf great weapon, with the head switched off for ... oh jeez what did I switch it off for? It was another WFB Dwarf weapon I think. In any case, I think it turned out alright, but I never finished basing the poor bastard.

The Wolf Guard Terminators are pretty much entirely stock Terminator models - I had these painted up and put in the display cases when the boxed set first came out. In game terms, Wolf Guard Terminators are nothing to write home about - they're more expensive than their vanilla brothers, and can't deepstrike. So I never used them, unfortunately. Enjoy.

The real magic of the Space Wolves had to be in its youngest and most ferocious of troop choices: the Blood Claws. The youngbloods of the Chapter were cheap, comparatively expendable, and absolutely destroyed the opposition if given the charge. Nowhere else in 40K could you find an 9-man squad (if you included a Wolf Guard Pack Leader) that could dish out 12 power fist attacks on the charge!

An early Blood Claw (one of the first ones I made!) was fortunate enough to receive a special order Gorkamorka power claw as his power fist - none of his battle brothers ever make fun of him for it.

At some point in time, I decided to bitz up a Blood Claw with a flamer - too bad that poor chap never sees combat because I'm too afraid to use it (the poor buggers would be screwed if the enemy fell back out of assault range).

In the end, I had about 25-30 Blood Claws, with 5 of them having some kind of power fist. Several pictures to follow. Enjoy.

I was originally inspired to play Space Wolves because I loved their lore. At the time, I was huge on Norse mythology and general ass kickery. I also just liked the blue-grey colour of their armour. So I choose Space Wolves as my Chapter, and in retrospect I'm glad I came to that choice.

I would say that I'm a purist in the sense that I think 40K games are all about the troops. And so I thought it would be fitting to show the grunts of the Space Wolves - Grey Hunters. Ludicrously expensive, I had to take at least one pack (squad) of these. And because of True Grit, they had to be modeled with some form of combat weapon on them.

Later in my career with the Wolves, I had to make sentries for a 2000 pt GW tournament, so I had to pump out a few more Grey Hunters that had suitable equipment.

Or perhaps they just had to look like they were extra alert.

I had about 3 packs worth of Grey Hunters in all, with special weapons including meltaguns, power fists, power weapons, and a plasma pistol or two. I never really used plasma guns because more often than not, I was better off engaging enemies in combat than having a shootout with them. Then again, some of them really liked shooting.