First, if you haven't seen them, the 'Arboyz scenarios have been published. You can see them and a quick review by my favorite analytical mind AbusePuppy on 3++ is the New Black. That said, I noticed a few things about the scenarios.
1) 2 scenarios have night fighting rules on turn one, scenarios 1 and 3. Scenario 1 is a pitched battle deployment though, meaning you can have your whole army already deployed on the table while scenario 3 is a true dawn of war scenario. It is interesting to see that scenario 2 has night fighting rules as well, but at the end of the game.
2) 2 scenarios (1 and 3 again) are primarily based on killing your opponent.
These things help out Space Wolves due to a few things. 1) Acute senses and proper positioning can really give us an advantage and 2) Space Wolves can bring lots of ranged weaponry in 2,500pt.
So, what is the plan for a 2,500pt army that can compete against things like IG and Grey Knights?
That's right. Despite the fact that Grey Knights are the apparent heralds of the end of light mech armies, I think Space Wolves stand a chance of doing well with ligh mech spam. They do well because of the incredibly cheap cost of taking viable units that are decent assault units, can provide anti-infantry fire, and anti-tank fire all in one tidy package. For 155pt, I can take a unit of Grey Hunters with a las/plas or TL las razorback and a meltagun. This affords me a lot of options. Space Wolves can easily fit 9 razorbacks into a 2,500pt. list and still have a fairly meaty infantry presence. And taking razorbacks in the heavy slots doesn't prevent you from taking additional heavy weapons in the form of long fangs.
The next step is getting the drop on my opponents. This means, I need to have a way of reliably being able to cause a lot of damage early. Two things come into play here. 1) Nightfighting rules and Space Wolves ability to negate them through proper placement of vehicles and acute senses and 2) Bjorn the Fellhanded to provide a reroll to deploy and most likely (barring siezed initiative rolls) play first.
Razorspam seeks to not only provide target saturation (and in the case of Space Wolves hyper saturation), but also to provide a lot of heavy weapons to fire on turn 1 in hopes of crippling my opponents. Since this post is already getting verbose, let's look at my proposed list. It seeks to pack in as much high strength shooting as possible and utilizes grey hunters in massed combo assaults to provide counter assaults.
Here goes:
Bjorn the Fellhanded- plasma cannon- 270pt.
Rune Priest-living lightning, jaws of the world wolf, chooser of the slain- 110pt.
Rune Priest-living lightning, muderous hurricane, chooser of the slain- 110pt.
5 Wolf Scouts- meltagun- 85pt.
5 Wolf Scouts- meltagun- 85pt.
7 Wolf Guard- 4x pistol/power weapon, 2x combi-melta/powerfist, 1x terminator with cyclone missile- 261pt.
5 Grey Hunters-meltagun, las/plas razorback- 155pt.
5 Grey Hunters-meltagun, las/plas razorback- 155pt.
5 Grey Hunters-meltagun, las/plas razorback- 155pt.
5 Grey Hunters-meltagun, las/plas razorback- 155pt.
5 Grey Hunters-meltagun, las/plas razorback- 155pt.
5 Grey Hunters-meltagun, las/plas razorback- 155pt.
6 Long Fangs- 5x missile launchers, las/plas razorback-215pt.
6 Long Fangs- 5x missile launchers, las/plas razorback-215pt.
6 Long Fangs- 5x missile launchers, las/plas razorback-215pt.
2,496pt.
So this army utilizes quite a lot of heavy weapons and hopes Bjorn can score them the right to pick who gets first turn in order to blast targets. In dawn of war or nightfighting scenarios, the razorbacks will use searchlights to help the rest of the army see targets in hopes of crippling armies turn 1 with a barrage of high strength shots at range, 9 lascannons and plasmaguns, 17 missile launchers, 1 plasma cannon, and 2 living lightnings to be exact. This army even provides enough shots to worry Grey Knights as they are most comfortable at 24" and this army can comfortably sit in the 24"-48" bubble of safety with careful movement as it thins down an already low model count army. They only need to focus on those pesky psyflemen in order to negate a lot of the Grey Knights' ranged effect.
Glaring weaknesses? Yep. It's a gimick army like most will be at 2,500pt. However, it has 6 troops that provide 34 scoring bodies (including attending wolf guard models). It isn't great at counter assault, but hopefully most armies will be somewhat thinned out by time they get to it's meaty center. Deepstriking armies can cause trouble, but there are enough models to create strong deepstrike denial zones even for Blood Angels. If I don't get 1st turn, I have to hope I can weather shooting for a turn before I can lay down the hurt.
I do have an interesting ace up my sleeve as well in Bjorn. I would more than likely play him aggressively using his plasma cannon (and stellar BS6) to take out elite infantry. If he gets destroyed, I get a fearless army. That means my gun line won't run late in the game either if I lose him. Also, a 4+ psychic hood can help against just about every army with psychic offense (I'm looking at you Grey Knights).
So, this is obviously just a bunch of speculation and theoryhammering, but I think it would have quite a bit to offer. What do you think? Leave a comment and let me know if I am just out of my mind or if this might work out.
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