With a new batch of rules updates comes the need to revisit the strategies and tactics of each faction. Today JONK! is talking about the changes to marines and how they affect Space Wolves armies.

Welcome to Arks of Omen! There has been a monumental amount of changes coming all at once with the new dataslate, MFM, big FAQ and the new Chapter Approved. Needless to say, there’s a lot set to change change going forward for our angry people in grey and today we’re going to try and cover it all.

With every seasonal change you can count on the Goonhammer competitive crew to writer a new series of Faction Focus articles and we’re doing the same for Arks as we did for Nephilim. In this article Jon ‘JONK’ Kilcullen will talk about the Space wolves, covering how the faction changed, what it means for playing them, how they fare in the new meta, and offer a list with some thoughts on playing them.

The Notable Changes 

At first glance not a lot changed in terms of how the army actually functions; you will still play the same passive-aggressive archetype, you will still look to get into combat and project threat. However one of the secondary changes, combined with endless options from the MFM adjustments, now allows wolves to be quite a bit more dangerous on the table. Let’s go through the big changes:

Secondary Changes

Pour one out for one of our best (if not most misunderstood) secondaries being put to rest: Mighty Saga. This was an auto-take, 10-free-points-every-single-game secondary that we will now have to adjust to not having. I personally do not think these types of secondaries are healthy for the game in general anyways, so I am not sad to see it go. On a minor note, Wolves also lose Heroic Challenge which is a stealth buff to the faction as now bad players can’t make the mistake of taking it any more. All is not lost however, as an old friend has returned: Oaths of the Moment is back to its full original power and is now actually playable again. Several of the generic secondaries such as Behind Enemy Lines now give you bonus CP for accomplishing them with Troops units, giving us more decent options out to pick from. Overall this is a net loss for Wolves, though time will tell how much we actually miss Mighty Saga.

Absurd points adjustments

Welcome to the fire sale, where everything is priced to move! Wolves are one of the largest winners for points adjustments. Let’s look at a few of the many point drops affecting Space Wolves in Arks of Omen:

• Infiltrators, Gravis marines, and Intercessors all dropped in cost
• Impulsors dropped to 100 points, along with several other vehicles that matter a lot less
• Huge discounts on Thunderwolf Cavalry means they’re seriously good now.
• Wolf Guard Terminators go up 1 point per model but get free wargear options across the board. Free combi-weapons on Wolf Guard Terminators allows you to create ultra-versatile and very strong units at much lower prices than before.
• Bjorn is now incredibly pushed on price.
• Lots of guns become free or drop in price – as an all-melta devastator squad with a cherub drops by 10pts, and lascannon or plasma builds go down by even more. Other units like attack bikes get to take the premium weapon option for free.

Let’s just start this off by saying this absolutely is not healthy for the game and there is no conceivable way GW has actually thought this through: Most or all wargear becoming free on terminators is a clear sign that GW forgot factions like wolves, Deathwatch and Dark Angels exist and are able to do more with their terminators. The sheer amount of extra points you can stuff into a list now is mind-boggling; if you want to go really hard you can now build lists that cost more than a thousand points more in the prior MFM. Compared to other factions which received increases, this is similar to rocking up at the end of Nephilim with 3050 points to someone else’s 1500-1900. That said, 3,040 points with wargear isn’t as high as I could go but was as high as I would in what I’d consider to be a “serious” concept for a list.

Even if overall this isn’t great for the game there are still some much-needed points drops here, such as the drop on Thunderwolf cavalry which, when combined with their wargear adjustments, makes for a unit that is now quite possibly playable. Long fangs getting free Grav and cheaper melta turns that unit into a 125-point nightmare. The basic troop choices like Assault intercessors, Incursors, and Infiltrators are all cheaper, which feels really nice now to someone who routinely used 3×5 incursors in every list. The real interesting adjustment here is for the hounds of Morkai: At 17ppm they really become a desirable unit if you can find the elite slot to spare – though this is always an issue with wolves lists.  Are you in a Psyker-heavy meta? Here is an 85-point unit that can help turn the tide.

But the point change that will catch the eye of most players initially are the Wolf Guard with Jump packs (Vanguard Veterans). While the points per model cost of these went up by 1, the cost of the Jump pack went down 1 to offset this. The storm shield going up 1ppm is not great but again this is mostly offset by thunder hammers going down 2ppm. As a result, the fully kitted-out unit ends up coming out roughly 6 points cheaper all said and done; I am however concerned that 6 points cheaper is not good enough with AOC gone. There are other new, good options to explore.

New Detachment

I think it is too early to tell if this is good, bad, or just different. On first pass I really like it; less fumbling around and it’s more user-friendly for the newer players who are showing up to the game.  Having access to 9 elite slots is in particular pretty helpful for armies like wolves or blood angels. The saved CP costs are I believe the biggest value here as during Nephilim you really had issues with CP and were constantly forced to make tough choices in list design as to what (if any) relics to take and what warlord traits to take/ how many.  I think this detachment gives people more options in list design, which I enjoy.

Armour of Contempt

Yes, it is gone. And yes, it helped wolves out greatly in the survival game. It’s hard to say exactly how big of an impact this will have on the game in general but you will start to see a ton of AP-2, 2 damage guns return to the meta. Tau and Helverins/War Dog Executioners are immediately worrying when we do not have the angry armour anymore. This is obviously a nerf for the faction but I do not think we can exactly complain when we lost 16% durability and potentially gained 40+% more models.

The Seismic points adjustments, combined with AOC being removed, almost guarantees that the wolves lists we see in the near future will be significantly different from the previous book. There will be much more shooting combined with really good wolf guard terminator spam; every single wolves player out there has a ton of these terminators sitting on a shelf collecting dust. IT’S TIME!

Sticky Objectives

Finally the dataslate makes it so that all your Troops now “lock in” control of objectives in your Command Phase, similar to Objective Purged in Death and Zeal. This is great for Infiltrators (who are now cheaper), and means that even when going up against an opponent with strong indirect or ranged firepower, we can hold on to objectives even after being shot off an objective.

Wolves vs the World

In the Nephilim season, Space Wolves saw just over 3,100 games of tournament play to notch a combined win rate of 43%. That’s a slight drop from Nachmund, while Nachmund was a slight drop from the 2021 season. Wolves have been trending downward – similar to most marines, save Blood Angels – since late 2020. I am absolutely confident that unless GW does something drastic, this trend will be broken with Arks.

The Positive

The points do not lie: You are now showing up with 700-1300 more points than you were before, and that’s going to make your life easier. If you find yourself struggling, maybe Stu Black was right: Marines aren’t bad – You are.

In addition to the point drops, all of the faction’s most dangerous predators all took significant nerfs, with specifically Harlequins, Creations of Bile, Ynnari, and Tyranids now looking significantly worse, while factions like Sisters and Death Guard may struggle more in a post-Armour of Contempt world. Harlequins may be the biggest issue for wolves, though the faction moving to a 5++ and some other small changes will help here. That said, the matchup will likely still be a nightmare for wolves and the biggest advantage we have is that top players will simply move away from the faction.

Eldar of all flavours have historically been a counter matchup for wolves and marines in general. Fast movement, great psyker support, and very deadly shooting combined with strong combat makes for a pretty hard game. Eldar have been able to dictate the pace of games and surgically remove your models that are required to play the mission. The good news is that Craftworlds players lost a pretty good secondary and ate a points hike on Swooping Hawks, one of their most dangerous units. Overall this makes the matchup easier, but may be balanced by the fact that they no longer have to take Troops and their AP-1 shooting is more effective. Generally I think you’ll be relying on the fact that you’ll be able to throw an unreal amount of wargearadn bodies at them, wearing them down and allowing you to take control in later rounds. I’m not sure if James “Boon” Kelling agrees on this one but I’m eager to find out in his upcoming faction focus article.

Another major issue for Space Wolves in the Armour of Contempt world was Death Guard. Plague Marines were a huge issue, but with the removal of AoC they may just disappear to a unit of Veterans armed with lightning claws. Of course the issue will be that at their new lower cost, they may just have even more of them. Creations of Bile are in a similar boat, only they caught a much bigger nerf and didn’t get any point drops to compensate, making them much more killable, both in melee and with all those extra guns you’ll be showing up with. Another area things will be easier.

Of all the factions affected by the dataslate, Tyranids probably got the worst deal. They received so many senseless points hikes to units that were barely playable before that it’s hard to see the rationale behind them. The result is a faction that feels dead on the competitive scene. I actually feel bad for them. Having said this, removing them from competitive play only helps wolves, as they struggled to deal with the faction’s superior datasheets and would end up just getting consumed for biomass. This matchup previously was so bad for wolves I had to just stop playing Alex Macdougall because there was no point; he was not getting a game out of it and I only had a chance if he made glaring positional errors, which isn’t how you want to win practice games anyways. Now the tables have turned and I expect Wolves to roll over Nids.

Sisters taking the secondary nerfs and losing AOC helps in the sense that you are now able to actually remove these models again. Having several hundred more points on the table will drastically slant this matchup as you’ll be less likely to run out of steam. This will shift the matchup back toward Wolves, but not by a ton.

The Negative

The absolute Terror of losing to someone when you are playing over 1000 points up on them.

Also, Tau still exist and they absolute can kill 3000 points of marines without AOC. Likewise, while we’ve had the Astra Militarum book out and in limbo for a while, we’re already seeing what it can do and it’s only going to get better when killing marines gets easier. Yes, they lost the indirect fire buff but the new guard can put out insane amounts of firepower and kill our new, larger marine armies.

The Lists

Here I’m going to take a look at two list concepts: One from myself, built around how I like to play the game and the other from Jaime Paris. They both leverage the faction’s points drops but in slightly different ways.  Lets get to it:

JONK’s List

Red Wolves - click to expand

List rundown

The list is geared towards taking Oaths of the moment, Banner/RND, and Warrior pride.  All edition I have been in love with the red scorpions special characters which is why you are seeing me taking them.  The captain gives out an extra attack along with the traditional full rerolls to hit, he also slaps in combat.  The librarian gives out reroll wounds against psyker units and also slaps in combat.  They add some really cool tools to the list and they feel very fitting for a wolves army.

You are reading the list right, I am rating Thunderwolf cavalry again.  The list has 2 forward deploy options when needed, the cyberwolves are missiles you fire off to center for the first 2 turns to get your oaths of the moment as you wait for 1 of your terminator units to come in from reserve to then replace them on center.  Your Thunderwolves are there to project threat and give your opponents something to consider at a much greater range.  They add reach to an army that needs it early on in the game, now as to whether you actually want to follow through with the threat is a different story and I believe often times you will not.  Just having them there to keep your opponents honest is good enough.

The 20 terminators are there because now you have a hyper points efficient brink of moderately durable models that put out great shooting and very good combat.  I went with 10 combi-plasma terms to give myself options of keeping them on the table and having the ability to still affect the game at range, while I have the Hammer unit kitted out with combi-meltas to search out large T7/8 targets and make them go away.  Often times I would deep strike the hammer melta unit and keep the other on the table to receive buffs from the characters when the plasma inceptors are not being fired off.

The plasma inceptors now are in the list because they are very cheap and can really help you in some of the more dangerous matchups like creations of bile or emperors children.  Previously you would have to run up and try to fight these units which would make you fight last, or would have fight first abilities but also would fight on death, now you can fire a ton of shots into these units before your combat arrives.

All said and done I really like the look and feel of the list going forward, it gives me a ton of options and plays the mission the way I enjoy playing it.  I will be taking this or something very similar to a major in February, so I will have reports for everyone going forward on how I am doing with this.

Jaime’s List

The first light of the fifth day - click to expand

List rundown

Jaime has come to a similar conclusion as myself, Red scorpions are really nice to add to a successor chapter and 20 terms with 10 inceptors just feels right.  He has different ways of playing the mission using skyclaws and eliminators and making his characters slightly more dangerous than mine.  This has always been Jaime’s style, he always gets so much value out of his characters on the damage output side.  I really like his list, I understand and enjoy the differences and the options he values.  I really look forward to see how he can do with this and I am happy he is back from his vacation with tyranids.

Wrapping Things Up

We are entering a very interesting time of change in the late part of this edition and there’s a lot to look forward to if you’re a Space Wolves player. That said, there are a ton of changes coming so stay tuned for more of these faction focus articles in the next few weeks from other Goonhammer authors and the Art of War crew. Until next time keep seeking that saga!