Detachment Focus: Champions of Russ (Updated November 13, 2024)

In this series of articles we take a deep dive into a specific detachment for a faction, covering the faction’s rules and upgrades and talking about how to build around that faction for competitive play. In this article, we’re covering the Champions of Russ Detachment from Index: Space Wolves.

The Space Wolves have been up and down in Tenth edition – mostly down through edition’s early days, and revitalized recently with the rise of “Wolf Jail” lists. One constant throughout the edition has been that the faction’s Champions of Russ Detachment has been mostly an afterthought while successful Space Wolf armies have instead relied on the Stormlance Task Force. However an update in the Q3 2024 dataslate gave the Champions of Russ Detachment new life, and since the Q4 nerfs to many of the best units used in “Wolf Jail” lists Champions of Russ has emerged as a strong alternative.

Detachment Overview

The Champions of Russ Detachment is the “pure” Space Wolves Detachment, and as such restricts which units you can bring – you cannot include ADEPTUS ASTARTES units drawn from any other Chapter, and cannot include Tactical Squads, Assault Squads, Devastator Squads, Command Squads, or Apothecaries in your army. 

The core rules for the Detachment give you bonuses which require completing some feat in-game to activate them. These were initially way too difficult to accomplish, and they’ve been adjusted twice to make the Detachment more playable. That’s great, because the Detachment offers some very solid Stratagems and Enhancements to choose from. While the Stormlance Task Force is your Thunderwolf Cavalry detachment (though Champions can be that too), Champions of Russ has a lot more flexibility with its Stratagems and benefits, giving you a much more solid base to build a non-TWC Wolves army. That’s good, because the Q4 balance update increased the points cost on Thunderwolf Cavalry pretty substantially, while reducing costs on Long Fangs, Skyclaws, and Wolf Guard.

Changelog

• 2024-11-13 (Current): Updated for the Q4 Balance Dataslate
• 2024-09-06: Original Publication

Detachment Rule: Deeds Worth of a Saga

At the start of the first battle round, select one of the Sagas listed below (excluding Saga of Majesty); that Saga is considered to be completed by your army, and all ADEPTUS ASTARTES models from your army gain the associated benefit until the end of the battle.

At the end of each player’s turn, you can select one of the Sagas listed below (excluding the Saga you selected at the start of the first battle round). If that Saga was completed by your army gain the associated benefit until the end of the battle. 

Saga of the Warrior Born

• Completed if: One or more Character models from your army killed an enemy Character that turn.

• Benefit: Melee weapons equipped by units in your army gain SUSTAINED HITS 1. This is a solid ability, and helpful for making a unit of six Thunderwolves hit like a unit of seven. The real use here is the combo with Relentless Assault for Advance and Charge, however.

Saga of Majesty

• Completed if: You controlled one or more objectives in your opponent’s deployment zone at the end of a turn and one of your Characters was in range of that objective.

• Benefit: Improve the OC of ADEPTUS ASTARTES models in your army by 1. This is huge, but as the only Saga which can’t be active from the start of the game, it’s more situational than you’d like. Still, if you can pull it off suddenly making your Wulfen OC 1 is pretty great.

Saga of the Bear

• Completed if: One or more of your Characters were reduced to below half their starting wounds that turn but weren’t destroyed.

• Benefit: Models in your army get the Feel No Pain 6+ ability. This is great for going up against armies with lots of multi-damage attacks which might otherwise take out your Wulfen and Thunderwolves easily – surviving on a single wound when you pass a Feel No Pain can mean tanking an additional unsaved wound and this is crucial against armies with lots of psychic devastating wounds like Thousand Sons, where it can be a 4+ with Runic Wards.

Saga of the Beastslayer

• Completed if: A character model from your army killed a MONSTER or VEHICLE that turn.

• Benefit: Melee weapons equipped by models in your army gain LETHAL HITS. Your Thunderwolves and Wulfen can hit hard but not hard enough to make killing big enemy vehicles trivial. You’ll know when you need this and it’ll do work in those games, especially when you can pair with the [LANCE] ability on Go For the Throat.

It’s worth noting that in addition to the benefit conferred by these abilities, they also each have an associated Stratagem in the Detachment for which having the Saga active will give you a bonus. For example, while Saga of the Warrior Born is active, the Relentless Assault Stratagem gives a unit the ability to Advance and Charge. This is huge for planning which Saga you want to start with. 

Oh by the way – thanks to the Balance Dataslate, at the start of the first battle round you can select one of these Sagas (except for Saga of Majesty) to be active from the start of the game. That’s a huge benefit, and goes a long way toward boosting the competitive viability of the Champions of Russ Detachment. That it happens after the first turn roll gives you a ton of flexibility – if you’re going first, you can pick Saga of the Warrior Born and use its synergy with Relentless Assault to proc an easy turn 1 charge in most scenarios while if you’re going second you can opt for Saga of the Bear for more durability or Saga of the Beastslayer to hit harder against bigger threats. It’s also worth noting that Saga of the Beastslayer is one of the easiest sagas to accomplish, but it requires a Character model deal the killing blow, so be careful how you attempt that.

Enhancements

The Space Wolves have some decent Enhancements, with two giving you pretty decent melee buffs. That said, you don’t necessarily need damage if you’re just trying to tie up a target, and none of these match the pure utility you get from Hunter’s Instincts in the Stormlance Task Force Detachment. That said, they aren’t limited to MOUNTED units in the same way.

• The Pelt of Balewolf (10 points) – At the start of the Fight Phase, each enemy unit within Engagement Range of the bearer must take a Battle-shock test. This is pretty bad, and its applications pretty niche.
• Black Death (25 points) – The bearer’s melee weapons have the ANTI-MONSTER 4+ and ANTI-VEHICLE 4+ abilities. Now we’re talking – you want this on a Thunder Hammer, where the ability to combine it with DEVASTATING WOUNDS turns the character into a vehicle- and monster-killing machine.
• Frost Weapon (15 points) – The bearer’s melee weapons gain PRECISION, and improve the Strength and AP of those weapons by 1. If you can’t afford Black Death this is a very solid alternative, as getting a Thunder Hammer to S9 and AP-3 makes it much more lethal and gives it a better swing into a lot of T9 vehicles. It’s not bad on a Relic weapon or power fist, either. 
• Wolf Tail Talisman (20 points) – Each time an attack is allocated to the bearer, subtract 1 from the Damage characteristic of that attack. 

The ones here you really want to play with are Black Death and Frost Weapon, which give you some solid output on your melee attacks, which are otherwise much more pedestrian AP-2 attacks. That said, you can also do without all of these. 

Stratagems

There are some solid Stratagems in the Champions of Russ Detachment, and they give you a solid amount of utility to work with.

• Armour of Contempt (Battle Tactic, 1 CP) – Used in the opponent’s Shooting or Fight phase when one of your units is targeted to reduce the AP of incoming attacks by 1 against that unit for a phase. Always useful to have, and a staple for the Space Marines faction. Particularly useful for standing up to high volumes of AP-1 fire which might otherwise put you on your 4+ invulnerable saves. Combine with liberal use of cover and Saga of the Bear to turn Thunderwolves into one of the game’s toughest units.
• Go For the Throat (Battle Tactic, 1 CP) – Used in the Fight phase to improve the AP of a unit’s melee weapons by 1, and, if Saga of the Beastslayer is active, your melee weapons get [LANCE] as well. THis is very solid, particularly on something like Assault Intercessors, where getting your chainswords to AP-2 can make a huge difference at that volume, and you can just start the game with Saga of the Beastslayer active if you need or activate it via a Stratagem for the unit.
• Runic Wards (Wargear, 1 CP) – Used when your unit is targeted in the opponent’s Shooting phase or the Fight phase to gain a Feel No Pain 5+ against mortal wounds and psychic attacks, or 4+ if Saga of the Bear is active. This is huge against the likes of Thousand Sons, Grey Knights, and Tyranids, where you’re going to be eating a ton of psychic attacks. Suddenly having double the wounds going up against Thousand Sons is a huge advantage and this is great for tanking some of Magnus and the Infernal Master’s most egregious bullshit. That said, watch out – it doesn’t work in the Movement phase, so you can’t use it to tank an Overwatch attack. 
• Death Howl (Strategic Ploy, 1 CP) – Used in the Fight phase when you destroy an enemy unit. Until the end of the phase you can consolidate 6″ instead of 3″ as long as you end your move within Engagement Range of an enemy unit. If Saga of Majesty is active, then every unit you end up within 6″ of must take a Battle-shock test. This is very situational but can be some great post-fight movement tech to end up touching a unit after you blow up its screen, locking an opponent in. That Battle-shock test is hard to use effectively but can be useful if you use this on your opponent’s turn and manage to turn off their objective control when your Command phase rolls around. 
• Warrior Pride (Epic Deed, 1 CP) – Used in your Command phase on a Character in your army. You can pick a Saga that hasn’t been completed yet and until the end of the turn models in that Character’s unit can act as though the Saga has been completed. This is great if you need to turn on Saga of the Warrior Born for a turn to get Advance and Charge, or to steal an objective in the Command phase with Saga of Majesty, or to pull Beastslayer in a pinch. It’s a very versatile Stratagem but because you have to use it in the Command phase it takes a bit of forethought – you need to plan when and how you’ll use it. Because the effect ends at the end of the turn you’ll seldom use this for Saga of the Bear.
• Relentless Assault (Strategic Ploy, 1 CP) – Used in the Movement phase after you make a Fall Back or Advance move. Your unit is still eligible to shoot this turn. if Saga of the Warrior Born is active, you can also charge. This is huge, and a big reason to start the game with Saga of the Warrior Born active – getting that turn 1 Advance and Charge is a big deal, and helpful for making Wolf Jail work when you don’t have the ability army-wide.

These are some really nice Stratagems and unlike the set you get in the Stormlance Task Force, they’re not locked to MOUNTED units – these are great to have on Wulfen, Grey Hunters, Wolf Guard – you name it. Because they combo off having your Sagas active, you’ll want to factor them into your saga decisions at the start of the game. Relentless Assault makes Saga of the Warrior Born a very solid pick, while Runic Wards is huge against some armies. And Go For the Throat makes Beastslayer even better against its target threats.

Playing This Detachment

Following the points hikes to TWC in the Q4 balance update, we’ve seen Champions of Russ armies take a very different tack to Stormlance Task Force lists, abandoning the expensive MOUNTED units in favor of a much broader spread of melee units and shooting support. You can’t replace the speed and durability of TWCs directly but you can recreate them in the aggregate with Assault Intercessors (with and without Jump Packs), Blood Claws, and Wulfen, leaving you with an extra thousand or so points to spend on ranged support and characters. If you really want to keep playing TWCs you can, but they tend to do much better in the Stormlance Task Force: Previously the advantage of the Champions detachment was having better support for non-MOUNTED units, but with the point hikes you just don’t have enough of those to make it worth taking the detachment. That said, if you want to take one unit of TWCs in your Champions of Russ army, that can work.

One area you can afford to splurge with the points you save on TWCs is on characters – Ragnar Blackmane has always been a solid character play just looking for the right list and now that you’re going to be running Assault Intercessors and maybe Blood Claws he gives you a way to super-charge that unit, giving them Advance and Charge and in turn benefitting from either their re-rolls (Assault Intercessors) or Strength/Attacks boost (Blood Claws). Having 12 swings with Frostfang at S9 is a hell of a thing. The other half of your melee punch is going to be 2-3 units of Wulfen. You won’t necessarily take 30 of them, but one unit of 10 is generally a good idea.

Although he went up in cost in the Q4 update, Bjorn the Fell-Handed is still a common take in Champions of Russ armies; he’s got solid melee and ranged output with his Helfrost cannon and the +1 CP cost aura he projects is just insanely useful on a model you can reliably push to the middle of the table. He absolutely demands to be dealt with and can make a huge difference on your big “push” turn when you use him to stop your opponent from firing Overwatch or using defensive Stratagems with key units.

When it comes to support units, It’s hard to go wrong with Wolf Scouts. Although more expensive than Scout Squads, they make up for it by being much more versatile, able to fill in as a melee threat in a pinch thanks to the ability to take a power fist and power weapon in every squad.

Prior to the Q4 update we saw some builds with a ten-terminator brick achieve success; these run Wolf Guard with Thunder Hammers and Storm Shields, a unit all decked out for holding the table’s center with additional durability help from the Saga of the Bear. If you need ranged output, Long Fangs can offer that, and in a recent list we’ve seen them put in Razorbacks supporting both a big block of Wolf Guard and two big units of Thunderwolves. While the Terminators give you more of a “push to the middle and hold it” strategy the Thunderwolves and Wulfen in these lists retain the same goal – charging into the enemy lines early and trapping them while you run up the score. What the terminator brick gets you instead of a third Thunderwolves unit is a bit more insurance against opponents who can outmaneuver the TWCs, or which the TWCs will bounce off of. In those games you can hang back and use the Terminators as part of a slower, hold the middle of the table strategy – they’re just as nasty a tarpit as the TWCs are, but can hit pretty hard with their Thunder Hammers, especially if they have Arjac Rockfist with them.

All of this comes together in a package that looks familiar, but different: Your mission is still to jam the opponent in their deployment zone with early pressure, setting up on turn 1 for a big “push” turn on 2, moving Bjorn to mid-table as Ragnar, the Wulfen, and the Assault Intercessors with Jump Packs close in. Your ranged support can also make itself known here, softening up key targets before the charge. Then you clean up on secondary objectives/actions with Wolf Scouts while the opponent struggles to fight their way out of all those bodies.

Patrick Dawson’s List – Napalm Hobbies FROST FIRE GT – 2nd Place

Patrick took this list to a 4-1, 2nd place finish at the Frost Fire GT in early November, beating Necrons, GSC, and two Tyranids lists while dropping a game to Admech in the third round. It uses a heavy dose of assault intercessors and Wulfen supported by Bjorn and a pair of Vindicators.

The list - click to expand

As mentioned before, this list is going to spend the first round setting up for a big push play on turn 2, using Ragnar and the Jump Assault Intercessors to push an opponent back and keep them from choking up on their deployment lines early. You use that threat to keep them back while setting up for a big turn 2 in which you can press forward with Bjorn and his aura and your assault forces (who spent turn 1 advancing), then bring the vindicators to bear on softer targets while everything that can credibly charge something does. Then you watch as your opponent’s surviving units have to claw their way out of 35 power-armored bodies and 15 Wulfen.

Final Thoughts

Right now Space Wolves are having a solid competitive moment, fueled largely by Thunderwolf Cavalry being able to take control of games early. This means that successful competitive wolf lists tend to run Stormlance Task Force about two thirds of the time, but we’re starting to see more Champions of Russ builds out there as players rediscover its versatility. If Thunderwolves take a hit points-wise in a balance update, Champions may suddenly become the preferred way to play wolves, where a wider variety of units can take full advantage of some of the powerful rules on offer.

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