Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Fuzzwing

Another e-mail coming our way!

Hey,

I haven't yet had a chance to look at the new SW Codex, how viable do you think a "Loganwing" army is going to be.

An all terminator army doesn't sound like it is going to be too competitive... fun maybe... I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts

-- Kind Regards
Jason

I've been having the same problem. Ever since I heard that Logan Grimnar makes Wolf Guard Troops and all the fun options they get (including Terminator armor), I was all a flutter with happy emotions. As a Deathwing player, the opportunity to have another list with scoring Terminators is always useful if I want a change of pace.

Stelek put up a great article on making a "Loganwing" army here:
http://www.yesthetruthhurts.com/2009/09/analysis-master-crafting-loganwing-army.html

Pretty neat stuff. Unfortunately, his list isn't as Terminator heavy as I'd like. Going for an army of nothing but Termies isn't going to be the competitive choice, but fuck it, Terminators are cool! Now to reduce confusion, this all Termie list is going to need a different moniker. Fuzzwing sounds good, run with it. If it catches on, you heard it here first.

So, let's go down the basics of Wolf Guard Terminators, since they'll be the core of our army.

Your basic WGT has normal Terminator stats, a power weapon, storm bolter, ATSKNF, Acute Senses, and Counter Attack. This runs you 7 points less per model than Codex: SM Terminators. Not bad eh?
The best part is, you can mix and match every model in the squad to have different upgrades. Adding a Wolf Claw or combi-weapon is as painless as adding a melta bomb, Powerfists and Frost Blades will run double that, while Chainfists, Thunder Hammers, Storm Shields and a complete pair of Wolf Claws will set you back triple. Every 5 models in the unit can pick up a heavy weapon: Heavy Flamer, Assault Cannon, and Cyclone Missile Launcher, for the same price as Codex: SM Termies.

And that's just for the Terminator variants! Wow, that one unit has more options than the entire Dark Angels Codex! Whoops, made myself sad again :(

Every Fuzzwing army needs Logan Grimnar, and he doesn't come cheap. He's more than twice the cost of Belial, but this guy is one bad mofo. Hits like a freight train, Eternal Warrior, can give all his buddies within 18" +1 attack for 1 turn, and gives his unit a choice of Vet Skills (Fearless, Relentless, Preferred Enemy, or Tank Hunters). Win.

A Rune Priest is also nigh mandatory. Wolves have a lot of sweet psychic powers and cancelling enemy powers on a straight 4+ is pretty sweet for the same cost as a normal Librarian.

There's 3 main ways you can run a Fuzzwing, all based on WG transport options:
-Mechanized
-Drop Pods
-Footslogging

A Mechanized list features, what else, angry furry Termies running around in angry furry Land Raiders.

A Drop Pod list is like Deathwing Assault, only not reliant on overpriced Bikes surviving a turn, plus deployable cover. Yayz.

Footslogging is probably my pick, mostly because I don't feel like buying a bunch of Raiders or DPs. Flooding the board with 2+ save doods is always fun.

I'll go into each variant in more detail in later articles as I get time to playtest them. I don't think a Fuzzwing is going to be very competitive, like Deathwing, but it's nice to have an alternative to a fun variant list. I'll endeavor to play as "pure" as possible, but mixing in other units to offset the weaknesses of your Terminators would be a good idea. Who knows, with the right mix you could make a solid Terminator based army.

Now I don't think Fuzzwing is going to end up better than Deathwing, just different. If Fuzzwing lacks anything, it's scouting multi-meltas with built in teleport homers and AV14 skimmers, while Deathwing really don't have the punch in assault or access to such useful units as Thunderwolves and Fenrisian Wolves.

I hope that answers your questions and I hope to have some preliminary lists up shortly.

Later gators

2 comments:

jcroxford said...

All terminator army sounds like tons of fun. And since I have a ton lying around collecting dust-2 sets of black reach, new space hulk, and some old metal ones ready for simple green and repaint, throw in a box of new Wolf gaurd, it's on!

Chumbalaya said...

Yep, that's exactly how I built up my Deathwing. The wolfy boxes come with a metric ton of bits so you should have a good looking army in no time.

Depending on which weapons you need, you can find them on bitz sites or convert. Heavy Flamer = 2 flamers strapped together or vehicle/dreadnought heavy flamers in place of the storm bolter. Cyclone = typhoon missiles or Tau missile pods. Assault Cannon = Tau burst cannon, Dread assault cannon or some brass rods if you're feeling lucky