A small unit of Blood Claws...

Space Wolf Sunday - finished base assembly of a 6-strong unit of Blood Claws.

Each Blood Claw has running legs and a bare arm (and bare head!) to represent their berserk and impetuous nature - I have used beastmen and marauder arms as they are scaled well enough.  

I had used this kitbash in my previous army and liked the aesthetic so thought I'd repeat it. I still need to add accessories such as totems and grenades.

I used to run:
14-strong unit including Wolf Guard (usually trucking in a Land Raider Crusader)
10-strong unit in a Rhino
7-strong unit of Skyclaws including Wolf Guard

Unfortunately Blood Claws, in the new book, are a bit of a 'meh' to me. It appears you either take two minimal sized units to fill any enforced troops choices (although mounting them in a Stormwolf or a Stormfang is a Good Idea) or take lots of them and pair them up with Ulrik/Wolf Priests.

This doesn't fit my vision for my army... so I think I'll stick with this one unit in the meantime. With the change in access to power fists/weapons I see no benefit (to me) in more squads, and there will definitely be no Skyclaws or Swiftclaws unless the next iteration  of the Codex makes then WS4 like Space Marine scouts (don't care about BS on guys that need to get to combat).

Might give them Lukas the Trickster for giggles (in friendly games...) though... and scare enemy IC's.

I love my Grey Hunters! More on the table shortly.

Grey Hunters - first pack (almost) complete

So I finished the basic construction of the first squad of 10 Grey Hunters.

In all their glory! For the Rout!

Then... I got viciously harassed (ok, maybe not viciously... and ok, ok, maybe he just mentioned it in passing) by Jeff at Kiwihammer about the back banner I was using as a Wolf Standard. 

Of course my reasoning - other than it being a cool banner - was based in the old dex where every GH unit could take one. Charlie St Clair did it with his Space Wolves and I thought it was a Good Idea™.

Now of course, you can only take one per detachment, so some remodelling was required. Luckily I had a spare banner arm lurking in a bitz box.

Needs more detailing/iconography on the banner... and he's all unbalanced

Pack markings underway

More pack markings

Some more pack markings. Might add a rune to that diamond 

So remaining to complete is the Grey Hunter pack markings, any extra armour/pelt detailing, and then we are good to paint. I may even try and sculpt a wolf for the banner, who knows? (although having stuck the banner to the model it'd be a bit of a pain to do now...)

In addition to the pack markings and other bits and bobs I was thinking of sculpting the shoulder pad wolf icon but then thought better of that as my GS skills are not that good (yet). Anyone kind souls who have spare embossed shoulder pads for a pack brother... let me know!

The astute observer might notice that I am using dwarf shields as a form of embellishment on the models. I have enough to do most of an army, although I might have to find some dwarf (or ex-dwarf) players to see if they have some extras of the styles I need to complete squads.

More... (well, one more) Grey Hunter

The 'pack leader' (but not the "Wolf Guard Pack Leader")...

This is getting to be one expensive squad. I'm estimating 244-249pts once all 10 are done depending on whether or not I take meltabombs on the WGPL. 

Oh well - they are all heroes in my head and get twice their points back every game...

Wolf Guard pack leader - Combi-melta, Power Fist
Grey Hunter - Bolter, Power Fist
6x Grey Hunters - Bolter, CCW
2x Grey Hunters - Meltagun, CCW

They would be deployed via Drop Pod I think. Still a couple of things to finish - the Wolf Guard combi-melta and head, as well as two meltagun Grey Hunters.

The Plasma gun guy will go into a squad of 10.

More Space Wolves

Inspiration is still going so I'll run with it...

Two more Grey Hunters for the first squad

Searching for ... inspiration?

I was all inspired the other night to get some focus back on my Space Wolves after a <whatever you call a conversation via Twitter... a twittle? Twaddle?> with Jeff Kent of Kiwihammer fame.

The diversity in wargamers and building armies is interesting. Jeff - at least to me - brings quite a metagame/tournament focussed approach to list building. An example of this is making all his weapons magnetised so that he can swap loadouts (where I would commit to a build I like and then maybe build a new figure later if I wanted to try something new). I, on the other hand, believe I have a more backgroundy/fluffy-esque approach to my Space Wolves... an army of individual heroes, which got me into the Space Wolves back in v2 in the first place. Not that this is not a competitive approach, it's just not as engineered as some of the net list builds you might see (as I think I am a competitive player... just not willing to always make the leap to the meta).

I do enjoy having debates or discussions about these things as it's good to challenge thinking and also consider different configurations.

So trying to come up with a list has been a bit of a struggle for me. I like to have a good view in my minds eye about what I want my squads to look like before I commit to it, So I have been feverishly surfing the net, trying to look at combos and formations and so forth trying to find a combination that I can relate to. But with no luck.

Until today when I had a bit of a revelation. What I really need to do is focus on the models I want to build and paint. And then once I have done all those, build a list from that. For example, if I want to have a Wolf Lord:

• with Terminator armour, then I'll use the Companies of the Great Wolf supplement and give him Morkai's Claws and Fellclaw's Teeth
• with a Thunderwolf mount then I'll build him with a Storm Shield and maybe give him the option to magnetise the weapon so he can have a thunder hammer or krakenbone sword
• on foot I'll build him to have... goodness I don't know yet :)

So here's a Lone Wolf I built the other night after my discussion with Jeff.

Now I am trying to figure out what to build next!

In other news, I have 18+ Adepta Sororitas Dominions staring at me from the bottom drawer at my painting desk. I think, rather than get dismayed by bringing them out a squad at a time and batch painting them I'll try painting one at a time and see how that goes.

In other other news, I've been all interested in the rage/quitfest/love/hate with the new Age of Sigmar release. I can totally get the emotional loss of WHFB 8th ed. - it was the only edition of WHFB that I really really got into, and I am looking at my reasonably substantial Lizardmen... sorry.. Seraphon army and wondering if they will ever get another go.

But I am also excited about some of the positive views - John Tailby over at Fields of Blood postulated that it was similar to the change from 2nd Ed to 3rd Ed 40k, and I tend to agree in general. One of the advantages for me is that I will take my son down to the local GW and we can both have an introductory game and who knows - he may really get into it.

In even more other other news, I had a game of Blood Bowl a couple of Fridays ago - my first since ValleyCon 2009(!! WTF??!?!!?) - against my old nemesis Warrick Craill and his Orcs. I had an Ogre, 4 Blitzers, 2 Throwers, 3 Linemen, and a Catcher. Warrick had a Troll, 4 Black Orcs, 4 Blitzers, and 2 Throwers.

I have been playing Blood Bowl since 3rd Ed was released back in 1994 (and against Warrick since then too) and have had three separate human teams (my favourite) during this time.

Jeez I love Blood Bowl. Such a neat game. In the end I pushed out to a 3-1 win but it was so tense. Great game for a few beers.