...or are all the Space Wolf psychic powers absolutely terrible? Fury of the Wolf Spirits is cool, but it requires rank 5, so it's unattainable for a long time, and the rest of them are complete ****.

Living Lightning (a confusing, badly written power) and Tempest's Wrath are the worst because you have to be outside on a planet with an atmosphere, and how often does that happen in the scope of a typical Deathwatch mission? When is the kill team not going to be in a ship, on a space station, in an enemy fortress, in a cave, etc.? Why would I pay 1000 xp for a power I can only use 1/10 of the time, and practically never in a boss fight (what kind of end boss is just sitting around outside?).

Storm Caller and Thunderclap suck because they negatively effect your Kill-team. Even a Rank 1 Librarian casting a fettered Storm Caller will make all of his friends within 10 meters at -10 to BS. As ranged attacks are the main source of damage in Deathwatch, especially early on before people have access to good melee weaponry, this is a huge disadvantage to teams trying to stay in squad distance. Thunderclap hits friends, doesn't do enough damage to matter vs. enemies on their own, and does just as much damage as any number of other powers vs. hordes. It might be okay if you're facing 3+ different hordes at once, but how often is that going to happen? At least these two powers are cheap for how bad they are.

For how much fun Space Wolf Rune Priests are in 40k, these powers are a huge letdown.

/rant

evilamericorp said:

You're not crazy. It's the Blood Angel's librarian which takes the cake. That said, FotWS is really cool and Living Lightning is useful both in the first part of Oblivion's Edge as well as much of the Extraction scenario. Kill-teams will spend quite some time planetside, even in the wilderness of a planet.

Storm Caller is very useful for closing in when the xenos have long range fire superiority (Tau?). I assume it moves with the runepriest as the text infers that the runepriest (not an ally) cannot move out of range..

Alex

IMHO, ths SW are in dire need of some errata. Their skills and talents are pretty **** useless too.

I too am very unimpressed with the Space Wolves psyker powers. I'm not so sure that I agree that the Blood Angels are the best Librarians, I really like the Dark Angels powers.

Ancient Defender said:

Agreed. Given the bonuses you get from WEARING a helmet, the bonuses from not wearing it seem pretty lame, especially when you add to that the danger of NOT WEARING A HELMET. I can get giving the Space Wolves better senses, in general, because they are supposed to have them, but what about the epic, dangerous warriors they are supposed to be? How about a Solo Mode that starts out letting you attack as a Reaction, then moves up into letting you Charge as a reaction, and then lets you use other Talents on that charge? Wouldn't that reflect the Space Wolves better than "Wolf Senses"? Plus, a Solo mode that you can't use because of how you are dressed? Do Dark Angels have to wear skirts to use Stoic Defense?

It's like they went

We have too many Close Combat boosted Chapters in the main book, with Storm Wardens, Blood Angels, and Black Templars. We need a Chapter that emphasizes something else.

How about Raven Guard, or White Scars, or Iron Hands, or Salamanders, or Imperial Fists, or Crimson Fists?

Wait, we didn't do Space Wolves!

We have to do Space Wolves. They are really popular.

Well, let's make them a chapter that doesn't emphasize close combat.

Sigh.

I'm glad it's not just me. I got all excited to play a Rune Priest, and spent a bunch of time converting and painting a model, to later read the rules and realize that Space Wolves get NOTHING COOL. Their stat bumps are practically useless, their chapter advances are all sh*tty role playing skills that won't in the least bit help with purging foul xenos, and their psychic powers all have ridiculous drawbacks.

I ended up ripping all the wolf bits off my model and making him into a blood angel, and now he's not nearly as characterful or fun. I will still enjoy playing the game, but it's a shame they raped my favorite chapter with crappy rules.

R.I.P. Logri Ironfist, The stillborn character of Deathwatch. FFG never gave you a chance to see the glorious light of burning xenos scum.

Well, they do fit the space viking aspect of the chapter. I think it would have been better to not add the Storm Wardens (sorry, Ross. Whenever I see them I just get a massive Mary Sue vibe. They would have been better introduced in the follow up book with custom Chapter rules), and included some other chapter with a non-melee focus (Raven Guard would have been a good choice). I think their stat bumps are actually ok, although WS & Per wouldn't be out of line either (the main problem is too many chapters are 'melee' chapters per the fluff).

Their advances could do with less Performer and add something like Furious Assault, Flesh Render, Hammer Blow.

If you have a cool GM, he would let you take elite advances for some of those to lessen the sting, allowing you to keep your characterful Space Puppy. It's kind of silly to have a close-combat specialization anyway, since bolters are generally superior for most combat situations anyway (albeit that is a debatable statement).

evilamericorp said:

Because everyone knows that roleplaying is bad, right?

@ak

Storm Caller is very useful for closing in when the xenos have long range fire superiority (Tau?). I assume it moves with the runepriest as the text infers that the runepriest (not an ally) cannot move out of range..

Thanks for finding that little gem. This power is essentially an I-Win button against Tau, who make up about 1/3 of the Crusade enemies after all. It only takes an effective power rating of 7 (reachable by Pushing at career rank 2) to send a squad of Fire Warriors to BS 0 and massively defuse the danger presented by a battlesuit.

And we're talking about the enemies with absolutely no psy-defense here...

@MILLANDSON

Eww... everyone knows roleplaying is for girls playing with their my-little-ponies and barbies, which is why Deathwatch only allows you to play Manly Men.

MILLANDSON said:

If I'm playing Deathwatch, I want to pretend I'm a badass Space Marine killing aliens, not pretend I'm a dude who drinks a lot and tells stories while corralling sheep. If I wanted to do that, I'd play Grampa Joe's Depressing Farmlife Adventure.

evilamericorp said:

But isn't that all Space Wolves do?

ItsUncertainWho said:

Apparently it is now... I hear chainswords make good fence posts.

Carouse is better used as pure roleplaying and not a roll of the dice. However, wether or not your character has +20 to carouse (or, God forbid, wrangling!) will seldom mean the difference between life and death. Lacking the combat skills of the other chapters can easily get your character killed. I'm not a huge SW fan, but SWs as written are pretty **** useless when it comes to righteously smiting the foul xenos with the Emperor's light.

However, wether or not your character has +20 to carouse (or, God forbid, wrangling!) will seldom mean the difference between life and death

That depends on whether the SW happens to bring his pet wolf along...

Cifer said:

Or if the Squigs are in season.

Wow, I'm surprised that someone would think that the Space Wolves abilities suck.

There is a Spacewolf Tac Marine in my group and his Fellowship at Rank 2 is now 64.

Did I mention he is also the Squad Leader? Wait, that gives the group HOW many Cohesion points? A base of 7 minimum.

Also, he uses that re-roll for Awareness tests like a fiend, ALWAYS noticing things that the Techmarine missed WITH AN AUSPEX!

The Space Wolf Tac marine attacked a Chaos Space Marine in close combat this weekend with his Power Axe (mind you, he only has a WS of 38). With the Signum bonus and the Signum link from the other Characters, he was easily able to match the WS of a BESERKING KHORNITE CHAOS WARRIOR (WS of 72).

Hit with his power axe, Rightoues Fury confirmed, 68 point of damage later and that Khornite Berserker was cut in two at the waste.

In a Role-playing game, I would imagine that having ROLE-PLAYING abilities would be a top priority.

This isn't D&D where a Psyker is a Wizard with Magic Missile. Finding creative uses for psyker powers is par for the course in playing a psyker. Not to mention that you are a SPACE WOLF psyker... did I mention that you crush skulls when you aren't frying your enemies with LIGHTNING!? The Space Wolf Librarian Powers are just fine.

Also, please don't overlook the fact that you start with a Force Weapon.

Yes, a Force Weapon. That's Death-On-A-Stick, to the uninitiated.

The point I'm trying to make?

Space Wolves are awesome in Deathwatch. I would reconsider your choice to play a Blood Angel simply based off of a perceived weakness in the Space Wolf abilities.

SpawnoChaos said:

This is the only thing in your post that comes from him being a Space Wolf. Everything else is available to every chapter.

As for Librarians, look at how few powers they can take:

- 3 at creation, none of which may be chapter specific.

- 2 at rank 1.

- 1 at rank 2

- 1 at rank 6

That's a total of 7 powers. But 3 of them come from a very restricted list, leaving only 4 that could be chapter powers. With how useful some of the codex powers look, the Space Wolves getting only two useful powers (FotWS and Storm Caller) doesn't seem so bad.

Bilateralrope said:

Mechanically speaking, yes.

However, since this is a Role-playing game, there is a lot more to be said about a character and his chapter than simple number mechanics. Playing as a "proper" Space Wolf isn't just about what crunchy-ness the book says you have, but the actual experience of playing as a Space Wolf.

As far as what powers Librarians get in general, even if just from Codex Powers, those powers are brutal. The Space Wolf getting, as you pointed out, 2 good powers out of a possible of 4 selections is a pretty darn good representation of their chapter.

Though I would argue that all the Librarian powers ARE useful. It just depends on what type of Librarian and what kind of Deathwatch game you are playing.

Once again, creativity trumps game RAW.

Howdy!

+5 Fel means good leader and actually influencing npcs.

+5 Perception, Wolf Senses and enhanced smell means you see them before they see you.

+20 Tracking means I backtrack the genestealers and find the Brood lord lair...mission won!

Hardy...wow heal criticals like light wounds.

Carouse- cheap and cool

Wrangling- cheap and handy for npc animals and influencing predators.

Would I like other stuff sure...but it is still good.

SpawnoChaos said:

That's sort of my point. I don't need a +20 to my carouse check in order to regale the GM and the other players with the kvad of Bjorn the Fell-handed and the Kraken, I roleplay it without dice. Which, IMHO, is a lot more fun for everyone. I do, however, need dice when it comes to combat. As I see it, if you pit a Blood Angel against a Space Wolf in combat, the Blood Angel wins hands down. In a singing contest, the SW wins, at least until his Primarch's curse is starting to affect him, upon which, he may very well lose that one too.

Edit: And no one is saying that there are no possible uses for the SW advances , we're saying that when it comes to combat (which, let's face it, is a pretty big deal in DW) they have been dealt a bad hand.

I won't argue about the skill / talent / trait of the SW being useless, I am a dramatic roleplayer, so I always take all the "useless" roleplaying skill, talent and trait for all my character.

On BA being better psykers than SW, isn't it logical fluff wise ? One of the most powerful psykers in the imperium (if not the most powerful active psyker) is Mephiston, a BA. Sanguinus was known to be a powerful psyker, Leman Russ was more recognized for his martial prowess (even if all primarchs were powerful psykers and famous warrior).

though the game is about war, it's not just about combat.

Tactics, planning, and of course heaven forbid some RP.

The SW in my game used Carouse on a female ship captian, suffice to say he "made an ally" which he may use in future, an also allowed him to manipulate the course of action to help the rest of the KT on the planet below.

This game has a good similarity to Pendragon where everyone was Knights, all fighters, who battled and regailed tales of their glory.

Hi!

Space wolf psykers are the 2nd best in this books (for me at least). Dark angels wins marginaly due to the WP debuff and the shield. But dmg wise noone can have higher dmg per round than a Space wolf libarian, including all charachter (and all npc) in this book. Well ultramarine libarian has the healing power, so in some mission they can be more usefull than any other psyker.

The huge dmg is because of the power "Fury of the wolf spirits". This power can be sustained, it means 2 extra attack for your charachter (can be dodged, but 100% hit)

It can be casted as Push level, means (PR + 4 )*10, or *5 with huuuge penetration level. This alone can easily kill almost all enemy or player in this book in 1 round, or 2 if you was unlucky to roll less than 5 on the dmg roll. Above this the libaryan still have a half action to cast smite, or attack once (3 time at rank8 ) with a force weapon possible huge dmg again. (ofc high risk due to the sustaining power, but nooe sad you cannot use psy blade on safe psy level to avoid most of the risk...)

If you are lucky you can do 200-300 dmg in a single round at rank 5. At rank 8 you can do 400-500.

In the same time the libaryan is totaly impossible to hit with ranged weapons, and if they are smart they can use this power to cover all assault marine doing heavy dmg in melee. (just a note: the friendly ranged marines can shoot without penalty all enemy near the libaryan, made this effect significantly more powerfull)

So do not worry at rank 5 your space wolf libaryan become so powerfull to no sane game master will let you use all of your power without restriction.