I'm a little biased, but if you're looking for "protect the innocent bystanders" as something that rates relatively highly on a Marine's list of priorities, you're probably looking for a Salamander.

That said, my impression of the Space Wolves are that they can be a little strange and gruff to an outsider, but once you get to know them, you're likely to wake up with a hangover and wondering where the greaves of your power-armor went. I think the bonus to fellowship works out ok there, since to really emulate that effect would be a little complicated rules-wise, and probably not worth the time for customizing a house-rule.

I find the complaints about Space Wolves getting a Fellowship bonus very humorous. To me the Fel bonus is outstanding. Imagine what it means in the broader sense of the 40k verse...

The Space Wolves, as a whole, are going to be one of, if not the most cohesive, unified, and well led chapters of Space Marines in existence.

What does that mean?

That the Wolves are one of the most effective chapters out there. Their brutality in combat isn't out of anger or rage, it's due to a level of unified efficiency that the majority of chapters can't match.

Pyrus said:

Yes, Salamanders are the "ultimate good marines"... I can´t wait to get rules for playing a Salamander, need the First Founding book NOW!

Fellowship is Golden in DW.

Yes it's a game about Deathwatch missions. But alot of sub parts (and tertiary objectives) of those Missions included dealing with Imperial Guard and Navy ect. Sometimes it's about bolstering the line or getting a flagging platoon to stand firm. It's a game about Big **** Astartes Heroes... infact...

Game on Wednesday, the Killteam (including some new to 40K guys and some long standing vets) gets a commline of a Demolisher Tank hit by Eldar tank traps and immobilised with Eldar units moving in. Even with one of our Primary Objectives being to help bolster the Imperial war effort on the world most of the squad's response was "Not our problem, busy with our Deathwatch Mission" to each other. Mine? My SpaceWolf's response...on the comm "Acknowledge, Astartes responding." Which to be fair, got a grilling from the Squad lead, before he confirmed the order to the squad and we moved out.

Why was this? Because the other Marines were all playing to the style and philosophies of their Chapters. Our BlackTemplar was on "crusade" to elminate the Eldar "witches" and pausing to help the Tank and Crew was not in line withy purging the xenos which is how he tjought we should eb helping the war effort. Our Blackshield was very SubObjective focused and we already had a plan to follow and a target to meet, this was a deviation to that timetable and unacceptable use of our time. The DarkAngel successor chapter saw no worth in expending resources for a single tank and four crewmen when there was a bigger battlefront waiting for us.

The Spacewolf was DAMNED if he was going to stand by when there was a fight only a few hundred metres away and let Imperial Citizens, even Guardsmen, get slaughtered when his intervention would prevent that while not endagering their mission at all.

The squad leader, an Imperial Fist, while annoyed that the Spacewolf had responded without orders and chewed him out for it, likewise was not about to stand by and let Soldiers and Citizens die when it cost nothing to prevent and infact, even in a small way, would help secure that part of the city under assault.

And you know what, when we've hurled back this Xenos offensive, I'll be finding that tank crew and Carousing a bit with them to the Glory of Him on Earth, telling some tall tales that makes their faith in the Astartes and the Emperor burn brighter, swaying them with gruff Charm to let them know ALL the Warriors of Mankind are in HIS sight and are brothers and making **** sure the units fighting in a really bad situation have the nerve, grit and will to hold on to the ball of rock that's killing them.

I don't see what a bonus to Fellowship has to do with that story (as entertaining as it was).

All you are describing is roleplaying. That is honestly fantastic, but the designer still dropped the ball with Space Wolves. The demeanor is more than enough to help with the gregarious nature of the Wolves that the designer chose to focus on. Every other chapter however gets bonuses that directly help them out in combat and yet in spite of mentioning again and again how good the Wolves are in combat, all they get are "soft" skills and a bonus to Fellowship. Weird. Maybe they were supposed to be the leaders of the kill-team? Though it would seem an Ultramarine is the natural choice there.

For my campaign, my fixes will be a change to +5 perception and +5 to stat of choice to reflect the improved senses and that they may be drawn from any stage in their life (Blood Claw might like +5 str, Grey Hunter might like +5 WS, Long Fang might like +5 BS, Scout might like +5 Agi and Wolf Guard might like +5 Fel). I will also allow them to exchange the combat knife for a Chainsword.

winternight said:

In your opinion they dropped the ball - it's not fact.

I personally think they represented Space Wolves brilliantly, as the friendly, drinking, saga-telling Marines they are. They have some good skills in there too, as well as the skills needed to have Fenrisian Wolves and the like as followers and to show their viking-esque nature. It makes them individual, compared to the formality of most of the rest of the Chapters covered.

MILLANDSON said:

I quite agree with this. While I could see the logic in "Fel would be less appropriate that Str or WS", once the errata and the Fenris-pattern helmet came out, I think the Space Wolves are well represented and done.

AllenVanDaele said:

Well, I am one of the original naggers about the Space Wolves and I must say after the errata I have made peace with the FFG Space Wolves. Not with the Apothecary specialty, mind you, but that's another issue. Counterattack is very, very good. Flesh Renderer is a fun choice. Now you can gear your SW for close combat.

What I like the best about it is that (former) Long Fangs (aka SW Devastators) now really rock. Counter-Attack and Stalwart Defence in melee, Heavy Bolter for ranged combat? Yes, please. Social skills and Wisdom of the Ancients on top of it? Done deal, no questions asked.

Anything that you want to go on top of that for your SW, pick it up with a Deed.

Alex

PS Yes, their characteristic bonuses should have been different, so what? They're still cool.

Te problem with reading all the background material for a chapter is that it obviously comes across as the greatest of all Space Marines, when much of that is just how good all space marines are, especially when you get to describing veterans. Calling your squads different things doesn't automatically make them better, the previous thread had an overiding feeling that it was started because some people were dissapointed that SW assault marines were not the best choice, often mentioning Blood Claws. Who are actually inferior to most chapters assault marines, barring a special rule. The errata filled some of the holes, at little too litterally for my liking in one case but it's good stuff, good for all classes (that cheap chainswords a pretty nice bonus for a tac marine with flesh render and counter attack too) which fits better with their currently descibed way of war.

As for their chapter chapter stats, one fits perfectly, the other's a pretty good fit. I've come to the conclusion that they were too strict with those across the board (since those stinky IF rules). Any codex chapter should really have one advance that's a choose any, or a choose from one of a few, and the SW's are supposed to be a flaxible force these days so it should apply to them. Only the most zealous, single minded chapters, your Black Templars, Carcharadons and Flesh tearers for example should be constrained by having no choice of either.

The characteristics bonuses are pretty much the most unimportant things when it comes to chapters (unless you have +10 to one stat maybe). I think chapter advances are much more important. So it's okay to me to indicate a predisposition this way. Which is why Space Wolves would have needed +5 WS but didn't get it due to Blood Angels and Black Templars. They should have given them it anyway but since it's not a big deal - who cares. Having +5 or not is nothing.

Alex

I am currently the GM in a DW campaign, and I found that the Space Wolves in particular didn't bring the right combination of punch to the fight. Even with the errata and all the extras out there, they didn't feel right to me in the way I felt the SW fluffwise. So we changed the whole shebang.

First off we created a new solo mode ability called Grim Resolve that works like this:

Effects: Once per combat +2 Toughness Bonus after all modifiers in a number of rounds equal to the Battle Brother’s Rank divided by 2 (rounding up).

Improvement: At Rank 3 the Toughness Bonus increases to +4. At Rank 5 the duration is changed to a number of rounds equal to the Battle Brother’s Rank. At Rank 7 the Toughness Bonus increases to +6.

We then changed the characteristic increases to +5 T, instead of Fel, as the entire feeling we wanted to portray with the Space Wolves, was an astartes who'd take the power axe you just buried in his skull, laugh at you and kick your a** with it.

We also felt that they were being shortchanged in the advances department, so we added the following skills and talents to them:

Space Wolves Chapter Advances (page 67):

Add the following Advances to Space Wolves Chapter Advances: Iron Jaw (500 xp), Duty unto Death (900xp), Flesh Render (600xp),Berserk Charge (600xp).

These changes have yet to be tested extensively, but it gives the Space Wolves that gritty, dark feeling I'm loóking for.

To see the full extent of the amount of house rules we have implemented follow the link below:

http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaign/the-battle-of-castobel/wikis/rule-changes

Rextreme said:

As far as I know Flesh Render was already added to the Space Wolves Chapter Advances for 500xp in the errata.

I don't see why Duty unto Death should be a typical Space Wolves Talent as all Chapter normally ignore their injuries and fight to the death in honour of the Emperor. Of course there are a few individual SMs who are to stubborn to accept death and keep fighting on, but this is not chapter related.

Berserk Charge and Iron Jaw makes sense, especially since the latter reflects their former life and it's usefulness is limited as soon as SMs wear Astartes Power Armour because the Bio-Monitor already negates being Stunned after one Round.

@ Kain

The Flesh Render talent is a relic from before the errata, and has been changed to 500 xp. Thanks for the heads up

We also run a heavily modified wounds system, meaning that stun results are probably more commonplace in our game.

It's basically double the wounds total, but with critical effects occuring immediately, making fatigue the main danger for marines, as they shut down long before they're damaged beyond repair. Look at the link above for more details.

These haven't been playtested as yet, and are a work in progress right now.

From your comment, I have also decided to remove Duty Unto Death, as it seems it overlaps with Iron Jaw from reading the talents again, and goes a bit out of the fluff for me as well.

Luckily for me, none of the players have yet created a Space Wolf, as I still believe they need a bit of tweaking to become the ferocious warriors of Fenris, but still maintaining the balance of the game, I'm just not inspired by any of the current talents as more fitting to the Wolves.

On a side note, I've actually had my marines quite a bit out of their power armour to either infiltrate as scouts or in one case as "civilians" on a quarantined planet, which has given them quite a lot to think about with weapon choices and equipment in general, and also making less useful talents a lot more potent.

Thanks for the feed back.

Those are interesting changes, though I don't agree with the solo mode change.

One of my Deathwatch houserules is that perception is used instead of intelligence for the tracking skill. And yes, this means that the hunting-focused Space Wolves now boast many incredible trackers.

I haven't touched the stats even if there's an argument for changing them. The errata definitely rounded them off, though First Founding had the nigh-broken Wolf Scout which I'm hesistant to allow unchanged into a game. Insane stealth + assault marine-level horde destruction is just a bit too good to tack onto the tactical marine chassis. I'd take out swift and lightning attack and that horde damage talent at least.

Meh, I think the Wolf Scout needed a little help (e.g. giving them Bolter Mastery for free and increasing the buy-in by about 500 as a result), but to each his own. It's a glass cannon, that's for sure, and therein is some of the balance. The Tacmarine chassis isn't much to write home about at low ranks. It gets better, but not by that much.

The wolf scout may be a little more fragile but it's too easy to make one nigh impossible to see. If an enemy can't spot the wolf scout. they can't do much about him but die in various messy ways. I find it weird that the stealth specialist is the only tac marine who gets those close combat talents. Even the blood angel or black templar tac marines don't get lightning attack at any stage.

I would counter a stealth specialist with elite forces with unnatural senses. I'm sure Tau and chaos have things that work like an auspex, and nids must have a biological equivalent or just circumvent the stealth entirely with tracking by smell.

Splattering a couple hordes is fine for me if it gives me an impetus for the enemy to deploy scout specialists in response against the KT sniper…stealth suits, lictors, Night Lords/Alpha Legion, etc.

Re: melee talents - I guess that's why you go into DW Champion or a Chapter specific thing like Tempest Blade.

Fair enough on counter-stealth specialists but again the wolf scout is better equipped than most stealthing marines to deal with those. having augmented perception.

I've little issue with piles of melee talents in the melee-focused advanced specialities. I do find them a jarring addition to what is intended as a stealth specialty.

They are kind of odd. I've just been assuming that they exist to make up for the fact that a Wolf Scout that isn't in Power Armor will be at a disadvantage against someone that is, or is just generally good in melee.

DJSunhammer said:

A little of all the above, really. Wolf Scouts are versatile combatants, capable both at range and in melee and with the hunter's instincts and focussed savagery common to the Sons of Russ. Because the Wolf Scout advanced speciality basically strips half of the advances out of the Tactical Marine speciality (the interaction/command ones), I gave them a pile of melee talents to both fill the gap in their capabilities and replace the abilities I removed from them.

Interesting, it also serves to make them more specialized in a way that fits with their fluff; that of the lone hunter rather than the commander.