Most Drop Pod armies are based around shooting, but this one goes the opposite direction. It is a hand-to-hand army that uses drop pods to arrive right in the enemy's face.

Blood Claws in pods are insanely good right now. By taking an 11th member in the squad, you can take a third power fist, and still have room in the pod for a wolf guard sergeant with a power fist of his own. With the counterchange and berzerk charge special rules, that squad is going to get 12 power fist attacks and 31 regular attacks when it charges or when it gets charged. (And that's not even including the characters that go with it)

I'm really happy with this design. 72 bodies with 25 power fists is extremely fierce in HTH combat, and with so many power fists, I find that I don't need many anti-tank or anti-monstrous creature weapons because the fists can handle almost anything out there.
I place Ragnar with the grey hunters so they have berzerk charge as well.

Depending on the opponent, I'll either hide the first three units behind their pods until they can charge the next turn, or I'll deploy in front and hit the enemy with some flamers and bolt shots. It all depends on how much hurt my opponent can put on me. The nice thing about the Wolf Guard Battle leaders is that their combi-meltaguns hit on a 2+, so I get a lot of utility out of that one shot, and they can detach from their squad when they land if they want to and pop a tank.

When I started playtesting the army, I thought it would have trouble with mechanized builds, but boy was I wrong. In 5th edition all power fist hits go against the rear armor, so I found that even when the vehicles were moving fast I'd still get more then enough hits to bring them down. In fact, sometimes I'd charge two or three tanks at once with the same squad and still have enough hits to bring them down.

So far I've played against IG, Mech Eldar, and Shooty Marines, and this list has done extremely well against them. In fact, I like it so much I'm painting up all the power fists I need so I can start fielding it in tournaments instead of just proxying the fists.


2000 Points

Uses Rules From Space Wolves Space Marines Codex

Models: 72 Vehicles: 6

HQ:
Ragnar Blackmane (175 Points)

Wolf Guard Battle Leader with Power Fist and Combi-Meltagun. (100 Points)

Wolf Guard Battle Leader with Power Fist and Combi-Meltagun. (100 Points)

Troops:
Grey Hunters Pack (11 model total):
2 Grey Hunters with Power Fist and Bolt Pistol, 1 Grey Hunter with Meltagun, 7 Grey Hunters with Bolt Pistols and Chainswords. (210 Points)
Wolf Guard Pack Leader with Combi-Meltagun, and Power Fist. (55 Points)
Drop Pod. (35 Points)

Blood Claws Pack (11 model total):
3 Blood Claws with Power Fist, 1 Blood Claw with Flamer, 7 Blood Claws with Bolt Pistols and Chainswords. (196 Points)
Drop Pod with Locator Beacon. (45 Points)

Blood Claws Pack (11 model total):
3 Blood Claws with Power Fist, 1 Blood Claw with Flamer, 7 Blood Claws with Bolt Pistols and Chainswords. (196 Points)
Drop Pod with Locator Beacon. (45 Points)

Blood Claws Pack (12 model total):
3 Blood Claws with Power Fist, 1 Blood Claw with Flamer, 7 Blood Claws with Bolt Pistols and Chainswords. (196 Points)
Wolf Guard Pack Leader with Combi-Flamer, and Power Fist. (50 Points)
Drop Pod. (35 Points)

Blood Claws Pack (12 model total):
3 Blood Claws with Power Fist, 1 Blood Claw with Flamer, 7 Blood Claws with Bolt Pistols and Chainswords. (196 Points)
Wolf Guard Pack Leader with Combi-Flamer, and Power Fist. (50 Points)
Drop Pod. (35 Points)

Blood Claws Pack (12 model total):
3 Blood Claws with Power Fist, 1 Blood Claw with Flamer, 7 Blood Claws with Bolt Pistols and Chainswords. (196 Points)
Wolf Guard Pack Leader with Combi-Flamer, and Power Fist. (50 Points)
Drop Pod. (35 Points)

DoctorThunder wrote:Blood Claws in pods are insanely good right now. By taking an 11th member in the squad, you can take a third power fist, and still have room in the pod for a wolf guard sergeant with a power fist of his own. With the counterchange and berzerk charge special rules, that squad is going to get 12 power fist attacks and 31 regular attacks when it charges or when it gets charged. (And that's not even including the characters that go with it)

I may be confusing what you are saying here, but I think you are a bit incorrect. You would only get those attacks on the charge. Counter-charges do not get the additional bonus attacks from a charge. On a counter-charge you would only get 4 power fist attacks, 15 regular attacks.

Still a solid counter charge, but not nearly as good as the primary charge. Curious, does the flamer still count as a special weapon is close combat like 4ed?

Overall a seriously scary list. Maybe something I think about doing myself. Too bad I don't have the time or funds to get that army ready for my GT in May. That would seriously do damage. Probably make me a fair number of enemies also I would think.

jlong05 wrote:I may be confusing what you are saying here, but I think you are a bit incorrect. You would only get those attacks on the charge. Counter-charges do not get the additional bonus attacks from a charge. On a counter-charge you would only get 4 power fist attacks, 15 regular attacks.

Per the Space Wolf FAQ, all space wolves have the Counter Attack, USR, so they count as charging, and so get +1 attack, when they are charged (so long as they pass a leadership test)
Additionally, Blood Claws (and in my list, the Grey Hunters as well) have Berzerk charge, a special rule that they get +2 attacks instead of +1 when they charge.

A unit with both Counter Attack and Berzerk Charge get +2 attacks each when they charge or when they are charged (so long as they pass a leadership test).

Hope that helps.

DoctorThunder wrote:Wolf Guard Battle Leader with Power Fist and Combi-Meltagun. (100 Points)
Wolf Guard Battle Leader with Power Fist and Combi-Meltagun. (100 Points)

Sounds awesomely fun.. how do you do against 3 landraiders carrying stuff.I'd imagine the 14/14/14 and only have 2 shots from melta hurting if they decide to batten the hatches down and just drive away shooting?

killmaimburn wrote:do you do against 3 landraiders carrying stuff.I'd imagine the 14/14/14 and only have 2 shots from melta hurting if they decide to batten the hatches down and just drive away shooting?

Yeah, I think multiple land raiders would give me trouble, since I only have the grey hunters and the two battle leaders with anything that can really hurt the raiders effectively.

Then again, I've never actually seen a 3+ landraider list fielded, and I don't expect it to be common, since it's weak against so many other things, so it's kind of theoretical to me.

I only ever seem to face 2 LRs or 3 prisms in 1500 in 5th ed. I'd kind of assumed bigger points =bigger stuff. my bad.

killmaimburn wrote:I only ever seem to face 2 LRs or 3 prisms in 1500 in 5th ed. I'd kind of assumed bigger points =bigger stuff. my bad.

No problem. It was a good comment.

Fear the Blood Claw... for he is soooo awesome in attack/defence.. Well, fairly good.

I think you're relying too much on shock tactics and have very little in the form of back up if your initial plan goes pear shaped.
Too many of one type of egg in the same basket so to speak... Then what do I know, I've never run a force of almost pure BC in DP's
Bloody good effort though

DoctorThunder wrote:

jlong05 wrote:I may be confusing what you are saying here, but I think you are a bit incorrect. You would only get those attacks on the charge. Counter-charges do not get the additional bonus attacks from a charge. On a counter-charge you would only get 4 power fist attacks, 15 regular attacks.

Per the Space Wolf FAQ, all space wolves have the Counter Attack, USR, so they count as charging, and so get +1 attack, when they are charged (so long as they pass a leadership test)
Additionally, Blood Claws (and in my list, the Grey Hunters as well) have Berzerk charge, a special rule that they get +2 attacks instead of +1 when they charge.

A unit with both Counter Attack and Berzerk Charge get +2 attacks each when they charge or when they are charged (so long as they pass a leadership test).

Hope that helps.

Ah I see. I didn't know that the FAQ gave the USR. Although the USR no longer grants the extra movement to get all your models engaged in that first round of combat. It only grants the added attack, not the 6" movement like the SW Codex listed. I guess they eliminated the old counter attack movement in the new edition.

I wonder which is better? I guess if someone charges they could enginer their charge to eliminate most of your PF models and only have the regular attacks to deal with. This of course depends on the placement of models and stuff.

jlong05 wrote:
Ah I see. I didn't know that the FAQ gave the USR. Although the USR no longer grants the extra movement to get all your models engaged in that first round of combat. It only grants the added attack, not the 6" movement like the SW Codex listed. I guess they eliminated the old counter attack movement in the new edition.

I wonder which is better? I guess if someone charges they could enginer their charge to eliminate most of your PF models and only have the regular attacks to deal with. This of course depends on the placement of models and stuff.

My guess is that they didn't include the extra movement in the USR because all units in 5th edition have to move their models up to 6 inches when they are charged anyway, so it wasn't necessary.