Where next with my army?

As already stated my next tournament outing will be the Caledonian Uprising which is being held in order to raise money for the Scottish ETC team. The army restrictions are very similar to that Open War 14. 1750 points, no special characters ect. Which means I do not plan to change my Open War 14 Army to drastically (which can be found here) however tweaks will have to be made but from where? I have only 7 weeks before the army list is due in so not a lot of time for play testing.

If I go through my list I know it isn't an ultra competitive list but I don't want it to be. I love using Thunderwolves but they do take up a lot of points when coupled with my Thunderlord. But lets face the facts when they hit something it dies. The only thing they have failed against is Mephiston and a squad of death company and that was when my opponent through misunderstanding attached him to the squad.

My thoughts however lead me to think that 4 Thunderwolves might be over kill in many situations so there is my first thought on what to take out.

A rune priest is a must for a wolf army. As I learnt in Open war the ability to block 50% of all psychic powers. I certainly won't be getting rid of a rune priest but do I want to bolster him? I certainly liked the idea of the 3 Rune Priest army that Adam from Space wolves Grey ran at open war and although I wouldn't go that far a two Rune Priest army is certainly tempting.

My troops won't be touched bar to remove a special weapon if I do attempt the 2 Rune Priest army so I can make sure I have mobility on the table to counter any psychic attacks (which clearly I didn't do on Saturday). I realise many wolf players favour small more mobile packs in razorbacks but I love the knowledge that when coupled with a wolf standard 9-10 Grey Hunters will destroy pretty much anything.

So that leaves me with two things to change my Heavy support and my elites.

Long fangs for me are one of the best units of the game. There are many combinations you can have, they are cheap and if nothing else you can put out 5 missile launchers that will cause any army a note of panic.

So finally I come to my scouts. If you have read my entry on Open War they caused me a few issues both through my stupidity in forgetting to bring them on AND in the inability to roll for them to come on. They are also the most fragile unit in my army. 4+ save makes a big difference BUT they have the outstanding ability of removing from play those nasty high AV artillary pieces that are often placed at the rear of the board. If the melta gun and plasma pistol fails melta bombs rarely do.

So a plan of action is formed. I am going to be putting away the mantra of 'Never leave the fang without some scouts' and move towards the more big guns you have the better. My Scouts cost me a combined total of 125 points, add on to that the 5 points from the rune priests melta bombs which if I am honest were added on purely to make up the points. I know have 130 points for an extra squad of long fangs or some other heavy support possibly a vindicator.

4 Long Fangs + a squad leader would stretch to 75 points leaving me with 55 points to add on for weapons which would give me a lascannon (25 points) and 3 missile launchers at 10 points a piece.

OR I could add on the removal of a thunderwolf + his melta bombs and another grey hunter which are only there for wound allocation to provide 200 points for additions with that I could have a Rune Priest for 100 points. Which would of course leave me with 100 points 15 points or one Grey Hunter short of a Vindicator. Is the loss of a plasma gun toting Grey hunter worth a vindicator? Difficult but I will soon see I guess.

Tomorrow I will be helping Andy and Gav test their Free Booters doubles list however following that I will have 7 weeks to play test the two armies.

As normal constructive criticism is gladly welcome.