Status Update, Puppies

After a brief obsession over the monster hunter game i have recently been back at work with my wolves.

  I set out to paint up my 15 terminators, and would call myself about 60% done.  Basecoating is done, the whole model received a blackwash, the shoulder pads got their final yellow color and the runes have been filled in.  I still need to do all of their armor the right color, i need to retouch everything with a ruin as their so small theirs plenty of excess paint spilled from their sides, some other details like gems and eyes and transfer, and once those steps are done comes highlighting then basing which i do last.

Their bases now have random stuff on them, but what they dont have is the mix of black/grey pebble material, smattering of tan grass, and snow that will basically cover them only showing the items on their now a bit.

I had also bought a Canis model and redone it up as a wolf lord, because while im not about to spam them there is no doubt they rock....and he has rocked in just about every game i bring him.

Right now i use him with this setup:

Wolf Lord +

ThunderWolf Mount

Frost Pole Axe

Runic Armor

Storm Shield

Wolftooth talisman

Wolftail necklace

For awhile i used Saga of the Warrior Born, because it is an amazing ability and when combined with this unit's power and mobility even more amazing...in theory.  In practice it was a good bit less amazing, sure he got extra attacks from time to time when he was able to slay multiple baddies and get in combat the next turn, but overall the points cost became something i was willing to give on if i needed it.  If i have the points Saga of the Beastslayer will probably be a very decently priced alternative, but as i use a Frost weapon for Str 6 Ini 5 attacks sending him against big stuff isn't usually the plan....  Saga of the Bear is a fine one as well, but expensive, and i have not once had him sweat being insta-deathed with his toughness 5.

I also used him with some wolves for a bit, a retinue of 2, and a pack of 8. The idea was that the enemy had 3 units to spread their attacks on, confusing them into hopefully being less effective or at least having attacks wasted.  It would also allow me to multi assault over a large area and keep the wolf lord engaged in assault as much as possible.  

However in practice there are two downfalls, the first i knew about, that casualties from shooting causing moral checks on my wolf lord when the feeble wolves are killed.  This is bad news, as the whole unit can fall back 3d6 making it possible for them to just fall off the table turn 1 with a little luck from the enemy.  The second was the same basic thing, but in assault.  Sure the wolves attack in mass, they're ok overall as they're basically space marines with an extra attack, but they lack armor....which means a smart enemy will send his attacks at them instead of the super tough wolf lord.  this meant that i would often lose or tie or not win by much in assault because of the wolves dieing to basic attacks.

So for now the wolves are out, though i may try adding them back in and giving the lord Saga of the Wolfkin, perhaps giving the wolves Ini 5 will assist them in carrying their weight in assault more then they do now but it could also lead to allowing my enemy to stack the nasty wolf lord wounds as they'll be taken with the mass of basic wolf wounds.

Anyway, heres the model, its a light conversion but took some effort to get just right.  I felt he needed a longer reach then a normal weapon had because he was on this massive wolf, so i chopped up a thunder hammer and added a Sentinel Chainsaw to the end, then finished it out with the end of a chaos daemons standard i had laying around.  The shield arm is nothing remarkable, but getting it to fit correctly was fun as the Canis model has his cloak partialy hiding his shoulder pad, so i had to carve out the new shoulder pad in just the same manner to get it to fit flush.  You can't see it to well because it's all primed black, but the wolf is holding the head of a Daemonette with the rest of said daemonette scattered about the base, i liked this better then the wolf looking like he was prancing like a pretty pony.....