#hobby2025

And building

Oh and building

And also, building

That last one is my favourite. I had been knocking around some ideas to convert a Lieutenant with Combi-weapon, but as soon as I saw the hooded wolf skull helm from the new Wolf Priest kit I knew what I wanted to do. Swapping an Eliminator sergeant's carbine for the old combi-plasma, finding the correct left hand (that took far longer than it should have to get the pose looking right), then adding a bunch of bits from various Phobos kits, and we have Olaf Skystalker from Logan Grimnar's Great Company.

Absolutely perfect for a lone, behind-enemy-lines fighter.

As I was building all of these models with the idea of a Blackmane force (Ragnar, the Wolf Priest and a Battle Leader, the Headtakers (Ragnar's Black Pelts Wolf Guard), the Blood Claws and Intercessors, along with the two new Drop Pods, which will be honoured as Svangir and Ulfgir), and a Champions of Fenris army (Logan, Olaf, Njal Stormcaller, the Terminators, and the Land Raider Redeemer, Fire of Fenris). Throw in a cheeky Murderfang, and I had accidentally built a functioning 2000 point list.

Next up for the Logan Grimnar side of the army, aside from Arjac, is a unit of Assault Terminators - the Void Claws - which will be the new Wolf Guard Terminator bodies with Lightning Claws either from the old kit, or the newly announced models.

I've even already built Torfin Daggerfist himself.

With the Space Wolves' Grotmas detachment speccing heavily into Terminator units, I think it was fair to expect the three existing Terminator-armoured characters to return with new models, and I think everyone was expecting Logan Grimnar to lose his sled, but what an amazing new model. It somehow looks like a classic piece of Warhammer art brought to the tabletop, I absolutely love it.

Arjac and his hammer getting a new model was also very much on the cards. Big fan of the build options, too, although I might go for the static pose personally.

The third character in Terminator armour also made a return, but not how I was expecting.

My boy, Njal Stormcaller. He's part of the reason I'm such a big fan of the Space Wolves, having been there from the very beginning, and I love how he's back out of his Terminator armour now, echoing his very first model.

And of course, what would new Terminator characters be without a unit of Terminators to lead?

These guys also look great - sounds like there are lots of options too which would be useful to mix in with the new, plain Terminator models I own in order to tie them all together.

And so, this hobby kickstart? Well I signed up to the local league again - no Crusade this time (boo) but they are using one of the rules brought up in the last Crusade supplement. We are building 2500 point lists, consisting of a 1000 point Primary force that starts on the table, and three Waves of 500 points each, two of which we bring on from reserves during the battle. This opens up a nice bit of flexibility - you could, for example, build one of your waves to be very heavy-weapon, anti-tank focused, so that if you came up against Knights you could bring it in, and if you faced a horde army you could leave it on the sidelines.

This was my initial idea. A balanced core Primary force (Intercessors, Hellblasters, some Phobos units to infiltrate across the board), a heavy hitter wave with Ragnar Blackmane, Assault Intercessors, Aggressors, an anti-tank wave with as many melta guns and lascannons I could muster, and then a nostalgia wave. I had six Thunderwolf Cavalry half-built from an age ago, so I thought I could put them together, finally build Canis Wolfborn and give them a final runout before the new codex dropped and they (potentially) disappeared for good.

But then I thought, "if units and models are going to disappear, why not try to include as many of them as possible?". Thus, my initial army was binned off and Lukas The Trickster's Farewell World Tour was born - a list consisting entirely of Index Space Wolves datasheets, featuring as many models and units that would be being replaced as I could muster. I foolishly included Ragnar Blackmane in my first draft but, since he's certainly in the new book, I made the obvious decision to him off in favour of good ol' Krom Dragongaze.

It's not a great list, and sadly no room for Logan's sled (or time to build it either.. although the league start has been pushed back two weeks... no, surely not..?), so I fully expect to get pasted every game.

What an incredible bunch of models, I'm still quite gobsmacked. I was hoping for a range refresh and was expecting it to still be some way off, end of the year perhaps, but it looks like it's arriving much, much sooner.

New kits for Blood Claws and Grey Hunters I definitely wasn't expecting, and I love the level of detail on these models. It's just enough - a string of fangs here, a wolf skull there. Room to add more if you want, enough that they already stand out from your more Codex compliant chapters.

While I wasn't expecting Blood Claws and Grey Hunters to make the leap to the new codex, the announcement that there'll be 20 unique datasheets (down from 35 in the current index) has lead to me looking back on my speculation post and revising some of my predictions.

There are already three new units in the new army box alone - the Wolf Priest makes a comeback after having been relegated to just Chaplain duties thus far this edition. The Wolf Guard Battle Leader will also be it's own datasheet, given the weapon options - a la the Blood Angels Captain in their codex - having just been a standard Lieutenant before now. And the Wolf Guard Headtakers are a brand-spanking-new unit in their own right.

Ragnar Blackmane will be there, and presumably the Hounds of Morkai will too, so those two plus the units in the army box makes seven already. Logan Grimnar got a shout-out in the announcement of the new Crusade: Armageddon book so, unless they intend to kill him off in that, he'll be getting a new model (which could well mean farewell for the power sled).

While the likes of Sammael and Ezekiel managed to stick around for the Dark Angels, watching the non-Primaris models get culled from the Blood Angels line when their book came out makes me start to worry what the future holds for Ulrik and Njal, and most likely Bjorn (more sleep in his case probably). If they fall in battle against Angron on Armageddon, well, let's say I've dealt with loss before...