Lupine Allies

Riding on the trail of seeing and posting about THE GREY, I also (before seeing the movie by the way) was recently thinking about Space Wolf ally contingents.  Allies are of course the big buzz in 40k now and even though I haven't yet seen the actual official rules, I got the impression it goes something like this: For every primary contingent you may take a small ally contingent, requiring the usual HQ and T (1 or 2?) choices, plus up to one each of E, FA, and HVY.  Is that accurate, folks??

As my earlier "Buddy System" posting will attest, I have been pro-allies for a long time.  And now that it's official, I love the chance to build little mini-forces of any and all 40K armies (well, not all--some just don't appeal to me) and still use them in battle.  This allows us to have all the stuff we want without the 2000 point (and $2000) commitment.

So for me, doing different armies means finding the pure flavor of that force and going with it.  Why play Space Wolves if you're just going to spam out marines and tanks like any other SM army??  What's the point?  So when I run the Wolves through the strainer, I come out with things like: WOLVES (obviously), getting 2 for 1 HQs, shamanic weather powers, and cunning hunter-types.  Of course I could easily fill 3000 points with these things and want more, but let's focus.

So my general, relatively cheap wolf contingent looks something like this:

HQ	Canis Wolfborn w. 2 wolf companions	205
(T)	Fenrisian Wolves (6) w. cyberwolf	56
FA	Thunderwolf Cavalry (3)	150
E	Wolf Scouts (5) w. meltagun	85
		496

I love the idea of Canis in general, and he makes Fenrisian wolves troops, so got that covered.  Add the wolfriders (cuz why else take SW at all?) and the ultra-cunning outflanking scouts.  BAM, captured the pure wolfie syrup right from the tap.  Of course there's a lot of other units I like, like the Lone Wolf or adding a dreadnought to your force instead of the scouts.  I hear long fangs are popular, as are land raiders. A solid core of grey hunters is always nice.  And it is a shame not to take another HQ and let that 1/2 slot go to waste, so I could take a rune or wolf priest or Njal or another named hero or the invulnerable Bjorn, but that's getting pricey.  This is just a good 500-pt starting point that i think makes a nice little wolf pack for adding to any army.

Now let's talk Chaotic.  My primary Chaos warband is called Prospero's Corpse, as it is composed of the ragged survivors of that tragic event 10,000 years ago when the Space Wolves laid waste to the Thousand Sons' homeworld, plus other oddities they've picked up over the millennia.  I usually like to take a Daemon Prince (Thoth, egyptian-like lord of Tzeentch) and my converted naughty Space Wolf Thorbolg Wolfsbane, who I run as Huron Blackheart, giving him badassness in combat and some sorcerous abilities (assume his built-in heavy flamer is a very Tzeentchy fire spell cast at will).  I also add in Khorne Berserkers represented by and as feral bloodclaws.  But now I can add real space wolves to my pool!  The hard part is deciding which HQ to lose, cuz i sure like Blackheart's profile.  Thorbolg could be a rune priest maybe, give him saga of the warrior born and two powers, but this makes him expensive and only with 2 wounds.  The benefit is TWO more HQs for the price of one.  I'll give it some thought, I have time: who knows when I'll get back to playing chaos (or how it'll look after the new codex)?

(my Thorbolg conversion, still awaiting the brush)

But another thought I had for a Chaotic SW contingent is making a grisly werewolf model and running it as Canis.  Thus he has an awesome statline befitting a monster, boosts wolves in the army, includes wolves as troops, charges as a beast/cavalry model, and is generally a bad mutha.  Now I just need to make me a werewolf!

(taken from the greatest werewolf movie ever made, by the way...)

Now can I get a tall frothy mug in this quaint little pub by the moor...?

(not the greatest WW movie, but probably still in the top five)