Goatboy: Curse of the Wulfen Sequel Predictions!
Goatboy here again to pull out my crystal ball and maybe guess what the continuation of the Wulfen campaign might bring to the tabletop.
We are pretty sure there will be at least a part 2 to this mess as the book ended up some big cliffhanger. The Space Wolves were getting attacked by the Dark Angels with chatter that the Grey Knights might get involved. This leads me to think – hey we will get some Grey Knight and Dark Angels love. So the question is – what would we actually get?
Grey Knights?
Will start with the Grey Knights as lately I have been having a great time with the army. While it is no where near the power levels it had during they last dying breathes of 5th edition, the Grey Knight army isn’t completely terrible. It isn’t like the damned Chaos Space Marines. Sure all your guys cost a little bit too much and you have a severe lack of unit depth in the army list – they are still marines, have mind powers, and can kill a lot of things when they get close. Plus they are one of the few psychically powerful armies that are also very anti psyker themselves. With that in mind – let’s see what they are missing and try to fill in the blanks.
The big thing the Grey Knights are missing from newer armies is a Battlehost/Decurion/etc formation/detachment build. This is the biggest thing I expect out of the campaign if it does include Grey Knights. Every new “army” has this type of “please build things this way” from GW and I would expect no less for the silver knights themselves. The question is – what kind of rules and extras would they get? I don’t expect a ton of free vehicles as while it could be a benefit for the Knights they are not known to have a ton of vehicles on the table in their current build. In fact most of the time they are deep striking in, dealing with the daemonic issue, and then teleporting back up into their space ships. This makes me think that we might see a blanket – all unit Deep Strike for this type of formation. I know most units already do in the book – but things like Purifiers are left trying to find a ride down. So this might be something added on. I would also suspect a change in how they harness warp charges – maybe everyone has a 3+ when trying to manifest Sanctic powers. That would fit in their roll as the blessed Psykers of the Imperium.
From there I would expect that armies are built with One Core plus one Auxiliary like the other detachments. They would probably have access to one Core option that is most likely set up just like the Nemesis Strikeforce. In fact I would expect it to be named the same and almost set up exactly like they are with some extra “taxes” involved.
Nemesis Strikeforce Formation
1 HQ – choice of Librarian, Brother Captain, Stern
2 – 4 Grey Knight Strike Squads
1 – 2 Grey Knight Terminator Squads
0 – 1 Dread knights
0 – 1 Purgation Squads
0 – 1 Interceptor Squads
Extra rules would be everything comes in Turn 1 or 2 if you would want, the Run/Shoot ability would stay, or maybe they are relentless the turn they deep strike. I would expect relentless to be an extra rule for a lot of the other formations. It just seems to fit, especially with some of the heavy weapon/salvo options they have.
Command Formation – 0-2 for the Detachment
Most likely it is just all the other HQ options available except for Crowe. This would let you get Draigo into the army as well and the only reason why Crowe wouldn’t be there is most likely for a Purifier Formation that will most likely show up.
Auxiliary options would probably run from looking like similar Space Marine options with specific Grey Knight ones. Here are some things that feel obvious.
The Cleansing Flame of Justice
Crowe + 2-4 Purifiers
Extra Rules – The Formation can Deep Strike. Each unit of purifiers must be 10 models. They get can cast on 3+ and for every cleansing flame successfully cast the next one gets +1 to their strength value to a maximum of Strength 10.
The idea of chaining powers and abilities seems to be something GW hasn’t done fully yet and is something that could be showing up. I would have expected it with Tzeentch Daemons but the straight +1 to their powers might end up showing up here. I like the idea of having to cast it multiple times to really get more out of it as well as this idea of the psychic choir pushing the power to its limits.
The Purge of the Unholy Formation
2-4 Purgation Squad units
Extra Rules – Relentless. All units from this formation must enter from Deep Strike Reserves and you only roll once for the entire formation.
I think if these guys had Relentless you would see them more often. It just feels like a rule made for this type of formation/unit and could make GK a stand alone army and not some kind of combo nonsense.
The Dreadknight Party Time
3 Dreadknights that form one unit
Extra Rules – ML increased to 2 for the entire unit. Thus they can cast Sanctuary and Force. They gain Shred and Hatred:Daemons. All Dreadknights must have a Personal Teleporter.
The idea of a 3 things in one unit seems to be common and I would expect it to show up for the Grey Knights. This would be the Greater Daemon killing machine.
I am sure after that there will be some kind of Tech Marine plus a ton of other vehicles bonus as per other Marine style formations. Their could be an different flavor of Storm Raven grouping that either acts like the Blood Angels one or is something completely different. I would also expect and Interceptor one that somehow messes with teleportation or responds to your opponents teleporting in. Those all seem to fit into this new realm of interesting rules interactions phase of 40k right now.
I would expect a few more Relics to round it out with some flavor and the only new “release” would be a plastic Stern as the model is pretty old and it would appear he would be the big named character causing all sorts of issues. Plus he is totally allergic to dogs and hates the color grey/blue. The relics would run from some specific anti daemon tech. I do wonder if we might see the returned of blessed ammunition as well. The door is pretty open as the current GK book – while serviceable – really needs some injection of fun added to it.
Dark Angels?
After Grey Knights the chatter points to Dark Angels as the other “good” guy army left to get some kind of update. I don’t see a new Battlehost/Decurion unless they really want to break apart the army into Ravenwing and Deathwing options. I think that could be really cool and have some updated “core” options that could help give some flavor to the green Space Marine army. Right now I am just going to look at the idea of a new “core” option to add on. This is just like how the White Scars and Raven Guard updates got new core options that allowed them to work differently.
Most likely the Ravenwing would be similar to the Raven Guard Detachment with just more emphasis on locked in units. This way it can create the taxes etc on the army list and still make something powerful and unique.
Ravenwing Swiftstrike Force – Core Choice
1 HQ – Sammeal, Librarian, Chaplain
0-1 Ravenwing Command Squad
2-6 Units of Ravenwing Bikes
0-2 Black Knight Squads
0-1 Dark Shrouds
1-3 Units of Attack Bikes or Land Speeders
All units must be mounted on a bike if available. Units can shoot as normal after declaring a Jink save.
I tried to think of something that wouldn’t just be a rehash of what we see in the Dark Angels book. The ability to Jink and shoot as normal would make them different from White Scars and give them a little bit of power back. I might have to limit the amount of other units allowed as too many reroll saves might be too much. Even though Hunters Eye is around a lot of armies do not nearly has as much access to ignore cover options. This would seem to be a fitting Raven Guard core choice that would work well with the other Formations allowed in the Dark Angels Detachment.
Deathwing Vengeance Force – Core Choice
1 HQ – Belial, Librarian, Chaplain
0-1 – Deathwing Command Squad
4-6 – Deathwing Terminator Units
1-2 – Deathwing Knights Units
0-2 – Venerable Dreadnoughts
All units must either have Terminator armor if available and deploy via Deepstrike. The entire Choice may deep strike in Turn 1 or 2. All units are Twin Linked when arriving via Deep Strike and my Run/Shoot or Shoot/Run the turn they deep strike in.
The Deathwing option would be similar with just the opposite options available. Instead of the bike choices you would need to have everyone be in Terminator armor of some sort. This could be pretty interesting and most likely would get the rule of getting to come in on the first turn – thus allowing you to actually play a Deathwing army and not auto lose or take some random junk to let you keep playing the game.
I would expect some specifically flavored Relics for each “core” choice for the Dark Angels. I don’t expect any new “miniatures” unless they want to finally reworked the Terminator Chaplain into a usable model. I think that is one of the few Character upgrades we haven’t seen yet. I don’t expect another Librarian of sorts and unless they want to redo any of the big named Characters this release will just be a “rules” release. I do think making the Ravenwing and Deathwing options into core choices instead of Detachments will help out a lot into make those specific armies a bit more playable beyond the combo injection the Ravenwing give or the sadness donut eating Terminator group the Deathwing gives.
So far the new Campaign books have given 40k a ton of new stuff so it is exciting for me to dream up some rules for the rumored factions. Who knows if I will be even close to what we see. Heck they might actually end up being better then the “wishes” I wrote about above. I won’t even go into guessing what Chaos might get because well – I have been disappointed in the lack of Chaos Space marine stuff and I don’t want to get my hopes up.
Do you think these thoughts are too good or do they fit into 40k’s new motto – everyone gets something broken or free?
