Goatboy’s 40K Hot Mess: Space Wolves – Champions of Russ
Man this is one stinky 10th Edition detachment. Let’s roll us our sleeves and get to work on fixing the Space Wolves Champions of Russ detachment.
The Space Wolves army is a very aggressive costed pile of murder hobos that are out to wreck the enemies of the Emperor. Their Champions of Russ Detachment though is a rather stinky mess. Most likely once the Space Marine codex comes out the default detachment you will see a lot of is the Stormlance Task Force – or the Murder Puppies FACE Punch force as I would like to call it. It is just a shame the default Space Wolf one is just not that good.
What’s the Problem?
So why is it so bad? What makes it not work nearly as well as other Marine based detachments? Well beyond some of the restrictions on units to take its just a hard set of rules to really activate. It doesn’t feel awesome as you have to complete something that your opponent can let you complete and then wait until the end of the Battle Round to even activate it.
Anything that demands your opponent to give you the opportunity to get wrecked for it to work is a frustrating rule to try and get to work. We all want rules to just work when we want them too. It is one thing to roll random rolls to activate a set of skills during a turn but it is a whole other thing to hopefully get the ability to do it during a game. Things like taking wounds off of a character without killing it is really hard to do when you need your character to be part of units in order to activate rules. It is just frustrating and something that doesn’t feel right.
So how do we fix it? What can we do to make the rule kinda the same but at the very least better? How do we get better Sagas working for the player throwing down the Space Wolves and not using the Space Marine books awesome new detachments?
Fixed Sagas
Let’s start with the big thing and just let’s make Sagas activate turn by turn right away. You pick your Saga, it activates for the Battle Round, and then if you complete it – it stays and allows you to stack more rules on top of it. This one change could leave all the rules the same and still let you try and complete them – you just at least get a turn of the Saga being awesome. It just feels like the easiest way to resolve these. It lets you complete things while at least making the oath you took to get it done work a little while.
Character Driven Design
On top of the Saga aspect you could also let some characters be able to call a Special Saga that is different from the initial five and then activates for the character unit. You could leave it to only Named Characters as a method to make those guys unit. Saga of Bjorn would toughen up those within range of his shouting and maybe amplify their OC value for the turn as they gather to protect their old treasure. Saga of Ragnar could let the unit get more explosive in close combat as they run down the side line. Small little things to let their characters be bigger and better than other Marine Heroes as they are supposed to be awesome.
Hero Based Powers
What if there was some kind of rule that was based off of how many heroes you had your in army? They could all be getting better as they tried to one up each other in combat/shooting/scoring etc. This kind of narrative design work could be really cool and generate some kind of jealous interaction with each other. It would be pretty simple of if a unit is within 2-3 heroes they get some kind of bonus just due to trying to “look” better in front of their leaders.
Really I just want the army to feel better and something you want to take. I understand how all the new Marine detachments are neat with their new rules and options – but none of them feel particularly Space Wolf like. These guys are all about the Hero-Hammer insanity that wants to jam their super awesome dudes down your throat with ruthless aggression.
I like the idea that Wolves need to be a Hero-Hammer style army and emphasizing that style would make for an interesting detachment. Just something unique for the Wolf style of play.
What do you think? Is this something that would be valid for a fun Space Wolf experience?
