Army list help request: Space Wolves?

Here is an email I got:

Hey Sir,
I wanted to send you this over for a Space Wolf Dread List. I play this in a tournament and will be playing in the next vegas qualifier in acouple weeks.

Bjorn- Ven Dread with 5+ Invul & HQ
x3 Ven. Dreads with Ass. Cannon and Heavy Flamers in the Drop pods.
x2 Troops with a Meltagun and a Mark of the Wolfen guy(rending base attacks=d6+1), all in a Basic Razorback.
x3 Dakka Preds(autocannon and Heavy Bolters)
x3 Bike Units of the following: 3 Bikes+ 1 Attack Bike, Melta, and a Multimelta.
To capture the kill points in this tournament you need to kill the Dedicated transports, so I will toss the pods in a corner somewhere. March the army on the field through cover, and either stay back and shoot or charge forward depending on the army. I really like your play style and if I could I would fly up there to test this army out on you and Fritz, but this is the best I can do. Can you and Fritz take a look and find my holes?

I was considering dropping the Bike Squads for a few Land Speeders with 3 units of two each both with the double metla setup.

What are my weaknesses and how should/ could I over come them?

Thanks
--
Jimmy

Ok, well, I don't know Wolves much at all, but I can give you my take on what you got going on. First of all, whenever I see a list like this from another codex it makes me cringe about how expensive Blood Angels are. So you got 3 dreads in pods. They are not Furioso, but still not bad... plus a kick ass commander. Can he have a pod too? Then you get your two troops, plus THREE dakka tanks and THREE full bike squads... just sick.

The list looks great, and you are already touching on the holes that I see. My list works well for a couple reasons. First of all troops. My two tactical squads are vital, WITH their lascannons. I dont know what your squads got going on... but it is my ability to place that 5 man combat squad in the back with a lascannon that helps tremendously, and they even won a game for me when I took 2nd at the Conflict GT. Get your two troops up to 10 men. Get them a lascannon each, and know when to combat squad and when not to.

You are building a list that relies on dreads to do your assault and close combat punch. Your troops are vital. They should only see combat if you are desperate and I suggest tooling them out to take best advantage of that mindset. A simple Power weapon, meltagun and lascannon. Drop the razor back for a rhino, that way in kill point missions you can just throw the 10 man squad inside and protect them. Or you can CS them and send out one squad to make trouble while the Lascannon sets up in the rear. Simple concept really, but surprisingly effective and that 5 man squad in the back is surprisingly hard to kill. They will usually survive the first round, though reduced to one guy with a Lascannon... then your opponent has much more important things to worry about, and you can get that single guy behind terrain to keep him alive. So spend your troop points making them resiliant and shooty. Dont worry about assault, aside from a PW, and then use them wisely. A major part of my methodology is knowing when it is a good tradeoff to spend one of my combat squads.

So focus on your dreads. They MUST get into close combat. They will not survive two full rounds of enemy fire after getting out of the pods even with venerable. They must be venerable and they MUST have extra armor. Without a doubt. A Stunned dread is a dead dread. You wont have my furioso meltagun on them, but an ass cannon on rear armor is almost as good. Get them heavy flamers as they are also good on rear armor and troops.

Now, here comes one of the problems. As I stated before, they are not Furioso. The 2nd close combat weapon is a massive advantage and it is what helps them survive the enemy round of shooting. You have to know when to make them reroll and when to take the hit. Not having the second CCW will make that a little more tough. For example, on a penetration, I will always take a weapon destroyed result so long as he has not had one already. That just means I will take a -1 to my attacks, but still hit at str 10. You don't have that luxury. A weapon destroyed result on your dreads will need to be rerolled and force you to gamble. For me, I have a 50% chance of surviving a penetration result and still getting into close combat at near full effect. Failing that I can make him reroll and flip that coin again. Pretty good odds. You only have a 33 percent chance. So unless a str 6 dread is good enough for you, like you are about to assault weaksauce troops who cant hurt you and it is ok for you to just bog down, you will have to reroll weapon destroyed.

If not in combat, you will need to force a reroll on immobilized pen results too.

If you are in combat, take the immobilized pen. The dread will likely not be able to do much the rest of the game any way.

God I feel like I am just sort of babbling here. I need to rewrite this in a coherent post. But for now I think you get the point. Before you go into a game, you need to predetermine your response to every damage result in every situation, and STICK WITH THE PLAN. You are more likely to see your dreads destroyed then I am, but you should still do well.

Dakka preds are great. Give them the storm bolter. Despite what people say, the two extra shots ARE worth the points. Extra armor would be nice since you can never underestimate the ability to actually move at the end of the game and contest an objective.

Your bike squads are outstanding. Make sure you got a PW or PF in there. They will be a game breaker for you. I wish I could get those into my list.

One big problem is Leadership 8 on your bikes. You lose one and you are testing. But I dont think SW get Rights of Battle, so I guess there is little you can do.

It looks like your list is very strong and killy. You have good fire power and the dreads will give you good assault strength. Your bikes will provide mobile tank killy power and assault help where you need it. Pile a bike squad onto an assault that a dread has been locked into to free him up for his next target.

You need to master the use of your pod dreads. Master angles, and disembarking the dread to get the most out of cover. I wrote a pretty involved post on it not long ago. Take a look in my archives for it. Dont forget that it is sometimes a good idea to get out of the pod, run and pop smoke. That next turn of enemy fire is going to hurt. But you can limit his effectiveness and increase your chances of surviving with good placement.

Be sure to prep your drop zone. Dont worry about destroying enemy heavy weapons, just stun them. Use your forces to stun tanks nearby your intended landing zone, then move on once you have succeeded to the next tank. If you have prepped your drop zone, your dreads should survive and charge.

So to review:
Get lascannons into your troops. Get them into assault as a last resort.
You must have extra armor on your dreads.
Master the art of pod placement and using them as cover by playing the angles.
Prep the drop zone.

Oh, and pod kill points... screw it man. Drop those pods right into the middle of it. Accept the fact that you are giving up 3 kill points. Just get more. You will catch him off guard because he will not only be holding his stuff back to not give up kill points, but he will be expecting you to do the same. This will probably leave him in a deployment that he would not normally do, and give you an advantage as you may find holes in his line. If he is keeping his squishy stuff in the back, drop your pods on them. Get out and go to town. He will have to turn his army around to pop your pods and get the KPs. That will expose him to your lascannons... They will be the key in a KP mission.
Hope that helps!


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