By Rory Foster

Images copyright of Games Workshop, used without permission.

t's been nine long years for the sons of Russ. Nine long years, left hanging with the Dark Eldar and Necrons. Finally, Games Workshop has seen fit to let the ‘Wolves have their hour of glory once again. Space Wolf players can now rejoice and forget about their small and boring old codex and greet their shiny new 96-page beauty.

The Codex itself
This codex follows the same format as all others published recently, nice and organised.
Who are the Space Wolves - Occupies a large portion of the book, and it's jam packed with rich, juicy fluff for all the long time fans to drool over, made even better since the last codex barely had any fluff pages at all.

The Warriors of the Fang - Details each Space Wolf unit and character, and provides statlines and special rules for them. Plenty of great fluff in here too!

Colour section - Showcases all current Space Wolf models. Obviously it's full of nought but grey and yellow, but that's what Russ intended!

Armoury - Details of non-unique wargear, from weapons to armour to trinkets.

Space Wolves army list - Contains everything you need for building a list; points costs, unit options, statlines, wargear, etc. as in the other codecies.

Introduction
Just by flipping through this section, you can see how much effort went into it. I haven't read any of the Space Wolf novels, but I imagine most of the fluff in those has been incorporated here. There are a couple of pages detailing their early history, from the origins of Leman Russ to the Horus Heresy, and then to Russ' disappearance. Of course, there isn't much about what they were actually doing during the Heresy, seeing as how Horus duped them into fighting the Thousand Sons far away from Terra where all the fighting (and glory, of course) was. The circular chart from the back of the old codex is here, with additional detail on each Great Company, but there's nothing about the obsidian stone on the chart meaning treachery or betrayal here; it just says it represents the 13th Company (who vanished) and all other Space Wolves who have been lost. A further couple of pages are dedicated to the first war for Armageddon, when the forces of Khorne, led by the Primarch Angron, invaded and clashed with the Space Wolves. I really like these pages in particular, as the ending leaves a bit of ambiguity floating around; most notably, are the Space Wolves loyal to the Imperium, or to the Emperor himself?

The Warriors of the Fang
Lots of new toys here for Wolf fans; in fact, there are actually wolves in this codex now! Fenrisian wolves, that is; a numerous unit of Beasts (so they have Fleet and 12" charges) that are at their best ripping up less numerous infantry. If normal wolves weren't enough, you have the massive Thunderwolves too... with Space Wolves riding on them. Sounds silly, but they are pretty big wolves. The Space Wolves seem to have forgotten that they hate flying now, as they can now use Skyclaw packs, which are just Blood Claws given a jump-pack and pointed at the enemy. There's also a new elite unit called Lone Wolves, which are single Space Wolves who are the last survivors of their packs. Sadly, they don't seem very useful, even though they have two wounds, Feel No Pain and Eternal Warrior, as all of that can be negated by pointing a couple of meltaguns or a powerfist in their direction. Nothing much else is new, so let's move on to the classical stuff.

Wolf Scouts are OK. Normal Scouts are better in my opinion (even though they have inferior WS/BS) because they don't take up a precious elites choice, and are cheap, but Wolf Scouts are basically Grey Hunters without power armour who can infiltrate and can't take any kind of transport. However, Wolf Scouts actually seem to be pretty good in close combat, with the ability to take meltabombs and power weapons while having higher WS than normal Scouts. They can also outflank from any board edge you choose if you get a good D6 roll. However, I'd personally prefer to fill my elite slots with Wolf Guard, who are, simply put, pure gold. They can either be part of the Wolf Guard pack or lead other Space Wolf packs (they can no longer be dedicated bodyguards for characters), and have a lot of options. If you like, you can hide a Wolf Guard with a thunder hammer and storm shield in a Blood Claws pack for a nasty surprise, or give one an assault cannon and have him roll with some anti-infantry Long Fangs. They can also take two storm shields if they have Terminator armour. I know the intention behind this (so you can choose which weapon to replace), but it's still kind of silly and should have been worded as 'may swap either his storm bolter or power weapon...' instead.

Grey Hunters are the same old stuff. They get bolters, bolt pistols and close combat weapons as standard, and cannot take heavy weapons, but may have one special weapon for every five squad members. Blood Claws are the same but cannot have as many power weapons/fists, and Blood Claw bikers are now called Swiftclaw packs. Heavy support is pretty much identical to the vanilla Space Marine codex, except for Long Fangs, who have the very useful ability to split their fire between two targets unlike their Devastator counterparts. This will make them a staple of anti-tank in the codex for sure, as you can take out multiple transports (common in 5th edition) with ease. Sadly, Leman Russes are gone, which makes no sense at all considering they were named after the Primarch.

The standard three HQ choices are still here; Wolf Lords, Wolf Priests, and Rune Priests. Wolf Lords have an insane amount of options, and are better close combat fighters than Space Marine Captains/Chapter Masters, but don't get that fun Orbital Bombardment ability. Wolf Priests are supposed to fill the role of Apothecaries, but they don't grant Feel No Pain, which sucks. Instead, they bestow Fearless, which can actually be a bad thing sometimes. They don't get that other thing that normal Chaplains have either, instead that have some abilty which makes their unit good against a selected target. Rune Priests are excellent psykers, with access to the ability of Jaws of the World Wolf. This nasty trick forces an opponent to take an initiative test or be removed from play, so Eternal Warrior or invulnerable saves won't help you here. This could be used to remove Abaddon or the Nightbringer from play, and seems like a very frightening prospect to face at first, but Marines alone will pass their initiative test half the time, and it only affects infantry, monstrous creatures and bikes, so you should be safe in the transport-heavy environment of 5th edition. Oh yeah, Rune Priests also negate psychic powers within 24" on a roll of 4+ and are ridiculously good against Daemons to boot. Goodbye, Lash of Submission.

Last but not least in this extensive section, we have the bad boys, the special characters of the book. While the last codex had a measly three characters, this one bumps it up to eight! In addition to the three main heroes (Grimnar, Ragnar and Ulrik), we have Bjorn the Fell-Handed, a Dreadnought who was part of Leman Russ' retinue, Njal Stormcaller, a Rune Priest who brings a random weather effect to the board on Space Wolf turn, Canis Wolfborn, a Thunderwolf Cavalry character who makes Fenrisian wolves better, Arjac Rockfist, who wields a throwable thunder hammer (S10 AP1!) and excels at slaying characters and monsters, and Lukas the Trickster, a Blood Claw with the most brutal April Fool's joke in history up his sleeve. All of these characters provide great contributions to your army, but come with a massive points cost.

(Note: You can have two HQ choices per force organisation slot, for a maximum of four)

Armoury
I won't go over common weapons and whatnot here, as you can just glance at the reference sheet for that, but there are still a few things from the old days hanging around. Frost blades/axes are the same, storm shields now give a 3+ invulnerable save, lightning claws have been replaced with wolf claws, which can re-roll to hit or to wound. Artificier armour is replaced by the superior Runic armour. Not much else to say here really... Oh, there's a new item called Mark of the Wulfen, which can be used to represent members of the 13th Company, as it shows what happens when the whole werewolf curse starts boiling over and sends Marines berzerk.

A Company of Wolves (colour section)
There's some good and some bad in here. First of all, seeing as how this codex is for just one chapter, you see the same colours in this section over and over, but what else did you expect? Well, let's see... Ragnar has not been re-sculpted, sorry. He still has his silly little bolt pistol. Logan looks as good as ever, but Ulrik is starting to show his age. Lukas the Trickster is pretty good if you ask me, and he looks nice and mischievous, just as his background depicts him. Njal looks like he's in the midst of... well, calling a storm, I suppose. A decent model. And now, we must move on to a minor gripe of mine.

Canis Wolfborn. He looks terrible. I mean, this is just my opinion, but he looks really, really bad. His Thunderwolf mount is poorly proportioned and looks too fluffy, like a giant poodle. I'd rather use a different model as a base, maybe something from another miniatures company. Canis himself isn't that bad, it's just his mount.

Moving on... there are no models for Arjac, Bjorn, or Wolf Lords. This is obviously to encourage creativity, which is just fine considering how customisable Wolf Lords are, and I imagine there'll be models for Arjac and Bjorn sometime later.

There are only two Space Wolf plastic boxes! It's not like you need more though, as these kits are awesome. First, the normal Space Wolves pack. This lets you make Blood Claws, Grey Hunters, Lone Wolves, or power armoured Wolf Guard. There are a plethora of weapon options and wolfy bitz, including thunder hammers, frost axes and storm shields. Almost everything is wolfy, and has a little emblem or a wolf tail or a bit of fur on it. Wonderful little box, but you have to get Assault Marine or Biker boxes and kitbash them and this new kit to make Skyclaws and Swiftclaws, which sucks, but such is the way of Games Workshop. Next up, the Wolf Guard Terminator kit. Not as many options as the Space Wolves pack, but it's only designed for five guys per box. This is going to be a great source for Wolf Lords too, as the Terminators have some bitz that really suit leaders, like a cape and an ornate thunder hammer.

Space Wolves army list
Most changes here concerning old units are just to do with stats and options. Both Blood Claws and Grey Hunters are 15pts now, some stuff is cheaper, some stuff is more expensive, etc. Some units have tons of options, while others are sorely limited. Special rules aren't present here; look to the Warriors of the Fang section for that.

In conclusion, I can safely say that as much as I wanted to hate this codex for being so full of character when a certain other Marine codex took away eight sub-lists and five expansive armouries (and was definitely the most colourful and customisable codex in 40k to boot), it's a wonderful book, rich in fluff and competitive potential. I like how very few units have been radically changed, as opposed to codecies such as the Chaos Marine one, which revamped the cult Marines completely. Thankfully, there are few redundant or just plain bad units and options, but I wish more effort had gone into certain models (Ragnar and Canis particularly).

Happy hunting, sons of Russ!