Da Wulf Boyz

All Dresses Up With No Where To Go!

The Full 1850 Point Army and Display Board

     Well Last night I finally did it...I planned out an 1850 list that while not being a very competitive list would let me showcase a lot of very cool conversion ideas for my Counts As Wulf Boyz. Last night I painted the last model for the list. I included a lot of HQ models and a lot of different units. So this list was far from the usual redundancy lists that work so well in tournaments. Now I didn't care because this was a labor of love for me. Last year I went to the Warmasters Challenge, a 100+ person tournament in our area and while there I saw a lot of cool ideas and conversions. The coolest to me anyway was a Nid army that was based on a Zombie theme. So there were Corpse Carts, zombies, ogres and giants to represent various units. It was beautifully painted and I thought it was a very cool idea. So when I went home from the event last year I started planning my own Counts As army. Now I knew that the term 'Counts As' it seams is more and more becoming a dirty word in our hobby as far as tournaments go. It seems as tournaments get bigger and competition in these becomes more contested, and prize pools build that it seemed to me that taking a 'Counts As' army to an event would be like walking in with the plague.

Wolf Lord and Fenrisian Wolves

     So I went about planning my army out to mitigate as many problems as I thought I might have. One of the biggest issues usually with 'Counts As' tends to be a models size and footprint on the table. People are worried that others are modeling for advantage. So I made sure that every model I used was the same size or slightly bigger then what it was to represent. For my Rhino and Razorback I actually just ork'ified up the Rhino and Razorback models so they keep the same table presence. Each of my infantry is the same size as a space marine (although wider). My models are all on the bases they should be including the Thunder wolves. My Thunder Wolf Lord is the same size as Cainis who at the moment is the only Thunder wolf model to compare.

Arjak, Rune Priest and Wolf Priest

     For my troop, to keep confusion down, only models with special weapons look different. Meaning, if a Grey Hunter has a power weapon, it is a two handed weapon he has over his head and it has a blue tint to it. Where as every other Grey Hunter only has one handed weapons. The Melta Gunner is the only model in the Grey Hunter units with a two handed gun, as well his Melta Gun has a bright yellow 'danger' tank on it. The Banner guy sticks out and my Mark of the Wulven guys all have Cybok body parts. My Blood Claws all have Swords, No Helmets and yellow and red markings, all the Grey Hunters have helmets, axes and red and black markings. As well each Wolf Guard has Yellow and Black markings (all these marking colors are right out of the Space Wolf Codex for those units). So I matched everything to the Space Wolf codex where possible. My Long Fangs all have Rokkit Launchers in place of Missile Launchers and they have White and Black shoulders. The whole army is painted in a Shadow Grey, just like a Space Wolf army.

Long Fangs

     This being said, I made an 1850 list, painted to it and submitted it to the Warmaster Council for approval to bring my Counts As army to their event. Seeing some of the stuff last year I had no worries when I submitted my request. Little did I know there was a lot of back lash from last years events over 'Counts As' armies being confusing. So Da Wulf Boyz were judged to confusing for the event. The Council's request was that the Slugga's aren't Bolt Pistols and request that I change out about half of them per squad, along with any Shoota's to Bolters and the Rokkits to Missile Launchers. If I did these and a few other things I could bring the army.

Grey Hunter Pack and Rhino

     This brought a question to me, is my army that confusing, or have tournaments moved so far from the hobby aspect of the hobby we are in that counts as is dead in the tournament world. I decided I won't be making any changes to the army, I won't be attending this event I built the army for. I will however be conducting an experiment with the army. I am going to spend the next year, July to July, taking this army to as many events locally as I can. As well I am going to shop the army around to various big tournaments. I am going to e-mail the army to the various TO's of the big events (Adepticon, Nova Open, Astronomicon, ect...) and see if the army as it stands would be let into these events. I want to know is counts as dead to the tournament world? Along with this any event I go to I am going to speak to each of my opponents before and after each game with the Wolves and record their reactions to the army. I want to know is it as confusing as I have been told it is, did I spend a lot of money and time building a cool army that won't be able to see the light of day on a major event table?

Thunder Wolf Cavalry Lead The Charge

     Follow me on this Blog this year as I try to find out if Counts As is truly dead in the tournament world. I'll be updating this blog with my progress over the year. First stops, talking to the Nova Open guys as well as a tournament on the 9th here in a local store.