One of the members of my gaming group has to bring up how "Space Wolves get all these ridiculous little bonuses" and special things that make the SW unique. He's one of those people who see the Space Wolves as a dedicated close combat army due to the "8 million powerfists in a unit".
I hear your howls of anguish brother.
People who have not read the Space Wolves codex and played a couple of games using Space Wolves fail to understand that we
are not predominantly Close Combat; We are Close Assualt. The difference being that we are proficient at assualting, however,
we do not have the stamina for prolonged combats. We weaken our targets with short range fire and finish them up close and
personal like Russ would have us do!
I am forunate to be in a club that isn't petty this that. Sure the players like to win, but it is a more deserved win if it is a close
fought battle in a game that could go either way. Even the younger players (14 - 16) realise that if you wipe your opponent force
in the first two turns that the game loses its interest.
As for banning our codex, the way I see it; Space Wolves are (with the arrival of 5th Edition to make some of our rules obsolete) a
4th Edition Vanilla army with the traits - Trust Your Battle-Brothers & We Stand Alone. We have very cool unique wargear and
an even cooler background of drinking ale and kicking arse. We have other rules Acute Senses & Preferred Enemy however they
are only useful on special occasions. As pointed out on many occasions we suffer from more HQs than we really need, do not
have access to Furious Chage or Tank Hunters. Are over priced in many areas and the bear the loss of a single Long Fang
as the only wound soaker is the pack SGT. and Jump packs are a waste of points in less than 2,500 pt battles.
It is an incredible feat to know that our battle codex has stood for 2 entire rule sets. The designers of our beloved battle book
should be commended that they could balance it out so well [allowing for one or two items] and can still remain competitive enough
to scare players who fear to face us.