Jorin Helm-splitter

Beastslayer definitely changes the math enough to where I would feel like they're more reliable at it. In my admittedly small sample size with scouts, I haven't been able to get deadly stalkers against a vehicle unit turn 1. People either tend to have a unit nearby or, it's the type of unit where if I go second, it may take out the scout unit.

I'm glad that you're having this much fun with the detachment. I don't have the models that I would want to run in the detachment, so I don't know how much I will experiment with it, but I like the toolbox nature of it. I've found that the haywire mine can be a bit of trap for the wolf scouts. They just aren't that great into vehicles, beyond the mortals. To be fair I tend to run Saga of the Hunter so there is a pretty big reward aspect to them taking out a chaff unit early and getting the saga online quickly.

I do think for what it's worth that 1) From a playstyle perspective, I think that list has to be played in yolo style. You just have to convince yourself that you have first turn before rolling for it. 2) I think the digital meta is going to be a lot more competitive than a typical event. New players are a pretty common at tournaments in my experience, and in addition you don't have to worry about buying (if you can find stock), building, and painting the minis. 3) It was a pretty small event according to goonhammer. Not knocking the accomplishment because I haven't won a tournament with over twenty people (I've been top 3 a handful times over the years), but an event of that size isn't going to reflect meta (my lists certainly didn't lol). edit: I kind of wish I emphasized the second point more, because I really feel like you go up against tougher competition in these pods than normal events. Cause I tend to agree with all of your skepticism towards this list, but I've been in so many tournaments where there just aren't a lot of meta lists.

Got my first game of 40k in with wolf scouts yesterday. I went with two squads of 6 in SoH, which I think is a great detachment for them. I did use my spare phobos to make the second squad, and the squad with a rune priest felt better. I also think that you really want a haywire grenade in every squad (so if you're stretching one box use incursors). They made a pretty good first impression on me, but I was playing a 1500 pt game which I think helps them a lot. We had to spread out more, so Deadly Stalkers was easy to get and it's a big bonus for the squad. List is below if anyone is curious.

You don't get to choose to go second if you "win" the roll off in this chapter approved. There have been editions where you could pick if you won the roll off, and from my understanding that is the type of rule that they could change with the next chapter approved pack so it's one of those rules that I always expect to change. Objective scoring can be pretty weird. For primary objective you can't score objectives on turn 1, and then you from turn two onwords you tally up objectives that you control during your command phase (before movement) to figure out the score. The exception is on turn 5 the player that went second gets to score their objectives at the end of the battle round (to make up for the disadvantage of going second). Off the top of my head I think most secondary objectives that require you to control an objective are scored as soon you control the objective. I haven't seen any videos that really cover these well. But the chapter approved cards come with a step by step list for starting the game, and the cards are pretty clear about when you score.

@Kassill - Victrix don't have them (assuming there what you meant by sword bros). At the end of the day, I'm pretty sure headtakers don't have grenades because the models don't have them. I just feel like I've been conditioned to think that marines in power armor have them, so I expected them to be there and will give people the benefit of doubt for that reason.

I tend to just give people the benefit doubt now, I'm just happier that way. I do remember being surprised that headtakers didn't have grenades, and for what it's worth if he thought they only get precision on a 6 against the quarry he nerfed the unit a bit as long as he didn't try to give it the character. So, I don't ill-think intent is there, but with how hard he leaned into headtakers its kind of crazy not to know the unit better. For me though I'm just happy that the list passes the eyeball test, because it looks fun. I really underestimated SoH and it's became my favorite detachment to run. So, seeing it have some success really increases the chances that when work gets less insane, I can show up a local tournament and have some fun.

For me 3rd was the first edition that I really played and collected (I experimented with 2nd but only played a couple of games). I don't remember it quite as fondly as some, but I think in a lot of ways we had more ownership over the hobby. I do think that if I were going to try play an older edition it would make a lot of sense to go with it. 1) There wasn't as much lore so you could fit your characters into it, and you could fill in the blanks in ways that made sense. There also was a quality over quantity feel to the lore at that point. This makes the generic characters feel more exciting than they do in other editions, and even better not feel like your being held back for only wanting to use them. 2) There really wasn't a big tournament scene so the points & table size was really determined by what worked the best for your group. Which made lists feel more unique even though there weren't anywhere near as many units. There was some absolutely busted stuff but if you ran all the time, you just didn't get to play. The missions weren't as tight and they weren't worried about seeding so draws were a lot more common, and if you did play in store tournament it was usually with home brew missions. 3) It lasted long enough that there were quite a few codex releases. I think that's a key component to making older editions work, people need to feel like they have options. Personally, I think would rather try to make a classic format rather than go back to older editions but if you have the collections and the interest 3rd is good choice.

Sorry for the double post but my LGS came through for me . They were a lot of fun to put together, I went with a trap master, gunner, rune priest, 1 hunter, and a pack leader. I wanted to make sure the squad was legal in both games to maximize my use of them. I have enough spare bits to make another 4 easily as long run the fancy bolter. I did dry fit the spare plasma pistol, and power weapon arms from the blood claw kit on them and they looked pretty solid so grey hunter bits should work as well. My plan right now is to get second box during the regular release, and to either repurpose my old reivers or buy a new box and that should get me to 20 scouts. I still have some old cyberwolves and I'll use those for the second wolf in the 10-man squads. Still a little irked that they didn't make the fang bearer legal but it's simple enough to leverage other bits. Edit: Incursors are definitely a great choice for kit bashing (I think I might've seen Karhedron suggest them earlier), the extra mine is really handy if your goal is 2 x 5. I was able to make two 5-man squads plus the extra options for kill with a box of them and some spare bits from the blood claw kit

@Hear da Lamentation - another option may be to increase the points to 1500 for the next game and use that 500 points to add in the anti-tank while still using more of the models you want to use.

They will get sold separately but they will come with play aids for kill team and GW charges a lot for those IMO. Yeah, it sold it out quick. I put in a pre-order for it with LGS cause I'm starting to get into kill team, but I'm not very optimistic I'll get one.

I really like the models, but the rules frustrate me. I don't like that the fangbearer doesn't have rules, that you can't have one wolf scout with his pistol, and find it funny that they used in that model in the picture for the unit. The other issue that really bugs me is that it's really easy to build a unit that just isn't legal in 40k, they charge a lot for the Kill Team extras so someone really should be able to build the box based on rule of cool and just have it work. I don't mind the points cost because I think it gives them some room to maybe add a little bit to data sheet, and I am going to try them because they are super cool minis, and they will work well in Saga of the Hunter.

1000-point games are hard to give advice for. There aren't many additional list building restrictions so it can lead to some pretty crazy lists, but at the end of the day most people use it to try stuff out. I really like it because there really isn't a meta or tournament lists to look at, but yeah getting advice for it can be rough. That said I think the list you have will work well, but stormlance may be better a detachment for you but you should run Saga of the Beastslayer to see if you like it.

At the moment I'm running 12 headtakers. I've also been experimenting with a unit of 6 headtakers with shields lead by a Wolf Priest. I've only ran them once, but they did pretty well in that game.

I've been running a lot of headtakers in my lists, and I've stopped trying to compare the two loadouts. At this point they're practically different data sheets in my mind. The dual wielding headtakers are more of a one-use point & click unit. If having a cheap trade unit appeals to you, they're pretty good at it, although in my limited experience they really need advance and charge. I think that there is more of a debate between headtakers with shields and bladeguard than there is between the two loadouts. For what it's worth I've been running 3 units of headtakers in my most of my lists and I'm running 2 units with shields, and one with paired weapons.