So, at last we have arrived.
Troops.
If Logan is the heart of a Loganwing army, Wolf Guard are its muscles, its bones and its sinews.
They are the entire reason that you take Logan, if we are perfectly honest with ourselves. Sure, Logan can support a unit of Longfangs and make it uber-bang-bang good. But let's face it, that's a pretty colossal waste of 275 points.
No, if we take Logan, it's because of the Wolf Guard. So what do they bring to the table?
Any. Thing. We. Want.
That's the beauty of this unit. They can and will do anything for you. Need combi-weapons? Sure. Need power weapons? How many and what variety? Storm Shields? Terminator armor? Heavy Weapons? Yep, can do sir.
But therein lies the danger. It is really tempting to trick these chuckle-heads out with every piece of bling under the sun, and then realize you have 25 models in your all-infantry army. Not exactly a great place to be.
So instead of talking about what you CAN have, let's talk about what you NEED.
You need Cyclone Missile Launchers. Simply put, this is the only reason to play an all-foot army out of this book. Wolf Guard terminators with Cyclone Launchers provide your troops choices with a Heavy Weapon that they can move and shoot. This gives you a tremendous amount of mobile firepower that cannot be shaken or stunned, and this is what gives you your edge against mechanized armies.
You need ONE terminator per five Wolf Guard to take this heavy weapon. Your standard 'baseline' loadout should be:
5 Wolf Guard. Upgrade one with Terminator Armor and a Cyclone Launcher.
135 points of mobile scoring firepower. Season to taste.
Some decent options to consider:
Equip one or more of the Wolf Guard with a Stormbolter. At 3 points, this adds some decent punch to the unit when they shoot at infantry. 2 Frag templates plus 4 or more Stormbolter shots (remember the Terminator can fire his Stormbolter too) puts a dent in things. Perhaps more importantly, it gives you another wound group to play the "wound game" with. My Stormbolters are often called upon to "Take One For the Team."
Remember that your Power Armor Wolf Guard are decent in combat, but are mostly just wound markers for your Cyclone Launcher. Keep him alive at all costs. Keep wounds off of them if at all possible. That is a 63 point model. Protect it. Trust me when I say that every time you think "Well, really I could just take that Krak Missile hit on the Terminator and he'll probably be fine," you will roll a one. If the Terminator is the last model alive at the end of the game, you have succeeded. If you only have a few power armor bodies left, you have failed. Lol.
There are many games when I only have the Terminator alive, sitting in cover popping off missile shots at things and scoring an objective. Job well done, boys.
Alternatively, Wolf Guard can make a powerful "Sternguard lite" type of a unit. The ability for anyone to take combi-weapons means you can load a unit of Wolf Guard into a Drop Pod or even a Rhino/Razorback and have them shake and bake something. Personally I'm not a fan of Rhinos or Razorbacks in a Logan army, but some people have interesting ideas in this arena. (Aside: I've been trying like hell to make a decent Hybrid Logan list... so far no good).
Personal side note: This army taught me a lot of what I know about Logan-wing. It's unfortunate that the comments were lost in Stelek's site upgrade, but if they were still there, you would see a slightly younger Purgy eagerly asking Stelek whether Space Wolves could make an all foot army be competitive. While I have ventured out in a lot of ways, you can still see the origins of a lot of what I do found right there in that list.
As a basic strategic tip, remember what Wolf Guard ARE and what they ARE NOT. They ARE pretty tough hombres, and if needed can lend a whole shit load of attacks to a fight. But the key is to try and let the tougher elements in your list take the brunt of any attack, and then counter-attack with your Wolf Guard. Since you don't have Rhinos or the like to block off assaults, often the only means you have of keeping something nasty from assaulting you is by assaulting it first, with Cavalry or Lone Wolves, something that will live through your opponent's turn and let you finish them off at your leisure. These are general tips, there are no hard and fast rules.
Improvise, Adapt and Overcome.
As with anything, you need to equip your Wolf Guard to support your overall army concept. Most of the time your Go-To loadout will be five dudes with a Cyclone Terminator. Sometimes you may want to bump up to 10 dudes and 2 Cyclones, and give the Terminators some Chainfists and make a bit of a mauler unit. Sometimes you will want one or two Drop Podding units with lots of Combi-weapons. Your call.
