Crusade!

One of the units that I’ve been drawn to in the Space Wolf list as they’ve gotten refined over the years was the idea of Wolf Scouts. The whole idea that the Wolves don’t deploy their Neophytes as Scout units, no they put them straight into power armour, give’em a bolt pistol & chainsword, point them at the enemy and say “Have at it!”. Instead the Wolf Scouts are an elite fraternity where the chapter diverts all its warriors who prefer to operate alone with a relish for the hunt and generally like being stealthy sods.

My only problem has been the models never really meshed with the image that was being put out – the Rogue Trader-era Scouts that were available when the 2nd Ed Codex hit were from the “Mohawks & Puffed-Shirts” phase, although the three bespoke Sergeant models were (and remain to this day) pretty boss, clearly wearing a stripped down power armour. The metal Space Marine Scouts that came out later during 2nd Ed were great, but waaay to clean cut for sons of Fenris, and then the 2 dedicated releases they got for the 3rd and 4th ed Codexes were… interesting? I guess?

Anyhoo, the plastic Space Wolf Pack kit was pretty jammed as GW rammed on several bespoke Wolf Scout heads and other bits that are actually pretty decent for the time, but they still lacked something to my mind. BUT, back when I was on a bit of a tear building Wolves even if not painting the beggars, I saw someone mention that the Chaos Marauders and Marauder horsemen kits were a great source for kit-bashing suitably grizzled Wolf Scouts. Que the plastic!!

Sol there was a lot of fun in building these guys. I’m especially fond of eye-patch dude blazing away with his ready to draw his knife, matey-boy with the axe over his shoulder, and then the sneaky-sneaky stealth-man giving the “move up” signal behind him to the rest of the pack. Did have to get a bit creative as some of the longer moustaches & beards were never intended to mesh with the front of the scout armour….

Oh, and also got to thinking about Wolf Guard Pack Leaders, and figured Greigor Fellhand from the Propsero box would look perfect amongst this band of hard-bitten killers, and be jove he rather does 🙂

(one point ref loadouts – I should probably have gone with something more optimised than bolt-pistols and knifes, but maybe I’ll return to build some more packs at a later date????)

So painting went fairly swimmingly:

• Primed with Army Painter Wolf Grey spray primer, touched up with the Warpaint.
• Blocked in the details then washed with Aggrax Earthshade
• Then went over the weapons with Leadbelcher and washed with Nuln Oil, with some Abbadon Black, Mephiston Red and Averland Sunset for weapon cases.

Now, the WGPL took a couple of changes as I struggled initially to get Greigor painted up, but eventually he did come together:

But in the time between finishing the Scouts and finishing Mr. Fell-hand, I managed to pickup a bit of a rarity off of Ye Olde EvilBay – the classic Wolf Scout Sergeant with Powersword. So,  bit of a re-ji to the Force Org. This chap gets to takeover as WGPL for the Wolf Scouts, whilst Greigor gets a promotion to stand in as a Wolf Guard Battle Leader…..

Right, so that’s the grim hunters sorted, I think we’ll delve into the Troops options for the Wolves a bit next, and some characters….