Space Longboats in Space - The Stormfang Gunship & Stormwolf Have Arrived

Much Needed Air Superiority

The opening to the Space Wolf 7th Edition revamp is starting strong with an exceedingly powerful couple of flyers. In one fell swoop Games Workshop immediately fix one of the biggest issues with the current Space Wolf 40k codex - the lack of anti-air. The models look like the Forgeworld Caestus Assault Ram. It's great to see GW continuing the design ID rather than making up some crazy flying wolf. I love it.

The Rules

Not only have they fixed this problem they may have thrown Wolves right out in the front in terms of air power. The Stormfang Gunship and Stormwolf transport both looking like superior versions of the standard Space Marine Stormtalon Gunship and Stormraven respectively.

I new frost cannon weapon profile has been introduced with some fairly scary stats. The Helfrost rule means that any unsaved wounds cause a strength test, with a fail leading to the complete removal of the model.

As far as I know, the gunship version drops some transport capacity for a more potent frost cannon with large blast capabilities. Very potent.

Lets take a look at what the designs are like. Personally, the rumor leak images made them look a bit average. Now I have had a look at the full 360 view I am very impressed personally. Have some shots of the sprue as well, always good to look at the raw plastic too.

Ice Blaster Issues

Whilst I love the overall design the Frost Cannons irks with me slightly. We all know the Space Wolves come from somewhere cold, somewhere with wolves. Do we really need a cannon that fires cold too? It's such a lazy idea and far too comic book like. At least it's not a wolf catapult that fires wolves. Wolves that breath ICE and upon death explode into smaller wolves. Wolves made of ICE.

On the other side of the argument - I am glad Space Wolves are getting some unique weaponry, especially as it looks quite competitive. In addition, the beauty of the hobby we play is that you can model it however you want. You can paint it red hot and call it a wolf variant on plasma technology if you want. This isn't some computer game with fixed skins and animations, we can do whatever we want.

Conclusion

A strong start to the Space Wolf line up. The frost cannons, if cartoony seem to be a strong weapon and it will be interesting to see where else it turns up in their new codex. I am looking forward to seeing how the update will change the way list building works for wolves.

What are your thoughts?