I heard people before to call a Fireteam of Nomad Mobile Brigada the "Pain Train", which in my humble opinion would make a Fireteam of Wulvers the "Freight Train of Pain". Chances are you saw me talk about the Wulvers before on this blog, I use them often and I keep promising to write a full article about the Fireteam. Well, I took my time but here it is!
So what makes Fireteam of the 9th Wulvers Grenadiers Regiment so good? Let me break it down for you.
First lets take a look at the Wulvers profile. Their stat line is what you would expect from a Heavy Infantry (HI) unit but they are classed as a War Band (WB). As part of Caledonia elite units, they have high CC 21 and also high PH 14. They come with BS 12 which is high in the army (but average in the game). Their WIP 13 is good, but standard among Caledonia. The Wulvers are quite survivable thanks to ARM 3 and 2 Wounds, yes you read that right. They are one of the few units in Caledonia (and in Ariadna) that come with 2 Wounds. They have no BTS but that is expected from Ariadna units.
What makes their stat line go from average/high to excellent are the Special Skills. Climbing Plus combined with 4-4 MOV allows them to get into position very quickly and it lets you attack from unexpected angles and take the high ground. They also get Kinematika Lv1 so their Dodge and Engage movement is 1" longer, it does make more difference than it might seem. The best part, however, is the combination of Berserk, Natural Born Warrior and CC 21. This makes them extremely brutal in Close Combat (CC). No matter which opponent they face in CC, you have something to deal with them.
Natural Born Warrior gives you the choice of either denying any and all CC Special Skills of your opponent (Martial Arts, Berserk, i-Kohl, Surprise Attack, Protheion, Poison and Natural Born Warrior Mode A), or you can give yourself +3 CC and +1 Damage. Then you can also activate Berserk and get extra +6 CC and make the combat Normal Rolls instead of Face to Face. This guarantees you will hit your opponent, and the best art? You are at CC 30! So you need 10 or more for a Critical Hit. If you don't get Critical Hit, you are still at Damage 15 and thanks to the 2 Wounds you can often take a hit in return and still live.
Just a little side note, the Wulvers do have Frenzy which makes them Impetuous after they cause a Wound on an enemy unit. However, this does not affect them whilst their are in a Fireteam and so I won't go into detail about it.
Just a little side note, the Wulvers do have Frenzy which makes them Impetuous after they cause a Wound on an enemy unit. However, this does not affect them whilst their are in a Fireteam and so I won't go into detail about it.
The Wulvers have a good selection of weapons for very affordable points cost. You can have a T2 Rifle, a Mk12 or a Heavy Shotgun. All three options come with Grenades and AP CCW. This gives you a good mix of range bands: Shotguns for close range, Rifle for mid-range and Mk12 for mid to long range (up to 24"). With Wulver's mobility you shouldn't struggle getting into optimal range with either weapon. Both the Mk12 and Shotgun are Damage 15, and T2 Rifle has T2 ammunition (as the name would suggest), so they are all deadly. Especially the Heavy Shotgun in a full Fireteam and within 8", you'll go up to BS 21 with three templates!
The best part about the weapon options is that all of them are 0 SWC, so you still have plenty of room for other units with special weapons. There is also a fourth option, a T2 Rifle for 1 SWC that comes with Fireteam: Haris. This is handy if you want your Fireteam: Core to be made of different units (like Volunteers or Scots Guard).
You might have already notice that I keep talking about full Fireteam of Wulvers, which is 5 troops but Wulvers only have Availability (AVA) 4. So how can you make a full Fireteam? Well the key to make this freight train is William Wallace as the Lieutenant . He has the ability to join any Fireteam Core or Haris in Caledonia. And so with four Wulvers he can make a full Fireteam Core of five. Not only that but he makes the whole Fireteam so much better because of his Smoke Grenades. That way the Fireteam doesn't need to rely on other units for cover.
In my experience, I found it best to use the Wulvers Fireteam in missions where the objective is to kill enemy units or board control. Mainly because you might not have many Specialists, or even Orders, to do other Objectives based missions as most of your Orders will likely go into this Fireteam. The Fireteam I always take is one Mk12, two T2 Riles, one Heavy Shotgun and Wallace.
Now that you know why Wulvers are so awesome, here are some tactical tips on how I like to utilize them on the battlefield:
Sledge Hammer
This is the most aggressive way I use the Wulvers but it makes for an excellent Alpha Strike and it can more or less end the game before your opponent even had a chance to have his turn. Simply put, use as many Orders as you need on this Fireteam to get into the enemy deployment zone and kill as many enemy units as possible in super close range using the Heavy Shotgun. This is especially devastating if you opponent deployed their units in groups because you will have three shots with a template at Damage 15 and potentially at BS 21.
I would recommend to only do this if you see a good path to the deployment zone and you actually can take out more than one unit at a time. Keep in mind that most likely you will have only 8 Regular Orders (and the Lt Order) as your opponent will probably take 2 Orders from you with their Command Token.
If you opponent set up well and you can't get the Shotgun to hit multiple units, it might be better off to attack from range with different weapons. This is high risk-high reward tactic. If you fail to do enough damage your Wulvers will be left far from your army and your opponent could destroy them, after which it might be game over for you as this Fireteam will be more than half your army.
For maximum effect, I also recommend use Uxia (or another Infiltrator) to kill the enemy Lt, if the Wulvers can't, so they are in Loss of Lt when they start their turn. That way they will really struggle to retaliate and your second turn will be just mopping up what is left and securing your victory.
Example game play here (Game 3).
Hold the line
It is not always possible to be super aggressive, in some games it is more important to take board sections and hold them at the end of the turn. It is always preferable to go second in those kind of missions but I played games where I went first too and Wulvers didn't let me down. They are good at holding ground when you need them to. In the Fireteam they will have Burst 2 in ARO and as long as there is five of them, you'll often be shooting at BS 15 or BS 12, which gives you good odds. The trick is to find good spots where your opponent can't easily engage your Wulvers in their bad range bands. For example, if your opponent can shoot at your T2 Rifle from over 16", the odds will not go in your favour.
I would recommend to always give them support from other ARO units, like Snipers. Though more often than not, even when I lose the face to face rolls for shooting, the Wulvers survive thanks to 2 Wound and ARM 6 in cover. Sometime your dice will be bad and there is nothing you can do about that, but most times my Wulvers came out on top from any firefight (where the odds were not heavily stacked against me by playing badly or just being outplayed).
This is something that I found to be very handy in board control missions. Thanks to the high cost of this Fireteam you can very easily dictate which sections you want to hold because three Wulvers in a section is almost 100 points that will be hard to shift. And that still gives you around 60-70 points to have in another zone. I try to always keep the Wulvers near the section borders so you don't have to spend much movement to move in and out of a zone, and you should be able to take 2 sections easily, sometime even 3.
Also, a useful thing I learned is to not have Wallace as the Link Leader by the end of your turn, unless he is really well hidden (but even then I tend to not do it anymore). He will be a big target for your opponent so chances are you might want to be Dodging with him while Wulvers would be better off shooting. As long as he is not the Link Leader, he can break out of the Fireteam and do a different ARO without breaking the Fireteam as a whole, so your Wulvers can still have some support bonuses.
Game play example here (Game 2) and here (Game 1).
Death from above
Sometime your opponent is too well entrenched down for a direct attack; such as a TAG on Supressive Fire, or you might see a group of enemy units but a Sniper is making it hard to reach them. Whatever the case might be, never forget that your Wulvers all have Grenades and high PH. This is a perfect combination for some Speculative Fire.
In the best case scenario, you want to get four Wulvers within 8 inches of your target. Then you can use Coordinated Order for all four of them to Speculative Fire. This will give you four attack on PH 11, so more than 50% chance to hit (-6 for Speculative, +3 for Range). If you are over 8 inches you will be hitting on PH 5, which I only recommend for desperate situations.
Few things to keep in mind: you only have to clip your target with the Grenade template, but they all have to go into the same place. Doing a Coordinated Order will also break the Wulvers from a Fireteam so to save Command Tokens you can use Wallace's Lr Order to do a Coordinated Order (thanks to Inspiring Leadership) with him and three Wulvers (he will throw Smoke Grenade as he doesn't have regular ones) and then use a Command Token to re-link the Fireteam if you need to.
The best part about the weapon options is that all of them are 0 SWC, so you still have plenty of room for other units with special weapons. There is also a fourth option, a T2 Rifle for 1 SWC that comes with Fireteam: Haris. This is handy if you want your Fireteam: Core to be made of different units (like Volunteers or Scots Guard).
You might have already notice that I keep talking about full Fireteam of Wulvers, which is 5 troops but Wulvers only have Availability (AVA) 4. So how can you make a full Fireteam? Well the key to make this freight train is William Wallace as the Lieutenant . He has the ability to join any Fireteam Core or Haris in Caledonia. And so with four Wulvers he can make a full Fireteam Core of five. Not only that but he makes the whole Fireteam so much better because of his Smoke Grenades. That way the Fireteam doesn't need to rely on other units for cover.
In my experience, I found it best to use the Wulvers Fireteam in missions where the objective is to kill enemy units or board control. Mainly because you might not have many Specialists, or even Orders, to do other Objectives based missions as most of your Orders will likely go into this Fireteam. The Fireteam I always take is one Mk12, two T2 Riles, one Heavy Shotgun and Wallace.
Now that you know why Wulvers are so awesome, here are some tactical tips on how I like to utilize them on the battlefield:
Sledge Hammer
This is the most aggressive way I use the Wulvers but it makes for an excellent Alpha Strike and it can more or less end the game before your opponent even had a chance to have his turn. Simply put, use as many Orders as you need on this Fireteam to get into the enemy deployment zone and kill as many enemy units as possible in super close range using the Heavy Shotgun. This is especially devastating if you opponent deployed their units in groups because you will have three shots with a template at Damage 15 and potentially at BS 21.
I would recommend to only do this if you see a good path to the deployment zone and you actually can take out more than one unit at a time. Keep in mind that most likely you will have only 8 Regular Orders (and the Lt Order) as your opponent will probably take 2 Orders from you with their Command Token.
If you opponent set up well and you can't get the Shotgun to hit multiple units, it might be better off to attack from range with different weapons. This is high risk-high reward tactic. If you fail to do enough damage your Wulvers will be left far from your army and your opponent could destroy them, after which it might be game over for you as this Fireteam will be more than half your army.
For maximum effect, I also recommend use Uxia (or another Infiltrator) to kill the enemy Lt, if the Wulvers can't, so they are in Loss of Lt when they start their turn. That way they will really struggle to retaliate and your second turn will be just mopping up what is left and securing your victory.
Example game play here (Game 3).
Hold the line
It is not always possible to be super aggressive, in some games it is more important to take board sections and hold them at the end of the turn. It is always preferable to go second in those kind of missions but I played games where I went first too and Wulvers didn't let me down. They are good at holding ground when you need them to. In the Fireteam they will have Burst 2 in ARO and as long as there is five of them, you'll often be shooting at BS 15 or BS 12, which gives you good odds. The trick is to find good spots where your opponent can't easily engage your Wulvers in their bad range bands. For example, if your opponent can shoot at your T2 Rifle from over 16", the odds will not go in your favour.
I would recommend to always give them support from other ARO units, like Snipers. Though more often than not, even when I lose the face to face rolls for shooting, the Wulvers survive thanks to 2 Wound and ARM 6 in cover. Sometime your dice will be bad and there is nothing you can do about that, but most times my Wulvers came out on top from any firefight (where the odds were not heavily stacked against me by playing badly or just being outplayed).
This is something that I found to be very handy in board control missions. Thanks to the high cost of this Fireteam you can very easily dictate which sections you want to hold because three Wulvers in a section is almost 100 points that will be hard to shift. And that still gives you around 60-70 points to have in another zone. I try to always keep the Wulvers near the section borders so you don't have to spend much movement to move in and out of a zone, and you should be able to take 2 sections easily, sometime even 3.
Also, a useful thing I learned is to not have Wallace as the Link Leader by the end of your turn, unless he is really well hidden (but even then I tend to not do it anymore). He will be a big target for your opponent so chances are you might want to be Dodging with him while Wulvers would be better off shooting. As long as he is not the Link Leader, he can break out of the Fireteam and do a different ARO without breaking the Fireteam as a whole, so your Wulvers can still have some support bonuses.
Game play example here (Game 2) and here (Game 1).
Death from above
Sometime your opponent is too well entrenched down for a direct attack; such as a TAG on Supressive Fire, or you might see a group of enemy units but a Sniper is making it hard to reach them. Whatever the case might be, never forget that your Wulvers all have Grenades and high PH. This is a perfect combination for some Speculative Fire.
In the best case scenario, you want to get four Wulvers within 8 inches of your target. Then you can use Coordinated Order for all four of them to Speculative Fire. This will give you four attack on PH 11, so more than 50% chance to hit (-6 for Speculative, +3 for Range). If you are over 8 inches you will be hitting on PH 5, which I only recommend for desperate situations.
Few things to keep in mind: you only have to clip your target with the Grenade template, but they all have to go into the same place. Doing a Coordinated Order will also break the Wulvers from a Fireteam so to save Command Tokens you can use Wallace's Lr Order to do a Coordinated Order (thanks to Inspiring Leadership) with him and three Wulvers (he will throw Smoke Grenade as he doesn't have regular ones) and then use a Command Token to re-link the Fireteam if you need to.
High castle
This is something I would only recommend if you really want to win, because it is the sort of tactics you could call cheesy. I used it only once and whilst I won the game, it wasn't the most fun I had.
It will mostly work on a table with high terrain, preferably with the top being hard to reach. What you can do is send the Wulvers to the top of some high terrain to make it hard for your opponent to attack them. They will get there really fast thanks to the Climbing Plus and Wallace can Climb 6" per Order so he won't take long either. Once you are on top it should be really hard for your opponent to reach the Wulvers, especially if the terrain has no ladders or other access points. Your opponent will not want to Climb to the top because once they get there, the whole Fireteam of Wulvers will get free AROs and most likely slaughter them.
This way you can hide 170pts in a hard to reach place, if they mission is about having units alive or board control (and the terrain happens to be in a good spot to take control of board sections), it will make it very hard for your opponent to win.
Before you commit to this though, make sure your opponent doesn't have any units with special skills like Super Jump or Climbing Plus, or weapons that can Speculative Fire, like Grenades. It could backfire on you if your opponent has a way to deal with this.
Example game play here (Game 2).
The Thermonuclear Warhead of Pain
This is my all time favourite combo in the game and it is also the most devastating one. What you need to do is get Wallace and all the Wulvers into CC, which can be very easy for these guys once you practice it few times. Then as the Link Leader Wallace will attack with Fireteam support, +1 Burst and +1 Damage for each other friendly unit in CC. This gives him up to CC Burst 5 and Damage 18 (if you get all of them base to base, keep in mind the Silhouette of the enemy determines how many can be base to base).
Then you activate Berserk and Wallace goes to CC 28 with Explosive CC Weapon. So you will be rolling 5 dice with Critical Hit on 12. That will guarantee 15 Armour Saves for your enemy at Damage 18, five of those very likely to be Critical! Nothing in the game will survive such onslaught, NOTHING! Okay, maybe if you opponent is extremely lucky to roll high on 15 dice and you got no crits, that way they can survive.
The downside of this is that Wallace will get hit back, so he might not live through it himself. Depending on your target, you can switch Wallace with a Wulver for slightly lesser impact, but still a deadly one. You can even keep Wallace out of the CC and just use the Wulvers. One of those with support of three will roll four dice at up to CC 30 with AP CCW at Damage 17, 95% units in Infinity will not live through that either.
Example army list
The Wulver Fireteam will be more than half of your army points so the rest of your army is more or less build around them but considering how cheap Caledonia units are, there are many different ways you can do it. It really depends on your preferences and available models but if you would like an example this is the kind of a list I would take these days.
While Wallace is alive it will give you 17 Regular Orders and 3 Impetus Orders, which should be enough to put into the Fireteam and other units like Uxia or the Caterans. I find the Caterans to be the best long range options in Caledonia, which is why I wouldn't bother with HMG or such. The rest of the army is pretty aggressive and Doctor with Volunteers will cover your back lines.
