Stormwolf or Stormfang

[Anggul]

Stormfang. If I wanted an assault vehicle I would use a Land Raider, having to hover to assault removes the benefits of being a flyer while retaining the downsides and the potential for your squad to explode with it. The Stormwolf is bad for the same reason trying to use a Stormraven as a dedicated assault vehicle is bad. You're just asking to have your expensive flyer explode, and putting a killy squad inside just makes it an even juicier target because it will take them with it. At least a Stormraven has skies of blood/fury/shadow to drop off a unit and still stay fairly safe.

[Rory Wildwards]

Which is better, twinlinked/small blast (assaulty helfrost gun) or lance/large blast (shooty helfrost gun)?
I'm leaning to twinlinked as it would be consistently useful, lance/large blast more situational.
Rather reliable over the chance I may meet an AV13/14 vehicle. I'd be sad about the large blast though.
Add in the transport increase and I may actually build it as stormwolf.

[rgrmaddog]

In their new pay to win plan, I'm almost certain it is the new Helldrake.

I agree, new way to win games and loose friends would be StormFang and small unit spam. Once you've killed everything on the table it's safe to drop your units on objectives in hover mode. You will need some units on the ground to wait for them to fly in, be sure they're kitted for anti hoard and you got your bases covered. This is assuming StormFangs can be dedicated transports, which we will have to wait for the codex to drop to see. I'd love to run into a knight player with such a list. Of course, I've never used flyers (being a Space Wolves player) and could be completely wrong.

[Cutter]

Ice cannons... I now look upon the future Blood Angels release with fear in my heart... both for GI Joe models and campy overly-cliché'd 'themed' weapons...

Bloodcannons.

Word.

[Charon]

Bloodcannons, Cybot: Bloodsplatter Pattern, Bloodstone, Vial of Blood, Formation: Bloodmurder Pack, Flyer: Bloodeagle...

[Anggul]

Bloodcannons, Cybot: Bloodsplatter Pattern, Bloodstone, Vial of Blood, Formation: Bloodmurder Pack, Flyer: Bloodeagle...

Blood fist had to be the most simple yet ridiculous one.

[40kGamer]

Which is better, twinlinked/small blast (assaulty helfrost gun) or lance/large blast (shooty helfrost gun)?
I'm leaning to twinlinked as it would be consistently useful, lance/large blast more situational.
Rather reliable over the chance I may meet an AV13/14 vehicle. I'd be sad about the large blast though.
Add in the transport increase and I may actually build it as stormwolf.

I'm leaning toward the small blast, extra transport, assault vehicle myself.... and I find it deeply amusing that while Space Wolves lost Jaws they still give everyone the finger with the new "take a Strength test or be removed from play"... Arguably not as good as Jaws, but will still annoy the crap out of MC's.

[Rory Wildwards]

I'm leaning toward the small blast, extra transport, assault vehicle myself.... and I find it deeply amusing that while Space Wolves lost Jaws they still give everyone the finger with the new "take a Strength test or be removed from play"... Arguably not as good as Jaws, but will still annoy the crap out of MC's.

What strength lowering ability will you use to troll? Is there a psychic power that does that?

[40kGamer]

What strength lowering ability will you use to troll? Is there a psychic power that does that?

Biomancy - Enfeeble gives a -1 S to the victim. Don't know if the Wolves will keep Biomancy as an option or get stuck with their new discipline... even without the help the 'pass a strength test or be removed from play' will just annoy the heck out of people...

[vonDietdrich]

The Stormfang is just straight up better, from a strategic standpoint. No contest.

Unfortunately, flying transports carrying assault troops have one big problem: even though it's an assault transport, you're most likely not going to get them into Assault until your turn 3 at the earliest (assuming reserves rolls go well and there's a decent place to drop your angry chainsaw-wielding payload). By the time your guys get into assault, a substantial amount of the game will already be over. You might as well Drop Pod them instead and save yourself a few hundred points.

Or... you can have a large blast that's not only very high strength and low enough AP to slaughter power armor, but it also forces a 'save or die' on top of that. Taken individually, the Helfrost test and the damage stats of the cannon are both very threatening. When you consider that they stack for chances of inflicting casualties... the Helfrost test is a solid +50% flat chance of inflicting a wound (or outright killing a character at full wounds) against S3 T3 armies (good night, Eldar), and it's still a respectable +33% against Space Marines, and since it's a test, not a wound, it's /completely ignoring saves/ of anyone it touches (Demons, anyone?). This on top of the blast itself (which has extremely high odds of killing MEQs that are caught under the blast template). A Stormfang's psychological impact is much larger than a Stormwolf's, because your opponent will feel the pressure to focus fire on it or fear massive casualties from a single solid large blast. Because of the combined high Strength to force saves and the Helfrost check, even TEQs will feel the hurt more consistently than against regular shooting (each unsaved wound is 15% chance to fail the armor save + 33% for the Helfrost, or 48% to kill a 1 wound model, and even failed To-Wounds still touch the TEQ and result in the 33% instant death chance). Compared to the odds of killing TEQ with regular non-AP2 shooting, that's downright reliable. In fact, 'save or die' templates are basically the new Strength D, now that D weapons have been nerfed.

(Before I'm accused of being sensationalist, consider the following. Any MEQ hit with a large blast of Helfrost is going to have an 85% chance of taking a wound they can at best claim cover against. If the To-Wound rolls a 1, or the wound doesn't kill them, they then have a 33% chance of dying instantly anyway. Against S3 armies, those percentages get downright mean, and a direct hit with a Large Blast could easily wipe out 10 or 20 S3 infantry in one shot with a huge cumulative chance of inflicting casualties. Now imagine having two Stormfangs shooting those at you per turn, and keep in mind that I'm only talking about its main gun right now.)

It's like having a scarier version of the Fire Prism that's also a troop transport with more guns that most of your opponent's shooting can only hit on 6's. Helfrost also seems to have been specifically designed to kill deathstars.

If grabbing backfield objectives is your thing, you can still put a five man squad of Grey Hunters in the cab of a Stormfang and call it a day, but using it as their primary delivery system seems silly.

In short... two drop pods are inexpensive and will get your assault troops on the table (so they can at least shoot something and start inflicting casualties) on turn one. A Stormwolf won't get them anywhere useful until turn 3, and even then you're going to have to worry about it being shot down or missing your reserves rolls. If you're going to drop the money for the kit, you might as well use the option that'll do the most lifting.

In fact, an allied detachment of five Wolves plus HQ in a Stormfang is probably the most cost-effective way currently to deal with the threat of a jetseerstar or equivalent (touching the star with a large blast means each model has a 50% chance of being removed plus the wound calculations, however those go). This is an afterthought for me, as I don't see it in my local meta, but it's definitely a thing.