Wednesday, November 5, 2014

Tactica - Rune Priests




               

         The Rune Priest, darling of every wolf player’s eye since 5th edition, has taken a hit in the recent codex with the nerf to his psychic powers (namely Living Lightning and Jaws of the World Wolf) and the new rules for psychic power generation. However, what was once a simple wolf hiding out with Long Fangs or Drop Podding in with Wolf Guard is now a man of many talents. He can choose to sit back and shoot, to launch himself into the fray, or to support a group of his own men through his variable power set. Here are four sample Rune Priest load outs that may find their way onto your table top and into your hearts (or your opponent’s depending on the circumstances). 

Rune Priest – Ironman 

            Master Level 2
            Psychic Hood
            Helm of Durfast
            Bite of Fenris
            Plasma Pistol
            Runic Armor
            Jump Pack
            Any Rune Weapon

Tempestas Power Set

            This set focuses on the quickly moving around the field while firing off lightning bolts, plasma shots, hard hitting bolter rounds, or helfrosted bolter rounds while denying enemy psykers their powers. This set is fairly cheap for what it does and will can be fit into most lists fairly easily. While I do not normally condone the use of Jump Packs ( we wolves fight with our feet on the ground or rooted to thick pieces of metal, not flailing in the air like some pansy Angel). This set is limited though in what can actually be set aside and fly with the priest. Leaving him alone is not advised as he will fall quickly to enemy fire, however, his options are either Skyclaws, which will serve well with flamers and as a charging unit when needed, or Wolf Guard with Jump Packs and possibly combi-weaponry, which can work, but is very expensive and is then not quite as useful as they may seem on paper after the Wolf Guard have blown their combi-load. 

Rune Priest – Incredible Hulk

            Mastery Level 2
            Helm of Durfast
            Psychic Hood
            Armor of Russ
            Space Marine Bike
            Wulfen Stone
            Fangsword of the Ice Wolf
            Rune Staff

Biomancy Power set

This Rune Priest is a beast in close combat, sporting 4 attacks on the charge (possibly more if he attains warp speed) that reroll to hit at STR 5 AP 3 and have both rending and helfrost is silly. The Rune Priest also ensures he goes first every time in challenges with the Armor of Russ giving your opponent a huge negative modifier to their initiative, thus giving him a pretty sizable advantage when fighting opponents.  You will notice that this Rune Priest set takes two melee weapons, and this is to give the priest a nice balance between hard hitting challenge strikes and tank hunting. Rerollable Str 6-9 (depending on the powers rolled of course) are nothing to joke around with while the helfrost and rending of the Fangsword allows the Priest to take on even Monstrous Creatures in some instances. Do not underestimate this HQ’s shooting ability, if you take both of your powers from Biomancy then you will get the primaris for free, and AP 2 shots are always welcome when you get to re-roll to hit and ignore cover with all of your shots.
This set works very well with a group of Wolf Guard on bikes and, if you are willing sacrifice Fleet around 80% of the time (percentages made up, I’m not a numbers guy), Thunder Wolf Cavalry. If it is fast and hits hard then you are in business to bring forth this hulking Rune Priest. I will recommend though that if you are going to take this set then you may want to figure a way to get the Bikes or Thunderwolf Cavalry to be brought from the Champions of Fenris Supplement in order to maximize the damage from the squad itself. Be warned, this set is expensive, but when you make your Rune Priest close in power to a tough named character what do you expect brothers?
           
Rune Priest – Incredible Hulk pt 2

            Mastery Level 2
            Armour of Asvald Stormwrack
Fellclaw's Teeth
Psychic Hood 
            Space Marine Bike
            Krakenborne Sword
            Rune Staff

Biomancy Power set

            While I do not condone this set, I feel obligated to post it just in case this is how your group works. Unlike the basic set, you are now able to ride around in a 2+/4++ it will not die and relentless set of armor. The Krakenborne Sword is an interesting replacement for the combat priest from his Fangsword in that you will always have AP 2 and gain master crafted at the cost of helfrost and rending. The loss of rending isn’t felt as hard as the loss of helfrost is to be honest (since if you were tank hunting you would normally be using your Runic Mace and the Krakenborne Sword has the AP 2 you desire). This set only works if your group allows you to treat the Armor of Asvald Stormwrack as normal armor and not terminator armor. This is something I do not condone since it clearly says it IS terminator armor in the fluff portion, but since it is absent from the crunch portion I have seen cases made for the armor to be allowed on bikes. This set does have one large advantage over its normal codex cousin and that is the warlord trait “Thread-cutter” which allows the priest to re-roll failed wounds, this gets even better when you consider you get to re-roll warlord traits if you don’t like what you get.

Rune Priest – Captain America (the leader set)    

Mastery Level 2
            Terminator Armor
            Helm of Durfast
            Psychic Hood 
            Wulfen Stone
            Rune Staff
           
Divination Power Set
           
            This Rune Priest is ideal for leading groups of Terminators, preferably the Thunder Hammer and Storm Shield variety, into battle. The addition of Prescience to the group makes the group just that much more devastating. In addition the group’s Thunder Hammers become Strength 9 on the charge, making the destruction of most vehicles all but guaranteed on the charge. The set also contains such gems as Misfortune (good for the priest), Scriers Gaze if you are working with reserves, and Precognition for the Psyker himself. Being able to hold an enemy in combat with re-rolls is always good and will give your Terminators more time to hit things in the face.


You will notice brothers that I have placed a Psychic Hood on all of the Rune Priests in this article. This is simply because I like to ensure denying enemy psykers their own psychic powers, namely the accursed Invisibility or any of the Biomancy powers that may make the enemy a threat. If you find that you are running low on points though and that you require those extra points elsewhere, then it is acceptable to remove the hoods from your Priests and allow the rune weapons to be your anti-psyker force. Do you have any other Rune Priest loadouts? If you do, share them in the comments below and lets work together to bring this majestic HQ choice back into service. Good hunting brothers and, as always: For Russ, for the Allfather, for the Wolftime brothers.

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