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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