Archive: Space Wolf Lords

I started my Space Wolf army in 2010 and have been slowly building them up ever since, stopping and starting, until last year, when I started to take them onto the tabletop as an army. I have around 2500 pts worth, but I’ll start at the top and present the Lords and Battle Leaders.

I chose the Company of Sven Bloodhowl, back when little mention was made of him in any of the fluff, other than his symbol, his pyromaniacal streak and his etching and tattooing of his deeds on his armour and skin.

Here is my attempt at modelling him back in 2012. I remember spending a long time posing him, trying to get him peering through the notch on his shield:

There was a short mention of him wielding a thunderhammer in the previous codex. I also sought out the legs from the Blood Angels Death Company sprue, the ones with the long parchment, whereupon Sven indulges his narcissistic urges. His backpack with the upturned wolfheads was gifted to me by a work colleague who collected Space Wolves in the early nineties. I was going to paint flames on his cloak, but just went with straight orange. Early on, with my Grey Hunters, I’d tried painting tattoos on the faces and heads, but it looked awful (I thought) and I contented myself with the idea they tattooed their bodies underneath their armour.

I redid Sven when the Krom Dragongaze miniature was released, with the Stormclaw box set of August 2014. This time I wanted him to have a jump pack and something that would pass as the Fangsword of the Ice-Wolf, a relic in the new codex. Bits from the Krom sprue ended up in three of the models in the first image.

This was still pre-Companies of Fenris, which introduced new fluff for Sven. I used the same head, figuring this was his armament for more mobile operations, or at another time in his history. My attempt at a wolftooth-sword glowing with blue-green energy didn’t quite come off.

The other two models here are Battle Leaders. The guy on foot with frost axe and shield, I made as somewhat of an afterthought, not knowing what to do with the axe from the Krom sprue. In the end, I quite like him, he looks old and weary, but still determined to do his duty.

The final model, on Thunderwolf, is more recent, and results mostly from my wanting to make whatever use I could of the Space Wolves upgrade sprue. I think the posing of this is great. I decided to try to paint a white wolf, and then to paint the fur on the Battle leader the same colour, hinting at the back story of the model.

(still needs some grass on the base…..)

The Space Wolves remain a favourite for me; they’re the most complete army I have. I thought I’d finished them off after the Stormwolf and Dreadnought release last year, but I think I have to add a pack of Wulfen at some point.

Also, I’m vaguely uncomfortable with having my Wolf Lord slightly at odds with the official fluff. I say that my guys are modeled at a different point in Sven’s history. But I still want to make one more iteration of him, in line with the “official” version, but perhaps based on the new Ulrik the Slayer model and the Assault squad box. There are also his jump pack Wolf Guard, which would make a fun project. Perhaps later in the year!