Thoughts on Special Characters - Part 2: Logan Grimnar

In the last bit of this series I talked about Njal. His main limitation is that he has limited use in combat. Logan on the other hand, does not have that problem. Let's start with his statline, the highlights are his high weapon skill, three wounds and an impressive 5 attacks striking (potentially) at initiative 5.

Terminator armour obviously makes him pretty resilient and if that wasn't enough he has a 4+ save instead of the standard 5+. He's also one of the very few characters to get Eternal Warrior. Like other SW special chars he has a Wolftooth Necklace so he's got a good chance of getting his attacks through. His High King special rule means that if he's put into a unit of Wolf Guard Terminators he's giving them Preferred Enemy and once per game he gives everything in 18" +1A thanks to Living Legend. Not to mention he's made the Terminators a troops choice freeing up those precious elite slots.

His Axe Morkai can split it's attacks between a S8 power fist or a S5 frost axe. So he has the flexibility of assigning some heavy attacks to a special character but also thinning out the supporting unit with those S5 power weapon hits. On the charge (and counter attack, likely at Ld10) he's getting 6 attacks. On average he should hit with 4 straight off and with re-rolls you'd expect a minimum of 5 hits. Against most targets he's wounding on 2s or 3s (depending on the axe mode chosen) so he should average around 4 wounds per turn. Given that both modes are power weapons that's 4 dead enemies or 4 wounds on an IC.

So you're obviously going to stick him in a land raider with a squad of terminators with wolf claws (who'll re-roll to hit AND wound) and go hunting some heavy enemy units right? Well not necessarily. High King also allows him to give Tank Hunters or Relentless. Imagine if you put him with some Long Fangs then. Heavy weapons moving 6" per turn or getting a +1 penetration bonus when stationary. Sounds pretty good to me.

Well he's versatile, hard as nails and improves a good chunk of your army. Where's the downside? The most obvious is his hefty 275pt price tag. In smaller points games he's not gonna be an option and you've got to have a decent plan for him to make him a safe choice in higher points games. You could easily buy an entire terminator or GH unit for the same price. That or have two tooled up Rune Priests. You can understand where his high cost comes from though and I think used to his full potential he's well worth it. He gives you options when taking down high toughness opponents in close combat and with a terminator unit including a couple of storm shields he's near impossible to shift from an objective.

My personal choice would be the most obvious, a unit of 4 terminators with either wolf claws or TH/SS in a land raider (or 5 in a redeemer/crusader). Roll him right up to the frontline, charge out and see what's left standing after the first round of combat.

Next up for discussion is his would-be successor Ragnar Blackmane. Not quite as tough but he provides a different set of bonuses of his own.