How I use Arjac Rockfist (Tactics and Unit Composition)

There's been much talk of late about the new Space Wolf and Tyranid models that landed a couple of weeks ago. People who didn't want to go down the conversion or third party route are now looking at how they can use Arjac and the TWC in their lists. I've spoken before about both of these but I've changed my outlook a little so I thought I'd post about them again. I'll cover Arjac tonight and the TWC in a post later on.

Arjac Rockfist, The Anvil of Fenris
For a long time I only used Arjac at higher points levels. I'd either throw him in a land raider with a handful of terminators or for real overkill attack Logan to that squad and crush pretty much anything in combat. However, this is a bit of an eggs in one basket scenario so I tend to do things differently now.

Let's get something straight. Arjac is a beast. He's easily my favourite special character in the book. Not only do I love his little back story about defending the gates for hours but he's brilliant in the game too. The most important difference between him and most of the other special characters is that he's an upgrade character and as such can't be targetted separately in combat. This is extremely useful since he's always going to strike at initiative 1. He's incredibly durable. Despite only having 2 wounds at T4 he's got Saga of the Bear and a 2+/3++ save. This means he'll normally be the last man standing and I think that's pretty fitting for a man of his reputation!

The way I currently use him is this:

Arjac Rockfist, 8 grey hunters (standard, melta, wulfen) in a drop pod.

Remember you have to buy at least two other wolf guard to be able to include Arjac but really you should have some in there anyway so I can't see it being an issue. Sadly thanks to Arjac being a terminator you can't squeeze in another grey hunter but it's not much of a loss. It also means you can't throw him in a rhino which therefore limits your transport choices to drop pod or land raider. Frankly I often find land raiders to be too many points at the moment so I go for the cheaper option. I usually drop this squad on something that will cause me problems later on in the game, that or slam it down on an objective and make your opponent shift them. The drop pod allows Arjac to be deployed pretty accurately (if you choose your drop point wisely). This often allows him and the meltagunner to be within 6" for that side armour shot against a pesky dreadnought, land raider, predator, etc.

Your opponent is going to have to do something about him because you don't want to leave a hammer throwing maniac behind your lines ripping vehicles apart. This means you're going to take A LOT of fire so I try to string my squad around the back of the drop pod to ensure that even though Arjac and the meltagunner are front and centre, the squad still get's a cover save. You might think that sacrificing grey hunters in this way is wasteful but if they're shooting at this squad your rhinos are probably creeping up undisturbed. Assuming you survive the fire you can then assault next turn. This is where Arjac is at his best!

With 5 attacks on the charge (or counter-charge), Arjac will do some serious damage. Factor in the wolf standard from the grey hunter squad and his wolftooth necklace and it shouldn't be a surprise if he inflicts the full 5 wounds. Don't forget he re-rolls to hit against MCs and ICs too. Unfortunately he must allocate his attacks to an IC if possible which means he'll probably be wasting some wounds. Even so, he's going to cause some serious pain to your opponent in combat. Don't forget his hammer is strength 10 in combat too not just when it's thrown. This means it's worth him charging vehicles (most of which he'll auto-penetrate) and those T5 necron overlords will want to steer clear too.

Personally I'm a bit obsessed with Arjac at the minute. He always seems to put in a good performance against any opponent. Dropping him in makes them most of his short range S10 AP1 shot which with BS5 is pretty reliable for taking down vehicles. He's not perfect though and sometimes a clued up opponent will just advance away from him and make him foot slog to get into combat. However, this plays right into your hands as your opponent will be closer to the rest of your army.

I'm sorely tempted to buy the new model because despite having a "conversion" of my own there's something about owning the actual figure. Damn you GW and your plastic crack!