Why Space Wolves? Picking a 40k army

(Leman Russ by Calavera666)

It can be a bit confusing and annoying to pick and army to play when you are newish to 40k.
If you have friends who play and particularly if they have preconceived loyalties and prejudices it can become even more frustrating.

Of all the different bits of advice, from friends, blogs, shop staff, nosey strangers, the most poignant and helpful was: 'Play an army that you really like.'

Sounds simple, but it's true, if you go into the hobby and try to pick the 'best' army to win or the truest, hardest, most impressive, complicated, unless you like the look of them, their storyline and fluff, you are ultimately going to end up bored or annoyed with them.

The time and money you have to invest building painting and working out strategy for an army is substantial so love for that army is what is going to pull you through the late night painting and gluing, the remaking lists when you lose and the rest of the journey that is getting an army to a point you are really happy with (I find most people including myself are never happy and never stop striving for a better army in all facets of the hobby, but still I mean happy enough)

When I meet new people into warhammer and tell them I play Space Wolves some of these peoples reaction is, 'ugh power gamer'. Usually this comes from people who play imperial guard or eldar or something else a bit less obviously powerful and less simple.
I have even had someone say that the Space Wolf codex was 'bull and is practically cheating'

Annoying but anyway my point is I actually had no idea that Space Wolves were a 'good army' when I picked them. I liked the way they looked, I liked their story and their fluff. Even with my limited understanding of the rules they seemed to have a strategy that I found attractive (me being a sort first ask questions later type person)

I decided that I liked the sound of Harald Deathwolf and that I wanted to make an army based on him as his 'thing' it tons of wolves and I love the look/idea of Thunder wolf Cavalry an Fenrisian Wolves.

I made a rough list of all the things I like and it actually turned out to bed a fairly competitive 1500pts list but I also really loved it.

Now most of my nights and weekends are taken up with making and painting these models but I am really enjoying it and taking my time with my painting and converting, so at the end I will have a well painted army that I still like.

There was one other factor I had to take into consideration when picking my army. A lot of my friends play, and obviously I will end up playing them a fair bit, so I wanted to pick an army that would be fun to play against my friends and not an army to similar to their armies.

These are just my opinions but I really believe if you really like your army and believe in them, that has to give some good luck to your dice too right?