Who let the dogs out?

Oops, I'm sorry. I'm supossed to be offended by all the cute puppy references. excited as you might expect, I placed my advance order and recieved my codex a couple days before the release date. As I look at my existing models from the old codex, I get a little disturbed by the missing true grit special rule. The new codex compensates by giving new grey hunters counter attack, bolt pistols, close combat weapons, and bolters. unfortunately, my models are all equiped with bolters and close combat weapons. So I've resigned to tell myself true grit is still in play.

My first trip to the bits box was to piece together 4 meltaguns and a mark of the wolfen option for my three grey hunter squads. The wolfen models are easy to convert. I'm putting bolters on mine which basically just requires that I chop off an arm and glue on a platic bolter wielding arm. I'm also painting lucas and ragnar while I paint these. I'll finish these pretty quickly (my painting standards are modest) and move onto 2 wolf guard with power fists and bolt pistols to attach to units.

I'm personally excited to be liberated from the mandatory hq choice every 750 points so I will be starting my lists with light hq choices and opting for a few more models and alot of options in the units (power fists/weapons, meltaguns, banners, mark of the wolfen). I am dead set on playing 2 full grey hunter units with the cheap 2 meltagun option, a mark of the wolfen, and a power fist. The other grey hunter unit will likely host my wolf lord or rune priest. In my blood claws I'm taking lucas. I know 40k radio hates the model but when i'm finished painting him everyone will be more concerned with how bad a painter I am. I will also be putting mark of the wolfen on a wolf guard and attaching that wolf guard to my blood claws. Right now I'm favoring a rune priest in grey hunter squad and a wolf guard leader in a small pack of wolf guard terminators as my hq choices. My elite options are dreadnought and scout squad but I can't fit them both in a 2k army list. I'm bothered by the lack of shotgun option in the scouts. I just think shotguns are pretty damn feral yet sophisticated for the more mature marine. My heavy options are whirlwind (to thin out those armies that grossly outnumber me) and landraider. Everything should fit into a transport. My transport list is 2 rhinos, 2 drop pods, 1 land raider.

Rune priests were my hq of choice before the codex and will likely continue to be my favorite. Thier stats are a bit less potent now but their psychic power is amped up.

My unpainted list right now includes my 2 drop pods, my whirlwind and about 12 models for converting existing units to the new codex.

When these things are done, I'd like to make a unit of Blood Claws with Jetpacks and a fourth unit of grey hunters. Oh wow, I just realized the holidays are just around the corner.