Fearspect's Sally Army

I just emailed Stelek about the same thing, but wondering your opinion:

I have a tourney coming up in a bit at 1700 points. They split it into two groups, the fluffly/sportsmanship part and the playing 40k part, but I am having a hard time making a hard as nails Salamanders list.

Got any suggestions? I can fit something like 2x LRC, 2x Assault Terminators, 2x Tac in Rhino, 2x MM/HF Speeder for those points, but does that seem a bit low?

How would you stack it? I am pretty sure I can't make Vulkan bikers work at those points.

So I have thought about it a bit, and these are the best two I can come up with (Vulkan, no bikes, 1700 points):

Same Core for both:

Vulkan 190

5 TH/SS Terminators w/ LRC MM, EA 475

10x Tactical (Flamer, MM, Rhino) 205

10x Tactical (Flamer, MM, Rhino) 205

2x MM/HF Land Speeder 140

Now, the question of what to do with the last 500-ish points, either

a) Another 5 TH/SS Terminators w/ LRC MM, EA
-This will make it redundant, more than one Crusader is a happy Crusader

or;

b) 2x Vindicator Tanks, 2x Dreadnought w/ HF/MM
-More flexible, I kind of like this, but it leaves that one crusader alone (albeit by adding four cannot-ignore threats).

Thoughts? Or a completely new direction?

-Fearspect

I just thought of a more hilarious list:

Vulkan

5 TH/SS Terminators
LRR /w MM, EA

2x 10 Tactica (Flamer MM)

2x LRC w/ MM, EA

2x Landspeeder w/ HF/MM

Considering what most people bring to tournaments, maybe landraider spam could have hilarious results...

I don't think Stelek will post my email up :(

Thoughts?

I had a problem working with this list. I started out on the same premise as yourself, but whatever way I twisted it with Vulkan inside, I couldn’t get a list that satisfied me. 1700 is a fucking weird total man, and I don’t like it one bit! J

If, by some fluke, you get it increased to 1750, use the following:

Vulkan
2x HF/MM Speeders
2 x Tac Rhino Squads (F/MM)
2x Dakka Dread
2x LRC
2x TH/SS Squads

Otherwise…

The most balanced list I could devise was this:

Master of the Forge:
Conversion Beamer - 120

2x Dreadnought:
[COUNT AS HEAVY SUPPORT] Multi-Melta, Stormbolter, DCCW. - (2x105) 210

3x Dreadnought:
2xTwin-Linked Autocannons. - (3x125) 375

2x Tactical Squad:
Flamer, Multi-Melta, Rhino. - (2x205) 410

5 Scouts
Sniper Rifles, Camo Cloaks, Missile Launcher, Sgt. Telion. - 150

2x Land Speeder:
Heavy Flamer, Multi-Melta. - 140

2x Land Speeder:
Heavy Flamer, Multi-Melta. - 140

3x Land Speeder:
Heavy Flamer, Multi-Melta. - 210

[At this point, 180 points remain. So near, and yet so far from including Vulkan. It’d be entirely feasible, however, to drop a lone weapon for a Speeder to generate the required points. Instead, I’ve plumped for the following…]

Dreadnought:
Multi-Melta, Heavy Flamer, Extra Armour. - 130

+Extra Armour on MM Dreads - 30

+ Heavy Flamers on MM Dreads - 20

TOTAL: 1700.


I don’t like not having Vulkan, especially since that’s what you asked…but, Stelek also posted you a list, although I haven’t checked it out yet as I type this, so I imagine he’ll have a viable alternative that features the Forgefather.

Probably using Preds over Dreads. If only you could take MM or Autocannon Razorbacks…L
Taking only one LR is impossible, as they need to be wielded in pairs to ensure they deliver at least one payload of doom. While you can luck out and hit a player that doesn’t use anything that can reliably down you, such as an Ork army or Tyranids, you can equally (well…almost as likely) hit a Tau player, who will simply dominate the game against a LR heavy army, due to that extra punch the Railgun has.

Your list with 3LRs would almost certainly have been able to deliver against most lists, but there’s absolutely no way to describe that as balanced :p and in true egg-basket style it could suffer horribly in a bad match-up. Balanced lists downplay the importance of bad match-ups to the point where hopefully you can still get a win relatively easily if you are the better player. J

The other problem with that list is that, once you do get into the enemy’s face, you haven’t got the TH/SS to see you through, the Tacs will get beaten and discarded, not least because they couldn’t even lay down supporting fire on the way in with the lack of Fire Points. This oft overlooked factor is a part of the reason I will almost never recommend people choose a Redeemer in place of a Crusader.

The first list you proposed needs the 2nd LRC for the redundancy, and certainly packs a hefty punch - the problem with it is that it’s quite one-dimensional - outside of CC you have virtually no chance of the TH/SS achieving anything at all, and that’s a 400 point investment you can’t really afford to use merely as a threat. The alternative, with the Vindis, is certainly more balanced, and adds more threats to force the opponent to get their target priority exactly right, which is a great thing, except that it leaves just the one Crusader, making the first target on their list pretty easy to identify…

Overall, not a easy task to try and create a balanced list at 1700 that isn’t basically a straight rip of Stelek’s Best Of Marines - and there’s good reason for this.

Let me know how you get on!