Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

So, let me preface this by saying I am not railing against Vulcan because he is "cheese" and I'm not bemoaning power gaming in tourney lists. In a tournament you will see optimized lists, this is why people play them. Vulcan is optimal, that is why he is used. But this is my real problem. Vulcan is simply too optimal to ignore. This leads to the simple fact: in the grim darkness of the future there are only...Salamanders???

Looking at Vulcan is looking at a run down of everything you could want in a Marine leader. 2+ save, 3+ invulnerable save, master crafted strength 6 power weapon, digital weapons, and even things you can't take on normal leaders like a heavy flamer (master crafted of course). On top of this he swaps a situation ally useful rule of "combat tactics" for master crafting some of the best weapons in 5th edition (flamers, meltas, and the companion of the storm shield the thunder hammer) for free. Not to mention he can ride a rhino. All for under 200 points.

My problem is that he has no drawbacks. He is undercosted by about 50 points. Either that or master crafting should be for 3 points extra per melta/flamer/hammer. But I digress. The main issue I have is that he is a no brainier. He might as well be compulsory. I don't care that he is so good as much as I hate seeing every list feature him. It's just so...boring. At least 80% of posted SM lists here feature him. And I can't blame people. But dammit I don't have to like it.

So, who's comin' with me???

He's FOTM, recently, that's a long way from being mandatory. Sorcerer w/lash is mandatory, Vulcan isn't. I've seen many lists with Pedro, many with Lysander, and a host with just a librarian for psychic hood and null zone. I've seen Master of the Forge for Ironclad spam lists, and Kahn for outflank lists.

Currently, the cool thing to do is post Marine lists with Vulcan. It makes sense, he just got a new fig. Bide a bit, and see if he doesn't lose popularity. Remember when it was all Pedro + Sternguard, all the time? Same thing. The SM HQ slot doesn't have a mandatory choice. There are some dexes that do, but not SM.

Its because he is such a huge force multiplier , all the other special abilities are cool ,but his specifically and Pedro are just incredibly effective.

Personally I like Pedro.

My bigger beef is with the fact that Salamanders can't fight like Salamanders without the Salamanders special character.

Bloody Mat Ward.

JGrand wrote:So, who's comin' with me???

I am completely with you, but this isn't new...

For the record, ever compared Eldraad to a Regular Farseer? Or Yriel to any of the other Eldar characters.? Flyrant? Lash Prince? Bike Warboss....

Welcome to hero hammer!

(It's Wikkid Awesome...)

My bigger beef is with the fact that Salamanders can't fight like Salamanders without the Salamanders special character.

Bloody Mat Ward.

Absolutely agree. It would be a much more fair way of pointing out the upgrades and tradeoffs and makes more sense. I also hate the "count as" generic Salamanders badass. The same applies to Beliel with the Deathwing and such.

Vulkan is just the most "point and click" HQ for SM in my opinion. He does most of his work (Twin-linking everything) before he even hits the board. Other ones like Sicarius, Lysander, or even Calgar require a bit more work to get their points back. While I personally use Vulkan in my current list, I would say that he's far from mandatory and the SM has far more viable HQ choices than other dexes.

JGrand wrote:in the grim darkness of the future there are only...Salamanders???

And 2 Lash/9 Oblit Chaos armies, and MechVet/Chior Guard armies, and Biker Nob Ork armies, and Fateweaver/Changeling/Bloodcrusher/Plaguebearer Daemon armies, and...

It's Jervis Edition. Everything is generic, so there's only one generic Power Build per Codex.

Welcome to the glorious GW hobby.

Indeed.

R-A-T-J !!!!

JGrand wrote:
My problem is that he has no drawbacks.

His model
Ba-zing!

I've given a lot of thought to this over the past month or so whilst I rebuild my Marine army, but I think the best thing they could have done would be to bind ALL of the marine codexes together; stick with me here cos this might not make sense
They should have the basic Codex/Ultramarines setup, then a set of pages headed with each major chapter followed by a list of how they differ from the standard codex army and how many points to pay for the differences, for example:

Blood Angels:

May take Assault squads as troops - Free
May upgrade Command Squad with jump packs - 5 points per model
May upgrade predators with twin-linked assault cannons - 40 points
One Assault squad may be upgraded to Death Company - 15 points per model
Upgrade the entire army to have Furious Charge or Fleet of Foot - 50 points

Anyway, you get the idea, these pages would be followed by the special characters This way you wouldn't have to take a special character to make your army play like they should.

A Codex with a set of rules for turning the basic list into different Chapters? What a silly idea.

You should have:

1. A list of special characters that you have to bring to every battle if you want to play that Chapter (loyalist).
-OR-
2. Nothing (Chaos).

That's the Jervis way, praise be to him.

(/sarcasm)

Grim.Badger, this is exactly the same idea I had for Marines as well, and it's a good one - a single page that just has a list of Chapters and what modifications to make and how many points they cost. No need for Vulcan to show up whenever you want to play Salamanders or Belial to be there whenever you want to bring a few extra squads of Deathwing.

Well here pretty cool, underpointed, but he's got the best ablitiy that benefits the whole army.

I thought Lysanders ablitiy was crap, i mean Imperial fists masters of defence, give every marine in the army a 1+ cover save, now can be exploited by so can Vulkan, Pedro.

He does miss eternal warrior though so if he gets focused in hand to hand hes dead is inv save failed. suppose thats a small risk, and if he dies his twin linked goes with him does it not?

I like vulk, i've tried in him my last two games jst to see how good the hype is, he does stack up nicely with his wargear, the digi weapons and the other reroll so one dice for hitting and wounding can be rerolled.

Going to try Mr Kantor next once i make his model, Lysander was fun but i only used him twice, will have to try him again and hit something.

Then time to try shreck i mean shrike and the others.

I think people use them because as said, they provide so much for the costs, and you do get more of a feeling of how captains shoudl be awesome, the normal ones i find easily killed off compared.

Duce wrote:.....and if he dies his twin linked goes with him does it not?

Yes I believe it does, which can mess up your tactics :(

Normal captains are great as a fancy addition to Assault squads or Terminator squads, but I don't see the point in standard Chapter Masters as 25 points for Orbital Barrage is rarely worth it.

but Space Puppies get their own dex either way, because we are that awesome, I mean, uhh, Divergent.

I played a few games of "grey vanilla marines" when the space marine codex came out, and I pretty much always ran with 20-30 terminators, shrike, and a couple of dreads. Footslogging fleeting terminators, make a wall and walk it forward.

The power doesnt go with Vulkan if he dies.

dont worry next edition he'll get crap rules.

Xav wrote:The power doesnt go with Vulkan if he dies.

Actually I think you're right, but as always with GW it isn't 100% clear. It says "If you include.... then you're army..." now I know people who would argue that this means that the special character has to actually be on the battlefield

I think what happens on the Intraweb, needs to stay on the Intraweb. If you are displeased with seeing Vulkan lists then that's fine. Does the OP face a Vulkan list everytime he plays? I doubt it, but if you want to put the Flavor of the Month tag on Vulkan that is fine as well. I'm just wondering what griping about it is going to do for you.

Out of the probably 12-15 regular players in our area myself and one other guy have a Vulkan list. Not a big deal because I'm not even finished with it yet (and I play other armies). The other guy is using it as his first army and it has worked out great for him (except for when he faces my Nids).

My opinion is that the fads will fade in and out without help from threads like this. Not trying to attack the OP, just stating an opinion.

Grim.Badger wrote:
Blood Angels:

May take Assault squads as troops - Free
May upgrade Command Squad with jump packs - 5 points per model
May upgrade predators with twin-linked assault cannons - 40 points
One Assault squad may be upgraded to Death Company - 15 points per model
Upgrade the entire army to have Furious Charge or Fleet of Foot - 50 points

Is this for real, or was it purely an example? If it's real, then why doesn't everyone play BA?
But on topic, I think that after GW finishes revitalising all the dead codices like Dark Eldar and so on, they should work on a nonconformist space marine codex. All the chapters that have any specific variants from the ultramarines balanced approach, and maybe a few pages explaining differences and extra bonuses for having a certain type of army. If I played Sallies, I probably wouldn't take Vulkan, regardless that he's so amazing. For me, he is too personal and doesn't help out his army enough. I am of the opinion that an IC should be very beneficial to the operation of the army, and while his twin linked heat based weapons are really useful, it doesn't match up to Pedro Kantor's sternguards. I think he's too survivable also, he's armour on a base. Just my thoughts.
I would prefer a special sallies squad, with heat based weaponry, maybe sort of like honour guard but less stacked and maybe with some bonuses to the whole army...(sigh) where has wishful thinking ever got us? Jervis loves them special characters too much, if they dies before the end of the game then they clearly aren't good enough. WE NEED MORE ETHEREAL-type leaders, the tau have the right idea of helping the army before the stupid IC.
Sorry for the rant, back to you, folks.

Nightwatch wrote:Is this for real, or was it purely an example? If it's real, then why doesn't everyone play BA?

It's kind of based on the BA codex, but it isn't real. The BA codex is crippled by a few poor descisions by the writer and some slightly more expensive units than the SM codex.

It seems that a lot of lists I see have Pedro + SG, Vulkan, or Ultramarine characters. It's annoying, actually. I would REALLY REALLY REALLY like to see as HBMC and Grim suggested - just a list that doesn't make special characters define the meat of the army. The Deathwing are still the Deathwing without Belial, but you can only have three Term squad chocies (at the max) without Belial. It's silly... But, GW won't make as much money implementing this idea. Which is why I shan't contribute to GDP or GW unless I have to. Buying second hand models is a better idea anyway.

Rico, sobbing into his pillow. Again.

I play IG and I never play named characters. I never play psykers either (bad experience with them in RT days) I hate to see SM players playing with those characters and every SM players seems to "need" one. They have the GW gods backing them and the best troops in the game yet they feel they need them? I get even by giving the lowest sportsmanship score I can to all players that play characters!

For what it's worth, I've played nearly 60 games with my Salamanders and never played against another Salamander's player nor against any list with Vulkan. I have however played over 10 games against Pedro against 7 different players, maybe I just fill the local meta game void with Vulkan.

Vulkan does AMAZING things for an army, when you build it correctly. However, I've seen very few lists that fully use Vulkan's ability. It took me nearly 5 months of playing with my Salamanders to fully feel comfortable with them.

When playing in a tournament I will always bring Vulkan, I have built an army around him and his ability. However, when playing for fun I do bring a Master of the Forge, Libby, or Xaviar (using Cassius' profile) from time to time.

How many times have I played CSM without lash, maybe 1 out of every 5 games against them. How often do I face Nids without having to deal with 4+ carnifexes? Never. Never faced orks without a Big Mek with a KFF now that I think of it.

All that being said, Vulkan is a beast. And he changes the army profile, nothing says he has to be on the table or alive to have it work.

Bigmac wrote:I get even by giving the lowest sportsmanship score I can to all players that play characters!

Anyone else think this further demonstrates why comp systems are busted... Nothing like having some completely random person's views of what constitutes an acceptable army affect the outcome of a tournament.

I only recently ran into a Vulcan list being tested out before Ardboyz.Was not impressed by it.May have just been the player though.Seeing the large amount of Vulkan and other vehicle armies i will face at the semis has let me know my decision to stick with almost pure SM infantry with LOTS of hvy wpns is good idea though.

You ever wonder if GW looks around at the forums? Like, anyone that matters. Think any of them actually play the game? So many good ideas, so many easy fixes, and not even any less money to be made. If the rules were great, we'd buy even more models. Something to sort of bring that on topic, I lol'd when I saw Vulkan's model was more expensive than Khan's. That solidified in my mind that they waited to see which character would get the most popular and priced the models accordingly. At the same time, that makes me think maybe they do look at INTRAWEHB LEESTS.

Okay, time for me to add my 2 cents...

1) Master crafting hammers/flamers/melta's is too powerful-While these weapons are good, they all come with a price. Hammers are slow, and most flamers and meltas are short ranged. Granted, the multi-meltas are better, but they're not exactly cheap. You've got to take a ten man tac squad before they're available.

2) Riding in a rhino-Yeah, because Rhinos are soooooo tough.

3) Too good in cc/Saves-Okay, he's got good saves, but he's only toughness 4. wound him with a lascannon or melta and he only has too roll a single 1 or 2 and he's dead. As for cc, sure, he's good, but remember he can't take a retinue. That means you can always pick him out separately if you're in base contact (I think). As well as this, lots of armys are getting stuff which ignores ALL saves (Warscythe, Mind worm etc). If you're really that worried, then isn't the message not to go into cc with him?

4)He isn't fearless. If its really looking bad, try tank shocking him. Against most vehicles, he's got to roll a 4 or higher to do anything even with rerolls. And if he doesn't stop it, he's dead.

5)Mandatory choice-if you take Vulkan you're sacrficing 1 hq. That means you're going to have to give something up (eg Phsycic powers, 6 dreads etc). Also, if you take another spesh charecter, you have to chose which chapter tactics apply. And that can be tough.

Lets just put it this way shall we-'Killy' Kantor is 15pts cheaper, and Shrike is 5pts more

LLF