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In the spirit of the Conquerer reboot, I have decided to start one for my favorite little vehicle, the Salamander.



The Salamander is supposed to be a recon vehicle, which is cool in fluff but doesn't lend itself well to the typical 40k battle, where it's a pitched assault or meeting engagement of some kind. Both forces tend to pack way too much firepower for these little guys to be worth anything, but I thought I'd try and make it better, for the lulz (and the Emperor). In IA1, it comes with an autocannon and a hull mounted heavy bolter. It's fast and open topped, with 12, 10, 10 and BS3. It's also 100 freaking points.

Now the Chimera Dedicated Transport is 55 in this edition, and packs more firepower / is safer than this vehicle. Scout Sentinels are 35 points each, pack less heat and are more fragile, but are much closer in role. Armored Sentinels are 55 points, much alike in armor and pack less firepower. So I'm aiming to put it in the 50-75 point range.

So I'm thinking it'll stay a 12/10/10 fast open topped model with AC and HB, with access to a hull mounted HF. Also camo-netting, extra armour, hk missile, rough terrain mod, search lights, pm heavy stubber and smoke launchers. It will cost 65 points per model and can be taken in squadrons of 1-4 as a Fast Attack Choice.

Now the HQ one would be mostly the same, except in IA1 it has a heavy flamer/hm hb. Drop both of those, decrease the points to 30, give it access to only a pindle mounted heavy stubber, camo netting, rt mod and extra armor. This carries a command squad (somehow there's room for 5...). This squad doesn't count as embarked on a transport when it tries to give orders. Or, we can give it an enclosed crew compartment by default and "improved coms" that lets them do this, upping it to say 45 points or so.

M.

EDIT: The HQ one is an afterthought, figured if I'm talking about one might as well talk about the other.

Hmmm, I could see myself using these, if they were given Camo-Netting base.

Maybe give them an upgrade to have one of their vehicles hold an Artillery Observer, sort of like an incentive to use them in a game.

The Arty version would probably fall into the HQ version. I had originally considered letting them have an upgrade to allow you to reroll scatter dice if they had LOS on the target, but that might be a bit much.

Is camo netting worth all that much? Don't remember what it did back in 3rd but in this edition it simply gives you a +1 cover save if you don't move the turn before.

M.

Camo Netting gives Stealth, so what I would do, get 4 of these, stick them someplace where they could get cover, maybe even behind a cover of Chimeras, and pop transports.

Autocannons are pretty good at that in my opinion, and these would give a nice cheap way to blast Mech Armies instead of just stacking Vendettas.

Agreed. Vendettas are cool, but sometimes I want something different. What if the scenario at hand involves AA weapons that lock down anything classed like the Valk? We don't always play in a vacuum where I'm from.

AND it's a fast moving autocannon. That alone is nice.

M.

Hmmm, think about using 4 of these, if they were 60 points each (sounds about right to me), it would make it worth it to have HunterKiller missiles for all of them.

Personally I don't know anybody who uses HK, and it would be a fun way to use something so obscure.

Yeah, I guess you do have a point there; HK on the little guys would be pretty brutal. You could make a horrendous alpha strike if you take two squadrons.

I was considering a reserves reroll with the HQ one, but the command squad already seems to have that option. Perhaps I can create a whole new entry called "Armored Command Squad", which is 2-3 men mounted on the HQ version.

M.

enclosed crew compartment for the command salamander?

That would make it a poor mans chimera wouldn't it?

keep it OT.

Improved comms? increasing the range orders can be issued?

Artillery spotting?--re-rolling of scatter dice for Bassies, medusas etc. Maybe attaching one salamander to each FOC heavy support slot.