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.

Any advice with tactics & building a good 1200 or 2000 pt list using Vulkan?

Take melta's, flamers and assault terminators with hammers?

Same as how you use him last edition.
Though with the improvement of bikes, it might be worthwhile to take a captain on bike and get bikes with melta and flamer and MM attack bikes in a vulcan army.

New disembark rules for drop pods work very well.
Plus the opponent will almost always have something on the board turn one. 6 in move out of the pod allow to use flamers effectively and help to get in melta range.

You'll spam melta and flamers
You'll lack antiflyer and long range threat if you spam meltas and flamers.
Ergo you'll bring stormtalons.
You'll be short ranged units if you spam melta and flamers.
Ergo drop pods are the best deployment strategy.

I think drop pods and storm talons is probably your best bet.
Lists like that write themselves.

The only other thing you could try is attack bikes with TL multimeltas or allies as antiflyer and the ranged threat.

Hum not many people answering...
I usually refrain from posting anything but the most obvious fact since i am not really that experienced as a player.
The only army i played so far is salamanders and i never attended any tournaments, the variety of opponents i faced so far are somewhat limited.
To be more precise those are BA,IG,CSM,SW,DE and orks but i played the most game by far against BA.
I tell you all this because it must have biased my opinion so now you will be able to put my advice in context...

As MFLETCH succintly summarized , a salamanders army is shining in close or mid range but to get there you will need mobility.
Drop pods are indeed a very good way to get there but after you land you will not have any mobility so an all pods army might struggle against very fast opponent.
Also half of your pods (round up) will come down on your first turn,the rest will follow soon after with 6 ed reserve rules so in a typical game by turn 3 everithing will have entered the field...
This mean that for the last turns of the game you would have a though time repositioning if need be.
If you use transports...well lets say that rhino chassis is not very durable and land raiders are expensive, so a distraction is in order to keep them alive.
It is also a good idea to bring some long range firepower (combat squadded tactical can do that to some extent) or at least mobile medium range firepower such as speeders or bikes.

I tend to build list with those elements

-Alpha strike/disruption :usually at least two pod so you have some flexibility, those would be anything from ironclads dreads ,combi sternguards, command squad...anything that hit hard and that the opponent can't ignore.
-assault/defense: those are the troops you need some to go capture some for your home objectives
-Reaction; those would be the medium range mobile firepower

Many units can fulfill many roles at the same time ,i think with the 6 ed bike troops are especially interesting altough maybe hard to fit in lower point list.
feel free to pm me if you want more specifics...
sorry for the long post, as there are no potatoes here is a sleeping ork

MFletch wrote:
You'll spam melta and flamers
You'll lack antiflyer and long range threat if you spam meltas and flamers.
Ergo you'll bring stormtalons.
You'll be short ranged units if you spam melta and flamers.
Ergo drop pods are the best deployment strategy.

I think drop pods and storm talons is probably your best bet.
Lists like that write themselves.

The only other thing you could try is attack bikes with TL multimeltas or allies as antiflyer and the ranged threat.

Bingo
And every other Salamander list will look the same and every opponent will be experienced using their list to play yours