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Hey everyone, I've been playing 40k for a while and i'm thinking about branching out into some 30k. I have two space marine armies of salamanders and Ultramarines. There is a small beginners event at a local store coming up and I want to take my salamanders. Anyone have any pointers for someone new to 30k?

Rule of cool, you like a unit take it, you like a play style use it. Nearly every list build is easily doable in game.

30k is way more balanced than 40k, you want a unit then you take it. No problems in the land of balance.

Thanks Guys. I made some adjustments to my list and I think I've come up with something that I like. Below is the list I wrote.

1500pts

HQ
Legion Praetor with Artificer armour, Digital lasers, Dragonscale storm shield, Inferno pistol, Iron halo, Mantle of the elder drake, Master crafted Paragon blade. I took the Covenant of fire for the master of the legion. (I've thought about trading out the paragon blade for a thunderhammer since they are the same cost)

Troops
2x Tactical squads in rhinos with Nuncio-vox, dozer blades, twin-link bolter, and sgt got Master craft power fist
Tactical support squad with melta guns in a rhino (Dozer blade and twink-link bolter on it)

Fast attack
Land speeder with heavy flamer and multi-melta

Elite
6 Fire drake terminators with dragonscale shields and thunderhammers

Heavy support
Scorpius whirlwind

 Glitcha wrote:
Thanks Guys. I made some adjustments to my list and I think I've come up with something that I like. Below is the list I wrote.

1500pts

HQ
Legion Praetor with Artificer armour, Digital lasers, Dragonscale storm shield, Inferno pistol, Iron halo, Mantle of the elder drake, Master crafted Paragon blade. I took the Covenant of fire for the master of the legion. (I've thought about trading out the paragon blade for a thunderhammer since they are the same cost)

Troops
2x Tactical squads in rhinos with Nuncio-vox, dozer blades, twin-link bolter, and sgt got Master craft power fist
Tactical support squad with melta guns in a rhino (Dozer blade and twink-link bolter on it)

Fast attack
Land speeder with heavy flamer and multi-melta

Elite
6 Fire drake terminators with dragonscale shields and thunderhammers

Heavy support
Scorpius whirlwind

Remember your terminators can't seep strike, and as another thing: 10-man squads tend to be iffy at best as the 'core' of a 30k army. While at a 1,500 pt. event, you should be fine, I recommend going for larger tactical squads, especially when your a legion like the salamanders.

 Brennonjw wrote:

 Glitcha wrote:
Thanks Guys. I made some adjustments to my list and I think I've come up with something that I like. Below is the list I wrote.

1500pts

HQ
Legion Praetor with Artificer armour, Digital lasers, Dragonscale storm shield, Inferno pistol, Iron halo, Mantle of the elder drake, Master crafted Paragon blade. I took the Covenant of fire for the master of the legion. (I've thought about trading out the paragon blade for a thunderhammer since they are the same cost)

Troops
2x Tactical squads in rhinos with Nuncio-vox, dozer blades, twin-link bolter, and sgt got Master craft power fist
Tactical support squad with melta guns in a rhino (Dozer blade and twink-link bolter on it)

Fast attack
Land speeder with heavy flamer and multi-melta

Elite
6 Fire drake terminators with dragonscale shields and thunderhammers

Heavy support
Scorpius whirlwind

Remember your terminators can't seep strike, and as another thing: 10-man squads tend to be iffy at best as the 'core' of a 30k army. While at a 1,500 pt. event, you should be fine, I recommend going for larger tactical squads, especially when your a legion like the salamanders.

Thanks for the advice. Yeah, basically they are going to be out on foot running across the battle field. I've done it before with a bigger unit.

Basically what everyone else said about 30k being more balanced, so take whatever you feel like taking, but you should adjust your play style a little bit.
As others have mentioned, 10 man squads don't hold up too well, and are usually point-inefficient. You're honestly probably better off with maxing your squad sizes when you're able to.

To be honest i would never reccomend foot slogging terminators who cant shoot. I played a friendly day campiagn last week and with three quad mortars dropped over 70 wounds on a ten man firedrake squad becasue they got out of a spartan and failed the charge, they were as you can imagine wiped out in one go. Imagine what would have happened had they marched across the table for 2-3 turns, the result would have been just as bad but at least with a land raider or a spartan they have a good chance when they cant deepstrike.

King Amroth wrote:
friendly day campiagn

King Amroth wrote:
three quad mortars

ಠ_ಠ

...What legion do you play? Because, unless it's Iron Warriors, Death Guard or MAYBE Imperial Fists, your doing 'friendly' wrong.

Also, big question, are they phosphex quad mortars?

 Ashiraya wrote:
Also, big question, are they phosphex quad mortars?

phosphex mortars make me sad 'cause I'm DG and it's super fluffy for me to take them, but I don't hate my fellow gamers enough to take them

Even if I hated everyone I probably wouldn't take them because of all the blast markers required. By the end of the game the table would be covered in blast markers.

 Matt.Kingsley wrote:
Even if I hated everyone I probably wouldn't take them because of all the blast markers required. By the end of the game the table would be covered in blast markers.

I've printed off 12+ laminated phosphex and graviton markers for this very reason I played them at first because I thought it was 1 template each, but since I've been corrected, I've yet to use them once :( Beyond that, blasts are easy enough to mass use

Yea im Iron Warriors and yes they were phosphex. At 2500+ three quads mortars are in no way op. My point still stands 6 two wound termies with a 2+3++ are great but if they march across the table they will generally get killed a land raider or spartan will help them to do their job and support the force that you are building. also spartans look cool as hell and as i found to my detriment are near impossible to kill with most weapons.

So they change the point cap for the event to 1750 instead of 1500. I was thinking a landraider, but now I can't put my warlord with the terminators.

Is your tac support squad 10 men? just thinking you want that squad in there deployment zone anyway so having him with them and they jump out, fire and then next turn he goes with them into combat, thanks to assault on melta or he runs off and butchers a random squad. Also unless its a fluff thing where you want your preator to have the thunder hammer take the paragon blade as if he doesnt have it in a preator on preator duel he may end up dead before he strrikes.

 King Amroth wrote:
Is your tac support squad 10 men? just thinking you want that squad in there deployment zone anyway so having him with them and they jump out, fire and then next turn he goes with them into combat, thanks to assault on melta or he runs off and butchers a random squad. Also unless its a fluff thing where you want your preator to have the thunder hammer take the paragon blade as if he doesnt have it in a preator on preator duel he may end up dead before he strrikes.

Math actually favors the thunder hammer preator. As he's playing he has acces to the special piece pf wargear which makes the preator EW for 4 melta bombs I believe. This makes salamander preators the best in 30k

EDIT: to be clear, take the hammer! It will also help you vs dreadnoughts and other vehicles.

 Fruzzle wrote:

 King Amroth wrote:
Is your tac support squad 10 men? just thinking you want that squad in there deployment zone anyway so having him with them and they jump out, fire and then next turn he goes with them into combat, thanks to assault on melta or he runs off and butchers a random squad. Also unless its a fluff thing where you want your preator to have the thunder hammer take the paragon blade as if he doesnt have it in a preator on preator duel he may end up dead before he strrikes.

Math actually favors the thunder hammer preator. As he's playing he has acces to the special piece pf wargear which makes the preator EW for 4 melta bombs I believe. This makes salamander preators the best in 30k

EDIT: to be clear, take the hammer! It will also help you vs dreadnoughts and other vehicles.

OR go paragon blade + power fist. This way you get +1 attack for 2 specialist weapons, and are just as good against vehicles WITHOUT giving up super strong anti-infantry. Salamander praetors are also the slowest, and suffer the DG issue of being weak to getting swept. Also, looking at the fight from a DG perspective, assuming the reaping, and it would be a damn paintful fight: T: 3 for a round against a paragon blade would be punishing the poor salamander, who can't swing till the DG is done. Let alone the more powerful CC legion buffs.

 Brennonjw wrote:
T: 3 for a round against a paragon blade would be punishing the poor salamander, who can't swing till the DG is done. Let alone the more powerful CC legion buffs.

He'll probably survive with 3 wounds and 4++, and then ID the DG back in return with the Thunder Hammer.

PF + PB is super expensive.

Expensive or not, he can still get killed at initiative the PF+PB fixes that for only 20pts which is actually only 5pts for op as it would replace the inferno pistol already chosen.

 Ashiraya wrote:

 Brennonjw wrote:
T: 3 for a round against a paragon blade would be punishing the poor salamander, who can't swing till the DG is done. Let alone the more powerful CC legion buffs.

He'll probably survive with 3 wounds and 4++, and then ID the DG back in return with the Thunder Hammer.

PF + PB is super expensive.

My Praetor has a 3++ (Iron halo + Dragon scale shield) Basically, I'm using my 40k Vulkin model and building him in 30k as a generic character.

Yeah, all the more reason to stick with the TH.

The Event went really good. I finished 2nd out of 4th. We did not have much of a turn out. The PB worked out great. I instant death a daemon prince in a challenge. The firedrake terminators did great being out on foot. Having move through cover really helped. I was able to make it into combat by turn 2 or turn 3. Below is the final version of my list.

HQ
Praetor with Artificer armor, iron halo, dragon shield, elderdrake cloak, inferno pistol, paragon blade

Troops
Tactical squad in a rhino (10 man) sgt had artificer armor, power fist. One guy was carrying the nancio-vox
Tactical squad on foot (16 man) sgt had artificer armor, power fist. One guy was carrying the nacio-vox

Tactical support squad with 4 melta guns in a rhino

Elites
Apothicary
2 thud gunz
8 fire drake terminators with shield and hammers

Heavy support
Scorpius whirlwind