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This is my list for the 1250 point round of an escalation league. Salamanders obviously. Any suggestions for different loadouts? I know land raiders are meh but you know, rule of cool. Also, I've had multiple people on Reddit tell me the land raider benefits from the +1 STR Flamer rule, though I think that's incorrect. They don't, right?

++ SM SAL Flameblade Strike Force (1250pts) ++

+ Core +
Battle Demi-Company (1000pts)

HQ
Vulkan He'stan

Fast Attack
Assault Squad
2 Flamers
(These guys will probably be in the land raider)

Heavy
Devastator Squad
Drop Pod - Storm Bolter
Sarge - Combi-Melta
4 Multi-Melta

Dreadnought
Drop pod - Storm Bolter
Venerable Dreadnought
Power Fist with Heavy Flamer
Multi-Melta

Tactical Squad
Drop Pod - Storm Bolter
Sarge - Combi-Melta
4 Marines - Meltagun

Tactical Squad
Rhino
Sarge - Combi-Flamer
4 Marines - Flamer

Tactical Squad
Razorback - Storm Bolter, Twin-Linked Lascannon
Sarge - Bolter
4 Marines - Multi-Melta

+ Aux +

Flamebringers
Land Raider Redeemer - Multi-Melta


I did this on my phone, if I missed something, I'll try to correct it in post

First, welcome to Dakka and the Space Marines.

The “Scorched Earth” rule requires 3 things:


I like your list. Nice hybrid-drop, lots of melta/flamer to make it good and fluffy (and kill things) It suffers the problem of a lot of Salamander lists, where you can’t harm anything outside of melta range. You’ve got the TLLC on the razor with more then 24”, but that’s it. They fact that you are a mix of mech and pods should help that a bit, where if you need to shift firepower, you aren’t completely hosed (like a full drop list would be)

There are a few places I’d like to see improved, but frankly nowhere to scrape points from. And nothing is terrible, just spots I think could use a little extra.

He’Stan is good, you’ve got plenty of melta for him to boost. While I might suggest replacing him CTDA captain for S&P tricks with the devs, or a chaplain to go with the assault marines, I think you should just stick with him. But a lower cost HQ would free up points elsewhere.

The assault marine sarge could use some love. Vat status, power weapon. I’d say that for any chapter, but Salamader sarges, with their free master crafted weapon, really don’t want to be empty handed.

Devs are a nice trick. Even snapping out of the pod, you should get some hits in with the TLing. And after that you project a nice little bubble of death.

Dread is good. I like the fact that he is venerable, but part of me would like to see those 25 points spent elsewhere. The MM is TL’d anyway, so he doesn’t need the BS as much as a non-buffed dread would.

While I would prefer to see 10 man tac squads, I get that points are tight. But it’s not that hard to blow 5 guys off an objective. The squad in the razor is a little odd. I take it this is your sit back and camp squad, while the razor acts as a light tank? I get the melta-madness that grips Salamanders, but the MM is the wrong tool for the job here. While it does project a nice “don’t tread on me” bubble, I think you might be better served with a HB, or something with a bit more range.

LRR should be fun. While there are a lot of things that laugh at AV14 out there, there are also a lot of people who rely on massed mid-S fire to strip HPs off of tanks. The LRR with laugh at them while it rolls over their charred corpses. I’d like to see something more aggressive then an assault squad charging down the assault ramp, but this is still a reasonably low point list.

You have no answer to flyers, but that might not be an issue. I think you might have a rougher time with MCs/GMCs. While you do pack a lot of melta, you don’t have enough weight of fire to do the wounds you will need to. It might be worth incorporating some plasma/grav into your list. You points are pretty tight as-is, so I don’t think it’s going to happen unless you go to 1,500, but it’s something to consider when expanding your list.

First, thank you for this in-depth reply. I appreciate you taking time to help.

I agree that range is an issue. I'm hoping that dropping the devs and dreadnought turn one will give me a bit of a distraction so that the guys in armor can get up the field a bit.

I've gone back and forth on when the right time was to insert Vulkan. If I'm not seeing enough of a benefit from him after my first game or two, I will switch back to a captain probably.

The assault Marines are basically just a platform to stick two STR 5 shred flamers on, try to torch a group of guys and then charge them. I do wish I had more points to work with but I'm trying (possibly foolishly) to run the flameblade and I have to pay the taxes.

I'm running the Venerable Dreadnought because it's what I have. I guess I could just play it as a vanilla dread if need be. I didn't even consider the extra BS being the point sink as opposed to making sure it doesn't get one shotted.

I would also rather have ten man tac squads (again, the tax man) but I hope that with fearless from Flameblade and ObSec from the BDC that I can post them up and hold those objectives to the last man.

The plan for the squad with the rhino and MM is to not even embark them on the rhino. Just drive the (ObSec) rhino to an objective and post it up hopefully in cover, shoot some Storm bolter shots. Same with the MM squad, hopefully get them to a cushy spot where they can hold an objective in the back and prevent linebreaker. I play against a lot of drop pod lists. The MM is basically there to prevent a pod from getting that cheap point. I will definitely consider another option for that guy. Maybe even pull that 10 points out of the squad and allocate it elsewhere.

My hope is to drop the dread and devs down T1, fire the Lascannon and take out any ranged vehicles that provide a big threat to the LRR. Then hopefully get the flame squad down after and torch any heavy weapon Infantry that scare me. Hopefully this will put me ahead far enough where the LRR can shine. Vulkan and Co. can clean up the MEQ squads, warlords and whatnot.

The league I'm in is pretty heavy space marines and (vehicle based) necrons. I've only seen one flyer (necron guy) and I just kind of ignored it and captured objectives. There's an eldar player who will start getting in games soon now that we're getting up in points. That's the guy I'm really worried about. And the necrons players once they learn to bring gauss over tesla.

Thanks again for your help. If I have any more questions I may bug you later!

Preventing Linebreaker only happens if you murder the squad getting Linebreaker off your table edge. Unless you play it differently, Linebreaker only requires you to have a scoring unit in your enemy's DZ at the end of the game to get that point-regardless of how many of his own units are there.

If that's what you intended, fantastic! I'm just reading mistakes where there are none. If not, though, I'm here to help.

What generally happens is my opponents drop a suicide pod down in my DZ hoping to pop something (We play pretty loose lol) and then when they're dead, I ignore the drop pod because I don't have much that can easily deal with it. I'm thinking of the MM as a 10 point insurance policy against that kind of thing. Also, a 24 inch MC str8 ap2 sniper isn't terrible even if it's just picking off MEQs while holding an objective. I'm pretty new though so I'm sure this seems silly to real humans.

No, that makes perfect sense. Don't worry-your instincts are not leading you astray.