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What do you give them?

I was thinking of multi melta, plasma gun and combi grav as all can reach out at reasonable range and benefit from Relentless

plasma gun doesn't benefit from relentless just FYI

hats a good GP build but you may find it doesnt accomplish what you need when you need it. like plasma not being a great heavy tank hunter weapon. or MM not being a great anti infintry weapon.

Common builds are
nutracker: Combi melta Melta gun and MM usually in Salamander lists the most but still good anti tank.
Meat grinder:combi plas/grave dependng on your luck and meta, plasma gun, HB or plasma canon depending on your luck with pie plates. good at destrying infintry and 2+ infintry

I was originally thinking it would be s flexible build geared for rear armor shots against tanks or killing MCs.

Swapping multi melta for heavy bolter is interesting, but not sure it pairs well with the AP2 specials.

I've actually heard of people using flakk missile to deny jink saves.

LotD are for killing Waveserpents. They're tailor made for that purpose. You want plasmaspam or grav? Get bikes or a command squad in a droppod. LotD bring the melta!

Points for creativity on the flakk missile idea though - that's something I hadn't thought of. I'm not sure it's good but it's certainly interesting.

Plasma or melta, depending on what you want them for. Either way, the ap2 weapons benefit the most from the inherent ignore cover shots that LotD get.
Just gear them up according to the rest of your forces.

MM, plasma gun and combi-grav is an excellent shout. With relentless and ignore cover, they strip a huge amount of wounds off MCs. 2 of these squads makes a dead wraithknight or riptide.
It is the highest rate of ap2 firepower you can get in the squad.

Also 2 st7, 3 grav and a MM shot is good against side or rear armour of most mech, as you stated. Also then only need to be within 12" rather than 6".

I put a missile launcher in my squad. After the initial deepstrike and shooting whatever, you may find yourself almost stranded away from enemies. The long range on a missile launcher is good for that, and krak missile being a good strength helps. Also if you get super, super unlucky and mishap, and the player decides to put you in the corner of the board, again, the range of missile launcher will help.

I do put a melta-gun in with them for some anti-armour, and the sarge gets either a combi-melta or grav-pistol ( and power fist for cc oomph! ). I plan on making an army of plenty of LotD, all kitted out very similar.

To add some dimension to the army, I will be allying with space marines to unlock storm talons.

Poly Ranger wrote:
MM, plasma gun and combi-grav is an excellent shout. With relentless and ignore cover, they strip a huge amount of wounds off MCs. 2 of these squads makes a dead wraithknight or riptide.
It is the highest rate of ap2 firepower you can get in the squad.

Also 2 st7, 3 grav and a MM shot is good against side or rear armour of most mech, as you stated. Also then only need to be within 12" rather than 6".

This was my thinking. Something kinda like drop pod Sternguard but more flexible and independent.

Nobody wants to be on the receiving end of any of those weapons.

Mali wrote:
plasma gun doesn't benefit from relentless just FYI

It sort of does, given that SnP lets you charge after firing it.

As an anti-TEQ unit, I find that they work best with a Plasma Cannon, Plasma Gun and Combi-Grav. Those Ignores Cover AP2 blasts can be brutal. The Multimelta and Meltagun are also good choices for weapons. The Sgt has WS5, so I'll sometimes equip him with a Power Fist. Their 3++ saves are a godsend in close combat, so they're fairly good at fighting against units who have AP2 attacks (like MCs or hammernators).

If I'm using Vulkan, I load them up with Melta (his melta buff ability works for LotD). They serve basically the same roll as Sternguard - Deep Strike melta suicide teams. A bit cheaper than Sternguard, but coming in on turn 2+ instead. A 3 shot twin-linked melta alpha strike will destroy and AV14 vehicle 50% of the time. And skimmers can't even take a jink save against it.

Has anyone tried using the dataslate detachment for these guys? 1-4 squads to slot into other non SM armies is pretty nice, and they get a weird FnP relic that increases when nearby enemies fail ld tests.

I just converted a big squad of 10 to use as elite chaos marines, because... LotD seem to be pretty on the nose as far as rules go for chaos.

I don't think you'll kill many wraith knights or riptides with any setup, but at least in the case of the riptide you can force it to run or you'll charge it and effectively tar pit it for the rest of the game, hopefully there's not too many fire warriors left nearby to shoot you in the turn before you can charge.

For the record:
2/3rds of shots hit
5/6ths wound
2/3rds are unsaved
2/3rds bypass FNP

So 20/81s cause a wound... Actually plasma are slightly worse, but 6 shots at a riptide = 1.5 unsaved wounds.

I'm less familiar with wraith knights and their defenses, but aren't they T8?

Yeah, T8 3+ for grav.

as a salamanders player (with vulkan as my warlord), I run two squads of LotD kitted out with MM, meltagun and combi-melta. I will also put melta bombs on the sergeant if I have the points, just in case.

their job is to a) crack armor on arrival and b) be a general thorn in my opponent's side with high quality, ignores cover shooting and 3++ saves. I play them aggressively because the odds of a mishap are low, so getting them into the melta sweet spot is pretty doable. with the re-rolls on melta that vulkan provides, they melt something on a fairly consistent basis. while I do treat them as suicide squads, they often surprise me by lasting more than a single turn. best of all, they cannot be ignored. I love these guys.

that being said, there's a pretty strong case for the plasma cannon, plasmagun, combi-grav loadout if you want to hunt TEQ rather than tanks. AP2 shooting with ignores cover will wreck a lot of things. as always, it really depends on what the rest of your list looks like.

 minigun762 wrote:
Yeah, T8 3+ for grav.

So 3+ on grav, 4+ on melta and 5+ on plasma. Combined with 3+ to hit, that's about 2 wounds only.

That's still easier than 5++ and FNP on the riptide.

I hear a lot of stuff here about Salamanders and LotD, has anyone actually read the LotD page? They don't benefit from chapter tactics guys...

vulkan's bonus to melta is not a chapter tactic, it's a warlord trait and it applies to ALL models.

 ultimentra wrote:
I hear a lot of stuff here about Salamanders and LotD, has anyone actually read the LotD page? They don't benefit from chapter tactics guys...

They are talking about taking Vulkan with LotD since his special rule, The Forgefather, makes all melta-stuff in his detachment master-crafted.

What about a lascannon? Any value in that?

no, way too expensive, and doesn't stack well with the range of any other special weapons you can take, if you want to hit that hard the multi melta is a better choice than a lascannon in nearly all situations. BTW I like to kit mine out with a multimelta, plasmagun, plasmapistol and poweraxe. hit hard, get stuck in, challenge whoever happens to be there 3-4 fearless poweraxe swings a turn with a 3++ backing it up is nice.

Personally I like C-Grav, Plasmagun, and Plasma Cannon. I run Melta/C-Melta with Meltabombs in all my Tacticals (3x10, 1x7) and 3-4 C-Meltas in my 10 sternguard at 1850.

I like the C-Grav, Plasmagun, Plasma Cannon for two reasons. Good against Riptides, Broadsides, Terminators, Oblits, and other OP shenanigans. Also there is a decent chance of stripping the hull points off a Serpent on the landing.

I also like the blast template for psykers with jink like Seer council.

I used to run Vulkan and run melta, but to get in the 6" melta range for both the C-Melta and Meltagun, that deep strike is so scary. You get a reroll, yes. But 66% of the time you're scattering, and if you scatter away, you're boned. At least I'll get my single tap on my Plasma, and my C-Grav and Plasma Cannon will always be in range.

Ohhh okay, I actually didn't know that about Vulkan.

So why do people take a Combi-Grav over a grav pistol or plasma pistol?

 ultimentra wrote:
Ohhh okay, I actually didn't know that about Vulkan.

So why do people take a Combi-Grav over a grav pistol or plasma pistol?

Three shots when you land.
Plus it pairs well with a power fist, which is nice on a WS5 model with a 3++.

Grav and plasma pistols are almost always not worth their points. With their small range and single shot per turn they are often outperformed by combi weapons.

For the powerfist/combi champion, I just can't bring myself to spend 60 points on a single sergeant model.

 McGibs wrote:
For the powerfist/combi champion, I just can't bring myself to spend 60 points on a single sergeant model.

That's my struggle too. Would be a strong model but still only 1 wound for the price of 1.5 terminators.

From my experience, Legion don't really need all the goodies. For 165 pts, you get C-Grav, Plas,PC barebones. I don't like adding anything to them because at the end of the day they are 1-wound each. They are fearless with invulns. Deepstrike in, get the wounds you can, then play with the idea of tarpitting something that's worth more points then them.

Riptides, Daemon Princes, Wraithknights, even Knights (remember to spread). If they deepstrike in and shoot all their shots, has a good chance of killing it, if not, something else in your army surely will. Then use Legion as a tarpit/linebreaker. They can't ignore it when it has Linebreaker and they are going to have to dakka it down to the man. Most likely with bolters or equiv. Getting into combat helps secure Linebreaker very well.

They are cheap (when compared to Stern and their counterparts). Keep them at way. Even if they stay alive for a turn or two, they did their job. I'd rather have a DP with 6+ AP2 attacks on Legions then killing my Tacticals for free and losing my ObSec.

As far as Tactics, can LotD fulfill the same role as something like Sternguard or Command Squad?

Imo yes. Elite-type squad that comes in and destroys or severely cripples something and usually dies to counter attack.

Each have pros and cons:

Sternguards have poison attacks greats for Wraithknights and Nid MCs.
Command squad can stack multiple specials for complete removal.

However, both die rather easily and have the same durability as a tactical squad.

LotD have 3 weapon types, either kill or cripple but less firepower.

However, they are quite durable, especially in comparsion.

That's just how I see it. All of them fill a spot in a given army. Ideally, I run 1 10man Sternguard and 1 5man LotD at 1850.

You'll likely have the same problem people have with taking storm troopers if you're trying to get them to do the same thing sternguard do. Sternguard always take a pod which is a guaranteed safe DS for 35 pts. The scatter dice on a bare naked DS is not always so forgiving, and you run the risk of losing those points to them dieing, being put in a corner, or being stuck in reserve until turn 4.

@Ultimentra, Exactly why I run C-Grav, Plas, PC. Keeps them cheap at 165 pts and I have a 12"-18" effective threat range when I deepstrike in, unlike the Melta,MM,C-M variant. That's risky. And they fact they have a Heavy Flamer option is ... well, laughable.