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Got myself the Betrayal of Calth box and am wanting to start a small marine army. Shooting for 750-1000pts maybe? Anyway I'm torn between the two chapters. Can anyone with experience fielding them offer some guidance? I like the aesthetics and fluff of both, and would want to run a med-range firepower/assault army. In both scenarios, probably very infantry heavy.

(anything from unit synergies to aesthetics!)

I'm assuming you mean 30k?
If so, I can offer some advise on salamanders.

No I was planning on running them for 40k games. Not enough people in my area that play 30k sadly

Theres nothing stopping you from painting them one way and saying they're a successor chapter or whatever to use other chapter tactics. Want to paint them as Salamanders and run them as Templars or vice versa? Go for it!

I think it might be rough to make a decent BT army from the BaC box. A lot of what makes them special is crusader squads and some CC units. Hard to make that happen with tactical sprues. Salamanders work more classically, and would be easier to build from the parts available.

 Resin Glazed Guardsman wrote:
Theres nothing stopping you from painting them one way and saying they're a successor chapter or whatever to use other chapter tactics. Want to paint them as Salamanders and run them as Templars or vice versa? Go for it!

This is very true.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Nevelon wrote:
I think it might be rough to make a decent BT army from the BaC box. A lot of what makes them special is crusader squads and some CC units. Hard to make that happen with tactical sprues. Salamanders work more classically, and would be easier to build from the parts available.

Then how would one go about making these Crusader squads?

Crusader squads are marked by mixing scouts and marines in the same squad. Also, you can go BP/CCW instead of bolter and a few other options. No scouts in the BaC box, and while there are a few chainswords, there are not enough to kit out a full squad with them.

While you could do it, you wouldn’t be able to take advantage of a lot of their features.

I would go with Salamanders. BTs didn't exist until after the heresy, so if you found someone who wanted to do 30k, Salamanders can probably pull double duty on that (they didn't even change their armor color).

Plus this edition is less forgiving to assaults, and for BTs you really need to have neophytes and Land Raider Crusaders to make the most out of crusader squads (not to mention finding enough chainsword/pistol arms for all 30 marines), while Salamanders can make due with a few drop pods to deliver meltas right into the enemy's tender nether regions. That and the Contemptor comes with a Melta cannon I think too, so totally fits.

Salamanders are known for being master craftsmen and artisans. To me it fits that they would have complete sets of mark 4 armor.

Salamanders seems the way to go then. BURN IT WITH FIRE!