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Hi, I've been wanting to dump my SW and start a new Salamanders chapter army. I already have some new boxes of minis for it, as well as a very nice Vulkan He'stan ready to go.

Any thoughts on what good units to focus on for them?
What would be good general weapon load outs for my Tac, Scout, Assault and Dev squads?
Any help or observations would be helpful really. I just really like the fluff behind these guys.

Flamers and meltas on as many things as possible.

Their weapons of choice tend to be short ranged. This matches well with drop pods.

What to give to whom depends a lot on overall army composition and structure. If you include the skyhammer analiation force, you are going to want MM/grav devs, but if you go for a gladius/CAD force, lascannons will give you some needed long range fire.

Full melta tac squads are always a good call. MM/M c-melta sarge. But if you need more anti troop/horde in your list, you can take flamers/plasma.

For assault squads, I like a pair of flamers.

Scout loads depend a lot on what you need them for. Snipers for backfield camping, the others in a LSS for zipping around getting into trouble. As a Salamader you get more milage out of giving your sarge a decent weapon, as it gets MC for free.

Greetings Bomtek80.

As has already been said, Salamanders benefit from flame (and with Vulkan He'Stan, Melta) weapons most thanks to their chapter tactics and special rules. Also, always spring for *something* on your Sergeants, even if it's something basic like a combi-weapon (Excepting Combi-flamer. Don't run a combi-flamer on a character and master craft it because your Chapter Tactics gives a combi-flamer twin-linked anyway, which is what master crafted gives if it shoots the one-shot flamer) as one of the character's weapons gets to be master crafted at no cost (You choose).

Because of the preponderance of buffs to Flamer and Melta (again, if you have He'Stan in your list) weapons you're going to want to be close to make the best use of those weapons. Enter the drop pod.

I suggest looking at a few tactical squads, armed with either all melta, or a combination of melta and flamer weaponry. Specifically, I'd run the following as a tactical squad if I were building the list:

Sergeant with Combi-melta & Lightning Claw (If you're running He'Stan, then I would master-craft the lightning claw as the one-shot melta will be counted as twinlinked). Alternate option: Combi-Plasma or Grav and master-craft the combi-weapon to help with a reroll on a miss (Or overheat).
8x Bolter & Bolt Pistol Tactical Marines.
1x Heavy Weapon Marine with Multi-Melta
1x Special Weapon Marine with a Flamer (flamer counting as Twinlinked, re-rolling the failed to-wound roll)

Of course you can mix and match weapons in here, but that gives you good anti-tank/hard target coverage, and also a better than average template weapon with the re-roll.

A couple of squads built this way (Or subbing out the lightning claw for a power fist if you prefer something with a little more high strength/low AP punch) in drop pods would do you solid.

Also, don't overlook the humble drop pod mounted Dreadnought or Venerable dread. Even a basic one with a Multimelta and dreadnought powerfist rocking an under-slung heavy flamer would be quite the nuisance in your opponent's backfield either by itself or supporting your landed marines.

Land Speeders are also nice drop units, kitted out with a pair of Mult-Meltas, they can land and single-handedly destroy an armored target in an instant, especially if He'Stan is present giving out free twinlink to the weapons.

Sternguard in pods with combi-flamers and meltas are, in a word: crazytrains. They can generate amazingly high wound totals on a single unit when they land and pile out of a drop pod. You slap 6+ flamer templates on a squad with re-roll to-wound and back that up with a couple of combi-melta shots to finish any survivors off (if there are any...). I've seen this kind of squad turn an entire 10+ man unit to ash in one round. I think they did somewhere in the neighborhood of 25+ wounds with seven combi-flamers and two combi-meltas. Needless to say, the unit they were shooting died hard.

Lastly, something to look at as an option for fun: Bike Squads. Run a decent sized bike squad with a sergeant armed with a combi-weapon (Melta, or even Grav if you like) along side two flamer toting bikers, a couple of extra standard bikes, and an attack bike with a Multi-Melta. Put He'Stan in, and sub out the Flamers for Melta and throw the Combi portion of the sergeant's weapon to be a Melta and you've got a fast moving squad with four twinlinked melta shots in any one turn, with three being the 'normal' number of twinlinked melta shots being fired.

Hopefully these suggestions help you as you move forward. Lots of great options in the Marine Codex to pick from. Find a style you like and build toward that.

Take it easy.

-Red__Thirst-

Another follower of the XVIII Legion! Welcome!

As others have beat me to the general stuff, I'll just add onto this:

 Red__Thirst wrote:

Sternguard in pods with combi-flamers and meltas are, in a word: crazytrains. They can generate amazingly high wound totals on a single unit when they land and pile out of a drop pod. You slap 6+ flamer templates on a squad with re-roll to-wound and back that up with a couple of combi-melta shots to finish any survivors off (if there are any...). I've seen this kind of squad turn an entire 10+ man unit to ash in one round. I think they did somewhere in the neighborhood of 25+ wounds with seven combi-flamers and two combi-meltas. Needless to say, the unit they were shooting died hard.

I honestly don't see much of a point in grabbing combi-flamers when you can take Heavy Flamers for the same price (nor doe those models lose their bolter). Also, I can't help but stress that there's an excellent advantage to running combi-meltas on your Sternguard: the boltgun portion of the combi-weapon becomes master-crafted as well, including that special-issue ammunition.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh, and if you're planning on taking Vulkan He'Stan (which you probably should in games of 1500+ points), I'd recommend sticking him in a squad of Honor Guard. For the points, it's one of the most effective melee units in the codex. Vanguard Vets aren't as valuable, as you can't use their jump packs without leaving He'Stan behind. I usually put them inside a Stormraven from the Storm Wing formation, but there a variety of things you can use for deliverance.

Finally, a little something I've noticed with points costs. On one-attack units (e.g. Assault Sergeant), it's (usually) a waste to equip them with a Power Fist. Melta-bombs provide you with the high-STR low-AP stomping power, leaving you points to buy a power weapon or lightning claw.

Lost & the Damned that are a part of the base cad receive He'Stan's twin linked bonus to melta. Combined with their ignores covet usr they can be nasty when shooting at vehicles.

Definitely going to proxy my Dark angels as salamanders with all this melta flamer talk.

Salamaners are an excellent Chapter who work well in the current Meltapod format marines are taking. If you play friendly games, bring the Primarch Vulkan, he's immune to Melta and Flamer IIRC. I believe his rules can be found in one of the Isstvan books, or just the Crusade Army List red book.

Build a skyhammer annihilation force and a demi-company. Then win.

rowboatjellyfanxiii wrote:
Salamaners are an excellent Chapter who work well in the current Meltapod format marines are taking. If you play friendly games, bring the Primarch Vulkan, he's immune to Melta and Flamer IIRC. I believe his rules can be found in one of the Isstvan books, or just the Crusade Army List red book.

Are you serious? That's just a great way to lose all your friends!

You must be that guy Master of Ordinance keeps complaining about!

rowboatjellyfanxiii wrote:
Salamaners are an excellent Chapter who work well in the current Meltapod format marines are taking. If you play friendly games, bring the Primarch Vulkan, he's immune to Melta and Flamer IIRC. I believe his rules can be found in one of the Isstvan books, or just the Crusade Army List red book.

Are you even allowed to that? I thought Vulkan was a part of the 30k rules.

He is. And there are restrictions on bringing Primarchs there too.

 CrashGordon94 wrote:

rowboatjellyfanxiii wrote:
Salamaners are an excellent Chapter who work well in the current Meltapod format marines are taking. If you play friendly games, bring the Primarch Vulkan, he's immune to Melta and Flamer IIRC. I believe his rules can be found in one of the Isstvan books, or just the Crusade Army List red book.

Are you serious? That's just a great way to lose all your friends!

You must be that guy Master of Ordinance keeps complaining about!

You do realise:
-The Primarch cannot account for more than a 1/4 of his list. At 450-ish points he's playing a 2000pt game minimum. They still need to take an HQ on top of that.
-The other person is likely to bring their own LoW if you have one.
-Primarchs are banned by most if not all TO's.
-Tbh he falls to massed small arms/heavy bolter/grav anyway.
-You should be grateful they're not playing Horus.

Yes, and most of those don't counter my point while the rest only exacerbate it.