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I'm trying to work out what the most effective troops choice for a space marines with Salamaders tactics.

I know that the conventional wisdom is MSU with high potency single-shot weapons, but running the numbers it looks to me like MSU Sergeant w/ storm bolter & Grav Cannon is the best choice. The points efficiency (number of points killed per point spent) of this combo seems to be the maximum when combined with Salamanders tactics. Am I missing something? This is pretty unexpected.

I've run the numbers against: GEQ, MEQ, TEQ, and LREQ.

I've considered every special weapon and heavy weapon choice, though I've left out the combi-weapons--the reduction in BS wastes salamanders tactics quite badly, offering meager benefit over a storm bolter, which doesn't suffer the loss in BS. I've left out flamers. Is that a mistake? They're much more effective than other weapons against GEQ and MEQ, but the range seems like a problem.

Against GEQ, heavy bolter does better (in points efficiency) but it is within 10% of the Grav Cannon performance
Against MEQ, Grav + Storm-bolter is the most effective choice.
Against TEQ, no other choice is even close
Against LREQ, Lascannon is slightly better, but within 5%, Melta outside of melta range is within 5%, inside of melta range, within 25%. Multimelta outside of melta range is worse than grav cannon, inside of melta range, within 20%.

I've factored the salamanders reroll into this.

Most tactical squads compare favourably to Intercessors, and scouts in points efficiency against MEQ, TEQ, LREQ once you factor in the reroll. Against GEQ, intercessors with the auto bolt rifle are better and scouts with heavy bolter are close.

This says to me that for a takes-all-comers list, Salamanders should take MSU tactical squads with storm bolter on the sergeant and grav cannon. Am I missing something?

Range is certainly a big factor. Your loadout has only 24" threat range, and even with the reroll, you really don't want to be moving with a Heavy weapon, not only because of the -1 to hit, but also because Tacticals really need to be firmly in cover.

Personally, I'd go with Plasma Cannon over Grav Cannon any day. They are far cheaper, have longer range and can affect heavier targets if needed.

And a better "all-comers" approach would be to take units that are specialized, rather than each unit being Jacks-of-all-trades. 1-2 units with 1 Lascannons or ML, 1-2 unit with HB or Plasma cannon, etc
Stormbolter on the Sgt is probably the best pick, though

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Scouts in speeders with combi-melta on the sergeant and a heavy bolter on one of the scouts. The speeder allows you to get your melta guns where they are needed and gives you a pretty amazing amount of flexibility for grabbing objectives. The speeders are also small enough to hide behind stuff to block LOS. Also since you are going Salamanders I would also suggest you look into a Techmarine on bike. They pack a pretty ridiculous amount of firepower into a 98 point unit that is pretty fast.

The Salt Mine wrote:
Scouts in speeders with combi-melta on the sergeant and a heavy bolter on one of the scouts. The speeder allows you to get your melta guns where they are needed and gives you a pretty amazing amount of flexibility for grabbing objectives. The speeders are also small enough to hide behind stuff to block LOS. Also since you are going Salamanders I would also suggest you look into a Techmarine on bike. They pack a pretty ridiculous amount of firepower into a 98 point unit that is pretty fast.

I don't think that the speeder is going to fix the problem. Scouts with HB average killing 10.9, 19.5, 18.2 and 8.63 points per turn of GEQ, MEQ, TEQ, and LREQ, respectively. They cost 67 points.
Tacticals with a grav cannon will average 16.2, 39, 70, 36.6 points per turn and cost 95 points. Most of those numbers are double or more. They cost less than 50% more than scouts.

Adding 80 points of land speeder that doesn't benefit from chapter tactics isn't going to make the scouts more cost-effective. I'm not saying that scouts in a speeder don't have their place; I'm doing a very armchair general comparison and looking purely at damage output. In those terms, 5 tacticals with a grav cannon do far more damage than 5 scouts with HB against all but GEQ. Against GEQ, they are close.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Galef wrote:
Range is certainly a big factor. Your loadout has only 24" threat range, and even with the reroll, you really don't want to be moving with a Heavy weapon, not only because of the -1 to hit, but also because Tacticals really need to be firmly in cover.

Personally, I'd go with Plasma Cannon over Grav Cannon any day. They are far cheaper, have longer range and can affect heavier targets if needed.

And a better "all-comers" approach would be to take units that are specialized, rather than each unit being Jacks-of-all-trades. 1-2 units with 1 Lascannons or ML, 1-2 unit with HB or Plasma cannon, etc

Stormbolter on the Sgt is probably the best pick, though

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You're right, the range is a big deal. These guys will not cover the board, which means they're not always shooting, which means they could be wasting points. Moving them in a razorback is not ideal because they're not shooting. Obviously, there's more to it than damage output, but it provides a nice baseline so that I can have a reasoned approach to the loadout: anything other than Tac+Grav MUST have a tangible benefit over Tac+Grav.

I expected Plasma to come out well. It didn't. Heavy bolter outperforms Plasma against GEQ and MEQ without the danger of exploding. OC Plasma cannon outperforms all but Grav against TEQ. HB outperforms ML against GEQ, MEQ, TEQ. I haven't run the numbers on LREQ. I'd pick HB over Plasma unless I'm expecting hordes of TEQ.

Ultimately the question of "best in X slot" cant be answered without knowing the rest of the list you plan to run. At 95 points a pop those Grav Tac teams are hilariously expensive for MSU, and still suffer from the underlying weaknesses that plague stock marines.

Sterling191 wrote:
Ultimately the question of "best in X slot" cant be answered without knowing the rest of the list you plan to run. At 95 points a pop those Grav Tac teams are hilariously expensive for MSU, and still suffer from the underlying weaknesses that plague stock marines.

That's exactly why I'd rather just take 5 Tacs with Lascannon or ML as the 3 main Salamander Troops and park them in cover. Then focus on other non-Troops options for anti-horde.
My son has had decent success with a Twin-Autocannon Vendread using the Sallie Tactic. With that many shots, even hitting on 2+, your bound to miss 1 shot, same with the to-wound.

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You can do all the math you want on which weapons will do more damage which is good to an extent. But with 24 inch range your tac squad will not be doing any work turn one. Scouts in speeders can get almost anywhere they need to be with their movement and still be. That speeder has a decent amount of dakka itself for 80 points. And the speeder itself is more robust than a tac squad in cover. Meltas are hands down the best weapon to use for your Salamander trait. The speeders help get them into half range, protect them, and you can zoom them into range to assassinate characters. Scouts are the cheapest options to load up on meltas. Its the same reason venoms and blasters are so popular in DE lists. If you are dead set on tacs just give them a lascannon and set them up in cover. Its got the range to almost always be useful.

You have answered your own question by setting extremely narrow parameters. All you are comparing is pts killed per turn and no more (and I'm not suggesting this is the wrong way to do it). If your question was what unit does the most damage in a turn it is in range and can shoot, you have your answer. When you respond to suggestions with "it has to have a tangible advantage over X" you are really saying I do not see the tangible evidence over X. Which is understandableas that benefit can be opinion, variable, and niche. The problem is this game cannot be broken down so easily.
Since Space Marines are so limited in troops, I'm not sure there's more to add. I go as cheap as possible and save my points to buy other damage units.

Scouts do have the intangible of the deployment ability. I'm not sure how to compare that in pts killed per round, but the tactical options make at least some of them an auto-take for me. Sniper rifles are cheaper, so again its hard to factor in the ability to do a mortal wound now and then. (nothing is more frustrating than firing away at a vehicle or character and leaving 1 lousy wound with an apothecary or some healing ability nearby)

Let's look at 5 salamander scouts with shotguns (or bolters since each will shoot twice up to 12". I like to charge my scouts in turn one and try to force opponent to have a shooty unit fall back(another intangible)), in a specific scenario. Against Imperial guard they do (double check my math, please) (10 shots, 7.32 hits (with re-roll) hits, 5.5 wounds 3.63 dead) and they might get a charge in if they set-up close. That's another dead guardsmen (or two given the decimal). Seems weak, except:
So straight comparisons to unit types is really simplifying quite a bit. Killing say 5 models from an imperial guard 10 man squad is not worth NEARLY as much as killing 5 models from a heavy weapons team. Which will not shoot next turn.
Often, enemy heavy weapons teams hide from your tac's limited range. And yes, specific scenario, but rarely do I have a game in which my scouts miss a chance as described here. Of course, I've had game where I lose first turn, and 10 scouts get killed badly, but hey, he used a unit on them and spared my other units something.


Just because I've had some luck (and like this discussion), to go beyond troops for a suggestion:
Look at small units of bikers. They have a TON of shots, access to special weapons, AND add a HUGE intangible in movement to grab objectives, hold range etc. I am not saying they are awesome (6 wounds on 3 models at T5 for 63 points vs say tacs at 5 W at T4 but on 5 models is pretty even), but the intangible is MOVEMENT! A bikers meltagun has a melta range of 20" (6" plus his movement) vs a tacs melta guns range of 12" (6" plus move). Furthermore, bikers always shoot bolters twice even when moving, so suddenly their bike guns are 4 shots, with a range of 38". Extremely useful. They do have disadvantages; generaly a target of multi-wound weapons. Rarely can hide in cover or out of LoS, Fast attack rather than troops.
I have transferred my old White Scars to the Salamanders tactic and had success.

edwardmyst wrote:
You have answered your own question by setting extremely narrow parameters. All you are comparing is pts killed per turn and no more (and I'm not suggesting this is the wrong way to do it). If your question was what unit does the most damage in a turn it is in range and can shoot, you have your answer. When you respond to suggestions with "it has to have a tangible advantage over X" you are really saying I do not see the tangible evidence over X. Which is understandableas that benefit can be opinion, variable, and niche. The problem is this game cannot be broken down so easily.
Since Space Marines are so limited in troops, I'm not sure there's more to add. I go as cheap as possible and save my points to buy other damage units.

You're right. I've erroneously scoped this to weapons-in-range, failing to take into account that the range is a big part of the equation. That should have been obvious when I removed flamers as being an obvious outlier. I seem to have gotten too caught up in the mathhammer. Using grav as a baseline, and acknowledging that you pay in points efficiency for other benefits (such as range, deployment, multiple profiles, lower absolute cost, etc., but mostly range) doesn't seem like such a bad thing, but it may obscure the intangibles and result in me running grav when I shouldn't.

Most of what I've worked out is pretty obvious in retrospect. For example, heavy bolters outperform missile launchers against everything except armoured targets. Lascannon outperforms missile launcher against armoured targets. But that's the whole point, the missile launcher isn't great against hordes or armoured targets, but it's better than dedicated anti-horde against armour and better than dedicated anti-armour against hordes. (surprise surprise )

I think the only really big takeaway I have is that storm bolters are awesome (everyone already knows this) and flamers and melta are awesome up close (everyone already knows this).

Oh, and if you happen to want a take-all-comers weapon within 24", grav is great.

So, I've managed to work out all the things that everyone already knows. Yay me.

edwardmyst wrote:

Scouts do have the intangible of the deployment ability. I'm not sure how to compare that in pts killed per round, but the tactical options make at least some of them an auto-take for me. Sniper rifles are cheaper, so again its hard to factor in the ability to do a mortal wound now and then. (nothing is more frustrating than firing away at a vehicle or character and leaving 1 lousy wound with an apothecary or some healing ability nearby)

Let's look at 5 salamander scouts with shotguns (or bolters since each will shoot twice up to 12". I like to charge my scouts in turn one and try to force opponent to have a shooty unit fall back(another intangible)), in a specific scenario. Against Imperial guard they do (double check my math, please) (10 shots, 7.32 hits (with re-roll) hits, 5.5 wounds 3.63 dead) and they might get a charge in if they set-up close. That's another dead guardsmen (or two given the decimal).

Assuming you go for the storm bolter, that's 12 shots, 8 hits, 8.66 with the reroll, 5.77 wounds, 6.42 with the reroll, 5.35 dead; assuming I'm getting reroll logic right. Check this for me?

2/3 of shots hit, baseline from the BS 3+. The chances of missing at least one hit are (1-(2/3)^12) = 99.2% (pretty much guaranteed), so you get one additional roll, for an extra 2/3 a hit, which rounds out to 8.66 hits

Base chance of a wound is 4/6, from S4 vs T3 (3+ = 4/6). With 8.66 hits, on average, that's 5.77 wounds. The chances of missing a wound are (1-(4/6)^(8.66)), which is around 97%. That weights the reroll so you get an additional 0.97*4/6 wounds, for a total of 6.42 wounds.

Then, it's just the basic armour save: 6.42 * 4/6 = 4.28

Without the storm bolter, I get 3.68, which is so close as makes no difference to what you suggested

edwardmyst wrote:

Seems weak, except:
So straight comparisons to unit types is really simplifying quite a bit. Killing say 5 models from an imperial guard 10 man squad is not worth NEARLY as much as killing 5 models from a heavy weapons team. Which will not shoot next turn.
Often, enemy heavy weapons teams hide from your tac's limited range. And yes, specific scenario, but rarely do I have a game in which my scouts miss a chance as described here. Of course, I've had game where I lose first turn, and 10 scouts get killed badly, but hey, he used a unit on them and spared my other units something.


Just because I've had some luck (and like this discussion), to go beyond troops for a suggestion:
Look at small units of bikers. They have a TON of shots, access to special weapons, AND add a HUGE intangible in movement to grab objectives, hold range etc. I am not saying they are awesome (6 wounds on 3 models at T5 for 63 points vs say tacs at 5 W at T4 but on 5 models is pretty even), but the intangible is MOVEMENT! A bikers meltagun has a melta range of 20" (6" plus his movement) vs a tacs melta guns range of 12" (6" plus move). Furthermore, bikers always shoot bolters twice even when moving, so suddenly their bike guns are 4 shots, with a range of 38". Extremely useful. They do have disadvantages; generaly a target of multi-wound weapons. Rarely can hide in cover or out of LoS, Fast attack rather than troops.
I have transferred my old White Scars to the Salamanders tactic and had success.

Yes, I've got to look a little further for the other "intangibles" as you put it. I doubt I'll get far modelling that without a full simulator, which is not something I want to write just now...

[Edited for Scout BS3+]

Your thoughts and the way you work through this stuff shows you're thinking, analyzing, and searching. I'm not sure I have more to add except for me Grav is great when it gets the d3, otherwise not. How you factor in the odds of having a target with multiple wounds I have no idea. Without multiple wound targets, plasma trumps grav without OC I believe. Of course, I can't remember a game I have played where my grav bikers haven't had a good target.
Also;
In your last post it looked like you had scouts hitting on a 4+? I may have read wrong what you were showing the math for? Scouts hit on a 3+ now. The 4+ was there forever as the idea of them still learning, but gone now. So maybe add some hits and see what you end up with. (For my math-hammer and the re-roll one miss, I just add .66 to my total hits (the % of the re-roll hitting). You're right in that factoring the actual % chance of at least one miss times the .66 is the true way, that is just beyond my history major...)

Personally it has to be 5 Tactical Marines with a Lascannon.

No combi-anything on the sarge, just a squad as cheap I can make it with a Lascannon.
I then accompany said squad with an Assault Cannon Razorback.

With this I rely on the Razorbacks for the anti-infantry (especially horde armies) and the Lascannons for anti-armour. The marines then sit in cover making them more durable and providing consistent and accurate firepower for the majority of the game.

Obviously I take more in my army but this is the core

edwardmyst wrote:Your thoughts and the way you work through this stuff shows you're thinking, analyzing, and searching. I'm not sure I have more to add except for me Grav is great when it gets the d3, otherwise not. How you factor in the odds of having a target with multiple wounds I have no idea. Without multiple wound targets, plasma trumps grav without OC I believe. Of course, I can't remember a game I have played where my grav bikers haven't had a good target.

I didn't... Instead, I ran numbers for GEQ, MEQ, TEQ, LREQ. It's a pretty decent spread and hopefully reasonably representative.

Grav cannons have 4 shots, same AP as plasma, and the same average damage as OC plasma. You get some benefit from being T*2, but the extra shots on Grav win out, especially since they don't come with a chance of exploding.

That means that unless you're shooting armour, where the S8 will make a difference over the S5, the Grav wins over Plasma. Except that plasma has 36" range and costs 12 pts less.

edwardmyst wrote:
Also;
In your last post it looked like you had scouts hitting on a 4+? I may have read wrong what you were showing the math for? Scouts hit on a 3+ now. The 4+ was there forever as the idea of them still learning, but gone now. So maybe add some hits and see what you end up with. (For my math-hammer and the re-roll one miss, I just add .66 to my total hits (the % of the re-roll hitting). You're right in that factoring the actual % chance of at least one miss times the .66 is the true way, that is just beyond my history major...)

Haha, oops! Can you tell that I haven't played since 2nd edition? To me, it never made sense to hand sniper rifles to trainees. I'm glad they fixed that. I've edited for 3+ now and my numbers are virtually identical to yours.

Sumilidon wrote:Personally it has to be 5 Tactical Marines with a Lascannon.

No combi-anything on the sarge, just a squad as cheap I can make it with a Lascannon.
I then accompany said squad with an Assault Cannon Razorback.

With this I rely on the Razorbacks for the anti-infantry (especially horde armies) and the Lascannons for anti-armour. The marines then sit in cover making them more durable and providing consistent and accurate firepower for the majority of the game.

Obviously I take more in my army but this is the core

So, that makes a lot of sense when looking at mobility. When you look at points efficiency, and bearing in mind that razorbacks don't get chapter tactics, it looks like AC Razorbacks are roughly the same efficiency at anti-chaff as MSU scout squads with HB.

If you want to get all thematic as Salamanders, I'd argue that the way to play it is to put Tac squads with combi-flamer, multimelta in AC razorbacks. The AC and the combi-flamer handle chaff. The multimelta handles armour.

Ironically, I have yet again discovered something that everyone already knows.

I did discover something unexpected though: fire krak missiles at MEQ or above. Frag will cause fewer kills against MEQ than Krak. A heavy bolter is still better against GEQ and MEQ than either Frag or Krak, but it's worth noting that Krak is the better choice against MEQ.

Sumilidon wrote:Personally it has to be 5 Tactical Marines with a Lascannon.

No combi-anything on the sarge, just a squad as cheap I can make it with a Lascannon.
I then accompany said squad with an Assault Cannon Razorback.

With this I rely on the Razorbacks for the anti-infantry (especially horde armies) and the Lascannons for anti-armour. The marines then sit in cover making them more durable and providing consistent and accurate firepower for the majority of the game.

Obviously I take more in my army but this is the core

when I run tacs I always run them in backs! Las or Plas cannon w squad, combi flamer on sgt, hb or asscan for the razorback. depending on what I want the unit to achieve I'll throw a capt/lt/apothecary in with them to bolster damage/resiliency.

I would also like to add Intercessors w bolt rifles to the mix. you can run them around in a repulsor and drop them off onto an objective and get a pretty durable threat bubble out of them. add in some reivers to shock grenade anybody in range and that bubble increases.

Personally - Salamanders tacs with las cannon has got to be the winner. That is a reroll hit and wound las cannon. Take 3 of them per batallion. Spread them out (this is a luxury that no other marines have)

I'm surprised we're 15 posts in and no one has has said "the best troops to use in a Marine army of any stripe is Imperial Guardsmen."

Seriously though, while I have to agree that the Lascannon is probably better due to the range, I have to disagree on the no-frills Sergeant. There is no good reason not to upgrade to the Stormbolter.