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Using the info that was revealed today, we can put together something rather nasty. In fact, I'm going to show you how you can one-shot an Imperial Knight with 210 points of Flamestorm Gauntlet Aggressors, in two different ways.

Base, an Aggressor is a t5, 3+ save model with 3 wounds. It only moves 5", but has a special rule that ignores the penalty for advancing and firing assault weapons (which all of its ranged weapons are).
Each Aggressor gets 3 attacks base (4 for the sgt) and has power fists (-1 to hit roll, str x2, ap-3, d3 damage)
The Flamestorm Gauntlet is an 8" range, Assault 2d6, s4, ap0, 1 damage weapon.

A squad of 6 Aggressors will therefore get 12d6 shots with the flame gauntlets. They also have a special rule where, if they fire overwatch or is chosen to shoot with, they can shoot twice if they don't move. That's 24d6 shots that auto-hit.

Now let's add in the Promethean Cult from Salamanders. Starting turn 2 you can get into the Tactical Doctrine, that gives all rapid fire and assault weapons ap-1. For Salamanders, they also get +1 to wound with flamer and melta weapons. So your flamers are now s4 ap-1, 1 damage weapons that get +1 to wound. Against t3 models, that's wounding on 2's. Against t4, wounding on 3's. T5-7, wounding on 4's, and t8 wounding on 5's.

Now throw in the 2cp stratagem 'Flamecraft' that gives you the maximum number of shots from flame weapons in a unit. Suddenly, that 12d6 shots you're getting is a straight 72 auto-hits. Shooting twice, that's 144 auto-hits.

From there, it's just basic math. 144 auto-hits wounds a t8 target on 5's, meaning you get 48 wounds at ap-1. A knight with a 3+ save is now saving on 4's, which means you've got 24 wounds through. Dead Knight.

"But Dr. Bored! Flamers are only 8" range and Aggressors are slow so you'll never get 24 wounds on, you'll get half of that at best!!"

Ok, that's fine. I've got a few buffs that you can throw on to make this even better.
The first is a combo of Successor Chapter Traits.
1. Hungry for Battle +1" to advance and charge rolls
2. Long-range Marksmen +3" to range of weapons.

That means your flamers are 11" and if you advance, your aggressors are going 6+d6". That means your threat range is now 17+d6". Not too shabby if I do say so myself. That'll help you get into position, and because those flamers are assault weapons, you can fire them without much worry.
Once you're IN position, then there's two things you can do.

A. Flame whatever target stupidly got within your 11" flamer threat range
B. Move + Flame + Charge the target and finish them off with your power fists.

Let's say you go with B, because your opponent is reasonably smart and kept their stuff outside of your flamer range. Great, you move, so you've only gotten 12 wounds through. So how can you get those other 12 wounds shaved off of a Knight?

Aggressors with Shock Assault now get 4 attacks base (+5 for the sgt). If you can get all 6 of them to survive overwatch against a Knight, then they'll get 29 attacks, hitting on 4's, wounding on 4's, at ap-3, doing d3 damage. Let's average that out.
15 hits. 7 wounds. Knight has a 6+ save in close combat against that. 6 get through. Average of 6d3 is 12. Boom. There's your other 12 wounds. Dead Knight.

Yes, a 210 point unit can, on average, down a 500+ point Imperial or Chaos Knight with a 2cp Stratagem and turn 2 with Salamanders. The successor chapter traits are helpful but not necessary to make it happen. Any other buffs that you can give them, such as a lt for re-rolling wounds, is only going to make them deadlier.

Now imagine that 144 auto-hits against a mob of orcs or cultists... Yeah. I don't care how big that squad is, it's gone.

As a juicy extra, you can throw Flame Shield on those aggressors. Now your enemy gets a -1 to hit them with ranged weapons and -1" to charge them. Even if you aren't super aggro with your Aggressors, those 11" flamers (with the successor chapter trait) will make excellent charge-deterrents. Goodbye turn 1 genestealer cult charges. Goodbye Bloodletter Bombs. You can't use the 2cp stratagem in overwatch, which is a bummer, but that's still 24d6 auto-hits.

Surely powerful and will see some actual use.

Still, this is at least a case of thematic rules making you field what your faction thematically should field, flames!

Yep nasty unit for sure. One thing that popped to my mind was...how much shooting did daemons have? Can they clear that unit without h2h because h2h isn't going to work all that well. So you have unit that shoots like hell and is going to be fairly untouchable for daemons.

At least haven't seen many daemon lists with plenty shooting. Guess 30 strong plague bearers are something to try with. That has taken my 2 ork mobs and defftrike and lived to tell the tale so maybe tough enough?

But sheesh last thing 8th needed was more ridiculous dice numbers and kill power :( Regardless of whether that's balanced or not it's not my cup of tea. Who wants 2 turn games? Guess GW needs to compensate their slow rules by making games over quicker by killing everything faster...

tneva82 wrote:
Yep nasty unit for sure. One thing that popped to my mind was...how much shooting did daemons have? Can they clear that unit without h2h because h2h isn't going to work all that well. So you have unit that shoots like hell and is going to be fairly untouchable for daemons.

At least haven't seen many daemon lists with plenty shooting. Guess 30 strong plague bearers are something to try with. That has taken my 2 ork mobs and defftrike and lived to tell the tale so maybe tough enough?

But sheesh last thing 8th needed was more ridiculous dice numbers and kill power :( Regardless of whether that's balanced or not it's not my cup of tea. Who wants 2 turn games? Guess GW needs to compensate their slow rules by making games over quicker by killing everything faster...

Even after all of this, I wouldn't be worried. Daemons have a lot of mortal wound generation in the form of psychic powers and such, and skull cannons are pretty solid all things considered. The big thing is that aggressors only have one transport: the Repulsor. That's a 280-something point transport (at its cheapest) and even that can only transport 5 aggressors in it. So suddenly you've got 450-ish points tied up in effectively one unit. Talk about a fire-magnet.

But yeah, a unit of Aggressors on a mid-field objective will be impossible to move for melee-focused armies.

If it is a successor, then yes, it will be quite impossible.

If not you can try a 8" charge while outside flamer range.

It really just determines target priority for your opponent. Expect flamer Aggressors to get shot to bits almost instantly if they're a Salamanders/successor. Helps protect your other units for at least a turn, though.

I've got a friend with a Salamanders army and has been running them straight out of the codex already, they've been exceptional for him and killed way more than their 210pts, even though they die every game.

One thing to remember is that if Vulcan He'stan has kept his old rules then thats another +1 to wound that stacks with the chaplains +1.

My sons Aggressors are certainly gonna get use. And now that they have a bigger target on their backs, his Plasma Inceptors might get to do more now too

-

What this tells me is that aggressors are public enemy number 1, along with hellblasters, when facing marines of any variety.

They're still priced pretty expensive. Losing them hurts a lot.

drbored wrote:

tneva82 wrote:
Yep nasty unit for sure. One thing that popped to my mind was...how much shooting did daemons have? Can they clear that unit without h2h because h2h isn't going to work all that well. So you have unit that shoots like hell and is going to be fairly untouchable for daemons.

At least haven't seen many daemon lists with plenty shooting. Guess 30 strong plague bearers are something to try with. That has taken my 2 ork mobs and defftrike and lived to tell the tale so maybe tough enough?

But sheesh last thing 8th needed was more ridiculous dice numbers and kill power :( Regardless of whether that's balanced or not it's not my cup of tea. Who wants 2 turn games? Guess GW needs to compensate their slow rules by making games over quicker by killing everything faster...

Even after all of this, I wouldn't be worried. Daemons have a lot of mortal wound generation in the form of psychic powers and such, and skull cannons are pretty solid all things considered. The big thing is that aggressors only have one transport: the Repulsor. That's a 280-something point transport (at its cheapest) and even that can only transport 5 aggressors in it. So suddenly you've got 450-ish points tied up in effectively one unit. Talk about a fire-magnet.

But yeah, a unit of Aggressors on a mid-field objective will be impossible to move for melee-focused armies.

Also don't forget that if you kill the repulsor while not leaving any space around it to disembark (Easy for daemon lists) The guys inside die too.

Don't forget the fact that you can make the salamander sgts flamer guantlets a relic weapon with extra damage for 1 CP.

 Imateria wrote:
One thing to remember is that if Vulcan He'stan has kept his old rules then thats another +1 to wound that stacks with the chaplains +1.

I don't think he ever had a +1 to wound aura. His aura is re-roll all failed to hit and wound with flamers and meltas.

Funny, I could have sworn there was a 1 CP Stratagem that let you deep strike with any Marine unit, but either it never existed or I can’t find it now.

 Stormonu wrote:
Funny, I could have sworn there was a 1 CP Stratagem that let you deep strike with any Marine unit, but either it never existed or I can’t find it now.

I’m not familiar with a generic SM one that does that, could be a RG thing maybe.

It's a deathwatch stratagem, not generic SM.

White Scars and Raven Guard both have a strat that does that.

A good time to plug...KTE

https://insighthammer.com

But can they kill a buffed up IH Relic Leviathan Character? The ability to kill a knight is so 2018..../jk

I'd say if you manage to get your knight become a target of these 144 flamer shots, you deserve to lose that knight.
They're slow. They have no transport. They have no ability to deepstrike, or move faster (without losing half of those hits), from what I can tell.

 FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
But can they kill a buffed up IH Relic Leviathan Character? The ability to kill a knight is so 2018..../jk

The main issue is that a Leviathan has a 2+ armor save, and the flamers are only -1 ap, so that means those 144 auto hits will become 48 wounds and the Leviathan will save 32 of those, leaving only 16 wounds to get through. Now, that would kill a Leviathan, but then you factor in the Iron Hands FNP and it gets very, very close. 14 wounds would get through on average, which is enough to kill an Iron Hands Leviathan. Any abilities that reduce incoming damage wouldn't matter since the flamers only do 1 damage anyway.

If there are any other buffs that could make the IH leviathan more survivable I'm not familiar with them, but at least using the base stuff, that would indeed be a dead Leviathan using nothing but 6 Salamanders flamestorm aggressors and 2cp.

drbored wrote:

 FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
But can they kill a buffed up IH Relic Leviathan Character? The ability to kill a knight is so 2018..../jk

The main issue is that a Leviathan has a 2+ armor save, and the flamers are only -1 ap, so that means those 144 auto hits will become 48 wounds and the Leviathan will save 32 of those, leaving only 16 wounds to get through. Now, that would kill a Leviathan, but then you factor in the Iron Hands FNP and it gets very, very close. 14 wounds would get through on average, which is enough to kill an Iron Hands Leviathan. Any abilities that reduce incoming damage wouldn't matter since the flamers only do 1 damage anyway.

If there are any other buffs that could make the IH leviathan more survivable I'm not familiar with them, but at least using the base stuff, that would indeed be a dead Leviathan using nothing but 6 Salamanders flamestorm aggressors and 2cp.

I was really joking, but thank you for doing the math on that. I would say that the IH Relic Leviathan would be a character, and thus untargetable unless your opponent is very unskilled. Unless the Salamanders have character targeting, which I was unaware of?

But no, I was joking. Hence the /jk

Cheers!

 FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:

drbored wrote:

 FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
But can they kill a buffed up IH Relic Leviathan Character? The ability to kill a knight is so 2018..../jk

The main issue is that a Leviathan has a 2+ armor save, and the flamers are only -1 ap, so that means those 144 auto hits will become 48 wounds and the Leviathan will save 32 of those, leaving only 16 wounds to get through. Now, that would kill a Leviathan, but then you factor in the Iron Hands FNP and it gets very, very close. 14 wounds would get through on average, which is enough to kill an Iron Hands Leviathan. Any abilities that reduce incoming damage wouldn't matter since the flamers only do 1 damage anyway.

If there are any other buffs that could make the IH leviathan more survivable I'm not familiar with them, but at least using the base stuff, that would indeed be a dead Leviathan using nothing but 6 Salamanders flamestorm aggressors and 2cp.

I was really joking, but thank you for doing the math on that. I would say that the IH Relic Leviathan would be a character, and thus untargetable unless your opponent is very unskilled. Unless the Salamanders have character targeting, which I was unaware of?

But no, I was joking. Hence the /jk

Cheers!

No worries! I wanted to do the math, and just FYI, Leviathans having 14 wounds means they can be targetted. You have to have 9 wounds or less to be able to hide behind your other units

 FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:

drbored wrote:

 FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
But can they kill a buffed up IH Relic Leviathan Character? The ability to kill a knight is so 2018..../jk

The main issue is that a Leviathan has a 2+ armor save, and the flamers are only -1 ap, so that means those 144 auto hits will become 48 wounds and the Leviathan will save 32 of those, leaving only 16 wounds to get through. Now, that would kill a Leviathan, but then you factor in the Iron Hands FNP and it gets very, very close. 14 wounds would get through on average, which is enough to kill an Iron Hands Leviathan. Any abilities that reduce incoming damage wouldn't matter since the flamers only do 1 damage anyway.

If there are any other buffs that could make the IH leviathan more survivable I'm not familiar with them, but at least using the base stuff, that would indeed be a dead Leviathan using nothing but 6 Salamanders flamestorm aggressors and 2cp.

I was really joking, but thank you for doing the math on that. I would say that the IH Relic Leviathan would be a character, and thus untargetable unless your opponent is very unskilled. Unless the Salamanders have character targeting, which I was unaware of?

But no, I was joking. Hence the /jk

Cheers!

Leviathans have more than 9 wounds so they would be targetable.

The reason why Leviathan being a character was important was to grant it Relics and Warlord traits, and to protect it with the Cogitated Martyrdom stratagem, turning a unit of Space Marines in to Shield Drones for the Leviathan for a phase, further exacerbating it's absurd defensive stats.

Edit: for the sake of trying to not derail the thread in to yet another IH thread... I'm excited to try out Salamanders with my custom Chapter. Gotta come up with a company style fluff that would suit the Salamanders uniqueness... 9 Aggressors and some other fun stuff should make for a nice list, hopefully not puppy-kicking levels since that's not what I always look for in a list. I built an "Iron Hands" company list when their supplement came out, before the world knew they were borked and then couldn't play them in good conscience. Unfortunately, Primaris don't have much of either Flamer or Melta stuff aside from flamer Aggressors, so I can't go full Burn the Unclean, but I'm hoping it'll be fun.

What are peoples thoughts on promethean cult affecting flamestorm gauntlets (a flame weapon) in the fight phase? Jumping out of a repulsor, burning things then punching something big might not be the worst idea ever.

Insularum wrote:
What are peoples thoughts on promethean cult affecting flamestorm gauntlets (a flame weapon) in the fight phase? Jumping out of a repulsor, burning things then punching something big might not be the worst idea ever.

I did the math in the first post. It's very potent.

I think you forgot to add the mortal wound strat. On a 4++ roll wound you apply a mortal wound. This strat applies to a single model in a unit.

Thus for an aggressor shooting twice, that's 24 wound rolls. If Vulkan is nearby you get re-rolls to wound for flamer weapons

Thus you should be a able to do 16 mortal wounds with that aggressor in addition to all the normal damage.

 Gareth_Evans wrote:
I think you forgot to add the mortal wound strat. On a 4++ roll wound you apply a mortal wound. This strat applies to a single model in a unit.

Thus for an aggressor shooting twice, that's 24 wound rolls. If Vulkan is nearby you get re-rolls to wound for flamer weapons

Thus you should be a able to do 16 mortal wounds with that aggressor in addition to all the normal damage.

I didn't know that existed until I saw the reviews. There's also the 'vets of the long war' type stratagem that adds another +1 to the wound roll. So that's +2 to the wound roll in turn 2 for flamer weapons, on top of maximum shots from flamers, on top of mortal wounds...

AND there's a strat that lets you count as remaining stationary as long as you don't advance. So if you can get within range of your opponent (using that successor chapter trait of +3" range to your weapons), you have a 16" threat range with those flamers and can STILL fire twice.

It's a lot of CP, but SOMETHING is going to die.

The thing that really holds back the aggressors at the very least is their range. Successor chapter for +3 is still only 11 inches on a 5 inch moving model. Granted they can advance, but then no double shooting. Only transport is a repulsor which are expensive with limited ways to stay alive against dedicated shooting. Yes the salamanders will be beyond brutal when they get their combo off, but you at least have counter play and the ability to limit that combo due to it's poor range.

 Tibs Ironblood wrote:
The thing that really holds back the aggressors at the very least is their range. Successor chapter for +3 is still only 11 inches on a 5 inch moving model. Granted they can advance, but then no double shooting. Only transport is a repulsor which are expensive with limited ways to stay alive against dedicated shooting. Yes the salamanders will be beyond brutal when they get their combo off, but you at least have counter play and the ability to limit that combo due to it's poor range.

and that, tbh, is a really good thing. I'd like to see more things like this, where there are clear weaknesses to something that otherwise would be very deadly.

There's things you can do to help the Aggressors get up into range, like casting Fire Shield on them for -1 to hit them in shooting, or you can charge them from outside their effective range (if they don't go with the +3" range boost). They do have t5 and 3 wounds, but plenty of weapons can deal with that quite quickly.

The Repulsor also degrades very quickly, and even at its middle bracket is reduced to chugging along just as fast as the aggressors are, which is kinda sad. But hey, that's the weakness.

If you could deep strike these Aggressors AND get all of these ridiculous combos off, then it'd be an auto-include. You would keep them in reserve, deep strike them turn 2 when the Tactical Doctrine is up, pop all of their combos, and annihilate something. Anything. Whatever your opponent's biggest threat is, you'd kill it. Turn 1 you would dedicate all your firepower to taking out your opponent's screens and chaff just so you could drop this ridiculous 144 auto-hit wounding on 4's (at worst against t8) combo that would have -1 ap. And then, tbh, you would stay in the tactical doctrine into turn 3 and drop ANOTHER set of aggressors turn 3 to do it all over again. It'd be an auto-include and would beg for nerfing, which would inadvertently nerf a lot of other things.

These strats can also be used on other stuff to make them more potent, like sternguard with flamers, incendium cannons on warsuits, land raider redeemers, but it's the sheer number of shots that aggressors get that makes them so juicy.

And if your opponent doesn't deal with them, then they *will* get up into your face and flame something and hurt it good. And if they do, well, that's a 210 point distraction carnifex that your opponent focused down and you've still got the rest of your 1790 points to work with.