I have always had a soft spot for the Salamanders Chapter and my plan over the next year is to paint my epic marines in their colours and also start on a 40k army to match.

While doing some research on markings and company colours, I discovered that as a Chapter, they don’t follow the normal Codex rules for structure and are quite different from the normal Codex organisational structure. The background and information can be found here:

http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Salamanders
http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Salamanders#.UNGqIKyAPSg
http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/index.php?autocom=ineo&showarticle=128

What this shows is that the Salamanders only operate with 7 companies rather than the usual 10, but each company numbers 120 men (apart from the scouts).
The 1st company is the Veteran Company, known as the “Fire Drakes” (not sure why the Net Epic Army List states the 8th Assault Company are the Fire Drakes, especially when there isn’t an 8th Company?).
1st Company contains 12 squads of Veterans (120 men) with associated support. They also mention that the 1st Company commander is also the Chapter Master, not just another captain/commander.
2nd, 3rd and 4th Companies are the Battle Companies. They each consist of 7 Tactical squads, 2 Assault squads and 3 Devastator squads. Again totalling 120 men.
5th and 6th Companies are called the Reserve Companies and are made up of 8 Tactical squads and 4 Devastator squads.
Lastly is the 7th Company which are the scouts. They consist of only 6 Scout squads.

Since discovering these differences I have been thinking about how to make them work in Epic along with associated point’s costs. I appreciate the work that has been done already on the Codex options, but I think there is room for a little expansion.

1st Company Veterans

Standard Veteran Company is 850 (9 squads, 90 men). Add another Veteran Detachment (300) to make 12 squads (120 men). Total would be 1150, make it 1100 because of the bulk discount .

Standard Terminator Company is 1000 (6 squads, 60 men). Double it, (120 men) to 2000. A bit pricey, but it would be hell a lot of fun putting 6 detachments (24 stands) of terminators on the battlefield .

2nd/3rd/4th Battle Companies

These look like the tricky ones as they have odd numbers of squads. But in reality we are just moving a squad from the Assault detachment into the Tactical (both cost the same in points) and adding another Tactical detachment to the Company.
So a Battle Company normally costs 850. Adding another Tactical detachment (250) brings it to 1100.
The Tactical stands could be fielded as a detachment of 7 squads, or one of 4 and one of 3. The Assault squads would be their own detachment of 2 squads; likewise the Devastators would be a standard detachment of 3 squads.

5th/6th Reserve Companies

Similar to the Battle Company, we start by moving another Assault squad into Tactical to make them 8 strong. Then we have to upgrade the remaining Assault squad to a Devastator which needs a little number crunching. An Assault stand is approximately 83 pts, and a Devastator is 117, this increases the cost by 34. So 884 for a Company, round it to the nearest 25 is 875. Could potentially reduce it to 850 or increase to 900 if it would be easier to manage the numbers.
When fielded I suspect it would be easiest to run the squads in detachments of 4 squads, so 2 Tactical, 1 Devastator.

7th Company Scouts

Easy one since we are just losing a detachment (150), so cost becomes 300.


Anyone see anything out of place with my logic for these?


To also support the theme of the Salamanders, I think there could be a few additions to the troop options.

We have the stats for Tactical, Assault and Devastator Flamer stands, but I think there is room for the Flamer Veterans as well. Maybe have them with similar weapon stats as the Tactical stand (25cm range, 4+ hit, ignore cover), but an additional -1 save mod to take into account the plethora of meltas they also carry (Veterans are known for carrying a multitude of combi flamers/meltas).
This would allow all types of stands (barring Scouts) to be replaced with a flamer equivalent.

Salamanders are also known for specialising in Thunder Hammer/Storm Shield equipped squads of Terminators, more so than other chapters (in fact there is very little reason to take any other type of Terminator in a 40k Salamander army).
So maybe something along the lines of being similar to the Close Assault Terminator, but reducing the CAF by 1 to +7, and increasing the fixed save to a 5+. If people didn’t want another unit in the list, then I think there is an argument for allowing normal Terminators to be replaced with Close Assault ones.

If I get the chance I will see if my friends would be willing to test a few games against these all the ideas above and report back.

Any thoughts from anyone?

Matt

Hi Mattman,

NetEpic Astartes Codex is based on what was know in 40K v2. So all the fluff that was added in the GW Codex Astartes book was no taken in account.

I'm fine with it incidentally why not just make the terminator company able to take either Close-Assault or Normal Terminator detachments. Another option in less relaxed games would be just to use the support cards for the extra detachments.

_________________
Rightyus Indergestyun I
Stabb-Blasta II

Verum Irae II

Hey Dave,

Of course the easy option would be to just add the units from support cards (I will likely just do that anyway when building an army in the future), I wanted to just throw the idea out there about alternative company formations and mirroring how a Chapter is actually organised since we already have the rules for some of them.

Matt

I understand that it's more for more serious minded opponents than me.

_________________
Rightyus Indergestyun I
Stabb-Blasta II

Verum Irae II