Oh I see the Redeemer is 15cm range now? Didn't it use to be 30cm? Do other units use the flamestorm cannon with those stats? It is pretty much an air assault tank with its main weapons being 15cm range, can't see it getting to fire much in a game, or for that matter getitng choosen over a regular land raider. Certainly I can see no reason if not air inserting.
GlynG wrote:
There are stats for the Predator's melta already: the weapon is called a Magna-Melta and it's 15cm MW4+, small arms MW. It's also the main gun on the Caestus Assault Ram, which is in a couple of other epic lists already with agreed and tested stats. It only has an 18” range in 40k (less than a Bolter) so it needs to be 15cm like other Melta weapons. I don't really see the problem though – it has exceedingly powerful weapons but close range ones it needs to get up close and personal to use, so being a trade off. Magna-melta and two Heavy Flamers would be a good choice, probably need to cost 75 points though yeah? That is a pretty powerful set of weapons.
It is a powerful set of weapons... off a landing craft. we did lots of Salamander playtests and the combination of ground pounding and fewer formations meant getting into 15cm range resulted in a lot of doubling and being CC'd a lot. It is far harder than regular marines to get the drop on formations. One of the reasons for the more expenive transports was the increased firepower, but only at short range.
Note they still get transports because they aren't a marine armour list, rather a mech list and marines have the distinction of being able to transport mech formations (which the main list doesn't need to use much).
The calculation would change a bit if you could take formations of them, then they would be more effective (especially by air). The main use for pred incinerators in the original tests were to make a mech assualt formation - 2 preds, 4 assault marines, 250 points. In practice plink at 45cm after doubling, use vehicles for cover, engage. Those types of tactics would be worse here due to the drop in range, but the assault would be 'harder'. For the Tacs and Devs you were better off adding Land Raiders to give them better armour.
Still the combination of MW and IC would really upset Imperial Fists in their super marine bunkers
Currently with 2 tank upgrade slots a formation takes a land raider as the spearhead and a hunter for AA. Where would the pred fit in? Note they don't get lots of tank upgrades as the idea is they are a mechanised infantry list, not the marine tank list.
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It strongly fits the theme for one thing? Being AP3+ with ignore cover it's significantly more killy than a twin HB turret for only slightly less range and you'll want to get close to make use of MMs and FF anyway. I would prefer twin Heavy Flamer to be the only available RB turret choice in the list, as it's a powerful choice but the decrease in AT availability adds a bit of a downside for the list overall, helping balance things.
AT avalibily is actually pretty critical. The marine formations lack for long range AT, provided normally by warhounds, aircraft, preds and terminators (less warhounds & aircraft, no AT shooting on the termies which is upsetting vs skimmers, leaving preds and the relatively more expensive raiders). They are great at short range, but get too short range and your chewed up formations reach their pristine formations...
I would rate 15cm AP3+IC considerably worse than twin las and worse than 30cm AP4+, just because so many times in testing getting to under 15cm to fire was counter productive.
Because there are less formations - particularily the fast assault formations - you don't get the chance to set up the supporting fire the list is actually good at getting. When doing the original idea there seemed to be 2 ways of getitng round the habit of marine mech formations either dying or getting too many transports knocked out. Lots of small cheap formations with the survivors getting to do stuff at close range, or tougher formations that were more likely to reach their objectives. The latter seemed better and fitted with the Salamander vibe, also played into the lack of assault marines and therefore bikes and speeders who often make up the bulk of the cheap formations.
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Given that Salamanders have distinctly slower reaction speeds that other SMs (they have initiative 3 in 40k rather than 4, which makes a significant difference in combat with many others striking before they can) maybe the list should have strategy rating 4 to represent this in epic?
Sallies were never seen as less strategic or less able to plan, so rather than a reduced strat rating the effect of fewer activations and slower overall striking speed than an standard marine armies gave the feeling of being behind the curve.
Looking at the list now I would be tempted to change:
Salamanders upgrade to a standard unit rather than 2 different types;
Razorback upgrade to a transport upgrade reading 'Replace any number of Rhinos with 1-2 Razorbacks at 25 points each, replace 2 razorbacks with one land raider or land raider redemer (can't think of a better way of wording that, idea is you can have a mix of rhinos, razors and land raiders);
Close support to 'Add up to two (in total) of the following vehicles: Predator X, hunter at 50? points each, Land Raider Redeemer and Land Raider Prometheus at 75 points each, Helios at 100 points each;
Delete Helios upgrade as a consequence.
Probably try and write the attack bike into the formation description.
Then look at the proposed pred and whether or not it is aviable unit for anything outside of air assault. If the redeemer is stuck at 15cm range might be quietly dropped, or left in but with no expectation people would want to take it!
Course that is based on me now with ideas that have perculated for a while - I would love to see Ortrons comments!
