I've been looking again at the Firestorm list in the previous entry, and I can't quite decide whether to stick with my Captain, or use the same 100 points and count him as Vulkan? (The mini is armed with a sword, shield and holstered pistol, but I can easily say he's also hiding a Pyreblaster under his cloak to count as the Gauntlet!)

Captain 80pts
Heavy Bolt Pistol, MC Power Sword, Relic Shield
+Enhancement: Adamantine Mantle 20pts
-Or-
Vulkan He'stan 100pts

Joining:
+Ancient 50pts
Power Sword
+Enhancement: Champion of Humanity 10pts
+Infernus Squad (x10) 170pts
+Repulsor 190pts
Twin Lascannon, Las-talon

But who to lead them? I don't plan to take any other Chapter specific units or characters, so if the army is technically Salamanders Keyword, that doesn't cause any problems. Comparison of the two characters:

Vulkan's vs Captain's gear:
His Spear is very close to the MC Power Sword. It has +1Str, but you don't get the 3 extra attacks from Finest Hour. They are only added once per game though, so I think Vulkan maybe edges a win here?

Vulkan's Bolt Pistol loses the 1 AP of the Captain's Heavy version, but you gain his Gauntlet which is a clear winner in every way (same range, same AP and Dam, lots more hits, ignores Cover, Torrent, plus Str7 from being in the Firestorm Detachment, and benefits from reroll Wounds against Vulkan's Forgefather target!)

Defensively, you lose 1W from the Relic Shield and the -1Dam of the Adamantine Mantle, but gain a 2+ Sv and 6+ FNP (or even 4+ if you can get him onto the Seeker of Relics Objective). I'm not sure about the maths here, but I think Vulkan is at least as good, if not slightly better?

Rules/strats:
Forgefather: gives the Infernus Squad reroll Wounds against 1 target per turn, which I think is probably comparable to the Captain's free Strat for them per turn, though obviously a bit less versatile? Plus other Melta/Torrent squads nearby can benefit too! (With the Str6 from Firestorm on all those flamers, plus if you also pop the Immolation Protocols Strat to fish for Devastating Wounds, Forgefather becomes downright nasty!)

Seeker of the Relics: Obviously, whichever Objective I aim the unit at will be nominated as the Seeker target if I take Vulkan, gaining him its boosts when he gets there. He also combo's pretty well with the Ancient while sitting on that Objective, with a substantial OC33 between the 2 characters and the Infernus Squad, plus another OC5 from the Repulsor!

So, if you have the extra 20pts, is it always better to just take Vulkan? Or am I missing anything?

Anyway, in other news, managed to ebay a Questoris Knight for £65 (complete with all the Canis Rex, Warden, etc sprues) so pretty happy with that! So, I think my next blog post will detail some of the ideas I've had for the Freeblade's name/colours/fluff. Stay tuned!