HH 2.0 The Pyre Guard: XVIIIth Legion Tactica

[arnesh88]

So I had more practice against more armies at Adepticon with Phyrix Outer Reaches event. Wanted to share some info for other Salamanders players that I took away from it.

 

- While my critiques of the army still stand when playing against more competitive minded players, the legion rules overall felt pretty good in narrative games. I dealt with enough Volkite and Plasma for the Legion rules to help out. Advanced Reaction performed as well as I expected, turning the tide of a lot of fights. It's not uncommon for me to use a Movement reaction to intentionally move closer to either prevent my opponent from charging another unit or to guarantee the use of the +1 WS/S/A portion of the legion reaction. I still hated the 6+ IWND. After 15+ games, it never helped and just wasted time rolling dice.

 

- I ran 2 separate Flame Predators. Had some really bad luck with immobilization in my first 2 games (even with dozer blades), but when at least one of them was able to move around, they did a surprising amount of work. Kept ramming and getting snap shots on the offensive, forcing a lot of falling back or wounds. They're really fun. When you have enough other big threats and play objective-based missions, they tend to be left alone. I even had 1 game where my predator went full tilt on the first 2 turns, and started chasing/attempting to ram my opponents scorpius, so it lost its 4+ rending as it tried to keep away.

 

- Vulkan tanks like a mf-er. He did good combat work, but that durability was the big reason to take him. He tanked 10 lascannons and a vindicator laser destroyer in a round of shooting, only took a wound when the dust settled. I think he works better when with pyroclasts or regular tactical squads than firedrakes, only because he doesn't add much to them and is slowed down by them. Granted, it's a very thematic choice to do so.

 

- Firedrakes is the most consistently good performing unit for me. I have yet to have a game where they didn't do work, both in and out of Adepticon. I only ran a 5-man squad, but that should say just how effective they were.

 

- Tactical Support Squads with flamers worked best for me as a 5 man in a rhino to hold backfield objectives. Bumping them up more models beyond that only makes them get in each others way, limiting how many templates you can lay down. However, I'll sometimes take advantage of the rhino getting wrecked from a close shooting unit and failing the leadership check to only fire snap shots with the flamers (I know you can't elect to fail a leadership check, but it did happen, and it's great to know that their flamers are still scary in either situation). Otherwise, just leave them in their box to keep them safe from snipers/artillery, or hop them out and let the rhino loose to keep ramming with a pintle mounted dragon's breath heavy flamer.

 

- Pyroclasts, despite how much they have improved from last edition, are very bipolar in games. They are either amazing and take a lot of shots and dish out punishment, or they become an expensive unit that your opponent will have no problem taking out. Not as good as I had hoped in close combat, with their relatively high number of attacks only being at WS 4. In narrative games, a 10 man unit with a transport feels about right, no need to go beyond that unless you have a theme in mind.

 

- If you wanted to skew Salamanders a certain way, focusing on durability feels like a good route. With my list, I tried to spread out the different types of durability so that I wouldn't fall victim to 1 specific weakness. I had 3++ invuls with the Firedrakes, 2+ saves and multiple wounds with the firedrakes and pyroclasts, a large blob of tactical marines with an apothecary, land raiders, flare shields (I ran a kratos with it, but there's plenty of options that fit that category), a single leviathan (T8 plus its armor), extra shooting reaction for shrouding, etc.

Edited April 8, 2023 by arnesh88

[Ripper.McGuirl]

On 4/8/2023 at 2:27 AM, arnesh88 said:

So I had more practice against more armies at Adepticon with Phyrix Outer Reaches event. Wanted to share some info for other Salamanders players that I took away from it.

 

- While my critiques of the army still stand when playing against more competitive minded players, the legion rules overall felt pretty good in narrative games. I dealt with enough Volkite and Plasma for the Legion rules to help out. Advanced Reaction performed as well as I expected, turning the tide of a lot of fights. It's not uncommon for me to use a Movement reaction to intentionally move closer to either prevent my opponent from charging another unit or to guarantee the use of the +1 WS/S/A portion of the legion reaction. I still hated the 6+ IWND. After 15+ games, it never helped and just wasted time rolling dice.

 

- I ran 2 separate Flame Predators. Had some really bad luck with immobilization in my first 2 games (even with dozer blades), but when at least one of them was able to move around, they did a surprising amount of work. Kept ramming and getting snap shots on the offensive, forcing a lot of falling back or wounds. They're really fun. When you have enough other big threats and play objective-based missions, they tend to be left alone. I even had 1 game where my predator went full tilt on the first 2 turns, and started chasing/attempting to ram my opponents scorpius, so it lost its 4+ rending as it tried to keep away.

 

- Vulkan tanks like a mf-er. He did good combat work, but that durability was the big reason to take him. He tanked 10 lascannons and a vindicator laser destroyer in a round of shooting, only took a wound when the dust settled. I think he works better when with pyroclasts or regular tactical squads than firedrakes, only because he doesn't add much to them and is slowed down by them. Granted, it's a very thematic choice to do so.

 

- Firedrakes is the most consistently good performing unit for me. I have yet to have a game where they didn't do work, both in and out of Adepticon. I only ran a 5-man squad, but that should say just how effective they were.

 

- Tactical Support Squads with flamers worked best for me as a 5 man in a rhino to hold backfield objectives. Bumping them up more models beyond that only makes them get in each others way, limiting how many templates you can lay down. However, I'll sometimes take advantage of the rhino getting wrecked from a close shooting unit and failing the leadership check to only fire snap shots with the flamers (I know you can't elect to fail a leadership check, but it did happen, and it's great to know that their flamers are still scary in either situation). Otherwise, just leave them in their box to keep them safe from snipers/artillery, or hop them out and let the rhino loose to keep ramming with a pintle mounted dragon's breath heavy flamer.

 

- Pyroclasts, despite how much they have improved from last edition, are very bipolar in games. They are either amazing and take a lot of shots and dish out punishment, or they become an expensive unit that your opponent will have no problem taking out. Not as good as I had hoped in close combat, with their relatively high number of attacks only being at WS 4. In narrative games, a 10 man unit with a transport feels about right, no need to go beyond that unless you have a theme in mind.

 

- If you wanted to skew Salamanders a certain way, focusing on durability feels like a good route. With my list, I tried to spread out the different types of durability so that I wouldn't fall victim to 1 specific weakness. I had 3++ invuls with the Firedrakes, 2+ saves and multiple wounds with the firedrakes and pyroclasts, a large blob of tactical marines with an apothecary, land raiders, flare shields (I ran a kratos with it, but there's plenty of options that fit that category), a single leviathan (T8 plus its armor), extra shooting reaction for shrouding, etc.

Bummed I missed this until now! Would have loved to pick your brain while fresh, but oh well!

What legions/factions have you struggled against? Which did you feel were a good match up for us? Is there anything you find yourself saying “if I only had a *blank*, I would be in better shape”?

[arnesh88]

@Ripper.McGuirl Salamanders primarily struggle against gun lines and shooty armies that have a lot of mobility. I’d say Iron Warriors and White Scars are our toughest opponents. IW because SL rely more heavily on transports to get close (and can turn anti-infantry weapons to blink off Hull Points of vehicles), and WS because of how mobile they are in bike heavy armies that want to keep away (though their are other legions that can do this).

 

Hard to say who we truly are good against. We probably cancel out a lot of Night Lords rules, so maybe them? Combined arms and assault armies can be trouble if the opponent can get things to line up and overwhelm units to prevent good reaction use.

 

If there’s anything I would say we can be in better shape while staying close to our flavor, it would be either to give our flamers breaching (6+) or the ability to elect to fire Wall of Death. Breaching would help against Heavy sub-types, and WoD without restrictions would be great for our larger flamer squads. If I got to chose, I would go for the latter, just so opponents still have counter play.

Edited May 21, 2023 by arnesh88

[Ripper.McGuirl]

Got another ZM game in and have some fun findings!

First: Heavy flamers are definitely not worth shooting at heavy things. I thought I would do at least a little damage to some breachers to slow them down, and ended up dumping 90 wounds on them over a shooting phase/wall of death/shooting phase....and killed 2. That was out of 100 hits, I did 90 wounds, and killed 2 hahaha so yeah, Heavy does work against even 2+ wounds in bulk.

Second: I put 5 adherents with a champion and ran them at a squad of 10 templars, and I did pretty ok. I ground the out for the whole game and managed to get them down to 3 models. My champion was barebones on foot in artificer armour. The adherents really did ok when they pulled off their WS bump. Templars were only hitting and wounding on 4s, and we have 2 wounds, so they were able to just stall the whole game. If I had a power weapon or fist/hammer in there, they would have done even better and may have won a couple of those rounds, particularly the first round when my champion iced their sergeant.

Overall, I'd use the adherents again, but will probably leave the heavy flamers at home unless I'm playing a giant game and need points, or I eventually make a termite drill army and just want the laugh factor of jumping them out of the ground and lighting everything on fire. I will also probably build a tartaros champion with a shield for when I have a couple more points to play with. I'd love to have that extra wound, but still be able to sweep.

[Dont-Be-Haten]

I really like what the Adherents bring to the table, just at base. I don't think you need the investment in heavy flamers for them. Fist or hammer on thr sergeant feels right.

 

I've built a 1500 point list for ZM for Sallies, to be molded into a future allied detachment for my Raven Guard. A la shattered legions. Drakes make me want more of them. 

 

The pyroclast are also quite good.

[Ripper.McGuirl]

I have been loving my Salamanders in the new ZM! Adherents, Inductii, Pyros and Drakes all pull their weight. Our legion reaction has saved a couple games for me, too.

Overall, I think that even though our legion trait doesnt make all that much of a difference most of the time, our shields/mastercrafting/some of the best legion units in the game really add up to quite a good force, especially in ZM.

[arnesh88]

ZM is the total opposite of normal HH games for Salamanders. Pyros are really good at breaking through locked doors, Adherents are great shock troops, and Firedrakes can go toe-to-toe with a lot of things, even dreads. Regular DB flamers basically become the heavy version, for less points and less reinforcement points (as they're troops).

Adherents seem to be the MVPs for me, as they're a good inbetween of Support Squads and Pyroclasts, with the only downside being that they're Support Squads (so still need Tacticals or some other Compulsory Troop).

[Ripper.McGuirl]

Agreed completely. Besides being a support squad which is not a huge hurdle, Adherents are also not Line, which is kinda sad.

In ZM my only real stumbling block is that both our rites require the extra character, which is a ton of reinforcement points to tie up. 
My untested idea there is to put him in a terminator command squad with a delegatus and have that just be the only thing to deploy on the first turn, and let everything else run in T2 and hope I’m not too far behind on objectives.

[arnesh88]

Sanctity Squads: How would you run them? What do you like or dislike about them?

 

Likes:

   - They have that Destroyer look without being Destroyers (which we more often than not can't take), and can have a character attached that destroyers normally can't
   - Dual-wielding Volkite Serpenta or Dragon's Breath Pistols with the Traitor warlord trait looks like a fun moment in a game

   - A reason for me to use the rotor cannons that I haven't used

   - Just a really fun modelling opportunity, a good way to use up spare parts from the sky-hunters that other players may not use (bits trade)

   - WS 5 entire squad meltabombs

 

Cons:

   - Overlap with Adherents too much. Unless running some Volkite gunkata, they almost do the exact same thing.

   - Limited to Land Raider transports. Cool that all the legion unique units have LR as dedicated transports, this limits them from being able to take other transports from other RoW

   - Get really expensive real quick with upgrades.
 

Overall, the first real "meh" unique unit for Salamanders (Firedrakes, Pyroclasts, Adherents, and their Inductii are all pretty solid). Main purpose seems to be a "bits dump" unit. I still plan on building a squad because I have such bits, and they look cool. Otherwise, I would not have bothered.

Edited December 1, 2023 by arnesh88

[Ripper.McGuirl]

@arnesh88 I think using up bits are about all I’d use them for. They are *almost* cool and unique but they stopped short of most of the things that would make me want to use them: more of the rotorcannons, being able to use them differently in one of the rites, being able to use them as a retinue, more or cheaper close combat options, the ability to go in a drill, jump packs, etc etc

Just being Destroyer Flavored without rad weapons removes basically the thing that makes destroyers unique and cool and doesnt replace it with anything.

They’ll be fun to try out in a ZM game or two but I don’t expect to use them a ton other than for doing weird lists.

Edited December 4, 2023 by Ripper.McGuirl

[arnesh88]

They're definitely in a weird spot because of trying to keep them 'lore' friendly (a lot of things they tend to not do (drop pods, jump packs, rad/phospherous, etc.)).

I think they could have benefitted from some sort of "incendiary grenade" that grants them Hammer of Wrath (X) counting as Flame weapons, or make them more focused on volkite weapons (maybe not worry about them being WS 5 and instead give their volkite Concussive or Blind or Breaching 6+).

[Ripper.McGuirl]

I agree!
Now: Rhy’tan officially counts as a chaplain now. Sounds like it may be a fun time to try Awakening Fire in ZM.

[Unknown Legionnaire]

Yeah, so does Xiaphas Jurr.

Now you can run Awakening Fire w. one combined MotL-Chaplain, plus two Salamander Librarians, like it was meant to but never possible before.

[Ripper.McGuirl]

5 hours ago, Unknown Legionnaire said:

Yeah, so does Xiaphas Jurr.

Now you can run Awakening Fire w. one combined MotL-Chaplain, plus two Salamander Librarians, like it was meant to but never possible before.

If only Jurr had MotL, we’d have a character that could access the Rite, satisfy the Chaplain requirement, AND use the powers.

But I do think he’d be fun to try in ZM, Rite or not, I just havent gotten to him.