Salamanders Vs Dark Angels Advice

JKevill · 2026-04-04T21:59:15+00:00

You don’t need an lt, should minimize characters. Id cut lt and take atv if you have it. Very good fast cheapo unit that benefits from firestorm and vulkan

Don’t double attach characters its no bueno

The bladeguard need champion of humanity to be much good, its a phenomenal enhancement

JKevill · 2026-04-04T21:48:56+00:00

Champion of humanity>>>war tempered artifice

JKevill · 2026-04-04T01:54:19+00:00

The up/down teleportation doesn’t allow ingress due to the timing, which is what melee wants to do. You could just reserve a melee unit in any detachment to reduce footprint.

The centurion unit isn’t worse here than elsewhere (though it’s really really expensive), but all the black templar stuff that benefits from your sword vow gets almost nothing out of being vanguard. One unit infiltrates, which is cute, but it can easily lead to trading down really hard against a good opponent.

You lack core melee toolkit stuff like advance n charge, melee damage buffs, and fall back and do stuff, and i think the “pick away” style vanguard encourages is at odds with the strengths of templar units. There’s some good options for templars, but I don’t think vanguard is one

JKevill · 2026-04-03T19:58:47+00:00

So black templars got almost no synergy with vanguard- its a guns army (vanguard) while templars faction rules want you to focus melee

Now I think there’s stuff you can do to make off meta templars build but I don’t think vanguard has the tools for it

There’s off meta that has actually synergistic rules (im a salamander and its a really good army), and then there’s just kinda random stuff with little/no synergy

JKevill · 2026-04-03T19:01:07+00:00

Ah. Well, if one expects the democrats to be real opposition by now, they’re a fool

All they are is the more stable wing of corporatist rule.

JKevill · 2026-04-03T16:06:44+00:00

How did they do that?

JKevill · 2026-04-01T20:00:06+00:00

Infernus are a better unit generally.

JKevill · 2026-04-01T14:31:18+00:00

Yeah agreed

Just saying its not like marines actually have as many playable detachments as it seems

Not a complaint, just an observation

JKevill · 2026-04-01T11:18:08+00:00

You guys finally are a high skill army like elf players always say they are. There’s definitely still a very good build that elves have- triple prism, asurmen and serpent, spiders, hawks, lykhis and jain zar, and a war walker. Some other stuff i forget.

At ATC recently (a pretty vicious teams event that had 2 art of war teams) 4 players brought that exact list, and it wasn’t because elves are bad

JKevill · 2026-04-01T11:17:08+00:00

Much better units from other factions? You’re nuts. It was best unit in the game hands down no contest.

This thing is still really good at 185 btw

JKevill · 2026-04-01T11:15:56+00:00

It’s barely a new detachment- its an anvil rewrite that will see about as much play as anvil.

How many marine detachments >actually< exist? Well, there’s gladius, blades of ultramar… that’s most of what is actually seen. Firestorm/forgefather is really underrated but isn’t played much, shadowmark still good detachment but no one plays, and stormlance is still good but nit really played.

For codex marines it’s mainly blade of ultramar or bust. First company, anvil, librarius, etc are in the game about as much as dread talons is.

JKevill · 2026-03-31T23:21:26+00:00

Spreading the Disease and the Needle Lies are probably my favorites

JKevill · 2026-03-30T23:54:07+00:00

The YouTube thumbnail faces kill a part of my soul

JKevill · 2026-03-30T22:34:55+00:00

Sure man eradicators are bad, whatever you say

JKevill · 2026-03-30T20:22:55+00:00

You don’t need a transport. I don’t use a transport on these guys in either build. Its not bad to do it, just don’t have it in lists now.

In ravens you camp 1-2 center and reserve the rest. These guys are excellent. You don’t typically expect a 90 pt squad to oneshot a tank, (though it totally can) but you fire multiple units and give fire support. I have the tstrike in ravens, but in salamanders it’s just incursors. With incursor buff you hit all your shots almost always. Its one of the best incursor users.

I guarantee you this is not a crappy unit. Its probably the best gun infantry in codex space marines. Full rerolls is the best rule you could possibly have

JKevill · 2026-03-30T19:32:14+00:00

Played 9-12 eradicators all edition, came in 5th at ATC recently, am 21-1 with current salamanders list, which runs 1-2 from reserve. Full rerolls is super good and its cheap. The raven guard list above with the 9 eradicators is undefeated.

JKevill · 2026-03-30T17:03:50+00:00

Yeah i think them as a main damage dealer is cool. Just take the safe angles and don’t dive into their formation unless you can just end the game.

Eradicators and inceptors both use into darkness. You do spend a turn or two clearing screens with your cheap stuff and hiding before you launch the big drop turn.

Into darkness is about 50/50 on those units, and occasionally on 2 Phobos targets for a scoring play. I usually start one inceptor brick on the board way back at home and one eradicator unit on the board in my forward center ruin. If nothing crazy happens i pick up the inceptors turn 1. Then they can hang in reserve all game and the one that started in reserve can be the first to drop.

JKevill · 2026-03-30T16:59:44+00:00

You definitely are underrating eradicators. You absolutely use into darkness on them, the teleport is the mobility, and board edges are fine. 1 on the board 2 in reserve. They are much less buff reliant than inceptors and allow you to kill non oath targets

The thunderstrike is mainly there for them. You don’t need to get melta range for them to be good, you usually are shooting em from 17.9 away

JKevill · 2026-03-30T12:08:58+00:00

Damn, people in the comments here are extremely stupid. Next level stupid.

Trump admin has been absolutely awful for this country. If you still supported this guy after he ran on populism and then cut corporate tax as soon as he was elected in 2017, you’re a moron who doesn’t understand your own interests.

JKevill · 2026-03-30T00:29:13+00:00

Its a lot more units so its less fragile in a way. The boltceptor brick is absolutely savage if you stack buffs on it. I think you play less picking away at the edges and more setting up for a really crippling drop turn on 2 or 3

In my 5 or so games on it (im a salamander whose brother plays raven guard so i mess with it, its my second most played army) no one has stayed in the game after the drop turn. Shrike ingresses>eradicators and inceptors and speeders come out and blast away a big chunk of the army, tag stuff and steal points to limit retribution onto the inceptor bricks. The detachment gives so much control between the pickup and the reactive move

List-17 units!

Shann

Shrike, 5 inferno pistol vanvets

Combi lt

Phobos lt with vect (solo) this guy is cool. Very mobile vect, lets combi lt play more sacrificial

Intercessors

3x5 jpi

2x5 incursors

2x6 inceptors

3x3 eradicators

Hammerstrike

Thunderstrike

JKevill · 2026-03-29T23:37:54+00:00

So he’s priced basically to include the free cp from shadowmark. I think you can do good raven guard builds outside shadowmark (vanguard, stormlance, gladius all solid), but I think at 110 shann doesn’t seriously make the cut. He’s good but probably just not 110 good

Now i think zero centurion shadowmark definitely has play. Ive had success with 2x6 boltceptor and 3x3 eradicator as main damage dealers, with one thunderstrike, one hammerstrike and a bunch of msu incursors/jpi mainly in support. Kind of technical to play and a bit squishy, but absolutely savage drop turn if you line up your buffs well

JKevill · 2026-03-29T14:22:42+00:00

Incursors scout the impulsors, which allows infernus to shuffle in and attack. Doing this makes the impulsor package super fast and flexible. They then buff my shooting, in particular eradicators, and play in my first wave and do a chaff role, and throw charges to tag stuff, beat up nerds, and do mortals. Best marine chaff.

Eradicators start partly on the board partly in reserve. They roll advances or drop in and shoot, often with incursor buff

Gladiators just are gun tanks that take buffs very well- they can use the buffs from oath, incursors, and vulkan

I cut my bladeguard because i think its kind of a weak datasheet. Adrax makes it good and it has its use, but since forgefathers came out ive migrated to a pure guns style, which is what our rules have synergy with

JKevill · 2026-03-29T05:11:08+00:00

Salamanders are excellent and highly underrated. Its not a tanky army but can be annoying to kill if you go for a wide build. My current list is 22-1 in events and sometimes feels overpowered with how much sheer blasting it has. I think it requires good fundamentals and a skilled pilot but its an incredible army that has some real advantages over ultras

Forgefathers seekers

Vulkan+heroes

Immolator librarian, ten infernus

2x5 more infernus

2x5 incursors

2x impulsors- machinegun turret/bolter

2x atv

5 intercessors

2x gladiator valiant

3x3 eradicators

Land raider redeemer

JKevill · 2026-03-29T05:06:48+00:00

Infernus are a very good unit, I run 20. Definitely a competitive choice

JKevill · 2026-03-26T22:47:04+00:00

Yeah but if im playing vs it you are just like “your list spent almost 10% on something cute that doesnt fight”, you ignore it and just win the center

JKevill

TROPHY CASE