Shoutouts to Nick Williams for helping me with the article, Patrick Zoro Allen, Nathan Arnold, and Christian Berthelsen for feedback, and Brian Lutrell and Juan Hidalgo Gonzalez for helping me learn the army and always willing to offer advice on lists I throw on facebook.
If you are unfamiliar with the salamander army, I would suggest pulling up easyarmy and looking over the stats of units that I discuss when you get to their sections, this article was already really long and adding the statlines would make it longer than I was really willing to go.
Exclaimer! this is with competitive play in mind first, and I've tried my best to keep any suggested changes to be as minor as I can within reason. Don't blame me when I rewrite the skyraiders statline to be drakon equivalents :P
To kick off the address, i'd like to offer a brief synopsis of the army as a whole, before delving into specific units in detail.
The Good
Salamanders got an awful lot better after the CoK 17 changes, turning a kaisenor regiment from a woefully inconsistent centaur wannabe into a pretty strong medium cav unit in it's own right. Clan Lords became at least decent at doing wounds, and the fire drakes breath attack 16 went from 190 points of very meh attacks bolted on a breath machine into a pretty good option with respectable punch behind it. These changes resulted in players like Chris Booth able to win local events in his meta, and I have seen similar results from other small tournaments. The hero section is one of the stronger ones in the game, and many different builds can be made from those unlocks alone. The army can at least function as something other than a fire elemental list, and I believe could be piloted to the top of major events with a lot of luck with matchups.
The Bad
There is a good third to half of the list that is still overcosted by a fair margin, many of the infantry units in the army still suffer from a lack of any noticeable discount for their increased base size, especially for unblooded at the horde level and ceremonial guard at the regiment level. What I'd argue as the single worst unit in Kings of War with the skyraiders remained unchanged, and desperately needs to do something different than 12" shooting to even begin to be considered a valid option within the list. There are also issues with the point levels at regiments all falling near each other for the special units, kaisenors, ancients, and ceremonial guard all cost within 10 points of each other and this detracts a lot from the two speed 5 units as you basically gain 3 speed, 3 attacks, and tc1 for a -1 in defense in comparison with the ceremonial guard, and -1 nerve -1 to hit in regards to the ancients.
Lekilidons and Komodons occupying the same slots creates a real issue for unlocks, and prevents the army from having both in a reasonable amount, which causes more issues for the speed 5 infantry as these 2 units are really great support for salamanders but cannot be used together at a competitive points level. Ankylodon battle platforms are 90 points over a greater earth elemental for very little gain on investment, and regular fire drakes are still with a woefully poor attack and nerve. There is also an issue where the infantry tends to be speed 5, but the rest of the army is speed 6-10 and wants to race forward faster than the salamanders can keep up.
The army really depends on its suite of heroes to pull the weight, and you rely on their smaller dice pools to deal the most consistent damage, a bad turn of dice can really swing a game against you harder than it would most armies. The added cost of the unlocking units means that at games past 1750 you start to see the army play at a lower drop count than most others, even without taking a large number of elite units. Gun line lists can take out a very significant portion of the army before the salamanders can reach there if piloted correctly, and armies like varangur and herd can smash into the salamanders harder than they can with similar costed units.
Tyrants remain a very hard sell with fire elementals available at a 10 point discount, and lack a true role in the army beyond another beatstick unit that can't actually go into a forest. For an army based around a unit from forces of nature, it has very minimal pathfinder access and many units use a TC1 CS1 combination for their punch, normally that's pretty good but these units also hit on a 4+, making terrain a nightmare for an army that occupies a larger board space per unit.
The Ugly
Not everything is quite doom and gloom for the army, there are a few matchups that i'd rate at a plus now, and lists built around clan lords on fire drakes can win games alone depending on the matchup. Armies that have a lot of low defense like ratkin or goblins can get picked apart with canny play of the dragons, and tools like the rhinosaurs help against dwarves and their evil cousins. A balanced salamander list, even with multiple dragons, is a strong starting point and requires finesse, but is one of the most rewarding armies to use in my experience.
As a salamander player you'll have to identify what units are the keys to winning, and your battle plan may have to change on the fly. I've often said that every unit that doesn't have breath 16 and fly is expendable, and that treatment of the army serves it well in my experience. The unit that was great in your dwarves matchup earlier could be your biggest liability against elves now, and understanding what can be tossed and what is necessary to win is important for an army with little to no innate chaff. This can be tough on the player if he's new or can't practice within a varied meta, but is not a true knock on the army, really its one of the qualities that I've loved the most about them. There is no easy way to win with salamanders, but there also is no one way to win, even a lowly ghekkotah regiment can be the key to winning a scenario or turning a flank for you.
Matchups
Plus Matchups- Dwarves/ Abyssal Dwarves
Minus Matchups- Elves/ Varangur
Notable Matchups- Ratkin/ Goblin/ Nightstalkers
Salamanders matchups can be the roughest part of playing at a high level. In my experience, I've struggled a lot against elves (going 0-2-3 between 3 gt's) and varangur (going 0-0-2). Elves can be played to opposite extremes of 100+ elite shooting, or speed 8 minimum with one shot capabilities across the board hitting. The biggest issue with this is these tend to be very common opponents (at least in my region), in 17 gt games I played Elves almost 1/3rd of the time, and elves and varangur made up nearly half of my games and almost all of my losses. Part of that is living in a meta with George O'Connell and Mike Austin, but mass shooting is the bane of almost all of a salamander players good options. Def 4 cav without pathfinder makes them hard to hide, and the dragons that tend to carry the army have the lowest nerve of any dragon in the game, making it hard to make them last.
Against Varangur it's a similar issue, those options having lower nerves means you can't take as much of a punch, and to beat varangur you have to weather the first wave with enough intact to counter punch, something that tends to not be available to you. When I've taught newer players how to play, I often tell the to try layering, it was the advice given to me when I first started and it helped a lot, however with an 11-12 drop salamander list there isn't a lot of beef to layer, and the chaff issue crops back up in this matchup. (what I wouldn't give for a kaisenor chaff unit, that I could have a chris pratt riding a motorcycle model included) Beating varangur isn't impossible in Salamanders, but it requires as much luck as it does skill, which puts it into my top 2 minus matchups.
On the plus matchups, I really like seeing Dwarves/ Abyssal Dwarves. Salamanders have an awful lot of tools to disrupt the dwarf battle line, if they use brocks/halfbreeds combined shooting from lekilidons and drakes can get you into one shot territory, and the defense 6 units are all within pretty clean one shots for a rhinosaur horde. Rhino's average 12 hits and 10 wounds against golems and earth elementals, combined with brutal putting you at 6's to break and the rhino's have a larger charge range. This doesn't mean you will have the easiest time in the world, but it's probably closer to the 55% range from my experience with them, which is about as good as you can get. Still requires very strong movement and consistent dice, you'll only get 1 chance to pop any given unit.
Ratkin and Goblins I put as a notable matchup, because in my experience if you take a build around fire drakes, and they take the classic trombone/ weapon team style build, if you play your drakes right, and don't get unlucky dice it's a pretty solid shot of popping them in one 16 dice breath attack. You should average 8 hits, and 4-5 wounds depending on vicious, putting you into the 6's to break range. Komodons are also a very swingy unit in this matchup, as they are height 4 and can just pluck the war machines out of the lines. If your meta has a lot of goblins and ratkin players I would strongly suggest trying komodons rather than lekilidons, same goes for orcs with war drums.
Nightstalkers are another matchup I've been enjoying with Salamanders, I haven't lost to them yet but they've always been really tight games. Both armies shooting has the potential to decimate the other, and it becomes a very tactical movement game to negotiate an advantage for either side. This could be considered a plus matchup since it's pretty close to 50/50 either side, and for Salamanders that's pretty good.
Top Five Units
Kaisenor Lancers- The unit that spawned the whole blog, when the CoK changes to salamander units were announced, I wrote a nice 500-700 word post on facebook about how I thought the change was going to displace the infantry regiments in the list, and I personally don't believe I was far off from that call. This unit won't win a game by themselves, but they sit at a particularly nice point range, where they have a high impact but a pretty low investment. They also take items very nicely with their healthy attack pool, and a bane chant on this unit puts your damage profile to 7-9 against def 5. I'd never leave home without one, maybe two depending on the list.
Ancients on Rhinosaurs- I've seen some people say kaisenors have replaced this option, but theres a few things this guy has going for him. He one shots large infantry. He one shots infantry regiments. He one shots monsters. He can't take a full infantry horde alone, but toss him wherever you want 10 wounds and he's your man, and the -/18 nerve can be deceptively strong. Keep rallying 1 nearby, but don't be afraid to lose the unit, it attracts an awful lot of hate, and can help activate the rest of the list because your opponent has to respect this unit.
Fire Elementals- I'll start by saying I hate this unit, and have already written an article on why I don't like it. It shouldn't be regular, like all of the elementals outside of forces of nature shouldn't be regular, that's why there's an army called nature. But that aside, this is another really strong unit and basically invalidates tyrants, -/17 nerve is again pretty solid, and they have a pretty similar damage profile to kaisenors. They can grind fairly well, and probably most importantly, have pathfinder so they can actually work with primes, unlike most of the rest of the army, or replace them if you want a smaller footprint. 200 pts for a horde unlock is also not a bad price for the package deal you get. Once the errata comes out on ghekkotah hordes they will replace this as the best horde option imo though, so keep that in mind moving forward.
Clan Lord on Fire Drake (With Wings)- The miracle worker himself, this guy went from arguably the worst dragon in the game, to maybe the third worst dragon. On the power level of dragons our one is not that spectacular, quite a few outperform it pretty badly for only a 20-30 point investment. I've previously said that I think this dragon and the deamonspawn in ratkin were the two best balanced dragons in the game, and I still stand by that statement. 15/17 nerve is the right nerve level for non living legend dragons across the board, varangur can be 16/18 but that should be it. You cannot play this unit loosely, my turns will often be 4-5 minutes of debating what to do with my dragons, and 1 minute on the rest of the army, which is what it should be for a unit that requires finesse. It is rewarding to use this unit properly, but disastrous if you make a mistake with them. Take one with boots of levitation or blessing of the gods, and practice as much as you can moving them and seeing the board as complete as you can, but understand they don't live forever and can't take a charge from anything with substance.
Lekilidon- The monster of choice for almost every salamander player, these guys are much in the clutch. Hitting on 3's in shooting is bonkers good, with piercing 1 to go with it, these guys can just lay in hurt onto def 4/3 units, and when you need that one extra wound to force a check there isn't a better option. I often refer to the unit as my lightning bolt in the list, moving gives you up to 24" shooting, at 4's to hit, and height 2 means you can stay put and shoot over lines during the middle turns at a respectable to hit. There is something to be said about komodons, who detract from these guys some because they occupy the same slot and depending on your meta may be better, but for a general take all comers list lekilidons are always consistent bread winners.
Notable Mention (Battle Captain w/ Wings) - Best chaff unit in the army, only dragged down by competing with the skylord, but take one or the other in every list, its the best chaff you have.
Bottom Five Units
For this section, I will also include possible ways to improve the unit through stat changes and rule additions given there is no way for points to change mid edition.
The Ugly
Not everything is quite doom and gloom for the army, there are a few matchups that i'd rate at a plus now, and lists built around clan lords on fire drakes can win games alone depending on the matchup. Armies that have a lot of low defense like ratkin or goblins can get picked apart with canny play of the dragons, and tools like the rhinosaurs help against dwarves and their evil cousins. A balanced salamander list, even with multiple dragons, is a strong starting point and requires finesse, but is one of the most rewarding armies to use in my experience.
As a salamander player you'll have to identify what units are the keys to winning, and your battle plan may have to change on the fly. I've often said that every unit that doesn't have breath 16 and fly is expendable, and that treatment of the army serves it well in my experience. The unit that was great in your dwarves matchup earlier could be your biggest liability against elves now, and understanding what can be tossed and what is necessary to win is important for an army with little to no innate chaff. This can be tough on the player if he's new or can't practice within a varied meta, but is not a true knock on the army, really its one of the qualities that I've loved the most about them. There is no easy way to win with salamanders, but there also is no one way to win, even a lowly ghekkotah regiment can be the key to winning a scenario or turning a flank for you.
Matchups
Plus Matchups- Dwarves/ Abyssal Dwarves
Minus Matchups- Elves/ Varangur
Notable Matchups- Ratkin/ Goblin/ Nightstalkers
Salamanders matchups can be the roughest part of playing at a high level. In my experience, I've struggled a lot against elves (going 0-2-3 between 3 gt's) and varangur (going 0-0-2). Elves can be played to opposite extremes of 100+ elite shooting, or speed 8 minimum with one shot capabilities across the board hitting. The biggest issue with this is these tend to be very common opponents (at least in my region), in 17 gt games I played Elves almost 1/3rd of the time, and elves and varangur made up nearly half of my games and almost all of my losses. Part of that is living in a meta with George O'Connell and Mike Austin, but mass shooting is the bane of almost all of a salamander players good options. Def 4 cav without pathfinder makes them hard to hide, and the dragons that tend to carry the army have the lowest nerve of any dragon in the game, making it hard to make them last.
Against Varangur it's a similar issue, those options having lower nerves means you can't take as much of a punch, and to beat varangur you have to weather the first wave with enough intact to counter punch, something that tends to not be available to you. When I've taught newer players how to play, I often tell the to try layering, it was the advice given to me when I first started and it helped a lot, however with an 11-12 drop salamander list there isn't a lot of beef to layer, and the chaff issue crops back up in this matchup. (what I wouldn't give for a kaisenor chaff unit, that I could have a chris pratt riding a motorcycle model included) Beating varangur isn't impossible in Salamanders, but it requires as much luck as it does skill, which puts it into my top 2 minus matchups.
On the plus matchups, I really like seeing Dwarves/ Abyssal Dwarves. Salamanders have an awful lot of tools to disrupt the dwarf battle line, if they use brocks/halfbreeds combined shooting from lekilidons and drakes can get you into one shot territory, and the defense 6 units are all within pretty clean one shots for a rhinosaur horde. Rhino's average 12 hits and 10 wounds against golems and earth elementals, combined with brutal putting you at 6's to break and the rhino's have a larger charge range. This doesn't mean you will have the easiest time in the world, but it's probably closer to the 55% range from my experience with them, which is about as good as you can get. Still requires very strong movement and consistent dice, you'll only get 1 chance to pop any given unit.
Ratkin and Goblins I put as a notable matchup, because in my experience if you take a build around fire drakes, and they take the classic trombone/ weapon team style build, if you play your drakes right, and don't get unlucky dice it's a pretty solid shot of popping them in one 16 dice breath attack. You should average 8 hits, and 4-5 wounds depending on vicious, putting you into the 6's to break range. Komodons are also a very swingy unit in this matchup, as they are height 4 and can just pluck the war machines out of the lines. If your meta has a lot of goblins and ratkin players I would strongly suggest trying komodons rather than lekilidons, same goes for orcs with war drums.
Nightstalkers are another matchup I've been enjoying with Salamanders, I haven't lost to them yet but they've always been really tight games. Both armies shooting has the potential to decimate the other, and it becomes a very tactical movement game to negotiate an advantage for either side. This could be considered a plus matchup since it's pretty close to 50/50 either side, and for Salamanders that's pretty good.
Top Five Units
Kaisenor Lancers- The unit that spawned the whole blog, when the CoK changes to salamander units were announced, I wrote a nice 500-700 word post on facebook about how I thought the change was going to displace the infantry regiments in the list, and I personally don't believe I was far off from that call. This unit won't win a game by themselves, but they sit at a particularly nice point range, where they have a high impact but a pretty low investment. They also take items very nicely with their healthy attack pool, and a bane chant on this unit puts your damage profile to 7-9 against def 5. I'd never leave home without one, maybe two depending on the list.
Ancients on Rhinosaurs- I've seen some people say kaisenors have replaced this option, but theres a few things this guy has going for him. He one shots large infantry. He one shots infantry regiments. He one shots monsters. He can't take a full infantry horde alone, but toss him wherever you want 10 wounds and he's your man, and the -/18 nerve can be deceptively strong. Keep rallying 1 nearby, but don't be afraid to lose the unit, it attracts an awful lot of hate, and can help activate the rest of the list because your opponent has to respect this unit.
Fire Elementals- I'll start by saying I hate this unit, and have already written an article on why I don't like it. It shouldn't be regular, like all of the elementals outside of forces of nature shouldn't be regular, that's why there's an army called nature. But that aside, this is another really strong unit and basically invalidates tyrants, -/17 nerve is again pretty solid, and they have a pretty similar damage profile to kaisenors. They can grind fairly well, and probably most importantly, have pathfinder so they can actually work with primes, unlike most of the rest of the army, or replace them if you want a smaller footprint. 200 pts for a horde unlock is also not a bad price for the package deal you get. Once the errata comes out on ghekkotah hordes they will replace this as the best horde option imo though, so keep that in mind moving forward.
Clan Lord on Fire Drake (With Wings)- The miracle worker himself, this guy went from arguably the worst dragon in the game, to maybe the third worst dragon. On the power level of dragons our one is not that spectacular, quite a few outperform it pretty badly for only a 20-30 point investment. I've previously said that I think this dragon and the deamonspawn in ratkin were the two best balanced dragons in the game, and I still stand by that statement. 15/17 nerve is the right nerve level for non living legend dragons across the board, varangur can be 16/18 but that should be it. You cannot play this unit loosely, my turns will often be 4-5 minutes of debating what to do with my dragons, and 1 minute on the rest of the army, which is what it should be for a unit that requires finesse. It is rewarding to use this unit properly, but disastrous if you make a mistake with them. Take one with boots of levitation or blessing of the gods, and practice as much as you can moving them and seeing the board as complete as you can, but understand they don't live forever and can't take a charge from anything with substance.
Lekilidon- The monster of choice for almost every salamander player, these guys are much in the clutch. Hitting on 3's in shooting is bonkers good, with piercing 1 to go with it, these guys can just lay in hurt onto def 4/3 units, and when you need that one extra wound to force a check there isn't a better option. I often refer to the unit as my lightning bolt in the list, moving gives you up to 24" shooting, at 4's to hit, and height 2 means you can stay put and shoot over lines during the middle turns at a respectable to hit. There is something to be said about komodons, who detract from these guys some because they occupy the same slot and depending on your meta may be better, but for a general take all comers list lekilidons are always consistent bread winners.
Notable Mention (Battle Captain w/ Wings) - Best chaff unit in the army, only dragged down by competing with the skylord, but take one or the other in every list, its the best chaff you have.
Bottom Five Units
For this section, I will also include possible ways to improve the unit through stat changes and rule additions given there is no way for points to change mid edition.
Salamander Unblooded (Horde)- This unit has potential, it really does. But not at 190 points, it should really be 175 with pathfinder to justify the lower defense and lower nerve compared to primes. Its a shieldwall with cs1 that pays 25 pts for cs1 with no additional benefit! It's outclassed pretty badly by ghekkotahs now with the faq changes, and costs too much for too little output to be a competitive option. Give these guys +1 nerve and pathfinder, or pathfinder and fury and they might* see play, but as is just save the 5 points with a ghekkotah horde with hammer of measured force, or spend 5 more for ghekkotahs with brew of strength. They'll outperform the unblooded most every game that way.
Ghekkotah Skyraider- The worst unit in the game in my opinion, this has no real point. 6 attacks for a 130 pt regiment that is basically fireball 6 with vicious is pretty bad. 12 for a 200 pt horde is god awful, and they are irregular too so they don't even provide very crucial unlocks for you. It flies but lacks pathfinder, so it cannot at the double and land in cover to maybe get a good position for mid turns. It costs so much more than other chaff for no real threat, the only good thing is their nerve is pretty high. Def 3 hurts them an awful lot and they don't impact the table. Give them tc1 and pathfinder or tc1 and 7/14 attacks. This will make them threatening on the flanks, and able to perform a multi role similar to the fire drake with wings.
Ankylodon Battle Platform- Another unit with gobs of potential, at 20-30 points less. For what you pay you don't get enough oomph to justify it. 250 points is almost a rhinosaur horde, and this guy has similar abilities. A -/17 nerve + iron resolve is pretty tasty when combined with def 6, and cs4 has its moments. But you pay an awful lot for a pretty pathetic shooting attack, and no pathfinder or strider means your 250 points of I do 5 wounds no matter what turns into 2-3 on most tables. I really think the RC was afraid of too much 12" shooting in the army being a thing, and pointed the ability for throwing weapons a lot higher than it needed to be. Lacking pathfinder also means he cannot support the prime hordes nearly as well as he should.. To get this guy on the table make him a consistent giant, Strider and Brutal add a lot to his potential, and he can then get in the way like a monster version of a tree herder and support infantry hordes grinding.
Tyrants- Too slow, too bland, and way too similar to fire elementals. Brutal and Fury are nice rules, but 210 for a slightly upgraded troll unit without regeneration is pretty weak. Speed 5 and again no pathfinder to actually work with the primes hurts their role as well. There's just no real reason to not get fire elementals as I'd rather be -/17 all the time rather than -/18 when I get in combat with the tyrants. This unit probably doesn't need too much to actually be usable, its just always going to compete with elementals, which are some of the best large infantry units in the game. 16/19 nerve and pathfinder might make it too efficient, so really I'd say pathfinder and regen 6+ would make them playable but not overtake the regular infantry as the go-to horde.
Ceremonial Guard- Really a way to make phalanx better would make these guys better, but dropping the cost to 140 like primes would be a start. Swapping pathfinder for phalanx is not a positive trade, and the 3 extra attacks don't really get you that much farther. 10 extra points for a regiment of ancients or kaisenors will perform better for you and enable either a better striking ability of speed 8 or better grinding with the -/17 nerve. 15/17 nerve and pathfinder or 15/17 nerve and rallying 1 would make for an interesting unit that can be a mainline infantry choice.
Notable Mention: Ghekkotah Clutch Warden- It's a really really bad hero unit, but in theory if you ran a ghekkotah army it would be marginally better than just getting heralds. There would probably be occasions where it could still perform something on the table, at least as a chaff option, and adding boots of the seven leagues is humorous.
I do know that I said pathfinder would help with just about every one of these units, but that's also bearing in mind that Salamanders are the only army where the base unit gets a special rule and all the other versions of it do not. Pathfinder is particularly useful for the cav sized infantry too, its a lot harder to negotiate terrain with the larger base size and for the most part these 5 units don't get discounted at all for their base size, so giving pathfinder to most all of the salamander based units would up their ability to move and play a grinding game.
Other changes to units that I would personally like to see would be:
Changing the Heal option on Mage Priests from Heal 3 to Heal 5 for 20 pts, and adding an option to exchange fireball 10 for heal 5. Salamander Primes are an excellent anvil in FoN in most part because of the ability for that army to have a solid heal engine through unicorns, druid's, the Green Lady, etc. You lose that ability in Salamanders to play heal + grind, and it drags down the value of the cs1 infantry an awful lot. For a heavy infantry army there is no real way to get support units for those heavy infantry, and making heal a legitimate option would go a long way to making large horde blocks playable in the army.
Ember Sprites getting +1 speed, lets them keep up with ghekkotah lines, since they are the better unit to chaff with sprites. Also puts them at the same speed as fire elementals, who they can also chaff for. Wouldn't be a game breaking change, but a small buff to a very marginal chaff unit would be appreciated.
Corsairs and Firebrand getting pathfinder. I've said give pathfinder out a lot, but if salamanders are going to get pistol versions of dwarf rangers at least give them the one rule that lets vanguard work for them. Half the point of vanguard is to get into a good position to shoot with these guys and not being able to double through terrain drastically limits their ability to get where they need to be turn 1. This is further made a problem with their 12" range for shooting, in theory this unit has potential to be very good and a pillar of salamander builds, but in practice they cannot actually accomplish anything meaningful with their poor movement.
Conclusion
I enjoy the army an awful lot, and have made it into masters this year solely with this army, something I thought was gonna be basically impossible considering I'm not that great of a player. But the army is still missing some pieces that hold it back, both from an internal balance design and just an overall theme of the army.
My army for next year is going to be Varangur, but no fallen are being used by me. I will probably bust out Salamanders every now and then, and I will be running them at masters, quite possibly the only one running the army there, but I hope to represent the army as best as I can 😊
No comments:
Post a Comment