Modifying my Salamanders army list for this year’s Astronomi-con

I made the decision a few weeks ago that there was no way I was getting my Dark Eldar done for Astronomi-con this year and I was just going to bring my Salamanders again instead. Considering I finished 3rd overall last year, I didn’t want to change my army too much so I just need to tweak things.

This is the 1500pt list I took last year. After thinking about it, the only thing in that list I could see myself dropping was the scouts.

As much as people hate on sniper scouts, this squad has done some nice things for me. Not to mention they work as a great 3rd scoring unit. Since I know the types of missions Astro usually has, I know that most of them don’t require ‘scoring’ units as a lot of objectives can be carried around or held with non-scoring unit. Not to mention I can’t really see myself dropping the Sternguard, Dreadnaughts, Vindicator or Tactical squads.

Dropping the Scout squad gives me 190 points to work with and I came up with a couple ideas.

First idea was that I have 2 Thunderfire Cannons sitting in my closet and I’ve always wanted to use them. Two of them is only 200 points and I can easily drop one Razorback’s extra armour to make that fit. But I have two issues with this; one is that many missions require maneuverability and models with ‘hands’ to carry objectives, the other is that it’s not my style to to bring a 1hq, 2 troop, 3 elite and 3 heavy list to a tournament. I’ll save this for a one off game with a friend.

Thinking about it more, an Assault squad solves the issues of mobility and replacing my lost ‘hands’ for objectives. 199 points gets me a 7 man squad with a flamer and a Powerfist. Here’s that list. Not bad!

After digging out some old models* from my “Battle of Armageddon” Codex era Salmanders army I played with the list a couple times. I haven’t been happy with their performance in the two games I played, but they didn’t really get a chance to do much in either game.

Even with the underwhelming performance so far I think I am going with the Assault Marines and I ordered some MkII Assault Marines from Forge World. Next up is planning how I should make the Thunderhammer Sargent.

* I should point out that these are the only jump pack models I have ever owned and I had exactly 7 dudes with one flamer and one thunderhammer. Crazy!