Enemy Spotlight: Salamanders, Lizardman's Moblile Artilary

Lizard's are already a pain for beast players to deal with and in the lizardman army a few units stand out as real headaches. One of these units is Salamanders. What can these lizard's do and how should we go about facing them?

Things to watch out for...
Despite being giant lizards, Salamanders can move rather fast (M6). They can also move and shoot, giving them an effective range of 21'. These shots can be devastating to beasts as 10 shots (Which would be an exceptional Artilary Roll) would kill 5 ungors on average. In most herds this is frightneningly close to those dreaded panic tests. Also be wary of them in Close Combat. Each Salamander packs 2 str 5 attacks and causes fear. Adding to these things is their aquatic ability (Be careful they don't sit in a body of water and shoot at you from near invulnerability) and the fact they are skirmishers. Oh and did I mention they autohit? As a beast player autohit is the scariest phrase in the game.

How they do it...
These units are typically used to soften up the hardest targets in an enemy army or to annihilate smaller units. On flanks, supported by other units, they can rain down their fire with near impunity and once their targets are all in CC charge onto the flank and cause some damage there. I common tactic also is to place a few jungle swarms nearby to get in the way of any unit moving into charge range. The Salamanders may still shoot over these swarms.

Their Weaknesses...
Their first weakness is leadership. At only LD 5 they are very easy to break or panic once you get them away from the general. Next is that they are a 65 point rare choice. Their max unit size is 3 and it is commonly considered bad taste to see more than one unit. None the less, don't expect to never see two units fielded, especially in a competative environment. The last major issue with Salamanders is their inconsistancy. Rarely do they get more than one good round of shooting a row. Although if the unit contains multiple Salamanders this disadvantage is less significant.

How to Deal with Sallimanders...
There are two ways for beasts to deal with Salamanders. The first and best choice is to engage them in close combat. Just about anything in a beast army can kill skinks and force a break test. Magic is also an option if you have it available to you. If you can disspatch some skinks or maybe even one of the salamanders, it'll make everything much easier. Just be careful not to throw too much at them, they typically arn't worth that much effort.

My Picks for Killing them...
Wargor + Steed of Shadows... Many beast armies take the Lore of Shadows and this is a great way to take care of these pesky units. Rune of the True Beast is a big help here, as is some armor. Khorne or Nurgle marked characters are great for this (Immune to Psychology), but undivided should pass the fear test just fine. This is a gamble, but if equiped right, you should find success.

Beast Herds... They should have no trouble killing enough skinks and generating enough CR to break the unit in CC. Just be wary of more than one round of shooting by the sallies against them, it could cause a panic check.

Spawn... The are inexpensive, cause fear and should be able to chew up skinks and avoid wounds with their fairly high toughness. Even if it doesn't win, the spawn will likely have given you 2 turns without having to worry about them.

Chariots... They need 6's to wound with shooting and you should be able to kill enough skinks with impact hits to break them. Again this is a little risky and a unit on the flank would be ideal for making this a gaurenteed success.

And I'm Done... Almost...
Thank you very much to Whist for doing the original spotlight on Salamanders that this was adapted from. Following is a quote from CarlosFerrao on how Salamanders should rank up when charged.

Any thoughts or comments?

well i have heaps of experience with lizzies as i play them very often. i can tell you now, salamanders are a god send to a lizzies army. they are particularly nasty against skirmisher units like beast herds. ive never avtually played a BoC army put i think that lizzies would have the upper hand. lizzies have superior combat units, better flankers and excellent skirmishers. but onto salamanders.

your right except for a few small things. salamanders can move and shoot but cant march and shoot. the best tactic for using salamanders is to put them behind a skink screen right next to a saurus unit. you then advance under the skink screen until ure in range. generally works a treat. but how do you defeat them you ask? well salamanders dont really like shooting but that doesnt help BoC does it. another thing that tends to get my salamanders is flyers or very fast units like light cav. salamanders cant stand up to much in combat, so that is why you'll tend to find them alongside a saurus block. personally i would go for a beast herd to take on salamanders, that is exactly what i would want you to do. the auto hit is incredibly good and tears apart skirmishers. id go at salamanders with centigors, flyers like furies and screamers and posiible even chariots.

I am a little hesitant to suggest centigors because of the fact the Salamanders should get a round of shooting at them. If there is more than one Salamander in the unit that single round of shooting should do significant damage to them. Fliers on the other hand... never looked into their effectiveness...

well salamanders would get 1 round of shooting off against them but i wouldnt want to get onto the charge range of anything unless i can take them down with 1 round of shooting, of which is hard to do against a unit of centigors. once you get into combat with salamanders it isnt too hard to beat them. the only problem with that is actually getting into combat as you will generally find that salamanders come alongside saurus, skinks and maybe some swarms. magic is also another good way to take out salamanders.

Salamanders are a fairly tough unit to deal with though beast actually can kill them fairly easily.

The key is knowing what unit to kill them with.

Things not to waste on them.

Warhounds - First they can barely beat regular skinks and skins with salamanders will kick their butt. Also the salamanders cause fear thus fear test for warhounds. Warhounds can not be trusted to kill salamanders use something else.

Centigors - more expensive then warhounds and slightly more effective against salamanders. The problem is they are still untrustworthy in accomplishing the task. Basically unless there is some forest in just the right place centigors will take at least one round of fire from salamanders. Which they will have a hard time standing up to. Just not enough wounds to make it work. Also the salamanders still cause fear.

Minotaurs- Yes they cause fear, but because of their size and general frontage its not worth the effort to chase salamanders. If you get the chance to charge them go ahead, but generally not worth the time.

Furies - In theory they sound great in practice they seem to fail impressively. The key reason is their limited number of attacks. They have a hard time making up for the out number of salamander packs and the wounds caused by the salamanders. If you want to tie up the unit for a bit they are a good option, but rarely will they kill a salamandr pack outright.

Giants, dragon ogre shaggoth and such - Generally not a good thing to use. Almost too many points to waste chasing salamanders. Plus the terror doesn't work with the fear causing salamanders. The limited frontage just means salamanders can run around his flanks and stay out of his charge arc. Much better units to use to chase salamanders.

Things that work

Small beast herds - most of the time you have to use two to get the job done. But becuase of the crazy screwed up GW thinking this is probably the best bet. Huh you ask how did GW screw up. Its simple its the skirmisher combat rules. If you can get the charge you will string his unit out and get the max number of skinks in combat. Thus lots of wounds. The problem is he still will get at least one round of shooting at your unit and he still causes fear. A foerender would be a good addition to salamander hunting units.

Large herds - In truth not as effective as small herds. Yes you out number, yes you still string him out, but now he can find ways to still shoot you and stay away from 25% of your unit. A good lizardmen player can duck and cover skinks and salamanders to stay out of charge range. A big unit just means more points chasing skinks and getting out of position.

Chariots - Personally one of the better units for hunting salamanders. Huh that disagree with the main poster. The key here is salamanders have hard time hurting chariots and the combined impact hits and attacks generate alot of wounds. Plus the undivided generally gets around the fear causing.

Spawn - in all the perfect unit for hunting salamanders. inexpensive causes fear of its own and has a high toughness. Plus it can chase them in the forest and is generally unpredictable. If you just want to keep the salamander off of your flanks and backside spawns will do it.

Steed of shadowed heros - Obviously I wonder what lores you guys use, but if I want to be competive I use shadow. I want unseen lurker, but I am happy with the default stead of shadows almost all of the time. A wargor or beastlord stead of shadowed out of a unit can run off a salamander pack on a regular basis. The key is killing skinks. The one skink in contact with him represents all the rest of them. Unleash and enjoy plus you should cause enough wounds to ignore the fear causing effect of salamanders and with decenct armor you can shrug off the salamander attacks. Personally this is probablly the best way to kill salamanders.

In truth you have four good options

Steed of shadows hero, small herds, chariots and spawn. Most armies have mabye two good ways to kill salamanders. Plus half of yours are core and thus common and inexpensive. Have fun I hope this helps

I would say steed of shadows unless your character is marked to avoid fear. Hitting on sixes and then an autobreak is a recipe for disaster. Also if you fluff your attacks your in serious trouble. BSB is probably the only safe choice, and then only if marked appropriately. Additional hand weapon for a wargor with this mission would seem a good idea. Alternatively a bray shaman with a warrior familiar.

chariots seem a good way of stopping them i must agree.

if they rank up with skinks in the middle then a snaked hound unit charge into the skinks with a mid sized unit of hounds (a pack of 2 salamanders starts with US12 so you need 7/8 hounds)(charging from within 12" of army general) is fairly decent way to break them. You get US, probably no casualties on either side but a break test for them on LD5. If near the general then its a problem. Still magic should cause panic easily enough. Go slightly more magic heavy (and include the banner of wrath).

screamers woulds do well against them as well. The extra attack per model. Hitting and wounding the skinks on 3+

5 screamers should cause about 4.4 wounds on the charge. The problem would be to avoid having them shot to pieces prior to the charge. 2 salamander packs would maybe get about 4*.5*.666*.666 = .887 wounds in return. The skinks might have a chance so we could round off to you causing 4 wounds to them causing 1. They have US but lose by 2.

i personally would go khorne character steed of shadows in with chaos armour and rune of true beast. salamanders cant attack you and skinks wont be able to hurt you. the frenzy allows you to kill more and also protects you from there fear.

Glad to see some more constructive work going on here! This is a project I hopefully will get rolling again soon... Maybe tonight... I don't have my books with me, but I can get the ball rolling on discussion!

I added the Steed of Shadows Wargor and took out warhounds... I don't know what I was thinking with those haha

Salamanders have an effective range of 21". They cannot march and shoot; therefore 6" move + 15" range shot = 21".

Arn't they skirmishers though? If so they should be able to move their full distance and shoot, but I don't have the lizard book with me so I am not sure on it.

Yes you are right, they are skirmishers.
Though they still can't march and shoot, much like skins, or empire archers.

You are quite correct, they cannot march and shoot.

I can tell you now that the best way to take out salamaders is pegasus knights, but failing this i would suggest fast cav or centigors.

Charging out a lone character into a unit of salamanders is a very bad idea IMO.

If you airswing or the sallies cause some wounds then its autobreak time . and with the sallies already having +1 combat res for outnumber you need to cause at least 2 wounds and not take any in return in order to win and even then they will likely hold there ground because of coldblood and the likely BSB.

Plus if i include a JSoD in my lizzie armys they tend to join the sally unit to help protect them and turn them into a good combat unit.

Cheers.

Thats why I made sure to right its a gamble with the character... If you have the Rune of the True beast, the skinks would have to wound ya... maybe 2 hand weapons, you should eat skinks for dinner...

Sure, the rune would help you, but in a tournament setting would you really tool out a character just so it can take on salamanders?

Cheers.

Personally, no I wouldn't do it... Although the Rune of the True Beast recently got a HUGE boost in the units it is effective against and has become a viable peice of equipment.