500 Point SM List

Recently a new guy came into the shop I play at and he is looking to get into 40k and has had tau models left unfinished, so I figure why not start off trying something new to start out with at the 500 points that we agreed upon doing. I've had SM models lying around for a while now and I have been trying to put together a Salamander themed list. For this, we're gonna have no restrictions in terms of what we can use and cannot use (Outside of Apoc).

Well here is what I'm thinking of giving a shot.

HQ - Master of the Forge - Bolt Pistol and Power Weapon
Troops - Tactical Squad (5 Strong) - Rhino, combi-melta
Troops - Tactical Squad (5 Strong) - Rhino, combi-melta
Heavy Support - Thunderfire Cannon

The general plan is for me to place the Thunderfire Cannon in a ruin and get a good cover save and to have my Rhino's deployed as far forward as possible while w/o giving up too much cover. The Master of the Forge will be riding shotgun in one of the two Rhino's which will rush forward and try to close in on the troops as soon as possible to lay down the smack. I know that I could fill up those squads a bit more if I didn't have the Rhino's, about 4 more, but I need something to help ferry my marines across the table to reach him and to add both a layer of protection and some stress. To not think of the Thunderfire Cannon much.

Well let me know what you think and what can be improved upon it.

I'd probably avoid the thunderfire to be totally honest.
Tau destroy cover saves, and will probably take you apart unless you play smart.
Even a basic list will easily slow or destroy rhinos, so you probably want targets will be capable of taking some fire and still getting where they are needed.
Space Marines will also destroy pretty much anything Tau in combat so once you get there its no issue, but 5 strong squads means you won't be doing much damage.
I'd be more inclined to use a Dev squad, I don't have the SM codex, but if you can take 4 Missiles, you can hit a vehicle/transport with 4 shots at 48" or use the blasts to take apart anything not in a vehicle.
Also cover works a little better for this squad since it won't be so easy to kill. It still forces your opponent to fire at it though.

If he uses kroot a flamer squad might be good too.

Are you building an all comers or specifically anti tau list? either way, 2 rhinos and a thunder fire are a fair bit of your points that will die easy to most lists, mech spam gets weak at 500.

I'm going to assume he plays his tau at least at the good level, list discussion with ok to bad players is a moot point since their lists will be bad and even there play with good lists wont be good.

The way I see it, you have two major problems here. The first is you overestimate how long the vehicles/arty will live. with the fact that every model except kroot has s5 weaponary, and most tau take MANY s6/s7 shots even at 500 (perhaps even a s10), those vehicles don't get much past 2nd turn. Then you have 2 combi meltas and a bunch of rapid fire weapons chasing after an army that can move 12" a turn while shooting.

In short, he's going to de mech you quick, and once he does, you will never get another shot off all game.

I recommend either some of what zeal said and add a dev squad, or maybe add an assault squad, or both. something that can shoot long range, or move more than 6" if it doesn't. You could even keep the thunder fire if you really like it - play with what you like, make the rest of the list good.


In general Missles are a tau players bane (instakill suits without a save), and so are fast things or outflankers. My list might be two scout squads, any two of the three (assault squad, thunderfire, dev squad) and an HQ, perhaps a libby with gate?

If you've got stuff you definitely want in your list let us know and we'll help out. If the guy you are playing against isn't great let us know and we'll build a softer list where he wont get pounded time and time again and have no fun. I just think you wont have much fun running usless units around and losing unless your TFC is lucky with cover saves, you opponent takes a troop heavy list, and your dice start going on a rampage. too many ifs

All I really want in my list is both the Master of the Forge and the TFC. I don't know how good he'll be since he hasn't really played before and I would like to try something new. Besides, this could motivate me to further increase my Salamanders.

Hmmm. A space marine forum may be able to give you better tips on using those two at 500 points - Your using half your points to do one blast and give +1 cover to one ruins.

I can tell you why tau wouldn't fear this combo, though. The TFC is not really scary - it kills a few kroot if they're not strung out, but everything else gets their normal saves, and sits at max coherency in cover. Blasts that hit only hit one model at a time, max 2, I never move to take difficult checks except if i'm a suit, in which case I walk.

As tau, I dont particularly care if your HQ is strong in CC or not, everything you have that touches a squad of mine would wipe it. The +1 cover save is nice for you though - if you have a ruin in your deployment zone in a good spot to use.

What can you do with this list? well, given your taking those two things, your first list is probably one of the better options. However, here are some neat alternatives-

MotF witch conversion beamer
Thunderfire
+2 marine squads/scouts with cloaks/scouts with missles
vindicator

You didn't bring a railgun? you lose. I sit at max range firing my cannons, using troops to prevent any deep striking melta you may or may not have taken from getting too close. Thunderfire mops up the light stuff, vindicator hits anything tough MotF is in the back of the bus, lobbing in conversion beams, as he should do whenever he isn't running forward. The crisis suits should go down without too much trouble, and then it's just mopup on troops

MotF
Thunderfire
+scout squad with cloaks/sniper rifles (2+cover save obj holders)
+outflanking scouts with shotguns.
+ironclad dreadnaught

2+ cover is terrible to kill, outflankers severly limit where the tau would put their units, as then they wont really go withing 12" of the board edge. this cuts their deployment zone in half, basically. The dreadnaught is actually really hard to deal with at low points - few tau players will pack much, if any, melta on their suits and those suits will die long before they get to use it. broadsides are not unheard of but rare. you can laugh off the s7 with armor 13.

MotF
Thunderfire
+2 LS storms with melta.
+2 scout squads with Missiles

run some storms up, hope they live a turn with the cover save, then jump out and unleash hell!

MotF
Thunderfire
+2 marine squads/scouts with cloaks/scouts with missles
+2 predators

AV 13 is a tough nut to crack if he didn't bring railguns, and the multi high S shots are excellent for taking down most threats he has at a range.

MotF
Thunderfire
+2 marine squads/scouts with cloaks/scouts with missles
+3 attack bikes (1-2MM)

Boost up, take your 3+ saves on 2 wound models, and assualt/melta away on turn 2. tau's only s8+ are melta and railguns, neither of which he can spam at this level. Take them seperate for a much greater threat, in a squad of 2 and buffing the troop choice sizes if your afraid of kill points. Perhaps give your MotF a bike if you can find points, and have 4 tough models zooming around killing squads left and right.

Actually a MotF on a bike with a conversion beamer rocks because you can move 12' further away from the target while firing a stronger beam each time.

I don't know how well Tau can fit them in at 500 points, but assuming he starts taking pathfinders or uses them later there is really no point trying to invest points into something that helps your cover saves.
Tau are the only army capable of stripping cover saves with any good list.
Markerlights are just an amazing concept.

Actually, tau can start fitting markerlights in at really low points. If you already are taking a devilfish in your list, adding 4 pathfinders are about 48 points.

What it really depends on is if you can use them well. if you have large troops squads or crisis suits in teams of 2+, then markerlights can help, as the +1 bs is nice on a BS3 model as well. They start to get not worth their points if you are taking small squads.

A tau list I play might look like this:

1 Tank busting (melta/missile) commander suit
2 FK (plasma/missiles) suits with 2 drones
6 FW in a fully upgraded devilfish
13 kroot

if i knock it down to 11 kroot and downgrade the devilfish to the basics + the cover save upgrade, i can fit in 4 pathfinders. This would mean at 48" The list puts out (on average) 2 bs4 and 4 bs5 s7 shots, at 30" you add 3 bs5 s6 and 9bs3 s5, and at 24 you add 13bs3 s4.

How I see this playing out with the original list is you start killing ~1-2 pathfinders a turn and then move onto kroot (or start making the suits count as in cover so they can't jsj so well. They, in turn, kill 1-2 vehicles a turn, then move to the arty, and then rapid fire obliterates any footslogging squad that gets close. Against tau you either need speed or a ton of resiliency, as they have a fair amount of firepower that can move decently fast. 5 man tac squads in armor 11 soon have neither, and thus suffer for it. After they die your relying on an arty piece to get the job done, and any glance or pen against arty destroys it.

Good way of explaining it MJSwasey!
I haven't played tau personally, but you totally summed up their capabilities and what a good list will do.

(They are actually an army I love but never have had a chance to actually get into buying stuff!)

I played against Tau once before but with my Pure Radical Army (Thousand Sons). It was a doubles match with me and my friend using CSM against both Tau and Orks. It was kinda silly with the invulnerable saves of the T-Sons and how the Hammerhead couldn't destroy my Defiler before it ripped off it's Railgun with its Battle Cannon and then wrecked it in CC.

But I'm not gonna be using them this time (To expensive for this level unless going with Combat Patrol). I'll see how it works out first, I only really have Space Marines. I do have a single speeder and dread, but the Thunderfire Cannon has been waiting for a time moment to shine and I guess that this will be its chance. Thank you for the advice.

If you post the list you decided upon (the original?) we can give you tips on how to play that may go against the natural instincts of how you want to play against tau.

Well as far what I've decided based on what I have on hand and what I have set aside for Salamanders, it is my original list. But I do have a Dreadnought and a Land Speeder as well (Even a Redeemer, but I can't fit it in no matter what). I know with the Speeder (Multi-melta/Heavy Flamer), I can strike hard and fast, and with the Dread, it would foot slog and fall behind on the strike due to a lack of a pod.

My initial thoughts on how to handle Tau with the list is to simply see about rushing forward and popping smoke as soon as possible. Their guns won't mean much if I can stop them fast enough. So I guess that it'll come down to both speed and power.

Thats the standard reaction to seeing tau, and it often works decently. However, with the low model count, heres some things to consider that might improve your game against the Tau.

Tip #1: Don't put the rhinos too close to each other. Tau like to "layer cake" (put several rows of squads so you can only assualt one squad at a time) and send pirhanas to block you. If you spread out just a bit, he can't block both sides with just one squad, and he can't use his higher mobility to sneak away to one side.

Tip #2: Make them run. Know if any squads have the +1 leadership upgrade, and hit any that don't with that TFC. If it's kroot, use ignore cover, if its fire warrior, use the ignore cover as well (it still wounds on a 2+ and prevents going to ground for a 3+ save). against suits, It all depends on how many models you can hit and your opponents attitude (if he moves them anyway, if his guys are close enough to hit multiple guys or only 1 at a time, etc) but use s6 or difficult.

Tip #3: 90% of any ap3 or better can be found on tau crisis suits. know what weapons they have, and if it's the good stuff, hit them hard.

Tip #4: Don't get out at their front lines. In fact you shouldn't have to get out ever. Any tanks that are still alive should be tank shocking things on their way to crisis suits. Stay inside, as then they have to use their firepower to blow up the tank, and your guys get out just find and assault next turn. If you get out, they just shoot your guys and ignore the tank, and you can still assault out of a tank if it didn't move.

I wish you knew his list, i really wish i could be there when you played him. Definitely give us a battle report!!

I'll give a report this weekend once I get a chance. I'll be playing him this Saturday, and it looks like he won't bring a broadside or hammerhead, so that's a definite plus in my favor. It'll be interesting to say the least, but we shall see what will happen.

To be perfectly honest though, I am really not at all comfortable with using Space Marines at this level. I can use Daemonhunters easily enough, but this will most definitely be a good learning experience.

Well this has been on the back burner for a while now, but we had to move our game to tonight because life got in the way of things. After much thought and consideration, I decided against the TFC, and felt that Land Speeders would have been a decent choice to use.

This is the list that I used:

HQ - MotF - Power Weapon, Bolt Pistol
2x Troops - Tactical Squad - Rhino
Fast - 2x Land Speeders - MM, HF

He didn't bring anything stronger then a Fusion Blaster on a Piranha, and a Missile System on a Crisis Suit. His commander had twin-linked plasma, a single squad of fire warriors and a devil fish.

The game consisted of me tabling him by turn 4. Land Speeders destroyed the Devil Fish, with Fire Warriors in it,on turn 2, which ended up being pinned, then proceeded to heavy flamer them turn 3, killing all. By turn 5, they would come in range of the cowardly xeno commander and multi-melta him to death.

My MotF was scary, immobilized the Piranha on turn 2, then proceeded to hunt down the commander and the crisis, taking a few losses but it didn't matter much. He eventually caught up to the two units and killed the lone crisis suit after killing off his drones in the shooting phase (Turn 5 and ended game right there).

Other tactical squad would later wreck the Piranha and then get back into their Rhino to follow in the chase of the two xenos. Didn't do much after that.

For loses, one Rhino was immobilized, and I lost three Space Marines. My MotF took no wounds. It was overall a good game for the both of us, we learned things that we didn't know of before for our two armies.

I know that I wanted to use the TFC before, but I would rather use it at a higher point level where if would be covered in certain aspects of the army, and I don't have to worry too much about how to handle vehicles. The Speeders really balanced out the list quite a bit and made it much more potent. The speed and hitting power of them was ridiculous. I can't wait to be able to use them along with He'Stan later on.

I agree the speeders make a much stronger list, and the tau player was really unprepared for you list with his. Your tactics sounds well thought out, and the victory well deserved. Congrats!

Aye, after that round, I whipped out my GK and had a challenge so he could learn more about his army instead of me nailing him hard with a precision strike from the Speeders.

Gotta admit though, he was definitely surprised at seeing a 500 point GK army.

Very well played, congrats!

DarkRonin wrote:Aye, after that round, I whipped out my GK and had a challenge so he could learn more about his army instead of me nailing him hard with a precision strike from the Speeders.

Gotta admit though, he was definitely surprised at seeing a 500 point GK army.

Ahh yes the pure awe of a 15 model army :p

Fun fact: GK can field a full point 1850 list using only 14 models.

GKM, 10GK and 3 LRC is ~1200, allowing for 600 points of upgrades. As each GK is limited to 100 points of upgrades, that's 300 (for GM and Justicars) leaving 300 left. 4 psycannons is another 100, and say 100 for vehicle upgrades leaves me wondering what ~150 points I'm missing.

As a side note, I love GK at low points. All that storm bolter fire is great, and unless your opponent stocks up on ap3, you usually live a while.

GM Master crafted weapon +100 pts wargear 260

Justicar 4 troops. Two psycannons, master crafting, 100 pts of wargear 315
Justicar 4 troops. Two psycannons, master crafting, 100 pts of wargear 315

LR +all the upgrades 324
LR+all the upgrades 324
LR+all the upgrades 324
This totals 1862. remove some wargear to hit 1850

Well we're going to make it a weekly thing now where we increase our armies every two weeks, so next week we'll be hitting 750. Today though, we played, but two kids wanted in for a 2 vs 2 game, 1 kid per side. Sad thing is that by turn two, both kids had to leave, effectively leaving the other half of the board gone and left the rest of the troops solely on us.

I had my troops working on one flank, away from the objective but it doesn't matter, the Salamanders held their ground and took the following loses:

One Tactical Squad and one Land Speeder (Heavy Flamer/Multi-melta).

His loses were:
2x Fire Warrior squads (one 10 man, and one 8 man)
One Devilfish (His only one)
One Piranha
Two groups of two gun drones.

His commander with two shield drones, cyclic ion blaster, and missile pods was all that was left and was fleeing towards the far side of the table away from my tanks which I decided to comically tank shock him left and right until he would go off the table but at the same time i left my last squad behind. Game was Capture and Control and ended in a draw, but I had fun, especially when my flamer BBQ'd the eight fire warriors camping on his objective and when one of my rhinos tanked shocked his ten man squad off the table (was about 7 inches off the edge when it happened).

Well this list was fun and enjoyable, but with the coming of 750, I'm gonna be making the following changes:

HQ - MotF replaced by Vulkan He'Stan
Elite - Dreadnought with Extra Armour
Troops - Sergeants will have Combi-melta's
Fast Attack - Speeders remain the same
Dedicated Transports - Rhino's gain Extra Armour

The idea will remain the same, but instead of having the MotF whose abilities were generally used for allocating wounds onto for one tactical squad and the servo harness for the two S8 attacks in CC, I'll be using He'Stan who will enhance the army a bit. I know that my troops won't benefit much aside from the combi-melta's, but if I boosted the sizes to ten, I'll have a footslogging commander who can't fit inside the rhino as well. It's annoying how Tactical squads can only take heavy/special weapons when they are ten-strong. At least with the combi-melta's, I'll be sure to quickly kill his devilfish instead of relying on S6 attacks to take it down. Needing 6's to hit and then just being able to get that 4+ roll doesn't help much, especially when I roll low for damage.

The Dreadnought is there to bring in two roles, a close-combat role, and to provide some heavy fire support with the multi-melta, and with it being twin-linked thanks to He'Stan, I'll be sure to land a hit (was rolling plenty of 1's and 2's tonight for my own Multi-melta on my one speeder that wasn't wrecked today).

I know that it's a low model count list, but I think it's more viable instead of dropping one rhino, and taking a Land Raider Redeemer that has a Multi-melta and extra armour as well.