Bringing the Hobby back

Long time no post!

What I've been doing:

In between settling in, starting a new job, etc I've been getting beaten again and again by the locals. My High Elves tend to crumble bottom turn 6 swinging a comfortable win into a big loss. oh wells.

Bringing the hobby back:

The most exciting thing recently is that now I have a job (yay!) and got paid for the first time in 3 months, I've been able to get my hobby back. In fact I EVEN HAVE A PROJECT...putting together a Seaguard themed list for Cancon.

I've bought all the kits needed, and over Xmas started painting it all up.

Le Eagles:

Very Exciting - the LOTR eagles all painted up!

For as long as I've had a High Elf army my eagles have been IoB griffons with the riders all chopped off and green stuffed up. This has worked nicely as it has allowed me to use the IoB griffon rider as a noble mounted on an Eagle...or if I actually use an Griffon = I have an option when the rider dies first.

HOWEVER...with the current Seaguard theme = I will have 3 (yes 3) Skycutters who are pulled by eagles = will look silly if my "eagles" are actually griffons + since Cancon is a Swedish comp event there is a high chance someone will actually use a griffon = I dont want to cause confusion (WYSIWYG and all that).

Le Eagle Noble:

Not the greatest pic, but here we have Gwaihir in all his failcast glory with one of the skycutter crew crudely blue tac'ed on top (if someone can suggest a more effect option that makes transport and the like easier I'm all ears).

Inspiration was the Wood Elf noble on an eagle model for those in the know, but obviously more seaguard-like.

So that's me for the moment.

On the painting tray at the moment (dont have a table anymore) is the 3 skycutters, seahelm bsb, seahelm trident guy for the seahelm riding a black dragon boom!

It's the little things

Hi All,

Thursday night is Warhammer night here in Brunswick and I rocked up with my High Elves and found myself in a pick up game with Empire that looked like THIS:

Karl Franz with the Ghul Maraz
BSB
13 Reiksguard knights with swiftness banner posse
10 Archers bunkering 2 lvl2 light mages
Luminark
Hurricanum
...and oh yeah...SIXTY HALBERDS WITH 6 ARCHERS IN A DETACHMENT

So no artillery, no 1+as brigade...no shooting of any note.

In response I unpacked my 2000pts of Elfy goodness

Lvl4 metal, book of hoeth
SeaHelm BSB: Reavorbow, shield of 4+ parry
2x10 Silverhelms: FC - shields
28 Whitelions: FC - Banner of World Dragon
5 Shadow Warriors
Frostie
3x1 RBT
Eagle

An interesting match up. The light mages rolled phas, speed of light, net, and timewarp. I rolled up searing doom, glittering robes, enchanted blades and final trans.

We deployed;

Hopefully our respective tactics are rather clear. Empire looking to own the middle...I'm looking to encircle.

Anywho the Empire stumble up carefully. I let through Timewarp on the Halberds.

I then have my turn and make my fatal mistake (pic is beginning of Empire t2 checking the mistake)

First what I did right:
- I reformed the whitelions into "Seahelm abuse" formation.
- Knights and Frostie a pushing the flanks
- Shadow Warriors push into the archer detachment to stop them getting annoying

What I did wrong:
- didn't factor in 16 inch halberd march (not a biggie)
- Eagle should have blocked the knight bus BECAUSE
- Frostie was lazily placed and scrapped into the LOS of Karl Franz
- silverhelms on my right a little too close/under appreciated luminark charge

Obviously the eagle/frostie thing is an either place frostie better, OR place it better AND block with eagle (ie frostie with more view of the centre of the board).

So magic phase...6 dice monkey Final Trans and blow up the Reiksknight and kill Karl Franz! Shooting phase kills a few more knights and we call it. I WIN!

However we play on pretending Karl Franz avoided the final trans...and this is where all my mistakes kick in..

1) luminark charges silverhelms...queue all game hold up to allow Karl and the posse to clean them out
2) hurricanum charges eagle (holds), silverhelms flank in but fail to kill it...cannot overrun as this would mean rear charging karl franz for certain death...instead hurricanum flees TOWARDS the halberd combat.
3) frostie flees karl charge and is removed from the game as it gets out of position and cannot get back to help before dying.
3) not really mistake, but a consequence of losing 3 levels the lvl2's gain magic dominance and the halberds spend the rest of the game with ws10, i10, -1 to hit...Whitelions died horribly and didnt risk combat reform as I had no chance to use them offensively :(

So there you are!

Always check your LOS archs, always check your next turn threats, and try not to turn your lvl4 into a lvl1 t1!

New post, new country...

hey hey hey,

not a big update, but big news.

FIRST; fixed the Frosties!

Trip to hardware store, cheap hacksaw, cheap garden hooks...combine the 2, add drilled base and drilled frostie =

Frostie just balances on top...lean it slightly forward and it sits in that position. Not the prettiest fix, but it works and is game functional (ie the frostie can be easily removed!)

SECOND: CRACKS CALL

So the uber monster list was great fun. I got pulled apart by more serious lists, but I did smash face a few times! Worst part was losing a frostie (twice) to a flank charge from gyro, breaking and getting run down (4 attacks sucks). Even worse part was losing Blood and Glory t1 to a similar sneaky gyro move allowing my annointed to get picked off from a line of monsters :( Best part - smashing Glen's Quadruple scream list when my frostie saved 8 from 11 scream wounds and then smashed up the bus and crumbled the evil undead.

What worked...um I was super mobile I guess and when I successfully rolled to hit, I smashed face
What didn't work: annointed is not choppy enough to beat face, but choppy enough to kill a unit champ = very vulnerable to challenges. No BSB sucked (lost last game vs Peter W's Vamps due to a failed ldship 8 test that left my general stranded in challenge with a vamplord minus the frostie who was there to beat up the black knights - he later rallied and cleaned them out and put the vamplord on 1 wound, but still!), and Dragon Mages are cool in fluff, but useless on paper and on the table. Seriously: don't even bother. There is NOTHING redeeming about them. For the cost I could have sneaked in 2+as BOWD BSB on horse, lvl2 with scroll and ring, and tweaked the core to have a massive bus of Silverhelms.

HOWEVER:

I did win the Jockey race!

Here is my Jockey "Dragon Tucker" (behave) winning:

I don't really know what my secret was...I took a lucky horseshoe (basically a free life if someone tries to gank you), a free re-roll item (great for all the crucial rolls on the fences), and an extra d6 movement OUO item (for the extra speed). I was the only one who sung "Sexual healing" at the Slaanesh wall for a shot at free health in return for giving up a turn of movement (instead of humping the wall as most people ended up getting...err "stuck" doing). This meant that once I shot out ahead (pro tip -don't stop to hurt people!) I could weather the attacks from those far enough behind to still be able to use the Nurgle wall benefit. 

Thank's Neil for a fantastic event with food, accommodation and Munch-kin.

40K stuff: Cities of Death campaign

As part of my tour-de-warhammer I played a round of Wrythhold's 40K cities of death campaign. I took Salamanders (obviously). Comp was 1000pts, no fliers or LOW/Imperial knights (unless the required tiles on the map were held), max 1 HQ, Elite, Fast, Heavy, min 1 troop.

I took:
Vulkan: command squad: 4 meltas, apocothary, droppod
Ironclad: H. flamer, Melta, assault launchers
2x5 Marines: Combi-melta, melta
2x5 Marines: Combi-melta, flamer
5 Scouts: Bolters, melta bombs, landspeeder storm - multimelta

So lots of objective capturing stuff (using 7th ed objective capture rules)

Editor's note: it was a mistake to take assault launchers on Ironclad over Combi Melta on the Scout sergeant. Always give scout sergeant melta bombs and combi melta for tank/building hunting fun :D

I was up against Glen's Nightlords Chaos Marines army. 7 objectives on the table. I won the roll for sides, but Glen seized initiative and promptly blew up the main centre building objective and my Ironclad (who I thought was hidden...found out the hard way Obliterators can move and shoot...). In return my command squad and Vulkan dropped down and along with some support shooting deleted the terminators. I made a huge mistake when doing this. I placed Vulkan to shoot his flamer, but I instead should have placed him to tank the 10 chaos tac marines with 2 plasma guns that I had aggressively placed to attack t2 (once terminators were toast). Instead his bolters magically became ap3 and gunned down the command squad along with Vulcan...I also learned what "torrent" means when his Jump pack commander burninated a few too many marines with his ap3 flamer! I got lucky as he failed the follow up charge, I shot out his raptor buddies, and murdersword face failed his charge AGAIN and got gunned down. In the end I was 1 hull point away from winning the game as my storm died t6 to some lucky snap shooting giving up the objective it was holding over the obliterators...and to make things worse Vulkan then died in the campaign! Oh well. Ryan who I was subbing in for is taking the narrative to heart and is changing the commander to a Master of the Forge (please note the very extending left field joke in that for all you 40k 6th ed BRB readers) and is looking to run a list heavy on the attack bikes and plasma cannons...

BIGGEST NEWS: I'm now in Oz

So yes, I now live in Melbourne. I managed to pack my High Elves (well most of them). I've signed up for Cancon in January (2400pts Swedish...must score between 10 and 16) and "Blood and Glory" in November (2000pts 5 game event with no comp, but TO subjective comp score). Should be fun and before Cancon and NZTC I have a wee bit of hobby to do as well, so once Ryan ships over my paints (hint hint), I'll be able to get started on that to give yous some hobby update posts as well!

Other than that there is Thursday night gaming at Shirts Off Warhammer (5 mins tram up the road boom!) for battle reports and stuff.

Crack's Call!!!! (and update on hobby life)

Yo!

LOOOOOONG time no post. Life has caught up with me. Big news is that as of 9 October I will be living in Melbourne, and the Pittsburgh Penguins 2014/2015 season will start with a win over the Ducks and a fight between Getzlaf and Downie (finger's crossed - gotta keep the animosity going).

So off to the land of obsessive comp, slabs, and sunshine to rejoin my brothers in nerdom Shirts Off Warhammer Inc.

Call to Arms has been and gone.

I took a Daemon list to see how it would go. Over all it went well coming 6th and putting me over the projected threshold for Masters qualification (that I wont be able to attend). 2 big wins (20-0, 19-0), 2 small losses to Dark Elf avoidance lists (9-11, 8-12) and 1 small loss to usual bell Skaven (9-11). It was interesting to enter an event with a list I had had maybe 2 games with beforehand. It's the little things like knowing what a beast of Nurgle can do vs what etc etc that really swing it. I could have Drawn/won the game vs Greg's list if I was a bit more familiar with the art of DOC castling. Vs Jeff's Dark Elves (who won the event) I had him on the ropes for a comfortable win, but - not knowing the limitations of the list - a few simple mistakes and it swings the other way. Loss vs Skaven was time related. We only got in 4 rounds, and I knew this early on so push waaaay harder and faster than I probably needed to to get a result...and it ended up costing me with a bottom turn 4 big points swing against me. (rolling 4 1's to wound/kill the BSB didn't help either!)

Salamanders

Are all but finished...well as finished as they can be given my very limited time! I can field the following list all painted:

Vulkan

Command squad: Apocothary, 4 combi meltas - droppod

Ironclad: Hflamer, melta - droppod

Dreadnaught: Hflamer, multimelta

5 Tac Marines: combimelta, flamer - Razorback: stormbolter, Tlinked lascannon

5 Tac Marines: combimelta, flamer - Razorback: stormbolter, Tlinked lascannon

5 Tac Marines: Combimelta, melta - Razorback: stormbolter, Tlinked lascannon

5 Tac Marines: Combimelta, melta -  droppod

5 scouts: Combimelta, meltabombs, Bolters - Landspeeder Storm: Multimelta

Landspeeder Typhoon

Landspeeder Typhoon

3 Centurions: 3xGravcannons, 3xmissile launchers

1850

I have grand designs to up the number of Droppods and stuff to be more "meta", but as a starter list I'm happy (and it is themed!).

I'll do an army parade post next week once I have time to think.

Cracks Call

Is next weekend! 2000pts in Masterton. A bit of fun and something different. I have taken the following list:

Annointed of Asuryan: Frost Phoenix, Armour of Caledor

Dragon Mage lvl2: Dragon Armour, Enchanted Shield, Golden Crown, Ring of Fury, Warriorbane

15 Archers: Musician, Standard Bearer

13 Archers: Musician, Standard Bearer

5 Reavers: Spears and bows

5 Reavers: Spears and bows

5 Shadow Warriors

Frost Phoenix

Frost Phoenix

2000pts on the dot.

Annointed and one of his pet Phoenix

Dragon Mage will Pwn you

The totally not racist KKK Shadow Warriors

So the world's most unsubtle list of all time. I wanted to submit something that was a bit out of left field and not what I would usually use.

Fluffy?

There has been a bit of twitter chatter about fluffy lists. For me a list needs to:

• be competitive
• offer a challenge to your opponent
• have a clear direction
• cover any weakness as a result of the direction chosen

So to me a "Fluffy list" still needs to do the above. A non functioning list of "soft" choices isn't fluffy - it's bad list writing. 

My Pro tip for 2000pt list design is that it is almost the perfect points value to play at in that you have JUST ENOUGH points to get the toys in, but NOT QUITE ENOUGH to take them all and round the list off = lists have glaring weakness and either do 1 thing really well, or lots of things not quite so well as the could/should to be effective. I personally take the 1st approach. I went "how many monsters can I fit in given the armies available to me" (because monsters are fun) and then tried to flesh it out.

My list has some severe weaknesses regarding the scenarios, and some hard counters. Fluffy to me is looking to provide a functioning list without resorting to the "usual"...at 2000pts I could have easily gone lvl4 death book of hoeth, Frostie, RBTS, BOWD BSB, silverhelm bus and token infantry bunker for watchtower. Filth - but the usual filth with few to no weaknesses. My list is tough and I've never seen someone monstermash to this extent because the list is usually rounded off with better counters, more magic, and other compromises that give the list an all comers approach. 

Anywho looking over the other lists that are been taken I see plenty of red flags (poison cauldron Witch Elf horde, Dwarf artillery snoozefest parks, super scream list, double warplightning cannon bell and stormbanner skaven to name a few) so it should be interesting. 

I'll remember to take lots of photos and stuff for a battle report

painting stuff update

Righty - a chance to play with the light box thanks to the sniffles.

First up - some Salamander support characters that I dont particularly see myself using in "regular" lists, but are good to have around for the big games/trying something different:

Librarian

Taken with my Ipad Mini...still a little grainy, but much better detail than ye old photo technique I don't like the fluffy approach of having all Librarian's being blue - so mine has Salamander green armour on. 

Techmarine

A case of finding a techpriest cheap instead of forking out far too much for a failcast one from GW. 

Sisters of Twilight

Some of the most fiddly models I've ever dealt with (on par with some of the stuff on the Hurricanum kit) that are also a bit of a showcase in GW's plastic casting. I'm in 2 minds about glueing the riders down...ease of transport vs ease of game play. 

And a little bit of freehand on the one command option I see myself taking on these guys. 

SO yeah that's that for now. Next on the painting table is my 3rd unit of 6 wildriders, a 3rd droppod and a Melta Dreadnaught.

Panzershreck 2014 battle reports

Hey hey hey,

Weekend just been was the annual home town tournament run by the Palmy gaming club (complete with Saturday night BBQ and all).

Last year the comp was Swedish which was lots of fun (double witch hunter FTW!), this year it was ETC complete with ETC terrain and base sizes (though confession - I didn't base my artillery and it was ok). I'm not the biggest fan of the ETC format, but it is still Warhammer and I'm not one to throw my dice out of the cot and not enjoy myself anyway.

My list:

Confession #2 I  literally had not unpacked my Empire army since Horned Rat, so I took the exact same list:

GTM: runefang, Ch shield, Pospeed, DBGem
lvl4: life, steed, stubborn, mr(3)
lvl1: steed, fire, scroll
BSB: Bsteed, 1+ as, lance, white cloak
COTE, Bsteed, 1+as, lance, OTS
13 Inner Circle Knights: FC-banner of discipline
5 Knights: M
5 Knights: M
4 Demis: M
cannon
cannon
Stank
Hurricanum

Or as I call it the "Life Lance".

I was going to take a double prince, double lvl2 High magic, calv MSU High Elf list, but I couldn't get it all finished to a standard I wanted to be comfortable using at an event due to running out of basing materials. My resupply order arrived 3 days before the event so I COULD have taken it if I had known that at list submission deadline. Oh well....

GAME 1: vs Ryan - WoC

Fantastic...I travel all the way to Palmy to play my regular gaming buddy, so I had no tricks up my sleeve and had to rely on good 'ol cannons doing their thing...or not. This happened:

Chaos Lord, BSB on daemonic mount and chariot vs Stank...

and this happened...

But thankfully Ryan forgot about the ability to reform after combat so the warriors got lance in the front and demis in the flank (hiding behind the building having "tactically withdrawn" earlier in the game).

Ryan ran away with all his points...my cannons did nothing of note (other than finishing the chariot my stank failed to grind) and given my chaff all died, picking up his chaff and the warriors brought the game to a draw...We should have slept in and just called it!

Result 10-10 Draw

Game 2: vs Dan WoC

Game 2 and my 2nd WoC list. Dan is NZ's WoC player, so I knew I was up for a cagey game. I knew that to have a chance his chaff had to die. T1 I rock out the lvl1 fire mage, 3 dice IF a 2d6 fireball..only kill 3 marauder horsemen and go down the hole (sad face). The rest of the game looked like this:

No point reforming as the fast calv would just adjust accordingly...I gave him the stank for the trolls to vomit on. This game was a huge cannon failure. I looked at his list and my mental note was "all chariots dead + 1 unit of skull crushers = I should win the game"...instead my cannons did 4 wounds IN TOTAL over the course of the game...1 measly chariot...sigh

Result: 7-13 loss

Game 3: vs Charlie "Hobby Hero" Dark Elves.

Dreadlord on dragon, no BSB, brolocks for magic and 2 manticores = Not the best match up for him. 1 cannon shot killed this:

Black Dragon, Manticore and beastmaster dead to 1 cannon shot

and the Dreadlord only had a unit of Crossbows to hide in = got the lance to the face. Lore of Life really showed its power when t8 Demis not only survived this...

but killed it all (token hurricanum charge may have helped that last little part!)

All in all, the Hobby Hero lived up to his name and took the tabling like a champ. he got my favourite opponent vote.

Result: 20-0 win

Game 4: vs Mal skinks and cowboys

After a hard night Karaoke'ing I awoke to the fact I would be taking on NZ's ETC skink cloud hobby killer.

Being out deployed by chaff doesn't help cannon placement so I was faced with this:

His BSB survived 3 cannons and a Dwellers, his Old Vet survived a cannon, a skink priest failed Dwellers LOS! (ETC rules) and then passed its strength test...if I could go wrong it did. I ALMOST got my Demis to the Slann, but I ran out of turns :(. I kill chaff, Mal kills the stank, hurrricanum, and a unit of knights.

Result: 9-11 loss

Game 5: vs Brian Dark Elves

SO what I thought was the last game of the event vs another awesome list...3 hydras, 4 RBTs, horde of witches with Cauldron and chaff! I cannoned off the peg lvl4 turn1 and then hit the chaff with hydra's looking down on me...

So I pull out my ace up the sleeve tactic and cannon off 1 of the hydras that panics the other 1 off the table (mad skillz)...to add insult I then cannoned off the 3rd hydra. This game contained a classic I "know" the ETC rules, but still play real warhammer...we discussed at length how the terrain worked. I had some ruins in my deployment zone and instead of deploying my cannons in it, I deployed them right behind it...silly me. It cost me a cannon as the RBTs took very careful...unmodified aim.

So once the monsters were dead I worked by way through the RBTs towards the witches. I baited them with the Stank, flanked in the demis and t6 my lance finally got there...

Runefang and OTS captain take out the cauldron and from there it is lots of dead elves leaving only the BSB hag who died defending her banner (or however it is described in the BRB).

Result: 20-0 win

Game 6: vs Pete Furry Dwarfs

My submarine surfaced and I was up against Pete (if this was the internetz I would talk about being on the "Top Table"...I think we were on table #5). Having given him stick all weekend about hiding behind ETC hill rules and refining the minimum sized deployment he can legally do he pulls this one on me:

Now I know the Skaven book has a "life is cheap" rule of something...but this was taking it to extremes!
This is the first game EVER where I have killed a whole unit of slaves (2 units in fact) in a single turn. As I waded my way though the bodies his greyseer did a runner:

After a thorough read of the Skaven FAQ/Errata (vol 1-25 3rd ed) I can confirm there is no rule allowing me to control the bell unit once it reaches my deployment zone.

And the only real excitement was Doomwheel vs Stank (he got the charge grrr) and Doomwheel vs vanilla knights. I made a mistake putting a last remaining knight into the flank of 1 in the hope of breaking it giving away 240pts instead of 120 from the unit that originally engaged it to let my knights and demis past unzapped.
My stank stoically held on with 2 wounds until the lance arrived when it finally gave up the ghost (even I was cheering at that point...I shouldn't have passed so many 4+ as!)

A big win was effectively written off when my lvl4 miscast t2 and lost 2 magic levels. From there I failed to cast Dwellers 3 times...21 is a hard number to roll on 5 dice with only +2 from wizard levels.

In the end we added it all up and I was 92pts up (or "3 slave units" in Skaven language). Fantastic game to end it.

Result: 10-10 draw

Overall Results

Playing out a draw I was reliant on those around me not doing too well. Greg lost his game, Mal and Dan got stuck in ETC purgatory (10-10 is a win right??)  but Mr Sam Whitt obviously paid Mike King handsomely as he catapulted himself into 2nd place with a casual 20-0 game 6 win.

For the first time is AGES I came in top 3 with a 3rd place finish. I've never seen Pete so happy. To my surprise I also picked up Best Sports.

First official use of my new light box!

Big thanks to Jeff for TO'ing (and killing Ryan's Chaos Lord with a Dragon Mage), the Palmy club and all my opponents/people who attended.

Anywho that's me. Now I have a light box (the one advertised on fieldsofblood recently) I hope to be able to do way better painting updates...now to paint stuff to update!

Salamander/40k update

Hey hey hey

Its been a wee while since an update, and a very long time since the Salamanders were mentioned (yes they are still kicking around).

So in between buying the core of the army, having a few games and getting started on the painting a new edition dropped and all of a sudden I had to change tact. No longer was I going to be tinkering with Tigerus allies for divination/telekinis shenanigans, I have opted for pure Salamanders.

Pictures for the picture gods!

Black undercoat. Directional Spray of Army Painter army green. Black wash, Warp stone glow drybrushing. repaint black parts - either drybrush or smudge runefang silver. Hashut copper on stuff. Adeptus battlegrey highlights for skin/cloth. Wash the black/silver/copper areas with nuln oil. Edge highlight with Hashut Copper. Boom!

So simple but looks great (except for ipad camera on shiny table...)

Joel's authoritative take on the new edition:

I thought the internet was at its worst when this edition dropped "ahhhh the sky is falling" blaa blaa blaa. Unbound armies cannot contest objectives and are by PERMISSION ONLY. ie - they are as optional as the allied rules in 8th ed WHFB. The psychic phase can be either heavily invested in, or ignored. It is the same as before (effectively) - there is now a good chance the power wont activate. To increase activation chance = throw more dice = less is cast (WHFB language there) = meh.

40k is an interesting game. Cool aesthetic, fluff etc - but the game of late had devolved into cookie cutter options and no brainers. In a game with few to no movement based tactics, complicated combat with no real incentive to do it, super sniping characters, easy to blow up vehicles, but no multi-wound weapons to deal with monsters (that are immune to low strength fire), there needed to be something done to shake it up.

Enter the new targeting rules, order of fire rules and jink saves. Boom! - Either/or decisions, and positioning is important. Combat still isnt that great (in fact the 1 rule that kept it around - challenges - has been nerfed...) but has uses and your special weapon guys will now make it in!

The vehicle damage chart changes have made ye ol' transports better. With better jink this has potentially made some things really good - until you see that jink is declared BEFORE rolling to hit = there is a tactic in forcing the either/or decision because even if your shooting bounces off the jink = less coming back at you (unless people are now running stripped down wave serpents with minimal shooting so they can zoom stuff onto objectives :P)

Salamander stuff

I think Salamaders are well positioned to maximise the potential impacts of the new rules. Mastercrafted Melta weapons (oooo - sternguard get mastercrafted special ammo if shot from a combi melta!) and the marine arsenal of Twinlinked Lascannons gives options.

Better transports mean the real scary short range stuff can get into range quicker (and contest objectives etc). Lascannons are scary from range.

My rundown of how to up the anti with Salamanders:

• Vulkan  - Rather self explanatory. Can tank (ish), ok in combat, has heavy flamer and mastercrafts melta. DONE.
• Command squad with melta and apocothary in a droppod. -Vulkan needs a) a posse and b) be close to the action. This option does both - oh and will wreck people's days.
• droppodding Ironclad - the biggest distraction EVA! Salamander fluffy and should be reasonably hard to kill. Either way t1 shooting is not aimed at your other stuff!
• multiple Lasback marines with combi melta and flamer/melta. Oh hi tl lascannons. Oh hi objective holders, oh hi versatile squads.
• Combi melta, melta marines in droppod - the objective capturing unit that also blows stuff up
• Combimelta scouts in MMelta storm - another threat that captures objectives - Vulkan makes them very good
• Landspeeder typhoons - only in the larger games, but effective and points efficient s8/5 shooting is nice. another good option to force jink decisions - and has the speed to get good positioning. 
• Gravturions - best unit in the book. Range is a problem - but add on missiles and they are good hullpoint strippers/anti horde while getting into range. 
• Lasturions - most points efficient heavy firepower in the book. 3 TL lascannon + 3 missiles for less than 300pts. This is a serious threat unit that can politely sit back and "force the decisions" on jinking units. I'm surprised these guys dont get more internetz time
• Knights Errant - woah! Imperial knights are now an official part of the FOC = take the melta version duh! No Tlinked from Vulkan, but still amazing!

Basically I think of list writing as adding guns. I aim for a minimum of 6 tlinked lascannons, and as much melta as possible. Attack bikes are another cheap MMelta option to consider...but look stupid!

Ok - I'm sure there is a strong argument for "adding in AEGIS defense lines", "you need to landraider redeemer up fast!", "where's your Stormraven??", "only option is to go whitescars and have unkillable chaptermaster on a bike"...but I'm purposely going down another route.

Anywho that's me. On the painting table currently are more lionhelms (sigh a 3rd unit), Wildrider unit #3 and more marines.