How Good are Salamanders?

[LeeJP]

Title. Never used them, and I haven't really had much of an answer to ranged heavy stacks aside from magic. Are Salamanders a decent counter to enemy missile units? If not, what is?

I do use Chameleon Skinks, but even with Poison debuffs and high missile resist, they don't tend to trade too well with enemy missile units since they don't do much damage. They seem better used for debuffing and harassing infantry.

[Andrewbh2003]

there not designed vs ranged units

hunting packs destroy tight blobs of low armour or anything with the word "Large" attached to hit

ancient salamander hits like a absolute truck against infantry but unfortunately every since the nerf her glory days are gone also with only 160 range it means that most good ranged units outrange her combined with low hp and ancient salamanders dont trade cost-effective with most ranged units

[LeeJP]

Originally posted by andrewbh2003:

there not designed vs ranged units

hunting packs destroy tight blobs of low armour or anything with the word "Large" attached to hit

ancient salamander hits like a absolute truck against infantry but unfortunately every since the nerf her glory days are gone also with only 160 range it means that most good ranged units outrange her combined with low hp and ancient salamanders dont trade cost-effective with most ranged units

So what would you say is a good ranged answer to ranged-heavy armies as Lizardmen? Or do they not really have one.

So far I've mainly been relying on magic and cavalry/monsters.

[Andrewbh2003]

Originally posted by LeeJP:

Originally posted by andrewbh2003:

there not designed vs ranged units

hunting packs destroy tight blobs of low armour or anything with the word "Large" attached to hit

ancient salamander hits like a absolute truck against infantry but unfortunately every since the nerf her glory days are gone also with only 160 range it means that most good ranged units outrange her combined with low hp and ancient salamanders dont trade cost-effective with most ranged units

So what would you say is a good ranged answer to ranged-heavy armies as Lizardmen? Or do they not really have one.

So far I've mainly been relying on magic and cavalry/monsters.

there good ranged units

there just not good at fighting OTHER ranged units if you have ever seen a ancient salamander in action that thing is OP 1 good shot takes out nearly half hp of a unit of har ganeath executioners

[LeeJP]

I'm looking more for a ranged option to ranged, though. I don't really have any issue with infantry, monsters, or cavalry since Saurus, Kroxigors, and Dinosaurs are great at handling melee units.

My usual armies don't deal well with lots of missile units though, especially missile cav. Saurus are too slow to reach them, Skinks don't trade well, and while Cavalry/Monsters are good against smaller numbers of ranged units, it becomes more of a problem when they have a lot.

[Sins]

Mostly you deal with projectile-heavy armies by shoving giant death lizards in their face.

There's no real cost effective way to deal with them, but really nobody has a cost effective way to deal with ranged infantry, except maybe Greenskins and Skaven. You just have to count on your cavalry/monsters/whatever you have thats fast going better than 1 for 1, which in fairness, is almost always the case.

[TVMAN]

Yeah that's definitely not a good matchup for the lizards. Fact is they just don't have many good answers to ranged units outside of spells, cavalry, and monsters because ranged simply isn't the focus of their roster. They'll never be able to outshoot a ranged heavy race like the high elves or vampire coast.

Your best bet really is letting your saurus front line keep the enemy infantry pinned while your monsters/cav/whatever push through/around and into the range back line.

[strike478]

Cavalry, some monster. Don't try to fight ranged with ranged unless you have big advantage.
Lizardmen ranged is mostly to harass enemy melee.

[Notoko]

They can be good on choke point maps to help open a patch or cover paths

[lPaladinl]

Originally posted by Chaotic Submissive Succubus:

Mostly you deal with projectile-heavy armies by shoving giant death lizards in their face.

This.

Tie up their archers with Stegadons and Carnosaurs. Once engaged in melee they're basically worthless and especially Carnosaurs are great for fighting infantry.

One exception is High Elves and their Lothern Sea Guard. They have Spears and are pretty tough for Archers. I don't think they can take out a Carnosaur that easily, but they will do a lot more damage than most archers can.

[Angarvin]

when you say salamanders you mean salamander hunting packs or ancient salamanders?

[LeeJP]

Originally posted by lPaladinl:

This.

Tie up their archers with Stegadons and Carnosaurs. Once engaged in melee they're basically worthless and especially Carnosaurs are great for fighting infantry.

One exception is High Elves and their Lothern Sea Guard. They have Spears and are pretty tough for Archers. I don't think they can take out a Carnosaur that easily, but they will do a lot more damage than most archers can.

Yeah that's the thing, in my Vortex campaign I was frequently fighting High Elf stacks that were heavy on Lothern Seaguard. I never really felt very comfortable sending my Cavalry or Dinosaurs into Spears, so I relied heavily on Magic.

Originally posted by Angarvin:

when you say salamanders you mean salamander hunting pack or ancient salamanders?

Either one, really. I was mainly wondering if there was a Lizardmen ranged unit that could decently deal with enemy missile units.

[Angarvin]

Originally posted by LeeJP:

Originally posted by Angarvin:

when you say salamanders you mean salamander hunting pack or ancient salamanders?

Either one, really. I was mainly wondering if there was a Lizardmen ranged unit that could decently deal with enemy missile units.

packs i, personally, find lacking, but ancients became a must have unit in any main stack for me - they do wonderfully vs any infantry because they're fast and have a ton of ranged damage. so if the enemy unit is melee - you kite, and if the enemy unit is ranged - you spit, move up, spit again and then charge in to finish them (sea guard however counter that tactic pretty hard).
ancient salamanders rapidly lose their efficiency when it comes to ranged cavalry, but for that i use ripperdactyls.

i also should probably mention that i play on medium unit size which reduces ranged unit perfomance, so i don't know if it'll work for you if you play on smth like ultra.

[Toby Larone]

Hunting packs tend to be finicky to use but if you get them their ideal target (cav) they can do great. Unit like horsemasters die to them quickly and even heavy armour units tend to die because of the high damage they do. They also do well in hitting units on walls since they have a solid arch unlikeall other ranged units.

[Happy]

If your talking about campaign as Lizard Men, upgrade & use ambush stance. Lizard men in general are powerful in cqc, so use it to your advantage. Otherwise, you might be counting on your cavalry & monster units to chase down the missile units, that are usually faster. But I find it easier to ambush & get into close combat asap, and ambush tactics allow that.

[luci-27master]

Use more skinks to soak up the damage and also buy 2 skink chiefs on an terradon and let them crah into their backline after the battle has started