Warhammer 40K: Why Eradicators are So Good
Adam, from TFG Radio here to talk about why Eradicators and Salamanders are putting the meta to the torch.
Hey everyone! Adam, from TFG Radio here to help explain why some things are good in the game in the realm that is Competitive 40K.
Almost as expected we are seeing Space Marines remain on the top tables. What may be surprising is that we are seeing different flavors of Space Marines. At the end of 8th edition we had mainly Iron Hands, with a smattering of Raven Guard. In fact it was those two armies in the final match of the Las Vegas Open earlier this year. Currently we are seeing Salamander Successors constantly vying for the top spot, along with some White Scars, and Iron Hands still making an appearance. This comes as a bit of a surprise since nothing has really changed in the Salamander’s codex. Now there have been changes in the game itself, along with the addition of a new unit that takes advantage of the their codex, Eradicators. This week we will discuss why the Eradicators work in a Salamanders force.
The Eradicators are Primaris Space Marines. They have a toughness of five and three wounds but it’s their gun that really sets them apart. They have a Melta Rifle, which is kind of in between a Melta gun and a Melta Cannon. They are assault one but have the range of the Melta Cannon. If you are playing the army as a Salamander Successor, you would take Master Artisan, which allows you to reroll one hit, one wound roll when a unit is chosen to attack or fire overwatch. In addition you would take Long Range Marksman, this increases the range of weapons by three inches. The extra range for the shooting weapons doesn’t seem like much but with the model’s movement, five inches, the fact that they do not suffer any penalties to hit for moving, and we are now playing on a small board, gives them a pretty good threat area. I haven’t event mentioned the Eradicator’s special rule yet, Total Obliteration. This allows the unit to shoot a second time. This is limited to only being able to target one unit but it almost guarantees that the targeted unit will be destroyed. This can be highly effective against super heavy units and tough units with a lot of wounds. Couple with Vulkan He’Stan, who lets you reroll hits and wounds for melta and flamer weapons, or Adrax Agatone, he lets units within six inches reroll hits of one, and you have a very strong base of firepower because you know you are taking three of these units.
Even with all these new rules what else makes this unit so effective? Once of the obvious answers is the codex itself. The Salamanders codex is tailor made for the use of flamer and melta weapons. They have several stratagems that help them get more damage output or more ways to use their weapons more effectively. Even the generic Space Marine Codex has a couple stratagems that help the Eradicators be a more effective unit. Auspex Scan is a good example of this. Depending on where the unit is on the board, they can target almost any other unit that comes out of reserve. Even though it’s only three shots, depending on the unit that is arriving, it can be a powerful punch to a fresh unit your opponent was hoping to get to use to it’s full advantage. The other thing that helps make the unit deadlier is the new reinforcement rule. This allows you to basically hide the units until you really need them on the battlefield. This is not something unique to Salamanders or Space Marines and any unit can do it. Being able to bring in this destructive unit, when and where you can, can easily tip the battle into your favor. This is where the Long Range Marksman really shines as it allows you to target units your opponent was hoping would normally be out of range. This also give you a reason to go second as you units will be protected and you will be able to react to your opponent’s reinforcements as he will be bringing them on before you do.
It is really hard to count this combo. One option is to play Space Marines yourself and use the same tactic, hoping to go second or, if going first, your opponent commits his early. This isn’t really viable as not everyone wants to play Space Marines and it makes the meta rather dull. The other option is to use your troops to limit what parts of the board edge that your opponent arrives on. The issue with this is that it would probably involve a lot of models that are not very durable and subject to the blast rule. We do have the new codex coming out in October so that should bring some changes in how the army is built. Hopefully there will be some type of point increase, whether to the model or the weapon, but that may not be the answer by itself. We will have to see how the whole book shakes out before we can tell if we will still be plagued by the evil that are THE ERADICATORS!!!!
~That’s all for this week. Hope you enjoyed the article. Let me know what you think, and if this is even an issue, in the comments section below.
