lizards prodding larger lizards into battle, check
those same larger lizards can breath fire, CHECK!
These are all the reasons to love the salamanders, well that and they are actually pretty darn good game wise too. The breath weapons just got a boost with 8th edition as well now that every thing is hit that touches the flame template, and with the increase in large units this could potentiality do monstrous damage!
I almost always run the unit as a pair to get redundancy in shooting as well as close combat. Inevitably one of the salamanders will decide to get hungry at the wrong moment and eat a skink instead of frying up that nice, juicy enemy unit, but hopefully both won’t decide to do the same and some fire can still be thrown.
I often spend the extra 10 points to add two more handlers as well since the pesky salamanders seem to take a liking to skink flesh. Fortunately it only takes 1 skink to keep both beasts in line so even if I lose the other 7 the unit can continue on.
Painting wise, I was inspired by one of the salamanders in the army book that was black with yellow scales, but I wanted it to fit closer to the red scales of the rest of my army. I decided to go with a dark purple/black body and red-orange-yellow scales. I think it gives them a fierce, dangerous look, which is very fitting and contrasting to the light blue, frail bodies of the skinks.
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