Detachment Focus: Forgefather’s Seekers

In our Detachment Focus series, we take a deep look at a specific Detachment – what it does, how it works, and how to play it. In this Detachment Focus article we’re looking at the new Forgefather’s Seekers Detachment, designed specifically for Space Marines players who want to play Salamanders.

Are you a Salamanders lover? Do you crave fire and close range destruction? Did Firestorm Assault Force just not give you enough Burninating? Consider joining Vulkan He’stan on his quest to find the Dragonballs er uh the Lost Relics and bring back the Primarch and fight with the Forgefather’s Seekers.

We’d like to thank Games Workshop for providing us with a preview copy of these rules for Review purposes.

Detachment Overview

Forgefather’s Seekers is in most respects very similar to Firestorm Assault Force, carrying the same Detachment rule, three of the same enhancements, and four of the same stratagems. The rules encourage aggressive, close range shooting to annihilate targets quickly and threaten fiery retribution if the opponent tries to punch back. To that end it incentivizes Melta and Torrent weapons that often want to be deployed up close and it lets them get there faster with Assault.  

Unlike Firestorm, this Detachment does not require transports to make use of half its stratagems, instead focusing more on Infantry and Torrent equipped units. While transports will certainly still be useful here to get units where they want to go, they’re no longer as central to the design. The new stratagems, enhancement, and Detachment rule additions instead push you to try and control ground with Torrent units with the threat of even stronger output from Overwatch, charge reductions, and then if the opponent manages to reach you they better kill you or you simply fall back and toast them.

Detachment Rule: Vulkan’s Quest and Seeker’s Companions

Vulkan’s quest is a carryover from Firestorm, giving you army-wide Assault and +1 to strength for ranged attacks made by units against a target within 12”. You want to move fast, move close, and demand to know where the missing relics are. The new component is Seeker’s Companions, where if Vulkan He’stan is included in your army, all your Infernus Squads can perform actions even if they advanced and can still shoot without failing actions. Assuming he maintains his Dataslate ability to make Infernus Marines OC 2 if they’re not Battle-shocked, it’s a niche but very flavorful buff to the the Salamander’s themed force, encouraging you to bring in more squads of pyromaniacs that can now also threaten to steal/hold objectives more easily and keep applying fire power as you push forward.

Enhancements

There’s only one new enhancement here compared to Firestorm Assault Force, so the rest should be pretty familiar.

• Immolator: Add 1 to the attacks characteristic of Torrent weapons equipped by models in the bearer’s unit. The new kid on the block, it takes the place of Champion of Humanity. While ignoring all modifiers will be missed, a flat increase to attacks for shooting is solid, pushing you to equip this on a big block of either Infernus Marines or Aggressors to increase their attacks by +10/+6 respectively. Not too shabby..  
• War-tempered Artifice: Infantry only. Add 3 to the Strength characteristic of the bearer’s melee weapons. The most expensive enhancement, but can help make a character’s melee much more threatening – a power fist-equipped character striking at S11 has a much better time into most vehicles than one striking at S8, especially with big Knights now at T11.

• Forged in Battle: While the bearer is leading a unit, you can make a Hit roll or saving throw for that unit into a 6 once per turn. Since you can change this after rolling the dice, it can be really useful for keeping a key unit alive. Don’t miss the potential for triggering Critical Hit effects either, such as Lethal Hits from an Apothecary Biologis.
• Adamantine Mantle: Each time an attack is allocated to the bearer, subtract 1 from the Damage characteristic of that attack, or change it to a 1 if that attack was made with a Melta or Torrent weapon. As a straightforward -1 damage this is fine, but be wary with the melta part – with the way modifiers work you will set the damage of the attack to 1, but then any additional damage from the melta rule hits at full effect, so a high-powered one like a thermal spear or Fuegan’s insane MELTA 6 gun can still bust right through your character.

Stratagems

Like all other Space Marine Detachments, Forgefather’s Seekers has access to Armour of Contempt. In addition, Crucible of Battle, Immolation Protocols, and Burning Vengeance are carried over from Firestorm Assault Force, leaving Wrathful Inferno and Burning Earth as the new options:

• Crucible of Battle (Battle Tactic, 1CP): Used in your Shooting phase or in the Fight phase, an  infantry unit gets +1 to Wound rolls against the closest eligible target within 6″. Note that this is per model, so be careful with positioning. A strong Stratagem that you can almost always find a use for.

• Wrathful Inferno (Strategic Ploy, 1 CP): Used in your Movement phase, just after an Astartes Infantry unit Fell Back, that unit can now Shoot after Falling Back. Taking the place of Rapid Embarkation, this stratagem trades transport trickery for straightforward utility, allowing you to support your Infantry that are likely within Charge range with their various flamers and meltas and keep them firing as long as they’re still standing. Sounds about right for the Salamanders.

• Immolation Protocols (Battle Tactic, 2CP): Used in your Shooting phase, give a unit’s TORRENT weapons the DEVASTATING WOUNDS ability. 2CP to hand out Devastating Wounds is pretty good, but the Torrent weapon rider really narrows what you can use it on. Aggressors are a strong target thanks to being twin-linked, and players are also out there running Infernus Marines with Vulkan attached to give them re-rolls to Wound to fish for this. Other uses are more situational – a Land Raider Redeemer dropping this can be hilarious if it high-rolls, but 2CP is a lot of investment if it doesn’t. Like many 2CP Stratagems, strongest when you can do it for free.

• Blazing Earth (Strategic Ploy, 1 CP): Used at the start of your Opponent’s Charge Phase, target one unit from your army with at least 1 Torrent weapon. Then select one enemy unit within 12” and visible (provided it is not a Vehicle/Monster/Fly keyword). Until the end of the phase that unit is -2” to Charge rolls, not cumulative with any other Charge roll modifiers. That’s a lot of stipulations for a -2” to charge. This replaces Onslaught of Fire and feels like a bit of a downgrade to be honest. The effect itself isn’t bad, but even in an army that wants a lot of torrent weapons it’s limited in its options. And besides if they’re visible and within 12” of your Torrent weapons, you likely want to just Overwatch anyway and apply fire to the enemy and not the earth.  

• Burning Vengeance (Battle Tactic, 1CP): Used in your opponent’s Shooting phase; pick a transport that was just shot at, jump out the guys inside, and immediately shoot back at the unit that shot their ride. They can only target that unit and it must be an eligible target, so you can’t wallhack indirect fire or anything, but this one does have the potential to be quite funny if an incautious opponent shoots your Land Raider full of Aggressors at shorter range than they ought to have.

Playing This Detachment

This Detachment will obviously feel very familiar to you if you have spent time with Firestorm Assault Force. It wants to go fast and it wants to hit you hard up close where those sweet strength breakpoints start kicking in, especially with the changes to Knight toughness, wounding Armiger chassis’ on 3s with Strength 10 Meltas or wounding Questoris classes on 5s with Strength 6 Pyreblasters before factoring in Oaths of Moment is pretty sweet.  

Where this Detachment diverges from Firestorm Assault Force is it does not have the same level of focus on transports. Only one stratagem cares directly about units in transports, Burning Vengeance, and the new stratagem Blazing Earth, the enhancement Immolator, and the Detachment rule Seeker’s Companions all focus instead on Torrent weapons. You don’t technically have to bring Vulkan to run this Detachment (delegating the quest I guess), but he provides a multitude of buffs to your army that are directly relevant to your gameplan, like rerolling wound rolls against a target for Melta and Torrent weapons and making your Infernus Marines well rounded action doers, objective takers, and fire shooters. The units that were supported in Firestorm continue to be good here, like the various Stormspeeders, Eradicators, and Aggressors. The Land Raider Redeemer continues to sit pretty in this Detachment, being both a Transport and Torrent wielder. It does what it did before and does it well.

Crucible of Battle remains a great ability to push the math in your favor, and is the only melee relevant strat available, but taking something like Aggressor power fists to 4s to wound against big Knights is great, and while you have Oath of Moment providing the same effect, being able to get +1 to wound in two locations or still get +1 to wound against a -1 to wound target is solid. It also means you can Oath a target for your units that don’t know how to Torrent and let your Infernus/Aggressors burn things without feeling guilty about not using the hit rerolls.  

A Sample List

Burninate the Thatch-Roofed Cottages.

They call me the Seeker, I been searching far and wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiide - click to expand

This list builds around a few simple combos, namely 10 Infernus marines lead by a Librarian with Immolator that mount up in a drop pod, Vulkan and the Company Heroes to brawl in the midfield, and the anti tank punch of the Hammerstrikes and Eradicators. Vulkan’s wound reroll can be utilized effectively by almost the whole army and allows you to absolutely crush any target whether it’s a block of infantry or a Knight.

The three Hammerstrikes give you early range threats that can gang up on a single target or split up as needed with the speed to apply meltas basically wherever they’re needed. Vulkan and friends post up on an objective and demand your opponent commit heavily. The Infernus Marines with Librarian drop in, roast something, then threaten to do it again with Overwatch while the Eradicators with Biologis can either go in the Redeemer or come in from reserves as needed. In the meantime, 2 msu units each of Infernus and Assault Ints with Jump packs give you skirmishers to seize points, do actions, and crush chaff.  

Final Thoughts

Forgefather’s Seekers doesn’t provide a ton of exciting new content, but it does allow a Salamander’s enthusiast to lean more heavily into the units that really define the fire loving chapter while still maintaining a lot of the power that makes Firestorm competitive. It’s a good companion to the new Vulkan model, at the very least.

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