Salamanders vs Death Guard in King of the Colosseum: a brutal 20:0
We love it when a game report arrives as a complete stream-of-consciousness brain dump, because somehow those are often the most fun to turn into a proper battle report. This time, end3r took his Salamanders into a King of the Colosseum 500-point game against Death Guard, and the result was… honestly kind of savage.
The lists and the setup
On the Salamanders side, it was exactly the same list as in the previous game against Astra Militarum. Across the table, Death Guard brought:
- Lord of Poxes – 85 pts
- 2x Plague Marines – 95 pts each
- Deathshroud Terminators – 160 pts
- Poxwalkers – 65 pts
From the very beginning, the dice were clearly smiling on the sons of Nocturne. Salamanders got first turn, and that mattered a lot.
Turn one: everything clicks
The key moment came immediately: the Infernus Squad needed a 5+ Advance to get into the perfect firing position against one unit of Plague Marines together with their character. The roll was exactly what was needed.
At the same time, Adrax (standing in as a captain) advanced together with his Intercessors, while on the other flank the ATV rolled up toward the Poxwalkers but lined up a melta shot into the second Plague Marine unit. The Eradicators managed to do the same.
And then the shooting phase just went absurdly well.
The Plague Marine unit with the attached leader was completely wiped off the table. That opened the way for the Infernus Marines to charge the Poxwalkers on one side, while the ATV and Eradicators, after only dropping a single Plague Marine from the other unit, also piled into the Poxwalkers from the other direction.
So by the end of turn one, Death Guard had already lost two units, including one with its boss attached, and the only things left in play were:
- one incomplete Plague Marine squad,
- and the Deathshroud Terminators still waiting in reserve until turn two.
That is a rough place to be in after one turn in a 500-point game.
Death Guard hit back, but not hard enough
To their credit, the remaining Plague Marines did manage to punch back. They mauled Adrax’s unit and killed all of his Intercessors. Adrax himself survived on one wound, which was enough to matter.
Because right after that, the Salamanders counterattack landed.
The Infernus Marines and long-range ATV fire removed the remaining Plague Marines from the table, leaving only the Terminators to deal with.
Terminators arrive, vengeance follows
The Deathshroud Terminators did at least get a moment of glory: they killed Adrax. But by then the board state was already heavily in the Salamanders’ favor.
The Infernus Marines fell back from combat, creating exactly the space needed for the ATV and Eradicators to line up their melta shots. And that was the end of the Terminators too.
All of this was wrapped up at the start of turn three.
From that point onward, three of the four Salamanders units were basically free to score points uncontested for the rest of the game:
- Eradicators – no losses
- ATV – no losses
- Infernus Squad – still at roughly 50% strength
And the final score reflected that domination:
- 74:16 on primary/secondary points
- 20:0 in WTC scoring
That last bit is especially satisfying, because as end3r pointed out, the Salamanders did not manage a maximum score like that even once in the previous Combat Patrol league.
The big caveat: first turn mattered a lot
As explosive as this game was, end3r was also very honest about the other side of it: if Death Guard had gone first, the game could have looked very different.
A full-speed push from Plague Marines into the key Salamanders character, followed by Terminators dropping in aggressively, could have made things dramatically harder from the start. So yes, the Salamanders played well and the dice were hot — but there was also a very real element of momentum from winning that first-turn roll-off.
That kind of honesty is one of the things we really like in battle reports. Sometimes a game is a tactical masterclass, and sometimes it is also a story about how one key roll opens the floodgates.
The only proper photo from the game: Adrax
There was only one actual battle-related photo, because — in true hobbyist fashion — the documentation was forgotten in the heat of the moment. But at least we did get a shot of the newly painted Adrax, and honestly, that is a pretty good consolation prize.
The mysterious hero: a converted lieutenant
According to end3r, the unexpected hero of the whole thing turned out to be a converted lieutenant — affectionately referred to as a rework of lieutenant “Borewicz” / a Space Wolf character turned into something much more Salamanders.
And honestly, we really like this approach. One of the coolest things in Warhammer is that even miniatures from very non-generic subfactions can often be converted into something that feels completely your own.
First, the original model used as the basis for the conversion:
And then the Salamanders-flavored result:
We are very much in favor of this kind of hobby energy. Taking something strongly associated with one chapter and making it convincingly yours is exactly the sort of thing that gives an army personality.
Also: apparently Colosseum is spreading
A fun little side note from the conversation: end3r noticed that MGC also plays Colosseum, and Michał mentioned that this was actually where he first heard about the format.
That is always nice to see. Small formats and local variants like this can be absolute gold for getting games in quickly, testing lists, and just keeping the hobby momentum going.
Final thoughts
This was one of those games where everything lined up:
- first turn,
- the crucial Advance roll,
- excellent shooting,
- strong follow-up charges,
- and then melta-powered cleanup.
The result was a complete blowout, but also a very entertaining one — especially because we got the full end3r-style battle recap, which as Staś correctly observed was basically one magnificent overclocked sentence. A beautiful stream of consciousness, but also, somehow, a very effective military dispatch.
If future reports keep arriving in this format, we are absolutely not complaining.