My thoughts a few games into 40k from a competative standpoint.

so, I've gotten a few games of 40k 7th edition under my belt, and been to two of the local tournaments using my salamanders that I'm slowly tweaking to find out how they work in this new edition and as a new army for me til Dark Eldar come back out in the year 2055 (or something to that extent).

As an edition as a whole, so far there are not a lot of "broken ass shit", save for a few things. One very broken thing, and one that will make me no longer play in local tournaments as long as at least one individual plays in them, mostly cause it's all or nothing with him, and he gets pouty when his broken ass lists that he brings to small, local tournaments gets countered, is the fact that Demon princes with wings automatically get to jink and get either a 2++ cover save even when they are not flying due to mark of nurgle stacking with the jink save or a 3++ due to being obscured by the nurgle demon prince and re-rolling failed 1's on the save thanks to tzeentch. So, they are virtually untouchable because GW can not make rules that make sense. They will always jink because they either have the lame ass black mace that gives them d6 attacks at ap 2 that instantly kill everything AND make you take a toughness test or die no save of any kind (which is bullshit), or another one of there broken weapons. Did I mention that you could be seeing 3-4  Near Identical FMC on the board because of Alliances and being able to just pick and choose the broken combos from two books?

The second "broke ass shit" that I'm seeing, is that they did not think the entire psychic phase through. What's worse than 3-4 lame ass jinking Demon princes who don't care that they snapfire because they don't have guns, is having them in addition to 16-34 psychic dice a turn, summoning free units for even MORE psychic dice. Without an in house limit, psychic phases can take 20-30 minutes by themselves, especially when you summon even more units on the table, that will not give up any points what so ever. When a 1500/1850 game turns into 3k vs your opponent's 1500/1850 points, that's an issue.

What people are calling broken, but I don't see as broken are Super heavies in 1500/1850 point games or in friendly engagements. Titans are easily dealt with in the current meta, IE Warhounds get bogged up in melee with WS2 1 attack, and d3 small template str 6 ap 4 stomps, Knights get shot to hell and back. Baneblades are a little tougher to deal with as they are a vehicle and can drive away from melee, but they are just a Leman russ squadron that you don't have to divide your firepower against. Plus things like Invisibility wreck it when it can't shoot it's giant templates at your super tank busting squad.

Some solutions I have come up with for some of these "broken ass shit"

On the subject of FMCs that can jink without being in flight mode or without a shooting attack. The simple solution would to be to house rule it that either they can only jink while they are in flight mode, OR that they can not jink at all unless they have a shooting attack. This goes to anything else that can jink that does not have a shooting attack.  I'm leaning towards pushing for the second part. You should not be able to just laugh off everything thrown at you without some repercussions. It would also force them into flight mode more often so that you can get that one turn of shooting before they assault you.

The psychic phase can be handled this way, Not only a limit on dice per phase (as my local store is doing now IE 1500 points is 15 dice for the psychic phase, 1850-18 etc.) But a limit on number of summoned units in play at any given time. For example, only say Mastery level of your highest psyker (4 max, no fateweaver bullshit of oh I'm an 8) out on the field at any given point. They do not go away if the psyker is destroyed, but no more units can be summoned until they go below the highest level psyker on your side of the field.

Where does that leave my salamanders.

I am seriously considering allying with grey knights for my salamanders. I tried a dual crusader, drop pod with ironclad, Dual storm talons, thunderfire cannon, rhino, double tac squad, vulkan and th/ss termies in the last tournament and some elements worked.. I think dropping one of the crusaders, both the talons, and the thunderfire cannon(maybe), and adding in an element of grey knights to give not only a psychic presence but also some tools to deal with some of the more nasty stuff. Hammerhand would handle some of the strength issues of high toughness things, I mean, who wouldn't love some high strength melee weapons.

I know that I have to figure something out if I want to actually not waste money on tournaments yet still have a good time not being crushed like I have been. Some more thought into what from the GK book I can take to accentuate my salamanders into a viable yet not over the top force will be done over the next little bit.