8th Ed. Salamander shooting over skinks

Can a salamander shoot over a unit of skinks that is right in front of it? Asamu stated that they can in the Dark Elf tactica in the Tactica Index:

Found at: http://www.lustria-online.com/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=13148

So if I understand this correctly, the flame template will land at least 2 inches away from the salamander (2 being the lowest possible result on an artillery dice roll), thus if the slamander is right behind the skinks the template will not touch any of the skinks, but instead land on the other side of them, making it a legal shot.
My problem with this is that the BRB states that when you shoot with a fire thrower, you first place the template touching the base of the salamander, and then roll the artillery dice to see how far it goes forward. This means that you have to place it on top of the skinks first, making it illegal since you can not place any template shots /spells so that they touch any friendly models.

How should this be played?

 

Not sure yet there is no chance of hitting your own troops so i would and i will do

 

Even if you could shoot over the skinks, you would have to be running a single rank of skinks and they would have to be exactly 1" in front of your Salamander.

I'm not sure what you're buying yourself by setting that scenario up. You get soft cover from shooting, but you're giving anything that wants to charge your Salmander 2 extra inches of charge range, because anything that wants to get into your Salamander can probably handle a little unit of Skinks (that won't even have any supporting attacks) and will then just overrun into your Salamander which won't even have an opportunity to flee.

Perhaps the Dark Elves put that in their Tactica to try to coerce Lizardmen players into try it so that Salamanders can be killed faster... sneaky Elves.

 

What about skirmishers, that half inch gap, if utilized right could allow for that template to exist inbetween two models , assuming your darn close to the sally. You gain nothing, unless of course you are not in the charge arc. Then you gain javs and a flame template. I think you are ok to shoot OP.
But I agree it would not be a great intentional strategy.