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The Flamer is a weapon that I'm often feeling unsure about. The thought of having two in my CSM squads has never really appealed to me. I always underestimate its potential, but when I do use Flamers they surprise me with their killing power.

How do you guys feel about the flamer? How good are they in a friendly environment? In a competitive one?

The thought of a Fire based squad of Chaos Marines or (HERESY) IG Vet squad always seemed cool to me.

The flamer is IMO a weapon thats great if your lacking anti-horde capabilities.

For example, if you take a razorback spam marine list with devastators or predators for support, your super heavy on lascannons, autocannons, and missile launchers... thats your anti-tank. The only thing you'll have a problem with is AV14, but even then you can deal with it with a few melta weapons. You don't need that many meltas when you have so much ranged anti-tank.

Flamers compliment an army like that nicely, because you don't really have any true anti-horde guns. What happens if you get matched against a green tide list? You will NEED those flamers to help thin the herd, because pumping lascannons into boyz is never good.

Much love for the flamer. A friend of mine uses from time to time a PCS (I'm 90% sure it was PCS not CCS) with 4 flamers. Scoot up with a chimera, bail out and put 20+ S4 hits on a unit will hurt even MEQ's- great for finishing off squads. firing two flamers from the hatch of a rhino can be quite good- a single template and you double the hits. Like Horst said, flamers help as a weapon against horde lists. In the OP's given example, a small squad of plague-o's or a 10 man CSM squad in a rhino can have great fun driving through the horde firing out the hatch. If you're in flamer range, your within 9"- rapid fire range for sure, charge range maybe (dubious after you flame something too ). You're firing a bunch of bolters or bolt pistols at the enemy. flamers are S4 just like bolt weapons, and autohit. So its basically a bunch of free hits, I'd say its fairly easy to get 3+ on most shots, so it meshes well with bolt weapons

IMO though, flame weapons come to their forte with da boyz. Not because of the 15 burna wagon trick, but because they autohit. When you're BS2, a weapon that autohits its joyful!

Template weapons are amazing. Orks can throw a ton of burna boys into battle, and when you have ten flamer templates hitting one unit that can really hurt no matter if you are power armored or not. I play marines mostly and i love the speeder with HF. its great for eldar and easily removes many units from the table. No cover saves and in many cases no armor saves spells doom to these light infantry units.

sennacherib wrote:Template weapons are amazing. Orks can throw a ton of burna boys into battle, and when you have ten flamer templates hitting one unit that can really hurt no matter if you are power armored or not. I play marines mostly and i love the speeder with HF. its great for eldar and easily removes many units from the table. No cover saves and in many cases no armor saves spells doom to these light infantry units.

Agreed, Even as orks one of my favorite ways to deal with nid swarms is flamers problem is orks have to devote an entire squad to them... which blows... but I use OPERATION BURN TANK which is buying a full squad of burna boys and putting them in a battlewagon, a big mek with KFF and another burna... it's 16 flame templates out of an open topped vehicle ... which means hit 3 models and it turns into 48 hits! lol this isn't including the joys of tank shocking with Deff rolla ect.

To your point though OP, Flamers are the only thing that give me pause as orks, I HATE HELLHOUNDS! in my opinion anything with a flamer is likely to net 50% more victory points against me than others who rely on just Heavy bolters or the like. In short, most heavy flamers kill people who don't have power armor without even rolling of course it's incredibly powerful. And don't let us hordes fool you when we say "If you are that close then you are dead already." Cause the alternative is true to "We are bound to get that close to you."

I like flamers, its just hard to judge when youre able to use them. A problem I have is my opponent (lets say tyranids) will be out of flamer range on my turn, then his turn he will move into flamer range, then charge in and I dont get to use it.

If you are able to use it, or if its on vehicles it can be great as it ignores cover and auto hits, but its very situational.

Billagio wrote:I like flamers, its just hard to judge when youre able to use them. A problem I have is my opponent (lets say tyranids) will be out of flamer range on my turn, then his turn he will move into flamer range, then charge in and I dont get to use it.

If you are able to use it, or if its on vehicles it can be great as it ignores cover and auto hits, but its very situational.

It's called a rhino Also sounds like he's out maneuvering you

Flamers are outstanding.. vs small squads or horde. the ability to put on wounds or kill things before combat is outstanding not to mention most armies get em fairly cheap.

I run a squad of Storm Guardians in most of my games

10 Guys, 2 Flamers, and a Warlock with Destructor (heavy flamer).

Doom, Fly up to em, jump out and have a bbq. They actually outdamage my Dire Avengers most of the time, and they can take more casualties because all the fire power is in the flamers.

Okay, wow, I guess I'm going to be the first detractor then. I actually really don't care for flamers.

Firstly, like any template weapon, how many models you actually hit is greatly influenced by your opponent. While running a foot horde, my troops were so spread out that flamers rarely did much of anything, and in those circumstances when your opponent can't spread their troops out, such as getting blown out of a transport or deepstriking, they always have the option not to just deepstrike right next to flamers, or have transports that are threatened by both melta and flamer simultaneously.

Secondly, their range means that they're always tied in with close combat. If you're doing the assaulting, flamers are a bad idea, as they will likely only serve to kill you out of assault range, which actually helps your opponent. Meanwhile, their range is so short that you have to move forward to use them, which means you're not shooting heavy weapons. Plus, their range is so short, it's not like you can deepstrike them in.

With all these limitations, you're just not going to do a lot of damage with flamers against opponents who can see them coming. Not only have I scarced been bothered when my opponents bring flamers, but I've tried again and again over a hundred games to get some use out of them and just plain haven't.

Flamers are one of those things that look so good on paper in ideal circumstances, but reality never seems to give anything close to said ideal...

My opponents would say otherwise yesterday but you are entitled to your opinion. One set of 3 tzeentch flamers killed 3 squads of long fangs in one go the first game and killed an entire squad of boyz in the next. Seems to me it depends how you use em.

I find my battlewagon full of burna boys use in games has an inverse relation with the skill of my opponent. If I'm facing someone who is really good, they'll do everything to avoid getting mauled by it, either popping it or staying away.

So I understand what you mean ailoros. It's very situational and a really skilled opponent will realize that and try very hard to limit those situations. Then again, I'm trying very hard to get them to work, and they have only utterly failed me a few times.

I don't see there use outside spamming them however, like ailoros said, very rarely will you be 8 inches away from your opponent and want to shoot. The reason burna wagon works is that if you're 8 inches away and you shoot, the unit is gone, almost always.

Flamers aren't really good on foot. For exactly the reasons you stated Ailaros. Enemies can spread out to minimize their damage, and they can burn things out of assault range.

Flamers do much better in mechanized lists. This is because tanks give you better range so that you can maneuver to get more bodies under your templates, and you can make use of tank shocks to force the opponent to bunch up. SInce you are often flaming after the tank shock it doesn't really matter that you can't assault yet. Hopefully the involuntary bunching template loving will hit em hard.

With the abundance of cover in 40K I can't help but love template weapons. My current DE list includes 2 Haemys with Liq guns and they've always been a right pain in my opponents' butt.

Ailaros wrote: Okay, wow, I guess I'm going to be the first detractor then. I actually really don't care for flamers.

Firstly, like any template weapon, how many models you actually hit is greatly influenced by your opponent. While running a foot horde, my troops were so spread out that flamers rarely did much of anything, and in those circumstances when your opponent can't spread their troops out, such as getting blown out of a transport or deepstriking, they always have the option not to just deepstrike right next to flamers, or have transports that are threatened by both melta and flamer simultaneously.

So being forced through a narrow gap between two pieces of terrain doesn't happen. People do not play cities of death etc. The ONLY time your troops will be less than 2" apart in full coherency is when they deepstrike or get blown out of a tranny. Riiiiiiight. And you always have the option of having transports that aren't threatened my melta and flamer simultaneously? It sounds like your hinting that if that does happen, your doin' it wrong. Like fast moving flamer and melta weapons don't exist, or delivery systems (like MM/HF speeders, or drop pods, or fast skimmers). And don't mention bubble wrapping your vehicles from said pods or fast melta/flamer units, as not everyone plays guard

Ailaros wrote:Secondly, their range means that they're always tied in with close combat. If you're doing the assaulting, flamers are a bad idea, as they will likely only serve to kill you out of assault range, which actually helps your opponent. Meanwhile, their range is so short that you have to move forward to use them, which means you're not shooting heavy weapons. Plus, their range is so short, it's not like you can deepstrike them in.

Ahhh the fun myth of it's going to deny you every assault. Also the short range means i'm not shooting heavy weapons?
Good sir, I play chaos/wolves when I field flamers- not IG. I don't get HW, unless I'm playing CSM and feel rather special. I like being in assault range. I don't mind rapid firing and flaming a target instead of charging- I have counter attack, so it doesn't matter to me alot of the time. The other thing is that against targets that a flamer doesn't instantly vaporize you're to tear a chunk out of the squad. Things like marines- getting 2-4 autohitting S4 shots on them, combined with your pistols can soften up the target. If you are in base to base in all but name (i.e the minimum distance, 1") then against a decent sized unit it can be hard sometime to deny a charge.

Ailaros wrote:With all these limitations, you're just not going to do a lot of damage with flamers against opponents who can see them coming. Not only have I scarced been bothered when my opponents bring flamers, but I've tried again and again over a hundred games to get some use out of them and just plain haven't.

Flamers are one of those things that look so good on paper in ideal circumstances, but reality never seems to give anything close to said ideal...

I'd put it the other way. Flamers look mediocre on paper IMO, its an autohitting boltgun that ignores cover- eh. Plasma and melta bring something I can't do... but reality never seems to give anything but BBQ'd opponents.

Draigo wrote:My opponents would say otherwise yesterday but you are entitled to your opinion. One set of 3 tzeentch flamers killed 3 squads of long fangs in one go the first game and killed an entire squad of boyz in the next. Seems to me it depends how you use em.

We're talking about flamer's as in flame throwers. A model that shoots a template that instant wounds on a 4+ with no armor or cover saves wielded on a model that is jump infantry is a totally different cup of tea.

A much more awesome cup of tea. Love the tzeentch flamers

Ran wrote:With the abundance of cover in 40K I can't help but love template weapons. My current DE list includes 2 Haemys with Liq guns and they've always been a right pain in my opponents' butt.

Fun, but the OP is talking about flamers, as in flame throwers/HF by association for his CSM army. Not quite the same...

Jihallah wrote:The ONLY time your troops will be less than 2" apart in full coherency is when they deepstrike or get blown out of a tranny. Riiiiiiight.

If I know that flamers are coming my way, I spread out. If your opponent's aren't, it's not something to do with the quality of the flamers...

Jihallah wrote:Also the short range means i'm not shooting heavy weapons?

Do you often have people leave units in such a way where they're in flamer range already so that you don't have to move your units? How many times are you in this situation where you get more than like 1 hit? Otherwise, you've got to move to really get hits with the flamer, precluding heavy weapons fire.

Jihallah wrote: Ahhh the fun myth of it's going to deny you every assault.

Not only is the myth fun, but it's also true. I've duped my opponents on more than one occasion with this, and my opponents have figured this out so quickly that I don't even bother shooting pistols before charging any more, as my opponents are often set up in such a way where even a couple of models killed will prevent me from assaulting.

Once again, if your opponents aren't able to figure this out, it's not telling about the flamers...

Yes, you are trying as hard as possible to get as many hits as you can, but your opponents will always have more say over how many models you hit with template weapons than you do. It's just the nature of template weapons.

Ailaros wrote:

Yes, you are trying as hard as possible to get as many hits as you can, but your opponents will always have more say over how many models you hit with template weapons than you do. It's just the nature of template weapons.

Tankshocking says otherwise.

Ailaros wrote:

Jihallah wrote:The ONLY time your troops will be less than 2" apart in full coherency is when they deepstrike or get blown out of a tranny. Riiiiiiight.

If I know that flamers are coming my way, I spread out. If your opponent's aren't, it's not something to do with the quality of the flamers...

If my opponent knows exactly what I'm going to do, I'm already halfway to losing.

Ailaros wrote:

Jihallah wrote:Also the short range means i'm not shooting heavy weapons?

Do you often have people leave units in such a way where they're in flamer range already so that you don't have to move your units? How many times are you in this situation where you get more than like 1 hit? Otherwise, you've got to move to really get hits with the flamer, precluding heavy weapons fire.

You completely failed to read there, the point is my units do not have a heavy weapon. Not every army has squads that get both flamers and HW. To put your little snippet in context, so you might get it;

Jihallah wrote:Also the short range means i'm not shooting heavy weapons?
Good sir, I play chaos/wolves when I field flamers- not IG. I don't get HW, unless I'm playing CSM and feel rather special.

Jihallah wrote: Ahhh the fun myth of it's going to deny you every assault.

Not only is the myth fun, but it's also true. I've duped my opponents on more than one occasion with this, and my opponents have figured this out so quickly that I don't even bother shooting pistols before charging any more, as my opponents are often set up in such a way where even a couple of models killed will prevent me from assaulting.

Once again, if your opponents aren't able to figure this out, it's not telling about the flamers...

I think it's also worth saying that not everybody plays with a super competitive WAAC tournament mindset when they're playing. As cheesy as it is, sometimes I like to do things like cheesy last stands with a half dead squad, and my friends like to do the same; at least when we aren't trying to be competitive or playing in a tournament.

Not only that, but I can see useful situations for Flamers. Say something from across the map blows up a transport. Like a predator! Or to satisfy some people in this thread, a squad of three Obliterators. Now we have this nice squad of Guardsmen, Dark Eldar, or Marine squad in a cute little formation.

Your opponent looks at you with empty eyes. All he sees is a wicked grin and treacherous hatred in your eyes. Screams of triumph are already clogging the vox network of the ancient Marines. Two men seemingly jump out of the back hatch and spew fire all over the poor squad. The screams of the foe and stench of melted flesh only excite them further, ready to spill more blood in the name of the dark gods.

A quick situational example: CoD, sewer rats stratagem. Pop up from reserve, you can't assault, but you CAN shoot. Depending on how powerful your squad in reserve is, those sewer markers just became area denial to your opponent.

heartserenade wrote:Tankshocking says otherwise.

You're going to "suddenly" tank shock. Tank shocking people into flamer formation is really obvious. If I were really concerned about that, I'd shoot the vehicle down, or put something in the way to death or glory it. Plus, positioned properly, tank shocking can only bunch people up SO much.

Jihallah wrote:Get the off your pedestal.

The pedestal isn't very high, here. Your opponent gets to see your list. You're not going to surprise him with the fact that you brought flamers. You opponent gets to see your deployment. It's not like you're going to suddenly have flamers where he doesn't expect them. Your opponent gets to see how you move your forces. If he fears your flamers, he is going to know exactly how many there are and where they are the entire time, and will be able to adapt to them easily.

I'm not the person here who is claiming a jedi-esque ability to hide flamers in plain sight, and mind-trick my opponent to just sitting there while I fame them...

Flamers are a short ranged template weapon. Any one who can't figure out how to back up, or spread out, or kill the right models before they get into range is just asking for it. End of.

Ailaros wrote:
Firstly, like any template weapon, how many models you actually hit is greatly influenced by your opponent.

I stopped reading the paragraph after that because of the nonsensical statement above.

Secondly, their range means that they're always tied in with close combat. If you're doing the assaulting, flamers are a bad idea, as they will likely only serve to kill you out of assault range, which actually helps your opponent. Meanwhile, their range is so short that you have to move forward to use them, which means you're not shooting heavy weapons. Plus, their range is so short, it's not like you can deepstrike them in.

If you know how to use a flamer this becomes a non-issue. Its all about deception and eyeballing ranges. And if you're putting heavy weapons into a squad with assault weapons, you've already lost. Why on Earth would you put the two in the same squad? And short range? Melta's have a shorter range and people deep strike them like there's no tomorrow, so that argument is invalid.

With all these limitations, you're just not going to do a lot of damage with flamers against opponents who can see them coming. Not only have I scarced been bothered when my opponents bring flamers, but I've tried again and again over a hundred games to get some use out of them and just plain haven't.

Flamers are one of those things that look so good on paper in ideal circumstances, but reality never seems to give anything close to said ideal...

Coming from a person who puts assault weapons and heavy weapons in the same squads I can see why. I've used dedicated Tau Crisis suits with twin-linked flamers and have always made their points back from one volley. I've used Flamers in my Drop Guard and Mechanized Guard to take enemy held objectives.

The Flamer is perhaps one of the best Assault Weapons in game because it automatically hits and has an 8" template.


Flamers, IMO, are the unsung workhorses against large model-count units, even against space marines. Even if they did try the 2" Coherency ploy I'd still get four automatic hits. So yes, Flamers are worth every meagre point and then some.

KplKeegan wrote:

Ailaros wrote:
Firstly, like any template weapon, how many models you actually hit is greatly influenced by your opponent.

I stopped reading the paragraph after that because of the nonsensical statement above.

A BS3 autocannon should get about one hit per turn. Three BS4 lascannons should get about 2 hits per turn.

Tell me, how many hits should a flamer get every time you shoot them? If the answer is "it depends", I must ask what it depends on, and who gets to influence those conditions.

KplKeegan wrote:

Secondly, their range means that they're always tied in with close combat. If you're doing the assaulting, flamers are a bad idea, as they will likely only serve to kill you out of assault range, which actually helps your opponent.

If you know how to use a flamer this becomes a non-issue. Its all about deception and eyeballing ranges.

How can you deceive your opponent? They can see all your models, and they know their capabilities.

How can eyeballing ranges keep you from killing yourself out of assault? Your opponent gets to chose which models are removed. Your only option is not to shoot the flamer.

KplKeegan wrote:And short range? Melta's have a shorter range and people deep strike them like there's no tomorrow, so that argument is invalid.

Firstly, do you often deepstrike flamers by putting the original model only 3" away from an enemy model? Secondly, if your opponent knows you're deepstriking flamers, do you think they'll just sit there in block formation waiting?

KplKeegan wrote: I've used dedicated Tau Crisis suits with twin-linked flamers and have always made their points back from one volley.

I'd like to see a battle report of this. Especially against someone who knew that you were going to deepstrike flamers, took proper actions to counter this, and still got utterly destroyed.

Ailaros wrote:A BS3 autocannon should get about one hit per turn. Three BS4 lascannons should get about 2 hits per turn.

Tell me, how many hits should a flamer get every time you shoot them? If the answer is "it depends", I must ask what it depends on, and who gets to influence those conditions.

Why is this even an issue? A Flamer automatically hits anything under the template, so my answer is 'anything under the template'.

How can you deceive your opponent? They can see all your models, and they know their capabilities.

How can eyeballing ranges keep you from killing yourself out of assault? Your opponent gets to chose which models are removed. Your only option is not to shoot the flamer.

You make mental notes of how big your unit's threat range and manuever them in a way that puts your enemy in assault range regardless of how many models die. The idea can also be reversed when confronting assault units.

For instance:

If an enemy Assault Marine Squad has a threat range of 18" and is approaching my flamer's, I simply adjust the distance between the two so that we're 20-22" apart, so when he moves 12" and tries to assault the remaining 6" he'll come short, because people often guess too short when trying to determine assault range, which allows me the close the gap and use the flamer's full effectiveness.

Reversed:

If my squad of Vets is in a Chimera going to take an infantry point, I try to place the vehicle 8-10" away and pop smoke until the next turn. After the next turn the Vet's get out and move 8" (for disembarking) and I'm within the optimal range for flamers and can still assault, regardless of where he takes his casualties.

Firstly, do you often deepstrike flamers by putting the original model only 3" away from an enemy model? Secondly, if your opponent knows you're deepstriking flamers, do you think they'll just sit there in block formation waiting?

I could stand at close-range melta distance and still achieve at least three to four automatic hits regardless of 2" Coherency. Remember that models hit by the template are hit.

Especially against someone who knew that you were going to deepstrike flamers, took proper actions to counter this, and still got utterly destroyed.

Since terrain and other features of the board are not horde friendly or capable, there's little countering deep striking flamers aside from the standard against deep striking. And the deep striking flamers work in synergy with my other multi-shot and blast weapons so that, when hordes are forced through terrain or sandwhiched behind another to avoid taking the brunt of what units I have on the board, the Flamers often find optimal targets because I choose where they fall and not my opponent.

Remember, one specific counter to one unit does not mean it works for others.

Ailaros wrote:

Flamers are a short ranged template weapon. Any one who can't figure out how to back up, or spread out, or kill the right models before they get into range is just asking for it. End of.

So you really don't have anything but "your opponent is ". Seems to me that your logic would dictate a hell of alot people only play opponents. In fact, I'd even go so far to say that someone who can't see the value of an opponent being forced to back up or eat flame is

Like I said, gtfo your pedestal.

I dont think its that easy to avoid a flamer espeacially if they are not eldar, de or something that moves.. But regardless I have yet to see something that can avoid a drop pod dread, outflankers etc armed with flamers every game. DS and flame is a pretty common tactic.

I'm backing you up on this one, Ailoros. Flamers ability in groups of ones and twos depend a lot on your opponent being cogniscent of them.

Tank shocking however is a great block to that. Hence, flamers in vehicles, decent to good (GO ORKS) or in a situation I faced yesterday, the other guy is assaulting your vehicle.

flamers on foot though are different, if you see them coming and are playing with the correct amount of terrain, you're probably going to cause the flamer to be like an assault 3 or 4 bolt gun that denys cover saves. which for 5 points in an msu squad allowing for wound allocation...might be worth it, but certainly not a must have.

so I think there are really two seperate arguments. Flamer throwers in tanks, and on foot. In tanks, worthwhile, on foot, mediocre.

Jihallah wrote:

Ailaros wrote:

Flamers are a short ranged template weapon. Any one who can't figure out how to back up, or spread out, or kill the right models before they get into range is just asking for it. End of.

So you really don't have anything but "your opponent is ". Seems to me that your logic would dictate a hell of alot people only play opponents. In fact, I'd even go so far to say that someone who can't see the value of an opponent being forced to back up or eat flame is

Like I said, gtfo your pedestal.

Something to consider: 50% of the players out there are below average.

I gotta side with Ailaros on this one. Direct fire weapons are always better than blast/template weapons just because you can always manage your expectations on just how many wounds you will be able to get, so long as you have even one guy in range. I expect to get no more than 1-2 hits with a blast, 1-3 with a large blast, and maybe 2-3 with a template, barring exceptional circumstances, like having just blown up a transport. It's not hard to minimize the amount of damage they do.

Yeah I cant seem to convince my friend tri-Flamer Storm Guardians are worth taking no matter how many units of Genestealers I torch of the board with them.

It is not easy for a unit on the ground to simply avoid flamers coming out of a skimmer. And losing my assault doesn't bother me when I'm 1) coming out of a vehicle without assault ramps anyway and 2) my target is going to be dead or utterly crippled.

Another common situation for roasting tons of guys bunched up: wrecked and destroyed transports. Setting it up is easy! And mostly out of the opponent's hands to boot

I think It's a safe bet to say people are conflicted about the flamer, I'll offer a few examples in which I've seen good results and highlight a few situations that i know produce good results. reguardless both sides are entitled to their opinions because honestly the Flamer is a weapon of either Finesse or Force no way around it. Every tactician holds different ways to fight some like the idea of a big "Shotgun" others say "it's too risky" and that is just fine because for some armies they don't seen a point but for just as many they understand and respect the flame (myself included). In short for that part, i think we should put out the flame war... hehe i made a funny. Cause the flamer isn't something others need to be forced to like.

Personally from my recounts I already said to me, the flamer is a horrifying tool against my army it's 9 inches by about 2.5 inches i think... and honestly no matter how far i spread my army I normally see 3-4 hits from even a light gracing and it's just something i can't avoid being orks. I normally run 2 styles of orks either kan wall or foot sloggers The kan wall barely even notices flamers due to the fact i have a wall of metal normally keeping the mean flamers away, but on foot sloggers I find myself quickly feeling the pain more than ANY TYPE OF FIREPOWER besides maybe certain large blasts (namely the ones that remove cover saves from KFF). I would like to think recent posts and the like prove i have a solid understanding of my army and the ways they operate as well as smart moves during games so If I see a remark about my skill ....

Alright i promised some past experiences with flamers right? So I will tell THE most painful situation i had and it ironically came from chaos marines as well. I was running a combo kan wall foot slog battle 2,000 points I was doing well I fought Abaddon and defeated his land raider, terminators, and demolisher assistant! His nurgle demonlord had taken a good chunk out of me with a few masterful hits on weakened units... but it was his last few rounds when i was flooding over the battlefield closing in for my last assualts i had three 30 boy squads fresh and ready to mop up with their killa kans that round. Suddenly My enemy smirked and had his demon prince do a lash of dominance over me My eyes went wide and he threw them in a bottle neck against a rhino. It was a tournament game i looked over my enemies list and didn't notice anything until I asked him to remind me what was in that rhino i remembered seeing Chosen... i rememebered they had a special character in there but in my 7 hours of gaming he surprised me by reminding me they had flamers... i went pale seeing the perfect funnle and he unleashed them on my SQUADS!. That's right, not 1 but 2 of my 30 ork boys squads were faced with 14/ 8 wounds respectively. Furious that i had nothing to deal with his rhino other than assualt since the Kans were already engaged on the last squad he had alive besides his winged demon prince I knew my enemy had me right where he wanted despite knowing he was going to lose. I assualted and cracked the vehicle that round I spread as much as i could to thin the backlash from the survivors.... Despite runnning my 3rd squad away from the carnage my foot print for the squad was huge [b]From spreading out so much i wasn't able to get the majority of the 3rd squad far enough away the lash pulls them in as well no wiping out 1 of the orginal squads and crippling the 3rd before assualting us out of the wreckage of their rhino. They lost but i was reduced to 5 orks remaining in one squad and 17 in the final one...

it blew my socks off it was ridiculous to see it unfold I knew from the start his lash would be a problem but one detail did escape me and it was the flamers his typical... mundane troop had as opposed to me paying attention to defilers, demon princes land raiders ect ect ect. I guess as my rebuttal to Ailaros many armies like nids and orks cannot simple account for things like you talk about 10 and 5 man squads easily can but 30 it way too much to do effectively without being "EVERYWHERE!". I ended up winning that game but it was by the skin of my teeth the player has always been a very good match against me.

Now, personally situations i think you should find the best use for flamers

~ Knowing the enemy will be coming to assualt you!: This pays off but footwork is needed to pace it right or make sure you think ahead how you can use them smart like in my example above

~ Wanting to deny the enemy an ability to get past your squad but you dare not charge them: a good example of this is Imperial Guard who want to protect the command from a charging ork squad they will rush us fully rapid firing and getting the flamer in deep and heavy.... this is a ballsy approach but can really pay off!

~ Union with a transport: This is more for the Marines and IG but when i see IG who have Chimeras with flamer vets rushing forward i know why... Its to move in such a way to push me back and set me on fire at the same time.

~ If Firepower is secondary to you: Alot of my close combat oriented friends love flamers for that extra punch but it 's a game of footwork again so beware like other have mentioned a smart player will start removing from the front of the squad to make sure you can't assualt them instead. So do this smart.