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So I got a chance to play the new SH game today and the heavy flamer seems to work sort of counter-intuitively unless I am interpreting it wrong

Does the heavy flamer really flame himself if he is in board section and wants to fire at genestealers that enter same section? Do you really need to back out of a section before you flame it to avoid killing yourself on a 2+?

If you do then the heavy flamer becomes very situational and hard to use as you often can't back up or not far enough to get out of a section. Take for example a five square hall section. Say the flamer termi is three squares in and suddenly genestealers come at him from the other side with say one or two stealers entering the section and a bunch lined up behind them ( a very common and plausible scenario). By the rules as I see them written the flamer can't fire without killing himself even though logic would dictate this would be a dream situation for a flamer with enemy lined up in front of you. Instead of simulating spraying flame forward to kill everything the flames fill the whole section even behind the flamer termi and engulf him as if he has no control over where he fires it.

Seems very odd and clunky...

That could be a typo.

No, saw that, and thought it was a bit stupid.
I think it should go like this. "-" is a hit square. "0" is a Space Marine Terminator
---
0--------
---

Perhaps they should put a faq out, in my opinion the flamer guy should not be hit.

I am sorry, that did not work.X= empty square. >=flamed square.
xxxxx>>>xxxxx
0>>>>>>>
xxxxx>>>xxxxx

I got it just think WW2 flame throwers

I think it makes sense how it is, your firing a flame thrower in an oxegen rich/(or)total vacuum enviroment depending on what still works in the hulk. If you dont want to flame your flamer guy then either don't get inthose situations or use other termies to cover.

Then firing rockets in the same environment should have the same effect.

Does the heavy flamer really flame himself if he is in board section and wants to fire at genestealers that enter same section? Do you really need to back out of a section before you flame it to avoid killing yourself on a 2+?

That's the way it works. It's a game mechanism.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
Moving thread to Board Games.

Never thought of this, but I have to say that the way you're interpreting it does seem correct on reflection - in real life flamethrower troops have to be very careful of 'backwash' and so you wouldn't ant to be firing the thing 'down' too much at your feet in case it came back over you. That being said, I would be amazed if terminator armour was that easily affected by promethium. So I guess my conclusion is that I dunno. Sorry......

fire4effekt wrote:I think it makes sense how it is, your firing a flame thrower in an oxegen rich/(or)total vacuum enviroment depending on what still works in the hulk. If you dont want to flame your flamer guy then either don't get inthose situations or use other termies to cover.

Nothing about it makes sense.

And yes obviously you are forced to do what you describe, but that doesn't change the wonkiness of thenew heavy flamer rulesmechanics.

Here is another example of the utter stupidity of how it currently works:

Say I am in square four of a five square long corridor (with the squares numbered 1-5 from left to right) Say a genestealer ends it's move in square five and behind him is another 2 or three genestealers conga line formation.

I have a line of 3-4 genestealers directly in front of me at pointblank range, yet if I fire the flamer it instead ignores the guys in front of me ( other then the closest genestealer in the same section s me) to hit the numerous squares behind me (some of them further away then the enemy right in front of me)...

IF you have played any amount of space hulk you will see that scenarios like I mention are rather common, and that the heavy flamer is rather wonky and counter-intuitive as written in this edition.

What was wrong with the 12 shots and the ability to chain the fire into squares and having to double up in squares you wanted to block, etc. from the previous edition? At least then the flamer actually shot the direction you pointed it and attempted to simulate how a flamethrower functions...

The current mechanics for it seems like they wanted to simplify the use of it by stating "effects whole section" without playtesting what this actually meant in game terms and how illogical many common situations in the game make this, resulting in the oversimplified mechanic breaking down and becoming detrimental to the user as opposed to the enemy right in front of him...

blagmasterg wrote:Never thought of this, but I have to say that the way you're interpreting it does seem correct on reflection - in real life flamethrower troops have to be very careful of 'backwash' and so you wouldn't ant to be firing the thing 'down' too much at your feet in case it came back over you. That being said, I would be amazed if terminator armour was that easily affected by promethium. So I guess my conclusion is that I dunno. Sorry......

It's a game mechanism.


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If the flamethrower marine wasn't affected by his own shots he could just advance for six move flaming in his own section and get through half the mission without any trouble.

Kilkrazy wrote:

It's a game mechanism.

Yes a bad one.



Flamers shouldnt shoot backwards ignoring targets directly in front of you simply because you are standing at an arbitrary point on the map(An imaginary line formed by the location where pieces of tile are puzzled together). It isnt rebounding off a wall or structure in game based upon vacumms of space or the construction of the hulk or some other in game fluff reason, it is magically taking a 180degree turn based on how the map sections are divided, ignoring targets directly in front of you but hitting spaces and models in the opposite direction it is pointed with laser accuracy.

Half thought out idea with Bad playtesting in action.

avantgarde wrote:Then firing rockets in the same environment should have the same effect.

What rockets?

Yes its a game mechanic and one i enjoy, ive played loads of SH and counter intuitive as it may be, its a board game and thems the rules. Do you call the prices in monopoly Counter-intuitive because they haven't raised prices for inflation?

We've found it to work fine. Not over or under powered. Situational - which it should be.

I have to say I don't think that this is the way that we were using flamers when I played suicide mission with a friend the other day (I was the stealers) but it does make sense I guess. I have to say that I love the way that the flamer works - yes its potentially uber powerful but the fact that its so limited on ammo makes it quite tense. In the game I was playing the other day, my mate won literally on his last flamer shot using his last command point - classically tense Hulk!

blagmasterg wrote: it does make sense I guess.

It makes sense to you that when you point a flamer to the east the flames instead shoot west missing all the enemy right next to you to the east simply because of an imaginary line that does not exist in-game as a physical feature but happens to be near you, yet if you took one step forward the flames suddenly all go east?

Ok.

Just to let you know, rules questions specific to Space Hulk should be posted in the Large Scale, Roleplaying & Board Games (SPACE HULK) forum.

CT GAMER wrote:

blagmasterg wrote: it does make sense I guess.

It makes sense to you that when you point a flamer to the east the flames instead shoot west missing all the enemy right next to you to the east simply because of an imaginary line that does not exist in-game as a physical feature but happens to be near you, yet if you took one step forward the flames suddenly all go east?

Ok.

But the only way that could happen is if the flamer marine was stood one square away from the 'border' of his board piece. I would imagine that in such a scenario common sense would take over and you would be allowed to place the marker on the adjacent section. There is no way that the direction of a flame shot can change anyways as firing is determined by facing. At the end of the day, if you're playing a game of Space Hulk with a friend and you end up arguing over this, I would venture that its time to find new friends

I got this heavy flamer on. It sprays this jet of jellied fuel (or similar) microseconds before the flame ignites the junk. If I hit a GS standing dead in front of me, some of the juice has a chance to deflect back onto me and cover the areas where I'm standing even behind me from the splash. A split second later, the flame ignites all those lovely little droplets of stuff and Brother Meshach is stuck with Brother Abednego and the Shadrach species of GS in a toasty little oven.

If you want a semiplausible way of rationalizing it.

CT GAMER wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:

It's a game mechanism.

Yes a bad one.



Flamers shouldnt shoot backwards ignoring targets directly in front of you simply because you are standing at an arbitrary point on the map(An imaginary line formed by the location where pieces of tile are puzzled together). It isnt rebounding off a wall or structure in game based upon vacumms of space or the construction of the hulk or some other in game fluff reason, it is magically taking a 180degree turn based on how the map sections are divided, ignoring targets directly in front of you but hitting spaces and models in the opposite direction it is pointed with laser accuracy.

Half thought out idea with Bad playtesting in action.

Just to let you know, this is the way the game ORIGINALLY played in 1st edition, and I personally think the way they changed it to in 2nd edition added a whole lot of extra rules (and extra time needed every time you fired the thing) with very little upside of fun added to the game.

Yes, the way the Heavy Flamer works now is different then it was in 2nd edition, but it isn't worse. It just requires more forethought on how you position your flamer model.

The flamer described doesn't behave like a true flame thrower as we know it. It shoots a gel-like substance that hits an area, kind of 'explodes' and sticks to that area burning it for a while.

So when a flamer model shoots at something to close to him the flammable material essentially erupts when it hits the target and coats the entire area. . .potentially including the flamer models himself if he's too close to the target.

Making the blast stick to a particular board section is an abstraction to allow the game to be relatively simple and easy-to-understand, even though it isn't always very 'realistic'. But ultimately it works for you in some cases and against you in others. Understanding this and using it to your advantage is one of the keys to winning or losing the game.

CT GAMER wrote:

blagmasterg wrote: it does make sense I guess.

It makes sense to you that when you point a flamer to the east the flames instead shoot west missing all the enemy right next to you to the east simply because of an imaginary line that does not exist in-game as a physical feature but happens to be near you, yet if you took one step forward the flames suddenly all go east?

Ok.

So don't play or make up a house rule, it's not like there are going to be SH tournaments to fight about it at.

mattyboy22 wrote:
So don't play or make up a house rule, it's not like there are going to be SH tournaments to fight about it at.

Once you play it a lot one of the 'tricks' the stealer player can start to do is to stagger their models out, only one stealer per board section to minimize the damage the flamer can do per shot.

I like using a house rule I think that works pretty well:

Instead of the regular flamer shot you can choose to shoot a 'spread shot'. It costs the same amount of APs (2) and works as follows:

It affects one board section, as usual but it also affects a single adjacent square to every section adjoined to the section being affected. However, all models hit by the flamer are only killed on a '3+' instead of the regular '2+'. In terms of blocking movement in the following stealer turn, it sill only blocks movement on the section it was targeted into (i.e. the flames recede back into the main area that was hit).

Stealers moving through the remnants of the 'spread effect' are also only killed on a '3+' per square moved instead of the usual '2+' per square moved.


This house rule makes it a little harder for the stealer player to 'game' the system, but also gives the marine player a tough choice as killing on a '3+' means you are more likely to have stealers that aren't killed by the blast.

blagmasterg wrote:
But the only way that could happen is if the flamer marine was stood one square away from the 'border' of his board piece.

Which happens fairly often.

Or The genestealer runs the first of his long conga line of stealers into your section and stops the others just over the line in the previous section right behind the first stealer. If you want to fire at the stealer you get one stealer and kill yourself and any terminators behind you on a 2+, yet the three stealers right behind him that are closer to him then you are and directly in what would be the line of fire of the flame gout are totally safe. This flamer makes the One bullet theory of the JFK assassination seem plausible:

Here we see two pics that illustrate:

In both of these situation you can only kill one generstealer and have to roll to kill all three of your terminators on a 2+ on 1d6(all of which one would expect to be not on the business end of the weapon). The safest place to be is apparently in what would be the expected path of the flame in front of the weapon when it is fired at you, and the most dangerous place is behind the flamer when it is pointed away from you...

I would imagine that in such a scenario common sense would take over and you would be allowed to place the marker on the adjacent section.

Common sense is what I'm talking about. the rules for the H. flamer suggests otherwise which is the issue but most of you seems to think it makes sense, so moving along...

Part of the game has always been flaming empty tiles in order for the above situation not to happen. That said, the flamer does seem to behave more like a grenade launcher than anything else

I would say both of the above cases are tactical errors on the terminator's player part. He could have easily blocked their path or killed the vanguard of that force the turn before.

And for reality purposes, just imagine a genestealer that close being able to blow the promethium back with a big hiss.

Iron Priest wrote:Part of the game has always been flaming empty tiles in order for the above situation not to happen. That said, the flamer does seem to behave more like a grenade launcher than anything else

In the Deathwing expansion of 1e Spulk, the grenade launcher was introduced with the following rules (outline.)

Range 8 squares, 10 shots, attacks all targets in a board section, kills on an X+, leaves no 'residue'. Very tactically useful weapon.

If you want to rationalise the effect of the flamethrower perhaps going behind the firer, you could imagine that the very limited volume of the spaceship corridors cause a backdraught effect.

Rght, I was knackered last night when I posted - having had a good nights sleep and the chance to think about this I reckon it makes perfect sense from a game balance perspective. Let us consider the Assault cannon - at range it is absolutely deadly, and more than capable of wiping out 20 genestealers (or 19 and a broodlord) in short order. However, get a genestealer up close to Brother Leon and the same weapon is about as much use as a wet teabag for hitting the stealer with and he will die pretty quickly. This is part of the game balance - the assualt cannon will reap horrendous casualties yes, but in balance the stealers have greater numbers and FAR superior close combat skills.

Now, consider the Heavy Flamer - it kills anything that is in its Area of effect on a 2+ - thats pretty lethal, and the fact that it also effects an entire board section means that it will either a) pretty much guaranteed wipe out a room/corridor section full of stealers or b) pretty effectively block any empty room or corridor section from the stealer player for the entire turn. Even the assualt cannon doesn't have this kind of killing power! So, in order to balance the Flamer, they have written so that if the stealer player is clever enough (and I don't see this as cheating or 'playing the system too much' on the stealer players part) then he can effectively block this uber weapon by charging down the flamer marine. Now this is not without risk - a competent marine player will ensure through placement of troops and lines of fire that his flamer marine is never blocked in in this way - it will take a brave stealer player to try and front this out and manouver in such a way as to be able to block the flamer off. In Suicide mission as an example, the flamer marine is the most important resource you have as the marine player. In terms of the victory conditions all other marines are expendable. A competent marine player will therefore recognise this, and essentially use the other marines as cannon fodder to try and ensure the safe passage of the flamer marine. Meanwhile, the competent genestealer player will try and use as much of their resources as possible to kill or neutralise the flamer marine at every opportunity.

Sorry if this is a bit rambling or disjointed, but basically to sum up I don't think that the flamer rules are broken - no they might not tally absolutely with the 'real world' but at the end of the day any wargame or board game depends on abstractions in terms of the rules in order to work and I don't see this as problematic at all - as someone has already mentioned its not as if there's gonna be Space Hulk tournaments where this kind of thing becomes terribly important!

Redemption wrote:I would say both of the above cases are tactical errors on the terminator's player part. He could have easily blocked their path or killed the vanguard of that force the turn before.

And for reality purposes, just imagine a genestealer that close being able to blow the promethium back with a big hiss.

of course you can kill the lead guy, yes you can make efforts to play around a wonky/clunky rule. That is irrelevant to the fact that the flamer works counter-intuitively.

They might as well have said "when you fire the flamer flip a coin and the player that calls it gets to choose a random location on the map to be hit by the flame thrower...

I hope the 40K flamer rules get switched so that you kill one model under the flamer template and then you roll to wound the rest of the members of your own squad. Obviously the enemy would redirect the flame back onto your own squad after the first guy in their unit is killed...

No your right, now go play space hulk lite.