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I apologize if this question is a newbie dummy question.

If you have a battlewagon load of burna boyz, and you unload, you can assault in and power weapon them to death or burn them.

If I try to use 15 burnas, I will probably clip one of my own guys. I guess there is no rule against burning your own guys on accident?

Also, is each burna resolved separately, or at the same time? For example, if each burna can clip 4 enemies, do I then roll 60 rolls to wound? Or do I resolve it, remove an emey if I kill it, then resolve burna #2. Rinse and repeat?

Also, I think I read that all models in the same unit have to fire together. No holding back a few. Is that true?

the template rule says you can't cover any of your own models with the template, so i guess you'll have to arrange them accordingly.
As to the shots themselves, you determine how many models are hit by each one, keeping a running total, and then solve all wounds at once after all weapons you decide to shoot (burna or not) have fired, as with any shooting.

There is a rule against touching friendly models, page 29 under template weapons it says you may not place the template so that it touches friendly models.

There is no rule that forces you to shoot every model, as a matter of fact it's the opposite (page 16 if you want to see the rule).

As for how the burnas wound enemies, all shooting from a unit happens at the same time. This means that you determine how many models are hit, then roll that many wounds.

2 more bits to add:

#1: You can fire the Burnas from inside the Battle wagon; to do this you fire all burnas but only place 1 template(since the template rule require you to hit as many enemies as possible) you then multiply the # of hits scored by that 1 template by the number of templates(15 in this case). this is all assuming you left your BW open-topped

#2: Only in close combat must every body swing, and swing with all attacks. In shooting you are free to shoot with as many or few models as you want, but all models firing will make their full # of shots(an assault 3 weapon will fire 3 shots any time it is fired).

As said, it's very tricky to get 15 burna boyz into a position where they can all fire effectively at an enemy. They're much more effective staying inside the wagon, where they can fire once and multiply the hits by 15.

To reiterate the answers given, for question 1, each Burna Boy must fire his burna in such a way that it covers the maximum number of models in the target enemy unit, but without touching a friendly model. You work out the number of enemy models hit per Ork first, and then roll to wound all together. i.e. A unit of 3 burnas: Ork 1 can hit 4, Ork 2 can hit 3, Ork 3 can hit 3. Then roll 10 dice to wound.

Question 2 - No obligation to all fire weapons, which is sometimes useful with plasma weapons.

Good grief. Those rules rule!!! I wonder why anyone would use burnas as power weapons against MEQ. You might as well roast them from inside your awesome vehicle.

One more: If not everyone has to fire, is it possible to fire some number of burnas and then use the remainder in CC for power weapons? It seems horribly complex.

Yes that is perfectly fine.

Not "horribly complex" - N-X are power weapons in CC.

The only time burnas(the weapon) become horribly complex is when you put one on a big mek and leave his other normal CCW(don't remember if he exchanges the Choppa or the Slugga for the burna); then you get a bonus attack in CC only if you have not fired the burna that previous shooting phase.

Comes down to this:
Shooting Phase: fire burna
Assault phase: base attacks + Assault bonus attack, Normal attacks(but +1 S & I) since you only have the 1 normal ccw
enemy turn, assault phase: Base attacks +1 for 2 ccws, power weapon attacks(you didn't shoot the flamer in the previous{opponent's} shooting phase)

seems easy when written out but in play it gets a little more confusing since it is the only model with a varying number of bonus attacks without special wargear(SW mark of the wulfen or saga of the slayer).

Kommissar Kel wrote:2 more bits to add:

#1: You can fire the Burnas from inside the Battle wagon; to do this you fire all burnas but only place 1 template(since the template rule require you to hit as many enemies as possible) you then multiply the # of hits scored by that 1 template by the number of templates(15 in this case). this is all assuming you left your BW open-topped

#2: Only in close combat must every body swing, and swing with all attacks. In shooting you are free to shoot with as many or few models as you want, but all models firing will make their full # of shots(an assault 3 weapon will fire 3 shots any time it is fired).

yes mass flame template spam can wreck even terminators.

I use similar with my units of wrack(liquifiers) and meduse from on board a raider.

'I wonder why anyone would use burnas as power weapons against MEQ. You might as well roast them from inside your awesome vehicle. '


Your awesome vehicle rarely will last the whole battle, especially if people see burna templates coming out of it

I think it is pretty surviveable. 14 armour with KFF. Anyways, that's a different discussion for a different thread.

What I mean is that marines have superior initiative. If they are vanilla marines with a boltgun and max. 1 power fist, I may go for power weapons. If they're wolves or pistol/chainsword guys, burn them to death.

Ascalam wrote:'I wonder why anyone would use burnas as power weapons against MEQ. You might as well roast them from inside your awesome vehicle. '


Your awesome vehicle rarely will last the whole battle, especially if people see burna templates coming out of it

Yep- and it's also very easy to shake that awesome vehicle, which prevents the burnas inside from firing unless they bail out anyways.

But if they're not already shaken, you're close enough, and you don't want to charge the flamed unit afterwards (a rare occurrence), then it's not too bad of an idea.

I know many strategy talks assume that the units are 1 on 1, at full health, etc. I would see this as optimal for burnas:

Have lootas, rokkit boyz, or a deffkopta (maybe a buggy) blow up the rhino or razorback. The marines pop out. Use the burna boyz to fry them to a crisp. If I have nothing else nearby, I'd pop out and burn them as much as I can. Try to leave just 1 or 2. Then assault. Even with no power weapons, they should be able to finish them off.

If I had another unit nearby, stay in the wagon and start a marine bbq. Have the other unit assault and finish them off.

Yes, I know this will not always work. Maybe not even work much of the time, but it is the optimal usage of burnas.

Just stay in the BW, roll up to a terminator squad, plop down the template over 5 of them, proceed to roll for 75 wounds while laughing hysterically.

'Just stay in the BW, roll OVER a terminator squad, plop down the template over 5 of them, proceed to roll for 75 wounds while laughing hysterically. '

Fixed that for you

Termies HATE burnaboyz Enemy deathstar SC units do too

Mathematically, you will kill less than 1.0 terminators rolling into them.

75 hits with burnas? You kill almost exactly 6, mathematically of course.

If the termie squad was small and all had fists, I'd assault the buggers. Not the ones with storm shields, though.

10 Burnas vs. 10 Marines

ALL BURN

Shooting
(assuming 3 hits per model, not unlikely IMO)

30 hits - 15 wounds - 10 saves - 5 dead Marines

Assault
(9 Burnas hitting back after Marines are done)


27 attacks - 13, 5 hits - 6,75 wounds - 4,5 saves - 2,25 dead Marines

TOTAL: 7,25 Marines dead - 9 Burnas still standing


ALL POWERWEAPON

Shooting

NA

Assault
(8 Burnas hitting back after Marines are done)

24 attacks - 12 hits - 6 wounds - 0 saves - 6 dead Marines

TOTAL: 6 dead Marines - 8 Burnas still standing


HALF-n-HALF


Shooting

15 hits - 7,5 wounds - 5 saves - 2,5 dead Marines


Assault
(assuming you take casualties from non-PW Burnas)
(8,5 Burnas still standing after Marines are done)

24 attacks - 12 hits - 6 wounds - 1,5 saves - 4,5 dead Marines

TOTAL: 7 dead Marines - 8,5 Burnas still standing

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Note that in the case of "All burn", the Marines get a -1/-2 modifier to their Break test after CC.
In the case of "All powerweapon", that modifier is -4.

In the end you'll lose another Burna, but double the modifier imposed on the Marines.
This is very relevant in determining whether you keep your Burnas in combat or not. Marines might choose to auto fail the Break Test via Combat Tactics (when available) if given the chance, leaving our boyz stranded. This means that we should inflict as many casualties as possible in the shortest amount of time. Leaving "All burn" as the prefered option.

Conclusion: Remember to almost always make them do the Burny Dance. It is just a question of how long the dance is.

An important thing to remember is that all use of the flamer-aspect of the Burna assumes that 3 enemy models are hit. This is a very conservative number, I'm sure you'll all agree. More hits will, of course, point towards more use of the "All burn" option. Which almost always is the prefered option anyway. Exceptions are show below. Calculations are not shown due to lazyness.

Tactical Marines: Use "All burn", expect to kill 7,25 Marines and WIN cc by 1-2.

Normal Terminators: Use "All burn", expect to kill 3,75 terminators and LOSE CC by 4 . Use "All power", expect to kill 5 Terminators and WIN cc by 1.

Assault Marines: Use "All burn", expect to kill 6,75 Marines and LOSE cc by 1-2. Use "All power", expect to kill 4,5 Marines and WIN cc by 1.

Thunder hammer Terminators: Use "All burn", expect to kill 3,75 terminators and LOSE CC by 4. Use "All power", expect to kill 2,5 terminators and LOSE CC by 1,25

Lightning claw Terminators (this is going to hurt!): Use "All burn", expect to kill 3 Terminators and LOSE cc by 5. Use "All power", expect to kill 1,5 Terminators and LOSE cc by 6)

Grey Knight Terminators are even worse. Let's not go there.

Thanks for the analysis, Steelmage!

Steelmage, I think if you tank shock the unit first, you have a good chance to push them closer together. They have to make way for you and keep unit coherency.

If you tank shock 5 termies, as long as they don't have a chainfist, they will unlikely use a DoG. taking 2d6 S10 hits and losing a termie is not a good prospect.

If the 5 of them are bunches together, they take D6 S10 hits and up to 75 burna hits. 37 or so burna wounds, and assuming 1 in 6 fail, about 6 wounds. Give or take.