Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

So I've been posting and revising my infantry guard list on the lists forum for a few weeks and everyone has been telling me to take away the 4 GL from one platoon and give 4 flamers instead. I have not yet finished building the army and no one in my area plays infantry guard so I have no actual experience as to which is better.

Now on paper it seems to me that they are the only 2 decent anti-infantry weapons that can be fired after moving. They both potentially hit multiple targets and both do pretty well at putting wounds on light infantry. That being said, clearly the flamer is superior in a number of ways: it ignores cover, is higher str (than the small blast shot anyways), ignores the fact that it is a bs 3 model shooting it (GL blast isn't too affected), and can potentially hit more targets per shot. However, I won't be using the flamers until at the earliest turn 2, and that's only if that particular platoon is rushing the same objective as an enemy unit. If it is a 2 objective game, a kill-point game, or a dawn of war deployment, then I will be sitting back enjoying the security of having a gunline in cover. So unless they get rushed by an assault unit, those flamers are going to be just sitting there, whereas the GL could have been firing the entire time.

So I guess the question is: does a flamers superiority in other aspects overcome it's weakness in range which could possibly keep it from firing for half the game in 2/3 game types?

The other thing to worry about with flamers is that you might potentially ruin your own assault if you kill too many models, letting your opponent remove the front rank and leaving you stranded. I prefer neither option; I run meltaguns for my infantry blobs.

Legatto wrote:So I guess the question is: does a flamers superiority in other aspects overcome it's weakness in range which could possibly keep it from firing for half the game in 2/3 game types?

I think the answer is yes, but more importantly is how do you want to use the squad that has these special weapons? If its mobile fire support, like a Chimera behind a screen of infantry, then I would go with the GL. If its running along side some Vets who pop open a transport to expose the infantry, I would go with the Flamer.

I like 4x GL PCS because
1) They can move 6" and still fire out to 24"
2) The small blasts do provide some decent (not great) anti-infantry and you get to fire it more often then a Flamer
3) The Krak shots will match the S6 of the Multi-Laser and provide additional anti-MC/anti-transport firepower
4) You can take a hull Heavy Flamer to help compensate for the lack of the 4x Flamers

That being said, few squads can potentially put out as many wounds as 4x Flamer PCS unit if the target is bunched up and you may not need the flexibility of the GL's shots if you already have plenty of ways to kill light infantry and transports at range.

Yes, flamers are MUCH better than grenade launchers. You don't get to throw down as many shots per game, but you do much more damage when you shoot, which more than makes up for this fewer shots thing (note that the same is also true when comparing things like meltaguns and lascannons - meltaguns also being the superior weapon). I mean, even if you only got to shoot it HALF the time, the fact that it doesn't use BS3 ALONE covers this gap. Once you throw on the better strength, better AP, and larger template, the gap in favor of the flamer really shows.

Even the arguments for GLs are pretty weak...

minigun762 wrote:1) They can move 6" and still fire out to 24"
2) The small blasts do provide some decent (not great) anti-infantry and you get to fire it more often then a Flamer
3) The Krak shots will match the S6 of the Multi-Laser and provide additional anti-MC/anti-transport firepower
4) You can take a hull Heavy Flamer to help compensate for the lack of the 4x Flamers

1.) What does extra range matter if you're not likely to do any damage? Flamers do more damage over the course of a game, even if they don't get to shoot on turn 1.

2.) Small blasts are terrible. Small blasts have a radius of 1.5", while your opponent can space out 2" and still be in coherency. Unless it hasn't mattered (or I've made a mistake), I've never let an opponent get more than 1 hit per small blast template strike.

3.) A single BS3 S6 attack isn't doing much. I mean, people don't usually take hunter-killers for this reason (the single shot of a KH missile doing roughly as much as SEVEN krak grenade shots v. AV12 and still even twice as many vs. AV10).

4.) this really is the problem with both flamers AND grenade launchers. If you're running mech, you get flamers everywhere for free. If you're running foot horde, you have the potential to FRF a LOT of lasguns. As such, both of these weapons fill a niche that is already usually WELL covered by the other elements in your army.

Which is why, as blacksails notes, in the debate between GLs and flamer, the best answer is usually "neither - take plasma or melta instead".

Both weapons aren't that great; flamers get one turn to do enough damage to justify their points cost whilst GLs do less overall damage per turn, but get more turns of firing to ameliorate this.

Which one is best? Well, they're both sub-par weapons, but for 5pts I don't think it really matters. You're arguing pure semantics when you get down to it, and the overall impact it makes to either you or your opponent isn't game-changing.

Try both and see which works for you. I run games that aren't rammed with 4+ cover, and also have a higher propensity of mech in my group, so the GL suits me better. Conversely, people who play Green Tide or Horde Nids or Foot IG quite often in loads of 4+ cover will undoubtedly swear blind that the flamer is superior. As I said at the start, for the points cost to overall damage caused they are more or less interchangeable.

L. Wrex

It's an all-infantry army - no armor whatsoever.

With 2 platoons, each containing 4 infantry squads, that would be 8 flamers (4 per PCS), 4 meltas on the squads in 1st platoon, and 4 plasma on the squads in 2nd platoon.

Including vets and deepstriking storms thats a total of 8 flamers, 10 plasma guns, and 13 meltas. Sounds good to me I suppose. If any of this seems off to you just look for my list post, would rather keep the thread on-topic.

So given the said arguments it seems flamers come out on top. The environment I play in is really diversified. About 50% marines, then the other 50% is spread evenly over all the other armies pretty much. So while I see more MEQ than anything else, there is a lot of cover in these games and I guess with that much plasma and melta I wouldn't need the nades. Thanks for everyones input. Does anyone have anything to help keep the grenade launcher hope alive? Or should I just drive the nail into the coffin?

I think the GL has some use perhaps mixed with flamers (not sure if its possible, I dont play IG). The GL seems like it could be useful for putting some wounds on a squad from a distance or help to take out an annoying vehicle. The flamer may ignore cover and not use ballistic skill but you have to be pretty close to use it and at times that is a really negative.

I despise grenade launchers.

They are the perfect example of a poor compromise.

BS3 s3 ap- blast? yeah thats a real killer, or you could purge them with fire, and get the job done.

or S6 single shot? why not just get a meltagun and be done with it?


+1 vote for flamers

I think flamers are great as a 'keep your damn howling banshees away from my gunline' unit. They take that sort of thing much more reliably in my experience than a squad of lasgun guardsmen.

Preston wrote:I think flamers are great as a 'keep your damn howling banshees away from my gunline' unit. They take that sort of thing much more reliably in my experience than a squad of lasgun guardsmen.

I'm always a little surprised when people mention that idea of Flamers acting as deterrents to assault units.
While it makes sense in real life, I rarely find that I'm ever in range to use a Flamer if I'm footslogging and about to be assaulted as most assault units are either coming out of a transport (so they're protected from a simple S4 attack) or they have fleet and can assault from outside of my template's max range. Its this reason that with my CSMs, I only use Flamers on mechanized or fast moving squads and its why I favor the GL for footsloggers as I'd rather do something then nothing, even if that something isn't much.

Preston wrote:I think flamers are great as a 'keep your damn howling banshees away from my gunline' unit. They take that sort of thing much more reliably in my experience than a squad of lasgun guardsmen.

Banshees or Striking scorpians.... I cant see the former being a problem for guard. The later might be a little tougher.

minigun762 wrote:

Preston wrote:I think flamers are great as a 'keep your damn howling banshees away from my gunline' unit. They take that sort of thing much more reliably in my experience than a squad of lasgun guardsmen.

I'm always a little surprised when people mention that idea of Flamers acting as deterrents to assault units.
While it makes sense in real life, I rarely find that I'm ever in range to use a Flamer if I'm footslogging and about to be assaulted as most assault units are either coming out of a transport (so they're protected from a simple S4 attack) or they have fleet and can assault from outside of my template's max range. Its this reason that with my CSMs, I only use Flamers on mechanized or fast moving squads and its why I favor the GL for footsloggers as I'd rather do something then nothing, even if that something isn't much.

That depends on the positioning of your units. If you have a "buffer" unit in front of the flamer squad for example, you can easily utilize the flamer to get a very nice hit off against assault units. The use of infantry squads as multiple buffers against assaulting units is a fairly common IG tactic that forces the enemy to take a big hit after each assault. Of course, this is assuming standard or infantry IG and not mechanized.

Interesting concept Redscare, I'm still learning IG and so much of my thinking is based in terms of Marines.

So you'd put squad A infront of squad B.
Squad A has some weapon, squad B has the Flamer.
Squad A gets assaulted and wiped out, squad B steps forward and burns the remnants of that assault?

Something like that?

You've got five weapon specialisations, right?

Melta is pretty much only good for mech units, preferably BS4; vets and ST. (Though a visible melta presence can scarecrow away vehicles.)

Plasma is best used in quantity with BS4 and FNP; command squads.

Snipers are probably best used in specialist teams that can hide away effectively; Ratlings. (Might be an argument to add it to Mortar units to maximise chances of forcing pinning tests; could synergy well with Psyker battle squad...)

Flamers are useful to have around to act as a scarecrow for hordes, and to punish assault units that wipe out buffers. I've had nasty surprises from them when command squads jump out of Chimerae and burn out a whole Gaunt unit, though the Chimera parking lot might do this better.

Grenade Launchers synergy brilliantly with Autocannon (and to a certain degree Mortars), which make a great line weapon in Mechhammer. There was a thread on this a month ago: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/354291.page