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.

One thing that I always thought would be cool in 40k is if when a soldier with a flamer/flame shooting weapon dies, they should have to roll a D6, and on a the flamer should explode with a small template placed on the center of the model so simulate the weapon blowing up with a S3 Ap- hit to everyone below it. I think this would be sweet, and kind of funny like "The red ones go fasta" rule, and might make flamers, a weapon tha I feel are very powerful a little more dangerous to the user. Am I the only one who thinks this would be awesome?

Flamers really aren't that powerful.

S4 AP5 that hits anything in its range? yes please
I am not saying that they are overpowered, just a good weapon for a 5 point, or however much they cost your armies to use.
Now, I could see Burnas and all flamer based units getting exemption from this, but I think it could be one thorn for a nice weapon that would add flavor and goofiness to the game.

One man's flavor and goofiness is another man's dead or crippled squad.

Not every army with a flamer is marines.

A S3 hit would not cripple or kill a squad of really anything unless everyone was super bunched up like a deepstriking flamer or something and even then it might only take out a couple models.

The operation of a real flamethrower "exploding" is a great exagerated hollywood effect.

usually the fuel by itself is difficult to ignite (leading to magnesium igniters on the end of the weapon) so if the fuel tank was hit it would simply leak everywhere (unless a incinderary weapon was used). and if the pressurized tank was hit it would shove you forward (like an aerosol can detonation). napalm or diesal is hard to light without an open flame. and promethium (the fuel in 40k) is a combo of Napalm and Gasoline.

Im sure in 40 those problems are solved. only the larger scale ones (like that malcador one) have the explosion issue, possibly due to the "rule of cool" and other fictional reasons.

plus i would really not want even the slightest chance of my flamer guy taking men with him (maybe if it only affected orks...), i have enough problems with the plasma guns.

Engine of War wrote:The operation of a real flamethrower "exploding" is a great exagerated hollywood effect.

usually the fuel by itself is difficult to ignite (leading to magnesium igniters on the end of the weapon) so if the fuel tank was hit it would simply leak everywhere (unless a incinderary weapon was used). and if the pressurized tank was hit it would shove you forward (like an aerosol can detonation). napalm or diesal is hard to light without an open flame. and promethium (the fuel in 40k) is a combo of Napalm and Gasoline.

Im sure in 40 those problems are solved. only the larger scale ones (like that malcador one) have the explosion issue, possibly due to the "rule of cool" and other fictional reasons.

plus i would really not want even the slightest chance of my flamer guy taking men with him (maybe if it only affected orks...), i have enough problems with the plasma guns.

and nothing is greatly exagerated in 40k lol.

i guess i am the only one that thinks this is a cool idea though

But on the roll of a one, everyone with in 2" of the guy takes a s2 hit?


The roll of one to show that the leaked fuel HAS caught fire and the weak strength to show that is just light flames. Enough to kill a marine but very very unlikely...

Why make a mediocre weapon that already costs points worse?

Shiggles.


That is my only argument.

I would make it the following (if I was going to do anything):
"If killed by a wound that inflicted instant death, roll a D6. On a 1, place the small blast marker withe the hole over the Flamer. All models under the blast marker suffer a Strength 3, AP ― hit."

Its a hollywood thing that a flamer would explode
and think about it even if it goes its still 4+ and it can kill a guardsmen. personaly plasmaguns are enough.

Flamers arent really all that powerfull.

Daemonhammer wrote:Flamers arent really all that powerfull.

I can understand why all of the SM players keep saying Flamers arent that powerful, but for the rest of the armies without power armor, Flamers will ruin your day in a hurry, especially when they drop in or are on bike units. I am not saying they are overpowered but to say they are just meh or useless I believe to be incorrect.
and this rule is meant to be more of a fun rule than a punitive one. and i do like the instant death part rather than all deaths

...Think, people. To kill a model, you have to roll three (count them, three) dice: to hit, to wound, to save. People are impossibly fond of taking power weapons, which cut out the to save roll; flamers cut out the to-hit roll. Why are they 'mediocre', given that in pretty much every case they hit a whole lot more people than a power weapon at a third the price with a similar chance of killing things?

The reason most people just ignore flamers these days is because melta-spam is so popular, I suspect.

Generally speaking, if you really wanted to do this, I'd advise making it a smaller area-of-effect, possibly just models in base contact with the flamer-wielder.

@AnomanderRake

You're doing it wrong. The rolls reduce the amount of damage you take sequentially and multiplicatively. If have 8 attacks and I'm hitting, Wounding, and Saving on 4's, then consider the following scenarios, in which we discus why removing the ability to save is more important than the ability to hit.

I cut out "To-Hit"

I cut out "To-Save"

Cutting To-Hit results in 8 hits, 4 wounds, and 2 unsaved.

Cutting Save results in 4 hits, 2 wounds, and 2 unsaved.

In this scenario, To-Hit holds equal weight to To-Save.

However, if my BS goes up by 1, to 4...

Cutting To-Hit grants the same scenario.

Cutting To-Save grants 8 attacks, ~6 hit, 3 wound, 3 unsaved.

If their armour goes up...

Cutting To-Hit grants reduced unsaved.

Cutting To-Save remains the constant.

The only time cutting to-hit gets better is when the save of the opponent goes down - at which point it reaches the ~5+ area, and is ignored by 90% of weapons - granting the benefits of both. So yes, flamers are good against hormagants and guardsmen and orks. We know this already. It's why most space wolf lists run 1 melta 1 flamer. It's why most IG vehicles run a flamer. It's why Burnaboys are so good, as they can ignore either at their whim.

I think it's a pretty interesting rule. However, as people said, flamers are pretty balanced as is.

Just spitballin' here, but what about a special rule or armywide rule that would change flamers in the following way:

The upgraded flamer gets a bit of extra range: when firing the flamer, place the template so that the narrow end is within 1" of the weapon, and the large end is no closer to the weapon than the narrow end. To compensate, when a soldier with an upgraded flamer/flame shooting weapon dies, they roll a D6, and on a the flamer explodex with a small template placed on the center of the model, delivering a S3 Ap- hit to everyone below it.

To be homest the only army that i would see this happening to is orks, but they already have lots of rules like that.

Engine of War wrote:The operation of a real flamethrower "exploding" is a great exagerated hollywood effect.

usually the fuel by itself is difficult to ignite (leading to magnesium igniters on the end of the weapon) so if the fuel tank was hit it would simply leak everywhere (unless a incinderary weapon was used). and if the pressurized tank was hit it would shove you forward (like an aerosol can detonation). napalm or diesal is hard to light without an open flame. and promethium (the fuel in 40k) is a combo of Napalm and Gasoline.

Im sure in 40 those problems are solved. only the larger scale ones (like that malcador one) have the explosion issue, possibly due to the "rule of cool" and other fictional reasons.

plus i would really not want even the slightest chance of my flamer guy taking men with him (maybe if it only affected orks...), i have enough problems with the plasma guns.

you're wrong there engine, promethium is an actual element that is radioactive and extremely explosive, right now it's a metal but there are probably many places where its radiation decay leads it to be a liquid. e.g. In Gaunt's Ghosts Traitor General Brostin finds a well of unprocessed promethium bubbling up from under a swamp to the surface.

Arcani wrote:

Engine of War wrote:The operation of a real flamethrower "exploding" is a great exagerated hollywood effect.

usually the fuel by itself is difficult to ignite (leading to magnesium igniters on the end of the weapon) so if the fuel tank was hit it would simply leak everywhere (unless a incinderary weapon was used). and if the pressurized tank was hit it would shove you forward (like an aerosol can detonation). napalm or diesal is hard to light without an open flame. and promethium (the fuel in 40k) is a combo of Napalm and Gasoline.

Im sure in 40 those problems are solved. only the larger scale ones (like that malcador one) have the explosion issue, possibly due to the "rule of cool" and other fictional reasons.

plus i would really not want even the slightest chance of my flamer guy taking men with him (maybe if it only affected orks...), i have enough problems with the plasma guns.

you're wrong there engine, promethium is an actual element that is radioactive and extremely explosive, right now it's a metal but there are probably many places where its radiation decay leads it to be a liquid. e.g. In Gaunt's Ghosts Traitor General Brostin finds a well of unprocessed promethium bubbling up from under a swamp to the surface.

Sorry to burst your bubble, but Promethium doesn't have any liquids in its decay cycle (loads of different isotopes, but basically they all decay to one of 3 other metals). There are very few elements that are liquid at STP (Mercury and that's about it; even Gallium needs higher than room temperature to melt).

It was chosen by GW to describe their flamethrower fuel because it sounds "cool" (like depleted deuterium-tipped bolter shells /facepalm), sounds like a 38-millennia-long-corrupted form of "Petroleum" and because it conjurs up images of Prometheus, the Titan who gave fire to mankind in ancient Greek Mythology.
(The bubbling liquid from a swamp will be tar or oil, lending even more credence to GW meaning "Petroleum" when they say "Promethium")

Wow who knew that people would make a big deal out of this, but I guess when you have a bunch of geeks (myself included) that joins and posts on a game site, that is what you will get..
I think it would be a cool idea to have happen, the orks have tons of that stuff in their rules and codex, don't touch dat, rolling double 1's on a waagh, weirdboy power #1 - 'eadbanger, the loss of d3 stormboyz that charge on deepstrike... these are all rules that do not benefit the Orks, but just make the game more chance and more fun... as these are games, they are supposed to be.. But Phil Kelly writes stuff like this, Matt Ward on the other hand ... well he just writes crap in a different way...LOL I will probably get in trouble for that last comment.

The Infinite wrote:

Arcani wrote:

Engine of War wrote:The operation of a real flamethrower "exploding" is a great exagerated hollywood effect.

usually the fuel by itself is difficult to ignite (leading to magnesium igniters on the end of the weapon) so if the fuel tank was hit it would simply leak everywhere (unless a incinderary weapon was used). and if the pressurized tank was hit it would shove you forward (like an aerosol can detonation). napalm or diesal is hard to light without an open flame. and promethium (the fuel in 40k) is a combo of Napalm and Gasoline.

Im sure in 40 those problems are solved. only the larger scale ones (like that malcador one) have the explosion issue, possibly due to the "rule of cool" and other fictional reasons.

plus i would really not want even the slightest chance of my flamer guy taking men with him (maybe if it only affected orks...), i have enough problems with the plasma guns.

you're wrong there engine, promethium is an actual element that is radioactive and extremely explosive, right now it's a metal but there are probably many places where its radiation decay leads it to be a liquid. e.g. In Gaunt's Ghosts Traitor General Brostin finds a well of unprocessed promethium bubbling up from under a swamp to the surface.

Sorry to burst your bubble, but Promethium doesn't have any liquids in its decay cycle (loads of different isotopes, but basically they all decay to one of 3 other metals). There are very few elements that are liquid at STP (Mercury and that's about it; even Gallium needs higher than room temperature to melt).

It was chosen by GW to describe their flamethrower fuel because it sounds "cool" (like depleted deuterium-tipped bolter shells /facepalm), sounds like a 38-millennia-long-corrupted form of "Petroleum" and because it conjurs up images of Prometheus, the Titan who gave fire to mankind in ancient Greek Mythology.
(The bubbling liquid from a swamp will be tar or oil, lending even more credence to GW meaning "Petroleum" when they say "Promethium")

This is 40K. Canon Fluff trumps Outside Logic. Please don't try to bring outside logic into 40K because if you do the entire thing falls apart.

No to this.

Because a squad of 15 burnaboyz would all die when one of them explodes.

I think that this sounds like a good and funny rule but I would put it as the exploding flamer's Strength and AP e.g. a Flamer + S4 AP5 so the explosion is S4 AP5

As a Necron player and a fan of Scarabs, I can safely say that i fear flamers. Especially Flamestorms...

AutoHit, Insta-kill, double wounds.


EEP!

Personally, If this were:
When a model with a weapon that uses a Flame Template dies, roll a D6. On a roll of a 1, place a Small Blast Template over that model. Everything under the template takes a Str 2 hit.

I'd be fine with that. As it would be silly, little more than a fluffy bit of nuisance, and being 'movie' logic applies more than 'real life' logic in 40k, it'd be acceptable

S2 woudl be better. At S3 you are wounding the "less tough" races on a 4+ and most of them also have failry poor armour saves as well.

Admittedly, I'm sure which of the races other than MeQs actually have "flamers"

I think every race has at least 1-2 template weapons, I can't think of any that don't tbh.

Actual 'flamers' are mostly all imperial Imperial forces, Orks, Tau, Eldar and CSM though.
The 'crons have a flamer, but I think that's superheated air type of thing rather than fuel, but either way. The 'nids and DE have acid and flame based things too.

On a thought, I'll re-write my version to this:
When a model with a Template Weapon ( excluding one-shot weapons ) is killed, roll a D6. On a roll of a 1, place a Small Blast Template over that model. Everything under the template takes an automatic hit with a Strength equal to half that of the weapon.

This means that
A: One shot weaponry such as combi-weapons and such, which are either more esoteric tech or simply less fuel, won't cause this to happen.
B: A standard Flamer (or equivalent) will cause a Str2 hit, a Heavy Flamer a Str3 hit, etc, which would scale to the weapon.

Praxiss wrote:As a Necron player and a fan of Scarabs, I can safely say that i fear flamers. Especially Flamestorms...

AutoHit, Insta-kill, double wounds.


EEP!

To many times, I've lost 2 scarab bases because the template hits 1 base. Auto-hit, 2+ to wound, no saves of any kind (AP5), and double toughness (Str 6) means 6 wounds for every hit (insta-kill two 3 wound models).

I fear flamers too!

So, I have been known to take C'tan with Lord of Fire, any flamer or melta weapon fired with 12" of the C'tan blows up on a 1, similar to "Gets Hot", etc. insta-kill and no save allowed. Nice.

"Volatile Fuel"

Every time you fire a flamer or flame weapon, roll 2D6. If the combined roll is 3 or less, you must place the flame template so that it starts from the back of its firers' base, allowing it to hit friendly models, but still attempting to cover as much of the target unit as possible. Vehicles firing flamers instead suffer a "Crew Shaken" result, negated on a roll of 4+.

Basically, at least 1 autohit on the firing unit.