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Currently, Soul Blaze as a rule is...cute, rather than anything else. An extra bolter's worth of hits? Oooh, scary. The following is a potential proposal to make it a potentially *very* scary option, while hopefully not breaking the game too much:

"Soul Blaze:" A unit suffering the warp-borne ailment of soul-blaze is fighting for life, as eldritch entities flicker about and seem to vex their every lives with misfortune, their armor failing them ever-more against the onslaught of their foes accursed weapons.

Rules: Whenever a unit lands one or more hits with Soul Blaze weapons on a target unit, that unit must attempt a Deny the Witch roll as if being targeted by a level 1 Psyker. Should they fail, they suffer Soul Blaze for the duration of that turn. For the remainder of the turn, all other weapons with Soul Blaze treat their AP as one lower when targeting that unit. The unit that first inflicted soul blaze on the enemy unit does not get this bonus AP.

Addendum: Just to keep things fair, the Heldrake's flamer starts off as AP 4. Optionally tweak the prices of Warpflame Gargoyles and Icons of Flame accordingly. Though it would be well over 200 points, you'd now have access to what theoretically is a Defiler with AP2 Battle Cannon...

While an interesting idea, that seems to 'miss' the point of the soulblaze power. Perhaps go with that as another USR altogether? 'Warp Misfortune' or somesuch for the name.

Personally if i was to tweak it i'd just make the soulblaze 'attacks' ignore armor in addition to cover. (that is, the burning part, not the initial attack which inflicted it). After all supposedly you are burning from the inside out, why would your armor be of any benefit?

There already is a Psyker power Misfortune.

As for Soul Blaze itself...Rather than the 'burnt alive from the inside' angle, I guess I was going for the 'light up the souls for targeting' angle, I guess. Call it "Eldritch Curse" perhaps.

"Soul Blaze Option 2"
For every unsaved wound, add +1 to the soul blaze counter on a unit, max 12. At the beginning of each turn, roll 2d6, and subtract that number from the Soul Blaze Counter, up to the maximum on that unit. For each number removed, the unit takes a S4 AP 5 hit.

Example: A Predator with Warpflame Gargoyles manages to inflict 5 unsaved wounds on an enemy target. At the beginning of the next turn, the target unit rolls 2d6. Should it roll 5 or more, it removes all counters, and takes 5 S4 hits. Should it roll a 4, it takes 4 hits, but has one counter remaining.

Eldrich Curse is a good name for what you'd proposed too.

Soul blaze is a tricky one, given how there are now a lot of models that have access to it within the chaos marines dex. It seems like they priced it as the rough equivelent to a 10 point upgrade, when in practice it's hardly more effective than a bolter. How about rather than one token, the unit gets as many tokens as they recieved unsaved wounds. at the end of the controlling players' shooting phase roll for each one to see if it is extinguished or not. Once that is done, roll a d6 and add the number of unextinguished tokens, and inflict that number of hits.

Seems to make it scalable and more potent, without really changing anything substantial.

Soul Blaze means the weapon literally sets your soul/you on fire. Fire is actually fairly easy to put out, especially if you're a space marine or even just a normal trained human soldier.

Soul Blaze, as it is, is actually a fairly scary prospect against horde armies, as an extra "Bolter's worth of hits" could mean an extra two or three casualties.

Because Heldrakes and Warpflame Gargoyles aren't good enough now, right? >.>

Crazyterran wrote:
Because Heldrakes and Warpflame Gargoyles aren't good enough now, right? >.>

Warpflame Gargoyles are rubbish, I don't know what you're on about.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

Crazyterran wrote:
Because Heldrakes and Warpflame Gargoyles aren't good enough now, right? >.>

Warpflame Gargoyles are rubbish, I don't know what you're on about.

Not necessarily against horde armies, but I agree, they are pretty bad.

I don't see any of your proposed changes to rebalance costs and rules on units and effects that already include Soul Blaze.

If I were to tweak soulblaze, I would have be as follows.


For every unit effected by Soul Blaze at the start of the turn, roll a D6.

On a 1-2, Soul Blaze expires. On a 3+, the unit the unit suffers D6 Str4 AP2 hits.

If the unit contains one or more psykers, Soul Blaze expires on a roll of 1-3 instead.

 McNinja wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

Crazyterran wrote:
Because Warpflame Gargoyles aren't good enough now, right? >.>

Warpflame Gargoyles are rubbish, I don't know what you're on about.

Not necessarily against horde armies, but I agree, they are pretty bad.

A pintle mounted twinlinked bolter costs the same and is an extra bolter worth of hits. It also helps protect your other weapons from getting destroyed