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 Lance845 wrote:

fe40k wrote:
That way, they have a use as an anti-deepstrike/charge deterrent - as it stands, their uses aren’t worth considering; the game is based entirely around the 9” deepstrike range.

Their offensive potential wouldn’t change (and is a separate discussion), but they’d be a worthwhile investment for units you plan to use as a front line. There’d be counterplay in having the option to make a 10/11" charge, as a price to not eat overwstch from flamers.

You are correct that the game is based around the 9" deepstrike range.

It is 100% intentional that a weapon that hits automatically is set up to stop working just before the minimum deepstrike distance (in the vast majority of cases. I can only think of one that is larger off the top of my head). There would be no counterplay. A 10/11" charge has such a insignificant chance of happening that nobody would ever attempt it. 9" charge is already less than a 50% chance. Every extra inch above that reduces the chance by a large margin. Flamers are a deterrent against getting within 8" because needing to roll a 7 is a major tipping point. 7 is by far the most probable result when rolling 2d6 which makes the 8" charge the tipping point when you have a more than 50% chance of success. Flamers keep people in the less than 50% range.

I know this is how it's supposed to work, but I don't feel like 9 inch charges are really that big of a deal, especially since I see mostly successes with them. The fix in my opinion for this is to return to a 7th edition rule for flamers. D3 hits on overwatch instead of the full brunt of the weapon.

I mean in reality I'm in favor of any weapon being able to hit on overwatch period, you gun doesn't stop working just because an ork is 11 inches away, you just wait an extra two seconds to fire so that they're closer.

 Galef wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
I like the idea of Flamers ignoring cover and always being able to fire overwatch, regardless of range.

Honestly, range should be outright ignored for any weapon firing Overwatch. The Charging unit is moving closer to you, so all your weapons will eventually get range to them.
For weapons that are Rapid Fire or Melta, you can always assume the enemy is in minimum range needed for the rule to "kick in".

It's not like the charging unit is like "Oi, we's chargin' ya, you gonna shoot?" and then the waits there until the unit fires and THEN the starts moving.
The charging unit is already charging. That's the whole reason you only hit on 6s is because you're "snap firing"

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I disagree on the range issue due to fiddly weapons that have really small range like Melta Bombs and Absolver Pistols. I think that's the one the Primaris Apothecary has.

 akaean wrote:
Flamethrowers are in such a bad spot right now compared to the other special weapons a substantial buff would not be the end of the world.
...
I really don't understand why people are so adverse to literally the worst special weapon in the entire being made *useable*

The issue isn't one of how this will affect a single flamer in a unit, it's seeing how it affects the extremes - namely full flamer units deepstriking in.

with a 12" range & 2D6 shots, the hypothetical 20-man flamer unit would be dropping 140 auto-hits, on average.

But if we assume that flamers still scale the same, we have the 10-man ork nobs squad with kombi-skorchas, 'ere we go'd to behind your lines, dropping 70 auto-hits with higher strength.

so no, a basic flamer is not going to be OP by being 12" range with 2D6 hits, but having lots of them will be.

An alternative would be a "combined fire" system, where a flamer does 2D6 hits, and each additional flamer does D6 hits. because really, setting something on fire twice as much won't make it twice as dead.

this way it tempers massed flamers, but boosts them as a special weapons option.

 some bloke wrote:

 akaean wrote:
Flamethrowers are in such a bad spot right now compared to the other special weapons a substantial buff would not be the end of the world.
...
I really don't understand why people are so adverse to literally the worst special weapon in the entire being made *useable*

The issue isn't one of how this will affect a single flamer in a unit, it's seeing how it affects the extremes - namely full flamer units deepstriking in.

with a 12" range & 2D6 shots, the hypothetical 20-man flamer unit would be dropping 140 auto-hits, on average.

But if we assume that flamers still scale the same, we have the 10-man ork nobs squad with kombi-skorchas, 'ere we go'd to behind your lines, dropping 70 auto-hits with higher strength.

so no, a basic flamer is not going to be OP by being 12" range with 2D6 hits, but having lots of them will be.

An alternative would be a "combined fire" system, where a flamer does 2D6 hits, and each additional flamer does D6 hits. because really, setting something on fire twice as much won't make it twice as dead.

this way it tempers massed flamers, but boosts them as a special weapons option.

Has anyone actually suggested BOTH 12" range and 2d6 hits?
I've been saying one or the other, not both. Both changes would certainly be OP on units that can take more than 2-3 flamers.
I've also stated that if 2d6 is the solutions, than regular Flamers should drop to S3 to even out to total wounds.

At any rate, I am liking the idea that Flamers get 12" via a stratagem, rather than all the time.

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Has anyone thrown out the idea of flamers adding 2" to the required charge range of a charging enemy?

Actually, I like the idea of them ignoring range for Overwatch (you're just trying to create a wall of death after all) AND subtracting an inch off the charge range. They wouldn't be exactly a great fighting weapon, but most of the ideas here were going to scale badly, and more importantly it gives an actual niche.

Whether melee needs to be hit further is a different discussion though.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Actually, I like the idea of them ignoring range for Overwatch (you're just trying to create a wall of death after all) AND subtracting an inch off the charge range. They wouldn't be exactly a great fighting weapon, but most of the ideas here were going to scale badly, and more importantly it gives an actual niche.

Whether melee needs to be hit further is a different discussion though.

I hate the idea of a weapon reducing the charge distance of a unit, melee is already in a absolutely dire state and we don't need to add anything further!

Str 3 and 2d6 hits at 8" are fine in my belief, heavy flamers get Str 4 -1 AP 2d6 hits as well.

And also add a torrent rule so additional flamers just add d3 extra hits beyond the first flamer to help combat units that can greatly spam flamers.

Also unrelated can flamers of Tzeentch get some love aswell