Heavy flamers on non-fast vehicles

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**Big Blind Bill**

One item of wargear for vehicles that puzzles me is the heavy flamer.

Vehicles get no overwatch, are very vulnerable in cc, are limited to a 6 move when firing, and are more likely to expose their flanks when trying to get a flamer shot off.

On fast vehicles, or ones with deepstrike, such as landspeeders, I can see them being worthwhile. The LRR might also be viable as it has armour to withstand most assaults, and can use potms to get closer to fire.

However, for most other vehicles is there actually a good reason to use one instead of a heavy bolter or other weapon?

**Unit1126PLL**

For IG vehicles such as the LRBT and Basilisk, it's hilarious against deep-strikers if it lives through their alpha strike.

For the Chimera, it's a deterrent to people assaulting the IG squad near it, and you'll be closing much of the time anyways

**skolirvarden**

Automatic hits for clearing the nearby area with decent strength and AP, less risk on the vagaries of dice.

I think it's best for a vehicle you plan on driving into the fray (obviously this is somewhat necessary regardless, due to the template). Handy for getting that elite unit past a forming tarpit and onto the other side where the juicy part of the enemy line is, but can require some covering fire from other armour-with the exception of a LRR (which I love!), I wouldn't run a flamer tank without a careful deployment plan and covering fire.

Also useful on dreadnaught builds using a fist+gun combo, as a secondary weapon (in place of the storm bolter) because really, if you're running with a power fist, you're going to need to get close enough to hit something to make your points. Flamer lets you clean out the cheap infantry to focus on something more in the dreadie weight class.

**vipoid**

For IG, I like them on my Chimeras carrying melta-vets.

They're likely to be advancing anyway - meaning the HB would be snap-firing. So, this way I can still shoot the main weapon (the multi-laser), but also have the option of flaming a unit of troops when I get close.

Also, they might be nice on some of our other vehicles, which only tend to shoot a single weapon (like Basilisks, or LRBTs with Ordnance weapons). The option of a Heavy Flamer is probably better in most cases than a snap-firing HB.

**Poly Ranger**

On a fast vehicle its not always great either. Flamestorm baals were great when they had scout. Now they will struggle to make a fraction of their points back. What makes it worse is that a flamestorm baal costs 40pts more than a normal pred. Is a flamestorm 40pts better than an autocannon? Really?

The issue all flamer tanks (aside from torrent) have is that you won't be doing any damage until turn 3 realistically, most the time you don't do any damage at all as you are dead before that, especially considering that you can't just sit all game long in cover like most tanks can, and need to get within melta range to be dangerous. Which means a normal tank is getting far more turns of shooting than a flamer tank. Flamer tanks should cost LESS not 53% MORE than normal tanks.
It's why losing scout was so bad for the baal.

A flamer transport on the other hand is a different matter.