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We all know (or should) that everything in the Deldar codex is to cheap. But that is here nor there. I am actually glad the Deldar got a top level codex as I have always liked the army. The one and only thing that really irked me when I read the codex is how good Shredders are when comparing to flamers of all stripes and the fact it is only 8 points. It is no secret that the meta favors blobs of cheap infantry. And it is also no secret that why things are this way is anti-horde infantry firepower is abysmal in 8th. Flamers are over priced and to short ranged. Warp Flamers are 15 points for sub shredder stats and range making them the most visible example of the current problem with flamers.

So what is everyones thoughts on the Shredder and is it the way to move forward with fixing flamers? Is str 6 wounding T3 infantry on 2's the way to go? Or a big points drop? Perhaps the 12 inch range would fix things. Or maybe all three. I am not advocating for a nerf to the shredder. I am just holding it to light as a example of where flamers should be. What are everyones thoughts?

Well biggest thing is actually the increases range but flamers aren't supposed to be all that long range and frankly 12" auto hits would be too good. Damage wise yes S6 is nice but auto hit is even better. Vs T3 you are looking at flamer giving more wounds out. T4 it's about equal. Of course -1 save is nice. However shredder can get screwed by -1 to hits, loses efficiency while advance and isn't nearly as scary as flamer on overwatch.

Worst thing about flamer isn't rules but price.

Flamers are to expensive, sure.
But I wouldn't compare them to the Shredder since the latter does not auto hit.

Flamers lack a rule which allows to reroll the number of hits if the target unit has 10 or more models. Apart from that it just needs to be dropped a couple of points.

Also, anti-horde firepower in the game is hardly lacking, it's called bolter and it's everywhere.

The usual argument here is that a bolter is more efficent against tactical marines than against guardsmen so it's not an anti-horde weapon, but guardsmen are undercosted and marines are over costed, so that argument is null.

Shoot a bolter at an intercessor and at an hormagaunt and tell me which one is suffering more.

There's two main issues that bug me about flamers:

1) they're amazing against aircraft, which is just silly. There should be a rule that flamers don't auto hit anything with the Flyer battlefield role, you have to roll to hit as a normal weapon.

2) their 8" range leads to some really weird situations with overwatch. Charging from further away makes you immune to flamers. I would like to see a rule that against a successful charge flamers get to shoot again at the charging unit and this attack ignores range and line of sight. Sometimes this will allow flamers to shoot twice in defense of a charge and I think that's fine, they should be the ultimate charge deterant weapon.

And we still don't see Shredders because the Blaster is so superior and DE are so good at tearing through hordes of lightly armoured infantry anyway.

If you want to make flamers true anti-horde weapons I'd just allow them to hit al models in range in the target unit. So at extreme range you maybe only get 1 hit but at point-blank you can hose down an entire unit.

This is how to fix the flamer:

Flamer 8" Assault 2D6 S4 AP0 D1 This weapon automatically hits its target. It cannot generate more hits than there are models in the target unit.

Shredders aren't an anti-horde weapon though, and it's very weird to compare them to flamers. This is actually a huge issue for Eldar of all kinds -- they lack efficient tools for killing GEQs even moreso than most other factions do. Let's look at what these weapons are specialized to do. What we want to do is see how good they are at killing GEQs relative to other targets, like MEQs or T7 3+ vehicles.

For every 1 GEQ a shredder kills, it kills 0.55 MEQs or puts 0.21 wounds on a vehicle.

For every 1 GEQ a flamer kills, it kills 0.37 MEQs or puts 0.25 wounds on a vehicle.

You can see that shredders really want to be shooting at MEQs instead of GEQs. They're not quite as specialized for this as heavy bolters, but it's close. They love plague marines and other tough infantry. It's true that shredders are still a bit better than flamers vs GEQs in absolute terms. That doesn't seem crazy -- people don't seem to use flamers very much -- but if you want a specialized anti-horde weapon then it's very much the wrong way to go.

An anti-horde weapon should be low strength, and it definitely shouldn't re-roll wounds. Both of these are more valuable against targets with higher toughness. It also shouldn't have any AP, since by itself a single point of AP is going to make just about any weapon much better for killing MEQs than GEQs.

S4 AP0 with no advantages on the wound roll is definitely about what you want an anti-horde weapon to be. S3 would be better. The issue is generally just that these weapons are too expensive or hard to bring to bear, whereas you can mow down MEQs all day with 36" heavy bolters that come on everything.

 Crimson wrote:
This is how to fix the flamer:

Flamer 8" Assault 2D6 S4 AP0 D1 This weapon automatically hits its target. It cannot generate more hits than there are models in the target unit.

That's pretty good actually.

Table wrote:
We all know (or should) that everything in the Deldar codex is to cheap. But that is here nor there. I am actually glad the Deldar got a top level codex as I have always liked the army. The one and only thing that really irked me when I read the codex is how good Shredders are when comparing to flamers of all stripes and the fact it is only 8 points. It is no secret that the meta favors blobs of cheap infantry. And it is also no secret that why things are this way is anti-horde infantry firepower is abysmal in 8th. Flamers are over priced and to short ranged. Warp Flamers are 15 points for sub shredder stats and range making them the most visible example of the current problem with flamers.

So what is everyones thoughts on the Shredder and is it the way to move forward with fixing flamers? Is str 6 wounding T3 infantry on 2's the way to go? Or a big points drop? Perhaps the 12 inch range would fix things. Or maybe all three. I am not advocating for a nerf to the shredder. I am just holding it to light as a example of where flamers should be. What are everyones thoughts?

Shredders aren't, and never have been, flamers (though arguably they and the craftworld version the Death Spinner probably should be as they fire out a clowd of monofilimant wire). Shredders have always been 12" , S6 (like all infantry monofilimant weapons), and re-roll failed wounds (the hint is in the name, Shredder, they used to have the shred USR) though thats now been limited to just Infantry.

The biggest problem with Flamers is that they are far too overcosted and that even if they weren't, only having a single flamer wouldn't matter much anyway. No one cares about a unit with only a single Shredder or Mortar as D6 anti infantry shots never gets anything done, the value really comes when you start taking multiples of them in a squad. HWT with Mortars are excellent, and Scourge or Trueborn with 4 Shredders can remove smaller infantry units with ease thanks to the fact that rolling multiple dice to determine shots mitigates the randomness of D6, I get pretty close to the average of 14 shots for 4 Shredders most times and thats a lot of shots right there.

In the case of flamers I'd like to see them dropped to 5pts and 'Roll an extra D6 for every 5 models in the target unit after the first 5, to a maximum of 3D6'.

 Ordana wrote:
Flamers are to expensive, sure.
But I wouldn't compare them to the Shredder since the latter does not auto hit.

I should have put this in my original post. Would it be better to lose the auto hit on flamers for the range and strength of the shredder?

Flamers cost 9 points, Storm Bolters cost 2.

On a Sister or Space Marine, the Storm Bolter averages only about 1 less hit, at longer range, and can fire 2 shot all the way out to 24".

So therefore, it's the defenseive stats of the flamer that make it so expensive, since it's so much more lethal on overwatch.... oh wait, 8" doesn't quite reach people trying to charge you early, and it's not going to inflict meaningful damage anyway.

At a cost similar to storm bolters, flamers would be pretty fair, but they're hideously expensive. Are 2 more bolter hits at such a crap range really worth 9 whole points?

I agree cost is the biggest factor to flamers problems. Flamers at 5 points would go a long way to helping and heavy flamers and their equivalents dropping to 10 points or 12 points at most would help a lot.

Table wrote:

 Ordana wrote:
Flamers are to expensive, sure.
But I wouldn't compare them to the Shredder since the latter does not auto hit.

I should have put this in my original post. Would it be better to lose the auto hit on flamers for the range and strength of the shredder?

Shredders aren't flamers, since you didn't seem to get the hint the first time. Might as well ask if it should have the stats of a Butcher Cannon.

 Imateria wrote:

Table wrote:

 Ordana wrote:
Flamers are to expensive, sure.
But I wouldn't compare them to the Shredder since the latter does not auto hit.

I should have put this in my original post. Would it be better to lose the auto hit on flamers for the range and strength of the shredder?

Shredders aren't flamers, since you didn't seem to get the hint the first time. Might as well ask if it should have the stats of a Butcher Cannon.

Of course! Heavy10, S7, AP1, D2 would go a long way towards making them worth their 9 point price tag!

Okay, sorry, that was a bit sarcastic.

He's thinking of it from the perspective of the dedicated anti-infantry weapon. Though really, I don't have a problem with flamer's stats, just their cost. They're costed like they have 10" range and 2d6 shots, not 8" range and d6 shots.

I don't think flamers should be like shredders. I do think that they should be a lot cheaper, though.

Obviously Shredders aren't flamers, but they were DEs anti horde in the past. They were originally a small blast anti horde weapon back in 5th (not sure about later.) So the comparison of anti horde weapon to anti horde weapon is apt.

You could certainly argue that they aren't anti-horde now that they are Str 6, but I think that's the point OP is getting at. Are they better anti-horde than flamers due to wounding on 2's vs t3?

The lack of decent anti horde has been a huge problem in 8th so far. And it's going to get a lot worse when orks drop. Bolters used to be decent anti horde under the old AP rules, but being AP 0 now they are not efficient at it (or anything else.) Back with old templates, you could often get ~8 or even 10 hits against tightly packed hordes, and a flamer would totally ignore the armor of boyz or guardsmen. And those flamers were cheap or even free. Now they cost 2-3x as much, average a 3rd as many hits, and don't ignore armor. What a joke.

 Crimson wrote:
This is how to fix the flamer:

Flamer 8" Assault 2D6 S4 AP0 D1 This weapon automatically hits its target. It cannot generate more hits than there are models in the target unit.

I would use the crap out of that!

Stux wrote:
1) they're amazing against aircraft,

lol, what?

Three flamers average 2 wounds a turn on a T5-T7 4+sv model. In what world are they anything but garbage against flyers?

 Imateria wrote:

Table wrote:

 Ordana wrote:
Flamers are to expensive, sure.
But I wouldn't compare them to the Shredder since the latter does not auto hit.

I should have put this in my original post. Would it be better to lose the auto hit on flamers for the range and strength of the shredder?

Shredders aren't flamers, since you didn't seem to get the hint the first time. Might as well ask if it should have the stats of a Butcher Cannon.

I am not saying they are. I am comparing the shredder, that has a similar function and target units to flamers who also have the same targeting profiles (Light Infantry). And would it be better for flamers to drop the auto hit for the shredder stat line. Its a question. But thanks for the snark.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 Crimson wrote:
This is how to fix the flamer:

Flamer 8" Assault 2D6 S4 AP0 D1 This weapon automatically hits its target. It cannot generate more hits than there are models in the target unit.

That's pretty good actually.

This is probably best flamers I have seen. This makes flamers very good against horde, but poor choice against elite models.

 Crimson wrote:
This is how to fix the flamer:

Flamer 8" Assault 2D6 S4 AP0 D1 This weapon automatically hits its target. It cannot generate more hits than there are models in the target unit.

Change the strength so that they're strength 3, with +1 to wound against units with a 5+ save, and +2 to wound against units with a 6+ save.

 Fafnir wrote:

 Crimson wrote:
This is how to fix the flamer:

Flamer 8" Assault 2D6 S4 AP0 D1 This weapon automatically hits its target. It cannot generate more hits than there are models in the target unit.

Change the strength so that they're strength 3, with +1 to wound against units with a 5+ save, and +2 to wound against units with a 6+ save.

Eh. Too much complexity.

 Crimson wrote:
This is how to fix the flamer:

Flamer 8" Assault 2D6 S4 AP0 D1 This weapon automatically hits its target. It cannot generate more hits than there are models in the target unit.

i like

The reason for the ability is that the current system does nothing to penalize cheap models that pay very little for poor saves without being more effective on more expensive models even with better ones.

Those 4-6 point models are always going to be more efficient against all measures until you start actually punishing them for being what they are.

 Fafnir wrote:
The reason for the ability is that the current system does nothing to penalize cheap models that pay very little for poor saves without being more effective on more expensive models even with better ones.

Those 4-6 point models are always going to be more efficient against all measures until you start actually punishing them for being what they are.

double the damage at half the points wouldbe a good start IMHO..... a very good start

Stux wrote:
1) they're (flamers) amazing against aircraft, which is just silly.

I get a certain amount of perverse joy out of this. Just like I love it everytime I get to punch a supersonic jet to death in close combat.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 Fafnir wrote:

 Crimson wrote:
This is how to fix the flamer:

Flamer 8" Assault 2D6 S4 AP0 D1 This weapon automatically hits its target. It cannot generate more hits than there are models in the target unit.

Change the strength so that they're strength 3, with +1 to wound against units with a 5+ save, and +2 to wound against units with a 6+ save.

Eh. Too much complexity.

Agreed on that being too many rules. Daedalus81's change is good, maybe more specialized than absolutely necessary but certainly makes it a special weapon. If plasma was nerfed to be better specialized then I could go for this.
I don't like that you can't bathe a single model in concentrated flame tho.

Alternatively I would have suggested 1d3 autohits S4 AP0 1D: When selected to shoot with this weapon choose two targets, the 2nd target must be within 3" of the first (both may chose the same target).
That way flames can spread across clusters of units, focusing on a large model is still doable but still no ap so not better than a few bolters, and on average you hit more chaff than current though perhaps not enough.

Shas'O'Ceris wrote:
Daedalus81's change is good

Not my change! I deserve no credit for that.

 zedsdead wrote:

 Fafnir wrote:
The reason for the ability is that the current system does nothing to penalize cheap models that pay very little for poor saves without being more effective on more expensive models even with better ones.

Those 4-6 point models are always going to be more efficient against all measures until you start actually punishing them for being what they are.

double the damage at half the points wouldbe a good start IMHO..... a very good start

Not sure what you mean by this. Doubling the damage stat of the weapon would only hurt elite infantry even more, and they're in a terrible place to begin with. Doubling the overall output wouldn't fix the problem at all either, since they'd still be more efficient against marines than they would hordes. A high shot count does not an anti-horde weapon make.

Hordes, whether they be in the form of 10, 20, or larger units, will always be overpowered until weapons are designed to actually punish their statline. There's no real way to do that without hurting more elite infantry more than by utilizing some form of special rules.

 Crimson wrote:

Flamer 8" Assault 2D6 S4 AP0 D1 This weapon automatically hits its target. It cannot generate more hits than there are models in the target unit.

I put this into GW. More people should do the same if you feel strongly about it.

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