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Sorry for what is probably a stupid question, but near as I can understand, you can't shoot when in melee, and melee is generally more damaging than shooting so you want to get into melee, and if you're less than 12" away you're basically going to be melee in that round or the next one, and you can't get out of melee until one or the other is dead.

Except for special rules (I think FLY and the Imperial Knights who can do what they want to get back out of melee), that means at most you can only fire your weapon once and then it's worthless.

What am I missing? Must be something for there to be so many short range weapons out here.

Separately, I understand you can fire a pistol during melee. Does that apply to a hand flamer too (so I can keep firing a flamer into the unit each round I'm in melee)?

thanks!

Flamers hit automatically in overwatch, too, so they aren't a bad choice if you want to defend against CC-squads.
You know if a weapon is a pistol if it's classed as such.
Pistols are also rather cheap most of the time. Plasma pistols have been reduced to 5points which makes them pretty okay I think.
Also, everyone can fall back from melee, not just flyers and many factions have boni that allow you to fire your weapons afterwards.
There's also Harlequins, their only weapons are pistols and they're fast enough to come close to you and fire them .

Well, outside of Flyers some armies can back out of Melee and still shoot (Ultramarines come to mind) and in those cases auto-hitting with a flamer type might be worth doing.

Having one as a secondary weapon somewhere also makes charges from inside Flamer range more dangerous, Heavy Flamer overwatch can really chew up a lighter unit and there are at least a few short-range flamer type weapons that are significantly more dangerous than S5 AP1 D1.

Not many people are going to put flamers on a Marine, but on a low BS trooper who wants to charge anyway softening up the target (or a target nearby) can also be worth the points.

Generally speaking weapons with 12" range tend to be powerful or auto hit but also come at greater cost. Its situational. But you will find most armies will go for ranged weaponry.

If the hand flamer has the pistol keyword then yes it can fire during melee phase

Melee is not more damaging than shooting, if you're not a melee unit - quite the opposite. A ton of units in the game amount to nothing more than slapping each other when facing off in melee.

If you're within 12" of an enemy it's because they want to be there, or you do. You don't automatically charge into melee just because you're in range to do so. Plenty (read: most) units in the game are better off shooting than charging (or the very least shooting then charging if needed).

As mentioned above, several weapons (meltaguns, etc.) are extremely potent but short ranged. Other weapons have a lot of shots at short range (or more shots), a Stormbolter for example gets four shots at 12" instead of two shots at 24". Sometimes being closer gives you more firepower - essentially any rapid fire weapon.

Sometimes you are a melee or assault unit, so you'll be running or advancing the whole time, trying to close the distance, so cost would be wasted on long range weapons, since you'll be up close and personal --- you might as well have something to shoot while you charge in.

You absolutely CAN leave close combat before someone is dead. You won't be able to shoot when you flee, but your buddies can.

You CANNOT fire a pistol during the combat phase, but you may shoot it at point blank range during the shooting phase. So, if you survive an initial round of combat and are still alive on your next turn, then you may fire it in the shooting phase at your opponent.

Basically there is next to no reason you arbitrarily choose a short range weapon, you're doing so because A) that's the range of the weapon you like, or B) you're saving points and buying a plasma pistol instead of a plasma gun because you don't think you'll use it often enough to justify the points.

Also, it depends entirely on your speed and ability to close your distance. Eldar, for instance, have a number of heavy and assault weapons which have less range than Imperium counterparts. However, Eldar can be fast a hell, so they close the distance and mitigate the shorter range of their guns.

2tall wrote:
Sorry for what is probably a stupid question, but near as I can understand, you can't shoot when in melee, and melee is generally more damaging than shooting so you want to get into melee, and if you're less than 12" away you're basically going to be melee in that round or the next one, and you can't get out of melee until one or the other is dead.

Except for special rules (I think FLY and the Imperial Knights who can do what they want to get back out of melee), that means at most you can only fire your weapon once and then it's worthless.

What am I missing? Must be something for there to be so many short range weapons out here.

Separately, I understand you can fire a pistol during melee. Does that apply to a hand flamer too (so I can keep firing a flamer into the unit each round I'm in melee)?

thanks!

Right. Once you enter combat you never ever are out of it. Riiiiiiight ;-)

Howabout simply providing punch before charging. Weakening that vehicle before charging is helpful. Next round you could shoot and charge something else.

That is a big assumption that a unit with a short range weapon is going to be good at melee or be able to destroy any of the vehicles or multi wound monsters used right now.

Because they cheap. Spine Banks are 2 pts for 4x S5 shots at BS3. Why not \o/