Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Basically these weapons need some way of taking into account the size of the target unit again so they're not as good against small or single-model units, but better against large squads. We should be trying to fix the problems of Plasma spam, the ineffectiveness of flamers against light infantry in cover, and the ineffectiveness of weapons that got a 5" blast template in prior editions against anything but vehicles.


Flamer weapons:
- D3 auto-hits for every 5 models in the squad (rounded down), limited to the number of models in the unit
- Ignores cover saves bonuses and armor saves of 6+ and 5+
- Cannot target or affect vehicles with fly

Weapons that previously got a small blast template:
- Random number of shots is D6+1, limited to the number of models in the unit

Weapons that previously got a large blast template:
- Random number of shots is 2D6+2, limited to the number of models in the unit
- Certain ordnance-type weapons that seem designed for use against vehicles may get +D6 damage against vehicles


Hopefully this will make flamers actually useful against large squads of light infantry in cover, and make blast weapons better against large squads but worse against small squads and vehicles (IMO there are already too many things that can kill vehicles easily)

Why can’t I shoot a Repulsor with a flamer? Or a landspeeder?

They’re 10’ up, not really flying.

And yet I CAN target a Hive Crone, which is flying!

I like the general approach you're taking, but a few things seem a little odd to me.

Pointed Stick wrote:

Flamer weapons:
- D3 auto-hits for every 5 models in the squad (rounded down), limited to the number of models in the unit
- Ignores cover saves bonuses and armor saves of 6+ and 5+
- Cannot target or affect vehicles with fly

First of all, what qualifies as a "flamer" weapon? Because this is going to be a heck of a buff for my d-sythe wraithguard. It also interacts oddly with my liquifier guns.

Second, this feels a bit cluttered. In the humble flamer, you've effectively got 5 special rules on a single weapon (auto hits, shots based on enemy unit size + the cap for the number of shots, ignores cover bonuses, ignores 5+ and 6+ saves without using AP, cannot shoot models with Fly). You can probably get rid of the "ignore cover saves and armor saves" part by simply improving the AP of flamer weapons by 1. I know it's not exactly the same, but it still mostly accomplishes your goal. AP1 against a guardsman in the open causes him to fail 50% of the saves he would normally pass while a marine only fails 25% of the saves he would normally pass. Plus, using AP is just cleaner. Using AP also negates the benefits of being in cover without writing a special rule to do so.

Not being able to shoot at vehicles with Fly feels very strange. Not letting flamethrowers work against (battlefield role) Flyers makes enough sense, but you should probably be able to torch my dark eldar venoms as they swoop in to stab you. If the rules think my skimmers are close enough to the ground for you to punch them, they're probably close enough to the ground for you to shoot them with a flamethrower.

So basically, we can drop a couple of the latter rules, bump up AP a little, and just keep the bit about doing more hits against larger units. It keeps a flamer pretty simple and accomplishes most of what you're aiming for.

Weapons that previously got a small blast template:
- Random number of shots is D6+1, limited to the number of models in the unit

Probably okay, but as with the other suggestion, this will scale up much better for some weapons than others. A mortar does d6 + 1 shots and is fired by a guardsman? Okay. Cool. A plasma cannon fires the same number of shots and hits on 2+ because signum link devastators? Ouch.

Weapons that previously got a large blast template:
- Random number of shots is 2D6+2, limited to the number of models in the unit
- Certain ordnance-type weapons that seem designed for use against vehicles may get +D6 damage against vehicles

Same concern as small blasts. Plus, some "large blast" weapons are actually doing reasonably well at the moment and don't need a boost. My fire prisms come to mind as do battle cannons. Having some weapons do extra damage to vehicles is probably fine, but wouldn't most weapons that do a lot of damage to vehicles reasonably do a lot of damage to individual models? Like, if a vindicator hits a tank, it should do a good chunk of damage, sure, but why would it be significantly less damaging if it hit my commander on a bike instead.

Also, I don't particularly agree that there are too many things out there killing vehicles. Take imperial knights out of the equation, and vehicles start looking pretty reasonable. So I'm not sure we need to make something like a plasma cannon worse against vehicles.

Thanks for the comments. Since there are no longer any universal special rules, and technically there is no such thing as a "flamer type weapon," I was really specifically thinking about Flamers, Heavy Flamers, Skorchas, etc, and not the more exotic weapons, which should of course have their own special rules.

Sounds like this would be better for flamer-ish weapons:
- D3 auto-hits for every 5 models in the squad (rounded down), limited to the number of models in the unit
- make sure they have at least AP -1 (AP -2 for heavy flamers)

As for the Prism Cannon and Battle cannon, both of them are essentially already heavy 2D6 if their vehicles move at half speed. I feel like it kind of shows the problem if you need to let these weapons shoot twice for them to actually have any chance of being effective, but maybe I'm just being a bitter old man and should accept the abstraction of "move and fire = weapon less effective" that the mechanic represents

Maybe I'm just upset that Ork Killkannons suck so hard. All I've ever wanted is to have an Ork tank with a huge gun and have it not suck. This was kind of possible in older editions when there was an actual large template and you could bypass the terrible Ork BS, but in the current edition, A vehicle with D6 shots at BS 5+ with a 24" range is just not worth taking for 135 points. You can upgrade to a Gunwagon for another 20 points and to get the same "fire twice at under half speed" mechanic, but the range is still terrible, the required low speed makes it useless for its transport role, and the low BS still makes it an underwhelming weapon, especially for such an expensive vehicle.

I guess I should shut up and go back into my hole now.

My favourite mechanic which has been thrown around for flamers is that the weapon deals 1 hit per model in the target unit, to a maximum listed on the weapon.

EG a flamer would be flamer(6), meaning that they hit every model in the target unit, up to a maximum of 6.

If it wouldn't slow down the game, I would suggest that it be every model in range, not every model in the unit - meaning you don't get 6 hits for clipping a unit at maximum range. It would make flamers work like they used to, but without the template. I think that measuring the models in range would slow things down and lead to disagreements. Better to stay a little abstract and avoid the arguments.

doing D3 for every 5 models left in a unit is quite a long-winded way to work out an attack. Due to sequencing, each flamer technically fires one at a time - you can't quick-roll this one. So, a unit of 15 burnas would have to each roll their attack separately, as the resulting casualties could reduce the next models hits.

I like the idea of capping the blast at the number of models in the unit, I might even suggest that the blast and flamer rules are the same - blast(5), meaning all models in target unit, up to 5.

removing the random hits element would go a long way to improving these weapons. Some might need recosting (double-shot battlecannons) but they could also be nerfed a little - where a demolisher would be Blast(6), a battlecannon might be Blast(4).

It would certainly add a finer level of detail on just how large the explosion on each weapon is.

I agree that these weapon types need their rules to change. The old blast and template weapons really should be much better against massed infantry than they are.

The OPs ideas are interesting, but do seem to lay on too many special rules, if there is a way to achieve a similar effect in a more streamlined fashion I’d definitely be in favour.

I like the idea of giving a fixed number of hits up to a maximum limited by the target unit size.

The previous poster suggested something like flamer (6). I’d support this and similarly as they suggested for blast weapons.

Maybe go back to using the terminology template and blast to do this. So a flamer would be template (6) and a small blast would be blast (6).

I’d adjust heavy flamers though. I never liked that they have better AP than standard flamers. I liked it better back in the day when they just used a larger template. It never made sense to me that the AP is better, the flames don’t burn hotter, it can just spray them over a larger area. I’d go with changing the range so a flamer might be 8” template(6) but a heavy flamer would be 12” template (10) for example with the same strength and AP as each other.

Similarly what used to be a small blast might be blast (6) whereas a large blast could be blast (10). Again limited by the number of models in the target unit. I think these weapons should only make a single to hit roll though, and the number of to wound rolls determined by the number in brackets.

I’d keep the auto hit for “template” weapons, but I think something should be done for targeting with blast weapons. The old scatter mechanic was cumbersome and I never liked it. But it should be possible to score a hit more easily with a blast than with other types of weapon. Maybe “blast” should confer a +1 modifier for to hit rolls? This wouldn’t benefit the 2+ roll for the devastators since a natural one still fails.

Or possibly give “blast” weapons a rule to allow them to roll 2 dice and pick the higher when rolling to hit?

I’d also like to see these “template” and “blast” weapons ignore cover, and I’d consider having them ignore to hit modifiers.

And anything to reduce randomness would be welcome. Measuring to see how many models are hit is probably a bad idea as I know how many arguments I used to see when determining how many models a template or a blast was touching!

An idea I've bandied about is to make Flamers and Blasts have this special rule:

Blast X
When a weapon with this rule fires, you may make an additional number of shots equal to the Blast number or the number of models in the unit, whichever is smaller.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

This lets them still do reasonable damage against single targets, if that makes sense, while still increasing damage against hordes.

A Battlecannon, for instance, could be Heavy 2, Blast 6. So, against a Daemon Prince who foolishly wanders in front of his army and exposes himself, he takes 3 shots (2 base plus 1 from Blast). But a squad of five Tacticals takes 7 shots, and a squad of ten Guardsmen takes 8.

A Flamer could be Assault 0, Blast 8, with a rule that it autohits. So against the Daemon prince, 1 hit. Tacticals take 5, and Guardsmen take 8.

Still a fan of:
-Double the ROF of all the template/blast weapons
-Add "Cannot generate more hits than the models in the target unit" to each of these weapons.

Suddenly, a Flamer is actually scary for large units (10+ models), but not much scarier for smaller squads.

I like those ideas, including the idea of Heavy Flamers having the same strength and AP but a longer range. For blast weapons, as long as the number of shots is high enough, I prefer each shot getting its own roll at BS rather than rolling only once. That would be a huge penalty to armies with bad BS, and doesn't really capture the idea of getting the shell off in the right ballpark and clipping some of the target models anyway.



So it would be:

- Flamer-ish weapons weapons get a new type: "Flamer (n)", where n is a number of auto hits, not to exceed the actual number of models in the target unit. Flamer weapons ignore cover save bonuses.

- Blast-ish weapons get a new type: "Blast (n)", where n is a number of shots, not to exceed the actual number of models in the target unit.

Whether n is a fixed number or D3/D6/whatever is probably best left up to individual weapons. 2D6 for battlecannon-sized guns doesn't seem totally wrong to me.