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Hello! I've been thinking a lot (too much perhaps) about combining pyromaniacs and gunnery experts as custom doctrines for an astra militarum list, built on sentinels, tanks, chimeras and hellhounds with maxed-out heavy flamers. What are your thoughts about this, experienced math-hammerers?

If I'm not mistaken the combination makes heavy flamers 21% and 16% better (40% combined), which is quite a lot as far as doctrines go. It's very niche of course, but I'm trying to justify a very combustion-oriented army list. Also, if the rules change for these doctrines in the future, I guess the flamers could still find use in a catachan list.

Thanks for your interest!

Sentinels with heavy Flamers are now wickedly effective first strike platforms.

Character overextended? Run up a trio of Sentinels and roast their butt off.

Mob of cheap mobs on an objective? Send up a squad of sentinels to clear 'em off and squat on the obj.

Hell, depending on how the codecies shake out and they figure out what the hell a heavy flamer is, they might actually make good light vehicle or anti-elite busters.

I am rapidly becoming enamored with heavy flamer sentinels. Only think more sexah is the Hell Hounds, with Catachan Colors.....(Sexy thoughts)

I reckon it would make a pretty nice 2 heavy flamer chimera, too.

Keep in mind that due to the specific wording of Pyromaniacs, the Hellhound main gun will not benefit from the wound reroll.

yeah, true. That's actually what made me think of the chimeras instead. You could put pure melee and obsec in the chimeras and still get the benefits of the pyromania on all flamers, and the full die per weapon reroll for shot number.

Sterling191 wrote:
Keep in mind that due to the specific wording of Pyromaniacs, the Hellhound main gun will not benefit from the wound reroll.

Whats the wording exactly. I don't play AM but I'm curious what the issue is.

Hellhound’s Main Gun is an “Inferno Cannon”, not a flamer / Heavy Flamer.

Thanks a lot for the input, I'm glad you haven't found any immediate flaws with the plan yet. Slayer-Fan, this is wording:

When resolving an attack made with a flamer, heavy flamer or twin heavy flamer by a model with this doctrine, you can re-roll a wound roll of 1.

So yes, inferno cannon is very clearly excluded.

Another model that might be interesting then could be the Carnodon. It can take two HF and a twin multilaser to keep it cheap for 100 points. That should be the cheapest way to get HF in a heavy support slot.
So 50/HF.
The Chimera has 47.5/HF
The Sentinels 45/HF.

Just as an idea if you want to build a Brigade and are short in points. The official model isn't cheap, but size wise a Leman Russ without the hull lascannon seems to be a good proxy when I look at my collection