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With the newest White Dwarf, It seems that GW gave daemons a huge offensive boost with the changes to Flamers of Tzeentch.

From the old rules to the new, Flamers became 12 points cheaper. Gained +1W , +1i, and a character for 5 additional points. The things that got worse is that now max unit size is 9 instead of 12. And it looks like their save is now a 5++ instead of the 4++.

The character gives the squad a "Look out Sir", with which it can now spread its wounds around, and as each model has two wounds, the unit can take hits for a while before it looses viability. Emperor help who ever decides to assault the squad at full strength (unless you are a unusually large squad). As the Flamer unit shooting over watch will average 9 (no armor save) wounds.

So Jump infantry, that wounds (or glances vehicles) on a 4+ with flamer templates, for amazingly cheap. 2 wounds each with a 5++, with some pretty good survivability. I wouldn't be surprised if every daemon army has two or more maxed squads of Flamers now. For their points, what can compare? (and GW was nice enough to start selling new models for them.)

Avoid being assaulted by blob squads, and you should be able to wipe a unit or vehicle off the board every turn.

Indeed, very few units can actually hope of charging them and coming out alive. The only one I can think of at the minute is a Fortuned Seer Council but even then - I wouldn't bet on it.

Iranna.

Flamers were already awesome and have only got better.

Most competative deamon builds are built around FMC spam with Fateweaver. Flamers aren't terribly great at synagising with this in my experience. They have to be very close to use their flame attack, and they die fast to heaps of dakka.

Personally I'd rather have another Deamon Prince with wings, MOT, BOT and Gaze. Is damn near impossible to kill and can shoot the entire game.

Flamers scare me. Tyranids dont like dying when they charge, although if I get a unit into combat with them without overwatch I think I can wipe them no issue.

Flamers are really good now, but fiends are still also really good.

Fiends are still better. Flamers also suffer from not really having an ideal unit size. A squad of 3 still falls quickly to bolter fire, despite having 6 wounds now. Larger squads, though, have a risk of overkilling anything they shoot at. Running a full squad of 9 will overkill any units in range that don't have invulnerable saves.

UncleMeat wrote:Fiends are still better. Flamers also suffer from not really having an ideal unit size. A squad of 3 still falls quickly to bolter fire, despite having 6 wounds now. Larger squads, though, have a risk of overkilling anything they shoot at. Running a full squad of 9 will overkill any units in range that don't have invulnerable saves.

Going off topic for a bit. Is there a cheap alternative to the GW models? How would you best utilize the Fiends?

UncleMeat wrote:Fiends are still better. Flamers also suffer from not really having an ideal unit size. A squad of 3 still falls quickly to bolter fire, despite having 6 wounds now. Larger squads, though, have a risk of overkilling anything they shoot at. Running a full squad of 9 will overkill any units in range that don't have invulnerable saves.

A squad of 3 Fiends dies just as fast to bolter fire as a squad of 3 Flamers. However, the Flamers are 1/3 cheaper, so for the same cost you can take more wounds. Plus they can shoot and no one in their right mind would charge a squad of them. Granted you can only shoot with three of their flamers when you DS them, but if you take a larger squad you're more likely to have them survive any return fire, which I like, because I always hated deploying them as suicide squads.

These are the reasons a daemon player would not want to take flamers.

1) If you don't have the models

2) .....

Well, there seems to be only 1 reason not to take them.

Cheap alternative to what, the Fiends or the Flamers? For Fiends, I use the Confrontation Syhar Sighthounds. Even at the somewhat high Miniature Market costs it's only $4 each. If you don't mind ordering from France you can get them cheaper from LudikBazaar. They also look great as Khymeras so I double dip. The normal Fiends are TERRIBLE looking, and GW should feel bad for still selling those things.

For Flamers? Well, they are not that expensive even for the new plastic ones. Priced on Ebay have spiked for them, but that shouldn't last too long if you don't mind getting the old metal beaked models or the older fungi sculpts. It's not like you need TONS of them even with their current godliness.

If you want tears, the costs for getting decent blobs of Screamers is gonna' hurt your pocketbook :(

GW WANTS you to take them...
new plastic releases, sell sell sell!

Iranna wrote:Indeed, very few units can actually hope of charging them and coming out alive. The only one I can think of at the minute is a Fortuned Seer Council but even then - I wouldn't bet on it.

Iranna.

All you need to do is charge them with a throw away unit first. Let them take the overwatch fire and die. You then assault with a follow up unit with no more overwatch allowed.

Overwatch is scary, but it can be mitigated.

If the Flamers kill enough of the first unit that charged to cause them to fail the charge, then the Flamers can overwatch against a second squad trying to charge them.

airmang wrote:If the Flamers kill enough of the first unit that charged to cause them to fail the charge, then the Flamers can overwatch against a second squad trying to charge them.

Nope. Check the rules. You can only overwatch once per turn.

And for people stating it's still better to take Fiends than Flamers consider taking Screamers as fast attack and flamers as elites. The Screamers now have a better save (turbo-boost on arrival), are better at repositioning (on arrival), same wounds, same toughness, are 16% cheaper, and have 4 st5 ap2 attacks on the charge. Seems like a better deal than running fiends at this point. Just sayin.

Hulksmash wrote:And for people stating it's still better to take Fiends than Flamers consider taking Screamers as fast attack and flamers as elites. The Screamers now have a better save (turbo-boost on arrival), are better at repositioning (on arrival), same wounds, same toughness, are 16% cheaper, and have 4 st5 ap2 attacks on the charge. Seems like a better deal than running fiends at this point. Just sayin.

2 wounds and armorbane. On the turn they arive they can turbo boost and do the d3 s4 ap autohits-, after that they will be charging just abou anything they want. A full sized unit has 36 s5 ap2 attacks on the charge, and 27 attacks if charged. All for the same cost as a full sized tac squad with a rhino, powerfist, and ml/melta gun.

Green is Best! wrote:

Iranna wrote:Indeed, very few units can actually hope of charging them and coming out alive. The only one I can think of at the minute is a Fortuned Seer Council but even then - I wouldn't bet on it.

Iranna.

All you need to do is charge them with a throw away unit first. Let them take the overwatch fire and die. You then assault with a follow up unit with no more overwatch allowed.

Overwatch is scary, but it can be mitigated.

Then only overwatch against the big scary unit that's assaulting you.
Unless you're being assaulted by two highly specialised assault units in which case you're boned.

They certainly seem to have come out ahead with the change, they're perfectly suited to sixth. They don't assault, they're fast, and they can trash infantry.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Testify wrote:

Green is Best! wrote:

Iranna wrote:Indeed, very few units can actually hope of charging them and coming out alive. The only one I can think of at the minute is a Fortuned Seer Council but even then - I wouldn't bet on it.

Iranna.

All you need to do is charge them with a throw away unit first. Let them take the overwatch fire and die. You then assault with a follow up unit with no more overwatch allowed.

Overwatch is scary, but it can be mitigated.

Then only overwatch against the big scary unit that's assaulting you.
Unless you're being assaulted by two highly specialised assault units in which case you're boned.

It's a deep striking flamer unit with jet packs. It's going to pay for itself immediately and then do it again if you try to throw several assaults at them. You deal with this unit (like every other unit in the game now) with shooting and not assaults.

Only reasons to not take flamers are if you hate Tzeentch daemons and if you have a "pure" daemon army that doesn't mix the big four. Flamers were great before, and have only gotten better. I miss the 4++, but they are so much better that it's alright. Screamers are now amazing (decent before, borderline busted now), and can deal with any threat on the table. Marines? Dead. Orks? Dead. Terminators? OOOOOOOOOOOhhhh, so dead. Tanks? Bye, bitch. Yeah...Screamers have become the top dog of the fast slot. 2 squads of screamers, a hit and run unit of seekers with a herald (or two) in it, Princes and Kairos and it'll be shmexy. Horrors are still decent troops for their shots, and Daemonettes got a lot better than they were, and may be the top choice as they're cheap, fast, re-roll charge range and have rending. YMMV.

I'm building a list for a upcoming tournament. It is a 1000 point event. After what I have read, it will be centered around Flamers and Screamers. (lucky for me I already have all the models) Here is whats I have so far...

HQ ?
Elite 2x- Flamersx7
Troop 2x- Pink Horrors x7 (replace one pink horror with changling)
FA 2x- Screamersx7
Total : 915

So what should I do with my left over 85 points for an HQ, I was thinking a Tzeentch Herald on a Chariot with a Soul Devourer (for the theme), But I have heard that a Slaanesh Herald can wreck havoc.

Testify wrote:

Green is Best! wrote:

Iranna wrote:Indeed, very few units can actually hope of charging them and coming out alive. The only one I can think of at the minute is a Fortuned Seer Council but even then - I wouldn't bet on it.

Iranna.

All you need to do is charge them with a throw away unit first. Let them take the overwatch fire and die. You then assault with a follow up unit with no more overwatch allowed.

Overwatch is scary, but it can be mitigated.

Then only overwatch against the big scary unit that's assaulting you.
Unless you're being assaulted by two highly specialised assault units in which case you're boned.

Wrong. If you do not overwatch the first unit and they make b2b contact, you lose the ability to overwatch.

Overwatch is effective and scary, but it can be mitigated. You don't need 2 specialised units. You just need a throwaway unit nearby to force your opponent to waste their overwatch.

 Igenstilch wrote:
Emperor help who ever decides to assault the squad at full strength (unless you are a unusually large squad). As the Flamer unit shooting over watch will average 9 (no armor save) wounds.

Uh you do realize that you can't fire Template weapons in Overwatch right?

The exact words in the 6th ed rule book referring to Snap Shots is:

"Some weapon types, such as Template and Ordnance, or that have special rules, such as Blast, cannot be fired as Snap Shots"

So unless you're stating that the Flamers are going to cause 9 no armor save wounds from its AP4 Warpfire attack you're mistaken.

Flamers are still great and all but you're not going to be decimating assaulting units with Breath of Chaos Overwatch fire cause it can't happen.

vesaker wrote:

 Igenstilch wrote:
Emperor help who ever decides to assault the squad at full strength (unless you are a unusually large squad). As the Flamer unit shooting over watch will average 9 (no armor save) wounds.

Uh you do realize that you can't fire Template weapons in Overwatch right?

The exact words in the 6th ed rule book referring to Snap Shots is:

"Some weapon types, such as Template and Ordnance, or that have special rules, such as Blast, cannot be fired as Snap Shots"

So unless you're stating that the Flamers are going to cause 9 no armor save wounds from its AP4 Warpfire attack you're mistaken.

Flamers are still great and all but you're not going to be decimating assaulting units with Breath of Chaos Overwatch fire cause it can't happen.

If you're going to necro a thread, please try to be correct when doing so. Look at the 'Wall of Death' section of the template rules, page 52.

The short version is, yes, template weapons can fire overwatch. They get D3 auto-hits per template.

 undertow wrote:

vesaker wrote:

 Igenstilch wrote:
Emperor help who ever decides to assault the squad at full strength (unless you are a unusually large squad). As the Flamer unit shooting over watch will average 9 (no armor save) wounds.

Uh you do realize that you can't fire Template weapons in Overwatch right?

The exact words in the 6th ed rule book referring to Snap Shots is:

"Some weapon types, such as Template and Ordnance, or that have special rules, such as Blast, cannot be fired as Snap Shots"

So unless you're stating that the Flamers are going to cause 9 no armor save wounds from its AP4 Warpfire attack you're mistaken.

Flamers are still great and all but you're not going to be decimating assaulting units with Breath of Chaos Overwatch fire cause it can't happen.

If you're going to necro a thread, please try to be correct when doing so. Look at the 'Wall of Death' section of the template rules, page 52.

The short version is, yes, template weapons can fire overwatch. They get D3 auto-hits per template.

Ah yes, now i see that. Typical GW rule layout though, say that something can't be done in one spot in the book only to say that actually yes it can in another, lol. Thnx for the clarification, i had thought it weird that something like that could have been missed by several people but thought i should post anyways, glad i did.

Tried a few games with them, and they are working very well.

1500 List had 3 units of 5 flamers, 9 screamers split into 2 units, blue scribes, masque, 2 msu horrors, 2 msu plague bearers, and an allied lash prince + 10 vanilla csm.

Flamers can deep strike with relative safety about 8 or 9" from a target and wait for a lash or pavane. 5 seems to be a nice squad size.

Screamers can eat just about anything that doesn't dump lots of wounds at i5 or higher.

Lash is probably going away in the new csm book. The combo of a bs5 lash from a fmc and flamers is insane. Will probably run 60 cultists, a dragon, and a dark apostate instead.