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Right, as we all know, Soul Blaze atm is depressively bad and almost irrelevant (50% chance to do D3 S4 hits is not much, especially if it is the result of an entire squad firing.)

But what if we made it stack?

Say that a Warpflame Gargoyle-equipped Chaos Land Raider fires its Heavy Bolters at a target. It inflicts two hits, both of which cause unsaved wounds. In addition, its lascannons cause two more hits and wounds, while its combi-bolter does a single hit & wound.

Normally this would cause a single Soul Blaze application. However, I suggest that it would cause five applications instead. Why?

Because Soul Blaze is a good idea (A little DoT effect) but at the moment it just has so little effect so it would have made no real difference if it never existed.

Would the Icon of Flame be OP on CSM, you say? Well, first remember we can adjust its price, but secondly, let's look at it;

Ten Chaos Marines fire Rapid Fire at Tactical Marines.

20 shots. 13.333... hits. 6.666... wounds. 2.222... kills.

Now, this would mean that 6.666... counters would be placed on the unit.

The 4+ chance for the flames to instantly die out reduces this to 3.333...

Each becomes D3 hits, for an average of 6.666... hits.

These are converted into 3.333... wounds, or 1.111 kills.

An additional kill in ideal circumstances (Entire squad in RF range) is not overpowered, but it does make a difference.

Naturally we can adjust the points cost of Warpflame Gargoyles and similar to smooth things out, but most things with access to Soul Blaze don't really have the rate of fire and killing power to exploit it dangerously. If Tau, Eldar or Space Marine *Cough*Grav*Cough* ranged weapons could get Soul Blaze, it'd be bad, but they can't, so it's not.

Ideas?

I'm all for a buff. I think this is a good way to go about it. Making Soul Blaze matter would be a pretty good buff to Tzeentch Chaos units and would make Thousand Sons significantly better.

Soul Blaze is ludicrously overcosted as is, so I don't even think you need to change points values if you made it better.

Wait, you mean it doesn't stack?

Well, that's stupid. It should have always stacked, imo. The more matches you throw at something, the faster it catches on fire, after all.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Wait, you mean it doesn't stack?

Well, that's stupid. It should have always stacked, imo. The more matches you throw at something, the faster it catches on fire, after all.

It doesn't stack because Tzeentch Marines can't have nice things and furthermore because reasons.

I support this idea. Let someone who isn't Necrons have a silly mechanic for once.

Sounds good to me.

Its not over the top, makes it actually have a bit of use and makes sense.
Too much for 40k rules


I agree with SRSFACE too, its cost is too high at the moment anyway, so even with these changes it works fine.

 BrotherHaraldus wrote:
Ten Chaos Marines fire Rapid Fire at Tactical Marines.

20 shots. 13.333... hits. 6.666... wounds. 2.222... kills.

Now, this would mean that 6.666... counters would be placed on the unit.

The 4+ chance for the flames to instantly die out reduces this to 3.333...

Each becomes D3 hits, for an average of 6.666... hits.

These are converted into 3.333... wounds, or 1.111 kills.

An additional kill in ideal circumstances (Entire squad in RF range) is not overpowered, but it does make a difference.

Naturally we can adjust the points cost of Warpflame Gargoyles and similar to smooth things out, but most things with access to Soul Blaze don't really have the rate of fire and killing power to exploit it dangerously. If Tau, Eldar or Space Marine *Cough*Grav*Cough* ranged weapons could get Soul Blaze, it'd be bad, but they can't, so it's not.

Ideas?

Now lets see how well this works with Horde armies (who are going to be a lower toughness, and worse save)

Ten Chaos Marines Rapid Firing at Termagants

20 shots. 13.333... hits. 8.889... wounds. 8.889... kills.

Now, this would mean that 8.889... counters would be placed on the unit.

The 4+ chance for the flames to instantly die out reduces this to 4.445...

Each becomes D3 hits, for an average of 8.889... hits.

These are converted into 5.926... wounds, or 5.926 kills.

You went from 3.333 kills to 14.815 kills. Assuming the target unit started at max number of models, that is a death increase from 1/3 to just under half a squad. If it was a non-blobbed IG Infantry squad, you just wiped them out with wounds to spare.

You're assuming they have no cover. Cover is ludicrously easy to get.

Plus, ten MEQ rapid firing at a GEQ unit outside of cover should do high damage to them, especially with an anti-infantry upgrade like this one, that also excludes them from getting the Fearless or FNP icons, and that requires the awful MoT.

Sorry, you are right. I was not taking into account cover. Assuming, 5+ cover (which is the norm),

5.926 wounds (initially), for 11.852 wounds total. For about 40% casualties instead of 33%.

Yep.

I still do not see the problem.

Do you think Warpflame Gargoyles/Icon of Flame would need a points increase with this buff?

 BrotherHaraldus wrote:
Yep.

I still do not see the problem.

Do you think Warpflame Gargoyles/Icon of Flame would need a points increase with this buff?

Eh probably.

Tzeentch marines need a bit more love in any case and soul blaze might be a bit nice.

Honestly, the only thing I deal with that has Soul Blaze is the fething heldrake. Most of the Chaos players in my area don't take Gargoyles or IoF. As such, I cannot really make a fair call.

The heldrake needs a nerf, though that is not the fault of Soul Blaze.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Happyjew wrote:
Most of the Chaos players in my area don't take Gargoyles or IoF

Yeah, I suspect I know why.

 BrotherHaraldus wrote:
The heldrake needs a nerf, though that is not the fault of Soul Blaze.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Happyjew wrote:
Most of the Chaos players in my area don't take Gargoyles or IoF

Yeah, I suspect I know why.

Given that only the baleflamer has soulblaze in the Heldrake's arsenal your change wouldn't affect it too much.

It would make Tzeentch's banner not terminally useless though.

 BrotherHaraldus wrote:
The heldrake needs a nerf, though that is not the fault of Soul Blaze.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Happyjew wrote:
Most of the Chaos players in my area don't take Gargoyles or IoF

Yeah, I suspect I know why.

Probably because I kept running Avatars of Khaine at them, since he cannot be hurt by weapons with Soul Blaze.

Yeah, seems likely.

Those D3 S4 hits be scary.

Soul Blaze is supposed to be like a mini flamer burst for every shot. Doing lots of damage to weak hordes is what it should be doing! That gives it a fairly nice niche in the army, because they don't really have any worth mentioning. It neatly augments their bolters to give them that bit more killing potential without essentially making them have 24" flamers that are twin-linked at half range (although that would be awesome). Plus, it makes Thousand Sons shooting closer to the fluff description of ultimate destruction.

Honestly, I completely forget about Soul Blaze, and I don't remember the baleflamer having it. Not that I doubt that it does, just that I've never memorised that because the baleflamer is a powerful weapon in of itself and Soul Blaze is so useless. I really like this change. Speaking of the Heldrake, if you wanted to limit the effectiveness of Soul Blaze on it, you could either remove it or specify that it's per shot, so templates will only ever cause one Soul Blaze (as they do now) regardless of how many wounds they cause. I don't know if this would be fair to Marines with template weapons, though.

Soul Blaze is currently such a useless rule, I didn't even realize the Baleflamer had it. Go figure.

As it currently stands, it really is literally useless. If the D3 hits was automatic rather than only 50% chance to fizzle out immediately, it still wouldn't be worth taking an Icon of Flame. Hurr durr you get at best 3 extra bolter hits for what constitutes the price cost of an entire extra guy capable of scoring 2 hits on his own, and is another body to the squad!

Terrible.

I have literally NEVER had Soul Blaze matter. When it doesn't fizzle out instantly, it often fails to wound (only S4 at the end of the day!) and even then, it ends to get saved because it's only AP5.

If it helped cause a ton more casualties to Gaunts, I don't think I'd shed a tear. It's not like it's hard to kill Gaunts in droves to begin with. Same with anything that soul blaze is actually 'effective' against. The only people who can field Soul Blaze en masse is Chaos marines for what's effectively (15+[2xModel]) points so it's not like it's cheap. The only guys where it'd be efficient using the rules suggested here is on Thousand Sons who, let's face it, could use a bit of a buff considering how front-loaded the cost of the squad is.

I'll playtest it in my next match.

Soul blaze seems to be pretty good against xenos, I kind of wish that +4 was a +3 though. If it could stack once for each unit that applied soul blaze it would be pretty boss. Every wound/death causing an additional soul blaze counter? No, Tzeentch daemons would be WAY too beefy.

Consider a unit of 20 pink horrors with herald buffing them all to S6 for flickering fire and giving them prescience. Assuming the herald is ML2. You have 2D6 shots from the herald, and 4D6 shots from the unit at S6 ap4. rerolling hits, wounding most things on 2. I don't care to put the math into it, but whatever survives will be horribly obliterated by the massive amount of auto hits from soul blaze.

I mean, I wouldn't mind it being stronger, but flickering fire is already pretty awesome. I also really hate hearing people complain about the armies I play.

I do forget about soul blaze more often than not. With or without a token to remind me.

Soul blaze Idea-

Each unsaved wound a unit suffers from soul blaze place a soul blaze counter next to the unit, after all shots have been resolved for the current phase add up the number of soulblaze counters next to each unit. A unit suffers d3+X soulblaze attacks where x is the number of counters, each soulblaze attack hits on a 4+ at str4 ap 5 with the ignores cover special rule. After resolving the soulblaze attack on a unit remove all soul blaze tokens from that unit.

Thoughts-

d3+number of wounds suffered means you get a benefit for causing more damage, ie firing more shots on average will net more of an effect on average, this way 20 models with soulblaze firing anding causing 8 wounds would have a greater effect than 5 models firing with soulblaze and causing 2 wounds.

Soul blaze is a model psychically igniting into flames. Cover should not help them, hence ignores cover.

The attacks no longer have a chance to fizzle out and do absolutely nothing, but since you now need a 4+ for them to hit they don't automatically get to do something, so in essence you still have the same average number of hits but the bottom end is no longer 0 if the unit has a soul blaze token.

The wording of after all shots being fired for the current phase is there to include instances of out of player shooting phase shoots, like overwatch. Ie the soulblaze effect is resolved after the shooting porition of overwatch before the assault move.

ex- A squad of thousand sons firing at marines, we shall use the holy and sacred number of 9 for the rubrics. 9 models firing at space wolves in the open will net on average 6 hits, 3 wounds and will ignore their armor, generating a further d3+3 soulblaze hits at the end of the shooting phase. Average roll is a 2+3 or 5 soulblaze hits, we will favor the space wolves as our sacred lord is fickle and they only take 2 wounds, but they pass their armor saves and now we remove the soul blaze tokens.

 gwarsh41 wrote:
Soul blaze seems to be pretty good against xenos, I kind of wish that +4 was a +3 though. If it could stack once for each unit that applied soul blaze it would be pretty boss. Every wound/death causing an additional soul blaze counter? No, Tzeentch daemons would be WAY too beefy.

Consider a unit of 20 pink horrors with herald buffing them all to S6 for flickering fire and giving them prescience. Assuming the herald is ML2. You have 2D6 shots from the herald, and 4D6 shots from the unit at S6 ap4. rerolling hits, wounding most things on 2. I don't care to put the math into it, but whatever survives will be horribly obliterated by the massive amount of auto hits from soul blaze.

I mean, I wouldn't mind it being stronger, but flickering fire is already pretty awesome. I also really hate hearing people complain about the armies I play.

I do forget about soul blaze more often than not. With or without a token to remind me.

An extra D3 bolter hits with no AP that has a 50% chance of not happening at all for the cost of something that is always going to be more useful somewhere else unless it comes with it for free, is quite literally the single most pointless special rule in the entire game.

Letting each token do a full D3 attacks seems like it would be pretty powerful. Rapid fire plasma averages 1.1 dead marines per 30 pt gun. Maybe instead of that, allow the tokens to stack but you only resolve D3 hits as long as there is at least 1 token. On a 4+ you remove a single token. DoT effects are supposed to be slight damage at intervals over a length of time. This way the effect could last a few turns and have an interesting strategic effect.

just my 2c

blaktoof wrote:
A lot of very sensible stuff that I liked.

Yes. Make Soul Blaze this.

 gwarsh41 wrote:
Soul blaze seems to be pretty good against xenos, I kind of wish that +4 was a +3 though. If it could stack once for each unit that applied soul blaze it would be pretty boss. Every wound/death causing an additional soul blaze counter? No, Tzeentch daemons would be WAY too beefy.

Consider a unit of 20 pink horrors with herald buffing them all to S6 for flickering fire and giving them prescience. Assuming the herald is ML2. You have 2D6 shots from the herald, and 4D6 shots from the unit at S6 ap4. rerolling hits, wounding most things on 2. I don't care to put the math into it, but whatever survives will be horribly obliterated by the massive amount of auto hits from soul blaze.

I mean, I wouldn't mind it being stronger, but flickering fire is already pretty awesome. I also really hate hearing people complain about the armies I play.

I do forget about soul blaze more often than not. With or without a token to remind me.

People only don't complain about your army if you're playing Dark/Blood Angels, because they don't have anything that's proper scary.

Making it so a Daemon of Tzeentch army was worth running other than Daemon Prince spam would be awesome, personally. Considering all their warpflame stuff has the bad habit of giving enemy armies FNP, making Soul Blaze actually matter wouldn't bother me.

I think that it was intended to be like the op suggested. But something went wrong and they reduced the damage to just one d3. Probably they thought: "it's a rather huge buff when you can kill almost 2 times more of geq with just one buff and it's not really good for ballance issues..". But than tau and eldar were released and ballance went to hell and hasn't returned yet.

As for me, i don't play daemons but i clearly see that csm need the buff. 1000 sons, hb predators, demolishers... New soulblaze will be nice and needed for tanks but still underpowered for infantry cause it will need MoT that's pretty much useless in most cases. Tzeench termies?.. Anywayz, make the upgrade 10 pts for vehicles. And it will feel right!

AC or HB havocs with MoT, IoF? That'd be awesome but still overpriced cause in a 5-strong squad you pay 10 for MoT and 15 for IoF. 25 points to get this 3-4 extra wounds on something with t4...

I'd reduce the Strength or only add a marker if it gets past armor, to find a middle ground between 'Worthles' and 'Kills more models than the actual gunfire did'.

Idea:

Make it so Soul Blaze burns out on a modified dice roll chart depending on how many wounds you scored. If you only got 1 wound, it'd work as it currently dies. If you scored 2, it'd disappate on a 3+. 3 hits, 2+. 4 hits, 2+ with a reroll of 6+.

So on, so forth.

What about a reworking of the units that could get the rule along with the rule itself since it would require 7th edition to make the change.

For example:

Thousand Suns lose their current AP3 shooting, but soul blaze wounds are resolved at AP3 instead, and the number of soul blase hits are based on the amount of regular wounds from the shooting attack. Make the first round of hits never fizzle as well to increase its reliability.