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so question, how do you use flamers in overwatch? does the overwatch rule of having to hit on a 6 negate the flamers auto hit rules or what?

gendoikari87 wrote:
so question, how do you use flamers in overwatch? does the overwatch rule of having to hit on a 6 negate the flamers auto hit rules or what?

No, the flamers automatically hit.

But of course, if the charging unit is more than 8" away, then your flamers don't do a damn thing. Its a nice little balance, I think.

"Quick, the enemy is approaching us! Lay down some fire!"

"Nah, he's 8.1 inches away. He won't make it."

Thats just stupid. A unit cannot know its being charged, until the attacker starts to move. When they move, they come within flamer range.

8th edition has dropped some realism in favour of better game play. Flamers are really good at hitting charging units, but too many of them would kill all but the largest and/or toughest units. Having them work out to a specific range is just good design. Of you think otherwise, try a few games with it. If you still like it after that, consider making it a house rule.

They have dropped "a bit" of realism ? They have dropped a lot of realism. I dont want a 100% realistic simulation, but a bit more realism and logic would be nice.

Flamers are better at anti-aircraft than crowd control. Balance, my posterior!

 MagicJuggler wrote:
Flamers are better at anti-aircraft than crowd control. Balance, my posterior!

At the risk of derailing the thread slightly, that seems to be a misconception popularised by people who don't have much (any?) experience with 8th. Yes, flamers automatically hit flyers but, just like firing lasguns at Land Raiders, they generally don't have much chance of hurting them. Even firing at the relatively fragile Dark Eldar planes you get less than 1 wound on average from a flamer. That's assuming you can get in range. Flyers move very fast and tend to have long range weapons so it's not exactly difficult to stay out of flamer range if you want.

As far as the original question goes, yes it's slightly odd that flamers only work if the enemy is close when they start their charge but that's how the rules are.

To put it simply, GW removed a lot of specific rules to keep the game rules compact. This leads to many cases where you may think a special rule should allow/disallow something. This is the price you pay for a easy to learn ruleset.

Slipspace wrote:

 MagicJuggler wrote:
Flamers are better at anti-aircraft than crowd control. Balance, my posterior!

At the risk of derailing the thread slightly, that seems to be a misconception popularised by people who don't have much (any?) experience with 8th. Yes, flamers automatically hit flyers but, just like firing lasguns at Land Raiders, they generally don't have much chance of hurting them. Even firing at the relatively fragile Dark Eldar planes you get less than 1 wound on average from a flamer. That's assuming you can get in range. Flyers move very fast and tend to have long range weapons so it's not exactly difficult to stay out of flamer range if you want.

As far as the original question goes, yes it's slightly odd that flamers only work if the enemy is close when they start their charge but that's how the rules are.

A Lascannon hits a flyer on 4+ (3+, -1 for hard to hit), wounds on 3+, is saved on a 6, and does an average of 3.5 wounds if unsaved. Average damage = .97 wounds.

A flamer gets D6 automatic hits that wound on 5, saved on 3+. Average damage = .381 wounds.

This is before you get into the heavier flame weapons like Inferno Cannons (which are conveniently mounted on a fast-moving vehicle); a Hellhound averages...2.31 wounds vs a flyer.

I don't know about you but this doesn't strike me as statistically balanced or even in the realm of sanity.

 MagicJuggler wrote:

Slipspace wrote:

 MagicJuggler wrote:
Flamers are better at anti-aircraft than crowd control. Balance, my posterior!

At the risk of derailing the thread slightly, that seems to be a misconception popularised by people who don't have much (any?) experience with 8th. Yes, flamers automatically hit flyers but, just like firing lasguns at Land Raiders, they generally don't have much chance of hurting them. Even firing at the relatively fragile Dark Eldar planes you get less than 1 wound on average from a flamer. That's assuming you can get in range. Flyers move very fast and tend to have long range weapons so it's not exactly difficult to stay out of flamer range if you want.

As far as the original question goes, yes it's slightly odd that flamers only work if the enemy is close when they start their charge but that's how the rules are.

A Lascannon hits a flyer on 4+ (3+, -1 for hard to hit), wounds on 3+, is saved on a 6, and does an average of 3.5 wounds if unsaved. Average damage = .97 wounds.

A flamer gets D6 automatic hits that wound on 5, saved on 3+. Average damage = .381 wounds.

This is before you get into the heavier flame weapons like Inferno Cannons (which are conveniently mounted on a fast-moving vehicle); a Hellhound averages...2.31 wounds vs a flyer.

I don't know about you but this doesn't strike me as statistically balanced or even in the realm of sanity.

And that lascannon can do it from halfway across the board.

Slipspace wrote:

 MagicJuggler wrote:
Flamers are better at anti-aircraft than crowd control. Balance, my posterior!

At the risk of derailing the thread slightly, that seems to be a misconception popularised by people who don't have much (any?) experience with 8th. Yes, flamers automatically hit flyers but, just like firing lasguns at Land Raiders, they generally don't have much chance of hurting them. Even firing at the relatively fragile Dark Eldar planes you get less than 1 wound on average from a flamer. That's assuming you can get in range. Flyers move very fast and tend to have long range weapons so it's not exactly difficult to stay out of flamer range if you want.

As far as the original question goes, yes it's slightly odd that flamers only work if the enemy is close when they start their charge but that's how the rules are.

It's still goofy as hell though. Like, it may not have much of a chance of hurting hit, but a flamethrower should never be able to do that to begin with.
Unless they have really strong propellant or something.
I really think its an other sight.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

Slipspace wrote:

 MagicJuggler wrote:
Flamers are better at anti-aircraft than crowd control. Balance, my posterior!

At the risk of derailing the thread slightly, that seems to be a misconception popularised by people who don't have much (any?) experience with 8th. Yes, flamers automatically hit flyers but, just like firing lasguns at Land Raiders, they generally don't have much chance of hurting them. Even firing at the relatively fragile Dark Eldar planes you get less than 1 wound on average from a flamer. That's assuming you can get in range. Flyers move very fast and tend to have long range weapons so it's not exactly difficult to stay out of flamer range if you want.

As far as the original question goes, yes it's slightly odd that flamers only work if the enemy is close when they start their charge but that's how the rules are.

It's still goofy as hell though. Like, it may not have much of a chance of hurting hit, but a flamethrower should never be able to do that to begin with.
Unless they have really strong propellant or something.
I really think its an other sight.

I don't think it's an oversight. It would be very difficult to implement that cleanly in 8th edition.
Preventing flamers to hit true flyers would require to add something like "weapons that automatically hit can not hit this model" to the airborne (and similar) rules in the datasheets. But then you make the flyer immune to every auto-hit weapons, even the ones that should be able to hit (like the helldrake's flamer or the hemlocks's d-sythes for instance).

fresus wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

Slipspace wrote:

 MagicJuggler wrote:
Flamers are better at anti-aircraft than crowd control. Balance, my posterior!

At the risk of derailing the thread slightly, that seems to be a misconception popularised by people who don't have much (any?) experience with 8th. Yes, flamers automatically hit flyers but, just like firing lasguns at Land Raiders, they generally don't have much chance of hurting them. Even firing at the relatively fragile Dark Eldar planes you get less than 1 wound on average from a flamer. That's assuming you can get in range. Flyers move very fast and tend to have long range weapons so it's not exactly difficult to stay out of flamer range if you want.

As far as the original question goes, yes it's slightly odd that flamers only work if the enemy is close when they start their charge but that's how the rules are.

It's still goofy as hell though. Like, it may not have much of a chance of hurting hit, but a flamethrower should never be able to do that to begin with.
Unless they have really strong propellant or something.
I really think its an other sight.

I don't think it's an oversight. It would be very difficult to implement that cleanly in 8th edition.
Preventing flamers to hit true flyers would require to add something like "weapons that automatically hit can not hit this model" to the airborne (and similar) rules in the datasheets. But then you make the flyer immune to every auto-hit weapons, even the ones that should be able to hit (like the helldrake's flamer or the hemlocks's d-sythes for instance).

Or for each flamethrower type weapon entry they could have added "this weapon cannot be used against units with the airborne rule"
Seems doable to me.

Didn't you know that heat rises?

p5freak wrote:
Thats just stupid. A unit cannot know its being charged, until the attacker starts to move. When they move, they come within flamer range.

Its only stupid if looked at with narrative, but then again if we go down that line the entire game is completely messed up.
And you could always argue that a soldier absolutely could be charged without noticing the chargers until its too late to shoot. They might be targeting something else, speaking on comms or scratching their groin. The battlefields of 40k is far from a silent planar field where everyone overviews everything.

Gameplay though it makes perfect sense since it balances the effectiveness of the weapons and offers more tactical depth to choosing what distance to charge from. Especially if the squad contains 4 flamers.

Tactical depth such as making sure you charge from 8 + 1e-99 inches away from any models with flamers.

Simple rule index update.

Airborne: Vechicles can not be effected by flame weapons.
Airborne open top: models with open top can be blinded by flame weapons on a roll of.... blah blah. Blinded units can not shoot this turn.

Also I do not think flamers on hell drakes should hit planes.... It would like blow back in their faces. Could of easly gave them something like torch break where the hell drake would grab on to a plane with in 2" and do a torch attack. Torch attack a age the vechicle on a what ever.

Or kept their flame breadth but only effect ground units and make it a strafing run style. All units flown over by a hell drake take a straffing run flame attack.

But I also always thought 40k needed rules rewritten anyways. Like a unit can use cover fire to help suppress anoher unit. It does damage on say a 6 but causes the unit being shot to make a difficult terrian test and only take half their attack min 1.

I would like a lot more synergy not each unit is a fortress style.

OgreChubbs wrote:
Simple rule index update.

Airborne: Vechicles can not be effected by flame weapons.
Airborne open top: models with open top can be blinded by flame weapons on a roll of.... blah blah. Blinded units can not shoot this turn.

Also I do not think flamers on hell drakes should hit planes.... It would like blow back in their faces. Could of easly gave them something like torch break where the hell drake would grab on to a plane with in 2" and do a torch attack. Torch attack a age the vechicle on a what ever.

Or kept their flame breadth but only effect ground units and make it a strafing run style. All units flown over by a hell drake take a straffing run flame attack.

But I also always thought 40k needed rules rewritten anyways. Like a unit can use cover fire to help suppress anoher unit. It does damage on say a 6 but causes the unit being shot to make a difficult terrian test and only take half their attack min 1.

I would like a lot more synergy not each unit is a fortress style.

The problem though is that there is no such thing as a flame weapon rules wise; its just that you have weapons that previously used the flame template (such as flamers) now dealing autohits.
Its a lot cleaner to just specify in each relevant weapon entry that it can't hit an airborne target.

Flamers effecting flyers is really weird.

I almost would have preferred to go slightly crazier, add a bit to the airborne rule that says "This unit counts as 8 inches further away from non-airborne units than it actually is for shooting purposes" or something to that effect. (Maybe make it not work both ways, haven't played much in the last few years, never played with or against flyers).

Or even make the range-reduction longer but remove the penalty to hit.

 MagicJuggler wrote:
Tactical depth such as making sure you charge from 8 + 1e-99 inches away from any models with flamers.

Yes, tactical depth meaning that you have to choose between having a 72% or better chance of making the charge and potentially taking damage from flamers, or a 58% or less chance of making the charge and not taking flamer hits.

Seems pretty tactically and depthy to me, but whatever...

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

Slipspace wrote:

 MagicJuggler wrote:
Flamers are better at anti-aircraft than crowd control. Balance, my posterior!

At the risk of derailing the thread slightly, that seems to be a misconception popularised by people who don't have much (any?) experience with 8th. Yes, flamers automatically hit flyers but, just like firing lasguns at Land Raiders, they generally don't have much chance of hurting them. Even firing at the relatively fragile Dark Eldar planes you get less than 1 wound on average from a flamer. That's assuming you can get in range. Flyers move very fast and tend to have long range weapons so it's not exactly difficult to stay out of flamer range if you want.

As far as the original question goes, yes it's slightly odd that flamers only work if the enemy is close when they start their charge but that's how the rules are.

It's still goofy as hell though. Like, it may not have much of a chance of hurting hit, but a flamethrower should never be able to do that to begin with.
Unless they have really strong propellant or something.
I really think its an other sight.

measure to hull 8" stand. Problem solved


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also flyers already have to measure to the hull and the flight stand is like 6" anyway so problem is non existent

 MagicJuggler wrote:
Tactical depth such as making sure you charge from 8 + 1e-99 inches away from any models with flamers.

Well yeah, if thats the attitude you wanna have sure, at the very least its one more consideration to take into account before deciding when and where to charge.

Soulless wrote:

 MagicJuggler wrote:
Tactical depth such as making sure you charge from 8 + 1e-99 inches away from any models with flamers.

Well yeah, if thats the attitude you wanna have sure, at the very least its one more consideration to take into account before deciding when and where to charge.

Makes sense to me as an abstraction and not fussed, you need a high roll to make contact so take more of a risk doing it to avoid the flamer fire.

As for hitting aircraft, this are super special awesome wonderful flame throwing weapons, not something form ww2 (or from the hollywood film of ww2), if your planes being hit by them bothers you, just stay out of range

Do flamers overwatch if the attacking unit started outside of the flame range?

 Niiai wrote:
Do flamers overwatch if the attacking unit started outside of the flame range?

Nope, overwatch follows the normal rules for shooting (except needing '6's to hit and having to target the charging unit).