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Simple really. They are utterly worthless as they are and even with no points change they would be fine.

Flamers need to go back to templates. Rolling a 1 when a tight clump of enemy units is 2” away from you is absolutely slowed.

Nope. No one needs deepstriking auto-hitting units.

With random hits, even that wounldn't be that great.

 Elbows wrote:
Nope. No one needs deepstriking auto-hitting units.

Tyranids can already do that. The Pyrovore is 10" and the Tyrannofex can "pod" in with an 18" superflamer.

That's nothing compared to any unit which all carry flamers and can do that. I'm not worried about fringe cases like random big bugs or the occasional Hellhound. I'm thinking a squad of 10 Sisters on jump packs with double handflamers. 20D6 auto-hits with no protection against it?

That's not a game I'm interested in playing.

To balance this out. Hand flamers or flamers in general should have a negative modifier to wound heavy infantry like space marines. Necrons anything with a 2,3,4+ save.

This is where having classes and weapon types are essential to simplifying the game and preventing that type of gak.

@ BCB: Just house rule it with your acquaintances.

Heck, just give em 'Wall of Death' back.

GSC can have deepstriking units with 20 flamers. 20-120 autohitting shots.

 Lance845 wrote:
GSC can have deepstriking units with 20 flamers. 20-120 autohitting shots.

So screen your dudes properly? Position properly as to deny enemy deep strikes instead of clumping in a corner?

deep striking a unit and getting off 120 shots = broken game. deep striking is such bulhsit now. Back in the day only specialized expensive troops could do it and it was risky. You had to pay extra points to do it, and they might not land where you wanted them to and it could be a total disaster! now its a guaranteed thing and everyone always tries to do it. no risk at all.

I still think the flamers should have increased in 4" distance per size, do hand flamers 4", flamers 8", heavy flamers 12" inch, etc.

A natural progression and as an added bonus flamers should do 3+D3 auto hits, adding on a D3 per 5 models in a unit if it is bigger than 10 models.

warpedpig wrote:
deep striking a unit and getting off 120 shots = broken game. deep striking is such bulhsit now. Back in the day only specialized expensive troops could do it and it was risky. You had to pay extra points to do it, and they might not land where you wanted them to and it could be a total disaster! now its a guaranteed thing and everyone always tries to do it. no risk at all.

I disagree entirely with all your upset about deepstrikes. If you are going to pay for it you should be able to reliably do it. Paying for something that runs the risk of just killing your own dudes before you even use them is just terrible design.

 Dr. Mills wrote:
I still think the flamers should have increased in 4" distance per size, do hand flamers 4", flamers 8", heavy flamers 12" inch, etc.

A natural progression and as an added bonus flamers should do 3+D3 auto hits, adding on a D3 per 5 models in a unit if it is bigger than 10 models.

Agree with the idea of bigger flamers = longer range, though I'd have 6", 9" and 12" myself. 4" range is a bit worthless, generally.


@BCB, with 12" flamers and deepstrike, an easy fix for the "this is too much!" would be to have it that each subsequent shot from the same unit only adds D3 hits instead of D6. so a unit of 20 flamer-toting GSC models would deal D6 + 19D3 shots. This makes having an odd flamer here & there more efficient than a whole unit of them, but a whole unit of them is still going to be scary.

The above includes the (obvious) adjustment that ork burnas be D6 shots, as they should be, being about the physically largest flamers in the game!

Flamers certainly need a fix but I'm not sure longer range is it.

They are supposed to be the specialist anti-horde weapon and they are just poor at their job, extra range would just improve their alpha strike capabilities and overwatch.

My simple fix would be to change their number of shots to be dependent on the number of models in the opposing unit. The grav-flux bombard (leviathan dread weapon) fires D3 shots + an extra D3 shots for every 5 models in the opposing unit. This is would make them the anti-infanrty weapon they are supposed to be against 30 orc boys that would be 7D3 shots, an average of 14 hits leaving to about 6 dead boys. Not over the top but certainly a decent return for an expensive close range weapon against its ideal target. This also has the additional benefit of making them worse against things like aircraft and other single models.

Adding extra range to flamer weapons would lead to two things. Firstly a plethora of alpha strike units, for those shouting "screen properly!" not all armies have or want to use screening models and the game should not force everyone to play the exact same way. The other thing it would lead to is unchargeable units that put out too many autohits for it to be worth charging them, flamers are good on overwatch but being able to make a longer charge to avoid the hits gives players options and tactics to use thus making for a more interesting game.

 WisdomLS wrote:

My simple fix would be to change their number of shots to be dependent on the number of models in the opposing unit. The grav-flux bombard (leviathan dread weapon) fires D3 shots + an extra D3 shots for every 5 models in the opposing unit. This is would make them the anti-infanrty weapon they are supposed to be against 30 orc boys that would be 7D3 shots, an average of 14 hits leaving to about 6 dead boys. Not over the top but certainly a decent return for an expensive close range weapon against its ideal target. This also has the additional benefit of making them worse against things like aircraft and other single models.

My argument against this is that it will slow down the game quite a lot.

Current rules: A unit with 5 flamers shoots at another unit. They roll 5D6, and then roll that many "to wound" dice, followed by saves.

This proposal: A unit with 5 flamers shoots at another unit. The players now count how many models are in the target unit. Then you roll 5D3 + 5D3 for every 5 models, and then you roll that many "to wound" dice, followed by saves.

My proposal (as seen on other posts) is that flamers hit up to "N" models. so a Blast (4) flamer will score 1 hit per model in the target unit, up to 4. This makes them better vs larger units and removes all that unnecessary dice rolling and disappointment from the game.

My proposal: A unit with 5 flamers shoots at another unit. If you are unsure that the unit has 4 or more models, count them, otherwise roll either 5, 10, 15 or 20 "to wound" rolls, followed by saves.

The advantage of this is that it makes flamers a lot less potent against single models - if you charge a unit with 20 flamers with a single model, they get 20 hits in overwatch, not 20D6 hits.

Personally, I'd bump regular Flamers to 9" so that units that can take a bunch in one unit, still can't drop in "120 auto hits". But Heavy Flamers and other "better than regular Flamers" should be 10-12".

I might also change the number of auto hits to "d3+1 for for every model of the target unit in range"
So if a Flamer has 5 models in its 9" range, it gets d3+5 auto hits

Alternatively, just make all Flamer type weapon 10" range and deal with that 1-2 edge case unit that can abuse dropping in. It's VERY unlikely that a 20 model unit can drop in with all 20 models within 10". If that happens, it's your fault for positioning poorly/not having a good screen

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 Galef wrote:
Personally, I'd bump regular Flamers to 9" so that units that can take a bunch in one unit, still can't drop in "120 auto hits". But Heavy Flamers and other "better than regular Flamers" should be 10-12".

I might also change the number of auto hits to "d3+1 for for every model of the target unit in range"
So if a Flamer has 5 models in its 9" range, it gets d3+5 auto hits

Alternatively, just make all Flamer type weapon 10" range and deal with that 1-2 edge case unit that can abuse dropping in. It's VERY unlikely that a 20 model unit can drop in with all 20 models within 10". If that happens, it's your fault for positioning poorly/not having a good screen

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A common complaint about 40k is how little movement and positioning matter. Especially on a unit to unit basis. The more you promote screening the more you promote your entire army moving in a single giant formation block to plug holes for this kind of crap. It's the wrong direction to head in.

 Elbows wrote:
I'm thinking a squad of 10 Sisters on jump packs with double handflamers. 20D6 auto-hits with no protection against it?

That's not a game I'm interested in playing.

Well, nothing to worry about. That has never been a unit that Sisters could field. GSC Acolytes can do it, for much cheaper, and it really isn't that big of a deal.

Deep striking in 8th is actually rather weak imo.

There is lower risk and lower reward to Deep Striking in 8th edition.

It's great for units like Scions, that want to drop within 12" to rapid fire their plasma... but not so great for Scions specifically because their basic gun is RF 18"...

It's great for objective campers. Cheap units you drop behind enemy lines so they have to run back to push you off an objective.

Units that used to be able to drop nice and close and then use punishing short-ranged guns got boned, but Deep Striking Assault units have a base 28% chance to assault from deepstrike, where they had 0% chance before. A simple reroll on distance gives you a 48% chance to successfully charge... again, way better than previous editions that had 0% chance of success from deep strike.

I'd call it a good ability for any unit. Even if all you do is deploy in your own DZ on the first turn, you'd ahead of the game, for having A: not revealed their position during setup, and B: taking advantage of the knowledge of your opponent's deployment and C: Taking advantage of potentially exposed units that your opponent may have protected during normal deployment.

I'd say it's a very tactically valuable ability.

Flamers (and other Template-likes):
-Range 9"
-Autohit 2d6, but no more than one per model in target unit
-When firing Overwatch, ignore Range and LOS

This keeps the "DSing 10 Flamers doesn't delete stuff at will", doesn't outright delete every horde unit, and so forth. Now it's now a crappy anti-Flyer weapon. Template variants are now crappy anti-tank. But now spewing flames is a great defense against charging Gaunts or Boyz. It now works vs any charge - even those who can charge outside 12". Even those who charge around corners (or through buildings). Normal templates aren't quite as good vs Marines, and much worse vs Termies and such, but much better vs Gaunts and other hordes.

Are there any problematic deepstriking flamer units other than acolytes with hand flamers? If you simply didn't extend the range of hand flamers, then deepstriking flamers would be a thing, but to my knowledge there wouldn't be any especially problematic combos.

Assuming we're talking about imperium-brand flamers. If we're talking about anything that used the tear drop template once upon a time, then I'd like to point out, to my own detriment, that my wraith guards' d-scythes and my shadow spectres rainbow guns were both templates once upon a time.

I've always like the idea of going back to the system where hand, regular and heavy flamers had the different sized templates. Without bringing back templates, I'd represent this with different ranges and number of shots for each but with the same strenghth and AP.

Hand flamer:
Range 6" pistol D3, autohit Strength 4 AP 0

Flamer:
Range 9" assault D6, autohit Strength 4 AP 0

Heavy Flamer:
Range 12" Heavy 2D6, autohit Strength 4 AP 0

Adjust points accordingly. With a 9" range you still wouldn't be able to deep strike and auto hit everything as you would have to be at least 9.1" away.

Better yet, do away with random shots completely and use the above profiles with the following change: n shots up to number of models in the target unit where n is 3 for pistol, 6 for flamer and 9 for heavy flamer.

I think flamers should get an additional d6 shots for every 5 models in a unit rather than extra range. The only issue here are the occasional unit that get a metric crap ton of flamers.

Aash wrote:
Better yet, do away with random shots completely and use the above profiles with the following change: n shots up to number of models in the target unit where n is 3 for pistol, 6 for flamer and 9 for heavy flamer.

I agree. The Implementation of a "Flamer" weapon type that is "Flamer X: This weapon hits fires one shot per model in the target unit, to a maximum of X shots." The auto-hit property can be left as an individual weapon ability.

 BaconCatBug wrote:

Aash wrote:
Better yet, do away with random shots completely and use the above profiles with the following change: n shots up to number of models in the target unit where n is 3 for pistol, 6 for flamer and 9 for heavy flamer.

I agree. The Implementation of a "Flamer" weapon type that is "Flamer X: This weapon hits fires one shot per model in the target unit, to a maximum of X shots." The auto-hit property can be left as an individual weapon ability.

IMHO that rule outta be adapted to most units that used a blast template. it'd remove some of the worse rule interactions out there, like battlecanons being one of the better anti tank weapons out there for lemen russes.

I feel sad that no one’s complaining about the Chaos Demon flamers.

 solkan wrote:
I feel sad that no one’s complaining about the Chaos Demon flamers.

That's because a 2 wound t4 model with a 4++ doesn't survive for long. Plus any Daemons player worth their salt knows that Pink Horrors are superior in the majority of cases.