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Any flamer in the game can be used normally for overwatch OR as a point defense flamer.
Normal. normal range, normal line of sight, normal everything.
Point defense mode. 1/2 the normal hits, but ANYTHING charging you has to pass through a curtain of your flamer output, and thus no effect will prevent those half number of hits.
Point defense flamer mode can't be screwed with by line of sight, by your unit coming in from extreme range, or by any capability that supresses overwatch. Its not normal overwatch, its using the flamers to light up the area right around your guys and make anything hopping in at you pass through that curtain of fire.

Viola. Flamers now have a real role in the game, that they didn't have a minute ago. You can put a flamer or two on each squad of gaurd or veterans, and when the orcs come in from 10 inches away? They still got to cross the sea of flamer fire that the terrified troops just light off randomly. A few casualties occur, even where before, the range was so great that the flamers couldn't, somehow, interpose fire between charger and chargee.

Some deldar jerkwad has a power that turns overwatch off? Flamers switch to point defense mode, and the incoming stuff attacking that unit suddenly has to face casualties, albeit, half the normal amount. The troops may be milling about confused, but the flamer crews just point their nozzles out in a ring and burn, baby, burn.

So, that's my thought. Oh, one more thing.

In melee, any infantry held flamer can be used sort of similarly (a bit like a fight phase pistol) in point defense mode, doing half damage to the enemy (and the user forgoes his normal melee capablities entirely, cause flaming takes his turn). BUT! downside apparent? The flamer also hits your unit as many times as it hits the enemy, cause, really, you are using a goddamn 40th century flamerthrower to try to pry a tyrannid off your buddy Mike in his paper and cardboard gaurd armor....
So the score might be...
tyrannids 20.l. tyrannids dead by gaurd action 3. tyrannids dead by flamer in the squad 2. (a roll of 4 cut in half)
gaurd 10. gaurd dead by tyrannid action 44 and 2/3. Gaurds killed by their own flamer 2, ( a roll of 4, cut in half) as if that mattered. Gaurds shot in back of head by their own commisar, ironically, zero this time.

I think it would give a real impetus for troop carried flamers where right now, basically everyone looks at them and goes "why waste points?"

Normal mode gets D6 + 1hit/5 models in target unit. Overwatch range is 12" with D6 + 1hit/ 10 models in target unit.

I'm okay with Point Defense ignoring range and LoS.

I don't think it should ignore abilities that completely turn off Overwatch-those aren't common, and should retain value.

Actually I"m fine with that.

Martel732 wrote:
Normal mode gets D6 + 1hit/5 models in target unit. Overwatch range is 12" with D6 + 1hit/ 10 models in target unit.

Something like this is my go-to for flamers. Though I'd probably skip a second set of rules specifically for overwatch and just extend the flamer's range to 12". It's less complicated than DukeOfstuff's pitch and has the benefit of making the flamer's offense scale up based on the size of the enemy unit.

Alternatively, I'd be really surprised if 9th edition flamers don't get the same rule blasts do (max shots against sufficiently large units). An automatic 6 hits and 12" range might be enough to make flamers a decent anti-horde choice that still retains some use against more elite armies (automatic overwatch hits).

When flamers did well they used to cause 5-6 hits against light infantries bypassing their save, and overwatch didn't even exist back then.

I'd like flamers to be 3+D3 autohits with AP-1. Heavy flamers get the same number of autohits but with AP-2. 5-6pts for regular flamers, 9-10 for heavy ones.

I'd also love orks burnas to return to be power weapons (they used to be AP2 with the old system so AP-3 should be ok now) in melee if they didn't fire in the shooting phase.

I guess I wanted flamers to be good defensively, but NOT to add to the offensive madness that eigthth became. If you increase the range of flamers, you will just see more of those wacky "I get 3 inches extra range on everything" marine follower chapters alphastriking a bunch of flamers next to you on turn zero, and gaurd becomes even less viable than it now is. Conversely, if you don't make it so flamers are offensively better, but make it so they work in defensive or melee applications, they become a choice people will have to think about.

Was my thought.

I think it would be fair for flamers to work in overwatch no matter the range - you charge through fire, you get burnt. it wouldn't need any complex rules, and wouldn't cause alpha-strike issues - if a unit with a flamer is charged, the flamer is always treated as being in LOS and in range.

there have been many suggestions for the amount of hits flamers get, but none reflect the old way where the more bunched up a unit is, the more hits they take. nothing can, really, except a template, and templates have their own issues (less so the flamer as it didn't scatter).

My preferred number of hits rule is blast(X), where X is the maximum number of shots, and the weapon shoots once per model in the target unit, to a maximum of "X". Flamers still autohit.

I despise "once per 5 models", as it means that if I have a unit of ~30 orks or gaunts or other horde, I have to add up the models in the unit every time it is shot at to work out if there are 24 or 25+ models in it. It's much more time consuming than "are there 5 or more, yep, that's 5 shots/hits." Especially if it's next to another unit, as I may accidentally count models in the other unit. I also wouldn't expect a flamer to hit more models in a unit of 30 than in a unit of 25, as any extra models are out of the flamer's range anyway.


The other alternative is to make flamers much more powerful - make them an aura, and make it a "models in the unit within 6" of the flamer take a hit" type deal. but that's just going to lead to marines roflcoptering.

 some bloke wrote:
I think it would be fair for flamers to work in overwatch no matter the range - you charge through fire, you get burnt. it wouldn't need any complex rules, and wouldn't cause alpha-strike issues - if a unit with a flamer is charged, the flamer is always treated as being in LOS and in range.

there have been many suggestions for the amount of hits flamers get, but none reflect the old way where the more bunched up a unit is, the more hits they take. nothing can, really, except a template, and templates have their own issues (less so the flamer as it didn't scatter).

My preferred number of hits rule is blast(X), where X is the maximum number of shots, and the weapon shoots once per model in the target unit, to a maximum of "X". Flamers still autohit.

I despise "once per 5 models", as it means that if I have a unit of ~30 orks or gaunts or other horde, I have to add up the models in the unit every time it is shot at to work out if there are 24 or 25+ models in it. It's much more time consuming than "are there 5 or more, yep, that's 5 shots/hits." Especially if it's next to another unit, as I may accidentally count models in the other unit. I also wouldn't expect a flamer to hit more models in a unit of 30 than in a unit of 25, as any extra models are out of the flamer's range anyway.


The other alternative is to make flamers much more powerful - make them an aura, and make it a "models in the unit within 6" of the flamer take a hit" type deal. but that's just going to lead to marines roflcoptering.

I've always thought the blast(x) style rule would be the way to go. I'm hoping the new shooting rules for hordes will be something like this.

As for overwatch, I also think it should be auto hit, not range or LOS required. In addition, blast/flamer weapons should ignore cover. Its quite possible they will in 9th if cover rules end up obscuring so have a -1 to hit instead of +1 save.

Aash wrote:

 some bloke wrote:
I think it would be fair for flamers to work in overwatch no matter the range - you charge through fire, you get burnt. it wouldn't need any complex rules, and wouldn't cause alpha-strike issues - if a unit with a flamer is charged, the flamer is always treated as being in LOS and in range.

there have been many suggestions for the amount of hits flamers get, but none reflect the old way where the more bunched up a unit is, the more hits they take. nothing can, really, except a template, and templates have their own issues (less so the flamer as it didn't scatter).

My preferred number of hits rule is blast(X), where X is the maximum number of shots, and the weapon shoots once per model in the target unit, to a maximum of "X". Flamers still autohit.

I despise "once per 5 models", as it means that if I have a unit of ~30 orks or gaunts or other horde, I have to add up the models in the unit every time it is shot at to work out if there are 24 or 25+ models in it. It's much more time consuming than "are there 5 or more, yep, that's 5 shots/hits." Especially if it's next to another unit, as I may accidentally count models in the other unit. I also wouldn't expect a flamer to hit more models in a unit of 30 than in a unit of 25, as any extra models are out of the flamer's range anyway.


The other alternative is to make flamers much more powerful - make them an aura, and make it a "models in the unit within 6" of the flamer take a hit" type deal. but that's just going to lead to marines roflcoptering.

I've always thought the blast(x) style rule would be the way to go. I'm hoping the new shooting rules for hordes will be something like this.

As for overwatch, I also think it should be auto hit, not range or LOS required. In addition, blast/flamer weapons should ignore cover. Its quite possible they will in 9th if cover rules end up obscuring so have a -1 to hit instead of +1 save.

I actually think that "blast" weapons should ignore all to hit modifiers (both positive and negative). There's no precision here, it's just "BOOM! hur hur hur." invisible? boom. chapter master telling you to aim better? boom.

obviously flamers would anyway because autohit, but a unit which can dodge will not be so hot against a large, fiery explosion!

 some bloke wrote:

Aash wrote:

 some bloke wrote:
I think it would be fair for flamers to work in overwatch no matter the range - you charge through fire, you get burnt. it wouldn't need any complex rules, and wouldn't cause alpha-strike issues - if a unit with a flamer is charged, the flamer is always treated as being in LOS and in range.

there have been many suggestions for the amount of hits flamers get, but none reflect the old way where the more bunched up a unit is, the more hits they take. nothing can, really, except a template, and templates have their own issues (less so the flamer as it didn't scatter).

My preferred number of hits rule is blast(X), where X is the maximum number of shots, and the weapon shoots once per model in the target unit, to a maximum of "X". Flamers still autohit.

I despise "once per 5 models", as it means that if I have a unit of ~30 orks or gaunts or other horde, I have to add up the models in the unit every time it is shot at to work out if there are 24 or 25+ models in it. It's much more time consuming than "are there 5 or more, yep, that's 5 shots/hits." Especially if it's next to another unit, as I may accidentally count models in the other unit. I also wouldn't expect a flamer to hit more models in a unit of 30 than in a unit of 25, as any extra models are out of the flamer's range anyway.


The other alternative is to make flamers much more powerful - make them an aura, and make it a "models in the unit within 6" of the flamer take a hit" type deal. but that's just going to lead to marines roflcoptering.

I've always thought the blast(x) style rule would be the way to go. I'm hoping the new shooting rules for hordes will be something like this.

As for overwatch, I also think it should be auto hit, not range or LOS required. In addition, blast/flamer weapons should ignore cover. Its quite possible they will in 9th if cover rules end up obscuring so have a -1 to hit instead of +1 save.

I actually think that "blast" weapons should ignore all to hit modifiers (both positive and negative). There's no precision here, it's just "BOOM! hur hur hur." invisible? boom. chapter master telling you to aim better? boom.

obviously flamers would anyway because autohit, but a unit which can dodge will not be so hot against a large, fiery explosion!

I could get onboard with that. For blast templates there was no hit roll after all, just the scatter dice. Maybe the scatter could be represented without templates:

Blast weapons could have blast (x) as described above, but only make a single to hit roll. If the hit roll is succesful, carry on as normal; if the hit roll fails, half the number of hits rounding up.

Flamer style weapons would then be blast(x) autohit.

so perhaps, flamers always get to do their "end of the charge" flamerwatch, period, full stop, no math required, cause anything charging through fire to do melee gets kissed. Instead of flamer overwatch being "I rolled to get into melee and failed, but got burnt" just do the entire flamer overwatch at the END of the charge roll, on the first successful charge.

As you are targetting a charger within 1 inch of your own unit, the first hit on each die would be done to your own unit. So if you roll 3 one, sucks to be you, your "wall of flame" was friendly fire in the worst possible way. If you roll 3 sixes, you take 3, but enemy takes 15, your wall of fire was perfect. Sorry, mo, larry, curly, about that, but basically gaurdspec perfect!

Viola. Someoen leaping from smack you from 12 inches away behind cover? Burns, but its gonna be not without a little risk for your own infantry.

This would be a special little miniphase called "flamahtime" or "flamerwatch" which wouldn't be "overwatch" per se, so wacky powers that prevent overwatch wouldn't prevent it. If the enemy failed to roll enough to get into combat, it wouldn't happen at all, so you don't get to do 3d6 damage to every enemy model on the table and end up with the unlucky basterd getting as close as 2 inches but not making any of his charges.

Again, I think this is for infantry only, maybe? This little rule, to keep it entertaining, but also cause a lot of the tank flamers have longer range anyway.

I don't think Flamers need to be better. They just need to be cheaper. It's crazy that a Storm Bolter is 2 points while a Flamer is 6 points and a Heavy Flamer is 14 points.

 alextroy wrote:
I don't think Flamers need to be better. They just need to be cheaper. It's crazy that a Storm Bolter is 2 points while a Flamer is 6 points and a Heavy Flamer is 14 points.

D3 or D6 autohits with no AP is way worse than they used to be though. In previous editions against blobs they tipycally scored 5-6 or even more hits, bypassing lower armor saves and denying cover bonus. Heavy flamers bypassed 4+ saves completely. Ork burnas cost 0 points and they never see the table.

Oh and stormbolters should be 4ppm, if a weapon is undercosted it doesn't mean that also other weapons should follow the same path. HF and their equivalents (Skorchas...) should be cheaper indeed.

Dukeofstuff wrote:
Any flamer in the game can be used normally for overwatch OR as a point defense flamer.
Normal. normal range, normal line of sight, normal everything.
Point defense mode. 1/2 the normal hits, but ANYTHING charging you has to pass through a curtain of your flamer output, and thus no effect will prevent those half number of hits.
Point defense flamer mode can't be screwed with by line of sight, by your unit coming in from extreme range, or by any capability that supresses overwatch. Its not normal overwatch, its using the flamers to light up the area right around your guys and make anything hopping in at you pass through that curtain of fire.

Viola. Flamers now have a real role in the game, that they didn't have a minute ago. You can put a flamer or two on each squad of gaurd or veterans, and when the orcs come in from 10 inches away? They still got to cross the sea of flamer fire that the terrified troops just light off randomly. A few casualties occur, even where before, the range was so great that the flamers couldn't, somehow, interpose fire between charger and chargee.

Some deldar jerkwad has a power that turns overwatch off? Flamers switch to point defense mode, and the incoming stuff attacking that unit suddenly has to face casualties, albeit, half the normal amount. The troops may be milling about confused, but the flamer crews just point their nozzles out in a ring and burn, baby, burn.

So, that's my thought. Oh, one more thing.

In melee, any infantry held flamer can be used sort of similarly (a bit like a fight phase pistol) in point defense mode, doing half damage to the enemy (and the user forgoes his normal melee capablities entirely, cause flaming takes his turn). BUT! downside apparent? The flamer also hits your unit as many times as it hits the enemy, cause, really, you are using a goddamn 40th century flamerthrower to try to pry a tyrannid off your buddy Mike in his paper and cardboard gaurd armor....
So the score might be...
tyrannids 20.l. tyrannids dead by gaurd action 3. tyrannids dead by flamer in the squad 2. (a roll of 4 cut in half)
gaurd 10. gaurd dead by tyrannid action 44 and 2/3. Gaurds killed by their own flamer 2, ( a roll of 4, cut in half) as if that mattered. Gaurds shot in back of head by their own commisar, ironically, zero this time.

I think it would give a real impetus for troop carried flamers where right now, basically everyone looks at them and goes "why waste points?"

Why not change the nature of flamers, and make the purely defensive upgrades. A unit equipped with a flamer weapon deals 1 mortal wound to charging infantry that attempt to charge it. Adjust points, treat it like an old style upgrade and boom, VERY useful!

Actually, I had a better idea than my previous.

Why not make flamers a profile weapon?

Something like:

Flamer
-Stream 8" Assault d6 S4 0 1 Auto Hits
-Blob 12 Assault d3 S4 -1 1 No auto hits

How do you feel about something like this? The technology should allow for blobs of gas to be hurled or streamed easy peasy.

Having two profiles could be a thing, but the two that you've proposed seem like they're probably similar enough to render one or the other redundant.

Haven't run the math, but assuming you're within 8", d6 autohits is always going to generate more hits on average than d3 non-auto-hits. And then the AP-1 is either going to be worth it or not against most targets.

So either the blob is better aaginst most targets, in which case the stream profile only matters for overwatch against things within range, or else the stream is better against most targets, and the blob only matters if you're 8.1" - 12" away.

Making flamers purely defensive seems odd to me. Like, granted, I don't love the idea of charging a guy with a flamethrower, but I also don't have to charge the guy to be worried about his ability to hurt me with a flamethrower. Plus, I remember when the sales pitch for flamers was that they were good at burning through defensive positions making them a good bunker clearer (because they ignored cover saves).

Flamers have traditionally been the gun you take to improve your ability to kill hordes. Just give them something like the new blast rule or a rule that ups their number of shots based on the enemy unit size, and they'll be reasonably good at filling that role again.

The only time ork burnas worked was 3rd edition, when they actually had two profiles, one for shooting (standard template) one for CC (power weapon with no S modifier but bypassing any armor save). Making flamers purely defensive would kill burnaboyz as having 10-15 t-shirt saves orks as a defensive unit doesn't making any sense, and burnas cannot be taken in other units.

To make flamers worthy again they simply should do enough damage, like they used to be. A bonus like the blast rule could be handy, the double profile and ignore cover also appreciated.

The reason flamer weapons are so hard for them to balance is because of full squads of them. 1-2 flamers in a unit is fairly easy to work, but when there's 15 of them, it can pile up to unemperorly amount of autohits. Which is why they made burnas assault D3 - D6 would make more sense (hell, the guns as big as a guardsman!) but 15D6 autohits was too much to allow.

This could be easily remedies by making all flamers D6, and making any subsequent flamers added to an attack add D3 to it. They should also have god AP, I'd say -1 at least, as fire will burn you through the gaps in your armour.

So 15 burnas would be D6+14D3
marines with 2 flamers would be D6+D3

Then there's mixed flamers - a flamer and a heavy flamer, for example. If you allow them to fire as one profile, a flamer can add D3 shots to the heavy flamer.

The rule would be

Conflagration:

Weapons with this rule in a single unit cannot target the same unit separately. If 2 or more CONFLAGRATION weapons target the same unit, choose one CONFLAGRATION weapon to fire. All subsequent CONFLAGRATION weapons add half their number of shots (rounding up) to the profile of the first CONFLAGRATION weapon.

so a Heavy Flamer and a Flamer fire, you choose the heavy flamer to fire normally, and the flamer adds half its shots, rounding up, to the heavy flamers profile - essentially, D6+D3 shots.

If they target separate units, they will both fire D6.

 some bloke wrote:
The reason flamer weapons are so hard for them to balance is because of full squads of them. 1-2 flamers in a unit is fairly easy to work, but when there's 15 of them, it can pile up to unemperorly amount of autohits. Which is why they made burnas assault D3 - D6 would make more sense (hell, the guns as big as a guardsman!) but 15D6 autohits was too much to allow.

This could be easily remedies by making all flamers D6, and making any subsequent flamers added to an attack add D3 to it. They should also have god AP, I'd say -1 at least, as fire will burn you through the gaps in your armour.

So 15 burnas would be D6+14D3
marines with 2 flamers would be D6+D3

Then there's mixed flamers - a flamer and a heavy flamer, for example. If you allow them to fire as one profile, a flamer can add D3 shots to the heavy flamer.

The rule would be

Conflagration:

Weapons with this rule in a single unit cannot target the same unit separately. If 2 or more CONFLAGRATION weapons target the same unit, choose one CONFLAGRATION weapon to fire. All subsequent CONFLAGRATION weapons add half their number of shots (rounding up) to the profile of the first CONFLAGRATION weapon.

so a Heavy Flamer and a Flamer fire, you choose the heavy flamer to fire normally, and the flamer adds half its shots, rounding up, to the heavy flamers profile - essentially, D6+D3 shots.

If they target separate units, they will both fire D6.

It's an interesting idea-not sure I like it, but it's got merits.

One thing I will say, though-don't add d3 shots per extra flamer. Add 2. Just... Stop with all the random rolls, GW. It's annoying.

 some bloke wrote:
The reason flamer weapons are so hard for them to balance is because of full squads of them. 1-2 flamers in a unit is fairly easy to work, but when there's 15 of them, it can pile up to unemperorly amount of autohits. Which is why they made burnas assault D3 - D6 would make more sense (hell, the guns as big as a guardsman!) but 15D6 autohits was too much to allow.

I disagree. Burnas used to be templates, which granted more hits than D6 on average, not to mention ignore cover and bypass lower armor saves (now AP0 instead). And yet a full squad of 15 burnaboyz was terrible in 7th and mediocre in 5-6th.

If an opponent allows an expensive (because 12-15 burnaboyz in a transport are quite expensive) and superfragile unit, with extremely short range, to get close to an appropriate target then the ork players has certainly earned his 15D6 autohits. 15D6 auto S4 no AP hits on average kill 4 intercessors (80 points) or 22-23 GEQ (88-92 points). It doesn't look overkill for a unit that costs 180 points plus transport (BW is another 120 plus weapons, a trukk is 64 but only allows units of 12, not the full 15 man squad) and has 8'' range.

 some bloke wrote:
The reason flamer weapons are so hard for them to balance is because of full squads of them. 1-2 flamers in a unit is fairly easy to work, but when there's 15 of them, it can pile up to unemperorly amount of autohits. Which is why they made burnas assault D3 - D6 would make more sense (hell, the guns as big as a guardsman!) but 15D6 autohits was too much to allow.

If there's a problem with burnaboyz getting 15d6 shots, there obvious isn't a problem with a Centurion or Aggressor unit getting like 12d6 [twice!]

Blackie wrote:
I disagree. Burnas used to be templates, which granted more hits than D6 on average, not to mention ignore cover and bypass lower armor saves (now AP0 instead). And yet a full squad of 15 burnaboyz was terrible in 7th and mediocre in 5-6th.

If an opponent allows an expensive (because 12-15 burnaboyz in a transport are quite expensive) and superfragile unit, with extremely short range, to get close to an appropriate target then the ork players has certainly earned his 15D6 autohits. 15D6 auto S4 no AP hits on average kill 4 intercessors (80 points) or 22-23 GEQ (88-92 points). It doesn't look overkill for a unit that costs 180 points plus transport (BW is another 120 plus weapons, a trukk is 64 but only allows units of 12, not the full 15 man squad) and has 8'' range.

I recall burna truks/wagons being pretty okay in 5th edition. 10 templates reaching out from any point on the vehicle and ignoring the saves of most light infantry (no cover save plus AP 5) was pretty decent. Iirc, the burna was also a power weapon at the time, so they ignored marine armor. You just had to, you know, convince your opponent to not pop the squishy open-topped vehicle on turn one.

some bloke wrote:The reason flamer weapons are so hard for them to balance is because of full squads of them. 1-2 flamers in a unit is fairly easy to work, but when there's 15 of them, it can pile up to unemperorly amount of autohits. Which is why they made burnas assault D3 - D6 would make more sense (hell, the guns as big as a guardsman!) but 15D6 autohits was too much to allow.

Would it be crazy to just... not let the problem units take that many flamers? Off the top of my head, we're talking about...
* GSC acolytes with double hand flamers
* Burna boyz
* Grotesques with liquifiers I guess?
* Maybe still seraphim? (Haven't grabbed the new 'dex.)

Of those, burna boyz are currently meh, grotesques get too pricey when you put that many strength 3 flamers on them, and I haven't heard of seraphim being a problem lately. So... maybe just tell acolytes they can't take quite so many in one place?

Wyldhunt wrote:

I recall burna truks/wagons being pretty okay in 5th edition. 10 templates reaching out from any point on the vehicle and ignoring the saves of most light infantry (no cover save plus AP 5) was pretty decent. Iirc, the burna was also a power weapon at the time, so they ignored marine armor. You just had to, you know, convince your opponent to not pop the squishy open-topped vehicle on turn one.

Exactly, that's the gamble. You field a unit that it's unlikely to get its points back but at least it has potential and sometimes does gak, even if it's just a distraction. When burnaboyz had the template profile, ignored cover, AP5, had the option to fight in combat with AP2 and they were fielded in editions with limited rate of fire, they still were an average-decent unit at most. Expensive glass cannon with extremely short range. That's why giving D6 autohitd to flamers would just be a start to make the unit worthwile, not the solution and definitely nothing that makes them scary. Doing a quick math, the damage the full unit may cause wouldn't be sentational anyway, but maybe enough to make burnaboyz a niche at least.

They aren't useless...

Drop a full squad of Scions (with Lambdan Lions) with 4 Flamers out of a Valkyrie and move into firing range, then give them the Order: Elimination Protocols Sanctioned! You now have the perfect Anti-Aircraft Squad! 4D6 instant hits, rerolls to wound, and AP-1...

 Slayer6 wrote:
They aren't useless...

Drop a full squad of Scions (with Lambdan Lions) with 4 Flamers out of a Valkyrie and move into firing range, then give them the Order: Elimination Protocols Sanctioned! You now have the perfect Anti-Aircraft Squad! 4D6 instant hits, rerolls to wound, and AP-1...

At S4, so still not really great anti-tank.

Moreover, that's not Flamers being useful in general. That's them having a niche with a specific unit in a specific regiment.

Bring back templates

warpedpig wrote:
Bring back templates

Looking forward to waiting for your opponent to space all his models apart as much as he safely can to avoid being punished for not doing so? Think the game will be improved by punishing ork players for bunching their models up when they pile in for combat?

You could literally make gaurd command squads with grenade launchers on krak mod (save a couple points per gaurdsman) and NOT land them close, ergo not need to be scions, and fire in krak mode. Your penetration is going to be as good with s6 as it was with s3 rolling twice, and you do on average d3 instead of the average 2 damage that the scions crack flamer unit does.

Seriously, if its only as good as 4 gaurd grenade launchers, you are wasting scions to do it. Put meltas or plasma on the squad of 4, save yourself a command point for not dropping close, and you can expect to do 6.67 or aroudn 7.5(plasma) damage to the flyer from 9 inches out.

If you don't buy the flyer at all, but just invest in drop scions, you can get another pair of 5 man troop chocies with a total of 4 plasma rifles and 2 plasma pistols to deepstrike in, so you would expect to blow the plane up entirely, rather than spend all those points to deliever a 2 wound blow to it just with a massive number of flamers that don't do much at all.

With this edition, we have a simple rule which would improve flamers effectiveness against hordes and such; Blast.

if flamers always rolled max hits against hordes, they'd be a heck of a lot more use. Coupled with hordes (usually) going for CC and flamers being good at overwatch, it would make a lot of sense.