Are flamers of Tzeentch broken?!

[Captain Idaho]

Moderate your tone guys, please. People aren't wrong in noticing just how over the top Flamers are right now, so we are discussing how to overcome them. No one is saying Necrons and Grey Knights don't need their own discussion thread, this thread is all about Tzeentch. And the perspective people are missing is not everyone here plays Space Marines/Imperial exclusively or are that partisan wanting our faction to dominate all others.

 

No one is attacking Tzeentch players, saying they are bad players for having such a powerful unit.

[Ming]

What goes around, coves around.

 

Certainly, unit spacing is key to protecting against these blue flamers. But they easily perish to their own weaponry.

 

Recipe:

 

Flamers deep strike in next to your army and flame a unit/whatever

 

You plan in and apply:

 

1. Librarian with null zone (forces the flamers to reroll all saves they make)

2. Quick reaction force with multiple flamer/heavy flamer templates (example - tactical squad in rhino with a flamer and combiflamer, or a sternguard squad in a rhino with a HF +/- numerous combiflamers. The unit moves up, dismounts if needed to get range, and flames the flamers. Stay in the vehicle if possible. With null zone up, it is likely the flamer unit will not survive. Wounds have to come off the closest flamers until each one is burned. The key is to cover the flamers with a minimum of 2 full templates, hopefully 3+. Cause 3X the number of wounds as flamers.

3. Excess bolters from the unit will cause more casualties.

4. Move a cover unit forward to protect your dismounted unit. Prepare to repeat.

 

You can do this w/o having a reaction unit, torrent of fire and null zone does the job. The key remains to space your units a flamer template apart, so at most the flamers can only hit one unit. If you are already on foot, space your individuals exactly 2-inches apart.

[monkeyman26]

Great news in the battle against Tzeench: I finally won a game! :)

 

Main reasons for my victory:

1) luck. One unit of screamers lost to DS mishap and the game didn't end after 5 turns, he would have won if it had

2) wipe out units: leave one screamer alive and he'll kill a tank, leave one flamer and he'll kill lots of your troops

3) sternguard: 2 large squads both rapid firing on one unit of flamers just about do the job

4) double flamer speeders: brutal against flamers who are clustered after DS

5) null zone: indirectly. Failed psychic test first turn and he was killed second turnout as the C:CD player focused almost exclusively on him most of my troops survived to counter attack with bolter fire

 

Bad news is that he's now reverted to 3x9 flamers and 3x6 screamers... I'm not saying he's a bad person for maxing out on a good unit, I just think they are badly underpriced. In response to the C:CD player who said flamers weren't previously effective, I agree. In 5ed I won most of my games against his deamons (so much so he stopped playing them). Before 6ed and the WD supplement they were lousy but the following changes made them way over powered:

 

- 2 wounds vs weaker save: I would rather have extra wound every time, especially if they are eternal warrior. Null zone is also less effective against the new stats

- hull points: they used to just stall vehicles, now they destroy land raiders

- DS mishap changes: 1 in 6 destroyed is a lot less risky than 1 in 3 so you can be very aggressive when you DS

- 10 points cheaper (now less than a Sternguard)

- wall of death: before anyone could assault them and win, now you need a throw away unit to go in first or they are un-assaultable

 

For anyone who thinks they can just "shoot them of the board", a quick bit of math hammer: 3x9 flamers plus 3x6 screamers = 90 wounds which requires 270 bolter shots on average to kill them all, even if they don't make a single save. Flamers of your own help but they will be targeted if you don't kill his entire unit. If you think castling in vehicles is a panacea: screamers pop any vehicle in the turn after they DS, flamers kill everything inside. 2" spacing for troops helps but 4 or 5 flamers can still wipe out almost any 10 man squad. Concentrating on objectives? This only works if you survive 5 turns, which in 9 out of 11 games he's played against different armies it hasn't.

 

Final point: my army that beat Tzeentch would be poor against most other armys, I tailored it to beat his. Interested to see how his list performs At the November Throne of Skulls.

[Ellevild]

Well...

 

Check the 2 finalists in Feast of blades:

 

http://www.theruleslawyers.com/2012/10/law...nalysis-part-i/

[Gentlemanloser]

Ah, 3 x 9 Flamers and Screamers, versus 3 x 9 Flamers and Screamers for the final.

 

Good game!

 

Well done GW! /golfclap

[Puhnupetteri]

I havent played againts them yet.

 

But can someone explain what is wrong with normal tip for any problem you face when playing C:SM?

 

(I mean ofc adding 3x vindicator in your list)

[Naminé]

I havent played againts them yet.

 

But can someone explain what is wrong with normal tip for any problem you face when playing C:SM?

 

(I mean ofc adding 3x vindicator in your list)

 

All daemons deep strike and glance on a 4+, meaning on average you're going to lose 1 vindicator to every flamer squad that comes in.

 

All daemons have eternal warrior and Flamers have 2 wounds each, with invulnerable saves, making vindicators kind of pointless against them. As jump infantry you will only get one shot off before they glance your tank to death.

 

Flamers work best with screamers, which will easily wreck your tanks even without the nasty flamer weapons!

[Giga]

All daemons deep strike and glance on a 4+, meaning on average you're going to lose 1 vindicator to every flamer squad that comes in.

 

All daemons have eternal warrior and Flamers have 2 wounds each, with invulnerable saves, making vindicators kind of pointless against them. As jump infantry you will only get one shot off before they glance your tank to death.

 

Flamers work best with screamers, which will easily wreck your tanks even without the nasty flamer weapons!

Not if you deploy correctly.

 

You see, when 9 screamers deep strike, they create a ball about 3" wide (the width of 3 bases placed next to each other in a line, because they have to be bunched up in circles around the central model, as per deep strike rules). They also have to be at least 1" away from your models. So the unit has a 5" wide foot, the amount of space it MUST HAVE if it wants to deep strike. If it's less then that, they mishap.

 

So you can effectively space out your vehicles 4-5" from each other. Put your vindicators/land raider in the back, then 4-5" of empty space, then place a wall of rhinos. A flamer template is 8.5" long. A rhino is 3" wide and about 5" long. Add to that that the flamers have to be at least 1" away from your units.

 

In other words, even if they deep strike 1" in front of your rhinos (highly unlikely, as most players wont place their deep strikers so close for fear of mishap, and such a scatter isn't exactly reliable) vindicators are simply not going to be touched by their templates. In this situation, most daemon players will either deep strike their flamers far away from your lines and thus waste a turn of shooting, or they'll just go for your rhinos (either killing just rhinos or killing a rhino + a combat squad if they're smart), which is perfectly fine since in the next turn you will null zone and destroy/tie down the flamer units.

 

Don't forget you can only overwatch once per turn. So you can use sacrificial squads to assault and tie down big flamer units. For example, lets say you have a depleted combat squad nearby (2-3 marines), and a big killy HQ or a unit of assault marines or terminators. Roll assault dice first with the 3 men combat squad so the flamers have to overwatch them, then assault with the other unit and own them up close.

 

Hope this helps someone. Flamers are definitely overpowered right now, but they can be dealt with. The problem with them is that they hurt the game as a whole as they make many types of armies (bike armies, jump pack armies, deathwing, etc.) unviable in the tournament metagame, but that's a different story.

[Giga]

Also, you people need to understand that it's perfectly fine to lose your vindicators on turn 2 to a bunch of screamers, as long as you're properly trading units. If on turn 1 you're able to wipe out most of his flamers (which you can do by nullifying their alpha strike as I have explained in the previous post), and then the screamers kill your vindicators, the screamers will be nicely bunched up where the vindicators used to be, and you'll be able to pwn them with null zone and good old weight of fire (especially if your tacticals run with flamers/combiflamers like mine do).

 

EDIT: Also, don't forget to premeasure. Even though they're jump infantry, you can still place rhino walls in such a way that they simply can't reach your vehicles as they come across the table, giving you additional turns of shooting at their flamers/screamers while pwning them with null zone.

[*Furyou Miko]

Don't forget you can only overwatch once per turn. So you can use sacrificial squads to assault and tie down big flamer units. For example, lets say you have a depleted combat squad nearby (2-3 marines), and a big killy HQ or a unit of assault marines or terminators. Roll assault dice first with the 3 men combat squad so the flamers have to overwatch them, then assault with the other unit and own them up close.

 

They FAQ'd so that you have to declare your charges together then let the opponent decide who to Overwatch.

[Thor{DoH}]

Don't forget you can only overwatch once per turn. So you can use sacrificial squads to assault and tie down big flamer units. For example, lets say you have a depleted combat squad nearby (2-3 marines), and a big killy HQ or a unit of assault marines or terminators. Roll assault dice first with the 3 men combat squad so the flamers have to overwatch them, then assault with the other unit and own them up close.

 

They FAQ'd so that you have to declare your charges together then let the opponent decide who to Overwatch.

 

Where is this in the FAQ? I don't see that at all in there.

[Axagoras]

Don't forget you can only overwatch once per turn. So you can use sacrificial squads to assault and tie down big flamer units. For example, lets say you have a depleted combat squad nearby (2-3 marines), and a big killy HQ or a unit of assault marines or terminators. Roll assault dice first with the 3 men combat squad so the flamers have to overwatch them, then assault with the other unit and own them up close.

 

They FAQ'd so that you have to declare your charges together then let the opponent decide who to Overwatch.

 

Where is this in the FAQ? I don't see that at all in there.

I could of sworn I saw it somewhere but its not in there anymore.

[Giga]

First time I hear that. I'd appreciate if you could point me towards that FAQ.

[*Furyou Miko]

I could be wrong, I haven't checked the FAQ recently. It was there though.