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Grey Hunters and Flamers


greendestiny

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I haven't played since 6th ed started.  I am wondering if it is worth using one of your special weapon slots on flamers? It looks much more like Grey Hunters ares sitting back and shooting. I am building 30 marines right now and need a little help on how to kit them out?

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it depends on what you want to do with your grey hunters and who you are facing. If you are drop podding your grey hunters and you are going to be facing a horde army i would recommend it, but if you are putting them in rhinos or foot slogging its iffy. 

the over watch benefit of flamers cannot be stated enough times...the auto d3 hits per flamer has made me rethink more than a few charges. I am equipping future GH packs with flamers to keep them well rounded.

 

WLK

Flamers are well-suited to defending against charges, eliminating massed infantry, and cover busting. I'd personally prefer a pair of plasma guns on my objective holders (Or, better yet, leave the job of defending my home objective to allied troops who actually want to sit in cover), but an extra 2d3 hits, combined with counter attack, does make charging a pretty dicy proposition for all but the most devastating close combat units. They're also useful if your metagame is fond of cover shenanigans, although the new markerlight rules are probably doing their part to keep those rarer.

 

Another possibility is giving their Wolf Guard pack leader a heavy flamer. It's the same price as the combi-weapon would be, but S5 AP4 makes it better on overwatch, and also means it does an excellent job at roasting Tau infantry.

This is really great information guys.  Thanks for answering my question.  What I am getting is that they still have their place but it is a little more toward the back of the line than front.  I can see having at least one of the squads with a flamer.

They can be useful, but Id rather back it up with a melta than a second flamer... if Id take dual flamers at all.

 

Why? Because bolters are already great at killing infantry, so why would I double up on that when I could add the flexibility that meltas or plasma offers for such a miniscule points investment?

 

If I really need to ignore cover Ive got drop podding dreads with heavy flamers and a whirlwind for that. Ill let my GHs do what they do best- remove enemy support units and scoring units from the board in a timely, efficient, and all around savage fashion.

Bolters miss and offer cover saves. Flamers are just straight up better if you can cover a lot of models twice. As I think about it, though, it's not a zero sum game. With dual flamers, not only do you get 16 bolter shots, but also all the hits from the flame templates. It's a win/win. 

It kinda looks like several of the up-and-coming competitive armies are going to use a fair bit of cover (eldar and tau, not to mention imperial guard who are still very very competitive). I wonder whether WG combi-flamer DP kill teams are going to be a tasty option.

 

A single flamer isn't really much of a game-changer, IMO. But a small unit with 5 combi-flamers, say, that can be podded... that's quite decisive.

 

The only issue is that shuriken catapults rip terminators a new one. Seriously. dual plasma grey hunters don't come remotely close to guardians. Not even close.

correct me if im mistaken, i dont know if theres a faq on this? Flamers are template weapons so

brb page 13 under snap shots "some weapon types, such as templates and ordnance, or those that have certain rules, such as blast, cannot be fired as snap shots.

brb page 21 last sentence of 3rd paragraph of resolve over watch "therefore, weapons and models that cannot fire snap shots cannot fire overwatch"

It kinda looks like several of the up-and-coming competitive armies are going to use a fair bit of cover (eldar and tau, not to mention imperial guard who are still very very competitive). I wonder whether WG combi-flamer DP kill teams are going to be a tasty option.

 

A single flamer isn't really much of a game-changer, IMO. But a small unit with 5 combi-flamers, say, that can be podded... that's quite decisive.

 

The only issue is that shuriken catapults rip terminators a new one. Seriously. dual plasma grey hunters don't come remotely close to guardians. Not even close.

Unless you know, youre 13" out, in wich case Guardians dont even matter, but GHs are still a threat.

 

Top that off with them being T3 and 5+ saves, weve still got quite the advantage.

But.... why would you do that? Why would you send terminators into that kind of situation.... and why would you waste them in combi-flamers of all things?

You could do that for alot cheaper with PA wolfguard, and if five of them wont wipe out a 20 man guardian squad you had no business being there anyways.

 

Besides wich, why drop pod into somethings weapon range when you can easily outrange it and pound it over a couple turns- or lob a few whirlwind shells at it tell it submits?

Suicide squads are only useful against high value targets, and gaurdians just are not high value anything.

A squad of 10 GHs with a pair of plasmaguns.... thats 16 bolter shots, call it 11 hits, and 8 wounds with no armor save. 4 Plasma shots should net us 3 more- more than a normal gaurdian squad runs with. If you have a warlock in there hes two wounds with a 4++, and assuming he got off his power, wich with LD 8 and runic weapons around is far from guaranteed, 1/3 guardians is likely to live.... in wich case we still killed 8 of them, wich makes them take a LD check or run off, never to return. If they stick around, assuming theyve lived were now down to 5 shurican shots- 4 from the catapults and 1 from the warlocks pistol. Since theyre mastery level 1 he has no offensive powers at all.... oooo he could remove shrouding from our unit that doesnt have it :) Scary. Those five shots have a very slim chance of ignoring any armor, most likely theyll do a single wound all things considered- in return for losing the entirety of the squad. If they are important enough the GHs can finish them off, otherwise let the drop pods combine some stormbolter fire on them to eradicate the survivors while our GHs do something important, like kill those warp spiders/scorpions/warwalkers/etc.

 

Guardians are only a threat if you let them be- and perhaps that is their biggest strength. Theyre just enough of a threat that you cant ignore them completely, but other things are going to be far more deadly to the Wolves.

 

Also, this is another reason to love drop pods.

Why did you assume I was talking about suicide squads? Yes, you could build a suicide squad with 5 PA wolf guard, but I agree that that's not wise. 5 terminators with combi-flamers will wipe out any low armour unit in cover, and will still be terminators. Not a suicide squad.

 

"Why would you send terminators into that kind of situation"... that's my point?

 

"why would you waste them in combi-flamers of all things?"... You'd have the combi flamers in your list to be able to neutralize priority targets that rely on cover saves. Against lists that lack priority targets with cover saves, you'd go for the next best thing. Combi-flamers are great against some kinds of targets. The point would be to have maybe one such unit, along with comparable plasma and melta units, in drop pods, and put the firepower where it's most needed in a tactical way.

 

Those calculations didn't address the point I was making - that guardians kill TERMINATORS (about 2x) better than rapid firing grey hunters with plasma kill TERMINATORS. Yes, 160 points of grey hunters obviously kills 90 points of guardians quite well, if they get the first shot (just as 20 guardians would tear up 5 grey hunters) But anyway, that's not what I was talking about?

 

I don't see how having a limitation to your threat levels (i.e. only being a threat if you leave em be) is a strength...?

Why did you assume I was talking about suicide squads? Yes, you could build a suicide squad with 5 PA wolf guard, but I agree that that's not wise. 5 terminators with combi-flamers will wipe out any low armour unit in cover, and will still be terminators. Not a suicide squad.

 

"Why would you send terminators into that kind of situation"... that's my point?

 

"why would you waste them in combi-flamers of all things?"... You'd have the combi flamers in your list to be able to neutralize priority targets that rely on cover saves. Against lists that lack priority targets with cover saves, you'd go for the next best thing. Combi-flamers are great against some kinds of targets. The point would be to have maybe one such unit, along with comparable plasma and melta units, in drop pods, and put the firepower where it's most needed in a tactical way.

 

Those calculations didn't address the point I was making - that guardians kill TERMINATORS (about 2x) better than rapid firing grey hunters with plasma kill TERMINATORS. Yes, 160 points of grey hunters obviously kills 90 points of guardians quite well, if they get the first shot (just as 20 guardians would tear up 5 grey hunters) But anyway, that's not what I was talking about?

 

I don't see how having a limitation to your threat levels (i.e. only being a threat if you leave em be) is a strength...?

Thats all well and good... except they dont kill terminators nearly as well as GHs at the same range would with a couple plasmaguns.

 

10 Guardians- the 90pt squad you decided to drop a 200pt unit on- get 20 shots, so call it about 14 hits, of wich we get 2 'rends' and 5 other wounds- call it two dead terminators after invulnerable and 2+ saves.

 

GHs on the other hand on average will get 3 wounds from plasma and 5-6 wounds from bolters, call it three dead terminators after invulnerable and 2+ saves. Give one of those GHs a plasma pistol, and were looking at a decent chance *ie just round up* of getting 4. Thats enough to match 20 Guardians.

 

Again- why are you sending the TDA at the guardians anyways? This is not a sound strategy in anything but the silliest of times anyways. If you are, even two flame templates should be enough to wipe them from the surface of the world out of hand.

You're comparing 10 guardians to 10 grey hunters with plasma? o_O

 

Where did I say I'd consider fielding combi flamer terminators specifically to kill minimum size, unupgraded units of guardians? My whole point since the beginning has been that the value of such units has gone up as less armoured, more cover-dependent armies have had a resurgence. It wasn't specifically about guardians. In fact, I specifically said in my first post that shuriken catapults make such a strategy (in fact, they make fielding terminators of any stripe at all) less appealing.

 

Look, the calculation regarding grey hunters vs guardians isn't very difficult.

 

For 160 points, you get 10 grey hunters with 2 plasma guns. You'll cause 8*2*(2/3)*(1/2)*(1/6) + 2*2*(2/3)*(5/6)*(2/3) = 192/81 kill (about 2.5).

 

Those points would get you almost a full squad of guardians (17 7/9) which will cause (17 7/9)*2*(2/3)*((1/3)*(1/6)+(1/6)*(2/3)) = 320/81 (about 4).

 

Within rapid fire range, 160 points worth of guardians will definitely kill more terminators than a 160 point grey hunter unit with 2 plasma guns. It kills 67% more, for the same points spent.

 

We can debate other issues such as whether those guardians will ever successfully get within 12", but for the points, guardians are fairly deadly against terminators (considering that they aren't exactly specialized for this role). They're substantially better than dual plas grey hunter units (who themselves aren't exactly terrible).

 

The debate is relatively null and void, though, given that upon reconsideration I suspect heavy flamer land speeders probably do this a little better, and that guardian jetbikes are much better than guardians.

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