Revelations: Of the Heavy Flamer Variety

[Panzer]

Well lets agree to disagree then. All I read and experienced points towards flamer being great if you use them properly with you two being the excpetion. ^^

[Are Verlo]

I have found heavy flamers to be excellent. BUT my local meta is very terrainn heavy. We cover large parts of the table with walls, runins, jungles, hills and the list goes on.

The fighting is always up close and personal and favours commanders willing to move their men :-P

 

Im 7th the high density of the terrain kept some of us from using regular vehicles (other than skimmers) but now in 8th ed all kinds of models get to see action. And as such I have to recomend heavy flamers when using "enough" terrain. Both my BA and IG use heavy flamers to great effect (and get flamed by the same weapons)

 

If your battlefield is a wide open plain I can see that flamers get replaced by weapons with longer range....

 

Edit: I have a game planned tomorrow and I´ll see if I can manage to get some photos of the terrain we normally use. It would be of great interest to me if I could see your terrain as well. If you show me yours, I´ll show you mine ;-P

Edited August 24, 2017 by Are Verlo

[The Unseen]

If your playing on a board where most of the board can't see most of the board, I could see flamers getting some use.

 

But that isn't the norm in most places.

"Standard" is still 1 large los blocking chunk near the middle, and a few smaller ones scattered about, along with some low area terrain.

 

Especially at even local tournaments as people and stores don't keep enough terrain to blanket 6+ tables in dense los blocking terrain.

 

Obviously not playing on planet bowling ball, but finding spots to sit long ranged shooty units with good fields of fire shouldn't be very hard. And if your boards are that dense, I'm not going to tell you you're wrong, but I am going to tell you that isn't the norm.

 

If your constantly playing city fights, heavy flamers are better than heavy bolters.

If your playing on a barren field, obviously the bolters win out.

With a mixed board, you probably want the bolters in general. Long ranged support for marines isn't easy to come by, and is almost excusively in the heavy support section.

 

I personally hate D3 and D6 shot weapons, as they just add another point of failure into an already 3 step process, hit, wound, save.

Flamers at least among the randomized shot weapons auto hit, so their back to 3 rolls to determine success.

But I haven't been impressed with them.

 

I would like to try speeders with HFs though, their fast enough to make use of them, along with fly to back out, so I can see the value as interceptions units.

 

But if you want a close ranged dev squad, I would recommend grav cannons well before HFs.

[Aothaine]

From all the games and number crunching I have done Heavy Flamers are really good. I don't mean to dismiss anyone's arguments against them though because they are valid reasons to be wary of Heavy Flamer Devs. But the goal of the Healf Flamer devs is to be the unit people underestimate or ignore becuase there ware bigger threats on the table. Ex. Two Storm Ravens.

 

I am thinking about rocking two Storm Ravens kitted out for anti-tank that then drop two squads of heavy flamers with a librarian dreadnought each as the main part of the alpha strike then rocking maybe 1-2 assault terminator squads TH+SS. 

 

I also have a Alpha strike list that puts the devs in razorbacks and uses militarum tempestus plasma spam to hit on the flanks and rush in to the front with the heavy flamers and razorbacks.

 

Every list has weaknesses and Dark Eldar and Eldar are going to be tough matches for a list that uses Heavy Flamer Devs. But you have to remember if any of those heavy flamers get in range it the Eldar units will be lucky to survive even one round of shooting from one squad of heavy flamer devs. As sfPanzer pointed out, auto-hitting in 8th edition is really really good. 

 

Another thing to point out is the cost of the unit.

 

Dev Squad (5 Marines) - 144 points

• Heavy Flamer x4
• Power Sword + Storm Bolter (Or Combi-flamer +5 points over the PS+SB combo)
• Cherub

 

 

These guys are not that expensive for what they can do. So load them up in storm ravens to drop them in enemy lines. Or Razorbacks with Assault Cannons or even just Rhinos if you want to go on the cheap end and just load up 

 

I think the main argument that I would make here is that every unit in the army is a cog in part of the clockwork that makes your list work. If you are not supporting the Heavy Flamer squads with units that will help draw fire from them you will be in trouble for sure. But Heavy Flamer dev squads can easily be a nightmare for your opponent to deal with if you build your lists around these units.

[Riot Earp]

I fielded already this setup in an assback. Will try this loadout in an flamerback for full bbq flavor @ tuesday vs. Csm :)

[Aothaine]

I fielded already this setup in an assback. Will try this loadout in an flamerback for full bbq flavor @ tuesday vs. Csm

 

Really looking forward to the batrep. I'm still trying to debate assbacks v stormravens.

[Crimson Ghost IX]

FIAR !!

 

Generally, I slightly prefer Razors/Rhinos over the Stormraven myself unless... I am looking to be delivering the Dreads. (Also can be fiery)

 

I would note terrain density can be a bit of an issue for Razorspam too.

 

Points go fast, but it doesn't have to be either / or... Why not some of both? (Which kinda leans back to the advancing Rhinos part I suppose).

 

Support what you are taking and take what you can support. =)

Like you said Aothaine cogs in the clockwork. Well said.

[Morticon]

A few things to consider when discussing relative value and strengths of weapons;

 

Firstly the weapon works in relation to the rest of the list/army.  Its all about synergy. 

Secondly, and possibly more importantly, local area meta differs heavily.  What works in our environment and against players we face may not work in the same environment as other posters. 

I was running utility Devs before.  They had at least one heavy flamer in each squad to help with overwatch and other things.  For me, it wasn't bad, but I found straight up rerolls and long range, high S, high AP weapons were more reliable.  

[Chaplain Gunzhard]

Well I'm bring a lot of Heavy Flamers today... no Dev's but a HF razorback, 3 dual-HF Landspeeders and a Tactical squad with HF... going against a tough Emperor's Children list.

[NTaW]

A few things to consider when discussing relative value and strengths of weapons;

 

Firstly the weapon works in relation to the rest of the list/army. Its all about synergy.

 

Secondly, and possibly more importantly, local area meta differs heavily. What works in our environment and against players we face may not work in the same environment as other posters.

 

I was running utility Devs before. They had at least one heavy flamer in each squad to help with overwatch and other things. For me, it wasn't bad, but I found straight up rerolls and long range, high S, high AP weapons were more reliable.

Great comment.

 

I would add that terrain is important to consider. All the previous editions of 40k had partial cover options, with 8th everyone (on the recommendation of GW) should be playing with far more straight up LoS blocking stuff. If you're playing on tables designed for 7th you'll be hard pressed to cross the table with a close range army/weapon, but if you have a ton of LoS blocking terrain a la 8th it will be considerably easier to close in without losing every model you have.

[Chaplain Gunzhard]

 

A few things to consider when discussing relative value and strengths of weapons;

 

Firstly the weapon works in relation to the rest of the list/army. Its all about synergy.

 

Secondly, and possibly more importantly, local area meta differs heavily. What works in our environment and against players we face may not work in the same environment as other posters.

 

I was running utility Devs before. They had at least one heavy flamer in each squad to help with overwatch and other things. For me, it wasn't bad, but I found straight up rerolls and long range, high S, high AP weapons were more reliable.

Great comment.

 

I would add that terrain is important to consider. All the previous editions of 40k had partial cover options, with 8th everyone (on the recommendation of GW) should be playing with far more straight up LoS blocking stuff. If you're playing on tables designed for 7th you'll be hard pressed to cross the table with a close range army/weapon, but if you have a ton of LoS blocking terrain a la 8th it will be considerably easier to close in without losing every model you have.

I gotta say though - Intervening cover isn't a thing anymore, cover in general is much more difficult to get, which is huge regarding "templates". Further while more LOS blocking stuff might allow you to get your HF's where they need to be, it also gives your opponent more opportunities to Assault without LOS, totally negating your over-watch.

 

We usually play at my house with LOTS of terrain. Anyway hopefully my Heavy Flamers do well today, foiling my pessimism. I'll report back later with some pics of the table.

Edited August 26, 2017 by Chaplain Gunzhard

[Aothaine]

Sounds good! Thank you!

[Dont-Be-Haten]

A few things to consider when discussing relative value and strengths of weapons;

 

Firstly the weapon works in relation to the rest of the list/army.  Its all about synergy. 

 

Secondly, and possibly more importantly, local area meta differs heavily.  What works in our environment and against players we face may not work in the same environment as other posters. 

 

I was running utility Devs before.  They had at least one heavy flamer in each squad to help with overwatch and other things.  For me, it wasn't bad, but I found straight up rerolls and long range, high S, high AP weapons were more reliable.  

This is part of my reasoning behind preferring a Multi-Melta Squad in a drop pod over a Heavy Flamer Squad. I need the unit to be safe for a turn so I can drop down and position where I need to and take out the scary stuff. Having a priest on hand with some extra bodies makes it a more important unit than a 4 man squad with heavy flamers.

 

It also keeps them safe from the Alpha Strike, and they can actually do something turn 1. On average unless your opponent just feeds you units, ranged devastators are going to viable from turn 1 forward; where a heavy flamer usually isn't viable until turn 2/3 realistically. So even with it being a relatively inexpensive unit. That's 150ish points that's doing nothing for an entire turn other than possibly moving. 

 

Nothing wrong with that obviously! It also depends on what detachments you look at taking. If you're strapped for heavy unit slots, then ranged heavy slots are more important than using a traditional long range unit as a short range that puts out a ton of hurt. 

[Chaplain Gunzhard]

Hah well I got smoked - definitely can't blame the Heavy Flamers, but I'll get to them and why I still don't like them.

 

Here is my list:

Battalion:

Chaplain in Terminator Armour (warlord - 6++ FnP warlord trait)

Corbulo

Captain with plasma pistol and power sword

-

Terminator Assault Squad (6man) - 5LC and sergeant with TH&SS

-

Scout assault squad (10man) - 9 combat blades and sergeant with power sword

Scout Sniper squad (10man) - 10 sniper rifles and camo cloaks

Tactical squad (5man) - HF and sergeant with power sword

-

Razorback with twin-HF

-

Land Raider Crusader fully loaded

 

Outrider:

Sanguinary Priest on Bike

-

Scout Biker squad (5man) - 3 Ast-Gren-Launchers and sergeant with combi-Grav

Land Speeder - 2 HF

Land Speeder - 2 HF

Land Speeder - 2 HF

 

2000points

 

His list

Lucius the Eternal

Sorcerer character

 

2 big Havok squads all with Autocannons

3 CSM with meltaguns

2 units of 2 chaos spawns

3 rhinos with 2 combi

2 or 3 units of Noise marines

1 unit of warp talons

 

just a lot of 3+ bodies basically with the new special rules

 

Reasons for losing, in a nutshell, too many eggs in one basket. Lucius the Eternal killed the entire Terminator squad in one round, several before he even started attacking. Also against all odds, for the first 2 turns my LR Crusader failed to make a single wound! - then it was assaulted and essentially neutralized for a turn.

 

The EC rules are pretty slick, shooting after death is nice and the exploding 6's really add up too. He focused soo much shooting at my sniper scouts, which was a plus - but they failed to really hit anything. The scout bikes died turn 1 from Autocannon Havoks. The SP on the bike kept healing himself and stayed in a fight against 2 units for the entire game pretty much.

 

In the end I had too few units to take/hold objectives and he still had tons of bodies... Ok soooo On Topic [Heavy Flamers] here:

 

First the Land Speeders with 2HF were a standout, and now to be a regular in my list. His Warp Talons assaulted out of DS so I was out of range for overwatch, even though they have a rule stopping it anyway - but being able to move out of combat and roast was pretty awesome. They are actually pretty decent in assault as compared to other vehicles too, I was surprised to see they hit on 3+. He assaulted another speeder and paid dearly in overwatch and the 3rd from behind the fuel tank so I had no LOS and avoided overwatch... still in all 3 cases I was able to move out and roast - pretty cool! ...this also let me setup other shooting, like from the tw-HF razor and tactical HF.

 

All my HF got to make some wounds, but only the Speeders were consistently a threat (because of Fly). Look at this scene (please excuse the proxy weapons on the speeders and unpainted LR - I don't use these units often):

 

This should be a Flamer "templates" dream right? --- but it's not - because they are all separate units and the HF can only 'auto-hit' one unit, whereas in all previous editions the Template would have shredded that mob, including the characters!

 

Further I keep forgetting the Flamers don't actually 'ignore cover' anymore, though that's less an issue given how cover works now. The 8" range kept me pushing forward, hoping to grab his objectives instead of camping on my own, while his Autocannon havoks sat in the shade wrecking my army from afar.

 

Anyway it was one game, and it was poor play, poor rolling and an unbalanced list that cost me the win... yet I still don't think HF on infantry is remotely worth it, nor on the Razorback for that matter.

[brother_b]

Thanks for the report. Nice looking battlefield and minis you have there. I'm not surprised about the flamer as much as I'm surprised about how bad ass Lucius was! Wow. 

[Chaplain Gunzhard]

Thanks for the report. Nice looking battlefield and minis you have there. I'm not surprised about the flamer as much as I'm surprised about how bad ass Lucius was! Wow.

Lucius is entirely insane... whenever he makes a successful save he causes your unit a mortal wound, whenever he takes a wound he gets an attack, his lash is assault 2 2-damage and works within 1" like a pistol, he shredded me before he even technically started fighting; and exploding 6's and this and that, ugh. Granted he should be easy to shoot if not for the character rules... but wow, he gave me that 7th edition Eldar "everything you do feels like cheating" feeling.

 

He's also only 115points, I realize I'm talking apples and oranges but it makes me feel that much worse about our CC monster dreadnoughts that aren't half that good. And it had me longing for the old style templates since I couldn't touch him in that mob with any shooting.

Edited August 27, 2017 by Chaplain Gunzhard

[Silas7]

Sounds like he was afraid of your snipers picking off Lucius, as you pointed out it had a psychological effect on your opponent. You might want to think about why it affected him so much and how you can exploit that next battle. Maybe I'm looking into things too much and he just didn't have anything else to shoot at. Really wish speeders could still move shoot without and penalty but that just makes HF on them worth a little more consideration.

[Chaplain Gunzhard]

Sounds like he was afraid of your snipers picking off Lucius, as you pointed out it had a psychological effect on your opponent. You might want to think about why it affected him so much and how you can exploit that next battle. Maybe I'm looking into things too much and he just didn't have anything else to shoot at. Really wish speeders could still move shoot without and penalty but that just makes HF on them worth a little more consideration.

It's a fair point, he did well keeping Lucius out of LOS to the snipers but they targeted (and missed rerpeatedly) his sorcerer, but my army was small to begin with. I can't overstate how ridiculous Lucius is in CC though ugh.

 

The speeders with 2HF were pure win. Even though he was able to avoid overwatch twice, they still did solid work. They're locked in my lists for a while now.

 

EC have a ton of great rules atm. 'Striking first' had the least impact in that game but the exploding 6's and shooting after death were huge, oh and did I mention Lucius?

[Aothaine]

 

The speeders with 2HF were pure win. Even though he was able to avoid overwatch twice, they still did solid work. They're locked in my lists for a while now.

 

Thanks a bunch for the report! It had not crossed my mind to use 2HF Land Speeders. Well, people saying that flyers will run away from you can't say that anymore. Speeds can usually keep up with flyers. Going to have to fiddle with some things. Might be making my second detachment a Flaming Speeder detachment which will allow me to toss in two priests with my librarians.... Ohhhh! I'm excited!

 

Four 5-man dev squads with heavy flamers two librarians and two priests in storm ravens with a DC furioso. 

Then fill the rest of the list with dual heavy flamer speeders. 

 

Let the clensing begin

Edited August 30, 2017 by Aothaine

[Spagunk]

I'm just gonna wait till the codex gets out. Initially I had planned to have my heavy flamers in my sternguard (7th edition dream) but I'm rapidly losing interest in that idea. Really itching to use the flamers for a firedev squad so finding out if we keep them would be real handy.

[Aothaine]

Part of me wants to wait too.. But removing the Heavy Flamer Dev squad from Blood Angels would be really drastic. The Plague Marines kept their 5+ FNP and 5 Toughness. I am pretty sure that Blood Angels will be able to rock the Flame Brigade. 

[TheHarrower]

Definitely going to try the 2 Heavy Flamers Speeders. I haven't used Flamers at all yet, but my opponents have and they seem fairly solid. For ultimate crazy, you can stick 2 Dev Squads in a Rhino with 8 Heavy Flamers and 2 Combi-Flamers. Not sure how well that would work, but that would certainly handle mob spam.

[Indefragable]

Re: Lucius:

 

Damn!

 

 

3x dual-HF speeders in a single unit (for 20" move) is steadily becoming the meta at my club.

[Aothaine]

Re: Lucius:

 

Damn!

 

 

3x dual-HF speeders in a single unit (for 20" move) is steadily becoming the meta at my club.

 

People are indeed starting to catch on. I remember calling Heavy Flamers back when I saw the T'au crisis suits could have three of them each. They have fly/T5/W3/3+ save. They are crazy good. But, for now, Blood Angels can do similar things. The dual-HF speeders have amazing potential and are a bit sturdier than the crisis suits but cost a bit more. I should have caught onto this sooner.

 

 

Definitely going to try the 2 Heavy Flamers Speeders. I haven't used Flamers at all yet, but my opponents have and they seem fairly solid. For ultimate crazy, you can stick 2 Dev Squads in a Rhino with 8 Heavy Flamers and 2 Combi-Flamers. Not sure how well that would work, but that would certainly handle mob spam.

 

Do this. But put them in a Storm Raven. You then have three more spots for a priest, librarian and dreadnought.

Edited August 30, 2017 by Aothaine

[Riot Earp]

Spagunk. One hf for overwatch would not be bad but you want that special issue ammo on that vets so I won't exchange to much.