How do you work Flamers

[vineksamoth]

General question for you all - how do you work out flamers ?

Do you use them like '40K', and anything under the template gets an automatic hit (which makes them horribly effective weapons), or as a directly placed, non-deviating AE attack (hit means main target (closest or chosen ?) takes full damage, all others splash (-5) damage. If miss, all take splash damage)

Having issues with this system (worked out NN systems, which were bugging me - being used in a friends 'bug army' as the Brain Bug (commanders) attack mode), as it appears far to effective for its cost.

Your Thoughts, Gentlemen !

[pancake]

ok so this is a good question. not played with a flamer yet so could do with some light on this allso. most games have full damage with no splash damage, or cover save's because thats the nature of the weapon evil and deadly. Armour or no Armour your going to be BBQ.

[Idle Scholar]

I've played two games with a vehicle mounted flamer. The first we used, "touched = hit" and it was way too devastating so the second we used your suggestion vinksamouth and it felt far better.

[inrepose]

You are correct in noting that you have to roll to hit everything under the template.

[Idle Scholar]

So you roll to hit the target model, then place the template and hit anyone touched by it at -5 damage. Or you place the template and roll to hit everyone touched by it at full damage. Or some combination of the above.

My understanding of splash damage was that once the template had been placed, all models touched but not hit were auto hit at -5 damage. And further that you only rolled to hit a single target model, not a group.

[comstar]

You roll to hit every model under or touched by the template for full damage

Cheers Matt

[puddingwrestler]

This makes more intuitive sense when you stop thinking of 'guard' as how hard it is to hit something, as how good that something is at dodging. Naturally, you roll to hit everything with a flamer at full strength as you are basically seeing if anyone dodges out of the way, and any part of the flame is about as dangerous as any other part.
With a blast, the target will feel more wrath as it's hit with not only the explosion, but the impact of the shell or whatever, while those standing near by only get the effects of the explosion's blast, which is weaker the further it gets from the point of origin.