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Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Unit of the Week: Flamers of Tzeentch


Daemons recently received a White Dwarf update that took Flamers of Tzeentch from being a solid choice to an amazing choice. What we saw changed was that they now have a character upgrade for five points making you able to pick out shots and los! and they also had a few of their stats changed. Their 4++ became a 5++ in exchange for an extra wound. They even got their initiative boosted to 4! Best of all they went from 35 points a model to only 23.

Now that we've covered what isn't in the hard print codex, lets get down to what is. Every one of these monsters comes equipped with two ranged weapons. One is a template attack called Breath of Chaos that ignores armor/cover and both wounds and glances vehicles on a 4+, and the other is Warpfire, a S4 AP4 assualt 3 ranged weapon. Not only can you blast anything off the field at close range, you can force a massive amount of saves from an effective range of 30" (18" for the ranged weapon and 12" for jump infantry) making them ideal for ripping apart high armor value targets.

The best way I've found to use Flamers is to deep strike them near a critical location on my first wave of my Daemonic Assault. If possible, I go for a high armor, high points cost unit like terminators or broadsides so that I can make my points back very quickly. It's also a good idea to try and make sure if you scatter too far from the target you can release your volley on another target that is vulnerable to your AP4 Warpfire so that you are getting some good use out of the unit no matter what the Dark Gods decide for you.

My unit size usually consists of eight Flamers, but I've also had success with two units of five both upgraded with the Pyrocaster upgrade. Eight is resilient enough against the fire you will surely attract from anyone that knows what is coming their way, but five does a job of splitting their fire so they can't focus them down as easily. The fun reality of the unit is that as long as one of them lives you can still do some serious damage.

It is a pretty big shame that we lost our 4++, but we did gain something we never had in 5th edition, overwatch. Any unit charging Flamers is making a poor decision. Each of them are equipped with a template weapon that will disintegrate anything charging their way. The shame is that once an enemy unit makes it past the wall of flames, they will destroy the Flamers in CC.

With Flamers of Tzeentch you get a nuke that you can place anywhere on the table at any time when you need it. There is almost no job that they can't get done. Have any of you had the pleasure of using this terrifying unit? Or have I convinced you to work them into your current list? Let us know in the comments!

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