The inclusion of the "flamer" template has been causing quite a bit of discussion, both here and on the Specialist site. I believe the main point of contention is how to deal with formations with multiple "flamer" weapons: overlap vs non-overlap, etc. Personally, I think the "flamer template" should've been included in the core rules originally, my thought that it should use the "Barrage Table", but as an "alternate shape" template with shorter range. Everything else would be just like current barrage use.
Currently, there's no way to have multiple flamer templates in the Tyranid list. Three units have a Bio-Plasma Breath weapon that uses this template: Dominatrix, Hydraphant, and Vituperator.
One alternate suggestion to flamer template use is using short range, 15cm, BP weapons to represent them. This gives essentially the same range of attack as the flamer template, uses established rules, and eliminates a special rule.
With the experimentat MW Barrage rules, a 2 BP weapon would give the same to-hit values as the current flamer weapon.
So, the discussion is, do people think we should stay with the flamer template or convert them over to barrage weapons? For the Dom and Hydra, this is an easy switch, but the Vituperator would need some other tweaking as it already has a non-MW barrage attack.
So, thoughts?
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