Dawn of War Codex

Not sure if this is a balance concern instead of general, but oh well.

I am pondering as to whether or not the GM flamer upgrade is, well, any of several things:

-Necessary
-Compositionally useful in the vast majority of cases
-Appropriate for the GM unit

Of course, they DO have an intended use. However, I am curious as to the usefulness of them. While it is true that they do allow for some pretty dirty damage vs things like Orks and Eldar, and that they allow the capitalisation of a (rare) bashing opportunity, getting into the range needed for them to use is definitely at the IG player's peril. They draw you out of position (you usually want a defensive line by your sent to repair it while holding ground etc) and, worse, they bring you close to enemy fire.

Furthermore, in tier 1 where IG is likely to be playing very defensively, Flamer GM make a terrible, terrible bashing unit. The flamer on tacs, for example, is useful in that is is clearly more capable of being used as an assault weapon so to speak. The SM player can make an offensive push with the flamer tacs, and, if successful in fighting through the enemy position, the Tacs can go on and bash. This is a rare occurrence for an IG army in any case as IG is probably 1) fighting for map control and 2) defending their gens. In addition to this, devastators can be put to use in more mobile support tasks due to the fact SM's general strategy is not all out defence/stay in the game through tier 1. Comparably, the HWT is 'restricted' to defensive positioning thanks to IG's (only) general strategy being a non-aggressive one. I use SM to compare but I propose similar comparisons can be made to all races, except potentially eldar.

Every IG player knows that, given the race's design, they need every unit at their disposal more often than not. One cannot simply (walk into mordor...) send flamer gm to sneak bash, nor can they send them to cap the rest of the map in the same way scouts or even sluggas can be sent. The IG player will STRUGGLE to hold off the enemy as it is, and this is, justifiably, at the expense of map control.

In addition, purchasing the flamer early removes on plasma upgrade from you army (which is probably 2 gm anyway). This SEVERELY reduces the IG army's effectiveness in tier 2, the plasma guns being one of the most staple upgrades in the game across all races IMO.

It doesn't make any sense to me that the flamer is on the GM unit. I get it in about 5-10% of games, and that is not because it is 'niche' as a lot of rare upgrades are. It is because it is, in most cases, useless, and only seldomly can ANY advantage be drawn out of purchasing it. Returning the notion that IG tier 1 relies on defensive tactics, often manifesting themselves with a sent and 2 gm repairing, a hwt suppressing, and catas behind for jump units, the flamer unit really has such a small, non-useful place that it doesn't belong. Think about it; why on Earth does the gm unit have a close range AoE weapon that exposes them to melee, grenades, and suppression, when most of the time they are sat back at as far range as possible. Given that it is pretty much doctrine belief that melee builds vs IG are a bad idea, why would you want to have flamers back waiting for a close assault which won't arrive. Sent stomp and hwt is the far better way to deal with melee. They might help vs the odd stormboy jump but that's what catas are for and the gm will probably be in melee anyway. Most melee units have flame resist IIRC (eg tics, sluggas, hormas) so they are hardly any kind of anti-melee capacity. And even in spite of that, why would you be getting melee rushed in the first place. Furthermore, Tacs, for instance, have functionality in that they can rush from cover and flame in-cover GM/shoota/DA squads, and earn an advantage via displacement and will be gaining ground. UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES can GM afford to leave cover and approach an in-cover enemy; they will be bled and forced to retreat in seconds, not to mention the fact that this has COMPLETELY undermined IG's defensive efforts as it has both ruined your positioning and lost you a much needed unit.

I will end on a closing statement: I think the very existence of the GM flamer upgrade needs reconsidering. It was in retail, sure, but retail is a joke. There are so few occasions where I would even think about buying flamers, and even fewer where I actually will. They are:

all-but-useless; unnecessary; completely discordant with IG strategy and meta; infinitely worse than plasma guns in most cases/not worth the cost over standard gm in the rest; and non-sensical style wise.

Hell, I would prefer an additional demo-man model with a flamer on catas to gm flamers. I dare dip my toe in the water that is the discussion of grenade launchers for gm... They make more sense compositionally, would be more useful firing from behind sents, would allow another means by which set up teams could be soft countered (without the need for spotters), and would actually be considerable vs Plasmas. However I want to make it clear I am not proposing Grenade launcher gm, just merely putting the idea forward for discussion.

Torpid, you're up

tl;dr?

Ven wrote:tl;dr?

GM flamers are not very useful. Ideas? Counterpoints?

Flamers (GM and others) do kick-ass damage to pretty much everything in T1 (Tics, Sluggas etc get absolutely freaking demolished) The problem being mostly the fact that it is more of a hindarance later on in the game for GM.

To be honest it would make a lot more sense giving flamers to catachans as an additional, say, 20 power upgrade.

1) Catachans are the best unit for going around solo and therefore they're the best capper, especially in t2 (since you no longer struggle so much vs suppression). Capping units are ones which you give flamers.

2) Catachans are already the go-to anti-garrison unit in T1 for IG due their IEDs+ol' unreliable. Makes sense to allow them more consistent anti-garrison capabilities.

3) Catachans already have under-average range on their weapons. The flamer would give them some FOTM which is nice - and that's why it costs 20 power while not really changing up the role of the unit too dramatically, it would still mainly be anti-melee (since really that's what the flamer is best vs due to its range).

And obviously catachans don't get any other upgrade come T2 which is nearly always better. I only ever get flamers vs bad players/tired players who let me gen-bash them in t1 or vs orks if I go triple GM. IG should never be gen-bashing in T1.

I honestly think giving flamers to catachans would be much better. The additional versatility it gives catachans is a buff too and I certainly wouldn't complain about a little buff to them.

The main problem about GM flamers (also, I spended like 7-8 minutes to remember what was GM mean, damm!) is, it becomes useless in lategames. Okay, I agree, it is amazing vs Sluggaz, Horms, even heretics maybe but, where firepower of the IG becomes needed, I mean lategames where everyone shooting eachother with fancy lazers, flamer guardsmen looks like '' Man, I didn't sing up for this... '' I mean, flamer is good but not as good as plasma guns.

Also, I agree with giving flamers to Devils. It is a good idea. Aren't they our anti-everything weapon? Well, let them counter more! The Olrialableee (you know what I mean) is just an ability, not a whole counter. Lets say I used it for Devs in a garrison. Okay, what than? It can keep firing at me, can't it? It is not a whole treat.

Maybe than we can argue about what should be GM's other weapon in T1 insted of flamers if we gave flamer to Devils. I can feel that you want granade launchers like in first DoW. Yesss you want it don't you?

I actually used flamer catas as just like an off the cuff idea but talking to torpid a bit it actually does make some sense.

And that's something else I forgot to mention; buildings. Extremely annoying for IG (probably more so than any race) because flamer upgrade is so undesirable.

I'm not TL;DRing this. If you want to include yourself in the discussion and be relevant then read it. If you cba, don't.

(Hehe, Grenade launchers XD)

If putting flamers on catachans are the prevalent idea, would they be exclusive with the melta upgrade in t2? If so, wouldn't we run into the same problem of people saying the flamer upgrade just isn't as good as the melta thus flamers are bad again? It sounds cool, but I'm not sure.

Maybe the simplest idea is to just allow guardsman to get plasma after flamers even if it does go against the design philosophy of the faction.

It would HAVE to be in addition to the melta upgrade. I think it's ok since cata versatility is what we're looking for and it doesn't affect the squad's function much at all.

I'd strongly disagree with giving catas flamers. All throughout retail, even before they were buffed to buttpoop insane levels, catas were designed and used as the no brainer go to option:

Anti melee
Anti garrison
T1 melee unit
High damage burst unit
Generalist support (smoke+IED's)

Why does one unit, in theory at least, fulfil so many roles? This speaks of bad army and unit design on Relic's part, since so many gaps in the IG T1 are forced into the single basket that is the catachan. Being a jack of all trades is fine, but you need a king of one trade to prevent no brainer choices (one which ELITE has tried to fulfil with the spotters).

To me the focus should be on making flamer GM work. Perhaps we can do something simple, like allowing flamer GM to weapon switch to plasma in T2 whilst adding a minor power premium on one or both upgrades. Maybe spotters can have a weaker Incendiary Shell in T1, with cost adjustments? Or maybe flamer GM should follow the precedence set by purgs, have increased range and do more damage up close?

Just a few thoughts to encourage people to be creative, but I'm really against giving all the best toys to those dirty jungle rats.

Flamers are by no means a best toy. Catas are a jack-of-all-trades unit but that doesn't make them OP. IG is designed in a way that requires catas as a JOAT unit and that works. Adding a flamer will give them stronger bashing and anti-garrison potential, which are two things they do already but not very well. It will also give them more AoE which is ok because, really, they aren't THAT good a unit atm. They can and are quite easily countered or at least controlled. If anything, I WANT more reasons to go for catas more. I mean, all the tier 1 units have very strong arguments for getting them, and HWT is probably equally desirable. All except spotters tbh but they can be 'niche' (I hate that word). I don't think they're no brainer. Now Sents, that is a no brainer unit...

Lol at retail catas...

I was not saying that they were OP, not in elite at least. I was actually disparaging their original design philosophy, which shouldn't be exacerbated any further by giving them more stuff to fill the IG T1 hole.

Seriously, they get infiltrate and a soft AV option in T2. You may argue that they're still balanced or even UP and I may even agree with you, but can you think of other units in the game which is so schizophrenic in both role and ability use?

It's as if Relic noticed the gaping holes in IG, realised "oh fuck, we have deadlines!" and decided to bung everything into a single unit. I bet you a year's supply of sweets and candy that they thought about giving catas jump packs at one point.

Catas should not be a band aid solution.