An overview of the Chaos Daemons loyal to The Lord of Decay: Nurgle! Read on my intrepid friends. Check the Tactics Corner for more great articles.
“Commander.” Scout Telmarious said to Commander Abeo, leader of the local garrison stationed at Helmanus IV. Telmarious was the far forward insertion force of his Salamander chapter, sent to clear the way for his stalwart brothers. Readings of fluctuations in the warp in this area of the galaxy warned of a potential incursion, and Telmarious was sent to sniff out the area.
Commander Abeo briefly glanced up from his massive gleaming metal desk. It was neat and tidy, with only a few adornments. “At ease.” Abeo hissed.
“We’ve been sent to prepare the area for our upcoming forces.” Telmarious said sternly.
“I know why you are here.” Abeo said. He reached into a desk drawer and pulled forth a large cluster of crystals, the brightest blue Telmarious had seen. “What do you make of this?”
Telmarious was drawn to it. It shimmered and gleamed in the light. “What is it?” Telmarious asked.
“It was pulled from a cavern beneath the Hive City. There are many more where this came from, but they only appeared when the warp fluctuations started.” Abeo stated. “Something is foul.”
Foul indeed, but Telmarious could not resist reaching out to the crystal.
Power, Life, Change. It spoke to him. SPOKE to him.
As Telmarious touched the crystal there was a flash of light, and he found himself inside the crystal. Locked in a prison of his own making. He tried to pull his pistol to blast his way out but he found he could not move.
Abeo leaned closer to the crystal, in each facet was the face of another victim, with each victim his power grew. Abeo smiled a toothy grin. “Soon.” He purred, “Soon I will make my offering.”
All Telmarious could do was scream.
Who is Tzeentch
Tzeentch is the master of schemes amongst the chaos gods, sometimes creating new schemes just for the sake of it. He is the puppet master with strings all across the 40k universe, pulling on heartstrings and wooing those seeking knowledge, power, and magic. He is the king of all that is sorcery, and ever changing entity who’s plans change as much as those who enter the warp.
Faction Strengths
Tzeentch units boast one of the best natural invulnerable saves in the game, with most having a 4++ natural save. With some luck, that can ruin an opponents day. Combine that with the +1 generic save stratagem and you can have large blocks of units or big baddies with a 3++ save.
Tzeentch also has some of the best shooting amongst the Chaos Daemon pantheon. A 30 man unit of Pink Horrors, with the right buffs in place, can put out 90 shots at strength 4-5 (with Boon of Change), and can have +1 to wound as well. That can devastate a lot of units on the field today. They also have a fantastic unit with their Flamers of Tzeentch who have a 12” pistol flamer. So you can deep strike in and still shoot d6 shots at -1 AP and also shoot them in close combat if needed. Fantastic! With the Flickering Flames power I was able to do 21 wounds to a Crimson Hunter and took it down in one volley. Lucky sure, but that is the nature of Tzeentch.
Tzeentch also has some great psychic powers with Gaze of Fate that gives you a reroll once in your turn, basically a free command point. You also have Flickering Flames for +1 to wound, which can be huge, turning a perhaps lackluster attack into a devastating one. Bolt of Change, while harder to get off, can really put on the hurt as it allows you to pick any unit within 18” for D3 mortal wounds. Great to snipe off a wounded character. Infernal Gateway is also harder to get off, but can be quite damaging when put into the right unit. Last Treason of Tzeentch is super funny and could really ruin an opponents day when you take over their character and charge into their unit, killing them with their own models. Just imagine taking over a beefy character and smashing their screen unit.
Faction Weaknesses
Since Tzeentch is the god of fate, it is only natural that there is a lot of luck in the Tzeentch codex. They have a lot of random elements and if you know anything, you know that random is something you can’t count on and therefore isn’t highly competitive. Their loci, while interesting, is very random as well. In the fight phase you roll 2D6 and discard the highest. What is remaining becomes misses when rolled by the other player. Hopefully you roll a 3 and a 4, one of the average rolls on 2D6, so their 3’s miss in combat. Like I said, very random. Their main Horror standard is also super random needing 6’s on 9 dice to cause a mortal wound. Might be tons, might be nothing, all for one CP. Their psychic powers have a higher casting rating, making them more difficult, and therefore unlikely to get off. You also have a great relic in the Impossible Robe, giving you a 4+ invul save (taking you to 3+ with Ephemeral Form) and allows you to reroll one roll, but if you roll a 1, wearer is slain. Fickle Tzeentch.
Another weakness is their general low toughness. This makes weight of fire, even from things like bolters, very damaging to your forces. A 4+ invul only goes so far against large pools of wounds. Put your +1 invul on key units to keep them in game as long as possible, and don’t forget to take morale tests on ones that even autopass as you may get that 1 to bring back slain models.
Another big weakness for Tzeentch is their lack of close combat prowess. Most of your units are only hitting on 4’s, and only have a few attacks, making them not the best units to charge with. If you get locked in combat, you can see your units flash away from moral tests left and right due to casualties and you won’t be able to do a ton back.
Key Units
- Fluxmaster/Changecaster – These will be the core of most of your HQ units as they have the all needed +1 to strength to all Tzeentch units within 6”. This is the key to getting your Horrors up to a good base strength as their shooting attack is based of the units strength. They also have access to some great powers as well. I like to have one Changecaster in the back with Gaze of Fate and a Fluxmaster deep striking in with flamers to be able to get in place. Don’t forget about their 5pt Staff of Change, which increases their smite range by 6”. Very nice.
- Daemon Prince – The Daemon Prince is a great overall unit that will give a lot of benefit to your forces. Rerolls to 1 to hit are fantastic for your large blocks of Horrors. Not to mention with Maelific Talons they get 7 attacks at AP2 and 2 damage each!
- Pink Horrors – Pink Horrors are a great core unit with their 4++ save and good shooting attack. They have lots of ways to buff them with Heralds and psychic powers so watch out for big blocks of them.
- Flamers – This is my favorite Tzeentch unit. 4++ save and their pistol flamers are fantastic weapons. Great in overwatch, great in close combat as they get to use them in your shooting pahse. Since they fly, they can also fall back and then shoot. They are a great deep striking unit in blocks of 6 as that is 6D6 shots you can dish out on a unit. At toughness 4 that is typically 10-11 AP -1 wounds on a unit. More if you have a Herald and Flickering Flames in play. Another great role they can take is that of a screen. If you are facing an assault heavy army, put them in front and force your opponent to charge them, eating up all those flamer shots. Great unit!
- Exalted Flamers – While a bit spendy, the Exalted Flamer in this form or on the Burning Chariot is your main way of getting a lascannon type shot with mono Tzeentch. In this form, being a character, you can hide them in a flamer unit and deep strike in together, laying waste to their target unit. Their flamer shot is also better, being strength 5 and AP -2.
- Screamers – This is your main close combat unit and one that can impact flyers. They have a great power in flying over units and causing mortal wounds and their close combat attack is no joke. Each one gets 3 attacks with a strength 6 AP -3 and 2 damage each. Pretty beefy.
Stratagems
- Blasted Standard – Gives you a one shot ability where you pick a the closest visible unit within 9” and roll 9 dice, each 6 is a mortal wound. Very random.
- Magical Boon – Allows you to cast one extra power. Great for smiting off that last wound then casting Flickering Flames on your unit to get the best of both worlds.
- Locus of Conjuration – Allows rerolls of psychic tests within 6” of a character. You are going to probably need to plan a list on this, loaded up with characters.
Warlord Traits
- Born of Sorcery – Adds 1 to the first psychic cast you make. Not bad. Gives you a decent chance to get off those 8 powers. This should give you about a 70% success rate.
- Incorporeal Form – Reduce all damage by 1 to a minimum of 1. Pretty good for a Lord of Change.
- Warp Tether – Reroll morale within 9”. Not too bad if you are fishing for 1’s.
- Lorekeeper of Tzeentch – Add 6” to the first power you cast. Good for those buffs you want/need to get off. Gives you more flexibility in placement.
- Tyrant of the Warp – 2+ vs Perils. I think there are better traits, but nothing is worse to losing your warlord on a perils. You also have other avenues like spending CP’s to reroll a die, or Gaze of Fate to reroll one of those psychic dice.
- Daemonspark – Reroll 1’s within 9”. A better version of the Daemon Prince power and one of my favorites.
Relics
- The Endless Grimoire –You know one more power from Tzeentch. I think there are better relics, but if you build a plan around the psychic phase you may want this.
- Soul Bane – It has a great ability, Invul Saves cannot be taken against this weapon and is AP -5! Unfortunately it is on a Tzeentch Herald so your attacks are pretty minimal.
- The Impossible Robe – Great for when you want that 3+ on a character. Gives a 4+ and Ephemeral Form bumps it to 3. Also gives you one reroll. This is a great relic that can keep you alive for quite some time.
- The Everstave – +1 to Smite. Again, there are better relics, but if you have a smite spam strategy this could come in handy.
Psychic Powers
- Boon of Change – Another randomness. Goes off on a 7 and you roll d3 to get either +1 attack, +1 strength, or +1 toughness. I have it as a backup power and fish for that +1 strength.
- Bolt of Change – A great supercharged smite, but you need an 8 to pull it off. Does d3 to any unit within 18”
- Gaze of Fate – Reroll any 1 die later in the turn. Basically a free CP each turn! Very nice.
- Treason of Tzeentch – You pick a character and roll 2d6. If you beat their leadership, you take them over and use them as yours in the shooting and charge phases. Its randomness is its downfall as you need to beat a characters leadership, and most are 10.
- Flickering Flames – +1 to wound for any shooting weapon. So good! This really ups the damage your flamer and horror units can do. Must have.
- Infernal Gateway – Pick a model within 12”. Every unit within 3” takes d3 mortal wounds and d6 if 12+ is rolled for the casting. Situational and random but could really hurt a parking lot.
Tactics
Tzeentch have a lot of tools in their chest. Psychic heavy powers, good overall shooting, strong invul saves, and solid support charcters make Tzeentch a force to be reckoned with. You should be able to make a halfway decent list with just Tzeentch models. Horrors for core shooting. Brimstones or Blues for cheap screening. Flamers for purging, Exalted or Chariots for your anti tank, and Screamers for fast objective scoring, backfield assaulters, and flyer support.
You will want a fair amount of command points for the +1 invul save strat, as it is only good for each phase you will often need to use it in both the shooting and assault phases. You will also need to work on keeping your key units out of assault as even with the Loci, that is your big weakness.
Due to the size limitations for your core units, ITC secondaries like the Reaper will be easier for your opponent to get so just keep that in mind. I’m looking at Tzeentch for my next big daemon push as they seem very fun and have some good tools in many situations.
Potential List
Tzeentch Brigade
- Daemon Prince – Maelific Talons
- Fluxmaster
- Changecaster
- 30 Pink Horrors – Icon/Instrment
- 30 Pink Horrors – Icon Instrument
- 10 Brimstones
- 10 Brimstones
- 10 Brimstones
- 10 Brimstones
- 6 Flamers
- 6 Flamers
- 6 Flamers
- 5 Furies
- 3 Screamers
- 3 Screamers
- Burning Chariot
- Burning Chariot
- Burning Chariot
While this was accused as looking like a 7th edition list, I was surprised at how much it could put out in the shooting phase and how much it could withstand in return. Everything has a 4+ and I was often giving +1 invul in multiple phases with 12cp to work with. I was also able deep strike a lot of units, doing so with all the flamer units and one Herald. You need to do this with the burning chariots as they are not characters and are easily able to be picked off. Massive flamers ahoy! It was a lot of fun and was doing a lot of work against a typical Reaper/Guardian/Flyer heavy list.
Conclusion
Tzeentch has a lot going for them in my opinion and has a decent amount of tools to work as a mono god. I don’t care for the larger daemons as like with most armies, generals are bringing many tools to take care of such beasts. It only takes a few lascannon shots to bring your massive Lord of Change low. I really like the core units and feel you can build a pretty successful list that focuses on burning screens out and getting to the soft meaty bits.
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Tzeentch was my Primary army. I have over 10,000pts of Pure Tzeentch, fully painted. I love them.
The codex was a massive swing and a miss for me for them. Tzeentch is the god of change, fate, all words of psychic shenanigans. This book, unfortunately, gave them a functionally useless daemonic loci considering, as you point out, they’re useless in close combat.
I see no reason, especially after seeing Thousand Sons, why they have LESS psychic powers than either Eldar or Tsons, but somehow their Daemon Princes also know less psychic powers. Again, they are literal physical manifestations of the god of sorcery, and are somehow worse than the sons of his Daemon Primarch. Sure, makes tons of sense.
We went from Codex: Brimstone horrors to Codex: Pink Horror blobs and both are equally unsatisfying. Don’t even get me started on how poorly Kairos and Lords of Change missed the mark.
I’m salty. That’s fine. I love this faction and I wanted it to be so much more than some generic gunline army. We were decently complicated in 7th, that made it fun, now it’s so boring I’ve shelved them entirely.
That’s a scary looking list.
How are you finding the LOCI in practice? I’ve played a few games where the opponent forgot to roll or forgot what he had rolled.
The Loci is random and not something to be counted on.
Yeah, my experience with it is that about 60% of the time it does absolutely nothing. It’s essentially “-1 to hit in close combat but not all the time,” which ends up not being particularly impressive.
That said, it is a melee defense bonus for an army that wants to be shooting, so it’s not wholly worthless.
Even against Units with a 3+WS, it’s going to get a useless result 44% of the time, and even then, it only bounces one hit in six on average. It is better than nothing, and it does mitigate one of their weaknesses, but that’s about the best that can be said for it.
What do you think of LoC or Fateweaver so far? I would like to pick up that model at some point, but it seems underwhelming in games Compared to a DP.
They are pretty. 🙂
Their issue is that they only have a 4+ save. Yes you can get to 3+ with the impossible robe, but that leads to the issue of tzeentch in that random is not competitive. It can be a high risk high reward situation but it isn’t something you can count on. Running Magnus with a 3+ and getting hit with 3 meltas then rolling two 1’s and a 2, then rerolling those ones into two twos is kinda the nature of that model. The damage output is just to high nowadays. It is a fun model that would be good for lighter play but isn’t soemthing you will be able to count on in most cases.
Garbage.
Terrible durability and damage 🙂
340 points are a lot of points. Why not take good things for them instead?
I wrote a huge comment on my alternative email, but it appears it did not go through.
I’m heavily disappointed by Tzeentch. They were my main army, and now they’re all but shelved.
I told you~~~~
Anyway, feelsbadman.
Screamers, flamers, chariots, greaters are all just suboptimal. Leaving Horrors and 1 herlald that sees play. Sometimes exalteds.
Tzeentch is a very good support in the chaos undivided daemons army.
Artifacts are garbage
Specific stratagems are garbage.
Flamers are fine. Herald on Chariot is fine (though the regular one is lacking.) Horrors, foot/disc heralds, Princes, and Exalteds are all good. Changeling is still good. Blue Scribes are wonky but generally good.
Lord of Change is okay if you kit him right (Impossible Robe, Incorporeal Form); he’s actually harder to kill than Magnus like that.
It’s not enough to build a tournament-level army out of on its own, but no single Daemon subfaction is. You either run multiple gods or you run CSM/Renegades of the same god alongside your Daemons.
Similar to your mutually shared remark about Crisis suits, though. People are bummed they, as you said, can only run a competitive Daemon army as either multiple gods or a soup army.
I don’t want to run a soup army, just as someone doesn’t want to have to run infantry. I wanted Individual God viability, and it simply isn’t there. The units are fine, they simply don’t fit the nature of the army. Tzeentch was changed from a psychic powerhouse to a gunline, and it doesn’t feel right anymore.
The problem is fundamentally different for a mono-god army, though- there simply aren’t enough units for it to be a viable competitive choice. It’s the exact same problem that Grey Knights, Harlequins, Custodes, and Sisters of Battle have- too few units, with too many of them doing the same thing. Even if those units are good- and all of those codices have some _very_ good units in them- they aren’t enough to cover all your bases.
Asking to have a mono-god army composed entirely of Daemons is too high a bar to ask, I feel. It would be like wanting to have a Space Marine army that only uses models whose names end with the letter ‘e’ be viable- it’s too stringent a restriction, and too arbitrary of one. Mixing Tzeentch Daemons with Tzeentch Marines or Renegades isn’t really a “soup” army in the sense that most people mean that word- in fact, it’s very fluff-accurate, since most daemonic incursions are the direct result of mortal worshippers of one sort or another taking action.
Tzeentch is still a powerful psychic army- it has a whole array of extremely influential spells and casters with some very unique abilities. How many other armies in the game get an automatic spell that can never be denied? Or a 30″ Smite? Etc. Perhaps you don’t enjoy the way the army plays now, and that’s legitimate, but it’s not because the army lacks units that do the things that Tzeentch is well-known for.
I disagree.
I ran entirely mono-god and was in the top 10-15 for all of Daemons in the ITC last year. I couldn’t do that, now.
I’m sure you’ll attribute that entirely to the nature of smite/horrors at the time, but I don’t think it’s fair to still call them a powerful psychic army. They’re a gunline with minor psychic support, and we both I’m sure can ackownledge that they’re nothing like they were. Whether that’s for the best is debatable, but it’s different, and I believe it’s valid to state that it’s because the army is no longer doing the things it’s well known for.
You’re not running Screamers, you’re not casting big spells, you’re not using Kairos. Hell, I don’t think Tzeentch is doing much of anything any longer. It’s foreign to me. For better or for worse.
“too high a bar”???
Oh ok. How about making units actually do different things? How about not making 5 anti-tank artilery pieces for one army that stand and shoot from long range, when it’s obvious 1 will be better than all the rest? Why not give them something unique? Make one debuff to hit, make one lower opponent’s speed, make one indirect fire, make one give CP for doing something weird. Well that wasn’t so hard.
They tried doing something like this with beasts of nurgle, who were just worse plaguebearers but it’s a joke. 4+ for a mortal wound when retreating? Wow. How about guaranteed D3 for every beast in 1” of a model of your unit? Wow that actually sounds dangerous. Well fiends don’t let you retreat at all and I haven’t seen them anywhere so, why is D3 for every beast a big deal? Nah 4+ for 1, seems good.
GW are too timid to make more unique rules. And when they make them, they’re too timid to make them actually relevant. And that sucks.
Flamers are not fine. They are suboptimal. Trash durability, trash range, pretty good damage. That combo is only good when you can pick your targets. With 12” range from 9” deepstrike you usually can’t unless your opponent f’d up.
No idea why you think heralds are any good at all apart from solo warlord shooting buffer. They cast 1 spell, cost almost 2x as much as good other faction psykers, awful in durability and damage. I read Nick’s article and IIRC he’s of the opinion that most heralds are bad to take more than 1 of.
Princes are garbage because they’re completelly outclassed by TS DPs(we’re talking tzeentch deamons right?).
LoC is harder to kill (after you dedicate so much to it) but who cares if it doesn’t do anything close to what Magnus can damage and bullshit wise. And Magnus isn’t even seeing play anymore. What chance does the LoC have?
Here, let me finish that rant off for you: Horrors are terrible because they are only T3 and aren’t immune to morale so when they get killed your opponent gets free casualties, plus you have to spend CP to be able to reserve them- other armies get that for free! Exalted Flamers are useless because they only get three shots with their pseudo-Lascannon, not seven shots. The Blue Scribes are useless because you don’t have to roll for their spell and you could forget it and then it wouldn’t do anything.
To continue, Scouts are awful because they’re only 4+ armor and you have to deploy them immediately instead of waiting. And Dark Reapers are stupid because they’re just T3 and unlike real Missile Launchers, they can only do a maximum of three damage at a time, and their abilities don’t even work on overwatch. Yvraine is so stupid she forgot all her old spells and is now just stuck with the Ynnari ones and it’s ridiculous that she can’t get a Shadowfield because without a 2++ save what’s even the point of having a character on the table they’re just gonna get killed when your opponent shoots twenty Lascannons at them.
Everything is terrible.
Did you miss this part:
“Leaving Horrors and 1 herlald that sees play. Sometimes exalteds.
Tzeentch is a very good support in the chaos undivided daemons army.”
Pinks are great. One of the best units in the game. Ex flamers suffer the Heavy+low range but are OK-great in other ways. Blue Scribes are questionable. 12” is really low for an anti-psyker aura as those usually stand in the back field. The random spell is pretty good though. And changeling kind of sucks for 100 pts as orks get the same aura (lower range, sure) for 50-ish and that’s not even seeing that much play. Yes, Changeling is a psyker and can do melee things but he’s too slow and too situational.
Spoilers: I’m not an idiot who blindly hates everything. I just compare every unit in the codex to similar things, that see tournament play. If I see either bad units(burning chariots, screamers, LoCs) or OK units(flamers) being praised as “great”, ofc I’ll call people out on that. Flamers are NOT. GOOD. People kept yelling about flamers when they saw the range increase and said next to nothing about pinks. Guess who did – me. Pinks got 4 buffs in the book when they were already “OK”. From day 1, I knew flamers were just glass cannon alpha strike units that can’t aim. And wow, pinks are everywhere and flamers are gone from top lists.
Not sure you guys see the potential. Tzeentch used to be heavily reliant on psychic shooting in previous editions and that added 2 extra tiers of failure in their offense (cast roll fail, deny the witch).
This version of them they are finally fixed. Psychic offense like smites are icing on the cake with now you getting flamers and horrors dishing out tons of damaging shots. Screamers get warp jaws on all their attacks.
This is their best codex version yet so to think they are shelved you are just plain crazy. Actually, nevermind. they suck and are garbage. You should sell your tzeentch army on email for pennies on the dollar since they suck so much 😛
Did the impossible robe reroll get errata’d to key off unmoddified rolls of 1 to slay the model? If not, the +1 you get form ephemeral form will result in a minimum of a 2 and the robe won’t ever proc to slay your model.
Though flamers are pretty pricey and fragile for what you get, and you unfortunately do have to burn CPs to make use of them, I think they can good if you build a smart list with them. I don’t know if a mono-Tzeentch list would work well with flamers, though.
I built a conflagration host.
It’s fine. That’s about it.
Wow, I find the flamer hate pretty interesting. T4, 2 wounds and a 4++ is not bad durability and their offense is scary to alot of units, especially with flicker flame. You eat their full offensive payload the turn they deep strike, you eat it again if you assault, and again the next turn either in close combat due to pistols or via falling back from fly. They are a highly mobile and scary bulk shooting unit. Horrors are awesome but any focus fire kills them in droves once you factor in morale.
Saying you compare them to other units in the game is kinda a wonky comparison. Other armies have whole different army rules, contexts, and combos. They may not be as good as but it is likely because said other unit may be undercosted or poorly balanced. Saying flamers are shit compared to an OP unit isn’t giving flamers their due.
With flamers you get T4W2S4++ for 28(!!!!!) pts
With pinks you get T3W1S4++ for 7(!!!!!) pts
That’s a BIG difference.
“You eat their full offensive payload the turn they deep strike”
They want to hit non-screen units. What will they hit if they can only hit the outer unit… The screen, unless your opponent fk’d up. If so, why not just pink horrors?
“you eat it again if you assault”
Who in the blue hell will charge them? What are these melee only armies you are facing
“and again the next turn either in close combat due to pistols or via falling back from fly.”
Yes, if they survived more than a sneeze in their general direction. Last times I tried them in a friendly game, both units of 6 got distroyed by a single DakkaFex
“Saying you compare them to other units in the game is kinda a wonky comparison. Other armies have whole different army rules, contexts, and combos.”
Re-read. Other SIMILAR units. I do not compare bloodthirsters to mortars. I compare long range anti-tank, to long range anti-tank; Big melee monsters to other big melee monsters; etc…
price tags factor in offense as well as durability. Plus this edition GW is deliberately lowering costs of troops across the board. Bloodletters at 7 pts? In 5th edition they were 17 and in 8th edition they were 10. So comparing the cost of a troop unit to an elite unit is another one of those ‘wonky’ comparisons you are making.
You are also looking at them in skewed roles. pinks are footsloggers while flamers have 12″ moves with fly. Pinks will very likely outperform flamers at range but flamers aren’t bulk troops laying down weight of fire. They are elites that are capable of getting where they need to quickly and still packing the offense to kill stuff when they get there.
Everyone only considers flamers for alpha strike and think they can only flame screen units. You know you don’t have to deep strike turn 1 right? You know you can shoot screener units dead ahead of time right? Maybe shoot those screener units first with your blobs of pinks and then once you are clear drop in for juicier targets. It’s also not uncommon for dedicated assault units to exist either, you’ve heard of khorne or tyranids right?
Just because people online or in competitive tourneys play a certain way doesn’t mean it’s the only way to play. You don’t find better ways of doing things until you try. People thought lictors were junk until a guy found a way to do well with them. Same with warp spiders. Flamers are NOT bad. You just have blinders on in the way you think they need to be played.
Any good player has enough screen for 3 turns of shooting. Screen with troops for 2, transports for 3rd. I’m comparing them because they do ranged damage and have similar statlines in the same army. Comparing durability is fine between all units except characters. Damage is where you can’t compare antitank to antihorde for example.
Pinks are troops, they have better durability and do mora damage to hordes.
So what do flamers have. More damage to elites. Ok. What does similar damage in the army: bloodletters. I’ll take those. They have better damage and much better utility with locking up, surrounding, etc. And I have tried flamers in a friendly game. And even there they sucked