I looked through the rulebook and could find no mention of flamers jamming (like in DH where they jam on rolling 9 for damage).

A 1d10 flamer had a 10% chance to jam, just like an unreliable weapon. Since these roll 2d10, that would put a flamers jamming rate up to 19%.

So it could be intentional.

Also, most weapons that would have the Overheats rule in Dark Heresy and Rogue Trader don't have it if they're Astartes Pattern equivalents.

Bilateralrope said:

I guess if you wanted them to jam and keep the percentage at 10%, then you could rule they jam if you roll the same number on both damage dice. Also if you require more than one damage roll per "shot" you could only count the first damage roll as the deterministic one for jamming.

Suijin said:

Thing is, 10% chance is still an unreliable weapon. Are space marine flamers described as being significantly less reliable than other weapons in the fluff ?

Well I think they probably shouldn't jam from a fluff point of view.

On the other hand I think that them jamming was put in to DH as a balance type aspect. Now bolters aren't as common as flamers in DH, so maybe it's a non issue overall (the heavy bolter and storm bolters are quite good as well). The main part is that you could totally neglect your BS skill and have a flamer and the talent cleanse and purify, and hit fairly often on a bunch of enemies. It gets only better though as any that get set on fire are wasting actions either putting themselves out, getting fatigue, or running around on fire. The damage isn't even totally chump, especially if you add the mighty shot talent to it.

Granted they aren't the best weapons against all enemies. Mostly totally contained fully armored ones, but they can still catch on fire. They just don't need to test the willpower to lose control and do nothing that round. They may still take damage (1d10 + 4, no armor) and fatigue from it, and would need to spend the action to put themselves out, if they even suceed at that.

We will need to play the game with them the way they are and see if they do substantailly better than other weapons. They are quite good in DH, if you don't jam.

Suijin said:

I haven't played Dark Heresy, so my comments are ignorant of that, but, it seems to me that the Flamer is already quite restricted in Deathwatch. Your special ammunition isn't available to it, and, more importantly, it really lacks both range AND friendly fire protection.

Many of the ranged weapons available to an Astartes are really quite impressive in range. You can easily get off quite a few shots before many enemies close to the range where a flamer would do anything.

Also, the flamer is very hard to use when allies (or even non-combatants) are in the area. While it is challenging to shoot into melee with most ranged weapons, it's just an automatic hit with a flamer! Most ranged weapons can also be used when your allies are CLOSE to the foe, but not actually engaged with them, where the flamer is pretty much going to set your buddy on fire too.

I haven't been able to run any combats yet (this Thursday, fingers crossed) but I think the flamer will be pretty balanced even without a Jam roll, based on those considerations.

Suijin said:

All ranged weapons Jam on a roll of 96-100. (Deathwatch, pg. 249)

Ithnaar said:

You don't make an attack roll with Flame weapons. This is why the chance to jam was based on the damage die result in DH and RT.

There is an alternate solution: the character rolls a d100 anyway, although the flamer does not require it. On a roll of 96-100 the weapon malfunctions and jams, on any other roll the weapon works normaly.

Yes, but assuming the flamer hits a target, then that target makes an agility test to avoid the damage, which happens to be a d100 roll.

If the *First* enemy hit rolls a 96-100 on their Agility test, then the weapon really jammed, and both he and the other targets in the area are safe.

Easy, solves the problem, follows the rules and doesn't call for more dice-rolling.

Ithnaar said:

By making the to-jam test take place on an NPC roll, it means that the player can't reroll it with a fate point, unlike every other weapon. So, if we assume that players have enough fate points to use on on any jam*, then:

- An unreliable weapon jams on 91+, which is a 10% chance. If a fate point is used to reroll any jam, that becomes a 1% chance to be jammed.

- The flamer has a 5% chance, with no possibility of a reroll.

So the flamer remains a weapon that is less reliable than an unreliable weapon.

*It was the case in all my DH games (my RT games involved lots of BQ weapons) and Space Marines get more fate points.

If I wanted to have flamers jamming, I would have the player roll an extra d100 to check for the jam. But I don't see why having jammable flamers is that important.