Why is the Hellfire flamer a distinct piece of gear as opposed to a type of special ammunition like hellfire rounds are? Seems like it'd make more sense the other way. The only balance issue I'd see is that you could then load the ammo into a heavy flamer but if it's Respected renown and costs req to do so, big friggin' deal.

Kshatriya said:

Likely balance, speed of rules, and to avoid creating yet another weapon that can take specialty ammo? With it being only the flamer, it's quite contained, and you don't even have to consider what the balance issues would be if it goes into a heavy flamer to get bonus mag damage and range, or a hand flamer.

Fluffwise, I'm betting it's because you're going to need a specially crafted weapon in order to carry around something so caustic. I could easily see something like that damaging a standard flame weapon over time.