How does the flamethrower work?

[Karl Power]

Hi, fellow servants of the emperor,
my favourite heavy weapons guy just made level 8, and I have the option to raise his ballistic skill to four. I deploy him with the flame thrower exclusively (the assault cannon being imho vastly inferior to that most useful tool of purging).

However, will he benefit from ballistic skill 4 with the flamethrower at all? The attribute description says nothing about flamethrowers. Both the heavy flamer description and the in-game manual entry for "Heavy Flamer", however, says that the governing skill is ballistic skill. So does this skill affect the chance to kill a Genestealer should it be engulfed in flames? And, more importantly: how does the flamer actually work?

It is a shame the in-game manual is so woefully inadequate to explain even the most basic mechanics of this fantastic game, so I hope someone can help me - I don't want to waste the points for upgrading to ballistic skill 4 on a guy who uses the flamer exclusively!

Greetings
K.

[Birdmancer]

If you hover over a genestealer while you have the heavy flamer equipped, you will see a chance to hit. Ballistic Skill definitely raises this chance.

That being said, I'm not sure what the mechanics are behind moving through fire. My heavy Terminator only has four Ballistic Skill and does just fine with the flamer. Not much gets through.

[Karl Power]

Thank you!

[Done25]

You need to roll a hit check to see if the initial burst will strike them. HOWEVER. The lingering flame has a 100% chance if they try to move over it.