Do Warpfire Throwers ever fire their weapons?

[Jose_Biden]

Started a co-op campaign with my buddy and he's Skrolk. I spectated several battles of his and his 4Xwarpfire throwers never fired a single shot. they had many opportunities to shoot, but just milled around as piles of saurus warriors waltzed up to them and commenced to ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ the ♥♥♥♥ out of his warpfire throwers. is there something wrong with this unit? or do you have to have a specific series of commands in place, like skirmish mode off, but guard mode on and then stand up from ur computer and pat your head while rubbing your belly? it's very frustrating for him bc he centered his entire empire aroudn warpfire guys and now we're considering scrapping the campaign bc this unit doesn't work ever.

[elkapp]

Tbh if you use skirmish with anything but ranged fire while moving units, you ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up hard. I heavily suggest to take that off and activate it only when needed. Is more of an issue than a solution.

Warpfire throwers on the other hand are on the ♥♥♥♥ side of skryre's units, along with globadiers. They have less range than ratling gun and suck at AP. They're better than ratling when it comes to damaging low tier trash, but their lower range and lack of suppressed status make them easy to reach by enemy's melee units. All this plus they need to have a straight line of fire, which, considering their low range, make warpfires an extremely hard unit to use that doesn't give good enough results.

Guard mode is strange in this case. I've seen some units, mainly base irondrakes and some grenade units fire from the backline even while in melee if you activated guard mode, but it was never really reliable. I didn't try it on warpfires, but i guess using it is not a bad idea (obv positioning is still your first priority with them, and even if they can fire while in melee is way better to avoid taking any damage if possible).

[Mr Robert House]

Skirmish mode is just a way to sabotage your battles, and guard mode is required for basically all ranged units if you want to hold a formation

[Garatgh Deloi]

The fact that they never worked once sounds bugged, but hard to say for certain.

I would not recommend skirmish mode for warp fire throwers, their range is to short and they have a little charge up animation they do before firing (If its a fast enemy they will likely start retreating from the enemy before they get the chance to fire) and they are to slow (they will likely be run down or chased for eternity).

The best way to use them, in my opinion, is having something hold the enemy in place (a hero or melee unit) and then flank with the warp fire throwers. They are also workable as the early-mid game front line for Ikit Claw (he gets them extremely cheap).

Do note that rattling guns are (in most situations) just a straight on upgrade from warp fire throwers.

[Chaoslink]

Sounds more like fire at will was turned off. If he told the units to halt using the halt order, it often will disable fire at will as well.

At any rate, best thing to do with flamethrower units is put a lord or hero in front. The friendly fire to the lord/hero will be minimal and the enemy should bunch up for easy kills.

[Andrewbh2003]

like all flamethrower type units they require direct LOS to shoot with 0 obstructions that combined with there low range and leadership means its very hard to get them to shoot

but they are very cheap so really do not expect much from them there mainly there as a distraction carnifex

really there not that bad of a unit problem is skaven have several other units that fill the same role but better

on a related note NEVER have skirmish mode on for ranged units its a massive noob trap and the only time you should ever even consider it is on skirmish cav and even then its better to just manually micro them most of the time

sounds to me like a combination of your friend not knowing how to build an army as skaven and not understanding how to use these types of units in general "guard mode always on for ranged units so they can shoot even when in melee no exceptions" and never use skirmish mode

also you should never ever have more than 2 warpfire throwers per army there just not the type of unit you want to spam ever unless your going for a REALLY REALLY specific build and even then...

[Jose_Biden]

Damn okay... I guess we were treating them as though they were like archers or riflemen or something. I didn’t know about the whole slowly setting up animation and LOS requirements. We’re just so used to being on the receiving end of warpfires vs the AI, which never seem to have issues melting the ♥♥♥♥ out of us.

Also we’re not using skirmish mode

So to sum it up, they need tons of uninterrupted space and time and perfect line of sight with not even a more of dust or pebble of terrain obstruction in their way to fire... which means lots of micro work and suppoert units

[Jerroser]

Generally the best way to get the most out of them is to try and hit the enemy in the sides while they are fighting another unit in melee. What I tend to do set up my infantry in a diagonal line with a gap for the warpfire throwers to fire at the enemies flanks through (similar to one of the recommended ways to use hand gunner units).

The other thing to mention is that leaving skirmish mode on for them in actually even worse as their low attack range means that the enemy will get close enough for them to run away before they have the chance to fire.

[Chaoslink]

Originally posted by T-34_tank:

So to sum it up, they need tons of uninterrupted space and time and perfect line of sight with not even a more of dust or pebble of terrain obstruction in their way to fire... which means lots of micro work and suppoert units

Kinda. As long as the obstruction is just a single model like a lord or hero, you should be fine. Just don’t use full unit formations in between you and the enemy. Otherwise, have them wrap around the flank after all the melee engage one another. You just have to accommodate them a bit more. They definitely can pull their weight, though as mentions the ratling guns typically do the same thing a bit better.