Why does the doom-flayer suck so badly?

[flamingkillamajig]

I ask this because every game i have used one of several things happen. It is killed by shooting if it charges something. It gets focused down in melee and dies. I tend to roll badly for it and sometimes it misfires which unfortunately isn't the best thing to have happen in melee (it either stops attacking, attacks everybody in base contact including itself which most likely kills itself since it's resolved against its heavy armor meaning there's no armor save or it blows up which surprisingly considering its lifespan anyway is probably the best result actually though i tend to roll the result where it hurts itself and in my opinion that's the worst).

Now what bugs me is this weapon looks sweet and it sounds sweet. It costs more money than the other more effective weapons teams and it always seems to die before it can bring on the pain. Just so you know it has 1 wound, if it stays 3" within its parent unit it has a +4 ward save against shooting and it has a +3 armor save in its front arc. This doesn't sound to bad until you realize it has only one wound. I mean is it too much too ask for the thing to have a +2 or +1 armor save? I don't know if it could but you have to admit something like that should have plenty of armor. It just dies too quickly.

What pisses me off most of all is that even if you do get it into combat and even if it's with a unit it'll still be focused down and killed. Considering the weapons teams of the skaven only have initiative 3 (i kid you not) that means the weapon team strikes at that speed often dying to high elves and other fast initiative units esp. frail ones before being able to do almost anything.

Maybe i'm just using it wrong and should use it similarly to my warpfire throwers and either put it behind a unit that could break and flee or better yet place it so that it could be ready to make a charge into a unit esp. into its flank in my turn. Problem is this won't be as decisive since the models came out in 8th edition and in 8th edition there definitely an issue on breaking units with more ranks. Really i feel it is the most useless weapon team but maybe it just has the biggest learning curve of them all with the least amount of payoff considering 8th makes breaking a steadfast unit all the harder. I mean if i flanked a unit with the thing and broke said unit esp. if i ran it down i would probably stop insulting said units altogether but for now i just don't like them. Maybe i need to charge it with other units but they don't always make their charges or last long enough in melee.

Really this thread is about finding out how best to use the doom-flayer.

[flamingkillamajig]

I'm actually thinking doom flayers might not be quite as bad as i previously thought but i think i may need to use them in twos and flank with both of them into the same unit while charging them or getting charged by a unit. This would be possible if i had one of the two units' base units (stormvermin, clanrats) run away and have the unit behind hold and get charged into or have their enemy unit get stuck in the open for my charge in my turn. It would be tricky but if i had left enough room on the side for a flank charge from my doom flayers or moved up another unit afterward like my plague furnace and plague monks and then had room for a flank charge with the two doom flayers then it could work. My problem is the likelihood one of these doom flayers would die is still pretty high and if i only use clanrats to negate enemy ranks and somehow don't win then i might have some morale breaks for the doom flayers and that isn't a good thing.

Ugh this is so overly complicated but it could work. I just hope this does work. If it does though it could be awesome but i think the few armies this melee machine is good against often has powerful units, fast initiative high units or shooty armies and those are all bad for this type of unit and tactic. Still on average charging two of these would give me 4 impact hits (2 per doom flayer on average) and 10 more attacks with both doom flayers in their normal attack. An average of 14 str 4 armor piercing attacks (-2 to armor save total) with auto-hits isn't half bad but this is provided they live. It still might not be able to handle ogres or warriors of chaos very easily but maybe if i give it prevent the 2nd unit from getting charged and then keep the clanrats there and flank the unit of warriors of chaos or similar in the flank with the doom flayers (giving the enemy very few attacks back) then they'd probably try not to reform against the doom flayers for sake of getting hit in the flank by a unit of clanrats. Actually though it'd be in their turn so if they reformed and won then they'd probably flank or get into the rear of my battle line which is not a good thing. Maybe if i prepared for this sort of thing with a unit even farther back behind my plague furnace it could work but i dunno. It's very much up in the air and it takes a lot of proper movement and placement as well as going against the proper enemy to work. I don't think these doom flayers would last very long against too much. Against goblins, elves, orcs and quite a few core units this can work very well but against tougher units this'll probably die horribly and spectacularly. Meh at least one of the misfire results for this is blowing up into a large blast and doing strength 4 and -2 to armor save wounds to everything hit by it. Might not be great but it'd be interesting to see.

Still wondering if i should just stick to easier weapons teams like the warpfire thrower and the poisoned wind mortar. The payoff of running down a unit in melee with these doom flayers could be awesome though. It sounds good but very hard to use. We'll see if this pays off. I may use my 2 doom flayers in the future. Still without warpfire throwers or poisoned wind mortars i may want to use this against a noobier opponent for my test run or something.