The second Gunner Trooper is completed. The Nihilakh Oxide - the teal effects you see on the tanks - works better with the cooler brass color on the tanks on the back, but I had to experiment some to learn how to use the paint! Corvus black makes another appearance on the casing of the flamethrower as well, and I'm still happy with it. Starting here and going back over the rest, I'll be tagging this series with "kriegposting", so if you're tired of seeing these models every day you can filter it out.
Notes about the model are under the cut.
The flamethrower is an interesting weapon in Kill Team for a couple of reasons. Rolling 5 dice where lasguns only roll 4 and hitting on 2s instead of guard-standard 4, you're much more likely to tag hostiles regardless of how many save dice they're throwing in turn. Moreover, the Torrent rule means that if any hostiles are in 2" of the primary target, they get a heaping helping of napalm themselves. The weapon is sharply limited by two factors: the first is range - in order to fire effectively, the trooper needs to close to 6" or less (although Torrent rules could give it another 2" of effective range in ideal conditions), and it will deal, at maximum effect, 10 wounds. If the enemy isn't reduced to ash after your attack, then all you're left with is 7 wounds, a bayonet, and a 5+ save. This means that in the Veteran Guard lineup, napalm is a Sometimes Food - only worth taking against hordes of lightly armored opponents: the Glitchlings and other minor horrors of the Gellerpox, the lower ranks of the Genestealer Cult, and of course their fellow guardsmen.
Napalm is a grotesque weapon. A kind of flammable jelly is sprayed out of a tank or explosive, the sticky fluid burning well after adhering to whatever material it coated, even underwater or smothered, the fire sustained by the oxygen within the napalm. I recently watched a lengthy documentary/blog video about the Lincoln Highway, and during the trip the author passed by the Dugway proving ground (about 1:45:00 into the video). Dugway was used to store and test a wide variety of chemical and biological weapons, ostensibly to help the government develop countermeasures to napalm, VX gas, anthrax, and a pharmacy's worth of nightmare material I don't have the clearance to even hear about. During WWII, Dugway also played host to mock villages designed to resemble residential centers of Germany and Japan so we could learn how to visit maximum destruction with minimum effort. It was during these experiments in devastation that the napalm-filled M-69 Incendiary Cluster Bomb proved the most effective method with which to deliver mass death. America has since largely phased napalm out of our armament, in apparent agreement that it is a cruel and indiscriminate weapon.
We use fuel-air munitions instead.