"Should 40K bring back grenades?" Topic

Ever since I picked up 40K 3rd Edition and found that my beloved grenades were relegated to giving or negating assault bonuses (negates cover, etc…) I felt like the rules had taken a turn for the worse. Grenades feel largely impotent now.

Mind you, I'm not a vortex grenade fan of RT days, just a good old frag, krak and plasma guy. So, my question is, should 40K bring back individual grenade throws and rolls (like RT and Necromunda with scatter rolls).

I think this adds lots more fun to the game. Sure, the tournament crowd will argue they slow down the game. what sayeth you?

Yes. :-)

No. I think they should keep them out. Actually I hope the rules eventually don't have any weapons in them. Maybe then people will stop playing the game and move on to other companies rulesets. :)

Virus grenades against Ork hordes. THAT'll learn them-thar fungus critters…(also good fer cleanin' up those pesky jean-stealin' types)

What's the point, when your opponent is just going to run his guys right up the middle at you into close combat? Seems to me that the old "following fire" rule would be more useful to bring back…

I have always wondered why there are no mines in 40K

they must be in the game somewhere, I just saw a boxed set of mine field markers at my local GW dealer.

Maybe they're an optional rule in an issue of White Dwarf?

Wait… in the grim darkness of the far future there are no grenades?

Darby E is spot on, just drop all this large army nonsense that is current 40K and bring back the fun that is Rogue Trader.

Updated if they really have to, but bring back the fun and get rid of the tournament mentality that so pervades the game today.

As for bringing back grenades, hell yes!

AS

I say no. Grenades were an interesting bit to the old game, but they slowed the play down to a knee aching crawl. Just try having an Imperial Guard squad all throw frag grenades at once-- that's TEN rolls to hit, scatter, and then wound whatever they might hit. It took forever!

No thanks. Leave it as is with grenades only useable in close combat…

And Rogue Trader sucked in my opinion. I never enjoyed it nearly as much as later editions. YMMV, of course! 8)=

On the subject of too much close combat, in what is supposed to be a sci-fi game maybe they should bring back overwatch as well.

It can sure make enemies think twice at charging Imperial Guard with its massed lasgun fire!

And opinions in wargaming as to which version of 40K is the best? Are like "Marmite" you either love it or hate it LOL!

AS

Yep!

Grenades, following fire, biowire bombs, wandering monsters on death-worlds….bring 'em all back, although, of course, for me they never went away…..
Uesugi – how can you not enjoy running your troops around the table trying to avoid wandering vortex grenade templates?…

I don't care for grenades in 40k. My preferred version is Rogue Trader, so I do have the option of grenades aplenty, but there's something about them I just find offputting in science-fantasy (remember, 40k is not sci-fi!).

Shooting is fine, as are swordfights in this context, however silly they may appear in "realistic" terms, but you don't see grenades getting used in other science-fantasy settings (Star Wars, Flash Gordon, etc.) so why 40k?

3rd ed onward plays too much like Epic with outsized minis. Big, detailed minis that have individual personality, and need to PLAY like it. Including have all those big cross-hatched beer cans the marines carry around DO something.

I can clearly remember how disgusted I was when I first picked up 3rd and read how grenades worked. And cover. And armor saves. Blah, blah, blah…

It's still dark out, and I have nothing further constructive to say. If indeed I ever did to begin with.

its no more silly than having future war decided by the guy with the biggest sword.

"Just try having an Imperial Guard squad all throw frag grenades at once-- that's TEN rolls to hit, scatter, and then wound whatever they might hit. It took forever!"

Yeah, but you could easily divide that into 2 rolls, 5 grendes go this way, 5 go that.

"following fire"

I liked that one too ;-)

In fact, the current incarnation of "40k" (and 30k) I play is a hybrid combo of RT and 4th Ed. with most of the early rules included but using the later lists. Definitely more of a shooty game then an up-the-middle assault game.

I always felt that to speed up the game, they should drop the wound roll. Roll to hit, opponent rolls to save, and be done with it. That's the sort of thing that should be streamlined, not turning grenades and close combat into an abstract event.

Well put!

I followed the grenades out of the game. I haven't played any edition after 2nd edition. I think they should add them back into the game, but then again I haven't been following anything done by GW recently. The case of squads throwing grenades can be simplified using less scatter rolls as Uesugi Kenshin suggests, reducing the rolls as Nudspinespittle suggests, or some combination of that.

Here's an example I might use when I play RT again.

Squad Grenade rules- Place all templates, make 1 roll to hit and shift all grenades (in the same deviation direction and distance), all models touched are hit once, roll to wound and save as normal. Thus squad on squad the dice rolled are actually less than shooting lasguns or bolters, i.e.- reducing 10 hit/scatter resolutions to 1. **For folks who think overlaps should matter in lethality, up the Strength by 1 or reduce the save by 1, whatever people feel is more appropriate.

Unique Grenade rules- Roll individually.

Squad grenades would be frag, melta, toxin, smoke, blind, tanglefoot, anti-plant, hallucinogen. If used by character models, they get rolled individually.

Unique grenades would only be issued to character models or squad leaders and would be vortex, virus, haywire, and plasma.

IIRC, such grenades were character (wargear cards) in 2nd ed.

I WANT my to hit/to wound/to save rolls. I want it (to a degree) like it was to begin with. I have NEVER seen a revision throw the baby out with the bathwater like 3rd ed did. If only FASA could have something like that.

Vor not good enough for you, TBR?

Coming up with ways to defeat my cheating friend's ork army back in the RT days took up most of my waking hours.

When I discovered off table support in the form of a virus bomb… joy!

Having separate to hit and to wound rolls allows you to have units of the same troops use different weapons (or different troops using the same weapons) more easily. If you combine them, suddenly Inquisition Storm Troopers with hellguns or shotguns, Orks with shootas or sluggas need to be two statlines instead of one. It's even worse with Space Marine Scouts – bolt pistols, shotguns, boltguns or sniper rifles – now there's 4 different Scout profiles instead of one.

Yes. When in doubt, grenade it out. My Eldar need their 24" shuriken catapults back also.

"My Eldar need their 24" shuriken catapults back also."

Yeah, no kidding! And I still play play chainsword as strength 4, -1 armor save myself!

yeah thats one I never understood – lets give eldar guardians heavy support weapons and SMgs, whilst we give the assaulty dark eldar rifles – hmmm that makes sense!

But if they altered the basic rules, factored out 'Toughness', and had a 'Armour roll' it'd make much more sense, make things like grenades quicker. You basicly have 4 or 5 'classies' of troop anyway – Marine Equivalents (T4, 3Sv), Guard Equivalents (T3 5Sv), Scout Equivalents (T3/4 Sv4), Terminator equivalents (T4 2Sv) and then big nasty stuff like carnifexs.

Or maybe each grenade if it hits does D3 hits, if it misses then its a dud – quick, easy and without the need for 10 frag grenade templates.

Grenades Rock! And should never have been taken out of the game. Play any other game miniature or video game and grenades are always present and a factor of the battlefield. A soldier in 40K rules couldn't throw a grenade very far in the first place if I remember correctly, but in the RTS game you can give Imperial Guard troops grenade launcher as the squad's heavy weapon. So why are thrown grenades so absent, just because some gamers are too lazy to do some math and work it out.

You could set it up so only 1 or 2 guys hurl grenades each turn in the squad.

Of course, grenades vanished at the same time the scatter roll for missed blast weapons did..

40K was always a skirmish game to me though.

This may be a tangent, but IRL how often are grenades used by a whole squad at once? Does the sergeant say "ready men, throw grenades!" and the WHOLE squad does it? Or is that how grenadiers functioned in Napoleonic times?

Back when I played Rogue Trader I can't say there was a lot of grenades being tossed around, certainly not by entire units. Seems like most battles were decided by assault cannons or missle launchers :P

Question should be more like..

" Will GW ever release a good version of 40K?

back in RT days my guard always used grenades against anything that was better then them in close combat, throwing 10 frag grenades and a bunch of eldars dressed as clowns nearly always made a mess of them.

Depends on what 40K is meant to be.

As a squad level skirmish game ala Rogue Trader then yes.

As a company level skirmish game ala current edition then no.

I was always fond of the grenades until it made more sense to use them instead of your primary projectile weapon. Even if they deviated you could still hit several miniatures on a packed 40K game table. Games rapidly evolved into grenade chucking contests.

I'd be dead set against bringing grenades back as a weapon. As they are now they fit their intended purpose as either to break up or enhance an infantry assault or to disable vehicles.

In real life you can never throw them far enough away and you always risk hitting friendlies when you toss them in the open. The circumstances under which you can safely throw a grenade are limited.

MINEFIELDS: exist in Planetstrike and Cities of Death. They are pretty useful. I can understand why they aren't in the main body of rules as they would make tournament play rather screwed up.

"Or is that how grenadiers functioned in Napoleonic times? "

Although there were troops called greandiers in the Napoleonic period, they were not armed with grenades! The term "grenadier" is an anachronistic term related to when they DID carry grenades (in the late 17th century).

I was always fond of the grenades until it made more sense to use them instead of your primary projectile weapon.

Yeah..It was always better to grenade as a defender when an attacker was closing the last bit of ground. When I do play RT again I'm using the rules mod I mentioned above to limit the multiple die roll jeopardy of raining grenades. I figure the wounded aren't going to individually differentiate what grenade the shrapnel comes from.

In our old games we also used grenades heavily for screening with smoke or blind. Lots of rolls seeing where the effect went each turn. We also used rad grenades with their persistent effect as an impromptu minefield. I liked that extra facet of the game as the battlefield lethality and necessary countermeasures (scanners, rad counters, rad suits, immune injections, etc) felt more Sci-fi to me than just a bunch of guys with tanks, shooty guns, and chainswords.

Yes.
Funny… I have been outta the 40k scene for a few editions, and just got back in on the 5th.

I never realized that there were no grenades until now…

So, Yes. We do need them back!

Depends on what 40K is meant to be.

As a squad level skirmish game ala Rogue Trader then yes.

As a company level skirmish game ala current edition then no.

This.

MINEFIELDS: exist in Planetstrike and Cities of Death. They are pretty useful. I can understand why they aren't in the main body of rules as they would make tournament play rather screwed up.

Also, this.

The tournament mindset rules 40k right now, both amongst players and at the Studio. As tournaments are exposure that drives sales, I don't see this, or my (in)frequency of play, changing any time soon.

"throwing 10 frag grenades and a bunch of eldars dressed as clowns nearly always made a mess of them"

=D

Well yes, but it was the Eldar dressed like birds, hopping back and forth over over their opponents dropping grenades like pigeon that could really bring a game to a halt.

2nd Edition Eldar were way over the top, and have been over-nerfed ever since to compensate.

Should they bring back grenades.

I would say yes and no.

Yes they should bring back Haywire, Frag & Krak Grenades but only you roll to hit and if you missed there is no scatter. The grenades were either a dud or caused no causalities.

If you got a hit place the template over the unit that you threw them that and then roll for wounds.

No they should not bring back any of the special grenades since I hated the Virus Grenade and my Avatar was always on the receiving end of a Vortex Grenade.

I too want my 24" S. Catapult back as well.

But they will not bring back the grenades because then my 2000 Imperial Guard force, which has 105 out of 190 models armed with Krak grenades, would be hard to beat.

One thing that they do need to correct is the nerfing of the Krak Missile, which was harp as a vehicle killer but with it lowly strength 8 can barely put a scratch into most armor now days.

Farstar; you are right about the Eldar being nerfed to hell and back. My first army was Eldar actually (Harlequins and then Eldar from White Dwarf 130). It was heavy on the Guardians and where once they could hold their own. But those days were many years ago and most Eldar players do not even use them any more.

Today it is all about the Special Characters and who can get into assault first.

If any one uses Guardians it's in small numbers and only so the can have a heavy weapon on the field. The krak missiles were very wimped out, even Eldar Dark Reapers use to be of some use. Now all they are is long range snipers with heavy guns, they use to terrorize vehicles with those reaper launcher. Rangers are supposed to be the snipers.

Haywire grenades (and EMP grenades) do exist in the game. They're like Teller mines or Gammon bombs for the Eldar and Tau, respectively. You do not, repeat, NOT assault Tau with vehicles if the squad has EMPs, and Haywire grenades are even more effective.

However, I think that grenades are decently modeled for the current scale of the game. If you're playing Rogue Trader or maybe 2nd Edition, then it's fine to use grenades, but when you spend as much time resolving the different grenades as you do in the movement, shooting, and assault steps of both players, you've long since passed the point of needing new grenade rules.