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Anyone think that IG's grenade launcher good enough, yes or no.Please respond on the thread.
Thank you.!!!!

Good enough for what?

It's adaptable, an all comers choice perhaps but most will tell you that it doesnt do anything well.

A jack of all trades master of none.

I'll take a melta over two GL in most circumstances.

I tend to patch them to special werapon squad and use the nice 3 inchs blast template to blast the hell out of Nids and Orks. Orks is a a tough bastard dur to toughness 4 vs strength 3 frag grenade but Nids will be K.O in 4+. That is what I think they are good.

Not really no. Flamers and meltas are far superior in normal infantry squads, and plasma is god in command squads.

I have never seen any reason to take grenade launchers. They just aren't good enough against anything.

I have to echo the sentiment: good enough for what? They're decent to put in infantry squads since they can sometimes do damage to groups of light infantry or crack a light vehicle, or sometimes even pack a wound onto an MC. If you want to keep your infantry squads cheap, they're a decent option. Never give them to vet squads though; it's relative weakness is a waste of their higher BS and cost.

Also, punctuation doesn't trump spaces. Press the spacebar after your commas and periods, OP.

This should probably be in tactics.

And no, don't take grenade launchers. They're not terribly effective against anything. If you've got 5 free points, I'd even take a sniper rifle before a grenade launcher because at least it has a chance of rending, meaning that it might actually put a wound on something.

Depends on whom to ask, soom dislike them to the point of 4chan proportions. I on the other hand them out to my Vets like they are going out of fashion.
You will get the old agument that they are useless but a good comander knows how to use what he has not what he wishes he had. GL's are good for keeping the points cost low. At 5pts they can swich beween a blast weapon or a kraker. I use mine in the krak mode all the time and lets feac it where eles are you going to get a st6 weapon for 5pts that can move and fire full range all the time?
The other weaps are more for speclised (spelling I know) work, got a ton of pyscotic power armoured clad nut jobs comming towards you the the plasma gun is the way to go, got a hord of green skins Whaar-ing towards your line then light them up with the flamers. But if you don't know what your going to playing against then the GL is your best buddy. It won't blow up in your frace, you don't need to be so close your looking into the whites (or reds) of their eyes all the while hopping that you melt them, the sniper option is not even an option you have Rattlings for that.
The GL there for if you have no cule what or whom you'll be fighting
(note, I know the spelling is wrong...and guse what at the moment i don't give a rattlings backside )D )

Ribon Fox wrote: but a good comander knows how to use what he has not what he wishes he had.

What?

Firstly, you can design your own list. You don't HAVE to take grenade launchers.

Secondly, no amount of player skill will change the fact that it's a single shot BS3 weapon that doesn't ignore armor saves or have very much of a chance at taking down a vehicle. It's the weapon itself that lacks the killing power to really do anything, not the mistakes of the commander fielding them.

Ribon Fox wrote:The GL there for if you have no cule what or whom you'll be fighting

That's what good list design is for. Your list AS A WHOLE should be able to take all comers. This does not mean that every weapons upgrade in your army must individually be purposed for this task.

You will be much better off with a unit with flamers and a unit with meltaguns than with two units with grenade launchers. The former will always be effective against at least something, while the GLs never will.

I take gl in my blob squads, since they stay in the back, and its my theme for the army. I find if you realize its 5pts for a str 6 ap 4 weapon, you get alot for what you pay for. Now are meltas and plasma better against vehicles and meq, yes, but their 2 and 3x more expensive, and doesnt fit my theme.

@Ailaros
Firstly; not all of use are bottomless pits of money so you do have to take that into account when building an army, and whith the Gurad that gose thrice as much. I refuse to pay just shigh of £10 for 2 plasma or meta dudes.
Secondly; GLs are not my main form of dishing out the hurt, that job it for the sentienals and the LRBTs, thats where the real power of the Guard comes, not from ranck upon ranks of soft bodies but hard, thick skined plas-steel armour of our tanks. The GLs alow me to free up points that can be used to make the heavy armour more killy.
Lastly; I've never had that much of a probblem with them, one of the main reasons I've been using them back in the dark days of 2nd edition. Their cheep, their cheerfull and they do their job. Just like morters

I like mortars as well. Their nice and fluffy. Would I take them to a tournement? Most likely not. But use it in my fluffy guard list, yeah. Same with grenade launchers.

I like them, but, not my favorite. I do run 4 in a platoon command squad, but, that is the only place. As stated, not realy the best for one job, but, decent a a few different jobs. Can you take out a handful of nids or orks with 4 shots? yes. Might you be able to pop off a rhino or some other light transport? maybe. Can you count on that happening? not realy. They are cheap, you always have plenty of the bits laying around, so, why not. Like I said, out of 4,400 points worth of IG, I only have 4 in the entire army.

Ribon Fox wrote:I refuse to pay just shigh of £10 for 2 plasma or meta dudes.

What? You can buy 5 meltaguns for £6.65. Easy to combine with flamer plastics to make meltagunners. The metal meltagunners are a rip offbut there are other options.

GL's aren't to be sniffed at. Consider a unit of guardsmen, armed with Str3 Ap - lasguns. Now for 5 points more you can get an assault weapon that's the same Str as a lasrifle, better AP, and doesn't have to rely on hitting too much, as BS makes little difference with the blast template. Alternatively, it can fire a Str 6 Ap 4 shot, which although it has to hit, can potentially take down T3 multiwound models or just add that extra bit of punch to the squads shooting. That's not bad for 5 points, bearing in mind the alternatives are:

Snipers (useless, they require the whole squad to stand still to shoot and don't even do much when they do).

Flamers/meltas (good for points but a bit close for comfort when it comes to using them, especially considering enemy flamers will hurt you more than you'll hurt them).

Plasmas (outside vet, stormtrooper and CCS squads, these are just a points sink, hitting once or twice a game, costing far too many points and potentially blowing up in your face, taking a 5 point guardsman with it).

I think that often another Guardsman would be better than a GL. There are only a couple of decent uses that I have found.

1. Hitting deepstrikers when clumped up. Decent against daemons that would get their saves regardless, although they would usually run to spread out.

2. Giving a PCS the reach to shoot over line squads, although I prefer flamers as a counter attack option.

GLs don't really open up any new tactical options. They are slightly better than lasguns and can sometimes hurt vehicles, whereas all of the other special weapons give the squad the ability to take on things that lasguns either can't or are bad at.

They're not as bad as is being suggested. Infantry squads aren't all that tactical, with HWT's slowing them down and the likelyhood of them missing with special weapons half, which isn't all too good considering the amount of points you pay. A guardsman squad about to get charged by a decent sized Ork mob or Gaunt swarm isn't really going to improve their chances all too much with a flamer, likewise killing one marine of a squad of ten coming at you isn't going to help. Infantry squads deal relatively little damage inependantly, and it's through volume of fire that they kill stuff. A GL only adds to this volume of fire, whereas the other weapons, not so much. To best use special weapons it makes more sense to put them in vet squads, which can be tailored toward a specific role. Tankbusting? Take three meltas and begin can opening. Driving back the horde? Three flamers and shotguns ought to do a nice job (with 3 flamers, they actually take out most of the horde). Hunting MEQ? Load up on plasmas to deal some rapid fire pain (although for this role Stormtroopers with plasrifles and their hellguns will probably wourk better).

Banzaimash wrote:Consider a unit of guardsmen, armed with Str3 Ap - lasguns. Now for 5 points more you can get an assault weapon that's the same Str as a lasrifle

A special weapon that's virtually the same as their small arm? Whoopee.

Banzaimash wrote: Infantry squads aren't all that tactical

Then you're not understanding the potential of infantry squads.

Banzaimash wrote:A guardsman squad about to get charged by a decent sized Ork mob or Gaunt swarm isn't really going to improve their chances all too much with a flamer

No, but a 30-man blob with 3 plasma guns facing 5 lightning claw terminators will stop those termies COLD before they make it into close combat, while armed with grenade launchers they'll kill one or two with lasguns and then get shredded to pieces. Likewise, a power blob with meltaguns and BiD can make short work of a land raider and have the CC ability to handle whatever stumbles out of it.

With grenade launchers, an infantry squad is nothing but a bunch of models with low strength, crappy AP guns. With plasma guns and melta guns, you have a bunch of models that have the ability to handle practically any target in the game effectively.

That you save 5 pts. by not taking a meltagun hardly compensates for how much you're missing out on.

I tend to do what you have suggested patching them with blob squad and the PCS use FRFSF to boast the volume of fire. I think this will bound to kill a scores of orks and nids.

Whoa. So since the grenade launcher and the lasgun are "virtually the same" does that mean that lasguns can fire str 6 ap 4 shots? With a 24 inch range? When did this errata happen?


Seriously, grenade launchers are a solid fluffy choice. Meltas and plasma are rare weapons, but everyone seems to have one. For a squad thats camping on your objective, its a solid choice. It has longer range then a melta. Less chance of killing the user and a third the cost of plasma. Meltas belong on your vets or command squads, same with plasmas.

Ailaros wrote:
No, but a 30-man blob with 3 plasma guns facing 5 lightning claw terminators will stop those termies COLD before they make it into close combat, while armed with grenade launchers they'll kill one or two with lasguns and then get shredded to pieces. Likewise, a power blob with meltaguns and BiD can make short work of a land raider and have the CC ability to handle whatever stumbles out of it.

With grenade launchers, an infantry squad is nothing but a bunch of models with low strength, crappy AP guns. With plasma guns and melta guns, you have a bunch of models that have the ability to handle practically any target in the game effectively.

That you save 5 pts. by not taking a meltagun hardly compensates for how much you're missing out on.

I like them in a shoot blob with missle launchers. It gives the unit the ability to target both light tanks and hordes fairly effectively. I know that not allot of people like the missile launcher either, but the can pry it from my cold dead fingers.

I've also put them in cheap PCS. Flamers are usually a better counter attack unit, but most enemies that need to fear quad flamers, make the squad a priority, so they tend to kill or avoid it. With an effective range of 30, in a footslogging list, grenadelaunchers on the other hand, have a good chance of reaching out and touching enemy hordes.

Flamers are much more useful in mech lists,where they have more mobility to put their templates where they need it, but in my experience, they tend to be to short ranged for slower foot logger lists.

GL's still suck, melta, plas , and flamers are all more worth the points. End.

GLs are pretty bad, true. They do have their purpose though: Mobility. I run three on a PCS with a 2 melta powerblob for the platoon. The GLs stay behind the powerblob and fire over their heads. the GLs are really the only portable weapon guardsmen get that allow for this. Sometimes, if I'm running Al-rahem, I will fire the krak mode grenades at rear armor of a vehicle within range for some extra pain.

Beyond this limited setup, I do not use GLs. My roommate uses them with autocannons or heavy bolters in his static gunlines, which, I will admit, sometimes makes it hard to rush him.

GLs aren't worth taking in any squad that you want to actually accomplish anything with it's shooting.

That doesnt' mean they are never worth taking, just that it leaves a narrow field when they're worthwhile.

The IG book doesn't struggle for either S6 shooting or small blasts, meaning that building any unit around a weapons that is just mediocre substitiions for other weapons isn't wise.

That said, I've run them on my two autocannon infantry squads that I take in an 1850 mostly mechanized list. They make the unit slightly bettet at it's secondary job (taking pot shots).

All of my infantry squads have one. I run a gunline with 8 squads of guardsmen... it's cost effective and nice, in Krak mode, for wounding marines at 24".

IMO, the IG have enough guns to wipe out marines (LRBT, Basilisk)/ hordes (Hellhounds, Manticores) and vehicles (Vendettas/ Hydras). So why then waste points on putting weapons in infantry squads that are sub par relative to these options, and limit the primary function of platoons, to take and hold objectives. The GL on the other hand doesn't have this problem, because not only does it fire on the move at a respectable range, it also adds a versatile edge to the squads' shooting that they otherwise wouldn't have had with alternative weapons. And its cheap. Specialised roles should be fulfilled by specialised troops found elsewhere in the IG codex, and the objectives should be left to the troopers. Providing that the the two work in harmony, there should be no need for using infantry squad special weapons for last ditch efforts to prevent them getting destroyed, but rather to add to the already punishing amount of firepower that the IG can bring to bear.

People tends to think that grenade launcher is worthless in the sense of AP. They always think that AP4 is not strong enough for them, which also tends to happen to me as well. They do not have the high AP like plasma guns, excel tank busting strength of 2D6 armor penetration like meltaguns. However, in general, it is one of the most reliable weapon you can use in terms of IG. It prove its worthness when I shoot 2 krak grenade at a Warboss. Killed him befiore he charge into my gunline. Also, the games is Annialation , so i gain a kill point out of him and win the game 1 lead ahead of him.

or, if reasoning doesn't persuade you, take a whole bunch of them and actually record (on paper) what they do. It's easy to remember "once I had a grenade launcher that...", while it's just as easy to forget turn after turn where they killed absolutely nothing. If you need empiricism to see how awful they are, I would encourage you to put it to the test.

Play 10 games with all your special weapons as grenade launchers and meticulously record how many times each weapon was shot and what it did. Then do the same with plasma or meltaguns. I guarantee that unless you're really lucky with GLs and not with a different gun you're going to see the sum of what GLs do add up to a whole lot of nothing, while your melta and plasma will actually kill stuff.

It took me 20 games of meticulous record keeping to finally stop upgrading my infantry squads with krak grenades (something which should have been obvious by just thinking it through), and I'm sure most people will have the same experience with GLs if they actually look critically at what they're accomplishing with them.

I used to run flamers in my stationary ac power blobs. Until i realised its a waste since 90% you will get charged before you use them, and since its not worth it to put meltas in blobs (too short range) or plasma (too expensive). I use the grenade launcher, it can threaten light armor, has longer range and its cheap. With BiD they are realible enough.

On the other hand I run my mechvets with plasmas and meltas, since their moblity and bs 4 plus their 3 weapons slot allows them to excel with the expensive weapons.

I put flamers in my pcs since they are more mobile then my ac blobs.

Well, to be honest my luck is way way way much better on Grenade Launchers that plasma and melta guns. Firstly, I did a record for my plasma gun on how many shots it can make in 10 games and guess what, out of the 30 shots they shot , the percentage that I roll a 1 for get hot is always 80 percent. Melta guns is always the prime target, even hiding in chimera,my opponent tends to use his fire power to bust the tank and kill all the guys with it as well. BTW, grenade launchers makes them feel less threaten, they will think well it's just a grenade launcher nothing to be afraid of and got himself kill by it.

I personally would use any other choice over a grenade launcher most of the time. Flamers used at the right time can deal with most Horde threats (on a side note I'm loving the greater access to Heavy Flamers in this codex as I often face Orks and Tyranids,) Melta guns allow for vehicle strikes, and general facing off against more dangerous monsters, and plasma with a bit of luck hurts MEQ.

Heck, I only currently have one in my entire army. Actually in the veteran squad oddly. Although not so much by choice, but its where I wanted to use the female 'vasquez a like' Catachan. It is a Harker squad mind, so she supports his lets walk about and shoot stuff.