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Kroot were always a 'spoiler' unit - getting in the way, too much firepower and melee to ignore but too cheap and low priority to want to waste time attacking. They'd block deepstrikes in their deployment zone and wander up behind yours and generally get in the way.

madtankbloke wrote:
It wasn't until the 5th edition codex, in 2015, that Kroot were slapped hard, losing their CCW and going to S3 base.

6th edition (no codex in 5th). IIRC they were changed to a sniper unit to go with all of the precision shooting rules GW had added to the edition.

5th edition did have a lot of free frag grenades and durable tank shocking vehicles though, and increasingly less 'forested' areas with all the bunker, bastion, and trench-line scenery on offer. Increasingly cheap bikers and assault units also loved having these 'blocker' style units to charge into for extra movement and protection from return fire.

 Haighus wrote:
I am less clear on if a single character with grenades confers the benefits onto the squad, but I think not.

"Troops armed with frag grenades always fight simultaneously against troops in cover"

Not the clearest of wordings and not improved in the 3e faq/errata, but the orks boyz weren't armed with grenades and so as far as I recall did not benefit any more than they would from the nob carrying krak grenades or similar.

 morganfreeman wrote:
So this would actually give it to the entire squad per third edition, as special rules effected the entire squad (and any independent characters, including vice versa) unless it specifically called out that they did not (Fewl No Pain being an example of such a carve out). So having one model with frag grenades conferred the rule to the entire squad in the same way that fearless would.

It’s worth noting that a lot of older ‘equipment’ was actually just special rules, not actually items with profiles and some such.

Frag grandes weren't special rules - they were included in the 'special close combat attacks' section alongside power weapons, power fists, close combat weapons, and monstrous creature attacks.

There was also a benefit to having _something_ in your list that could infiltrate.

If nothing else it created a 12-18" radius bubble of denial that kept enemy infiltrators off your back - it was never ideal having genestealers or heavily armed chaos marines deploying in a building 12" from your broadsides.

 Haighus wrote:
I thought the "melee attacks always hit rear armour" thing only came in in 5th. The 4th rulebook doesn't mention it and does mention that charging units must move towards the closest facing.

Correct. Assaults in 3rd and 4th were explicitly prevented from going 'around' a vehicle to hit a side other than the one facing them prior to the charge.

 aphyon wrote:
the hitting rear armor and only needing 3+ hit a vehicle that moved any distance was a Jervis Johnson change to 5th. when asked why he pushed for the change his stupid answer, and i am not kidding, "if you assault a vehicle you deserve to hit it"

5th edition had the same to hit rules as 4th edition, you are thinking of 6th.
And 5th edition arguably needed the 'always hits back' rules - what were models without krak grenades supposed to do otherwise against the parking lots.

Under 4e rules you were hitting front armour even if your charge wrapped around to the sides - "individual models can only assault the side of the vehicle facing them at the start of their charge".
It got especially bad with 13+ armour where even krak grenades were no good, even more so with skimmers that were 6+ to hit when stationary.

 Haighus wrote:
The thing for me is that it doesn't make sense that a facing of a tank could be sufficiently well armoured that it cannot be damaged by, say, a krak grenade shot from a grenade launcher, but then a squad charging the same facing can place a krak grenade in a weakspot that the launched grenade has zero chance of hitting?

3e and 4e were kind of the opposite - if the attacking squad were able to encircle a vehicle on the charge they'd still stubbornly be planting their grenades on the most armoured side (or whichever side they were facing before the charge).

I guess you could say that the early editions were comparable to the troops always stopping just short of the tank and chucking their grenades at it while 5e onwards had the troops swarming over the tank jamming grenades into barrels and the like. Their penetration chances didn't change, just the armour facing they were attacking.