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I've been considering ways to 'fix'/improve the AM grenade launcher - please note that this is solely focused on that specific type of grenade launcher, more in the hopes that an effective consensus could then lead to changes and inspire future looks at other grenade launcher-type weapons afterwards.

In thinking of grenade launchers, I found myself asking 'why wouldn't the gunner fire a burst?'

In that light:

Frag:
Range: 18" STR: 3 AP: 0 DM: 1 Rapid Fire 2D6

Krak:
Range: 18" STR: 6 AP: -1 DM: D3 Rapid Fire 2

With a 9" rapid fire, you do double the amount you're shooting... but closely enough that a Flamer would start to look more attractive - since at 9" you're barely in deep-strike range, you're within a more reasonable charge range compared to 12" rapid fire, and the loss of automatic hits vs a flamer means getting that close to do that kind of damage drives the player into having to debate flamer vs GL as much as against other weapon options.

Could explain more reasoning, but mostly just curious how the profile might be received.

How about we simply turn frag grenades in 2d3 instead of d6 hits which makes it better then a lasgun which it is replacing.
And raise krak grenade to 2 wounds instead of d3.

And nerf plasmagun to str6 base str 7 overcharged so it isn't better then a much more expensive melta gun in most situations and Better then a grenade launcher in every case.

These are all minor improvements to balance the game. What you have above is really powerful for every squad running around with grenades..

Was trying to 'balance up' to Plasma Guns rather than suggesting a nerf to them; while the high rof of the grenade launchers sounds daunting, the low strength and lack of AP on frag and the low AP on krak drastically reduces their effectiveness against anything with a save. Assuming you somehow get the max number of hits per frag volley with a veteran squad you get 72 hits - but net only 5 ~wounds against MEQ. Ratio is even worse if you try using Krak.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

gungo wrote:
How about we simply turn frag grenades in 2d3 instead of d6 hits which makes it better then a lasgun which it is replacing.
And raise krak grenade to 2 wounds instead of d3.

And nerf plasmagun to str6 base str 7 overcharged so it isn't better then a much more expensive melta gun in most situations and Better then a grenade launcher in every case.

These are all minor improvements to balance the game. What you have above is really powerful for every squad running around with grenades..

And unfortunately, even at Str 6 base a plasma gun is still better than a grenade launcher would ever be...at 5 pts for a GL and 7 pts for a PG, even 2D3 frag/2 krak isn't enough for a grenade launcher to be worth the points when you can get a PG for 2 more points... perhaps 2d6 rapid fire is a bit too much; a better answer likely lies in between, I still feel the plasma gun isn't necessarily the problem but that the meltagun isn't that good at its AV vehicle role which makes the PG's versatility much more attractive by comparison.

Str 6 ap-1 2 dam assault for 5points
Is comparable to
Str 6 ap-3 1dam rapid fire for 7 points
Plasma is a bit better especially in rapid fire range but if plasma only second fire option is a minor bump to str7 and 2 dam it's still only a specific target weapon for MC type, light vehicles, and terminator equivilants. Whereas the grenade launcher can act like a multi shot lasgun w frag grenades vs hordes. Plasma should be better then grenade launchers just not completely ridiculous like it is now.

There is several threads showing how mathematically plasmaguns are better then nearly every other special weapon in most circumstances.

Shooting is already powerful this edition racking everything up further doesn't fix this.
The slight upgrades to grenades makes it so they aren't way powerful but it means more reliable. 2d3 instead of d6 means you always have a min 2 shots w frag and an average of 4 up to 24in. Making it comparable to lasgun w 2 shots in rapid fire range and 4 with frfsrf but only 12in.
Krak 2 dam means it's more reliable for 2 wound (or more) targets which is likely the only time you'd use it.

Plasmagun having the ability to hit str 8 was a poor decision. Instead of making plasmaguns the anti MC (str6/7)it use to be they made it the anti tank weapon melta is suppose to be. Toughness 8 is what most tanks are tioughness 7 is what most light vehicles are as well. Plasmagun should have never been str8. They would have the perfect niche at str6/7 instead it's the anti MC, anti tank, even elite infantry killing weapon choice for every situation. The only time melta is better is vs t8 vehicles with 2+ saves and no invul and the melta is in 6inches. That is such a niche target it's no wonder everyone just chooses plasma guns.

I've long thought that a great fluffy combo would give the guard some sort or smoke grenade that could be fired by grenade launchers and grenadier gauntlets. It could use the same rules as smoke launchers on vehicles -- give their own unit or (more likely) a friendly unit within 12"-18" -1 to hit them. I'm sure there are other support grenades they could think up. Stun grenades that prevent overwatch, for example.

These would add a lot of tactics to what should be a common guard gun.

gungo wrote:
Str 6 ap-1 2 dam assault for 5points
Is comparable to
Str 6 ap-3 1dam rapid fire for 7 points
Plasma is a bit better especially in rapid fire range but if plasma only second fire option is a minor bump to str7 and 2 dam it's still only a specific target weapon for MC type, light vehicles, and terminator equivilants. Whereas the grenade launcher can act like a multi shot lasgun w frag grenades vs hordes. Plasma should be better then grenade launchers just not completely ridiculous like it is now.

There is several threads showing how mathematically plasmaguns are better then nearly every other special weapon in most circumstances.

Shooting is already powerful this edition racking everything up further doesn't fix this.
The slight upgrades to grenades makes it so they aren't way powerful but it means more reliable. 2d3 instead of d6 means you always have a min 2 shots w frag and an average of 4 up to 24in. Making it comparable to lasgun w 2 shots in rapid fire range and 4 with frfsrf but only 12in.
Krak 2 dam means it's more reliable for 2 wound (or more) targets which is likely the only time you'd use it.

Plasmagun having the ability to hit str 8 was a poor decision. Instead of making plasmaguns the anti MC (str6/7)it use to be they made it the anti tank weapon melta is suppose to be. Toughness 8 is what most tanks are tioughness 7 is what most light vehicles are as well. Plasmagun should have never been str8. They would have the perfect niche at str6/7 instead it's the anti MC, anti tank, even elite infantry killing weapon choice for every situation. The only time melta is better is vs t8 vehicles with 2+ saves and no invul and the melta is in 6inches. That is such a niche target it's no wonder everyone just chooses plasma guns.

Perhaps, then, paired with your recommended plasma gun nerf just take a -1 from the GL's rapid fire in my suggestion. So:

Frag:
Range: 18" STR: 3 AP: 0 DM: 1 Rapid Fire 1D6

Krak:
Range: 18" STR: 6 AP: -1 DM: 2 Rapid Fire 1

Feel like that would put GLs into a very competitive slot next to slightly-reduced plasma guns, and as-standing meltaguns and flamers and better represent the two real benefits of a GL - flexibility from ammo choice and rate of fire. The reduced range compensates for the increased ROF, still.

The issue is Plasma Guns are priced at 7 points. Just make them 10. 1 Plasma Gun for every 2 Grenade Launchers.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
The issue is Plasma Guns are priced at 7 points. Just make them 10. 1 Plasma Gun for every 2 Grenade Launchers.

The issue is that grenade launchers don't do anything. You could price them at 1pt and I'd still pick the 10pt plasmagun because it actually serves a purpose. It performs a meaningful function.

As others have said, Grenade Launchers just doesn't do much. Even if it is the cheapest option or free, it might not be that good. Not because it would be terrible in itself, but because you need to pay for the unit using it. These are Command Squads and Special Weapons Squads at 24 pts each, Infantry Squads at 40, Veterans at 60, Rough Riders at 50 and Tempestus at 40 or 50. If we consider the worst option, you could have an infantry squad take a GL and it would cost 45 points, while the best might be a command squad with them, giving us 4 Grenade Launchers for 44 points. Right now, if we took plasma guns instead, it would give us 1 for 47 or 4 for 52 for my two example units. So while Plasma Gun itself is 40% more expensive, the squads are only 7-20% more points.

So how much better is a Plasma Gun compared to the Grenade Launcher? The average values are, for a BS4+ model:

Frag Grenade
T3 Sv5+ - 0.583 wounds
T4-5 Sv3+ - 0.194 wounds
T4-5 Sv2+ - 0.0972 wounds
T6+ Sv3+ - 0.0972 wounds
T6+ Sv2+ - 0.0486 wounds

Krak Grenade (first value against single wound models where you can overkill)

T3 Sv5+ - 0.347/0.694 wounds
T4-5 Sv3+ - 0.167/0.333 wounds
T4-5 Sv2+ - 0.111/0.222 wounds
T6 Sv3+ - 0.25 wounds
T6 Sv2+ - 0.167 wounds
T7+ Sv3+ - 0.167 wounds
T7+ Sv2+ - 0.111 wounds

Plasma Gun (standard mode, outside 12"):

T3 Sv5+ - 0.416 wounds
T4-6 Sv3+ - 0.278 wounds
T4-6 Sv2+ - 0.222 wounds
T7 Sv3+ - 0.208 wounds
T7 Sv2+ - 0.167 wounds
T8+ Sv3+ - 0.139 wounds
T8+ Sv2+ - 0.111 wounds

The frag option is only superior against very light infantry, such as Guardsmen. But you know, you already bought a 40 point unit armed with S3 AP- that can shot between 7 and 28 lasguns shots depending on range and orders (assuming it has 1 HWT and 1 Special Weapon), and this kind of opponent has never been a problem. If we compare the krak grenade, it is evident that it is worse against single wound models than the plasma gun, but superior when we shoot ones with more, while being more or less equal to the plasma gun against harder targets. The problems we run into here are that: you can rapid fire the plasma gun, doubling its damage output, and you can overcharge it, more than doubling the damage again if you do not overkill. Since we allocate wounds ourselves, our special weapons guardsman has a quite decent chance of surviving into rapid fire range, or you can just use a Valkyire or deep-striking unit. So using a plasma gun instead of a grenade launcher could increase your firepower for that one guardsman by more than 400%, and at its absolute worst, it will be very slightly inferior in a few fringe cases.

So, right now, you could have a unit with 4 GLs for 44 points or a Plasma Gun for 52 points, and it is quite evident that the PG is vastly better. If the GL was free, I might take it because I'll have 4 weapons for 24 points, but the PG company squad can still deal more damage per point in rapid fire range or overcharging. Nonetheless, it could have a use in this case. However, for the normal squad, you're still paying 40 points for the squad even if the GL is free, and 47 if you take a plasma gun. I just don't think it is worth sacrificing that special weapon slot on a worse weapon when you already pay quite a lot for it. Especially as only one of the firing modes actually benefits me unless I want to shoot guardsmen.

What would make the grenade launcher worth it? Doubling its firepower still means that the frag grenade deals less damage than a plasma gun against marines, and it just becomes even better against all those T3 hordes. The Krak option would become somewhat attractive for some use, but I'm still unsure if I would take it competitively.

I would definitely keep 24" on the grenade launcher in order to keep its synergy with lasguns, the last thing it needs is a range nerf.

Then I'd make it either rapid 1 or assault 2, and give the frag grenade S4 to set it apart from a lasgun. As mentioned, we don't need to spend 5 points on an average of 3 S3 shots when we can get 4 for 4 points. So make the grenade launcher a source of S4 instead. I'd probably also make the krak grenade do a flat 2 wounds instead of d3, so it can at least be a consistent choice to deal with 2-wound models. Maybe even AP-2, to focus it more specifically on Primaris marines and Terminators.

In general I think the goal should be for grenade launchers to beat plasma soundly in the range of T3/5+ to T4/4+, and be close to each other at T4/3+. In the T5-T6 range it should mostly come down to whether you want to pay the 2 points for extra AP on plasma, and then for T7+ plasma should soundly beat grenade launchers (partially due to overcharge). That's the kind of situation I'd try to aim for anyway.

Smoke grenades would be a kind of nifty thing to have, since being able skip shooting on one guardsman to put a -1 to hit on a unit would be a pretty powerful tool. I think I would put smoke grenades as a 1-2 point upgrade to the grenade launcher (similar to how the missile launcher could pay a couple points for AA missiles in the previous edition) rather than part of the base package.

I'm in favour of grenade launchers becoming assault 6 for frag rounds. This is because I'm starting to come around to the idea that blast weapons should just get their maximum possible D6 result for attacks to begin with, and have their hit rolls be the randon variable. It's ok for flamers to have random numbers of attacks because they auto hit. But if you have to randomly generate your attacks first then roll to hit it's going to get disappointing very often.

Smoke grenades sound like a great idea too. Very characterful. Just as long as the unit affected by them can't shoot.

 Future War Cultist wrote:
I'm in favour of grenade launchers becoming assault 6 for frag rounds. This is because I'm starting to come around to the idea that blast weapons should just get their maximum possible D6 result for attacks to begin with, and have their hit rolls be the randon variable. It's ok for flamers to have random numbers of attacks because they auto hit. But if you have to randomly generate your attacks first then roll to hit it's going to get disappointing very often.

Smoke grenades sound like a great idea too. Very characterful. Just as long as the unit affected by them can't shoot.

Hmm, yeah I can see flat shot values for blast weapons being a good idea across the board. It kind of does do even more to bleach out their flavor since there would be no mechanical difference between a HE cannon and a machine gun, but removing the template in the first place put it most of the way there already so that little extra bit of standardization is not much of a leap.

I think a slightly more flavorful way of representing blasts would be to have a fixed minimum number of shots, plus a scaling factor based on the size of the target unit. For example, one blast weapon could be 3+1/5 (3 minimum, plus 1 for every 5 models in the targeted unit), another might be 1+3/5 to make it much more reliant on its scaling factor, while yet another might be something like 6+1/10 to give it a high baseline but very little scaling.

That split between base and scaling would also provide an interesting lever that can be used to tune blast weapons to different ideal targets.

For smoke, I think preventing shooting on the targeted unit entirely might be a bit extreme. While it does still leave open some narrow tactical uses (such as trying to hold an objective on the last turn), you're already giving up firing the grenade launcher so maybe a gentler way to make it double-sided would be to make the -1 to hit apply to the screened unit as well.

Of course, I suppose that would make a smoke GL strictly better than vehicle smoke launchers in many ways (can be used more than once, can screen units other than itself, only prevents one grenade launcher from shooting instead of a whole tank), but in my opinion that would be justified by being a 5 point special weapon with a 2 point upgrade option instead of a freebie that every vehicle comes with by default.

 ross-128 wrote:

I think a slightly more flavorful way of representing blasts would be to have a fixed minimum number of shots, plus a scaling factor based on the size of the target unit. For example, one blast weapon could be 3+1/5 (3 minimum, plus 1 for every 5 models in the targeted unit), another might be 1+3/5 to make it much more reliant on its scaling factor, while yet another might be something like 6+1/10 to give it a high baseline but very little scaling.

I think that would be a good idea, though I'd probably cap it (since blasts can only hit so many models, regardless of squad size).

e.g.:
- Small Blasts have 2 shots, plus 1 for every 5 models (up to a maximum of +1)
- Flamers have 2 hits, plus 2 for every 5 models (up to a maximum of +4)
- Large Blasts have 3 shots, plus 1 for every 5 models (up to a maximum of +3)

Something like that, anyway.

To make GL more viable, you basically need to make Plasma Gun into
Normal - S5 AP-1 1D
Overheat - S7 AP-3 2D

As for GL themselves...
Probably just lower their cost to like 3

 Talamare wrote:
To make GL more viable, you basically need to make Plasma Gun into
Normal - S5 AP-1 1D
Overheat - S7 AP-3 2D

Making one special weapon crap won't magically make another one less crap.

 vipoid wrote:

 Talamare wrote:
To make GL more viable, you basically need to make Plasma Gun into
Normal - S5 AP-1 1D
Overheat - S7 AP-3 2D

Making one special weapon crap won't magically make another one less crap.

Claiming that overheat profile is crap is disingenuous.

No, the overcharge isn't crap, but the non-overcharged one is. It's a slow-firing heavy bolter. Not that heavy bolters are particularly bad, but they do rely on ROF to be effective.

Also, overcharging plasma is bad news, except on 1W infantry. Maybe if it were standardized to "natural 1 to hit = mortal wound to the shooter" rather than "natural 1 to hit = die", though.

I don't think the non-overcharged profile needs to be nerfed below str6 as str6 isn't as good as last edition.
Str7 is light vehicles and str 8 is heavy vehicles.
Plasmagun was always the ideal platform for antiMC
It should stay that way
And making plasmagun and pistols
Str6 base and str7 overcharged still leaves it as a great weapon for MCs and light vehicles for 7 points but not better then a meltagun in most situations for heavy vehicles.
The biggest mistake w plasmaguns (not plasmacannons they ironically are balanced) is the fact it's str8 and never should have been.

If you are looking to nerf the plasmagun to make the grenade launcher better in comparison. You first have to make the grenade launcher better then a lasgun. Which it's not currently.
However grenade launchers are in a precarious position in that it's main armament are also the profiles for standard grenades. Which means you throw off a lot of balance if you overdo it.
At best I can see frag grenades upgraded from d6 hits to 2d3.
It's minor but it garauntees 2 shot minimum and 4 shots average which coincidentally is the basis for a lasgun which is 2 shot rapid fire range and 4 shots w orders. However grenade launchers don't need orders, work from 24in, and can have more then 4 shots. Is that worth 5 points? Probably not
Which is why krak grenades also need to be changed from d3 wounds to 2 wounds. Odds are I wouldn't be taking a grenade launcher just to do 1 wound to something w krak grenades and have a lasgun equivilent frag grenade launcher. So make the krak grenade launcher a reliable 2 wounds. That still might not warrant 5 pts but at least it's an upgrade over a lasgun and keeps grenades in relatively the same profile.

Just thought I'd ask this here. Would the grenade launcher in frag mode be better as rapid fire 3 or assault 6? Would the grenade launcher being rapid fire 1 in krak mode be OK? I'm just playing around with different possible types. My gut feeling is, rapid fire 3 for frags and rapid fire 1 for kraks.

In all honesty Grenade launchers have always been the odd child. They are not anti-armour weapons, and nor are they really anti infantry weapons, but something in between. Essentially they are a jack of all and master of none weapon. The Missile Launcher could get away with this to a certain extent by being hard hitting enough for the lack of dedication to be somewhat negated but grenade launchers are too small to really be effective.