40K: Grenades May be Badass in 9th
The rules we’ve seen so far make me think Grenades may be back with a BANG in 9th.
Grenades always underperformed in 8th Edition. Over the course of editions they have seen ups and downs, and 8th was on the low side. The combination of low range and the only one model can throw them kept them mostly ignored all edition. There are some corner cases where that one perfect grenade was at the right place at the right time and made the magic happen. But overall, they were afterthoughts. That was before you got into weird mismatches like the superfluous Melta Bombs on Fire Dragons, and other legacy oddities.
Boom Goes the Dynamite
But 9th has me thinking that the humble grenade may be back.
The most common grenade in the game is the humble Frag Grenade, but there are many in the same vein like Eldar Plasma Grenades, Ork Stikkboms and more. Again, in their current state these are just too unreliable and usually a worse option than a model’s default weapon. BUT, if 9th Edition is going to classify these general purpose grenades as BLAST weapons, then it’s a whole new ballgame.
Butterfingers…
The minimum 3 hits, or max hits based on the size of the target unit make the math a lot better on these types of things. Next start poring through books for any opportunity to use more than1 of these at a time, either through special rules, or stratagems, or grenade launchers that you can field in multiples.
There are a lot of possibilities in a lot of armies out there. I’m not saying that grenades will take over the game – but anything that makes them more useful is great in my book. And there is a real possibility of that.
Mortarion Smiles
In particular one possibility has me wondering about 9th:
A squad of Death Guard Plague Marines (armed with Blight Grenades)
Using these two Strategems:
Now do the math and think about what a dozen Blight Grenades doing automatic max hits at 12″ away could do to a lot of big horde units in the game. I’m sure there will be a lot of other cool combos out there. Crack open those codexes fellow Grimdark detectives.
And…THROW!
~Get hunting folks. Fingers crossed that grenades may indeed be a bigger part of all our games in the days ahead!
