Space Marine Krak Grenades

[tobybaconcheese]

I've read and experienced that Space Marine Krak Grenades are not worth taking. So I've done some research on their abilities and have provided some optional configuration for your own games. At the top is the settings that have been changed and below them is the damage output comparison of various Space Marine weapons.

Krak grenades are equivalent to the Kraken Bolts upgrade (as seen in the existing settings below) but I think there should be more value than this so that Krak grenades are still useful later into the game and besides you only get to use it once every 10 turns.


Location in your Gladius folder: \Data\World\Weapons\KrakGrenade.xml


========Seems balanced now to me. Making Krak your goto flexible choice.
<rangedArmorPenetration add="4"/>
<rangedDamage add="4"/>

Tactical Kraken Bolts upgrade vs. Killa Kans
Bolter 5.8
Frag 4.2
Krak 10.0
Melta 15.0

Tactical Kraken Bolts upgrade vs. Tank Bustas
Bolter 7.8
Frag 9.6
Krak 10.2
Melta N/A

Tactical Kraken Bolts upgrade vs. Warboss (lvl 6 / 18 HP)
Bolter 3.1
Frag 1.3
Krak 4.5
Melta N/A

HQ attack vs. Warboss (lvl 6 / 18 HP)
Bolters/LasCannon 5.6

===========A bit stronger settings vs vehicles and characters
<rangedArmorPenetration add="4"/> <!-- was (2)-->
<rangedDamage add="5"/> <!-- was (3)-->

Tactical Kraken Bolts upgrade vs. Killa Kans
Bolt gun 5.8
Frag 4.2
Krak 12.5
Melta 15.0

Tactical Kraken Bolts upgrade vs. Tank Bustas
Bolt gun 7.8
Frag 9.6
Krak 10.2
Melta N/A

Tactical Kraken Bolts upgrade vs. Warboss (lvl 6 / 18 HP)
Bolter 3.1
Frag 1.3
Krak 5.6
Melta N/A

HQ vs. Warboss (lvl 6 / 18 HP)
Bolters/LasCannon 5.6


==========Existing settings - same as kraken bolts upgrade so why would you take it?
<rangedArmorPenetration add="2"/>
<rangedDamage add="3"/>

Tactical Kraken Bolts upgrade vs. Killa Kans
Bolt gun 5.8
Frag 4.2
Krak 5.8
Melta 15.0

Tactical Kraken Bolts upgrade vs. Tank Bustas
Bolt gun 7.8
Frag 9.6
Krak 7.8
Melta N/A

Tactical Kraken Bolts upgrade vs. Warboss (lvl 6 / 18 HP)
Bolter 3.1
Frag 1.3
Krak 3.1
Melta N/A

HQ vs. Warboss (lvl 6 / 18 HP)
Bolters/LasCannon 5.6

[Thanatos...]

I think its funny that your arrogant enough to think you can change something thats existed for many many years in lore, just because "you" dont think its right? true sign of a non warhammer fan wanting the game to be easier and "balanced" because any warhammer fan knows the IP isnt supposed to be "balanced" for everybody. Are you even aware the reason thier called "krak" grenades is because they were mostly used against tough armor(there were also "krak" missiles too) thats why they call them "krak" grenades. if you want to destroy a killa can right then you would mostly use what they call "melta bombs" because they destroy vehicle armor. You guys really need to just enjoy 40k for what it is instead of trying to "fix" it because you dont think its "fair".

[Stardustfire]

better dont think about how he woud want to "balance" frags.....

[Thanatos...]

ikr, or how about a necron balance because the res orb is so unfair. Id hate to see what hed do to battlesector.

[Jey]

First, for our sanity, let's ignore the first three answers. It would be a waste of time.

Now:
Are Krak Grenades bad?
Yes. On Space Marines. As you pointed out : Bolters are just as good!
Sure they have 1 less AP, but we can all agree that's irrelevant.

On Tabletop, krak grenades are (were?) free. You get a tactical squad, you get a krak grenade to throw. Even if it's only useful on very specific circumstances, it's ok you don't pay anything for it.

But in Gladius you spend precious research points on it. So it's bad.

Now, how can krak grenades be improved?
They can't. *gasp*.

Krak grenades are not only used by Space Marines/CSM. They're also used by the Astra Militarum.

And on Astra Militarum, oh boy are krak grenades great. Not only for themselves (because you know lasgun sucks) but also because a commissar can basically turn them into melta bombs.

Any buff you give to SM krak grenades is reported on AM krak grenades. And we don't want that. Like really not.

Furthermore, Space Marines have Melta Bombs. Buffing krak grenades (assuming you buff only SM krak grenades) make them directly compete with Melta Bombs (why would I take the melta bombs research (T4/T5) if the krak grenades (T2) are as efficient? It's unlikely I could use both, because the enemy usually will not let grenade throwers live for long. And if I get two rounds of Melta-bomb like... Then it begs the question "What is the point of dedicated anti-tanks like Devastators?". Might as well get cheap grenades thrower that are basically just as efficient. No infantry unit survives more than 3 turns anyway so it's all cool.


Technically, since scouts appeared, SM (but not CSM) have a use for krak grenades because scouts use heavy weapons so krak grenades allow them to "shoot with bolters" for one turn. Not an amazing use, but hey, it's better than nothing (like CSM).


In short : You can't buff krak grenades, the only good fix is to entirely remove them on SM and CSM.

[GreenBeanN1]

There will always be replies like in tabletop v 1.56102.1 should be like this or the other one will say no the tabletop version of game is I think between 7.61.1.a and 8.9.b1. We should use that. Again someone else: but in v 7.8.1.q it was x. In v 8.1.p.5 it was z. It should be y. That's ok we understand you.

For your own games you can mod the game as you want.

Personally I changed them from <rangedArmorPenetration add="2"/> to <rangedArmorPenetration add="3"/>

It works ok for space marines. Not great but there are more specific situations where it becomes interesting to use. if the weapon is also used by other factions you have to test the changes there too. If you like it there you are done. If not, well then there is more work to do.

You could fork the weapon, remove it from specific models, change the cooldown, make it available in specific situations.

[tobybaconcheese]

Thanks, Jey and GreenBeanN1 these are things I hadn't considered. I don't play games much with Astra Militarum in them so I hadn't considered the consequences of changing this setting.

I'm making the grenade change of <rangedArmorPenetration add="3"/> specific to Space Marines. I personally try to build a balanced army and that's hard to do with SM who only have one build queue for each infantry, vehicles, ect. So my goal is to try and make Tactical and Assault squads worth considering more late game. As you noted most of the time many of the squads don't last more than a few turns at most anyway.

I first played 40K when Rogue Trader first edition came out and it was a role-playing game when there were no army lists yet and you built characters with anything you wanted. The plastic kit with 2 Land Raiders wasn't available in Canada. So my friends and I used to imagine a Sucrets throat lozenge box with the lid removed was a Land Raider and we had Zoats running around the tabletop on a death world that we were fighting against. That period of creativity and imagination is where I'm coming from so I occasionally customise Gladius in that spirit and appreciate constructive feedback from the forum.

[Captain Worthy]

The reason why the SM krak grenades got displaced in this game was the kraken rounds research option getting a buff. Before that, SM did slightly more damage against armour with the grenades.

Tabletop does not have this issue since it has close combat rules for the grenades and the unit/weapon stat system is also different, so lore has nothing to do with this.

This game uses a different system which otherwise works fine but creates this particular kraken bolts>krak grenade issue.

The only balanced option seems to be to tone down the kraken bolts a bit so that the krak grenades gain back their function. The buff was a mistake.

[Jey]

Originally posted by Captain Worthy:

The reason why the SM krak grenades got displaced in this game was the kraken rounds research option getting a buff.

Kraken bolts got no buff. They got a nerf.

[Captain Worthy]

Originally posted by Jey:

Originally posted by Captain Worthy:

The reason why the SM krak grenades got displaced in this game was the kraken rounds research option getting a buff.

Kraken bolts got no buff. They got a nerf.

They were set to the same level as the krak grenades either way, hence the issue.

[tobybaconcheese]

Originally posted by Captain Worthy:

Originally posted by Jey:

Kraken bolts got no buff. They got a nerf.

They were set to the same level as the krak grenades either way, hence the issue.

That's what I'm getting at too. I think everything in the research tree should have a purpose so I'm experimenting with options for a solution to this. It can be taken out of course but I'd rather have the option of some extra versatility with tactical and assault squads and for the captain.

[Jey]

Originally posted by tobybaconcheese:

I'd rather have the option of some extra versatility with tactical and assault squads and for the captain.

What do you call "versatility" exactly?

Anti-infantry is already taken care of by frag grenades, anti-vehicules is taken care of by melta.
Krak grenades have no role left. They will necessarily conflict with one of the two.

[tobybaconcheese]

I'm trying to re-work the grenade so that it represents a focused high explosive charge that's good at cracking highly armoured targets such as a single character or one person in the unit with a high armour rating. I'm experimenting with removing the BlastDamage characteristic from the grenade, reducing the ranged damage value but increasing the penetration value.

[Jey]

Originally posted by tobybaconcheese:

I'm trying to re-work the grenade so that it represents a focused high explosive charge that's good at cracking highly armoured targets such as a single character or one person in the unit with a high armour rating.

How is it efficient against single character, without also being efficient against tanks i.e competing with Melta Bombs?

[tobybaconcheese]

There's a trait that can be set to specify the grenade isn't effective vs. vehicles. I'm trying to find it. I think I could use conditions -> unit match -> Infantry to say it only works against infantry.

[LordZon]

The Krak grenade has 100% accuracy. So maybe that's something?