Les Chiens de Guerre

We just had our first tournament (pics will be provided sometime in the near future) and one thing that was definitely proven is that Explosions really rule the day. I had Mercs led by Don Quijote and included both the Grenadiers in my list. The first scenario was Ambush where the opponent has a rather limited deployment zone. My two grenades killed something like six of his models. In the second game, the grenades did over 30 points of damage in one round. And in the third game Asaliah possessed one of them who then proceeded to kill three models (including itself) after they had severely maimed most of the demon forces.

Have others noticed this? If you tool your list into having Dominance in the beginning (which I did) and carefully avoid losing it in the first turn, you can move the Grenadiers into really good positions and then launch into a very nasty double-whammy in the second turn. Their danger zone is effectively 19 inches this way (first turn run of 8", second turn move of 4", throw of 4" and then 3" radius in the blast), which is rather ridiculous considering that they don't cost much, explosion doesn't damage your own dudes and with Esquive 2 Grenadiers are risky to assault.

Eh ?  Is that right ?

no, it isn't.
Explosion makes damage to your own models if they are under the 3'' radius effect area and if an enemy is in contact with one of your model there is 1/2 chance that your model is also affected (even if it is not in 3'' effect area) : you throw a dice and on an odd numbers your model is affected (this is an errata).

Ah, thought so.  Always played it that grenades damaged all.   ;D

I didn't mean that they don't damage you if you are in the blast radius, but rather that it is super easy to position your models and the grenade blast in such a way as to prevent it from affecting your own dudes.

Yes, but it isn't that much more difficult for your opponent to engage your own dudes in such a way that you can't put the blast and completely avoid your models ;)

But the point was that you can construct your list in such a way as to have a very real chance of having dominance right at the start of the game. Then it is rather trivial to avoid the enemy for the first turn, and move the Grenadiers last. On the second turn you activate both the Grenadiers and throw their grenades and cause something like 20-30 points of damage without retaliation and ignoring DEF.

If you activate, say, a Doppelsöldner and get into close combat, you are likely causing something like 10 points of damage and receiving some yourself. Meanwhile, the Grenadiers consistently caused similar amounts of damage (often way more) without getting hit in return. And when they are charged, there is a 1/3 chance of the enemy wasting the charge, but they are too dangerous to not charge (as the grenades don't need to be reloaded). And even in CC they aren't entirely useless due to PR 2 and some combat ability.

I`d like to see this Dominating Westerner list.  I would say it is much much easier for others to dominate.  Might be because of the number of Demon players around here though.

I`d also like to add that the statistically likely result for a grenade is 6.6 (ish) so two of them hitting a unit will cause around 13 points of damage with the enemy reducing twice the PR.  Lets go with an average of 10 there.  If you were to score with every hit then the most they can do is 10 damage each, 20 max for the two.  Plus, now you have two very squishy units right in the front of the enemy lines that will soon be butchered down.  Remember, they can only dodge once.

I think Grenadiers are one of those units where people remember the time they perform spectacularly but forget the many times they get squished.

Just use common sense, don`t stick squishy bosses at the front, don`t clump together all your fighters, and have a good counter-charge unit to plug gaps and they`ll go down easily enough.

The westerners are a bit poor in really powerful units, so they need their grenadiers. Yes they are good, but if you play correctly, you can prevent at least one from shooting. Every faction has something to watch out for, for the Westerners it's just the grenadiers (and a bit the doppelsoldners also).
If you see a couple of them, concentrate on one to engage and otherwise leave your units very well spaced. If you see four, you should be able to engage two easily, otherwise make sure that all your units engage the enemy so that any grenade is 50% likely to hit the enemy instead (or 100% likely to *also* hit the enemy).

It was Mercs with Don Quijote, not Westerners.

It is pretty much impossible for the enemy to position in such a way as to avoid a single grenade hitting at least two models. Especially in scenarios, where you usually need to bunch them up a bit for various reasons.

I did have four Esquive 2 dudes in my force, though. They really do add up, especially when playing scenarios as opposed to kill em all.

I have won every game where I've used the Grenadiers and they have always done over 20 points of damage. I and my game group are very experienced war gamers and have been playing Hell Dorado since it was launched. Every game I've been left wondering on what I could've done were the forces switched and had I encountered the Grenadiers.

Surely you have been very lucky against good Saracen players.

I always play Chams the genie, a Hashishin and a few sanctified warriors (SW). The idea is to stay within Chams' protective aura at the end of the first turn (or thereabout, depending on the scenario, really when you would be able to grenade me next turn) except the Hashishin who does not care and will be roughly 9" away). Maybe I'll have to slow down a bit for that and drop a few victory points, but it's worth it, and I'll accelerate later. Then next turn I will start by sending the SW at the grenadiers first. If they get dodged, I send something bigger right away, if not you will have to kill them before being able to drop a grenade. And when you kill them, you are back to square 1 with no valid target.

That's a difficult strategy to work around. It does not invalidate the use of grenadiers for 2 reasons:
* They still work against other groups
* The very fact that you had them forced me to play that way, so you effectively gained control of the battlefield until they are squished. They have served a purpose, maybe not as much as you hoped but an important one nonetheless.

So yes, grenadiers are very (ok extremely) good, but they are not unbeatable, far from that.

The hashishin can quite easily deal with Grenadiers: shadow wlak then walk close enough to throw him a dagger. That cannot be dodged that and it only takes 2 successes to kill him.

With Dominance, the hashishin can kill a second Grenadier at the beginning of turn 2.

The Hashishin is really the best weapon against grenadier ! This is why the Westerners suffer so mutch against Saracens. The Mercs are more strong against saracens because their 3 actual officers (Don Quijote , Rossinante and The Wanderer)are better than the Westerners officers. It's easy for Mercs to have dominance at the begining of the game (even against Saracens) and they can got it in the game with Don Quijote or Rossinante (Charge 18 inch).

Their's a lot of "weapons" against Grenadiers witch are going to appear in the mercs list : Sha Ren Zhe for exemple...

We had a big post on Grenadiers in the French part of the Forum. Generaly , the Westerners players love the grenadiers and the Daemons players cry about it... what a suprise ! The Saracens ignore this debat... The Lost have good armor , so they dont protest to much.

If you want to assault or charge a grenadier , you'll have to prepare it with care. Place two fighters near the grenadiers for he only can dodge one time in the turn. If he dodge the first time , you could have in the second time...

Actually Chams is another model that I consider far too good (as proven by "always playing it"). But even he isn't perfect proof against grenades as it only makes it impossible to throw the grenade within four inches of Chams - the explosion can still affect models inside the barrier (except Chams, as four inches is more than three, naturally), right?

As for the Hashishin, yeah, he is about the only thing that really works against the Grenadiers.

I was hoping to convey this through my choice of thread title. I'm not claiming that they are unbeatable, but they are simply too good.

I'm not suggesting that they should be banned or something silly like that. It's just that their ranged capability is so incredible when compared to anything else that shoots in this game. I mean, the pistol the one guy has is absolutely ridiculously weak when compared to his grenade and it has a reload time on top of that.

We've been thinking that maybe using the big GW template with the hole in the center would solve this problem. Grenades would do normal damage when the target is inside the hole, but if that isn't true, then you'd throw only four or three dice for damage (some testing is needed to figure out the correct amount). Also, the template is slightly smaller (5" as opposed to 6").

This wouldn't be a huge nerf, but at the moment I am rather convinced that Grenadiers are too powerful.

Armand de Maupertuis, thanks for the feedback! Nice to read the thoughts of the French part of the community who have more experience on tournaments and such. I'm not quite sure how the Lost can ignore the Grenadiers as even though they have good armour, they also have relatively few PV and, most importantly, they have big bases which makes them more susceptible to template weapons. I have beaten our local Lost player easily both times that I've fielded the Grenadiers against him.

I don`t know about you, but I would much rather be shot than have a grenade blow up at my feet.

I found my Grenadiers to be about right.  That said, I did consistently misread "Limited Range 2" as "Only has two".   :D

There's a bit more to that. To fire a grenade you need a valid target under the template, and fighters protected by Chams' aura are not, neither are friendly fighters. So as long as the Saracen player does not field a non-muslim too close to Chams or a fighter just outside the aura, it's safe.

Ah yeah - I didn't play against Saracens in the tournament, so didn't remember the exact way it worked - just that I managed to use the grenadiers both times I played against Chams. But seriously, if one faction has two effective counters, that still doesn't mean that the Grenadiers are balanced.

I do get your point, Lemmi, and agree, about the grenadiers being very powerful (I still think it's not too much), but as you say so is Chams. And I would add the hashishin, and Layla, and Asaliah, and the mourner, ... I tend to think that it's just some profiles that are a bit underpowered instead. There will always be stronger guys and better combos, but I'm definitely in favor of boosting the unit in each faction that was the least present in winning groups in official tournaments every quarter or 6 months. A very tiny boost, but something to make people want them more in their companies.

I was giving a counter for Saracen because I play them, but others can also counter them pretty efficiently, with a boosted succubus, a hellish maw, ...

A company with Layla as officer is the best company you can field in Helldorado. If you know how to play Layla and if you compose a good company to go with her , she is incredibly powerfull ! I haved post a topic on that in the french part of this forum.... http://arch01.forum.helldorado.fr/index.php?topic=2193.0

The Grenadiers are the best weapon of the westerners. They are very powerfull but they need dominance if you want to play them well. Don't forget , also that is they can dodge , sometimes they can't because there's no place to go for them... Sometime , the Westerners players found the false good idea to surround their grenadiers. Is their adversary manage to assault or charge the grenadier , they can't dodge and are eliminated in combat.

One of my favorite opponent always take care of the maximum range (4' walking + 4' firing + 3' square for explosion) of my grenadiers when he play. It's not rare that I could only blast 1 or 2 models. The following turn , he run in my troups to prevent too easy grenades firing. it's not always succefull , but sometimes it works very well. If you want to play grenadiers you must have troups that cover them (Dopplesöldners are the best for that job).

- The Golem is one of my favorite models. He offer a good solution against grenadiers because grenade dont affect it !
- The Daemons have Asaliah who can possess an grenadier and can cure 8 PV on all her troups. They also have models with a lot of Pv... They also have a lot of tricks to lure the grenadiers (I dont know all the models names in english version but I put here a link for the models I thought : http://helldorado.fr/factions/les-demons/damne-de-l-orgueil/index.php / http://helldorado.fr/factions/les-demons/damne-de-la-paresse3/index.php . They also have the Succubus who can charge 14' to contact grenadiers.
- The Lost have this beast (http://helldorado.fr/factions/les-egares/gueule-des-abysses/index.php) who can charge 15'. They also have Bran Carnoth who can play his war cry to put down all opponent in 8' range...
- The mercs also have a lot of interesting models who can beat the grenadiers. All you'll have to do , is to wait the release... Sha Ren Zhe , Charon , 30 deniers (I dont know his english name) could protect all factions against grenadiers... Exept the Sarracens who have no need of that protection. An Hashishin could kill 2 grenadiers in 2 turn. It's very easy. I used to play two for being sure...

The best way to prevent grenadiers fury , is by a good managing of the "terraformation" (how do you call it in english ?). In Zaebas 2 Chronicles , you could always put Dust Devils on table. Theses clouds of dust prevent line of sight. It protect against grenade if you hide your models behind them. Be carefull : nothing prevent your opponent to fire a grenade on a place where his grenadiers model has a line of sight.
In Zeabas 3 chronicles , you can put Peace pit on the table. They gave fire immunity to models (so grenade immunity)...

There's a lot of solutions...