How do you resolve the damage beeing dealt to your characters when they already stand in the area where a flame grenade is thrown? And do you have to roll shock roll on each of their activation?

For example: Von Heisinger finished his activation. Delta unit throws a flame grenade on a path that targets Von Heisinger and Shocktruppen. Do they immediately roll shock roll against 3 automatic successes or do they roll on their activation? And if they live but can not take a turn until next round, do they again have to make another shock roll against the fire, before they can move?

The rules for Delta's AN-M11 "flame grenade" state that characters ENTERING circles on the same path as a Fire token suffer 3 Automatic Successes, so I think that characters just standing in those circles are not affected at all. So, when the grenade is thrown and the fire tokes are placed, the characters on the affected path don't suffer any wounds. Even during their activations, they are unaffected if they attack without moving or immediately leave the path, they just suffer the automatic successes if they move into another circle on the affected path. It seems like standing in fire is okay, only walking into the fire is dangerous.

Yes, exactly. My understanding of the rules correlates with ??!´s.

Thanks, guys! That was my thoughts also, but we got a bit confused! Now I know.. and knowing is half the battle! xD

It would make sense that standing characters are considered as if they entered fire a fire space when it is first exploding. Then after that they only get damaged if they keep moving in it. I have a hard time wrapping my head around the fact that they take no original damage.

I play fire grenade in this way:

aech character standing on targeted paht takes three automatic wonds when the fire grenade is thrown (like a standard granade, but 3 wounds), then any character takes 3 automatic wonds when he come in a circle of the same burning path (and for each circle in which he come in during his movement): if a character is standing on a circle where he took yet 3 automatic wounds, he will not take any wound if he doesn't move in a circle of the same burning path in the next turn.

I´ll stick to the normal rules. It´s strong enough, there is no need to add further damage to it.

I also do the 3 successes when thrown as Carlos said - and if a character starts his turn on a fire-filled path and doesn't move at all, that character takes 3 auto-successes. It's fire - youre going to get hurt if you stand still and let it burn you

I just want to remind you that depending on the map and entrance points, a player sometimes can target the whole path where you enemy emerges into if the grenade equipped trooper moves fast enough and throws the grenade in the first turn . When playing e.g. against matriarchy with their 1 HP voivods it is theoretically possible to wipe out all troopers in the first turn when playing according to your variants. Other teams will be heavily damaged before they actually start the first contact, and that in the first game round. That renders the flame grenade far to strong imho, and this is a experience I got when we installed your houserule (damage when targeted by flame grenade; damage when not moving) for some four or five rounds. We discarded this rule thereafter, as both me and my opponent came to the conclusion that the houserule broke our game. There is hardly any other item of this might when played correctly, and it is still "just" a trooper item. Rendering a team "unmoveable" is terrible enough, dealing damage in addition is just overkill. I think that the designer of this item had a good reason to write the rule like it is now. Of course everyone can houserule his game as one wishes, but regarding those flame grenades I would give some second thought what the impact on the game really is. Yes, it might be unrealistic as it is in the original rules, but the game should stay playable. Balance beats realism.

Of course, this is just my and my friends´ personal experience. Maybe you got another, and I am wrong here.

yes - i agree, katsuyori, it probably does make it too lethal in some cases.

As far as the entry point issue - flame grenade rules as written or house-ruled as above - a Delta entering via stairs on Castle Ksiaz map can throw one on the first turn in the main lobby (i.e. front door entrance path). I was the recipient to this before I even brought 1 character on the map. Don't remember if i held back my characters or braved the fire, but i know it really sucked lol

im curious to see how the flamer on the new matriarchy trooper pack functions...

Artemus Maximus said:

Unless I'm mis understanding something, page 11 of rulebook states that all characters must enter play on the first game turn.

So if Union win the initiative, then can bounce a fire grenade into the lobby, and then every opposing character has to move through the fire, taking 3 automatic successes for each circle moved, and that's without any house rules.

Union trooper pack is on its way in the post, but i already have equipment pack cards, so am I missing something or is it really that lethal?

pumpkin said:

You are right, characters must enter play on the first game turn. That is why I consider this token already strong enough, and that´s even without houseruling.

It´s effect depends at which point of the game you use it. It is devastating in the first round as you already remarked, because the whole team will be cramped in mostly one path and is forced to enter it (although that depends on the stage. I experienced certain entrance constellation in Novgorod and Daedalus maze as extremly dangerous. Kniszia castle can be annoying, too. It is not that much dangerous in the catacombs, though). It slighlty weakens in the course of the game because the teammembers will scatter in different pathes, but it´s strategic effect is still great. Once a whole path is filled with flames it is simply suicide to enter it and/or move more than 2 spaces per round (till your CP to shake of damage are used up). Chars caught in the middle of a path have exactly two options: die by moving or stay imprisoned for three rounds, effectively taking them out of play for that time (except they are out-of-path-attackers like Hoss or OZO, who can at least attack). By introducing a rule that a char gets damaged even when staying on a circle, what is annoying enough, means certain death except for the strongest of heroes. 3 hits for 3 rounds is just unbearable for most chars. You will just use up your CP by just keeping them alive, and that even without any contact with the enemy.

@ Katsuyori

it's true, you convinced me with all these good motivations: flame grenade is a too unbalanced tool most of all if it's used at the beginning of game near entry point, it's devastating... it would ruin the game, it need more detailed/different rules.

Yep that does make sense now, I will play the rule literally a character must enter a circle. Unless I hear official news that tells me otherwise. I just dislike the way they worded this rule.

I'm surprised to see people talking about buffing the fire grenade- it's waaaay too powerful as it is. My group is trying to come up with a nerf to it to prevent it covering an entrance (as mentioned above) because it just kills the game, used 1st turn it will probably kill all voivodes or maim your team, used second turn, you at least get the option of doing nothing- but it's still devastating. I liked it at first, but having no way to move AT ALL without risking wounds for 3 turns blows. We've proposed a few nerfs (but have tested none of them)

Option 1) Have the fire grenade have a limited range (as a regular grenade of 5 circles)

Option 2) Give characters the option to "tread carefully" and treat a space as a double rubble instead of fire (this triples the time it takes to get through the fire, which is pretty much the point -imo- of fire grenades- as a stall)

Option 3)Reduce the radius of the fire grenade (within 3 circles on path instead of the entire path)

Option 4)Members entering the map, or starting their turn in fire ignore its effect during their activation.

We may end up using none or all of these ideas, but having an entrance covered in flaming hell has sucked the fun out of the last two games I've played against the union. It's a really cool way to dissuade people from entering the fire area, and bites you real good when Heizinger can fear your guy down that path, but blocking a path is just... mean.

diversionArchitect said:

I like one of these, the sceond option is my favourite (and the ability Keep Moving allows to ignore one penalty caused by flames).

Option 3 sounds good to me.

diversionArchitect said:

Good ideas, maybe I'll try one of them

First idea that came to my mind was characters entering a fire circle have to make a movement duel, but this maybe would reduce their power too much.

Another question for you all about the Flame Grenade: does it also act as a smoke grenade (as in, does it also restrict LOS)? It was unclear to us when we played it, since it says it does not place smoke tokens, but the rules state that it does act as a smoke grenade. We played that it did block LOS, which probably doesn't matter much since nobody would want to move onto the same path to shoot at characters in it, but you never know.

Any thoughts on this?

To be honest I never thought of this, but where there's fire there's smoke right? So maybe it should also act as smoke grenade.

I'll have to read over the rules, and come back to this.

You guys joking right? Why would it work the same as another granade? Why not just say its 4 success + smoke, so we can have an all in one granade! Of course it dosen't work as a smoke granade, why someone would use a smoke granade if it did??? Its pretty powerful the way it is...

What we're saying is it would do three automatic successes when entering it's path, and effect LOS like smoke.

The Archon said:

The rules state that the Flame Grenade doesn't place smoke tokens, so I'd say no tokens, no smoke, no LOS restriction. I think you can't have it all in one grenade but have to choose what you want: Restriction of LOS (smoke grenade), damage to a certain area (grenade), damage to a path for several turns (flame grenade). The flame grenade can be very powerful the way it is.

Otar said:

From a rules interpretation standpoint, it was not that unreasonable to think so when the rules for the flame grenade say that it behaves as a smoke grenade (since the rules state exactly that). In just a few days of checking the forums, I've noticed that most of the questions that I had about confusing and/or contradictory rules are largely unanswered by FFG (thus far). And miah999 corroborates a real-life logical conclusion about how it should work, as well. As to why somebody would use a smoke grenade if the flame grenade also blocked LOS, simple: because only one character can get the flame grenade (and in only one pack).

Besides, if you think about it, blocking LOS can actually LIMIT the effectiveness of the flame grenade. If you flame grenade a path, with some opposing characters stuck deep in the middle of it, I could take some good shooter characters with high stamina (like Barry or Natalya when she comes out), move once into the path, take a chance at taking a wound, and shoot the hell out of the characters that are stuck before moving back off the path and into safety. The only recourse they would have is overwatch (unless those were Hoss and/or Zermann, because you cannot overwatch mental attacks). So at least if LOS was blocked, your characters are stuck, which sucks, but at least they're safe from attack (unless Barry's wearing goggles).

Regardless, from a rules interpretation standpoint, I now think that ??! has the best rules interpretation, in that the effect of blocking LOS stems from the TOKENS, and not from the grenade itself. Makes sense (much to the chagrin of victims of the flame grenade for the reasons I state above).

So in short, yes, the flame grenade is a game killer.

The Archon said:

That is new to me. Troop pack items should be included twice, so that every trooper of the same kind should be able to equip the same pack at the same time.

Or I am mistaken here?