A relatively primitive grenade, the fire bomb is normally a
breakable canister of flammable liquid with a fuse made from
cloth or other material that the liquid can soak into. Once the
fuse is set aflame, the bomb is hurled at the enemy; the canister
breaks open on impact to release the now burning liquid.

Yet the rules say this can be launched out of a grenade launcher, while the description makes it sound a lot closer to a molotov cocktail (as well as the price).

And in the Inquisitor's Handbook, you have Infermal Thermal Grenades

These devices explode with a shower of molten metal as
their incendiary fuel ignites. They are not as powerful as a
melta-bomb and thus cannot burn though most armour, but
are useful for melting down simple barricades and doors or
for starting fires. These grenades can be purchased to be used
either by hand (thrown) or in grenade or RPG launchers.
They can also be found in missile form.

These have a smaller blast radius, slightly heavier but the main difference is the price of 60 thrones, versus the 5 thrones of a firebomb.

It just seems very perplexing how one weapon is so good and cheap and outperforms the "IG Version" with RaW, especially when one is a molotov cocktail and the other is an actual military incendiary device.

Have you checked the eratta, I think the Fire Bomb gained the Primative Trait.

I have not seen any real mention of them in erratta, unless there is a new version out.

I've noticed this with my GM too, and we thought too that it was simply ridiculous. This thing seriously requires errata or houseruling.

Our gm thought that fire bomb catches fire only if you directly hit someone, while incendiary makes everyone in blast radius catch fire.

Well, there are lots of simple fixes. Making them primitive damage, unreliable, 1/2 action to light, as well as unusable in grenade launchers. A good solution would having a REAL flame grenade available for a decent price, 60 thrones is just too pricy with both a reduced blast radius and nothing special about it (especially when the firebomb does the same things by RaW)

Cymbel said:

I don't agree with making them primitive damage that doesn't make sense to me, but making them unreliable, half action to light is good. I wouldn't have them usuable in a grenade launcher though because I kinda did imagine that it was a molotov cocktail, as well lowering the pen on the fire bombs by 2-3 so that it would have a pen of 3-4 instead of 6. I do see why the pen is so high because if you were hit with a molotov cocktail you would have flamable liquid seeping into your clothing by passing the armour.

Ages ago, one of the game developers posted in these forums that the firebombs were intended to have a Pen of 0.

bogi_khaosa said:

Actually that should work fine, because if they catch on fire then the fire will ignore armor bonus on their next round when they take damage. Is that forum still around?

Phi6891 said:

It was an old old old discussion on this site. Years ago. EDIT: It was on the now-defunct Black Industries forums, but there is a reference and cite here: http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp?efpag=1&efid=99&efcid=3&efidt=205583

Thanks for the forum bogi_khaosa.

However.. the firebombs are not so handy to care around. Dont make many mishaps before you are covered in flamable fuel

The grenades dont have that drawback. But I do agree that they need more things to set the two kinds apart

I, as GM of my old group, made it simple.

The firebomb is a molotov cocktail, aka a glass/plastic bottle with liquids in it and afuse you have to light. It therefore required a half action to ignite the fuse, and since it's a cheap bottle could easily break making it a potential threat to the user as well (Do you feel safe caring one or two around in a firefight?).

Well as a psyker I feel perfectly safe with my Endure Flame power.

Now what about me but isn't the blast radius kinda big too? The Fire bomb has a blast radius of 3 meters which means that it has a diameter of 6 meters which equals 18 feet diameter. Now I don't know about you but that seems really big to me if you think about it, I imagine that a molotov cocktail covering at very most 1 meter radius/2 meter diameter. What do you guys think?

And my players just bought a bunch of them , with this new information I think I'll make them 0 pen and maybe half-action to light the bomb itself.

Yeah I would set the fire bomb pen to 0, that should be fine. I mean the Inquisition is suppose to be know for burning their enemies with fire anyway so having a cheap fire bomb makes sense if you think about it.