Sure. But since smoke grenades cost what, 1 point? Give them to every line troop. In the RPG Billy Wallace has an ability where anybody who's part of a team he operates with gets a dozen smoke grenades on top of their existing armament. "Ariadna Vaping Convention" indeed.
If I remember correctly they cost 0.. and light smoke grenade launcher also cost 0 but often SWC on non biker platforms
Smoke ammo is typically +1/0 or +1/0,5. Celestial Guards are a bit of an exception. I'd also note that we have seen a veritable surge of Blitzen and Panzerfausts without huge amount of complaints over bookkeeping. Still, I'd not want to see smoke become too common.
Yup. Historically speaking, there have been two military uses for smoke. One is to mark targets or identify a unit in dense cover (this is almost always colored smoke). The other use for smoke is to block LOS (which is usually a white phosphorous grenade, but can also be colored smoke if you're working within the blast of the WP). Because of those uses, it was usually the squad or fireteam leader carrying smoke. But grenades of all types were something that troopers could just draw from the Platoon Guide as needed. A couple interesting things for modeling that I've read/heard have been carrying grenades for team use on the back of your backpack/armor/load-bearing equipment and personal-use grenades right up front, even carrying a flash-bang on the doubled-magazine connectors for immediate use. HOWEVER, with Infinity games trying to be deniable operations, I can see a fluff reason for not having a lot of grenades in use. Kinda hard to play off a raid someplace that saw a dozen grenades and military-issue big guns get used as 'just another gang fight'.
@Section9 I think the "deniable operations" bit is overstated; it's not like the Combined Army is hoping every deployment by Unidrons is blamed on Hector and/or O-12.
I do want to see basically all Yu Jing ARMY Heavy Infantry get grenades. Not smoke grenades - lethal grenades. It seems like a thing that an army unit would have that the security forces that everyone else uses wouldn't. IA is meant to be the Yu Jing G.I. Joes. Elite G.I. Joes, but still G.I. Joes. Meanwhile, Hsien, Moderators, Auxilias, etc etc are a variation of judiciary, police or security forces. They don't typically get to be boots on the ground fighting tanks and getting bombed by the type of artillery that targets one square kilometer at a time, Zuyong and Shang-Ji does. On that point, I still would like to see all grenades be Disposable (3). Above all else, the chain-smoking warbands that just blankets the field in smoke instead of deploying it tactically is getting a bit out of hand, as is the constant bombardments of units with Light Grenade Launchers that's putting a significant amount of pressure on solo lieutenants and severely punishing deployment zones without large areas of total cover or multiple levels to spread out on. To sort of compensate, hand-thrown grenades should either be AP Grenades (Shock+AP) or HE Grenades (DA) for increased effect.
Yeah. And give the various riot police types stun grenades (and maybe even teargas grenades, but we'd have to add those to the game). I'm not sure that anything but the 'chain-smoking warbands' really throw that many grenades a turn. At least for me, even Shaolin/KSCD usually only throw one smoke per turn. But it probably would be reasonable to make all thrown grenades Disposable (3). Launched Grenades usually have 36-40 per trooper carrying the M79/M203. Granted, that's usually a mixed load, primarily frag (HEDP now) with a few smoke and a couple canister/flechette for close enounters.
I think the kanren should get an inferior impersonation profile, which is what his lore seems to imply. Just basic bsg and combi varients so you can pick between utility and deployment potential very similar to grief operators.
I'll confess I reckon the DaoFei belongs in the White Banner sectorial but I wouldn't hate to see it in IA, either.
It actually was part of the fluff that they (and Tiger Soldiers) were part of the Invincible Army. But they got removed for some reason.
Interesting. I did not know that. Although, was that back when the fluff about IA was limited to 'YJ is thinking about migrating all of their infantry units into HI armour in order to form the largest all-HI army the human sphere has ever seen'?
