Grenade Relay

The Grenade Relay is a tactic that allows a scout or other front line soldier to avoid having to spend a lot of time preparing a grenade. Instead a rearward soldier can prepare one and throw it to him. The scout needs only to have enough time to pick up the grenade and throw it again. Although the grenade is live, the high accuracy of throwing and the reliability of the timing mechanism make this a useful tactic where waiting another turn to throw would allow the enemy to fire. It can also leave the front-line soldier with enough TU's for life-saving reaction fire on the alien turn.

Advantages

The priming and throwing action alone costs 75% of your total TUs in addition to the inventory movement costs. This will often mean the death of a front line soldier where keeping a high Reactions level by way of high Time Units is paramount for avoiding reaction shots.

By being passed a pre-primed grenade, the scout will only need to pay the 25% total TUs for the throw and the TUs for picking up the grenade. Since this reduces the overall TU usage, the scout has the freedom of taking a few steps back out of the alien's visible range before throwing, or throwing the grenade and then running for cover.

While this strategy uses a lot more time units overall, the TUs are spent across a number of soldiers, keeping the reaction levels of all but the soldier that primed the grenade at a relatively high level. Soldiers at the rear are also less prone to being attacked by reaction shots.

General Warnings

Extra soldier time should be reserved for moving to a mis-throw and, if possible, leaving enough time for reaction fire. Note this tactic is much more risky when using primed Proximity Grenades - the accuracy has to be perfect as a mis-throw can only be recovered by a vertical insertion with a flying suit - and are not recommended for use with the relay technique. If you must relay a Proximity Grenade, only arm it at the last step in the relay possible, usually the second to last, and if possible to a scout in cover so if the throw misses he isn't stuck motionless in the alien snipers sights.

Pay attention when performing this manoeuvre, throwing a primed grenade to a soldier who then leaves it on the floor and throws an unprimed grenade taken from his belt at the enemy is slightly less useful in its effects.

Execution

The grenade relay is best thought of in the same manner as a baton relay race where runners pass a baton to another until the last runner crosses the finish line with it. In the grenade relay, a live grenade is passed between soldiers from one point on the map to another until it reaches its target destination.

Example

The scout in the upper middle portion of the map has spotted an alien next to the downed Abductor. The scout's not a crack shot with a pistol, but is strong enough to throw a grenade clear across the map. Even though the alien is looking the other way, the scout's already spent too many time units and can only prime a grenade or throw it, but not perform both actions.

The only other person in the field with a grenade happens to be the soldier that was edging along the South Eastern corner of the map. This soldier is not strong, so cannot throw the grenade to the scout from here. Besides, the Skyranger's in the way.

However there is a chain of soldiers within throwing distance of each other nearby. The soldier with the grenade arms the grenade and throws it to the nearest soldier. This soldier picks up the grenade and tosses it to the next nearest soldier. This repeats a few more times until it reaches the scout who is then able to pick it up and throw it to its intended destination.

In this example, if the third soldier in the chain was strong enough, the grenade could have been passed directly to the scout. It has been passed to the fourth soldier simply as an exercise to prolong the example! Also note that the grenade need not be armed by the first soldier in the chain, but it should be armed before it reaches the scout.

Relaying other Equipment

Note that this strategy is not necessarily limited for the use of grenades. It can also be used to rapidly transfer weapons, ammunition, medikits, or other objects such as flares from one end of the map to the other.