Grenade Relay

The Grenade Relay is a tactic that allows you to quickly move a live grenade from one part of the map to another through a chain of soldiers.

It greatly assists front-line scouts by reducing the amount of Time Units (TUs) they need to spend to deploy an armed grenade, leaving them with more TUs that they can employ in a variety of ways.

Warning!

This is a fictitious tactic. Please do not attempt this at home with a live grenade. Though it can theoretically be performed, it is very difficult, requires great precision and is extremely dangerous.

It is only possible in the confines of the game because X-Com soldiers are death-defying professionals and because grenades will only explode between turns. Real life does not have the advantage of the arbitrary game turns or grenades that will kindly wait until the end of them!

Once again, please do not attempt this stunt at home with a live grenade.

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.

A grenade relay is performed by having a rearward soldier arm and pass a grenade forward to the scout. If the scout is out of reach, then to the nearest soldier. This action is repeated until it reaches the scout.

The scout then only needs to spend enough TUs to pick up and complete the grenade's journey to its destination.

This tactic is not just limited to grenades and can be adapted to quickly transport any object around field. See the Relaying Other Equipment section below.

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 forward scout where keeping a high Reactions level by way of high Time Units is paramount for avoiding reaction shots. With less than 25% of your remaining TUs, the scout will not have many options to choose from.

By being passed a previously primed grenade, the scouts only pays 25% for the throw and the 8 TUs for picking up the grenade. With higher remaining TUs, the scout can make a further attack of seek cover.

The relay is a safer albeit slower alternative to having the scout arm and carry a live grenade. Though quicker to deploy, if a soldier is stunned while carrying a live grenade, the grenade will kill the scout. The relay provides a just-in-time grenade for the scout when needed.

The relay is a great way of getting a grenade around complex obstacles, such as if the there is a building between the target and the person arming the grenade.

The relay can be used by to move a High Explosive from its source to its destination a lot faster than walking it or throwing it. This is quite useful for weak soldiers and frees the scout from the need to carry the otherwise heavy explosive.

Disadvantages

The main purpose of this strategy is to reduce the scout's TU consumption, but results in a larger overall amount TUs spent, spread over a greater number of troops.

Though this may seems more wasteful than having the scout arm and prime the grenade, it's all about managing and minimizing risk.

Those with the greatest risk are those on the front line exposed to enemy fire They need to be frugal with their TU consumption to keep their initiative high to avoid enemy fire.

The ones with the least risk are those that are safely behind the front line. They can afford to spend more TUs to support those on the front line with costlier actions as they are less likely to be seen and shot at by the enemy.

As with any tactic involving explosives, general carelessness can prove to be quite disastrous.

General Precautions

Extra time should be reserved for moving to a mis-throw, or escaping from it. Soldiers mid-chain often have plenty of TUs to spare to react to misthrows, but be careful that you do not pass the grenade to someone with no TUs.

Pay attention when performing this manoeuvre, throwing a primed grenade to a soldier who then ignores or forgets it and goes to do something else can a somewhat undesirable effect by the end of the turn.

Be very careful about throwing a live grenade to a soldier standing on a pile of other grenades. As there is no immediate indicator of the state of the grenade until after it is picked up, there is nothing more frightening than to have to hunt through a pile of identical grenades for it and run out of TUs.

When relaying primed Proximity Grenades - even more care should be taken then normal. The accuracy of the throws have to be perfect as mis-throws can only be recovered by vertical insertion with Flying Suits. If you must relay a Proximity Grenade, there is less risk involved if it is armed closer to the end of the chain rather than at the start of the chain.

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. The far side of the grenade's intended destination. This soldier is not strong, so cannot throw the grenade to the scout from here. To add to the soldier's troubles, the Skyranger is in the way.

There is a chain of soldiers within throwing distance of each other nearby. The person with the grenade arms it and passes it between the other soldiers until it arrives at the scout. The scout then delivers the grenade to its 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!

Note that the grenade need not be armed by the first soldier in the chain, but it should be armed before it reaches the last unit in the chain.

Relaying other Equipment

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.

It can even be used to fire a slow weapon or use an item more times than would normally be possible in a turn. Each soldier reserves enough TUs to throw the weapon, expends all the other TUs, then throws the weapon/item to another soldier who repeats the process.

Examples where this tactic can be useful is if you only possess a few instances of a new, powerful weapon, or if you are caught in a Base Defence mission with insufficient weapons to arm all your troops. Several medics can share the same Med-Kit during the turn, or a single motion detector can be used at different points of the map.