In game[]
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| Prereq: | Build time | HP | LOS | Attack | Attack speed | Movement speed | ||
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10s (150t) |
170 | 12 | 30 | 2.9s (44t) |
25 | ||
| Cost | Created from | Armour | Weapon range | Specialty | ||||
| Base | Ramp | Pop | ||||||
 : 80 : 70
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2 |
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3 | 0–11 | Bonus damage versus buildings. | ||
    
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Overall strategy[]
These units are the créme de la créme in any Western army. Highly disciplined and orderly to a fault, they are a sight to behold as much as a terror to anyone who is foolhardy enough to face them for they are not just better "musketeer" units, but they are also strong and powerful enough to be used to resist and break cavalry charges, as well as fight against fortifications. Thus, for the early part of Forge of Storms, they are the ideal vanguard unit for stiffening resistance ....... as well as blunting it.
If so, you may ask, what is stopping me from training loads and loads of these men?
The answer is simply that they, being some of the best infantry units, are also amongst the costliest, so battlefield attendance is never a 100%-probability affair. Moreover, although they tend to be armed with some of the best weapons on hand, they actually are marginally better than Fusiliers: it is merely that cavalry will have a tough time breaking them. So were you to slow your foes' Grenadier Guards down so that your artillery can take potshots at them, you may yet defeat them easily. This is especially moreso given how slow they are vis-à-vis Flying Artillery: have three or four pieces in a line and they can rip apart these men to shreds. Equally of great concern especially are units such as Skirmishers or Marksmen, who are aided greatly by the gaily appearance of these infantrymen ..... if only as targets.
So a wise commander will always think twice of committing the Grenadier Guards to battle. He will only do so, if only as a well-supported spearhead, ie in capturing towns, as well as breaking enemy formations.
History[]
It is true that the name "Grenadier" was derived from the name of the vicious little bombs initially wielded by units of this apellation, which could resemble pomegranates — in Italian, granata — but in 18th century Europe, grenadiers were primarily armed with muskets (the age of intense urban warfare and protracted trench warfare had yet to arrive). Others claim that the origins of grenadiers lie not with the bombs they carried (for personal explosives existed back in the Middle Ages) but with the janissaries of Turkey, for like janissaries, they were expected to be crack shots as much as ordnance experts and crack assault footmen. The use of grenades in the pre-Industrial Modern Era were meant ot be used to blow apart or demoralise the enemy's lines, allowing for a rolling attack on his flanks as much as they were useful for clearing out buildings.
Whatever their origins, grenadiers in their day were the best or "chosen men" recruited from within the ranks of the regiment, and were often the strongest, fastest, and bravest (not to mention the tallest and most imposing) because a man did not just have to be a good lobber but courageous enough to use grenades without flinching (they were unwieldly and just as dangerous to the user just as they were to the enemy). The role of the grenadier may have been surpassed by modern technology, but the ethos of an elite force has survived to our day — beyond the baroque if not bizarre uniform and drills hailing from the 19th century, the Grenadier Guards of the British Army still continue the role of their forbears from almost four centuries ago — a crack elite infantry force for the defence of Crown and country.