Cost of boarding upgrades

[TikaKino]

I'm somewhat confused by the relative costs of some of the boarding upgrades; specifically Boarding Nets, Marines, Special Shot: Grapeshot and Grenades.

So far as I can tell, grenades are superior to marines; marines granting a +1 bonus and grenades granting a +D3 bonus (at least +1, probably higher). In the lists that can take marines, however, they are 15 points - compared to 10 points for grenades.

Similarly, Grapeshot is superior to Boarding Nets (+D3 vs +1) but in all the lists they cost the same amount (10 points each) for ships of the line. For frigates the boarding nets tend to be cheaper and the cost of grape goes up for frigates in many lists.

Can anyone supply any reasoning for these point costs? Is there some circumstance I'm missing in which marines are better than grenades, or boarding nets better than grapeshot? Some historical reason? In the Trafalgar scenario lots of ships have boarding nets and quite a few have marines, but there are no grenades or grape to be seen.

[Tommy]

Dont marines add +1 die while grenades add +D3 to the die roll?

[TikaKino]

I don't think so; both the upgrade descriptions on p62 and the table of modifiers on p29 state marines as +1 to the roll, not an extra die.

[Tommy]

From memory does it not mention Marines in the boarding rules along with more than 5 crew etc as giving an extra die?

[TikaKino]

Can't find it, sorry. No mention of extra dice for marines in sight - if you find it, could you throw a page reference and location my way?

[Tommy]

Can't find it, sorry. No mention of extra dice for marines in sight - if you find it, could you throw a page reference and location my way?

I cant find it, it must be a house rule.

Sorry

[Bosun]

I think I would probably take boarding nets AND grapeshot if I intended to defend and marines AND grenades if I intended to board.
As for the marines it is a +1 to the die roll.

[Legionary312AD]

I almost wish it was an error... Maybe I will state it as a house rule of +dice but I am not sure.... It is a highly priced upgrade for not much.

[TikaKino]

I almost wish it was an error... Maybe I will state it as a house rule of +dice but I am not sure.... It is a highly priced upgrade for not much.

That's what I was thinking. It might make sense if marines were +1 to both attack and defence; the reasoning being "surely marines are capable of defending as well as attacking?"

[zozo]

All IMHO: My impression is that the excess price of "marines" is due to the fact that both "marines" and "grenades", if costed appropriately would be worth more than the sum of their parts when taken together. This is especialy true because access to marines is limited to only 3 navies. In order to mitigate this sort of issue, I believe the designer costed them in a way that grenades and grenades + marines have reasonable costs, but unfortunately that makes marines separately a little overcosted.

Mr. Latham has somewhat addressed this. He said that these costs are what he intended and that he expects everyone will take grenades before taking marines as an upgrade.

Sean