ShinyRhino Posted February 18, 2009 Share Posted February 18, 2009 I'm looking at fielding some scouts in my next force. This isn't any different than my normal armies, as I like my scouts. Problem is their performance on the field, and my inability to choose how to assign them. I typically take scouts in two separate squads: One choppy unit, 5-strong, no options beyond meltabombs on the sergeant. I'll often hold these guys in reserve, and outflank with them to grab objectives on the outer board edge, or to hit soft units my opponent leaves vulnerable (like artillery, heavy weapons crews, etc). They do ok with this, but often end up as a sacrificial lamb, or are overrun. My other scout unit is typically 5 snipers and a heavy bolter, camo cloaks all around. I either park these gents on my home base objective, or infiltrate them someplace hard-to-reach, and try to cause a ruckus with the rifles and the heavy bolter. They draw a lot of fire when I infiltrate them, and tend to last the whole game when I homebase them, unless they're assaulted. If that's the case, they're like wet cardboard. I'm getting the feeling they would serve me better if I combined these two squads into one 10-man unit. This allows me to combat squad them as missions require. But it also forces me to make some decisions. First, I have to drop on Scout from the list. It must be either one choppy Scout, one sniper, or the heavy bolter. If I drop a choppy, I'll have to tote along the heavy bolter if I combat squad the unit into CC and ranged elements. This makes me mean very heavily toward dropping a sniper. The heavy bolter is just too useful and versatile now to drop. Plus, it allows me to put a sniper on the paint line! Second, (and this is my actual tough decision), I must decide which form the Sergeant will take. He must be either sniper-armed, or choppy. The sergeant gets an extra CC attack, which is nice for choppy form. His extra point of leadership would also help for morale checks should I take losses on the way into combat. However, he also gets an extra point of BS if I go for sniper form. However, this is only good for one shot per turn. Not quite as useful, but still better than hitting on 4s. The whole point of combining the two units is to make the snipers a longer-lasting unit under fire. I have the choppies to take as ablative wounds from incoming fire, provide more retaliation when assaulted, and combat squad away for games with more than two objectives to tackle. So, which scout would you guys drop from the squad, and what form of sergeant would you take? Thanks for your input. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rogue Posted February 18, 2009 Share Posted February 18, 2009 If you've got 5 scouts and five scouts, and drop one scout, then you've got nine scouts, which means you can't combat squad anyway. Or did I miss something? (And I'd stick the sergeant with the assault element) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ShinyRhino Posted February 18, 2009 Author Share Posted February 18, 2009 If you've got 5 scouts and five scouts, and drop one scout, then you've got nine scouts, which means you can't combat squad anyway. Or did I miss something? (And I'd stick the sergeant with the assault element) I actually have 11 scouts. Five choppy, six snipers, and one heavy bolter. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
elijahdprophet Posted February 18, 2009 Share Posted February 18, 2009 If you've got 5 scouts and five scouts, and drop one scout, then you've got nine scouts, which means you can't combat squad anyway. Or did I miss something? (And I'd stick the sergeant with the assault element) I actually have 11 scouts. Five choppy, six snipers, and one heavy bolter. Thats 12... Is it 5 choppy, 5 snipers, 1 HB? I would drop a sniper, that way you have 4 snipers and a HB in a combat squad for shooty goodness. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ShinyRhino Posted February 18, 2009 Author Share Posted February 18, 2009 Yes, 5 choppy, 5 snipers, 1 heavy bolter. My mistake. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brother Gathurn Posted February 18, 2009 Share Posted February 18, 2009 I wouldn't take 2 different squads or split weapons in the squads. i feild all snipes w/ one heavy bolter. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Leonaides Posted February 19, 2009 Share Posted February 19, 2009 5 Choppy (incl sergeant), 4 Snipers and 1 HB would be the way I'd go. That being said, my scouts are rarer than a Gnats fart at the moment - seeing as they compete with my VAS and Termies and Dreads... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ming Posted February 19, 2009 Share Posted February 19, 2009 Have some fun...characteristically... 4 snipey scouts and sergeant or telion - hide them in an intact building with the opponent's permission to do so (buildings can be treated as immobile vehicles...2 scouts shoot out per window or fire point...the building has to be rubbled before the scouts can be shot directly...) ...or start in a rubble building with camou cloaks (3+ cover save). Snipe away! Add a tech marine...2+ cover save...if annhilation, do not combat squad... Choppy scouts - keep collecting for a crew for that Landspeeder you know you will buy...I played a teen two weeks or so ago who built a proxy LS Storm to deploy his scouts from...he ALMOST took my home objective with it. That thing came from reserve and I spent alot of resources dealing with it. He had my objectiive in a vice - scouts and LS from one side, assault marines and Master flying in from the other...I had to hold them off with a dread and tactical squad, ended up having to run and charge over a dev squad just to save the game. Choppy scouts infiltrating on foot always need at least one melta bomb...I wish there was a special chaplain character out there who went on missions with scouts...that would be characterful... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
greatcrusade08 Posted February 19, 2009 Share Posted February 19, 2009 Choppy scouts infiltrating on foot always need at least one melta bomb... They can only have one....but thats not really important. If used as an outflanking unit, then meltabombs and a combi-weapon would help no end... To the OP, if your gunna mix weaponry in a scout unit, then you need to consider the unit as whole more than the combat squads they can form......when making your decisions your seeing it as 10 scouts that split up, 5 have sniper, 5 outflank and kick butt.... This is fine but when used as a whole they dont support each other very well, the snipers/HB are heavy weapons so cannot move and fire and the choppy scouts wont get the options to charge around looking for easy victims...as the different weapons dont cost anything, if you want ablative wounds just go for 10 snipers. If you want to maximise carnage go for an outflanking 10 man CCW squad with meltabombs and maybe power weapon/combi-weapon. The best option IMO is a 5 man squad armed with shotties, and a meltabomb in a LSS with heavy flamer or heavy bolter is cheaper than a 10 man scout sqaud and is more survivable to standard weaponry. GC08 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ShinyRhino Posted February 19, 2009 Author Share Posted February 19, 2009 Thanks for all the replies, everyone. I'm basically working with what I have available at the moment. But, I'll keep everyone's suggestions in mind when I do build another box of scouts. I will likely be going the route of 5 scouts with shotguns and a Storm, as I already have a Landspeeder model I can use as a counts-as. Just have to build and paint it someday. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yeril Posted February 23, 2009 Share Posted February 23, 2009 I find 4 snipers with a heavy bolter is shockingly good at taking down Monsterous creatures, the always wound ona 4+ coupled with rending (and 2+ wounds for a hellfire blast) tend to make quick work of carnifexi when I need it to. Although that may be just because I roll lucky when in a jam (can you say two rending headshots in a carnifex just before it eats my landraider?) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest TheRevenant Posted February 24, 2009 Share Posted February 24, 2009 My scouts performed brilliantly the other day. I was proxying a LS as a LS storm, and had it outflanking with 5 scouts inside. The scouts all had shotties, the serg had a power weapon and bombs, and the storm had a multimelta. 2nd turn they arrive and promptly position themselves to assault a long fang squad, and had the storm within 12" of a crusader. The crusader died to storm multimelta, and the long fang's were destroyed in combat (over a 2 turn period). The scouts later went on to bomb a vindicator, and the storm lost it's multimelta to bolter fire. To the OP, if your gunna mix weaponry in a scout unit, then you need to consider the unit as whole more than the combat squads they can form......when making your decisions your seeing it as 10 scouts that split up, 5 have sniper, 5 outflank and kick butt.... A 10 man scout squad cannot combat squad and have 1 squad outflank while the other deploys. They all outflank, infiltrate, or deploy regularly at the same time, and you can choose to combat squad then. Also, OP, keep in mind that, if you run the mixed squads, you have to buy cloaks for everyone, not just the sniper/heavy bolter squad. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yeril Posted February 24, 2009 Share Posted February 24, 2009 @^ Very true, my current method is 10 scouts, 5 with close combat weapon and boltpistol, 5 with snipers+1 heavy bolter, sergeant is in the CCW squad with a power sword. Snipers deploy in cover with cloaks, CCW squad deploys inside a LS storm. Fun all round. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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