Scout Squad with Telion

[Titan87]

Ok, I know Telly is kind of a love him or hate him unit upgrade, I fall in the latter category as he usually earns back his points with melta and power weapon kills. That being said, I am moving up to 2500 points and in the list I have crafted It looks like I only have room for a 5 man scout squad with telly as SGT. This would be a harassment unit that could also really trip up people if they don't deal with him, so on to my question...

 

Is telion and 4 scouts with a missile launcher viable as a unit, or is it a waste of points?

[ShinyRhino]

I've used Telion alongside 3 snipers and a heavy bolter for some time in my lists. They are currently retired. Partially due to Telion's head falling off, and due to lack of performance recently.

The harassment angle is great. You put Telion on the board, and people take notice. They tend to either focus all fire on his squad, or steer clear of his range. The threat of him knocking out squad leadership or special weapons is scary to some. I find he's not so scary to Orks, as Nobz have two wounds. Even if Telion hits and wounds twice, he can't allocate both hits to the same target in one round of allocation. Tau fear him, a lot. Chopping out the bonding knives, or bypassing shield drones is fantastic.

I don't typically use his Voice of Wisdom ability much, as the three shots from the heavy bolter make up for the lowered BS of scouts. But it can be very useful when trying to make that one shot with the missile launcher count. Unfortunately, it cannot boost the damage effect if you glance or penetrate.

 

The downsides of the squad are multiple.

First is numbers. Each round you'll get two shots from Telion that are darned near guarantee to hit at least once, three sniper shots that hit on 4s, and a missile launcher shot that also hits on a 4 or scatters minus 4". Telion wounds based on Str4 (remember that his weapon is still a boltgun!), the snipers always on a 4, and the missile based on what you hit. Regardless of target, the chance to wound is about 50/50 for all the shots together. Not too shabby. Volume of fire would help you immensely, as often you'll find the only thing to hit is Telion, and he might fail to wound with that Str4!

So many opponents nowadays have either a high Ld, or some sort of Ld booster or nullifier. So Pinning goes right out the window. You can't rely on it to come through when you need it to. It's like bonus points.

Scouts (and Telion) have the poorest save in your army. Heavy bolter shots cause an instakill! you can mitigate this by deploying into cover, but that might limit your options and lanes of fire.

 

I'm rambling now as I've lost my train of thought. But the best way to utilize the 5-man Telion squad is selective targeting. You won't cause enough wounds in any given round to cause a panic, due to low volume of fire. So, make those few shots count. Hit monstrous characters and hope for good odds. Hit heavy weapon teams and pray for pinning. Hit high-save units like Terminators and pray for a Rending shot. Also aim for high-saturation targets where you're likely to take out something useful, like a tooled up command squad. If nothing better presents itself, use Telion's BS to fire that krak missile at light armour (transports, Sentinels) or even forego his shots to put the krak into a high-S target like Bikers. One guaranteed wound is better than two maybes in my book.

[tedwin183]

The hvy bolter scouts carry has hellfire shells, so they wound on 2+ regardless of T.

 

I also have retired mine. I feel like 5 cc scouts in a land speeder storm is far more effective than telion with snipers. Sniper rifles got nerfed nasty-style in 5e. They just aren't worth it anymore outside of entirely fun, casual games.

[ShinyRhino]

The hvy bolter scouts carry has hellfire shells, so they wound on 2+ regardless of T.

 

True, though that's if they hit. 33% chance they land on target without scatter :(

[greatcrusade08]

also the hellfire shells are an option.. im not sure if you already know but the three shots are S5 as normal, the hellfire shells is a template weapon much like the ML.

 

Snipers work better in larger numbers, if your going against MC's id be tempted to drop Telion and throw in another 3 snipers, however Teliopns abilities make him an amazing addition against most armies.

At the recent Ultra meet at GWHQ, he performed a blinder for me..

Getting 2 rending hits (in one turn) on alloyslayers pimped out command squad :o

Killing assault sergeant with power fist and plasma pistol

Wounding HQ's on several occasions, and taking out special/heavy weapons more times than id care to count.

 

Well worth the points and at 36" away hes unlikely to get shot at for a turn or two.

 

Gc08

[Gornall]

I just wish he was an elite choice IC or something so I didn't have to take scouts (Sorry Greatcrusade). I don't know about such a small squad of scouts for 2 reasons... not enough shots to reliably force pinning checks and too few of them for extra wounds to protect Telion and/or the ML. He's still only got scout armor, so the fewer saves he has to make, the better. I'd say go big or go home with the squad.

[alloyslayer]

Getting 2 rending hits (in one turn) on alloyslayers pimped out command squad ;)

 

Gc08

 

boo! hiss! :P feel no pain on an apothecary? mine certainly felt it ^_^

 

after fighting gc08's scout army my respect for them(and telion in particular) has increased tenfold, and even made me drop a tac squad for telion and 7 sniper scouts for the upcoming ultra meet 2.

[greatcrusade08]

If only my company champion wasnt drinking!! ^_^

 

Have you tried the scouts in your force in practice games? or will the end of august be the first run with them?

 

Gc08

[alloyslayer]

i have used the scouts in a couple of games, and their performance has not been that good i'm afraid. i am still painting telion at the moment but i will be lucky if i have him painted before the meet up. hopefully ihis presence will make the scouts perform better ^_^

 

##EDIT## - spelling

[DarkGuard]

My Scouts have also been retired, but had a mixed career before they were replaced with a 3rd Tactical Squad.

 

At times they'd do nothing at all, but at over times they would be quite good for their points. In one game they managed to pin Stormtroopers repeatedly, and wouldn't die until a Daemon Prince jumped on top of them. And in another game they won a shoot out with Dark Angels Scouts (who are better).

 

But they can also be fragile and unreliable. I am planning however, to build a 10 man sniper unit with camo cloaks, a heavy bolter and perhaps Telion, and I can only imagine that this could point a dent in some units.

[angry man]

But they can also be fragile and unreliable. I am planning however, to build a 10 man sniper unit with camo cloaks, a heavy bolter and perhaps Telion, and I can only imagine that this could point a dent in some units.

i run this exact squad myself (although have recently trimmed it by one or two members to add other goodies to the list. if you take 10 then you can combat sqd purely to get twice as much chance of pinning, depending on the safety of their location and the 'fearlessness' or your opponent. Telion usually perfoms a blinder for me, knocking off sergents and special/heavy weapons left, right and centre! theres nothing more rewarding (ok maybe winning against an arrogant :D) than rending with telion and saying "your sgts dead" or "that 10man sqd of wraithguard lose their cover save if your warlock doesnt pass one himself" and watching your opponents face drop and begin whinge about 'cheese'

 

AM

 

EDIT: spelling

[Loyalist]

1) What does Telion and 4 scouts cost?? The standard sgt. + 4 scouts is 75 pts, then 13 points each for any additional scouts added.

 

Presumably Telion and 4 scouts does not cost 50 + 75 pts. We should get at least 15 points (75 /5 = 15) off Telion's cost for replacing the standard sgt. with him.

 

2) Is Telion as useful with a heavy bolter and 8 bolters, or with a mixed squad of heavy bolter 2-3 snipers and 5-6 bolters, as with a squad of a heavy bolter and 8 snipers? The latter will have to be static most of the time to fire, but the other versions seem to have a little more tactical flexibility.

[greatcrusade08]

Whooaa nelly, threadromancer alert ;)

 

1) What does Telion and 4 scouts cost?? The standard sgt. + 4 scouts is 75 pts, then 13 points each for any additional scouts added.

 

Presumably Telion and 4 scouts does not cost 50 + 75 pts. We should get at least 15 points (75 /5 = 15) off Telion's cost for replacing the standard sgt. with him.

Nope Telion is an upgarde not a replacement, you have to pay an EXTRA 50 points.

 

2) Is Telion as useful with a heavy bolter and 8 bolters, or with a mixed squad of heavy bolter 2-3 snipers and 5-6 bolters, as with a squad of a heavy bolter and 8 snipers? The latter will have to be static most of the time to fire, but the other versions seem to have a little more tactical flexibility.

Its generally not a good idea to mix bolters and snipers in the same unit (unless combat squadding them seperatley of course).. bolters need to be close to get the most out of them and tbh tac marines are better for about the same cost.

Telion has the same 36" range as snipers and his bolter is a heavy rending weapon aswell, it makes most sense to keep him with snipers.

 

Gc08

[Giga]

I've been toying with the idea of a 10 men sniper squad with telion, heavy bolter, and camo cloaks, for quite some time now. So far, I've relied on my defensive tac squad (with a plasmagun, plasma cannon, and a razorback) for the job of objective holding, and as far as I'm concerned that plasma cannon + razorback are always going to be more destructive then a bunch of snipers.

 

However, it's tellion's sniper ability that makes me want to try him out. I often play against stuff like chaos marines, codex marines, blood angels, etc. so the ability to take out special weapons, heavy weapons, icons, sergeants with powerfists, and the like seems pretty good when combined with the heavy bolter's template attack, which seems like it could force a lot of saves on an enemy unit.

 

On the other hand, I'm loathe to relinquish my plasma cannon guy. :/

[wizard12]

I was playing with telion against Dark Eldar. He was alone by the time this happended. He took his 2 shots. wounded with one. I aloocated my shot to one of the weaker units (because the leader had that 2++) I killed, he failed a leadership test and ran off the board. :lol:

 

chalk up several kills in one turn to telion