Scout Snipers

[Cheese Elemental]

Has anyone had any luck using Scouts with sniper rifles? They seemed OK at first, but they only hit on a 4+ as opposed to regular Marines, and plasma guns/autocannons seem to be much better at killing lone units and MCs.

 

Are they just completely redundant?

[greatcrusade08]

its hit or miss with alot of people, some like me swear by them, other not so much.

 

If you include Telion on the other hand, the unit is spectacular.

 

Gc08

[Koremu]

The rifles themselves are nothing to write home about.

 

If taking them, take a small unit with Telion and a Missile Launcher.

 

But mostly I don't find they work with my playstyle.

[thade]

The rifles themselves are nothing to write home about.

 

If taking them, take a small unit with Telion and a Missile Launcher.

 

But mostly I don't find they work with my playstyle.

 

I do this almost every game. With Telion they are really quite good, as you have the option of:

- VoE on missile launcher = An almost guaranteed hit with a krak missile

- VoE on sniper = An almost guaranteed hit with a pinning, rending, wounds on 4+ regardless of toughness sniper round. (Very nice VS something like a Wraithlord.)

- EoV: The ability to allocate 1-2 wounds from Telion's gun...each of which goes on to expensive models. :(

 

The unit has the added benefit of forcing pinning checks, and rending is like the little sprinkles on the icing on the cake.

 

Without Telion, they are something between "kind of nice" and "bag of fail". Hits on 4's, wounds on 4's with a unit of five guys very often nets me zero wounds. I don't recommend it...unless they exist only to be cheap and camp on your home objective as a troop unit. Then I'm still not sure I'd recommend it. :)

[Firedrake28]

It can work, just don't take a squad larger than about six or so. For a time I was running a unit of 10 including Telion and was rather disappointed with their performance.

[Fetterkey]

Seconding what other posters have said here. Telion is good, especially with a missile launcher or heavy bolter in the squad. The normal squad members aren't worth much, though.

[greatcrusade08]

Seconding what other posters have said here. Telion is good, especially with a missile launcher or heavy bolter in the squad. The normal squad members aren't worth much, though.

 

They are pretty cheap though, and with a bit of random fortune (lucky dice) can get a few rending hits!

[Warprat]

Scout Snipers do some thing that other troops (Tacs) cannot do, which is firing with the whole squad at long range. Nothing but Sternguard can match it, range wise, if you are looking for efficiency of shooting. Shotguns also provide a unique weapon, akin more to storm bolters. Seems to me, that those are the two weapons that differentiate scouts from other Space Marine units.

 

While they are not the greatest at anything, and perhaps sub par at any individual task. If you want a unit that can take on a wide variety of roles, snipers are ideal. They can assualt with the Storm, having the same Kraks and Melta Bombs that any other scout would, and they can still retain thier bolt pistol for a shot on the charge into CC with 2 attacks. The Storm still provides the same -2 Morale, good if you throw the sniper scouts into a multiple assailt.

 

And of course as alluded to earlier, you eliminate range matching issues, with the whole squad firing at the same target, so no wasted shots.

 

Warprat ;)

[waaanial00]

I absolutely hated my Scout Snipers at the turn of the new dex. I had played them for about 5 or 6 games and they killed nothing, thats right NOTHING!

 

I did play other scouts though and found that at closer ranges they performed better for me. Which lead me to believe that I was a sniper cursed soul. An idea further backed up when I finally got to play GreatCrusade08, who is lets face it the Don of scouts (hat tipped to you sir). In two games his least effective units by far were the snipers. It earned me the "bad luck troll" name.

 

However recently I had fielded my same 5 scout unit with Missile Launcher in a small game (2x500 practice for two friends who were enterring a tournament). They performed well, given their random nature. Throughout the game they killed 2 looted trucks and pinned a unit of lootas once. They would have won me the game as well however the game lasted to the last turn and they were assaulted by about 15 Orks!

 

I still think that at larger points a small unit of 4 Snipers and a Missile Launcher is a fairly useless unit, however their value goes up as the points fall. Especially when the armour drops to Transports across the board and the number of units capable of taking the field drops as well. Their ability to rend and pin with their weapons and take a S8 weapon capable of being a S4 blast is a great asset. Their limited shots are really hampered by their BS3 however with an average amount of luck they will perform adequately. If you dont expect too much they will meet your expectations.

 

They are not worthless at all, in fact the tournament I alluded to earlier was won by a father and son team (also both my friends and from my gaming group) who fielded a double scout army, their snipers were able to carry the day by out distancing most enemies. Run them for a good 5 - 8 games before condemming them, in combat patrol and other games up to 750 their skills are better than past that number, unless you take lots of them.

 

Wan

[greatcrusade08]

I did play other scouts though and found that at closer ranges they performed better for me. Which lead me to believe that I was a sniper cursed soul. An idea further backed up when I finally got to play GreatCrusade08, who is lets face it the Don of scouts (hat tipped to you sir). In two games his least effective units by far were the snipers. It earned me the "bad luck troll" name.

 

As annoying as that was, it is actually quite funny how that worked.. i think we played 3? times over the weekend and all 3 games my snipers were asleep!

then in my next games they started to perform reasonably well again..

 

you definatelty have a bad luck troll standing guard somewhere :D

 

Gc08

 

edit: for outside observers it should be said that Wan beat me all 3 times... the git!

[Commander Proteus]

Yeah, Sniper scouts are not what they used to be.

 

I used to love them for the pinning they'd cause. Snipe a unit, take out 3-4 guys, and get the unit stuck in the middle of a no-terrain space for a turn.

 

They're actually a little nicer, now that they've got pinning and rending, and can be boosted by Telion, but it seems that every army has some leadership trick to get around pinning. I can't remember pulling that off more than one or two times in all of 4th and 5th ed!

 

Then again, a ten squad of snipers, Telion, and a HB/ML...Could be messy.

 

-Proteus

[rat of vengence]

Shooting at MEQ, you can have 10 snipers, 5 hit, 2.5 wound, meaning just less than one failed armour save on average. I haven't worked out the odds of rending, but it is probably countered by the chances of there being a cover save. Bag of fail indeed. These guys can be safely ignored,

 

With Telion and a missile launcher, you now have a unit that deserves to be shot at. I don't know if they will achieve much, but being able to allocate wounds might be worth its weight in... sniper scouts?

 

RoV

[greatcrusade08]

Shooting at MEQ, you can have 10 snipers, 5 hit, 2.5 wound, meaning just less than one failed armour save on average. I haven't worked out the odds of rending, but it is probably countered by the chances of there being a cover save. Bag of fail indeed. These guys can be safely ignored,

 

I think thats a little unfair, if compared with tac marines, who will get about 3.3 wounds per ten men they arent as bad as you make them sound (one reason i hate mathhammer)

They are only a little less effective than 10 normal marines, but have longer range, can infiltrate, rend, pin, outflank (not sure why youd want to), are cheaper by about 30 points basic (ok no heavy/special weapons).

If we factor the defnesive nature of the squad compared to tac marines, you can have a ten man unit for 140 points that are ok at thier job, but tac marines usually warrant upgrades to make them more versatile/effective.. its often the case that including rhino the squad will cost around 240 points

 

Ill let you consider that for a while.

 

Gc08

[rat of vengence]

Fair call mate. They definitely have the advantage in range and all being able to utilise their weapons at that range. Cheaper is good too.

 

I am dubious about using them to hold objectives though, since there is such a prevalence of deepstriking/outflanking/fast moving stuff out there. Your tac marines have the advantage of rapidfire and special weapons to hold them off.

 

However, in larger point games I would like to give a 10 man sniper/missilw/Telion squad a go :D

 

RoV

[greatcrusade08]

I am dubious about using them to hold objectives though, since there is such a prevalence of deepstriking/outflanking/fast moving stuff out there. Your tac marines have the advantage of rapidfire and special weapons to hold them off.

 

Yup this has proved itself in many of my games, especially against more competative opponents. I often find that my unit on an objective gets targetted by podding dread with heavy flamer (no more cover saves or armour saves), my losses to dreads have been horrendous!

Marines have the advantage simply by having better armour saves and the prevelance of AP4 weapons does mean static scouts HAVE to be in cover and somewhat limits thier uses/LOS etc.

 

Its a difficult decision to make, scout snipers work best in larger numbers and with Telion, but ive found the more you spend on them the greater attention they seem to draw, an opponent will think nothing of throwing a podding dread thier way if they are ten strong with Telion!

And since we are seeing a large number of lists with podding dreads its hard to keep them out of the firing line, perhaps unit placement to negate reach of heavy flamer template?

 

Anyway i have a friend who never writes a list without adding 5 snipers, they arent that expensive and the odd rending hit goes a long way especially against expensive MEQ units. The only concern i have is that he runs DA and his scouts are BS4, it makes a big difference!

 

Gc08

[waaanial00]

Anyway i have a friend who never writes a list without adding 5 snipers, they arent that expensive and the odd rending hit goes a long way especially against expensive MEQ units. The only concern i have is that he runs DA and his scouts are BS4, it makes a big difference!

 

Gc08

 

And they are Elites and not troops so can not be used for the same purposes. Though that does free them up, being taken out of the running for objective gathering means you can place them within LOS to an objective without being able to gather it. It certainly would mean they get bumped way down the list in terms of target priority (not overly dangerous, not scoring, not contesting, harder in cover than out)

 

As has been said many times before, if they were BS4 then it would be almost a no brainer to take them. BS3 makes them a little bit of a lottery, especially as Rending is now on to Wound.

 

Wan