Six Scout Snipers!

[Tropicana]

Ohai!

 

For those of you who read previous posts of mine, and retained the babbling nonsense I posted then, you'll be wondering why I'm asking about Scout Snipers, since I professed myself as having given in to the Lure of Chaos? Well, people, I lied; as much as Chaos appeals to me for its sheer nonsense appeal, I looked through the Loyalist Codex and decided that there's more to be done with the Fuzzi Wuzzi Vanillas. Probably either Blood Ravens or Imperial Fists, although that doesn't really have any bearing on the matter at hand. Which is, what can 6 Scout Snipers do at, say, 500 or 750 Point Levels? Having not acquired any gaming experience thus far, I'm unsure how useful they'd be. Mind, I am in the process of Proxying an entire Force using paper, and woe betide anyone who complains, for that matter! 500 Point Level Force of Paper. It's going to be e p i c. Back on Topic, though. I'm happy to hear your thoughts, praise and complaints for and about Scout Snipers!

 

Tropicana

:)

[waaanial00]

Put simply either go for 10 Scouts or none! It really is as cut and dry as that. 6 Snipers over the course of an average game will probably kill 1 or 2 standard infantry or put the same number of wounds onto a Monsterous Creature (MC).

 

What you hit you will be unlikely to wound and even then you wont be getting the mass wounds required to be of much help.

 

Also leaving the scouts on an Objective sounds like a really good idea but anyone who has played more than 5 games against Marine will have likely formed a tactic which will be effective in pushing this small unit off an objective (camo cloaks or not!).

 

I probably wouldnt take scouts until 1500 points, unless you are going scout heavy (I.e. more than 50% scouts). At lower points you need efficiency in order to carry games, 10 scouts produces probably 2 wounds a turn before armour saves. This is not exactly dire but neither is it exactly brilliant when you are needing every kill to count.

 

Still if you are really wanting to take them then they can do the following:

 

- Wound anything on a 4+ so they are decent against high toughness units.

- Are scoring and static so can win games if they are supported and you are lucky

- Force pinning checks, which is of low value in the current game as it is quite difficult to pin most of the armies especially with a low hit rate unit like this

- Infiltrate and block an opponent infiltrating and scout moving too close to you

 

Wan

[Tropicana]

I see! Thanks for you input. Taking into consideration what you've said, I'll have to think twice before picking up that Scouts Box; I'm not sure if they're all so useful as I had hoped. Would it be worth 'Backing Up' the 6 with some Bolter Scouts, taking them up to 10 Men? That way, I guess I can still have some Firepower to 24", less so to 36", with the capability to Pin some Assault Units and keep them off of Objectives? Does that improve the situation much?

 

Edit: Also, a bunch of afterthoughts. With Camo Cloaks and Stealth on hand, Scouts potentially gain a 2+ Cover when behind a Wall, or 3+ Cover when in a Hedge! So surely they're more potent, seeing as how they'll be sticking around just about as long as Terminators? Then, they do have Combat Tactics, so the Bolter Group can move off to the side, sit in a Tactically-Chosen Spot, and lay down Covering Cross-Fire at any Hostile Units that try to move from their Table Edge to throw the Scouts out? Not to mention they can pack a Hellfire HB, which might see them safe when faced with Hostiles, again, trying to throw them out.

[Custodian Athiair]

i still sometimes field a 5 man scout squad with snipers. half the time they are ignored and half the time they draw a lot of fire. in btoh circumstances for 75 points or 90 with Camo Cloaks. it helps

becuase if they don't get shot they sit on an objective and try to pin some stuff. if they do get shot then they are just drawing fire away from the units that will do more damge. so i don't see why not to use them

although if you have the model always take a predaotr with AC and HB before 5 sniper scouts with Camo Cloaks

 

hope i've helped :)

 

Athiair :D

[Tropicana]

Fair enough. Infiltrating probably goes a long way towards Pinning Enemies and Drawing Fire, I suppose. What about topping them up with Bolter Scouts, though? Advisable?

[minigun762]

Its funny because the first thing that I thought about when I saw the topic title was the effectiveness of 6 squads of Sniper Scouts.

54 Sniper Rifles backed up by 6 Missile Launchers (most likely), coming in at 900 points (1080 with Cloaks) really doesn't seem all that much for 60 wounds.

[Xeonic]

It's worth noting that scouts sniper effectiveness can be drastically improved with Telion leading them, he's literally worth several snipers in and of himself and his special rules can be invalueable.

 

However, by themselves they are quite capable of forcing a pinning test every turn or so, which can be a game turner, but Telion seems to outkill the rest of the snipers by far. By themselves they'll rarely cause very many wounds. I personally feel he's worth the points premium just for his ability to pick off specialists. Remember that his BS6 means he can reroll misses(though it's harder to hit on the reroll), so he almost never misses, though it's hard for him to put wounds on T4+(no worse than bolter fire though).

 

I'm also a fan of the hellfire heavy bolter, it's borderline OP for the low points cost overhead and what wound capability it brings to the table, espescially BS6 with Telion's skill. :)

 

Scouts with camo cloaks are notoriously hard to remove from cover as well, the 2+ bostered ruin coversave is far superior outside of CC to a 2+ armor sv. Even without a techmarine/lysander to bolster they're quite respectable.

 

I wouldn't bother putting them in with a mixed squad unless I was combat squadding them off, personally, but it's an interesting idea. Sniper scouts love to hang at range, if you have a nice piece of terrain in/near your deployment zone with good los you can just deploy or infiltrate them into it so they can contribute their fire from turn 1. Putting them near, but not on an objective is also a good move, near enough that they can move to it within 1-2 turns to hold/contest, but not on it to give your opponent a 2 in 1 bonus objective with very squishy scouts on it.

[Tropicana]

Thanks for your input! Telion has, actually - after me slating him previously - now caught my eye just a little, and I'll certainly consider 'Counts-As'ing him. Considering a new Set-Up, then, how does 'Telion, Five Scouts, Sniper Rifles' sound for 138 Points? And, if I chose to bulk up the Team with some Bolter Scouts, I'd simply throw in '4 Scouts, Bolters, One Hellfire Heavy Bolter' for an additional 62 Points, rounding the Unit off nicely at 200 Points. Then again, I could have Twin Thunderfire Cannons, using Forgeworld Thudd Guns, for that! *Wince*. It's really about Points-to-Effectiveness Ratio, isn't it? And right now, it's slightly lacking. As nice as Telion is, he throws said Ratio right out of proportion, and as such, I think the Team is at its best without him. Anyone else agree? Or am I mad?

 

Tropicana

:P

[Marshal Serion]

Tropicana, I think you pretty much hit it on the head.

 

Telion is good when you know what you're fighting (anything T3 or T4 and a 5+ save). Against anything else, he's not worth the upgrade points.

 

 

Snipers with cloaks are "great" at one thing -- going to ground. They can hold an objective in 4+ cover (a standard nowadays) and go to ground when fired upon to get a 2+ cover save.

 

As long as you keep counter-charge units within 18" or so, they can keep that objective secured fairly reasonably for the entire game -- baring unlucky cover save rolls on your part.

 

When they don't go to ground, pick a target that can either be pinned or has high toughness and shoot. If you wound, hurray!. If you don't, hurray! Reinforcing your opponent's opinion about how worthless the squad is will keep him targeting other squads throughout the game.