Random Scout Squad Thoughts

[brennus]

As I kept plodding way on my painting last night, my thoughts turned to Dark Angel Scout Squads. Not exactly the deepest subject, but there are some things that I had to puzzle out for myself.

 

First, I was puzzling over why Scouts are an elite choice for us. I'm not entirely sure if GW simply wanted to sell more Tactical Squads or if this was a way to cut back on the number of scout-heavy forces for fluff reasons. No one ever makes a change in game design without a reason (valid or not), but we may never know why this change was made. I certainly don't think that the slightly enhanced statistics for the Dark Angel Scouts is what justifies making them an elite choice - it's nice, but it's certainly not that impressive.

 

As presented in our Codex, the role of Dark Angel Scouts is less centered around gathering information, and more about sabotage, raiding, and the assassination or kidnapping of enemy commanders. That got me to thinking about the Scout Sergeants. According to the latest fluff, veteran sergeants are not members of Deathwing, and thus they do not know the story of the Fall. However, the duties of a Scout Squad, as noted above, are sure to bring them into contact with the Fallen, if they are on a given battlefield. Logically, wouldn't the sergeants of Scout Squads be given the same level of scrutiny and indoctrination as members of the Ravenwing? It is never stated, but it makes sense to me.

 

Draw your own conclusion, I guess.

[Tomevans]

I think the scouts as elites is an especially galling choice for us, with all the competition they face in that slot they are very rarely taken. I think the reason they were made elites was because of our ability to take Terminators and Bikes as troops with the right HQ choices. GW didn't want us to have too many troop choices for some reason. This, however, took the primary benefit of scouts away from them, their ability to perform the role of a Tactical sqad for a fraction of the cost, whilst still having a very respectable armour save for the "weakest" soldiers we could field. The only time I consider taking scouts now is for their sniper rifles and even then most of the time I turn it down to take another Drednought. Hopefully the scouts will be returned to their rightful place as a troop choice in our next 'dex.

[Hashshashin]

I think there should be 'troops' scouts who are basically 10th company recruits like everyone else,

 

but I have also thought about the idea of haveing like 'Fallen Hunters' or something that are basically veteran scouts with telyhomers who either work with the DW / RW. It would GW the perfect excuse to sell more Land Speeder transport thingys and give our army one more intesting fluffy unit, yeah would require some retcon but hey Chapter master Anziel founded a whole new successor so adding a secret elite unit wouldn't be that tough.

[Tomevans]

Ravenwing scouts is actually quite a good idea, I think someone else discussed something similar in another thread. They could just be RW members who forego their power armour and bikes to snoop around. Their black armour would help to blend them nicely into the surroundings and then when they find the Fallen or target they are looking for they radio in the bikes and speeders, who zip in to secure the perimeter before the DW teleport in. Fits nicely with the fluff, not too overpowered yet a distinct DA flavour. Good all round I think.