Scouts

[Mattias]

I have been considering the Scout entry in the Dark Angels codex and it seems a shame to me that they are considered to be not particularly useful except as a small squad of snipers to hold a back field objective, especially given our background connection to scouts and Veteran Sergeant Naaman.

 

If the sergeant/veteran sergeant of a scout squad was able to take an Auspex at 5pts would more people take the squad? I feel that this could give non-sniper scouts a little boost and give the squad a role that is quite unique and that would fit the background.

 

What do you think?

 

 

[facmanpob]

Auspex and teleport homer are the 2 items that scouts should be able to take, especially as its in our fluff for scouts to do pinpoint targeting for DW assault.

 

They missed a trick by leaving those out :(

[Jehoel]

They missed a major trick by not giving something to the veteran sergeant to make him different from the standard sergeant. I'll never spend the points as it is.

[Biggabertha]

Don't all veteran sergeants just get terminator honours..?

Pay that much points to get one extra attack (and maybe Leadership 9)? Seems okay-ish for things like Veteran Squad, Assault Squad, Tactical Squad broken down into Combat Squads etc.

 

Doesn't seem so bad if they have a Power Fist as well, I guess...

Ideally, you could have a 10 man Scout Squad, trick out four of them with sniper rifles, two to four with shotguns/combat knives+Bolt Pistols, Missile Launcher whilst having the Veteran Sergeant have a Power Fist and Storm Bolter.

 

Veteran Sergeant goes in with four shotguns in a combat squad, shoots and assaults "weak" units that can't handle being shot then charged (Cultists, Gretchin, grots, etc. (maybe..?)) while the other five stay back with their long range weapons. Camo cloaks optional.

 

Veteran Sergeant can even assault a vehicle with that Power Fist with two attacks removing two hull points pretty easily, ideally.

Worth it for around 100 points though..? Probably not... though you do get that scout move, I suppose... so you can just assault and suicide the scouts against some important vehicle.

 

(Maybe having two or three of them might be handy with the meta going all in with the transports...)

 

 

But yeah, if they had Teleport Homers, then that'd be pretty nifty.

[Stormtrooper-VII]

The problem is that for a couple of extra points you can get marines with a 3+ save along with bs4 and ws4 so you really need them to be different form regular marines. With the lack of auspexes and teleport homers the most viable way in my opinion to do that is to give them snipers. I could perhaps see the use of scouts with cc weapons and meltabombs infiltrating behind enemy lines to attack weak scoring units as well as units like devastators and basilisks but it would have to be poorly defended for that to work. 

[Master Avoghai]

The only use I see for scouts are sniper rifles unfortunately... With lots of high T models appearing on battlefield (dreadknight, riptide, wraithknight...) they can saturate those and force them to make save they didn't plan to do.

 

Other than that I don't see a role... Funny is for me, they are now more fluffy than ever (I have never found that the old "SM with a 4+ save" profile fit them well)... But they're also less interesting...

[jeremy1391]

If scouts could take teleport homer or locator beacon then hell yea! They would be way worth it.

[Cactus]

I sometimes use a small scout squad to outflank and threaten the enemy's deployment zone. Keep them cheap with just pistols and blades, a missile launcher to scare the rear of tanks and maybe a melta bomb for the sergeant. For no more than 80 points - ok, 90 with camo cloaks - you can place a scoring unit in or behind the enemy lines. If left unchecked they will almost certainly earn you one VP for the linebreaker objective and probably destroy a vehicle or tie up a back-field shooting unit in an assault. In the best case they earn you more VPs for holding an objective. It isn't very difficult to kill five space marine scouts but your opponent has to dedicate a unit to doing so, which disrupts his plan. By using the Move Through Cover and Stealth rules to your advantage they can be more resilient than they seem, and Grim Resolve helps them stick around when they're almost inevitably beaten up.

[Mattias]

Given that there seems to be widespread agreement that Scouts should have access to an Auspex and Teleport Homer in order to better fit with the background and to make non-sniper scouts a option that people would take, do you think there would be any merit in writing to Games Workshop to request the changes, they have shown a willingness to update wargear options available to squads via FAQ (e.g. Veteran Squad)?

[Sidguard]

Honestly, if you want a 5 man back line squad, I'm a fan of the 5 man tactical squad with lascannon. Reasonably robust for the cost and can tink away at tanks.

[Stormtrooper-VII]

Given that there seems to be widespread agreement that Scouts should have access to an Auspex and Teleport Homer in order to better fit with the background and to make non-sniper scouts a option that people would take, do you think there would be any merit in writing to Games Workshop to request the changes, they have shown a willingness to update wargear options available to squads via FAQ (e.g. Veteran Squad)?

 

With the veteran squad wasn't that just rewording their entry as opposed to adding entirely new wargear? Correct me if i'm wrong but that's what I thought it was.

[Mattias]

It's true they they did not add entirely new wargear options in that case but they did amend their access to wargear by increasing the number of combi-weapons etc that may be taken in a squad. They have also added wargear options to units/characters where the wargear was missed. This would be a similar minor change that would involve rewording a single sentence.

[FragEmAll]

The issue is that they would have to open up the 'Special Issue Wargear' section of the armoury to a scout sergeant and then you'll have some joker running him with a displacer field or something.....

 

Also please no-one ever arm their scout sergeant with a power fist. a 4+ save and striking at I1 with challenge rules is going to have him dead before he swings.

[Mattias]

They would not have to provide access to the Special Issue Wargear, they could simply make the following change to the entry:

 

The Scout Sergeant or Veteran Sergeant may take:

- Melta Bombs..........................x pts

- Auspex...................................x pts

- Teleport Homer......................x pts

 

All at the existing cost of the Melta Bombs.

 

 

 

[cypherkk]

I've been running a couple of squads regularly recently, and doing all right, though most if the games have been the relic, I've even captured it once.

 

I've the terminators teleport in, the scouts seem to get forgotten about. Though I'm having to run a ras squad to teleport then in.

 

Similar in points the ras and scouts work well in conjunction. Though scouts can get a deeper deployment, with the 12 scout moves on the bike they can keep up at least getting the terminators in place for the scouts devastation banner or fortitude. Bikes have better saves and bs, scouts have more wounds and shots.

 

My original game plan was pure rw but found mix wing just works better, I've lost or tied every game with rw and pure green wing but have won with mixed lists. I haven't tried a pure dw list yet everyone I try, I add scouts for bodies on the ground to cap obj. And they seem to really excel at that.

 

Now I'm getting enough scouts to try the dev banner, but the fort. Still pulls ahead.... Besides scouts have seemed to do better split up attacking from multiple angles than as a consolidated force and the fort banner has a longer range.