Blood Angels Scouts

[awilden]

With the new codex and troops being now just tacticals/scouts, I've been putting a few lists together with scouts as the troops choices, was wondering what other people's experiences with scouts were (for blood angels, and maybe experiences after the new codex dropped).

 

Have 5x sniper scouts (with a missile and heavy bolter as options), and recently bought 5x close combat scouts (thinking about getting another 5 to make a unit of 10), what's the general opinion of CC scouts? pistol+knife? or bolter? (not keen on the shotgun personally, but wondering how that worked out for people and if its worth another look).

 

And for Heavy Weapon options, snipers+missile CC+heavy bolter? or missile or no heavy weapon?

 

It would seem that snipers would be for shooting/holding objectives, and CC for getting in close and utilising their extra attacks not so much for rapid-fire bolter shots (since they couldn't charge in after and lose out on the blood angels furious charge).

 

Lastly, is it worth putting characters into a scout squad? I did read that they do get Infiltrate/Scout (I think both right?) from the squad they're in, like say would it be wroth putting a chaplain in with them? (become basically fearless, and re-roll to-hit 1st round CC), or a Sanguinary Priest? (+1 WS and Feel No Pain). I'm assume other than special fluffy lists, its best to keep the scout units cheap and cheerful and not spend too much on them (and put the points saved into the other elite/heavy choices).

 

Overall I like having different units to break up the swarm of power armour, and Scouts make for some nice army fluff.

[Praefectus Invictus]

I personally haven't run scouts, but most marine armies I play against use sniper scouts alot. (Literally the three most prominent marine players aside from me in my local store have them) they are most effective as backfield campers being a nuisance and sniping at unsavoury targets, helping their tacticals to mop up.

[Njjesters4]

I used the scouts last weekend in a large game. They were a pain in the ass to my eldar/dark eldar opponents across from me. And I tried a heavy bolter with dragon fire shells on one of the scouts and it took a heavy toll on the eldar. Lots of fun to use them

[Deschenus Maximus]

Scouts are pretty underwhelming at the best of times, but if you're building a Baal Strike Force list, might as well use 2 x 5 BP/CCW Scouts as your mandatory Troops.

[DracoFox]

The Sanguinary Priest sounds like a good idea for the CC squad, but aside from that, I haven't much advise. I was kind of surprised to hear that Scouts are Troops in Blood Angels, they're Elites in Space Wolves, and I think in every other Space Marine codex, too.

Good luck with your scouts.

[Deschenus Maximus]

The Sanguinary Priest sounds like a good idea for the CC squad, but aside from that, I haven't much advise. I was kind of surprised to hear that Scouts are Troops in Blood Angels, they're Elites in Space Wolves, and I think in every other Space Marine codex, too.

Good luck with your scouts.

 

Scouts are only Elites for SW. They're troops for everybody else.

 

That reminds me: god I wish Scout Bikers were Troops too. I would never EVER take them as FA, but as Troops? Yeah, that has potential.

[SnorriSnorrison]

Sniper scouts have become hard to justify, in my opinion. Sniper rifles have lost pinning, and the less-than-optimal BS of scouts means you'll need at least 15 scouts to get some wounds through, just by statistics.

 

CC scouts, on the other hand, aren't that bad at all with the new codex. Their WS3 doesn't matter unless you're against something really nasty, and their init5 S5 attacks can surprise your opponent. Just remember to not be in charge range after scouting/infiltrating.

 

Personally, I'm going to run 5 of them in a flamerback, and I'm thinking to add another five as a stealth assault unit to harass pathfinders, other infiltrators and vehicles from round two.

 

 

Snorri

[Karhedron]

I am going to run a unit of CCW Scouts in a Stormraven. The Raven is mainly there for anti-air and harassment but the Scouts get a ride and if they get shot down, they didn't cost that much to start with.

 

I think just a squad of 5 with a power axe on the Serg should do the trick. They get enough attacks on the charge to deal with most back-field units and should strip 3 hull points from any vehicle with a rear AV of 10.

 

Rather tempted to run Cassor the Damned as my other Troop unit and have him ride in the Raven as well. He gets close to the enemy without the cost of a Pod and can lend muscle to the Scouts' charge. Starting to get a bit pricey though as that is a bit over 400 points in one target.

[Remtek]

Last weekend i ran close combat scouts in both games. They were pretty useful, not many objectives (Relic and a 3 objective game) so i infiltrated far up, used them for distraction and one of the unit's poped are veichle charging. They do around 3 HP to rear av 10 in a 5man squad, so pretty nice. I feel like they made there points back, more so than the tacticals. 

 

Pretty useful when your pod'ing stuff in turn 1, there are limits to how many things opponent can shoot at.

 

Kinda hard to play them wrong since they are so cheap. Just dont give them to much fancy stuff. Perhaps one melta bomb on sarge?

[Explorer1]

Ive also been mulling over CC scouts. Im thinking of loading them up in Fast Attack Drop Pods in a Baal Strike Force detachment with the Stormraven formation (the 3 raven 3 tac squad one, whose name I forget). As I read the rules (and I know its a bit controversial) this would allow them to assault out their pods first turn (assuming the Ravens come in). Thirty S5 I5 attacks in a turn 1 assault isn't bad for 145pts (including the pod). Add melta bombs and/or power weapons/fist to the sergeant as points allow.

[awilden]

Thanks for all the replies, I'm probably going to field a 10x squad of the CC variety, and have an extra model to be able to have either a missile or heavy bolter (so 8 standard, 1 sgt and 1 heavy).

 

Is it worth trying to magnetise the arms to be able to swap out pistol/knife to bolters? I've done a lot of magnetising, I assume scouts wouldn't be too hard? or is it best to just have all pistol/knife and glue them like that, having the large gun-line worth of rapid fire seems nice, but the way its looking with blood angels, and taking the Baal Strike Force detachment with +1 Init and +1 Str on the charge, CC scouts seem like they'd be really nasty with the extra close combat potential than the initial bolter fire, and maintain the close combat somewhat with the extra attacks.