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Typical scout loadouts


ashc

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Just wanted to start a topic on what people find make effective scout loadouts. I was gifted some for christmas and haven't started with them yet, a small squad in a landspeeder storm seem pretty awesome for either trying to alphastrike a vehicle, maybe with multimelta,combi melta and powerfist? Or just backfield harassment - standard landspeeder or heavy flamer with combi flamer power maul Sgt? The rest with CCWS or shotguns.

 

Bolter squads look good for infiltrating and camping an objective; 10 with cloaks and heavy bolter at the most? What about a Sgt here?

 

Finally snipers... not so sure. A small team look like ok backfield but with very little damage output while 10 of them may get expensive in comparison to other scouts?

 

What are people's thoughts?

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From my research I think the general consensus is everything is a good option except for the shotgun scouts. As they don't do shooting or combat particularly well.

 

My scouts as based off my RG TSF needs.

So I have 1 squad of bolters, 1 of snipers (to provide ignores cover). My favourite are the 2 CCW squads for my SSKT. I equip them both with homing beacons so I can ignore the 9" requirement.

I generally keep them at 5 man sqauds. The RG sniper rifle relic is a nice upgrade. Although its effectively 25pts when you factor in the vet sgt upgrade requirement.

I agree with duz, the only Scouts I wouldn't run are shotgun ones. On the attack Scouts are just as good as Tacs which is one of the reasons they can be a nice supplement. Especially if equipped for melee, where they can put out extra attacks and cross ground better. The LSS is a great little weapons platform to get your Scouts (and guns, like a multimelta or heavy flamer!) where your opponent doesn't want them.

 

My CCW Scouts have earned quite the reputation for themselves and the Sergeant's power fits has punched out many tanks. I've found them to be a great reserve and general trouble consultant unit :) I've some more to work on and want another LSS too but there's only so much time in the day :lol:

 

My Snipers are lost in a repaint started during the dark days of WS/BS3, but they'd be a full squad with a heavy weapon. Weight of dice is their friend, but the missile launcher adds some flexibility especially if you're after 3+ MCs or chancing against armour.

I play 'Fists, so my 10th Company Task Force (which also doubles as my 200-point Kill Team) consists of 3 squads of 5 scouts, each squad having 4 boltguns and one heavy bolter.

It might not be the most effective type of Scout overall, but when you're laying down 24 bolter shots and 12 heavy shots in a turn, and rerolling 1's... Lots of stuff will die.

As a BT I would like to disagree on the usefulness of shotgun scouts. I like including a few of those in my Crusader Squads. After all they can kill their foes before making contact (i.e. before overwatch or being hit by high initiative combatants) which I consider an advantage comoared to ccw Scouts. So I do not think they are wasted or inferior to cc oriented scouts. They definitely work for BT Crusader Squads, I do not really see a reason why this shouldn't work for dedicated Scout Squads. Might not be ideal for Scouts on foot but is viable for LSS Scouts...they can stay on their LSS platform and shoot 12" or may charge with shotguns blasting. FUN!
  • 3 weeks later...

I'm considering picking up shotgun scouts myself. It seems like a mild no-brainer:

 

- 10 shots + 10 cc attacks, or

- 5 shots + 15 cc attacks

 

It's the same number of "attacks" either way. If your enemy goes first (like genestealers or eldar) or simul (most armies), then shooting more first is ideal to reduce the amount of casualties you'll suffer. They can't shoot back on your turn after all, but they sure can fight back in the assault phase! As well, unless they're <WS4, the extra CC attacks are hitting on 4's, while the extra shots are hitting on 3's.

 

When Scouts were WS/BS3 I'd agree that shotgun scouts were total rubbish (because the above wasn't true then), but now they're back at their proper values, I think shotties are awesome.

  • 2 weeks later...

Bolter scouts with camo are great if out flanking or Geting into cover to camp/objective. A 6+ cover in open ground is not terrible either but I don't find that to be worth the price of the upgrade.

As far as shotguns go, they win the rule of cool. They look great on the models. Comparing shotguns to CCW scouts is a common question. Let's say 5 man squad. Yes, shotguns and CCW get same number of "attacks" on the charge, 10 shots and 10 melee vs. 5 shots and 15 melee. However, anything past the first round of combat, the CCW are just better. Your extra attacks also are used when hitting back on the opponents assault phase. Something to consider is running a half shotgun half CCW squad. This lets you get more shots before the charge, reducing the overwatch you might take and thinning out the ranks of your assault victim, let the shotgun guys die first in melee and that way you still have dedicated CCW guys for the rest of the rounds. I really think shotguns are only ever a slightly better choice when charging something you know will hit you first.

Heavy weapons on scouts? Yes, sometimes anyways. Sniper squads should always have a heavy bolter in my opinion. Has the same range as snipers and you generally want to fire it at the same type of units. It's a very cheap upgrade so I don't know why you would not take one. Keep in mind also that scouts in a Speeder Storm do not have counted as moving if the Speeder jinks. A scout with a heavy bolter or missile launcher can sit back field and fire out of the speeder,if needed you still have great mobility and the option of deploying scouts out of it as needed.

As far as snipers go, people seem to love them or hate them. A lot of people I talk to say they tried out a team of 5 a few times and were not impressed. I think if you want to run snipers you need at least 10 to 15 of them. Both of their abilities only activate on a roll of 6 to hit or 6 wound. 5 statistically are not gonna hit those rolls very often. If you are running enough scouts to start getting multiple called shots and/or auto wounding ap 2 per firing phase, your enemies are gonna start to sweat while losing marker lights, apothecaries, special/heavy weapons or whatever else they are relying on. Snipers might not rack up huge body counts, but they are great problem solvers when run in numbers that let them hit their abilities constantly.

Think of it this way, a 5 man scout squad with camo and snipers for all 5 guys is the same cost as a vanilla tactical squad, and I generally think the scouts will offer more value than 5 tactical with no upgrades.

Does anyone run bolter scouts with camo cloaks? Thinking about converting some.

I don't, never seen it personally.  I run my scouts (which I love!) as 10 men with bolters, maybe a meltabomb.  That's it.  

 

Just wanted to start a topic on what people find make effective scout loadouts. I was gifted some for christmas and haven't started with them yet, a small squad in a landspeeder storm seem pretty awesome for either trying to alphastrike a vehicle, maybe with multimelta,combi melta and powerfist? Or just backfield harassment - standard landspeeder or heavy flamer with combi flamer power maul Sgt? The rest with CCWS or shotguns.

 

Bolter squads look good for infiltrating and camping an objective; 10 with cloaks and heavy bolter at the most? What about a Sgt here?

 

Finally snipers... not so sure. A small team look like ok backfield but with very little damage output while 10 of them may get expensive in comparison to other scouts?

 

What are people's thoughts?

I love Scouts for a couple of things: 

1 - Getting on to back field objectives either through infiltrate or outflank.

2 - shooting infantry on the move.  Damage output is basically the same as tactical marines.   Yes, you don't have a special weapon, but I'm not really upset about it.

3 - Crushing Tau and IG player's will to live by getting in their face on T1 as the drop pods hit. 

 

I don't care for assault scouts; if I assault something I want to win.  That's a small list with a scout squad; a single Powerfist on a 1W, T4 model is not going to really help you with this.  Backfield objective hold scouts are okay, I guess.  I'd rather have something else holding it that wants to stand still, like a devastator squad or a thunderfire cannon.  I'm not a fan of sniper scouts either, the damage output is too low I think.  

 

The Land Speeder Storm is the most under rated model in the entire Space Marine range.  It's a phenomenal weapon for it's points.  The Heavy Bolter, Multimelta, or Heavy Flamer all have great uses.

  • 3 weeks later...

Gonna have to see points costs to determine how they stack up to Tacticals in 8th, but at the moment Scouts are looking very strong.  Bolter or Shotty Scouts will get a bit better with the BP in melee, too, though the HB looks set to take the world by storm.  Cover is going to be nerfed and buffed to some extent, though assuming Camo Cloaks grant +1 to cover we could be looking at 2+ Save (or better) Scouts in bushes/behind barriers, etc.

I have squad with bolters and camocloaks. We use a fair amount of terrain sometimes and the Cloaks have been a big help.

 

I'm also kind of a fan of scout bikers. 2 rapid fire grenade launchers lobbing krak grenades. Infiltrating and scouting or outflanking. Mines. Yay.

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