When are omniscope and enhanced data tether worth it?

[Anarnii]

Hi guys,

 

Just got 2 start collecting boxes to start my new mechanicum detachment.

 

Planning on running it as 2 x 5 rangers with 1 arquebous each and a 10 man triple plasma vanguard squad.

 

When and where do you normally takes the omniscope or enhanced data tether upgrades?

 

Any builds or load outs which work best?

[anarchistscourge]

I take the data tether on my 10 man vanguards as they normally run off, and the omniscope is very helpful on 5 man ranger squads. There only 5pts for the tether and 7 for the scope. 7pts to ignore cover is pretty good

[Vel'Cona]

I take the data tether on my 10 man vanguards as they normally run off, and the omniscope is very helpful on 5 man ranger squads. There only 5pts for the tether and 7 for the scope. 7pts to ignore cover is pretty good

 

This can depend heavily on local terrain usage, ie. if your FLGS doesn't have a lot of terrain available.  Though in general I'd agree the Omniscope is awesome if you're going to invest in special weapons anyway.  I'd consider the Data Tether required kit for large Skitarii squads in general, but anything less than 10 bodies and it loses value exponentially.

[Anarnii]

Is the normal build for Skitarri squads normally have 2 special in a unit of 5? I’m just nervous that 3 woulds at toughness 3 with a 4+ isn’t much to defend 50pts of arquebus and could get wiped off the board really easily

[DanPesci]

I put omniscopes on my ranger squads because of already investing in the Areqebus. Ie. The the extra 7 points to ignore cover and give them more chance of getting through is more than worth it if you are going to invest I the first place.

 

Areqebus are expensive/fragile as you say but as long as you are deploying sniper rangers way back and in cover, people will probably have trouble targeting them... or are wasting heavy weapons on them which should be going to kill other things (e.G. Your onagers).

 

At the end of the day a sniper squad is still less than 100pts so not the end of the world if it does get wiped first turn.

 

Saying that I run 2 squads with 4 Areqebus in total for redundancy.

[synthaside]

There's no doubt that the rifle price is worth the price of admission, I had some amazing luck with my snipers last game, 1 shotting the Dark Eldar warlord/buffing character turn 1, he was one of the few targets who was not cowering inside a venom believing character protection would save him.

2 squads, 2 rifles each, 4 shots all hit, followed by an amazing 3x 6's to wound and a bonus 5 .   3 mortal wounds with no daft invuln saves followed by 4 Invuln saves some reasonable D3 damage shots meant the squishy Eldar went down like a sack of bricks.

However, ultimately I've found that most marine players ( which are the majority of games I seem to play these days) Don't seem to put their characters in cover, They just don't expect them to get murdered by shooting quite as easily, trusting there armour and even then they often have an invuln save , which due to the Big gun's -2 AP  is more often than not  forcing them to use their invuln.
Pretty much nullifying any benefit of taking it, personally, i'd rather take an extra pintle Stubber on my onagers.

@ Anarnii I would agree with you on the fragility... However, our leadership is also pretty terrible,  if we take a 10 man squad and lose some to the same shooting that would wipe the snipers, we are pretty close to losing the squad to moral totally.  -5 against leadership 7 isn't going to protect them much better ... and is also going to  cost you more points and mean that its harder to fill out the formation for those sweet sweet command points.

Edited January 19, 2018 by synthaside

[Xisor]

I'm certainly finding that the TUA combined with the Omnispex gives a bit of... psychological interference for opponents. I'm not sure how much weight to attach to it, but as a fairly unrigorous player, I find it quite a satisfying thing. It encourages them to... "panic" might put it too strongly, but at least it somewhat disrupts their otherwise careful planning.

 

For me - the data tethers are best used on full squads where it is very important that they hit their target. As I usually run three full Vanguard squads, that means the triple-plasma one is nowadays getting the tether, and allocated the Doctrina Imperiative when necessary. (When the tether was only a morale boost, it went on my 'distraction' squad that was all rad carbines - the intention being to get up in people's faces and 'cause trouble', with the tether prolonging their existence a little.)

 

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Summary: omnispices good for whatever, data tethers good for squads you'll want to maximise the benefit of the Doctrina Imperiative from

[Subtle Discord]

Grrrr... *mutters* you people are going to force me to build some Data-Tethers as alternatives, aren't you?! Yes, I'm blaming you for my obsession with having options and alternatives. ;)

[Charlo]

Data tethers are good to get the +2 to hit from strategems :)

[Midlight]

I quite like the omnispex, mostly as a psychological tool. My opponent sees that half my units ignore cover, they then don't see the point in trying to get in cover, then plasma destroyers. All fun.