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While Space Marine Scouts *might* be moving to the Elite FOC slot, do you think they might have a use in the new addition? If "infiltrate" now works like "Behind Enemy Lines," Ten Bp+ CCW scouts with a PF Sarge could do some Damage. And that is like what..150-160 pts (Using Dark Angels and Blood Angels as a basis)? That seems like at pretty good deal.
Shame they can't take Teleporter Homers anymore.
What doe you guys think?

Don't forget about their sniper rifles gaining Rending.

I think they might be taking a dive in 5th, if they become Elite. I only use a few Scouts as a forward Teleport Homer so it's no big loss to me, but a friend of mine plays a mainly Scout/Assault Marine Raven Guard army and he'll pretty much have no scoring units and now has an over abundance of Scouts. They only benefit remaining would be the Infiltrate solely to ruin their scoring units since Scouts may not count as scoring anymore. Just my thoughts.

Well owning said Scout army, I would be kind of annoyed about them moving to the Elites slot. But another rumor for the new SM codex coming out in 5th edition is that theres a Special Character making scouts from elites to troops. So it could still make a 10th company feasible.

As for why GW is making scouts into elites is beyond me. I don't like their way of thinking. Scouts were meant to be the "new guys" the "rookies". Why are they now an elites choice? I understand they have infiltrate and all, but WTF? Its not that great of an option if your opponent can dick you on deployment.

Lets just move terminators to heavy support!? That makes sense right...oh and there are HEAVY bolters on land speeders, lets make them into Heavy Support choices too. How about when you field assault marines without jump packs they turn into Troops choices. I think this is GW just screwing around with units that have worked properly and now they are garbage. I like the idea of fixing the SM book and retooling it a bit. I like the idea of losing the traits, I'm cool with that, how about we drop some special characters too while we're at it...I'm sure the Ultramarines can lose a few pages. Oh wait, this is Games workshop we're talking about...

END RANT...

I think people are getting hung up on the "elite" label.

The number of scouts in a chapter is >= 10% of the total. Most of the chapter is made of bona fide marines. The elite slot is just a tool that keeps the scouts' numbers in proper proportion.

Would the entire 10th company be used as a force on its own? I don't know. My understanding is that the squads of the 10th were doled out as needed.

ZF-

In that case, Guardians should be Elites in the Eldar book, no?

Space Marine scouts should remain as troops, except where
they decide to do something different with them. e.g. Space
Wolf scouts.

Although anoyed at losing cheap troops I understand the whole elite thing for scouts.

However what I don't understand is tacticals NOT having cc and bolt pistol. Dawn of war does, the fluff does. Yes Assult can remove Jump packs but that uses up a fast attack slot. At the moment I get around this problem by using the traits, but I really think that tactical should at least have the option of going to battle to fight hand to hand.

Oh and if I was writing the new rules I'd give rhinos the option of assult ramps....at a high price however to balance out the whole rhino rush thing. Maybe this should use up a fsat attack slot to transport those non jump pack assult troops. The the other hand ignore that last paragraph.....it's just a dream that will never happen for many many reasons.

malfred wrote:In that case, Guardians should be Elites in the Eldar book, no?

Possibly. Personally, if it forced DAs as the primary troop choice to fit the fluff, I wouldn't be opposed. But then, before the new codex came out, I was working on an Iyanden army.

malfred wrote: Space Marine scouts should remain as troops, except where
they decide to do something different with them. e.g. Space
Wolf scouts.

Well, they could possibly be given a 0-2 cap or something. (An arbritrary number: Don't quibble with me on proper amounts, as it was off the top of my head) BT have their own built in cap, in their own sorta way.

ZF-

malfred wrote:
Space Marine scouts should remain as troops, except where
they decide to do something different with them. e.g. Space
Wolf scouts.

What you are missing is the fact that it is rumored that any unit with infiltrate or scout that is held in reserve in 5th edition will have a chance at coming on from board edges other than the one you deployed on. I've playtested those rules and it makes infiltrators very, very nasty. Thus, every scout essentially becomes a space wolf scout, albeit a bit less reliable. I support a move to elites by the scouts. By all rights scouts are a support item for the marines just like land speeders and predators.

All I'm saying is, from a fluff perspective, almost my ENTIRE army was nearly wiped out on Istvaan. So to field 4 to 6 scout squads in a FOC isn't that rare for me or my army. Now I have to figure out if I want to use any of my scouts, or do I want to throw in the 1 unit of terminators I own with any other elites choices I have at my disposal. Not to mention the other new elites choice GW will probably throw into the new codex.

I have always fielded armies that are very fluff oriented and I think it brings a better style of play to the game. I'm positive I'm not the only person out there that feels this way. We enjoy winning in my group, but looking good doing it, is classy. Whatever happened to finding cohesion between the army books and the fluff GW writes?

It seems like whenever GW publishes a new army book people like myself get up in arms about what we lose out on. And what do we gain? Another unit that we don't really want or will use, but because we see a shiny new toy, we buy it...We are all gullable. We fall for it everytime. It's why I stopped playing 40k years ago. I may as well just go back to Necromunda.

...End rant.

XxRVNGRDxX - what youy say is spot on. GW is there to sell, and they will do whatever it takes to do that, they are a business. However, it doesn't mean we have to be gulible and fall for it every time. I'm sure that most reasonable gaming clubs will allow a themed army that doesn't quite fit into the FOC, as long as you have a sensible reason for it, e.g. fluff themed army. The group I play with try to use the FOC, but at the end of the day we're in the hobby to enjoy playing games with interesting armies. Yes it's a pain if you want to enter a tournament, but if that's such a major thing for you or the club then why not get in touch with Nottingham and set up your own 'fluff armies only' tournament. You'd be offering something a bit different and showing GW that not all players will stick to they're rules and some of us want something somwhere saying that Fluff armies are just fine, even at Tournys if permission is sought in advance...... It's what tthe bobbys about isn;t it? It's the same with Catering at work, people don't use it because of bad customer relations....if they support us veterans more then we'll buy more anyway. From what I believe the average lifespan of a gamer these days is three years, they should be working on improving this and more sales will come with time, rather than trying to get people to buy loads in a shorter time frame.

end rant

Zan Fnark - I see your point in the true number of Scouts typically being but a percent of the real for and 10th Company being divided as needed.

XxRVNGRDxX - The Legion was knocked down a couple pegs 10,000 years ago it's not really much of a valid point. What Primarch whatshisface did right after the Heresy is one thing, but a spagillion years later Raven Guard are not forced to field Scouts in abundance, they choose to do so. Otherwise they wouldn't have Successors if they didn't still have enough of their own full Marines.

Overall, I think Scouts won't be better if this is true, but it will atleast stay true to their numbers.

@XxRVNGRDxX: All you have to do is field the SM Special Character that allows Scouts to be fielded as Troops and you can go your merry way. It's not a big deal.

I see what you guys are saying, but what happens when I want to field Shrike who apparently will give us more assault marines and "SCOUT GUY" then the scouts and the assault marines are fighting for the slots. Also, then I have 2 commanders and I'd be up S&%! creek on using any other HQ choices.

I know it sounds like I'm just seeing one detriment in the codex and I'm harping on it. I'll get over it.

So...how about those defensive weapons getting knocked down to str 4 in fifth edition!? thats going to suck. (trying difficulty to change subject)

I see what you guys are saying, but what happens when I want to field Shrike who apparently will give us more assault marines and "SCOUT GUY" then the scouts and the assault marines are fighting for the slots.

I'm not sure I see the problem. Assuming both characters allow Scouts/Assault Marines to be fielded as Troops, what this would mean is that you'd have 12 (6 Troops, 3 Elite, 3 FA) FoC slots to share between all your Assault Marines and all your Scouts. Is that not enough?

And mebbe the rumors about the new SM dex will be true. Last one I heard said that your additional troop choice depends on what your master is equipped with. A master in terminator armor allows for terminators to be fielded as troops, a master on a bike allows for bike squadrons to be fielded as a troops, and a master in regular power armor will still be able to field scouts as troops. The logic being that this allows for unique Chapter variants to be fielded without the need for many small mini-dexes. I'm in wait and see mood for now.

XxRVNGRDxX wrote:I see what you guys are saying, but what happens when I want to field Shrike who apparently will give us more assault marines and "SCOUT GUY" then the scouts and the assault marines are fighting for the slots. Also, then I have 2 commanders and I'd be up S&%! creek on using any other HQ choices.

Having to make tough choices about your units is the mark of a good codex, not a bad one. Having lots of good units in the same slot to choose from is a problem that many armies would *love* to have.

XxRVNGRDxX wrote:
All I'm saying is, from a fluff perspective, almost my ENTIRE army was nearly wiped out on Istvaan. So to field 4 to 6 scout squads in a FOC isn't that rare for me or my army. Now I have to figure out if I want to use any of my scouts, or do I want to throw in the 1 unit of terminators I own with any other elites choices I have at my disposal. Not to mention the other new elites choice GW will probably throw into the new codex.

I have always fielded armies that are very fluff oriented and I think it brings a better style of play to the game. I'm positive I'm not the only person out there that feels this way. We enjoy winning in my group, but looking good doing it, is classy. Whatever happened to finding cohesion between the army books and the fluff GW writes?

It seems like whenever GW publishes a new army book people like myself get up in arms about what we lose out on. And what do we gain? Another unit that we don't really want or will use, but because we see a shiny new toy, we buy it...We are all gullable. We fall for it everytime. It's why I stopped playing 40k years ago. I may as well just go back to Necromunda.

...End rant.

Now I love the Raven Guard too, but you do realize that "after Istvaan" means TEN THOUSAND years ago.

Now, maybe the Raven Guard of "today" prefer to fight a certain way, but surely by "now" they certainly don't HAVE to anymore...

Yea but their current chapter traits state that they can't have any LRC or Pred Ann. And that they can only use 0-1 of the LR, Vind, Whirlwind, Pred Dest. So they have suffered through the last 10,000 years with limited heavy armor. Their death toll was insane and when they tried to f*ck with their geneseed they had made mistakes and created the Weregeld. These were hulking monsters (even by SM standards) only bent on killing... so much so that the Space Wolves even told their Blood Claws about it in a ceremony. All in all the Raven Guard got screwed and this will screw them again. Might as well destroy their entire chapter with this new 'Dex... Lost in the Maelstrom or something... Sounds like your S.O.L.

You are being preposterous. The trait restrictions are there to define their choice of fighting style, not their limitations. If that were the case, their successors (which wouldn't be feasible) would possess the same limitations but you don't see the Revilers choosing to fight that way. Every First Founding Chapter has a style, and the Raven Guard's is fast assault, limited armour. done.

This discussion raises a question for me though. What is going to take their place as a troops choice? If they remove Scouts as a troops choice then all the vanilla marine players are stuck with just basic marines... It was my understanding that all codices have more that one troops choice. Chaos can take Basic CSM, Berzerkers, 1K Sons, Plague Marines, Noise Marines. BA can take Assault & Basic Marines. So if the remove the scouts then what will the Vanilla Marine Players get???

AdeptSister wrote: Shame they can't take Teleporter Homers anymore.

Smashotron wrote: I only use a few Scouts as a forward Teleport Homer so it's no big loss to me.

This is also one more issue with this move to elites. Without a wargear section a SM Scout VtSgt (or any VtSgt) can't take a teleport homer. So goodbye forward deepstrike that doesn't deviate. This seriously erks me. Unless the squad comes with them automatically then, ok i'll give 'em a chance. But I haven't heard any other rumors about this. Anyone have any answers?

don't double post, always edit.

i can see it becoming standard that a Master (or equivalent) be 1+ similar to a Tau Commander because (just like a Tau Commander) it makes sense for that kind of figure to always take the field.

now, i can always expect based of that 1+, whatever specific option you do give him, you will get Troops choices like:
Tactical + Terminators
Tactical + Assault
Tactical + Scout
Tactical + Veteran
Tactical + Devastators
Tactical + Bikers

thus also adding your own Chapter's flavor to the mix (be it First Founding of DIY). I doubt they would make it JUST Tacticals as Troops because most armies have 2+ Troop options, even if the other choice(s) sucks.

BUT if they did make it just Tactical squads as Troops, it would not see so ridiculously against fluff. The mainstay of any SM army is the standard Marine. Say you wanted all the fancy stuff, but still needed scoring units; you could take the minimum 2 Tactical squads and split them to make 4 Combat Squads. Now you have 4 scoring units until the last man which is a phenomenal ability for the new SM codex, and you don't see non SM players complaining (yet). I'd love to split a 12-'man' Fire Warrior squad into 2 6-'man' Fire Teams that both count as scoring, but that privilege will be for the supremely organized Space Marines. So organized that anything other than Tactical IS limited or elite.

EVERYTHING IS BETTER IN FIFTH EDITION SO TAKE EVERYTNING!!!!!!!!!!!!


Oh wait..if everything is getting better doesn't that mean everything is staying exactly the same...

I am sure everything will work out in the end. It's the way of new codices on the horizon. Everyone gets up in arms gripes and whines til they are blue in the face, and in the end.... figures a way out to make the new garbage work. I have grown to look at 40k as a hobby for people who became exceptionally good and battering the square peg into the round hole.

Well, now that the new Codex:Space Marines has left the printer we can know and discuss the fate of Scouts well informed.

The good news is that they are still Troops.

The bad new is that they are BS/WS 3.

Seems a good balance when compared to their Elite status in BA and DA codices.

HELL YEAH!!!

Hellfire Heavy Bolter rounds, and the Land Speeder Storm, too.

Any more info on the LS Storm?

Carrying capacity?

Weapons loadouts?

Cost?

Ficka Ficka Yea...