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I'd have to look again, but I think you can ONLY take them with a Techmarine. I thought they had a max 1 per Techmarine rule.

Can't see that though they do get bonuses when a Techmarine is near by and don't count as slot

 Super Ready wrote:

Breton wrote:
I'd have to look again, but I think you can ONLY take them with a Techmarine. I thought they had a max 1 per Techmarine rule.

No need, I just double-checked to make sure it was how I thought it was. You can take them as Elites anyway, but you can have one unit that doesn't take up a slot per Techmarine in that detachment.

Yeah I looked too, it was the clunky wording, and the weird datasheet placement out of order.

 Flinty wrote:
Dark Angel scouts were Elites for a long time in previous editions. I dont see why its hugely confusing as a concept.

Scouts are SM noobs who are still in training. Terminators on the other hand are elites by being the best soldiers in the chapter. Not a hard concept to grasp.

 Strg Alt wrote:

 Flinty wrote:
Dark Angel scouts were Elites for a long time in previous editions. I dont see why its hugely confusing as a concept.

Scouts are SM noobs who are still in training. Terminators on the other hand are elites by being the best soldiers in the chapter. Not a hard concept to grasp.

They were elite to keep DA from taking 3x5 Scouts and 6x10 Terminators. If they were one of few things that can infiltrate you could call that elite. For now, I think they're shelf dust gatherers. Even as cheap as they are, they're more expensive than "adding" 15 points to a unit you were (sort of) already buying. The "upgrade" cost from Intercessors to Incursors plus the optional Haywire mine means 5-20 points difference. If you could take Assault Marines in the Elite slot for X PPM, or Vanguard Vets as troops for X+2 ppm which would you do?

Scouts being Elite is only new for the base Space Marines book. Space Wolves have had their Scouts as Elites for a long time now. But as already pointed out, the Wolves aren't noted for their general sneakiness.

This discussion kind of goes back to the question brought up by another thread, "What is a Troop, and why would they be taken?"

Voss wrote:Basically that - they don't fit as the cornerstone of the army.

It really depends on the army. For a while I had been thinking on building a Raven Guard Successor whose tactic against the monstrification by their Gene Seed was to delay the implementation of the final conversion between Scout and full space marine. As a result, they would primarily be deploying mostly Scout units with only a little bit of Power Armor present. This was before the Primaris upgrade, so... *shrug*

BrianDavion wrote:elites could stand to be split into two. elites and "specialists"

I wouldn't be against that, but I think that would require a revamp of the FOCs currently present. Many other units would fit in to that category across armies.

As it is right now the slots are HQ, Troops, Elites, Fast Attack, Heavy Support, Dedicated Transport, Flyer, and Lord of War. One more would fit a few units quite well. With that kind of shakeup, Troops should be looked at and designed around cost-effective objective holding and lane control.

 Charistoph wrote:
Scouts being Elite is only new for the base Space Marines book. Space Wolves have had their Scouts as Elites for a long time now. But as already pointed out, the Wolves aren't noted for their general sneakiness.

And Wolf Scouts weren't a trainee unit - they were full Battle Brothers who found this way of fighting more suited to their certain set of skills.

Didn't they have different weapon load out too?

Space Wolf Scots are veterans who specalised as stealthy hunters and so were very different from normal Scouts in terms of equipment, operations, weapons and unit size

However they are exactly the sort of unit that should also have been available for general codex to represent similar units in the Raven Guard and other Chapters. At least Eliminators are available to all.

 Dysartes wrote:

 Charistoph wrote:
Scouts being Elite is only new for the base Space Marines book. Space Wolves have had their Scouts as Elites for a long time now. But as already pointed out, the Wolves aren't noted for their general sneakiness.

And Wolf Scouts weren't a trainee unit - they were full Battle Brothers who found this way of fighting more suited to their certain set of skills.

Wolf Scouts were a nightmare as they were able to appear from the opponent's table edge.

 spiralingcadaver wrote:
So... when 2w tacticals was announced, I was actually looking forward to differentiated troops options, where scouts filled a very different role than regular marines where they're far less durable, while still having some sort of role as cheap guys who needed to be removed. (Sniper scouts were better differentiated, specialists but still pretty flimsy and not hugely powerful.)

Esp. in smaller games where efficiency starts to matter more, I felt like they had a decent role.

But now they're elite? So, ignoring whatever confusing rationale led to this, does anyone have any experience with this shift? Is there any merit to taking them, well, in any role? What's their 9th edition position?

Well scouts have had two jobs.

1. Cheapest troops slot.

2. Deploy on board for deepstrike denial.

Some might have taken them for their weapons a well.

How ever, now cheapest troops have been passed to some one else. That really only leaves deep strike denial.

Enjoy!

 Dysartes wrote:

 Charistoph wrote:
Scouts being Elite is only new for the base Space Marines book. Space Wolves have had their Scouts as Elites for a long time now. But as already pointed out, the Wolves aren't noted for their general sneakiness.

And Wolf Scouts weren't a trainee unit - they were full Battle Brothers who found this way of fighting more suited to their certain set of skills.

With the exception of a codex here or there, the skill set of the models were little different. It is only when the Ultra Scouts were BS 3 and WS 3 that there was any significant difference aside from the lore and FOC slot.

Now the role they preform is definitely closer to that of an Elite or Specialist unit rather than a Troop unit, in my opinion. That role is for the Tacticals to fulfill, but that is mostly just how Troops should be working more than anything else.

Scouts were moved to Elite so that there wouldn't be a cheap troop choice for Marines, which is a good move.

As to where they should go, they're not heavy fire support, nor are they rapid maneuver units, but they are specialist auxiliary infantry, so that puts them in elites. As for the elites overcrowding that SM has.... the force org charts come with extra elite slots basically just for the marines to take their extra elites. And when there are as many units as two other factions combined, some of them are going to be redundant.

GW logic: Literal teenagers are somehow "Elite". If anything they should be Fast Attack like how T'au Pathfinders are.

What really grinds my gears is Wolf Scouts somehow forgot to take their protein and are 1W despite being centuries old veterans and very much "Fully Fledged Space Marines". Scout Sergeants for Vanilla Marines are also full battle brothers and should be 2W like Boss Nobz are.

Well, all oldbois should be one wound in my view, so...

 BaconCatBug wrote:
GW logic: Literal teenagers are somehow "Elite". If anything they should be Fast Attack like how T'au Pathfinders are.

What really grinds my gears is Wolf Scouts somehow forgot to take their protein and are 1W despite being centuries old veterans and very much "Fully Fledged Space Marines". Scout Sergeants for Vanilla Marines are also full battle brothers and should be 2W like Boss Nobz are.

...it is almost like GW is bad at writing rules or something .

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:
Scouts were moved to Elite so that there wouldn't be a cheap troop choice for Marines, which is a good move.

As to where they should go, they're not heavy fire support, nor are they rapid maneuver units, but they are specialist auxiliary infantry, so that puts them in elites. As for the elites overcrowding that SM has.... the force org charts come with extra elite slots basically just for the marines to take their extra elites. And when there are as many units as two other factions combined, some of them are going to be redundant.

in fairness I don't think the extra elite slots was intended "just for marines" but was included as a response to GW breaking up command squads etc. I mean, just for example, in 7th edition, a command squad was 3 veterns, an apocathary, a banner bearer and a company champion.
now the apocathary, bannerman and champion are all distinct units. and Marines aren't the only army that's gotten hit by that, Guard have too as I understand it.

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:
As to where they should go, they're not heavy fire support, nor are they rapid maneuver units, but they are specialist auxiliary infantry, so that puts them in elites. As for the elites overcrowding that SM has.... the force org charts come with extra elite slots basically just for the marines to take their extra elites. And when there are as many units as two other factions combined, some of them are going to be redundant.

They used to be able to Scout and Infltrate, so while their own manuevering speed wasn't high, they could be places in to annoying areas "ahead of time". Such units have been in both Fast Attack and Elite slots before, as well as the non-specific role of Troops.

Kind of makes me wonder if Eldar Rangers will be moved as well.

 Charistoph wrote:

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:
As to where they should go, they're not heavy fire support, nor are they rapid maneuver units, but they are specialist auxiliary infantry, so that puts them in elites. As for the elites overcrowding that SM has.... the force org charts come with extra elite slots basically just for the marines to take their extra elites. And when there are as many units as two other factions combined, some of them are going to be redundant.

They used to be able to Scout and Infltrate, so while their own manuevering speed wasn't high, they could be places in to annoying areas "ahead of time". Such units have been in both Fast Attack and Elite slots before, as well as the non-specific role of Troops.

Kind of makes me wonder if Eldar Rangers will be moved as well.

I doubt it, the problem with scouts was that it resulted in people using well.. guys without power armor, as their backbone unit, and that never sat right

GW consciously made power armor substantially worse and then wondered why people just took units that bled fewer points when erased by disintegrators and battlecannons.

SecondTime wrote:
GW consciously made power armor substantially worse and then wondered why people just took units that bled fewer points when erased by disintegrators and battlecannons.

doesn't help that because marines where the most common army your standard "TAC" list was basicly list tailored to kill marines

BrianDavion wrote:

SecondTime wrote:
GW consciously made power armor substantially worse and then wondered why people just took units that bled fewer points when erased by disintegrators and battlecannons.

doesn't help that because marines where the most common army your standard "TAC" list was basicly list tailored to kill marines

I keep hearing that, but no one I played with really tailored for marines until 8.5. Lowly -1 AP halved the save of terminators. Still does, I guess but now they have 3W. You didn't need to tailor for marines. Just bring a mediocum of AP and they bled points .

Scouts sole redeeming quality compared to their primaris counterparts was that they were cheaper obsec infiltrator troop choices. Now that that is no longer true they serve no function in the army and will probably never be taken in all but very casual games. Anyone who disagrees with this is deluding themselves lol.

SecondTime wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:

SecondTime wrote:
GW consciously made power armor substantially worse and then wondered why people just took units that bled fewer points when erased by disintegrators and battlecannons.

doesn't help that because marines where the most common army your standard "TAC" list was basicly list tailored to kill marines

I keep hearing that, but no one I played with really tailored for marines until 8.5. Lowly -1 AP halved the save of terminators. Still does, I guess but now they have 3W. You didn't need to tailor for marines. Just bring a mediocum of AP and they bled points .

dude every tactics thread as far back as at least 5th edition ehre basicly said "you need to design your list to kill MEQs"

BrianDavion wrote:

SecondTime wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:

SecondTime wrote:
GW consciously made power armor substantially worse and then wondered why people just took units that bled fewer points when erased by disintegrators and battlecannons.

doesn't help that because marines where the most common army your standard "TAC" list was basicly list tailored to kill marines

I keep hearing that, but no one I played with really tailored for marines until 8.5. Lowly -1 AP halved the save of terminators. Still does, I guess but now they have 3W. You didn't need to tailor for marines. Just bring a mediocum of AP and they bled points .

dude every tactics thread as far back as at least 5th edition ehre basicly said "you need to design your list to kill MEQs"

Doesn't mean they were correct in all cases. A lot of the time, yes. But not early-mid 8th. You certainly do now because they all have 2W now.

SecondTime wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:

SecondTime wrote:
GW consciously made power armor substantially worse and then wondered why people just took units that bled fewer points when erased by disintegrators and battlecannons.

doesn't help that because marines where the most common army your standard "TAC" list was basicly list tailored to kill marines

I keep hearing that, but no one I played with really tailored for marines until 8.5. Lowly -1 AP halved the save of terminators. Still does, I guess but now they have 3W. You didn't need to tailor for marines. Just bring a mediocum of AP and they bled points .

...-1 AP doesn't halve the save of Terminators, it merely doubles the chance of failing. And yes, these are very different things.

5/6 to 4/6 is a 20% reduction of the number of dice rolls that will pass, while 1/6 to 2/6 is a doubling of the pool that will fail.

 Mr Morden wrote:

But Elites is completely the wrong choice.

Its more that Elites is the wrong word - Servitors are also "Elite" - naybe go back to WFB's Special.

Also does not help there are 26 other Elite units!

That's a bit of a luxury problem for Space Marines.

Personally I think scouts are being slowly phased out and putting them in the small elite slot means they might be phased out of playerbase consciousness before long which will allow GW to retire them. doesn't help that the models are butt ugly and kinda just need to die at this point.

Two flies, one clap..

Change how an army should look out of their own perspective by eliminating scout spam.
Slowly phase them out, allow lower production cycles of them, replace with replacement primaris units for higher margines AND basically sell the same units a second time.

Maybe the force org chart needs a new slot type. [Start sales voice] The Auxiliaries slot for the troops who aren't the armies main theme. Perfect for SM Scouts, IG Conscripts and Chaos Cultists. [end sales voice]

SecondTime wrote:
GW consciously made power armor substantially worse and then wondered why people just took units that bled fewer points when erased by disintegrators and battlecannons.

its not because of power armor.

Basically every faction takes the cheapest troops they have because more bodies is usually better in this edition and the real punch comes from other slots.

Tygre wrote:
Maybe the force org chart needs a new slot type. [Start sales voice] The Auxiliaries slot for the troops who aren't the armies main theme. Perfect for SM Scouts, IG Conscripts and Chaos Cultists. [end sales voice]

how bout no, it's bad enough that gw forces "balance" down the players throat to make armies look like they (GW ) think they should...