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Should a SM player field scouts with Sniper Rifles?

Maybe

Depends on play style I guess. I rather have cheapish CC scouts in land speeders but sniper rifles and heavy bolter/missile launchers aret bad for distraction. Plus Telion pretty much has to be in a sniper rifle scout squad.

I like them with 4-5 snipers in a 10 man squad so I can combat squad them and leave them in a "fire base" role to cover the rest of the army while holding an objective or some terrain... Works OK, perhaps not the best since the rest of my army is more "assault" oriented :-) But I have seen vanilla Marines do a decent gun line with the snipers as a good element...

Snipers are good. Normal scouts hit on 4's, Sergeant on 3. Kill/or invulnerable save on a 6. Do to the sniper rule, strength 3 plus a roll of 6 to get to a 9 and then a D3 when shooting armor. So can hit strength 12, which can hurt most tanks in the game.

BloodAngles_Chris wrote: Do to the sniper rule, strength 3 plus a roll of 6 to get to a 9 and then a D3 when shooting armor. So can hit strength 12, which can hurt most tanks in the game.

Aye but the math is against you

A small squad with or without Telion is a good investment for holding an objective in your home quarter. With cloaks they need to be dealt with up close. In general, the unit doesn't do that much damage, but Telion is good for sniping special/heavy weapons, sarges w/fists, commissars, and sanguiniary priests.

With the prevalence of mech it can be a bit of a waste, so it depends on your enemy.

Its an annoying unit to deal with that makes him come to you, but don't expect much from them.

BloodAngles_Chris wrote:Snipers are good. Normal scouts hit on 4's, Sergeant on 3. Kill/or invulnerable save on a 6. Do to the sniper rule, strength 3 plus a roll of 6 to get to a 9 and then a D3 when shooting armor. So can hit strength 12, which can hurt most tanks in the game.

The enemy won't be showing rear armor to a squad of scouts standing in your deployment zone. If he is, tactical squads would still serve the purpose far better, missile launcher / lascannon to rear armor with penetration ability far exceeds rare glances.

If it takes 36 shots to GLANCE a rhino once with a measly 36" range, they're no danger at all to vehicles. Any valuable armor 12 (basilisks) will be far in the rear where they're no threat to it. Against an enemy AV12 with 2 guns, you have to glance it 12 times to destroy it.

So if you fielded 154 basic snipers (2000 points worth), you'd hit 77, rend 12.8, get a good rend 4.3, and do a non-useless glance 1.4 times on turn 1. It takes 4 non-useless glances (immobilize/weapon destroyed) to take out a single thing like a Hellhound (fast attack light tank.)

So it takes 2000 points of snipers 3 entire turns to destroy ONE AV12 hellhound (130 points.) If that isn't pathetic, I don't know what is.

5 scouts with camo cloaks, snipers and a ml/hb is only 100pts and is a nice objective holder, especially if your force includes a thunderfire/MotF, since they will then be getting 2+ coversaves in your bolstered ruin. They won't kill much of anything, but they will be an annoying element, maybe pinning an enemy unit or stunning a rhino or something, and there is little in a marine list that holds homefield objectives better. (especially in tac-light armies like bikerarmies or BA armies)

No no no.

Sniper rifles with bs3 just do no damage at all. You have an immobile troop choice which is vulnerable to flamers and assault and has to go to ground to be at any point tougher than a tac squad.

This is just not necessary. Combat blades and a landspeeder storm or outflanking/infiltrating is more useful.

No BS3 sucks ... Space wolves maybe

kenshin620 wrote:Maybe

Depends on play style I guess. I rather have cheapish CC scouts in land speeders but sniper rifles and heavy bolter/missile launchers aret bad for distraction. Plus Telion pretty much has to be in a sniper rifle scout squad.

Wait a second... Zag is a "huge point sink" at 85 points, even though he can let you assassinate targets of opportunity, but 50 points for a STR 4 AP 5 rending gun is a 'must have'
Lets shoot for a little consistency here eh?

In regards to the OP question, sniper riles scouts have their place. They come with the scouts, and give long range anti-infantry firepower.

2/3 of the basic missions are objective based missions. In each of the missions you have control of at least one objective counter to place.
Scouts make good units for objective camping. 5 to 7 of them can be very hard to pull off an objective via shooting, especially if the go to ground. When not going to ground, use the sniper riles to give them a 36" range area of effect.

They are vulnerable to short range weapons like flamers and assault. Lucky for you, enemy models will need to go past the rest of your army to use those tools.

Objective campers should be cheap, so dont add Telion, as his weapon is not worth the points.

labmouse42 wrote:

kenshin620 wrote:Maybe

Depends on play style I guess. I rather have cheapish CC scouts in land speeders but sniper rifles and heavy bolter/missile launchers aret bad for distraction. Plus Telion pretty much has to be in a sniper rifle scout squad.

Wait a second... Zag is a "huge point sink" at 85 points, even though he can let you assassinate targets of opportunity, but 50 points for a STR 4 AP 5 rending gun is a 'must have'
Lets shoot for a little consistency here eh?

I can take telion in a 5 man squad with a HB or ML. Doesnt cost to much and I increase the BS of my heavy weapon.

Zag should be in a pretty large squad. Points that could equal more boyz on foot. And if you DS on something you're not suppose to...

And finally I never said Telion is a MUST

I said he MUST be in a sniper squad otherwise he'll be doing nothing

If you're taking Telion then you're assassinating characters, Stick with bolters and a Heavy bolter. If any thing gets close you can bolter them to death (or run away after all they're now a shooty unit). At range the H.Bolter is blast and doesn't need boosting.

Being able to snipe upgrade characters is damn useful. Wolf guard? bang ... Grey hunter with wolf standard? bang ... Unit of boyz with a P.klaw Nob? ok you'll need to wound him twice but still makes like easier.

snipers are good - give it eight, TT and a heavy bolter for 200 points.

You look at the math.

10 scouts vs. 10 marines
200 pts

[TT.] [S=sniper, T= torias HB= you don't understand?]
assumption: 2 hit by heavy bolter.
Re-roll included.
4S 1.72T HB2
Wounds:
1.33 wound - 0.67 rend, 0.86 wound - 0.29 rend 1.67 wound.
so, 3.86 wound and 0.96 rend. [2.9 wound normally.]
of which, 1.93 are saved and 0.97 wound.
so, around 2 marines down, which means a 1/3 chance of pinning - small, but if it does, it means you can take another 32 points off your opponent next turn, and you've effectively wasted a 200-point units turn [theirs, not your own.]

I, personally take shotguns.
Noone really likes shotguns, but against MEQ, where a bolt pistol/CCW is actually less likely to wound him, and keep you alive.

show you the stats:
18+2 shots by scouts
9+1.33 hits
5.17 wound
3.45 unsaved.
so? 3 dead marines, means 3 less attacks against your meaty scouts.

charge. 20 attacks, your opponent gets 7 attacks [8 guys - 3. remember your squad is worth 140 pts, and this is an even statistic given.]
10 hit, your opponent hits 3.5.
5 wound vs. 1.75 wound
3.33 saved vs. 0.88 saved.
So? 1.67 unsaved wounds, thats another two marines gone, and you take one wound... thats almost five marines [86.25 vs. 12.32 points lost.]

who's won there?

Of course, you're just as likely to get boned by an orkie fortress squad anyway.

kenshin620 wrote:
I can take telion in a 5 man squad with a HB or ML. Doesnt cost to much and I increase the BS of my heavy weapon.

Zag should be in a pretty large squad. Points that could equal more boyz on foot. And if you DS on something you're not suppose to...

And finally I never said Telion is a MUST

I said he MUST be in a sniper squad otherwise he'll be doing nothing

You are correct, you never said Telion is a MUST, but you did just say he doesn't cost to much proving my original point -- why is Zag to much at 85 and Tel 'Doesnt cost to much' at 50?

It seems like we can just agree to disagree, so lets keep this conversation polite

labmouse42 wrote:

It seems like we can just agree to disagree, so lets keep this conversation polite

Agreed

IMO if you have some extra point, its only 85 for 5 with a missile launcher. From my experience camo cloaks aren't necessary since they aren't a big target at all and are normally 36"+ away from the enemy.

I wouldn't try to make your list around them though.