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Hey guys I've been hearing a lot about tactics about matching up scouts with actual space marine squads .
What I mean by this is that since scouts cost less but give about the same amount of ballistics benefits it would be a mroe efficient use of points to use scouts to supplement other space marines squads. This way I have more points to allocate to other areas of my army.

Matching up like this:
Regular scouts (bolters)- Tactical Squad
Scouts Snipers- Devastator Squad
Scout Close Combats- Assault

For regular scouts they add additional bolter firepower and function the same way as tactical squads but you save around 30-40 points per squad. Let the tactical squad take the damage at first with thier 3+ armor save

Scout snipers can use thier pinning effect and then devastators can move in with plasma cannons and heavy firepower to mow them down

Scout Close Combats to lock squads in close combat while an assault squad moves in to take on the real fight from the scouts. I dont mean suicide your scouts as fodder though....


My infantry composition mainly consists of basically all 6 of these types of squads. The 3 scout squads and the others. They seem to operate very well at an intermediate level of gaming so far and I've won several games like this. Oh btw I use honorguard command squad with calgar..... dont hate on honor guard pt/effect efficiency

Typical games for me mostly consists of my sniper/devastators doing most of the killing while close combat/assault do thier work to lock off weak points in the enemies army in close combat. My tactical squads/regular scouts operate normally usually assisting the assault squad with some bolter firepower and keeping the pressure off my devastors too. Calgar and the honor guardsgo HQ hunting, basically what theyre for.... how they can directly hit the hero and basically once the other hero's down calgar can take most of the other work.

What do you guys think?

The biggest difference between scouts and regular marines is the armor, IMO. With the number of AP4 weapons out there--especially heavy flamers--scouts are usually toast against things that regular marines just shrug off.

Also don't forget they're only BS3. Regular marines are already really efficiently priced. The things that you give up in terms of firepower and durability for a savings of only a few points per model just aren't worth the tradeoff, I think.

One or maybe two units of scouts as skirmisher/disruption support for a real space marine army is the best way to use them IMHO.

You are running 2 troop choices at like 1500 points? IDK about that one.

You said that your sniper scouts and devs do most of the killing? I always run sniper scouts and they don't kill anything (except for the missile launcher). I honestly doubt that they do kill much for you.

As for the comparison to assault marines, the problem with scouts is they don't have a 12" move. So the assault marines are going to outstrip the scouts very quickly.

Like Flavius pointed out, scouts are BS3. So they aren't as good at shooting as normal marines. BS4 is one of marines greatest strengths. So trying to take that away from them, and calling them just as good just doesn't work.


Generally, there are two load outs for scouts. 1. snipers with missile launcher and camo cloaks (possibly tellion as well): they camp objectives really really well, and take pot shots. 2. CCW/BP outflanking or in a LSS: used to get into combat with things that shouldn't, I.E. dev squads, obliterators, heavy weapon teams. With the addition of melta bombs they can also kill artillery.

Outflanking scouts with shotguns/bolt pistols and close combat weapons can be effective as harassing units. They're good to outflank and assault heavy weapons units, understrength retreating squads, or command elements in the back of the field. They're not good as dedicated assault units, but a few scouts with a powerfist sergeant can do some damage. Sniper scouts aren't terribly useful since they have too few shots at too low BS to really do much damage. A small squad with camo cloaks is a good unit to hold an objective though.

You are right in assuming they're decent support units, but you need tactical Marines to do your heavy lifting.