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Hey,

Just curious, but all the infantry squads in the current Imperial Guard codex have the option to take a sniper rifle.
I was wondering if it would be viable to give all of these line squads a sniper rifle.

Considering the effect of pinning, they could be very useful in a gunline themed guard.

On the other hand, they are still BS3.

So what does Dakkadakka think of them?

Cheers,
Loner

A more effective way to spam Sniper Rifles is to throw them on Space Marine Scouts (which gets you 4 BS3 and 1 BS 4). That said, pinning is too unreliable to make it worth it and they just do not do enough damage.

If they enabled the wielder more control over wound allocation to act as a true sniper they would be awesome.

I've got a couple of infantry squads with sniper rifles in my guard force. The squads are designed to garrison my own objectives so I went for Heavy Bolters and sniper rifles. It was a nice idea and I enjoyed doing the models (the main reason for taking them), but I don't think they've ever actually killed anything... And even if they did Pinning is really difficult to pull off and really shouldn't be relied upon. Probably a better idea to give them a flamer to deal with oncoming hordes or a melta to keep a bit of anti-vehicle threat radius around your squads.

Ratling snipers are a bit better with BS4 and infiltrate/stealth. You really need massed sniper shots to do anything at all, because wounding on a 4+ and allowing armor saves most of the time means it takes 4 or 5 rifles just to get 1-2 casualties.

Ratlings are way more effective sniper rifle wielders than guardsmen IMO.

With PBS making enemy units Ld 2...could be devestating.

Sniper rifles are still pretty bad in this rules edition. You've still got to hit, you've still got to wound, and most of the time you still have to beat an armor save (and when you don't, that just rolls over to cover or ++). They only cost 5 points because they're unlikely to do very much of anything.

As for pinning, you have to start with all the restrictions above (because they have to actually kill something), with the added restriction of requiring them to fail a leadership test, something which, with just a couple of exceptions (like grots and HWSs), isn't terribly likely. Furthermore, it never works against vehicles, or units embarked in vehicles or monstrous creatures or anything with fearless (or practically never against anything with a reroll). Basically, your opponent has to present you with a bunch of weak, low-leadership units to shoot at, or they're not doing anything.

Then you have to add to this that pinning is only useful when it's useful. Pinning that longfang squad turn 1 before they get a shot off is useful. Pinning a depleted squad turn 5 after all your stuff is already in close combat with bloodclaws and TWC isn't. So not only do you have the restrictions of killing and the restrictions of pinning, but you also have restrictions on the timing of the pinning.

Of course, you could always take a PBS or two, but they're not invincible, not guaranteed to pass their psychic test, and you're not guaranteed to play against someone without psychic defense. Plus, in the end, you're still just pinning them - you're not actually destroying them. They're just going to get back up next turn. Stun locking may be worthwhile on vehicles because it's easy to neutralize a vehicle in this way with fewer points of stuff. That's arguable, at best, for this pinning thing, especially since, at best, two of the three restrictions still follow a PBS+sniper combination.

If you're running a foot army and have 5-15 points lying around, and you don't want to take flamers, then sure, throw in a few sniper rifles. Basing an army around sniper rifles, currently, is a pretty crappy idea.

Of course, there are rumors that 6th ed will allow you to remove hidden powerfists and other hidden upgrades with sniper rifles, which would make the pendulum swing the other way, but we'll see.

To counterpoint: the psycher squad runs a great synergy with sniper rifles, reducing LD to 2 and then pinning test is devastating, but you are pouring a lot of resources into pulling it off, so target priority is essential.

Yes, you still have to roll to hit. Does that stop you from giving a space marine a missile launcher?

If used as a proper scalpel, a squad of ratlings can keep that squad of PK Nobz from making their way up to you after you blow up their trukk.

My personal uses for sniper rifles are:
1) If your company commander is going to be relatively static, give his vets sniper rifles. Various orders help alot, like the "twin linked at monstrous creatures" order.
2) Ratlings. BS4, +1 cover save. In kill teams games, I usually take a squad of Ratlins, because they can fire and move independently. Again, not an instant "HAH I WIN" button, but solid points.

They are, also, very nice for taking down MCs, if, for some silly reason, you don't have a bunch of AC.

I would advise against placing them in line squads though, the BS3, and generally non-static nature of troops makes them considerably less effective, in my experience anyway.

Ailaros wrote:
As for pinning, you have to start with all the restrictions above (because they have to actually kill something), with the added restriction of requiring them to fail a leadership test, something which, with just a couple of exceptions (like grots and HWSs), isn't terribly likely.

PBS will lower leadership of enemy unit to 2. No need to hit or anything, just a pyschic test and wham.
If you're clever about MEQ, you'll kill enough to make a pinning test (i.e. 1) but not 25%, since that'll cause them to fall back and regroup, you'd rather they were just pinned.
If you're against expensive non-fearless models, the only one I can think of being Mephiston, it's very powerful indeed.

Yes, they need to still make a psychic test, though, and your opponent can't bring a psychic hood or put their units in transports. Or kill off a few psykers. Or kill a couple of guys with sniper rifles. If it's really a threat, it's not going to be difficult for your opponent to handle.

But what if the PBS is in a chimera, and what if it's a 4x sniper CCS also in a chimera?

Sure, but now you're spending 290 points, and the only thing you're doing is taking a chance to temporarily stop a unit for a single turn. For those points I could take a pair of leman russes and just blow them off the board, regardless of fearless, etc.

I think the biggest problem that the sniper rifle has is the same problem that flamers, heavy flamers, grenade launchers, heavy bolters, multilasers, and mortars all have. They are able to target infantry (well, light infantry), but they don't do anything against terminators, MCs, or vehicles of any kind. That means that against a lot of lists out there, they're just going to be totally useless for most of the game. That would be fine if they were REALLY good at what they did, but as they're not, they're just not worth taking compared to weapons that fill the same role for free (small arms and close combat weapons), or that fill that role while also being able to do ANYTHING against heavier targets.

5th ed goes to things like missile launchers which can both crack open the transport AND handle what gets knocked out, rather than weapons that only handle the guys, but can't provide a serious threat against the transports. This was less of an issue back when transports weren't spammable, but now...

I wouldn't put multilasers in that category. Multilasers are really good at shooting down speeders and causing all kinds of headaches for DE.

Also, massed sniper rifles can work well against monstrous creatures, especially the ones with high toughness and weak saves like C'tan. But there are better things to use.

I agree with Ailaros on sniper rifles. While I disagree with everything he lumps into the category, as a general rule ranged weapons that are specialized against light infantry aren't worth taking.

Sniper rifles in the infantry squads is not a good idea, just my opinion. There are better options for the infantry squad. However, if you are hellbent on snipers, just go with ratlings. Better BS, stealth, and 10 points each. So easy.

I would have to agree completely with everything Ailaros has said so far in this thread.

I've been up against the sniper/ pysker weaken resolve combo, and it's VERY hit and miss (literally)

Turn 1, I had a 30 man powerblob get dropped to LD 2, and then lose a single guardsman to a sniper shot. They proceeded to fail their LD check, the commissar popped a sarge, and then failed again. They got pinned before they could even move, and it effectively took them out of the game. However, the pyskers proceeded to fail Ld checks every time afterwards, or the snipers would miss. They didn't do anything else afterwards, and according my opponent, it was literally the only time they did what they were supposed to do.

Take what you will from that, but I probably wouldn't bother with them. For 5pts, thats another guardsman, which i would much rather have, or a meltabomb for a sarge. But, you'll never know till you try it for yourself! may as well give it a shot.

I see what you did there Moustaffa. I'm going to give them a shot. I play a gunline supported by vehicles, and I arm my line squads to complement the lasguns - heavy bolters (sometimes mortars), and grenade launchers. I find the rest of the codex can handle everything else. But I'm going to switch out the GL's for SR's for a bit, basically for the extra 12". The GL's have been performing well for me with 4 in a pcs, to concentrate them and really use the move-and-shoot 24". I just want the extra shot possibly hitting the back of the board (or at least further out), along with the squad's heavy bolter or mortar; right off the bat. 4 squads with HB/SR could put 16 shots into the enemy's deployment zone turn 1, threatening infantry and light vehicles - 6 would be 24 shots. Maybe not dominating, but I'm thinking of how that would add to a couple pies and the opening barrage of a few HWS.

The thing about the pinning aspect is that it will just add more stuff that pins to my army. I've already got a bassy and mortars, sniper rifles would just add to the liklihood of taking tests. More tests mean more tests failed. I see pinning as a sweet bonus anyways; its not something I make battle plans on, but something to take advantage of as and when it happens. And it does happen.

While we're on it, I've been wondering something about pinning. If a unit with multiple pinning weapons causes multiple wounds, is a test required for each wound, or just one for the whole 'barrage' or 'fusilade'. For instance, if 3 ratlings dish out 3 unsaved wounds, does the damaged squad take 3 tests?

The BRB says 'if a unit... suffers any unsaved wounds from a pinning weapon... take a test'; and then 'as long as the tests are passed, a unit may be called upon to take multiple Pinning tests in a single turn' (p.31); but this isn't clear (to me) if thats only in the case of pinning fire from seperate units.

[Sniper rifles are still pretty bad in this rules edition. You've still got to hit, you've still got to wound, and most of the time you still have to beat an armor save (and when you don't, that just rolls over to cover or ++). They only cost 5 points because they're unlikely to do very much of anything. ]

So true man. SM snipers scouts used to be worth taking, but along with the good snipers went the scouts aswell. Now its paying for a slightly more expesive, T4 S4 guardsman..

MrMoustaffa wrote:Turn 1, I had a 30 man powerblob get dropped to LD 2, and then lose a single guardsman to a sniper shot. They proceeded to fail their LD check, the commissar popped a sarge, and then failed again. They got pinned before they could even move, and it effectively took them out of the game.

You didn't have a CCS nearby? Weaken resolve only lasts until the end of the player turn. You can always use "Get back in the fight" on them when it's you're turn, and they'll take that order at Ld9.

Or, if you wanted to be really crazy, just bring a lord commissar, and choose to make the pinning check on his Ld rather than the squad's.

Or just kill some of the psykers...

... or kill the snipers...

Seriously, there are ways of handling this.

murdog wrote:More tests mean more tests failed.

Well, yes, and you could, in theory, destroy a leafblower list if you shot enough grenade launchers. Just because something is possible when you spam it doesn't mean it's worth the cost.

I sort of had this idea for awhile with mortars for the same basic idea. Turned out that spending hundreds of points to hope for a few pinning checks now and a gain just wasn't as good as spending those points to kill them outright. Plus, it doesn't take much for most units to start taking morale checks on that same Ld value. I'd much rather my opponent retreating than pinned.

murdog wrote:While we're on it, I've been wondering something about pinning. If a unit with multiple pinning weapons causes multiple wounds, is a test required for each wound, or just one for the whole 'barrage' or 'fusilade'. For instance, if 3 ratlings dish out 3 unsaved wounds, does the damaged squad take 3 tests?

The BRB says 'if a unit... suffers any unsaved wounds from a pinning weapon... take a test'; and then 'as long as the tests are passed, a unit may be called upon to take multiple Pinning tests in a single turn' (p.31); but this isn't clear (to me) if thats only in the case of pinning fire from seperate units.

If a unit takes unsaved wounds, no matter how many, they take A pinning test. If they intended to have it be a check per wound, they would have said so.

Actually, the rule reads a lot like that for taking morale checks. I'd assume that, no matter how many sources of pinning you only take one test, except that the rules cryptically point out that it's possible to take multiple tests. Of course, they don't state when you take these tests, which does sort of leave one guessing, but the "a pinning test" in combination with "any wounds from a pinning weapon" (rather than "a wound from a pinning weapon").

I agree that it still is murky, but I'd still play it the way it's usually played. If it were other than things like eldar pathfinders would absolutely end any foot list, which, I would guess, isn't what they intended.

The rulebook FAQ on the GW site clarifies that it's only one pinning test per firing unit, regardless of how many wounds that unit causes.

I would check the exact wording, but the GW site seems to be down right now.

Ailaros wrote:

MrMoustaffa wrote:Turn 1, I had a 30 man powerblob get dropped to LD 2, and then lose a single guardsman to a sniper shot. They proceeded to fail their LD check, the commissar popped a sarge, and then failed again. They got pinned before they could even move, and it effectively took them out of the game.

You didn't have a CCS nearby? Weaken resolve only lasts until the end of the player turn. You can always use "Get back in the fight" on them when it's you're turn, and they'll take that order at Ld9.

Or, if you wanted to be really crazy, just bring a lord commissar, and choose to make the pinning check on his Ld rather than the squad's.

Or just kill some of the psykers...

... or kill the snipers...

Yeah... it was not my finest hour

If I remember correctly, i did use "get back in the fight", but they rolled a 1 on their run roll for that turn. So for the first 2 turns, they effectively moved 1 inch...

add in the fact that It was my second game ever, and I didn't have anything with a range longer than 24", and you can see why it hurt so bad. I literally had to walk my blobs over across the board to kill the snipers. I knocked the pysker's chimera out turn 4 and stranded them on the other side of the board, but it didn't matter by that point. What amazes me the most was that even through all those stupid mistakes, I still managed to pull out a tie. I should've lost that game horribly.

Ailaros wrote:

murdog wrote:More tests mean more tests failed.

Well, yes, and you could, in theory, destroy a leafblower list if you shot enough grenade launchers. Just because something is possible when you spam it doesn't mean it's worth the cost.

I sort of had this idea for awhile with mortars for the same basic idea. Turned out that spending hundreds of points to hope for a few pinning checks now and a gain just wasn't as good as spending those points to kill them outright. Plus, it doesn't take much for most units to start taking morale checks on that same Ld value. I'd much rather my opponent retreating than pinned.

But I feel those points are beside my points, if you take my meaning. You're saying spamming isn't always worth it and neither is spending points to hope for pin checks - I fully agree with both. I'm saying I want to try the cheapest special that has the most range, so that it can support the squad's heavy more often, especially firing into the enemy's deployment zone turn one. I'm also saying I look at pinning as a bonus, be it the Earthshaker or a mortar round.

(Looking at the SR/GL comparison, I would think wound on 4 rending will probably be about as useful as s6ap4, not considering type or range. Opinions? I've used GL's in line squads for a long time now and find they're not as effective as multiples in a mobile squad. Like flamers I put them with a pcs. I'm not a line squad w/plasma guy, I like 'em cheap, and like the in-between melta I think belong concentrated and mobile or in powerblobs.)

I guess my angle is a little off-topic, as I'm not really talking about SR spam, just putting them in the line squads with a HB (or mortar) for range and target synergy with the heavy. I don't play all powerblobs or all mechvets, I bring vehicles and heavy weapons squads for which sometimes like to deploy msu bubblewrap and/or speedbumps (depending on terrain/opponent, and especially in non-KP games). For that I've been liking the 65-point anti-infantry setup (which also threatens monsters and light vehicles). The rest of the army can handle everything else. IMO having some sniper rifles isn't going to make or break my list, but it may make my squads more effective at what I'm using them for, so I'm gonna try it me thinks.

My point about causing more pin tests is that my army already has units which causes them (basilisk, sometimes mortars), and that this would only add more. In fact we should consider that spending 15 points to put 3 sniper rifles in 3 separate squads has the potential to force 3 tests per round, while a single squad of 3 ratlings for 30, veterans, a SWS, or a command squad can only ever cause one pin test per round.

Yeah, I also played with GLHB squads for a long time, and yeah, they really didn't do anything. Sniper rifle versus grenade launcher, I'd actually take the sniper rifle. Their range and heavy status do synergize better with heavy weapons, certainly. I've actually got a couple of lists with 5 and 10 points left over that I'm using to put sniper rifles in a CCS that has a lascannon.

The problem is that, objectively, they're still not very good. I'd rather take one lascannon, or two meltaguns than four sniper rifles any time. The two meltaguns may not do very much most of the time, but when they do, they'll make a big difference, whereas the sniper rifle will basically always be doing more or less nothing...

mech PBS mean it's actually pretty easy to reliably pin the enemy. Not that it's a good idea for an army, obviously. You're there to blow the enemy up, not make them go to ground.

Your points are better spent elsewhere than on sniper rifles in a guard list.

Ailaros wrote:
I think the biggest problem that the sniper rifle has is the same problem that flamers, heavy flamers, grenade launchers, heavy bolters, multilasers, and mortars all have. They are able to target infantry (well, light infantry), but they don't do anything against terminators, MCs, or vehicles of any kind. That means that against a lot of lists out there, they're just going to be totally useless for most of the game. That would be fine if they were REALLY good at what they did, but as they're not, they're just not worth taking compared to weapons that fill the same role for free (small arms and close combat weapons), or that fill that role while also being able to do ANYTHING against heavier targets.

Actually I disagree on some of those points.
-Multilasers are DEAD good! Str6 hurst a lot and with multi-shots it is chaos.
-Sniper rifles are gold for taking out MCs as they wound on a 4+ automatically, are plentiful, and only worry about a simple 3+ save.
-In a whole, snipers are amazing against high-toughness targets. Sure there is the save to worry about, but IG worries about that any way without calling in heavy-artillery or Spamming Meltas. (so cowardly )
-Ratlings are a blessing, so many amazing shots firing amazing guns into dead-enemies.

Da Kommizzar wrote:

-In a whole, snipers are amazing against high-toughness targets. Sure there is the save to worry about, but IG worries about that any way without calling in heavy-artillery or Spamming Meltas. (so cowardly )

So, correct me if I'm wrong here, but blasting the enemies with tanks, artillery, and running up to about 10 feet away with a gun that is basically a microwave on crack is cowardly, yet hiding behind a wall a football field away with inbred space hobbits plinking away at the enemy is the epitome of bravery?

Just curious but for the same points in which you can have this unit:

Infantry squad:
commissar, PW x 2, meltagun

Infantry squad:
PW, meltagun, vox

You can also get:
Infantry squad:
commissar, PW, missile launcher, sniper rifle

Infantry squad:
sniper rifle, missile launcher, vox

Now the purpose of the unit does change drastically:
From a mobile good close range unit, it goes to a gunline blob.

However compared to this blob:
Infantry squad:
commissar, PW, AC, GL

Infantry squad:
AC, GL, vox

I do think that the sniper and missile launcher one is better.
Then again, your milage may vary.