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I've been looking through the SM codex and for some reason I've started pondering Sniper rifles. They don't appear to be god-awful, although they are either best against high T enemies or other things with high T. Rending isn't all that reliable (though when rolling for 10 shots, you're bound to get at least a few auto-wounds). I'm just wondering if using scouts instead of tactical marines would be an good idea.

I find it funny that you can take sniper rifles+camo cloaks+missile launcher. A bunch of guys, hunched over in cover, and just one guy with a huge missile launcher chilling out.

Not really as a competitive army.

BS3 and sniper only wounding on a 4+ just isn't really good enough against any army with decent saves (read: all marines).

And to get that kind of squad they're up to tactical squad points anyway.

1 or 2 squads can be useful as backfield objective campers, and shooting annoyances, and could be a fun themed army, but aside from that no.

They work well to supplement your force, but as a mainstay... it's possible.

Snipers are great at dealing with small units, monsterous creatures and elite troops. That means your force needs some anti-armor and anti-horde. You can cover anti-horde cheap with thunderfire cannons, and anti-armor can be a dreadnoughts job. You can also toss in some assault marines and/or scout bikes for fun.

Given that an eldar ranger/pathfinder force sucks and they're all around better than scouts at sniping I seriously doubt it.

Just one msu scout unit with a ml and snipers is a solid objective squatter or they can infiltrate into a nice side angle on the ml, maybe into a reinforced ruin or something to be really annoying. An entire army of that though hasn't got the volume of fire to go toe to toe with most armies. Pretty much only nidzilla would be afraid of that.

I formerly ran a scout heavy SM army with 4 units of scouts with rifles, then bikes. It didn't do horribly, but it didn't really shine like I was hoping it do. It did work fantastic against monstrous creature lists, but died horrible deaths to other marines as eventually a Power weapon model got to you, and to decimate that squad.

I went with 2 units with Camo cloaks, 2 units without camo cloaks, the bikes worked pretty well. You might be able to be more successful with lots of MSU scouts backed by Drop pods? As then the opponent would have to deal with all the models getting out and getting into the mix of their lines. The scouts would then be more a harasser and objective holder, which is a role they may shine in.

I was thinking as using them as an annoyance more than anything else. Their weapons aren't entirely reliable (Bolters are more effective against things with T3, which is odd), but having a crapton (3 5 man units w/ ML plus a single unit of 10, all with rifles and cloaks) might make them enough of an annoyance that my opponent has to take the time to shoot at them, and with camo and cover they'll retain a 3+ save against almost everything.

In a word, no.

It's a theme list that can be fluffy, but don't expect it to excel

I love snipers... Though their bs of 3... That's really their only downfall...

I have a friend at the FLGS that talks about a Crimson Fist list he would run.

It's the SC, three squads of Sterngaurd, then the rest of the army is Scouts.


I forget everything he said about it, since I haven't seen him in a few weeks, but he says it's fluffy (for a reason I forget, something about the Rynn's world incident) and would be competitive.

The vast majority of the Crimson Fist's chapter was destroyed on Rynn's World in a missile accident. I think your friends reasoning may have been that there were only a few remaining members, so they would be more elite, and they had to recruit a crapton of scouts to replace their losses. Fluffy, and I might try it out.

That sounds about right.

He has an Account on Dakka, but I don't remember the name. I was hoping the Mention of his list Idea would bring him out and he could fully explain the competitive nature of the army.

I've played a CF army that had a few units of sniper scouts, along with some normal scouts in storms. The real threat of his army was sternguard in pods and Kantor. Thus when the sternguard whiff/get killed (which is inevitable) it all depends on how long the game goes on for before you die horribly.

When I first started marines, I got the sniper scouts because I love the models to pieces, but they rarely do well other than to annoy the enemy and sit on objectives.
My 5 CCW scouts with meltabombs, on the other hand... I've lost count of how many big, mean targets they've taken out, with the infiltrate and a healthy dollop of luck (read- insane amounts). An 80-point unit which has a fairly decent chance to take out almost any enemy tank in a turn can often pay off, though they are a suicide squad.