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Hey guys, I'm in sort of a pickle right now for my next catachan unit. I have 13 extra guardsmen, and I was going to make a veteran unit with the ten, then take the extra three and make a special weapon team using 3 other sniper models. But what I realized is the special weapon teams ballistic skill is only 3. I feel that the catachan snipers would have a higher ballistic skill and bs 3 snipers doesn't seem very effective. But what I could do is just put the three snipers in the veteran unit leaving me with 6 extra guardsmen. What do you guys think is better gameplay and fluff wise? A small sniper team with bs 3, or a 10 man veteran unit including 3 snipers?

Don't snipers always hit on a 2+ anyway?
Also shouldn't this be in Rules Discussion or something?

Hit on 3/4, wound on 4 with rending...although that's probably the 5th edition rules...

I believe the 6th ed rule is that is uses bs but wounds on 4+ regardless of toughness, and is rending/pinning... same as 5th ed if I recall

Snipers hit on bs, wound on a 4+, I know that. What I'm asking is which unit would be more effective and more fluffy for catachans. I want to take snipers, but not sure if I want to take them in a special weapons team or a vet squad. I also really don't want to proxy them as ratlings.

Moved you over to tactics.

Tough query and I know where you are coming from. Seems putting them in the ten man for the better BS goes against the feeling of the team, although not by much, only four more bodies.

I'd consider the ten man but perhaps theme a few of the squad, so although the base is there it represents stuff with them. Like a radio transmitter, ammo crates, trip wires etc and just remove them before you take any of the six actual guardsmen.

May not be practical, and no idea if you are a tournie player, or if that would even matter. Food for thought either way.

The snipers wouldn't be worth it in a special weapons squad, the squad would be too easily killed. The snipers are a nice, cheap way to give a small boost to the vet squad.

It's sad Snipers had to be such a bad weapon, so much potential hahaha

Fluff wise? It's more fluffy for snipers, particularly Catachan, to act in small groups and infiltrate (so the SWS would fit that) days ahead of the battle but I would put them with the vets for pure reasons of making them reasonable at that point.

Have you considered making them a small unit of Ratlings "Count-As" to make them as fluffy as possible? Their ability to infiltrate and things makes them much closer to what Catachan snipers would do, but the downsides are so big...if you want to go that route, it's 30 points for 3 "ratling" snipers (also sad they had to be pretty bad. So. Much. Lost. Potential.) I suggest this because the fact you are using snipers in general points me in the direction that you aren't building the most competitive list and want more fluffy feel.

Ive used them as a cheap CCS boost before, not too bad if you have alot of static infantry

 Color Sgt. Kell wrote:
A small sniper team with bs 3, or a 10 man veteran unit including 3 snipers?

A very small sniper team of zero snipers. Snipers should never, under any circumstances, be used in an IG army.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Color Sgt. Kell wrote:
A small sniper team with bs 3, or a 10 man veteran unit including 3 snipers?

A very small sniper team of zero snipers. Snipers should never, under any circumstances, be used in an IG army.

But they look so cool and you know it! Its like those poor defenseless Grenade Launchers, they look so nifty and you always have so many left over....but the terribleness, you cant wash that away

 Peregrine wrote:

 Color Sgt. Kell wrote:
A small sniper team with bs 3, or a 10 man veteran unit including 3 snipers?

A very small sniper team of zero snipers. Snipers should never, under any circumstances, be used in an IG army.

Hey, he's going for fluffy army here. If he wanted to actually compete anywhere or against anything, he wouldn't have made snipers hahahaha.

Also, I find snipers and like grenade launchers. In order for them to be effective, you basically need to build your army around them and just spam them to no end. Of course, this makes every single other part of your list vulnerable, but it sure is fun to roll on the board with 28 grenade launchers and fire so many blast templates on top of my mortars (which no one takes either) that SOMETHING has to die

I feel two flamers and a demo charge armed SWS would feel more Catachan fluffy than 3 snipers.

Thanks for the imput guys. Yeah I just wanted to be fluffy and I like the sniper models. If I wasn't a fluffy guy I wouldn't have played a regiment like the jungle fighters now would I ha ha. But I think I'll go with the vet squad, just to give a bit more durability. I'll also give the squad forward sentries to give a little more of a sniper feel. I'm going to give them all painted body camo and leaves on them so should be cool. Thanks

Peregrine,
Why do you even bother sometimes ?
You are often negative, sometimes plain rude, and your waac attitude doesn't have it's place in this thread.
You seem to miss a very important part of the hobby, the fluff part.
Thank the emperor he hasn't gone forgeworld on the thread yet.
I don't post very often, but you really are getting on my nerves mate.
On a side note your posts are exelent when it comes to highly optimised lists and very competitive play.
Don't take this the wrong way.

Cheers.

As for the snipers, you can use your second HQ slot, give them camo, 4 snipers. Rename theCO "the spotter" and voila, you have a small squad of BS4 snipers with decent moral and camo.

edit : typo

Ratlings are practically a must take in infantyry oriented lists. If you take Kell, then you can use your officers leadership for orders instead of their own crappy leadership. 10 ratlings with bring it down will kill almost any dameon/monstrous creature in one round of shooting. And fire on my target has its own obvious uses when you get a couple rending rolls. Not bad for 100 points I say. Even if you don't take Kell its still 10 sniper rifles at BS 4 with infiltrate and stealth...for 100 points. Yes please. But failing that a veteran squad with 3 sniper rifles a heavy bolter team, and, I am blanking on his name but the catachan special character with heavy bolter, might do alright on their own

Haha, I just noticed your name. Assuming you take yourself in games, then go with ratlings!

Ok sounds good. By the way volkov I do have a unit of ratlings and I do take them, and I do use Kell with them ha ha. I just wanted to find a way to include those cool sniper models ha ha. But I think the command squad sounds like a really good idea, thanks mayfist.

 Peregrine wrote:


A very small sniper team of zero snipers. Snipers should never, under any circumstances, be used in an IG army.

A small team of snipers is a very cheap and effective way to bring down MC, artillery, quad guns and the like. Plus they annoy the hell out of your opponent, which is worth something all on it's own.

 Hollowman wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:


A very small sniper team of zero snipers. Snipers should never, under any circumstances, be used in an IG army.

A small team of snipers is a very cheap and effective way to bring down MC, artillery, quad guns and the like. Plus they annoy the hell out of your opponent, which is worth something all on it's own.

No it isn't. A small team can't generate rending wounds effectively enough to deal with anything, and a large team that can consistently give you rending wounds costs as much as plasma/lascannons/etc that do the job much better. And it only annoys the hell out of your opponent if they suck at 40k, a good opponent will just ignore the tiny threat of the snipers and focus on killing your real threats.

I like your thinking OP, I have run SWS Sniper squads for fun in the past and always felt like they did enough to justify their 45 points. A stray wound on an MC or Independent Character is always nice. Cheap scoring unit with 36" weapons that can be used to help kill stuff with orders. Not too shabby.

For raw winning capability? Probably not the best addition.

Do you have the older metal Catachan snipers? I have them and they're still unpainted.

To the OP's problem, it depends on what you're going for. Sniper vets aren't the greatest, but, depending on what you're going for, they're not the biggest waste in the world.

For example, if all you want is a difficult to displace scoring unit, you could take vets with camo cloaks, 3x sniper rifles and a lascannon. Still reasonably cheap, without being such a high priority that they will get attacked first, and camo cloaks will keep them safer (both of which give them a lot of durability - good for a scoring unit), while the combination of sniper rifles and lascannon will still give them some actual killing power. If they take a BiD order, they've even got some decent anti-MC firepower. Likewise, you could do something like this with a harkerstar.

That said, sniper rifles aren't necessarily the best gun for vets, if for no other reason than opportunity cost of better special weapons. If you're going to want to go with better vets (like part of a mechvet list for example), then use the sniper rifles for something else. You could put them in a SWS, but I don't think I'd bother, as a PCS gives you the same thing, but with the ability to have another sniper rifle, and give orders, and you're already taking them by compulsion to get a platoon. Also, they're not the worst thing to shoehorn into a CCS if you've got an awkward number of points. That way, they get BS4, and are always in range for BiD and FoMT (plus, there's something that feels good about an officer having a personal sniper or three to direct against stuff).

Also, you might want to just counts-as them as ratlings. Cheap, better BS, etc. For fluff justification, you could say that they are catachans who have learned that the best way to survive is through stealth and caution, rather than outright aggression.

In any case, a few sniper rifles here or there isn't going to break your budget, so if you want to include them, I'm sure you can find a few cracks in your list to stuff them in.

Catachan snipers with T2 doesn't sound fluffy at all, so counts-as-Ratlings is out of the question IMO. In fact, all Catachans should probably be T4 according to the fluff (and Straken and Harker should be T6 or something)!

On the tabletop, snipers are only effective if you get extraordinarily lucky with the dice, but as long as you don't expect much from them, they're fine. I agree with Ailaros in that they tend to make the unit they're attached to much lower on the target priority list, and that may be good for holding objectives, but again, don't expect them to do anything spectacular. Camo cloaks are way too expensive gameplay-wise just to give snipers survivability. Better to spam more of them if you want a sniper-themed army and add cloaks if you run out of models or have points to spare. Make sure there are at least some good threats in the rest of your list though, otherwise you may end up being too situationally effective even for friendly games.

 Peregrine wrote:

No it isn't. A small team can't generate rending wounds effectively enough to deal with anything, and a large team that can consistently give you rending wounds costs as much as plasma/lascannons/etc that do the job much better. And it only annoys the hell out of your opponent if they suck at 40k, a good opponent will just ignore the tiny threat of the snipers and focus on killing your real threats.

Who needs a rending wound? They wound on a 4+, which means 6 snipers will get the same number of wounds as 10 bolters in rapid fire range against a t7 artillery piece- and can typically start doing that first turn. A wound or two on an MC or artillery piece a round isn't a bad deal for the points, and if the enemy get's annoyed enough to drop a blast on them, you didn't lose much in the grand scheme of things.