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In the past, bolter Scouts seemed like a bit of a red-headed step child as far as Scout configurations go. I am wondering if anyone thinks that has changed at all.

The way I envision running them is 4 Bolters, 1 HB, a teleport homer, and probably Melta Bombs on the Sgt. They would scout move onto an unclaimed or out of the way objective, or near a unit that was left off alone somewhere, or out of LoS somewhere I want to bring my Terminators in. I would use them to harass and tie up units as the opportunity arises and bring my Tactical Terminators in onto a weak flank or behind enemy lines or whatever the situation calls for.

I could do them as either Ultramarines or Imperial Fists as well. IF seems more useful to mitigate their lower BS to a degree.

What do you guys think?

Are bolter wielding Scouts a viable unit now? Either to use as I described or in some other capacity?

I don't always use scouts, but when I do, they have camo and sniper rifles.

I like them, but to be honest, they don't have place in most armies. They cost nearly as much as a 5-man Tac squad who can get a special weapon and have better BS.

They have some advantages, yes. But to make them truly effective, the Snipers are the way to go.

There might be a chance to make them succesful, but I haven't seen one yet. Maybe as a midfield objectiverushers? Well, good luck!

I like the new scouts in a Storm (heavy flamer) armed with shotguns. They can jump out of a moving Storm (6" or less), shoot and assault.

They can still do that with Bolt Guns. They never give up their Bolt Pistol. So you can get shots out at 24" and still keep your assault options open for when you are in close.

I like my 5 man bolter squad (IF Tactics) they ride in a Storm and arrive from outflanking. Serg has Combi-Melta and Meltabomb. Its been very versatile in taking out tanks, and cultist/grethcin squads holding backing field objevtives

Keeping them as cheap as possible and putting them in a dedicated Land Speeder Storm is a good way to steal some objectives from reserve. Otherwise, my scouts will have Camo Cloaks and Sniper Rifles (if I take them at all).

So no one thinks there is any good use for 5-10 Scouts with Bolters/HB/MB and perhaps Camo Cloaks or Teleport Homer, to Infiltrate/Scout move into a good piece of cover, or onto the Relic or an out of the way objective.

With IF chapter tactics you still aren't shooting quite at Tac Marine accuracy but you are close, and I can't help but think that it's a perfect unit to draw some enemies off my main force and bring my Tactical Terminators right onto a side objective or enemy flank.

The only thing good about bolter scouts is the ability to move around and shoot without having to snap, while in the 12" or less range you always have your pistol when charging.

If your infiltrating for a teleport homer your generally not going to move out of cover so the heavy snipers which has better range, rending, and can wound Mcs is much better than rapid fire Bolters.

I talked about the same thing when the codex dropped: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/550889.page

The only thing is, my IF chapter tactic army used drop pods, so scouts are out for my pod army.

EDIT: Looks like you were actually the last comment : ) Glad you agree that they have potential.

Edit2: If I had more than 5, I would have a list full of em, for the same price as a 5 man tac sqaud with rhino/drop pod, you get 10 scouts, and with IF tactics, they are practically BS4 anyway. Throw in a Heavy bolter and you got 54 BS4 Bolters and 6 BS4 Heavy Bolters wherever you want on any turn you want. That could be 108 Str 4 Ap5 shots and 18 Str 5 Ap4 shots AND 60 scoring units anywhere you want for 708pts. That is pretty damn good if I say so myself. To get the same with droppod/ rhino tacs, you would have to pay 1110 pts, and half would arrive from reserves or all would start in rhinos halfway across the board.

 UltraTacSgt wrote:
So no one thinks there is any good use for 5-10 Scouts with Bolters/HB/MB and perhaps Camo Cloaks or Teleport Homer, to Infiltrate/Scout move into a good piece of cover, or onto the Relic or an out of the way objective.

With IF chapter tactics you still aren't shooting quite at Tac Marine accuracy but you are close, and I can't help but think that it's a perfect unit to draw some enemies off my main force and bring my Tactical Terminators right onto a side objective or enemy flank.

I use exactly this and have had pretty good success with it. I am not a power gamer though and play pretty casual games. Maybe not so great at more competitive levels?

I used to use that same loadout with a homer before the new DA codex came out. A couple of these squads in a DW list would essentially give me infiltrating terminators.

New IF supplement is TL bolt weapons when in half range instead of always reroll 1s. That brings IF scout accuracy from 58% to 75%.

Can you scout move if you inflitrate? :0

if you could I could see bolters being very useful..

 Mr. DK wrote:
Can you scout move if you inflitrate? :0

if you could I could see bolters being very useful..

There is no such thing as scout move. If you have Scout you can redeploy distance depending on unit type.


But to answer your question, yes you can utilise Scout if you Infiltrate.

Unless you are good at using scout, infiltrate, outflank, sniper rifles, camo cloaks, or a land speeder storm then tacs are you best bet.

To take them and use them as tactical marines you will probably be disappointed by their weaker ballistic skill and armor save.

However, if you know how to use their specials then knock yourself out. 5 Tacs are 70, 14/each and 5 scouts are 55, 11/each. To use bolters i'd rather have the higher ballistic skill and armor save for 3 pts per model.

With the lower price for Tactical Marines it devalues scouts in my opinion.

I have found a 10 man unit of Scouts with bolters to be good, even in 5th edition. In the new Codex they are less expensive and often more effective. I primarily use this unit for two things:

1. Outflanking to threaten enemy backfield units and objective campers

2. Infiltrating ahead of my lines to prevent enemy Scout/Infiltrate units from getting too close.

I usually tend to purchase a combi-flamer for the Scout Sergeant as well, as this makes the unit much more threatening.

I sometimes use a 5 man bolter scouts with a melta bomb to outflank, mostly because I play IG and lack outflanking units, and second to open up a 'second' (weak) front; a few bolters shots can still cause trouble to armour 10 values, not to mention the metla bomb is trouble. With T4 and 4+ save and ATSNNF, they are a bit hard to dislodge, so the opponent got to concentrate on them to get rid of them.

So for 55 pts I got a fire taker that's as harassing as Marbo minus the demo charge with more shots, better armour and more bodies.

The advice of using Bolterscouts in a storm and assaulting after firing their pistols doesn't make any sense. If you were planning to drop and charge your scouts why take the bolters over CCWs?

Shotguns almost makes sense, but I think I would rather have the added attack in CC there still; that way orks are stuck with their 6+ instead of cover from the added attack(over the second shotgun shot).

I had actually been thinking about bolter scouts in a LS storm as described earlier on in this discussion, and the rumors about the sentinels of terra supplement has reignited the spark of curiosity in this unit. IF tactics don't seem that good for scouts on their own as you still have to hit a 4+ on the rerolls of 1 giving them only an 8% boost in damage compared to the roughly 11% that normal tactical marines get. However. With the rumored new bolter drill tactics that are going to be coming with the IF supplement scouts would benefit much more (receiving a 25% boost in damage output while tacticals receive about 22%) when in double tap range. So if you want to use bolter scouts it may be worth waiting and looking into the IF supplement that is rumored to be dropping soon since they could potentially get a 25% buff instead of 8% in the right conditions. Might be something worth considering if you want to use them up close and personal. Still these differences are pretty trivial, so when you look at making a lsit I don't know if the differences in damage due to IF tactics is substantial enough to really make an argument for taking a unit you wouldn't otherwise want.

Edit for correction: When I said '% change in damage' output I kind of misspoke. I'm talking about the change in accuracy. For example, when I said 25% change i'm talking about hitting 75% of the time as opposed to 50% of the time. This would actually yield different numbers as far as change in damage output, but seeing as how I'm just throwing out these numbers off the top of my head I'm not gonna look into finding out what those numbers would actually be right now. However, if anyone has those numbers figured out I would be interested in knowing what they are.

 Kroan wrote:
Edit for correction: When I said '% change in damage' output I kind of misspoke. I'm talking about the change in accuracy. For example, when I said 25% change i'm talking about hitting 75% of the time as opposed to 50% of the time. This would actually yield different numbers as far as change in damage output, but seeing as how I'm just throwing out these numbers off the top of my head I'm not gonna look into finding out what those numbers would actually be right now. However, if anyone has those numbers figured out I would be interested in knowing what they are.

First: It is not a 25% increase, it is a 50% increase, which happens to be, in this case, an increase of 25 percentage points. there is a big difference between the two; although \I understood your point.

and B) the damage increase is a multiplier of 1+1/2*the original hit percentage.


someone sober may want to double check the drunk commissars math, that might just be the formula for +1 bs.

i am testing the LSS with multimelta, 4 bolter scouts and a heavy bolter this weekend. Outflanking. Using IF chapter tactics. The idea is to outflank and take some smaller unit in the woohoo then next turn open up with bolt guns

 raiden wrote:
I don't always use scouts, but when I do, they have camo and sniper rifles.

Stay stealthy, my friend.

IF supplement scouts actually out dakka tac marines on a point for point basis. Just do the math for 14 tl scout bolters v 11 tl tac marine bolters. It's about a 10.5 To 9.7 Ratio in favor of the scouts.

 Kommissar Kel wrote:

 Kroan wrote:
Edit for correction: When I said '% change in damage' output I kind of misspoke. I'm talking about the change in accuracy. For example, when I said 25% change i'm talking about hitting 75% of the time as opposed to 50% of the time. This would actually yield different numbers as far as change in damage output, but seeing as how I'm just throwing out these numbers off the top of my head I'm not gonna look into finding out what those numbers would actually be right now. However, if anyone has those numbers figured out I would be interested in knowing what they are.

First: It is not a 25% increase, it is a 50% increase, which happens to be, in this case, an increase of 25 percentage points. there is a big difference between the two; although \I understood your point.

and B) the damage increase is a multiplier of 1+1/2*the original hit percentage.


someone sober may want to double check the drunk commissars math, that might just be the formula for +1 bs.

Couldn't have been said better!

 Happyjew wrote:

 Mr. DK wrote:
Can you scout move if you inflitrate? :0

if you could I could see bolters being very useful..

There is no such thing as scout move. If you have Scout you can redeploy distance depending on unit type.


But to answer your question, yes you can utilise Scout if you Infiltrate.

Ok my bad yes but does that mean only in your deployment zone? Thats what I was told last tourni I went to, long time ago tho.

If scouts can do the repdeployment when they infiltrate would it allow them to basically get a 6" movement?

Im trying to use 10 with BA, bolters, heavy b and melta bomb. sniper on sarge jus for fun. Would be a good relic grabber, outflanker, or unit to tarpit/distract til your AM are in range to assault.

185 for 10 with cloaks, HB, Mb. Pricey but useful and survivable on their own.

I think dedicated Storms give Bolter Scouts a place in armies now. Outflanking they can get into Rapid Fire range with ease and pose a threat to enemy backfield vehicles with Melta Bombs.

I think scouts are a good bit of fun however you run them. Not the most competative but i don't play tournaments or the like so i'm not really one to comment.

I'm about to strip mine down to add to my RG succesor army becuase they are fluffy.

Also, Mr. DK, your avatar made my day.

The thing is, no matter what way you twist it, they're flat out 'meh', which is never a good thing. The only uses I can see for them is either as A) a very cheap objective snatcher with a combi-weapon or B) As Sniper Scouts for reasons of home objective camping solely.

I'm interested in the potential of a Scout Biker squadron really, for about 104 points you can have a squad of 3 with a power fist, veteran sergeant and a combi-flamer. Use the scout move or outflank, tackle an enemy light infantry squad for minimal investment with a template and then a charge when you can. Absolutely pointless in a KWS list but I can see some value in standard WS and other Chapters.

Scouts are awesome!

Imperial fists for that set-up.
I think it has promise.

You could put camo cloaks on them and go to ground if they start taking hits.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
In area terrain that's a 2+ save.
Scouts are heroes on the relic

I like bolter scouts with either a combi or a melta bomb. I think they are best kept cheap and used as an objective grabber or a harassment unit. Since smaller xenos squads are becoming more popular the scouts are more likely to hold their own when troop hunting. The bomb can give some extra versatility vs AV and the combi I would probably take the flamer as one melta shot/plasma shot isn't particularly impressive. Flamer will always hit and sometimes can do a surprising amount of damage.