Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

The only character worth sniping in my Custodes force is T5 W5 2+/4++ and -1 to hit. If my opponent really wants him dead they can have at it, and by turn 2 when they finally kill him the units he’s buffing will be in combat anyway.

have -1 to be hit, t5, ti 4++ against a vindicare matter nothing, you are anyway hit on 2+ and wounded on 2+, you cant take inv saves and you have a flat 5+ armour save, if failed you can take 1-3 wounds then average 2 extra mortal wounds so you can die turn 1, not automatic but can happen more often you can ever believe, we are testing vindicare/eversors, in ETC and they are a force to be reckon with.

 An Actual Englishman wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:

leopard wrote:
we have a local Dark Angels player who typically has 20-25 sniper scouts, you get used to not bothering with 'critical' characters.

personally it needs limiting in some way, or characters need a decent further points drop.

main issue though being how some armies can be basically "all sniper" while others have zero access to them

I am only coming up with orks, tyranids and daemons as having no snipers... it seems they are more available than psykers to the general population.

So...meh?

feth Orks I guess?

Grot Snipers need to be made along with a Grot codex.

E - on topic I hide those characters I can and take ablative wounds where I can. Or put characters on bikes for that sweet T5.

Can't Orks do something to enable a shock attack gun mek to target characters? That happened to me and it was horrendous, killed 2 Necron Overlords in one turn with the shoot twice strategem. Best sniper I've seen.

putting ork characters on bikes makes them almost immune to snipers so yeah. They go to T5, gain a wound, and loose the infantry keyword. Unfortunately weirdboyz cannot get on bikes.

Moosatronic Warrior wrote:

 An Actual Englishman wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:

leopard wrote:
we have a local Dark Angels player who typically has 20-25 sniper scouts, you get used to not bothering with 'critical' characters.

personally it needs limiting in some way, or characters need a decent further points drop.

main issue though being how some armies can be basically "all sniper" while others have zero access to them

I am only coming up with orks, tyranids and daemons as having no snipers... it seems they are more available than psykers to the general population.

So...meh?

feth Orks I guess?

Grot Snipers need to be made along with a Grot codex.

E - on topic I hide those characters I can and take ablative wounds where I can. Or put characters on bikes for that sweet T5.

Can't Orks do something to enable a shock attack gun mek to target characters? That happened to me and it was horrendous, killed 2 Necron Overlords in one turn with the shoot twice strategem. Best sniper I've seen.

It's a clan specific warlord trait and it only allows "sniping" within 18". I wouldn't call 18" acceptable "sniper" range.

 Eihnlazer wrote:
putting ork characters on bikes makes them almost immune to snipers so yeah. They go to T5, gain a wound, and loose the infantry keyword. Unfortunately weirdboyz cannot get on bikes.

Neither can any character outside of index options. So if you're playing in a tournament that doesn't allow index or if/when the index is scrapped we're SOL. They're also all massively over expensive, excluding possibly the warboss on bike.

In terms of using snipers, I currently only have one in any of my lists - an Archon with the Soul Seeker. However, I see this as more of a fun gimmick than a useful weapon (I think he averages maybe 1 dead character every 3-4 games).

I might try a couple of the GSC ones (the Sanctus and Kelermorph both look interesting), but in general Snipers just don't factor into my armies.


In terms of responding to enemy armies with many/effective snipers:

Dark Eldar:

Well, because there's a law or something that prevents DE from ever being allowed good characters, every single one of my characters is an overpriced piece of garbage. Every Archon I add to my list is dead-weight from the get go, so feel free to snipe the hell out of them. The only one I might try to keep alive is my warlord (and then only to stop my opponent from gaining a free VP), in which case I'll probably just take advantage of the fact that the aforementioned sniper-pistol relic doesn't require LoS (and so he can freely plink away at stuff from behind a wall).


Imperial Guard:

Unlike DE, my characters are actually useful (what a concept!) and I've generally taken them voluntarily - not as a tax to fill out mandatory slots. So I'd prefer that they survive for as long as possible. I'll probably try to hide them if possible (at least the most important ones - such as my Warlord) and/or get them into cover for a marginally better save. At the end of the day, though, losing an IG character is never going to cripple my lists. So if worst comes to worst, I'll just accept some losses and carry on as normal.


Necrons:

As with IG, my Necron characters are usually ones I'd prefer to keep around if at all possible. However, unlike IG's box-tanks, there isn't much in the Necron army that can reliably conceal them. I'd maybe try to get my Overlords behind cover, but it will depend on the board as to how feasible that is. I might be even more inclined towards defensive Relics - especially the Nanoscarab Casket for a Destroyer Lord Warlord. If my opponent's snipers don't kill it in one round (no easy task), it can potentially be back to full wounds by the time he next gets to shoot. Plus it has a chance of springing back to life twice in a game.

 WisdomLS wrote:
Played my first game with the new vindicare today, it was a dread heavy salamander list using the strat to add him in, I had a squad of scout snipers to back him up as well.
Played against a drukarii list, homoculous, urien, two squads of grot, three talos, rangers, guardian Bob and eldrad and a warlock on bike. ITC mission 6.

He got first turn, his eldrad and the warlock moved up and hid, he took out my scouts. Vindicare put two wounds on the hom and urien.
Turn two the cindy killed the hom and warlock.
Turn three he killed urien and wounded eldrad.
After that eldrad hid and the vindicate killed a ranger a turn.

Overall I was very impressed, my opponent thought his covern characters would have held up a little better but using a command point on key rolls makes the vindy pretty reliable to put a couple of wounds on a turn at least, adds up fast.

We had a good amount of LOS blocking but he had to move up to keep his units in aura range and psykic range putting them at risk as I had a nice high perch for the vindy.

Will certainly be using again.

Yeah, targets with low toughness that rely on invuln saves for their durability are most definitely the best targets for the vindicare. Dark Eldar is pretty much the dream opponent - no biker options for their characters, no armor saves, they're basically relying on their 6+++FNP to survive him. Though it does seem like you pumped quite a few CPs into him to get him to do that, double firing three times and using a few CP rerolls to get him to keep going.

1CP "flexi-assassin" is definitely a competitive use of 85 points. If you lock certain assassins into your list you might end up with say a Vindicare against Tau or a Culexus against Necrons who just won't be getting anything done, but there's almost no opposing army where ANY assassin isn't a useful piece.

Vindicare wounds anything INFANTRY on a 2+, regardless of Toughness.

 vipoid wrote:
In terms of using snipers, I currently only have one in any of my lists - an Archon with the Soul Seeker. However, I see this as more of a fun gimmick than a useful weapon (I think he averages maybe 1 dead character every 3-4 games).

I might try a couple of the GSC ones (the Sanctus and Kelermorph both look interesting), but in general Snipers just don't factor into my armies.


In terms of responding to enemy armies with many/effective snipers:

Dark Eldar:

Well, because there's a law or something that prevents DE from ever being allowed good characters, every single one of my characters is an overpriced piece of garbage. Every Archon I add to my list is dead-weight from the get go, so feel free to snipe the hell out of them. The only one I might try to keep alive is my warlord (and then only to stop my opponent from gaining a free VP), in which case I'll probably just take advantage of the fact that the aforementioned sniper-pistol relic doesn't require LoS (and so he can freely plink away at stuff from behind a wall).


Imperial Guard:

Unlike DE, my characters are actually useful (what a concept!) and I've generally taken them voluntarily - not as a tax to fill out mandatory slots. So I'd prefer that they survive for as long as possible. I'll probably try to hide them if possible (at least the most important ones - such as my Warlord) and/or get them into cover for a marginally better save. At the end of the day, though, losing an IG character is never going to cripple my lists. So if worst comes to worst, I'll just accept some losses and carry on as normal.


Necrons:

As with IG, my Necron characters are usually ones I'd prefer to keep around if at all possible. However, unlike IG's box-tanks, there isn't much in the Necron army that can reliably conceal them. I'd maybe try to get my Overlords behind cover, but it will depend on the board as to how feasible that is. I might be even more inclined towards defensive Relics - especially the Nanoscarab Casket for a Destroyer Lord Warlord. If my opponent's snipers don't kill it in one round (no easy task), it can potentially be back to full wounds by the time he next gets to shoot. Plus it has a chance of springing back to life twice in a game.

Hey, as DE your haemonculi can actually take SNIPER RIFLES THEMSELVES! (in the index, of course....) but they're super awesome secret technology relics that use a poison distilled from a deadly plague that turns the victim into glass instantly, so they must be cool, right?

S4 Ap- D1 mortal wound on a 6.

....


oh.

For GSC, kellermorph looks amazing but I'm not getting the apeal of sanctus. His average damage per points ratio is less than half that of a vindicare...when he is shooting at a psyker who he will cause perils damage to. The fact that his gun is just S4 ap-1, no additional help with wounding is a real killer for him.

He gets a free shot when you pop him out of the blip, which I guess is a fun gimmick, but besides that he seems INCREDIBLY lackluster unless your opponent happens to be playing the stupid psyker units with no perils protection like rubrics or pink horrors. Which definitely feel more "bug" than "feature" in his rules.

Not Online!!! wrote:

Eldenfirefly wrote:
I am not sure how you nuke heroes from orbit like snipers using psychic. Smite spam? Smite targets nearest target and all the same rules protecting heroes within a big blob of chaff applies to psychics too. So as long as the hero has stuff in front of it, psychic powers can't target it either.

Sniper are a bit of a sore point for me because imperium gets vindicares and other snipers so easily. While I play chaos. Everytime I look across a sea of cheap infantry to that untargettable cheap company commander and the other imperium heroes which basically can't be targeted... Whereas if I am facing vindicare or a large enough number of snipers I have to be really careful about my heroes.

AGAIN, Chaos has snipers, not even psychik ones, seriously, you even get them for cheap if you so sorely need them.

I love this click bait since it would be easiest just to say what the units are for the uninitiated... So I'll bite at this rather aggressive statement, what units are you talking about? Can you be explicit?

orkswubwub wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:

Eldenfirefly wrote:
I am not sure how you nuke heroes from orbit like snipers using psychic. Smite spam? Smite targets nearest target and all the same rules protecting heroes within a big blob of chaff applies to psychics too. So as long as the hero has stuff in front of it, psychic powers can't target it either.

Sniper are a bit of a sore point for me because imperium gets vindicares and other snipers so easily. While I play chaos. Everytime I look across a sea of cheap infantry to that untargettable cheap company commander and the other imperium heroes which basically can't be targeted... Whereas if I am facing vindicare or a large enough number of snipers I have to be really careful about my heroes.

AGAIN, Chaos has snipers, not even psychik ones, seriously, you even get them for cheap if you so sorely need them.

I love this click bait since it would be easiest just to say what the units are for the uninitiated... So I'll bite at this rather aggressive statement, what units are you talking about? Can you be explicit?

Renegades and Heretics get 'Marauders', basically veterans who can be kitted out with sniper rifles and a -1 to hit + ignores cover bonus. All for a reasonable cost, seem like a decent unit to me but I've never faced them.

No need to be so toxic and facetious everyone, its only toy soldiers, just say what you mean and in good faith.

the_scotsman wrote:

Hey, as DE your haemonculi can actually take SNIPER RIFLES THEMSELVES! (in the index, of course....) but they're super awesome secret technology relics that use a poison distilled from a deadly plague that turns the victim into glass instantly, so they must be cool, right?

S4 Ap- D1 mortal wound on a 6.

....


oh.

Quite. Also gotta love that they're Heavy weapons, in spite of being exclusive to melee units.

the_scotsman wrote:

For GSC, kellermorph looks amazing but I'm not getting the apeal of sanctus. His average damage per points ratio is less than half that of a vindicare...when he is shooting at a psyker who he will cause perils damage to. The fact that his gun is just S4 ap-1, no additional help with wounding is a real killer for him.

He gets a free shot when you pop him out of the blip, which I guess is a fun gimmick, but besides that he seems INCREDIBLY lackluster unless your opponent happens to be playing the stupid psyker units with no perils protection like rubrics or pink horrors. Which definitely feel more "bug" than "feature" in his rules.

Just a point, but I'm not sure I'd compare the Sanctus to a Vindicare - which is on the ridiculous end of snipers.

That aside, I get what you're saying. You can get help with wounding via a relic (which gives +2 to wound against non-vehicle, non-Titanic units), though obviously that only works for one Sanctus and you could easily argue that it's throwing good points after bad. Personally, I like threatening Psykers with perils, so I'd like to try the Sanctus anyway, but I suspect you're correct as to his overall value.

However, I think the real issue is that he has to pick between the sniper rifle and dagger, yet his rules seem to be based on him having both. If he takes the dagger, then Camo Cloak is likely pointless, and Soulsight Familiar is entirely useless.

I'd still like to give it a try, but I suspect the Sanctus won't end up as a staple of my lists.

what about a vanguard det with Cypher and 3-4 assassins (2 vindicare and 2 eversors or 1 vindicare 2 eversor and 1 callidus), in a chaos/demons army?

 blackmage wrote:
what about a vanguard det with Cypher and 3-4 assassins (2 vindicare and 2 eversors or 1 vindicare 2 eversor and 1 callidus), in a chaos/demons army?

You can't do that as Cypher only shares the Imperium keyword with the assassins, and Imperium doesn't count for allies.

 JNAProductions wrote:
Vindicare wounds anything INFANTRY on a 2+, regardless of Toughness.

Dawn Eagle Shield Captains all day every day then.

If everyone gets snipers then what are the odds snipers just get stuck with the duty of shooting the enemy snipers?

I am trying out 3 vindi assasins with 3 units of eliminators buffed by Gman today. This is gonna be fun! Realistically these guys threaten everything when you are rerolling wounds.
Keep in mind that vindi assasins destroy all infantry - not just character infantry. Last night my vindi assasin killed a full life olbiterator and a master of possession. In 3 turns Imagine what 3 od them can do.

 vipoid wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:

Hey, as DE your haemonculi can actually take SNIPER RIFLES THEMSELVES! (in the index, of course....) but they're super awesome secret technology relics that use a poison distilled from a deadly plague that turns the victim into glass instantly, so they must be cool, right?

S4 Ap- D1 mortal wound on a 6.

....


oh.

Quite. Also gotta love that they're Heavy weapons, in spite of being exclusive to melee units.

the_scotsman wrote:

For GSC, kellermorph looks amazing but I'm not getting the apeal of sanctus. His average damage per points ratio is less than half that of a vindicare...when he is shooting at a psyker who he will cause perils damage to. The fact that his gun is just S4 ap-1, no additional help with wounding is a real killer for him.

He gets a free shot when you pop him out of the blip, which I guess is a fun gimmick, but besides that he seems INCREDIBLY lackluster unless your opponent happens to be playing the stupid psyker units with no perils protection like rubrics or pink horrors. Which definitely feel more "bug" than "feature" in his rules.

Just a point, but I'm not sure I'd compare the Sanctus to a Vindicare - which is on the ridiculous end of snipers.

That aside, I get what you're saying. You can get help with wounding via a relic (which gives +2 to wound against non-vehicle, non-Titanic units), though obviously that only works for one Sanctus and you could easily argue that it's throwing good points after bad. Personally, I like threatening Psykers with perils, so I'd like to try the Sanctus anyway, but I suspect you're correct as to his overall value.

However, I think the real issue is that he has to pick between the sniper rifle and dagger, yet his rules seem to be based on him having both. If he takes the dagger, then Camo Cloak is likely pointless, and Soulsight Familiar is entirely useless.

I'd still like to give it a try, but I suspect the Sanctus won't end up as a staple of my lists.

On the contrary - the vindicare is only ridiculous in terms of his damage output against certain targets that really couldn't be threatened by snipers before (targets with 3++ or better invulns) but tbh the only really ridiculous thing is he's a Character keyword sniper with anything better than a laughable damage output. Every other character sniper in the game just seems utterly gimped for the privilege of being tough to target.

I did run the Sanctus today and he performed fairly well with minimal CP investment (I used one reroll on him). Before turn 1 with his free shot he plunked a Warlock, then he scored the last remaining wound on the enemy warlord, a biker autarch, and finally shot a dark reaper before getting killed by dire avengers. running the pair of GSC sniper characters together felt a lot better than running them separately, as you'd expect there's a bit of a breakpoint where your snipers actually feel like they're getting something done.

He was utterly worthless against farseers though. I had forgotten they got a 2+ against mortal wounds from perils...lol.

 casvalremdeikun wrote:

 Vineheart01 wrote:
Snipers only bug me because not everyone has access to such a mechanic.
Only way an ork can "snipe" is a well placed dakkajet (depends on target player not full bubblewrapping his characters) or burn our warlord trait for it, which is a joke and a half....

I think GW is trying to rectify that situation though. GSC got the Sanctus. Marines got the Eliminators. It seems like they are trying to add options for dealing with characters to most armies. Hopefully the new additions to the Chaos Space Marines army open up options for dealing with characters. We will see.

Good.

I realize its technically bad design to give every faction access to the same thing, but when its something as absolutely crushing as character sniping...everyone needs SOMETHING for that. Its also a hard counter to people who spam the auras to get all the buffs.

Did someone say Dark Eldar have no Snipers?

Cause, albeit expensive, “An Esoteric Kill from Afar” would allow you to fire 6 Heat Lances from 3 Talos at 18” vs characters.

 KiloFiX wrote:
Did someone say Dark Eldar have no Snipers?

Cause, albeit expensive, “An Esoteric Kill from Afar” would allow you to fire 6 Heat Lances from 3 Talos at 18” vs characters.

Yeah, at 4+BS, for about 500 points, in the dark eldar chapter tactic equivalent of black templars, for 2Cp, you can fire 6 S6 melta guns at 18" at a character.

By this logic, orks have snipers because of the souped up shokka+deffskullz trait.

i'd argue supa-sag + deathskull trait is better than that. And thats saying something lol

Orks have Grot Shields to protect Weirdboyz and Big Meks from snipers (Warbosses belong in CC anyway), but you can only use it to protect one character per turn, so if the opponent have more than one sniper, you basically always lose a character per turn.

My Necrons suffer more, sure Lychguard can teoretically protect an Overlord (at a terribly high cost), but my Cryptek always die on T1 - there is no way to protect him. Against that damn Knight sniper missile there is absolutely nothing I can do, which to me is utterly frustrating, and really crappy game design. I've only played against a Vindicare once, and it did very little against my Destroyer Lord, which is a relief, I guess.

 Oguhmek wrote:
Orks have Grot Shields to protect Weirdboyz and Big Meks from snipers (Warbosses belong in CC anyway), but you can only use it to protect one character per turn, so if the opponent have more than one sniper, you basically always lose a character per turn.

My Necrons suffer more, sure Lychguard can teoretically protect an Overlord (at a terribly high cost), but my Cryptek always die on T1 - there is no way to protect him. Against that damn Knight sniper missile there is absolutely nothing I can do, which to me is utterly frustrating, and really crappy game design. I've only played against a Vindicare once, and it did very little against my Destroyer Lord, which is a relief, I guess.

I mean, if it dies every game turn 1 you must be getting pretty unlucky with that. The odds of a shieldbreaker missile killing a cryptek turn 1 is 28%. Considering it's a 2CP stratagem to fire a once-per-game missile from a 600 point model, I think I can handle a 28% chance of one of my minor support characters dying turn 1.

Also, there's not NOTHING you can do about it. You could, for example, go "oh no, you killed my guy using 2 of your CP. Well here's one of mine, I'm going to try and resurrect him now, and you've used your once per game sniper missile for the turn."

Seems like fairly good counterplay when we're talking about a 600-point model spending 2CP while shooting at a...what...85 point model? what do crypteks cost?

Well, they can carry two of those missiles, it's not once per battle, and with the Loyal 32, CP aren't really an issue. So yea only 28% to kill it in T1, but that makes it 56% in T2.

And what else is he going to fire them at? The value of a Cryptek is more than 85p, you should factor in the other Necrons he protects/helps to reanimate.

It is the Ressurection Protocols strategem that is once per battle per character btw.

But yea, I may have exaggerated a bit, it's mainly the sniping characters out of LOS thing that feels.... unfun?

 Oguhmek wrote:
Well, they can carry two of those missiles, it's not once per battle, and with the Loyal 32, CP aren't really an issue. So yea only 28% to kill it in T1, but that makes it 56% in T2.

And what else is he going to fire them at? The value of a Cryptek is more than 85p, you should factor in the other Necrons he protects/helps to reanimate.

It is the Ressurection Protocols strategem that is once per battle per character btw.

But yea, I may have exaggerated a bit, it's mainly the sniping characters out of LOS thing that feels.... unfun?

That's not how math works.

You have a 1-((1-.28)^2) percent chance of getting killed over two turns, or 48.16% chance.

 Oguhmek wrote:
Well, they can carry two of those missiles, it's not once per battle, and with the Loyal 32, CP aren't really an issue. So yea only 28% to kill it in T1, but that makes it 56% in T2.

And what else is he going to fire them at? The value of a Cryptek is more than 85p, you should factor in the other Necrons he protects/helps to reanimate.

It is the Ressurection Protocols strategem that is once per battle per character btw.

But yea, I may have exaggerated a bit, it's mainly the sniping characters out of LOS thing that feels.... unfun?

And this is the exact attitude that gives us our current gakky "everything is buff characters" meta. People HATE having their characters sniped/being sniped, in pretty much any game system, ever. You can make snipers that are actively detrimental to your overall army/team in almost any game, and people will still bitch and moan about them because of that one time a character got killed from a distance and "I couldn't do anything about it!"

The only thing I can come up with to explain it is just "people feel like they're 'doing something about it' when they get to roll dice in response to their opponent, even if the odds remain unchanged."

I would bet you almost anything that if they changed Shieldbreaker missiles to hit and wound automatically, but not ignore invuln saves, people would be much more OK with it even though it would only be less powerful than the current incarnation against 3++ or better invuln. People would just feel better if they got to roll the little cube to see if their guy died.

the_scotsman wrote:

 Oguhmek wrote:
Well, they can carry two of those missiles, it's not once per battle, and with the Loyal 32, CP aren't really an issue. So yea only 28% to kill it in T1, but that makes it 56% in T2.

And what else is he going to fire them at? The value of a Cryptek is more than 85p, you should factor in the other Necrons he protects/helps to reanimate.

It is the Ressurection Protocols strategem that is once per battle per character btw.

But yea, I may have exaggerated a bit, it's mainly the sniping characters out of LOS thing that feels.... unfun?

And this is the exact attitude that gives us our current gakky "everything is buff characters" meta. People HATE having their characters sniped/being sniped, in pretty much any game system, ever. You can make snipers that are actively detrimental to your overall army/team in almost any game, and people will still bitch and moan about them because of that one time a character got killed from a distance and "I couldn't do anything about it!"

The only thing I can come up with to explain it is just "people feel like they're 'doing something about it' when they get to roll dice in response to their opponent, even if the odds remain unchanged."

I would bet you almost anything that if they changed Shieldbreaker missiles to hit and wound automatically, but not ignore invuln saves, people would be much more OK with it even though it would only be less powerful than the current incarnation against 3++ or better invuln. People would just feel better if they got to roll the little cube to see if their guy died.

There is actually another aspect to this though which is Command Points.

In your example, a person who failed an invulnerable save on an important character (or his favourite character ) can use a CP to reroll it for a second chance at saving said character.

However, if you don't get an invulnerable save then you're also being denied a potential reroll. Meanwhile, your opponent still has the option of rerolling a miss, failed wound or poor damage roll against a key character.