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So I'm considering adding some Scouts with sniper rifles and camo cloaks to my Blood Angels.
First of all is this even a sound plan.
Secondly, I think it's best to run these with just 5x sniper rifles, or is it better to include a missile launcher/ heavy bolter?
Thirdly, what models are best to use? I'm not a huge fan of GWs own models, partially due to their limited poseability for a 10 man squad.

So I've considered the following.
Firstly, Anvil Industries Black OPS Sniper Recon Squad.
http://anvilindustry.co.uk/Exo-Lords/Black-Ops/Black-Ops-Sniper-Recon-Team
- Space marine sized/looking, limited poseability, unable to equip them with missile launcher or heavy bolter
all with snipers (although the sergeant has closer to a stalker-bolter)

Secondly, Anvil Industries Black OPS Negotiator Suppresion Team.
http://anvilindustry.co.uk/Exo-Lords/Black-Ops/Black-Ops-Suppression-Team-Negotiators
+ Normal poseability, can easily give them a heavy bolter or missile launcher, could buy cloaks
- Lack cloaks, space marine sized/looking.

Thirdly, Anvil Industries Regiments Custom Combat Squad (with snipers)
http://anvilindustry.co.uk/Regiments/Regiments-Custom-Squad-Builder/regiments-custom-combat-squad
+ Scout sized/looking, normal poseability, can easily give them a missile launcher.
- Lack camo cloaks, giving them a heavy bolter would be harder

Fourthly I've looked at the Forgeworld Horus Heresy Recon Squad and that's just too much cash to throw down on 5-10 models :/

Anyone else have any other suggestions? I've breifly trauled the internet for the right scale sci-fi miniatures with the right look, so far just found Anvil Industries though.
I've experimented with Green Stuffing cloaks, but I actually have Milliput and it doesn't seem so good at modelling as Green Stuff looks to be, and the results were poor.
Maybe I could just paint the camouflage to make up for lack of cloaks? But I think would be remove something from the look :/

Thanks all

I love Sniper Scouts. They're relatively cheap, are one of the cheapest Troop choices, and can be decent objective nabbers. I usually run all Snipers, but the ML/Heavy Bolter would be good if you had the points. I'd run the ML personally, I've never liked Heavy Bolters.

 jreilly89 wrote:
I love Sniper Scouts. They're relatively cheap, are one of the cheapest Troop choices, and can be decent objective nabbers. I usually run all Snipers, but the ML/Heavy Bolter would be good if you had the points. I'd run the ML personally, I've never liked Heavy Bolters.

I thought the small blast poisoned 2+ round the heavy bolter gets would be superior against most things than a frag missile, hence I thought that could be an option.
Alternatively all snipers would make them more effective at, well, sniping.

Depends what you're going after really. If you're using the sniper rule to wound high toughness units, then the krak missiles are going to be very useful. Give them an added threat to armour too. However, the poison rounds in the HB can also be useful against high toughness units obviously, but it likes AP3.

As for models, the standard marine scouts are pretty good for converting etc. You'd have to maybe make them camo cloaks out of green stuff, and source sniper guns but that isn't too hard.

I personally like the sniper scout models, they are monopose, but with a good paint job and maybe some head swaps, they can look great.

 General Kroll wrote:
Depends what you're going after really. If you're using the sniper rule to wound high toughness units, then the krak missiles are going to be very useful. Give them an added threat to armour too. However, the poison rounds in the HB can also be useful against high toughness units obviously, but it likes AP3.

As for models, the standard marine scouts are pretty good for converting etc. You'd have to maybe make them camo cloaks out of green stuff, and source sniper guns but that isn't too hard.

I personally like the sniper scout models, they are monopose, but with a good paint job and maybe some head swaps, they can look great.

What I had pegged for them was more sniping out special weapons and things from squads.

My issue with using regular scouts is that I think if I'm going to be sculpting cloaks any ways I think the Regiments Combat Squad looks a lot cooler, and would only be a couple quid more expensive.

 kirotheavenger wrote:

 General Kroll wrote:
Depends what you're going after really. If you're using the sniper rule to wound high toughness units, then the krak missiles are going to be very useful. Give them an added threat to armour too. However, the poison rounds in the HB can also be useful against high toughness units obviously, but it likes AP3.

As for models, the standard marine scouts are pretty good for converting etc. You'd have to maybe make them camo cloaks out of green stuff, and source sniper guns but that isn't too hard.

I personally like the sniper scout models, they are monopose, but with a good paint job and maybe some head swaps, they can look great.

What I had pegged for them was more sniping out special weapons and things from squads.

My issue with using regular scouts is that I think if I'm going to be sculpting cloaks any ways I think the Regiments Combat Squad looks a lot cooler, and would only be a couple quid more expensive.

True enough. I have to say out of the models you linked to, I like the sniper recon team the best. They have the look of the forgeworld recon marines, and they are gorgeous. I can understand your misgivings about their cost though.

If you're looking to be able to remove special weapons or squad leaders, then maybe your best bet is to keep the squad to five snipers and get the extra chance of rolling a precision shot, which you're going to miss out on with the heavy weapon.

 General Kroll wrote:


True enough. I have to say out of the models you linked to, I like the sniper recon team the best. They have the look of the forgeworld recon marines, and they are gorgeous. I can understand your misgivings about their cost though.

If you're looking to be able to remove special weapons or squad leaders, then maybe your best bet is to keep the squad to five snipers and get the extra chance of rolling a precision shot, which you're going to miss out on with the heavy weapon.

My thoughts exactly, the only real reason I don't jump on the Black OPS snipers is that they're monopose, which is fine for 5 guys, but if I ever have more, especially in a single squad and that's really unideal.

Same for the heavy weapon or not, but the question I had was would it be worth sacrificing that extra little chance to kill the specialist in exchange for a higher chance to simply kill a couple out the front of the squad.
Although I go for the Regiments Combat Squad, magnets should be pretty easy to get the missile launcher. Or with the Negotiators easy to get either option :/

EDIT: I reckon I could get a heavy bolter for the Regiment combat squad as well, using a slightly converted this gun > http://anvilindustry.co.uk/image/cache/catalog/Regiments/Squads/missile-squad/regiments-portable-phase-cannon-800x800.jpg

Scouts for the main part of my Space Marine army, and I've never really found running a ten man squad of snipers to be the optimal choice.

Despite the fact that you can get them a good cover save, they are still fairly easy to wipe out. There's an abundance of ignores cover weaponry around these days, so keeping them to minimum squads has always seemed like the logical choice to me. That or combat squadding them to split them up.

 General Kroll wrote:
Scouts for the main part of my Space Marine army, and I've never really found running a ten man squad of snipers to be the optimal choice.

Despite the fact that you can get them a good cover save, they are still fairly easy to wipe out. There's an abundance of ignores cover weaponry around these days, so keeping them to minimum squads has always seemed like the logical choice to me. That or combat squadding them to split them up.

I still don't like running identical mini's in separate squads.
I don't mind the odd accidental twins in tactical squads or something, but when it's so clearly 2 identical squads I cringe :/

 kirotheavenger wrote:

 General Kroll wrote:
Scouts for the main part of my Space Marine army, and I've never really found running a ten man squad of snipers to be the optimal choice.

Despite the fact that you can get them a good cover save, they are still fairly easy to wipe out. There's an abundance of ignores cover weaponry around these days, so keeping them to minimum squads has always seemed like the logical choice to me. That or combat squadding them to split them up.

I still don't like running identical mini's in separate squads.
I don't mind the odd accidental twins in tactical squads or something, but when it's so clearly 2 identical squads I cringe :/

That's fair enough, I can definitely see the appeal of having unique looking squads.

Thanks though
I reckon the Regiments Combat Squad is probably the best bet,I can then buy some greenstuff and experiment with cloaks.

I actually use the Black OPS Recon snipers in my Blood Angels list. I run straight all sniper-rifles. The "sergeant" that comes with the set has a more concealed weapon, so I leaned a regular sniper-rifle against his shoulder since he is just using binoculars.

I have never had snipers make their points back. Those precision shots just dont come up often enough for me to actually do any 'sniping' of special characters. And most high toughness targets will also have decent armor, making those even rarer rending hits your only real hope of hurting those pesky wraithblades.

That said, those sniper recon models are gorgeous

Here are mine pre-decals...

 Colonel17 wrote:
I have never had snipers make their points back. Those precision shots just dont come up often enough for me to actually do any 'sniping' of special characters. And most high toughness targets will also have decent armor, making those even rarer rending hits your only real hope of hurting those pesky wraithblades.

For 70 points, they'll do more than a base 5 man tac squad with no special weapons and due to their decent cover save and limited offense, they're the ideal thing to camp an objective in terrain somewhere while still being able to put a wound on something every turn. Even if they don't kill anything all game, if they score an objective, then they're more than earning their points back IMHO.

Oh, BTW Gunzhard, those are some very nice looking scouts! Well done old chap.

I find the regular scout models to be abhorrent (the Sniper Scouts look a bit better), so I'm currently working on some counts as scouts using Cadian bodies, scout bolters, Scion beret heads and some backpacks. They are quite easy to build and the bits are cheap to acquire. I like this combination because it keeps all the parts, other than the backpacks, in the GW family (I find that an army of GW models tend to match with each other quite well in a way that an army with added 3rd party stuff doesn't). Cadians also have about as much armor as a Scout does modeled on them and the rounded shoulder pads make them look related to my power armored guys. All those anvil industry models are great though, I just don't think they would match well in an army also containing GW power armor.

I personally like more units in my opponent's face, but that's me.

It is indeed rare to make your points back with Sniper Scouts but then again, it's also pretty hard to assign a point value to the victory points they get you. I rarely run tactical marines, in a CAD I usually have 2 units of CCW Scouts, if I have some extra points I'll upgrade to Snipers.

When I'm playing marines I generally play a lot of bikes. Ravenwing don't have access to any proper AA or artillery so I usually have a Techmarine on a bike as a cheap HQ for my secondary detachment. The Techmarine's reinforced ruins make Scouts with cloaks pretty damn annoying to remove and in this case the Scouts fulfill many roles at the same time and there's some minor synergy going on.

I have a squad of scout snipers that I get medium value out of, but it's very dependent on luck and how long your opponent ignores them for. If you have them well positioned (no one charging them) and you have more immediate threats for your opponent to focus fire on you might accomplish something with them.

It largely comes down to if they have a viable target AND manage to roll well. Ideally you're shooting low armored non-character special weapon users, but that obviously doesn't come up all that often. I've killed devastator squads and picked off apothecaries and sniped out psykers, even managed to take most of the wounds off a riptide using them.

At the same time, I've had games where they kill a handful of fire warriors, or only deal a wound to MC, or sometimes just get wiped by something that ignores cover. Heavy flamer? Squad gone. Marker lights? Squad gone. Turn 2 charge because you deployed them on an objective? Squad gone. On top of that 3+ cover dies just as fast as 3+ armor to volume of fire.

For them to take objectives you either infiltrate them onto the objective, meaning they're going to be a turn 1 target for your opponent if the rest of your army isn't in their face, or you run them to the objective later on, which means you're not shooting and your +1 cover is kind of pointless.

So again: good positioning, good target, lucky rolls = profit! Bad positioning? Too close and they die, too far and they're useless. Bad target? Wasted shots against armor/cover or killing stuff that doesn't earn the points back. Bad luck? Find a different game

And to put things in perspective: 5 shots is 0.83 precision shots, and then 0.42 wounds, of which 0.14 are rends, so a grand total of about 0.23 unsaved wounds against 3+ armor and no cover/invuln. A 1 in 4 chance of killing that one model you really want dead is underwhelming at best.

As for just killing dudes, 5 shots is 3.33 hits is 1.67 wounds of which 0.56 are rends.... against 3+ armor just under one dead dude a turn, 0.93 to be specific.

If all you want are objective grabbers, I would highly recommend scouts with any of the other weapon options in a Land Speeder Storm. Instead of sitting on one objective and hoping you score points off of it, this unit can grab a new objective each turn, and is quite good at finishing off wounded units. a little more expensive but far more useful in my experience.