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I have played a few 8e games and by in large I like the changes. Of all the changes the one thing I do not like are the new character rules in combination with snipers.

My opponent had a vindicator assassin (I believe thats the one) It alone almost killed my Daemon Prince in a single round of shooting. I was extremely lucky in my rolls.

If you are playing a melee-centric army what counters/tactics can be employed to work around these? Having a character killed as soon as a transport is popped or as soon as its deepstriked/footslogged behind the transports is crazy. Especially for the points cost.

Cover. Line of sight blocking. These are the melee army's best friends. You must use these to your advantage or you will not survive, as you can see. Shooting is very powerful this edition, leaving things in the open for a single turn puts it at risk. You must use LOS and cover to your advantage at all times.

Not really necessary. Except for the Vindicare, snipers are basically trash.

And it takes some extremely unlikely rolls for the Vindicare to threaten big characters. He's mainly dangerous against small characters that can actually be threatened by d3 damage.

Deep strike units, like Terminators, to tie up problem units/act as distraction carnifexes.

 DarknessEternal wrote:
Not really necessary. Except for the Vindicare, snipers are basically trash.

And it takes some extremely unlikely rolls for the Vindicare to threaten big characters. He's mainly dangerous against small characters that can actually be threatened by d3 damage.

Excuse me but my ratlings have been freakin' beasts. 7ppm Bs3+ sniper rifles yes please.

the_scotsman wrote:

 DarknessEternal wrote:
Not really necessary. Except for the Vindicare, snipers are basically trash.

And it takes some extremely unlikely rolls for the Vindicare to threaten big characters. He's mainly dangerous against small characters that can actually be threatened by d3 damage.

Excuse me but my ratlings have been freakin' beasts. 7ppm Bs3+ sniper rifles yes please.

Probably the 7ppm. I get stuck with bleeping 20ppm...

pm713 wrote:
I get stuck with bleeping 20ppm...

And I get nothing! Yay!

So far the answer I see each time we face an obstacle like you are = Deepstrike something next to it and make it go away.

LOS and Cover saves don't often help a foot slogging army who is trying to engage in Melee.

* I am now adding a deepstrike element into every list I build just for these issues.

 Da-Rock wrote:
So far the answer I see each time we face an obstacle like you are = Deepstrike something next to it and make it go away.

LOS and Cover saves don't often help a foot slogging army who is trying to engage in Melee.

What footslogging army are we talking about? Either put them in metal boxes, deep strike them, or take them in hordes. If none of the above apply you may be using the unit / army incorrectly.

Eali wrote:
I have played a few 8e games and by in large I like the changes. Of all the changes the one thing I do not like are the new character rules in combination with snipers.

My opponent had a vindicator assassin (I believe thats the one) It alone almost killed my Daemon Prince in a single round of shooting. I was extremely lucky in my rolls.

If you are playing a melee-centric army what counters/tactics can be employed to work around these? Having a character killed as soon as a transport is popped or as soon as its deepstriked/footslogged behind the transports is crazy. Especially for the points cost.

Sounds like your opponent was really lucky...

Considering that the Vindicare wounds a Daemon Prince on a 5+ and only does d3 damage

He basically NEEDS to roll a 6 on the wounding for the shot to be a d6 damage threat, and even then your Prince will get his own chance to roll a 6 to completely negate it.

Altho yea, Line of Sight of the best way to counter a Sniper Defensively

A Heldrake is probably the best way to counter him Offensively
Altho other fast options such as Raptors/Talons/Bikers, anything that can get into melee quickly should do short work of most Snipers.

 mrhappyface wrote:

pm713 wrote:
I get stuck with bleeping 20ppm...

And I get nothing! Yay!

I doubt you have nothing.

pm713 wrote:

 mrhappyface wrote:

pm713 wrote:
I get stuck with bleeping 20ppm...

And I get nothing! Yay!

I doubt you have nothing.

We veterans of the long war have spent the last 10,000 years trying to figure out how snipers work, that's why we lost the black crusades.

 mrhappyface wrote:

pm713 wrote:

 mrhappyface wrote:

pm713 wrote:
I get stuck with bleeping 20ppm...

And I get nothing! Yay!

I doubt you have nothing.

We veterans of the long war have spent the last 10,000 years trying to figure out how snipers work, that's why we lost the black crusades.

You can just deep strike daemons behind things can't you?

 mrhappyface wrote:

pm713 wrote:

 mrhappyface wrote:

pm713 wrote:
I get stuck with bleeping 20ppm...

And I get nothing! Yay!

I doubt you have nothing.

We veterans of the long war have spent the last 10,000 years trying to figure out how snipers work, that's why we lost the black crusades.

Honestly surprised that Tzeentch doesn't have a Snipers unit.

Let's be honest Khorne and Slaanesh are too hyper to sit still long enough
Nurgle rather do it more personal and slowly.

Tzeentch is the ideal Sniper user
He wants a weapon that can affect the enemies leadership to invoke revolution from the inside.
A Weapon that makes it generally impossible to know the true goal of the shooter, or even who even was the shooter.
Not to mention that Tzeentch is INSANELY patient, letting his plans unfold for an extremely long time.
Thousand Sons are straight up known to be completely unerring now that they are just dust.

Seriously
Tzeentch Snipers please.

pm713 wrote:

 mrhappyface wrote:

pm713 wrote:

 mrhappyface wrote:

pm713 wrote:
I get stuck with bleeping 20ppm...

And I get nothing! Yay!

I doubt you have nothing.

We veterans of the long war have spent the last 10,000 years trying to figure out how snipers work, that's why we lost the black crusades.

You can just deep strike daemons behind things can't you?

Deep Strike Daemons? I don't think so. That would imply that Daemons can materialise out of no where from some kind of alternate dimention.

The closest we Chaos have to Character sniping is Warp Talon and Terminator deep strike which isn't always reliable and can be negated by bubble wrapping. Although personally, I don't think the ability to snipe characters is all that important, just pointing out that Chaos does not have that option.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Talamare wrote:

Honestly surprised that Tzeentch doesn't have a Snipers unit.

Let's be honest Khorne and Slaanesh are too hyper to sit still long enough
Nurgle rather do it more personal and slowly.

Tzeentch is the ideal Sniper user
He wants a weapon that can affect the enemies leadership to invoke revolution from the inside.
A Weapon that makes it generally impossible to know the true goal of the shooter, or even who even was the shooter.

Seriously
Tzeentch Snipers please.

I would personally like to seem some Alpha Legion Headhunters come to 40k.

Were Chaos Marines never Scouts? it's funny how a Space Marine forgets how to fire a sniper rifle once he puts on a tank. Of course...there are the Renegades and Heretics who can do the snipey snipey.

It's worth noting that vindicares are characters, so if they are behind other units as they should be, you won't be able to deep strike in and shoot them.

Hiding your HQs seems like the most/only effective counter to me, other than sniping them back.

jcd386 wrote:
It's worth noting that vindicares are characters, so if they are behind other units as they should be, you won't be able to deep strike in and shoot them.

The purpose of deep striking is to make them the closest visible target.

 Talamare wrote:

 mrhappyface wrote:

pm713 wrote:

 mrhappyface wrote:

pm713 wrote:
I get stuck with bleeping 20ppm...

And I get nothing! Yay!

I doubt you have nothing.

We veterans of the long war have spent the last 10,000 years trying to figure out how snipers work, that's why we lost the black crusades.

Honestly surprised that Tzeentch doesn't have a Snipers unit.

Let's be honest Khorne and Slaanesh are too hyper to sit still long enough
Nurgle rather do it more personal and slowly.

Tzeentch is the ideal Sniper user
He wants a weapon that can affect the enemies leadership to invoke revolution from the inside.
A Weapon that makes it generally impossible to know the true goal of the shooter, or even who even was the shooter.
Not to mention that Tzeentch is INSANELY patient, letting his plans unfold for an extremely long time.
Thousand Sons are straight up known to be completely unerring now that they are just dust.

Seriously
Tzeentch Snipers please.

You know, I can totally imagine some freaky warp rifle that works by shooting bullets that appears through a rift in an unexpected location.
Like, the gunman shoots a dude in front of him. Nothing happens at first. A second later his target gets shot in the back from a portal that suddenly opens behind him.
No idea how that would work in game. Maybe something like "doesn't require line of sight. Because portals"

jcd386 wrote:
It's worth noting that vindicares are characters, so if they are behind other units as they should be, you won't be able to deep strike in and shoot them.

Hiding your HQs seems like the most/only effective counter to me, other than sniping them back.

Just deepstrike in and charge them then.

Chaos gets Renegade Marauders with Sniper Rifles. Whether or not you want to use them is another question entirely, but it's disingenuous to claim they don't have the option of a sniper.

I believe the only faction without the option to take/'ally' a sniper unit is Orks.

Eldar Vampire Hunter wrote:
Chaos gets Renegade Marauders with Sniper Rifles. Whether or not you want to use them is another question entirely, but it's disingenuous to claim they don't have the option of a sniper.

I believe the only faction without the option to take/'ally' a sniper unit is Orks.

No problem, we just fly over your characters with koptaz or planes and drop bombs on them.

Not any better than most snipers, but not that much worse either.

Orks not aiming (for characters, or in general) is very fluffy.

Eldar Vampire Hunter wrote:
Chaos gets Renegade Marauders with Sniper Rifles. Whether or not you want to use them is another question entirely, but it's disingenuous to claim they don't have the option of a sniper.

I believe the only faction without the option to take/'ally' a sniper unit is Orks.

For Chaos, that's also assuming we are playing with forgeword. Not everyone is playing forgeworld. Nothing in core GW allows chaos to bring snipers.

Eldenfirefly wrote:

Eldar Vampire Hunter wrote:
Chaos gets Renegade Marauders with Sniper Rifles. Whether or not you want to use them is another question entirely, but it's disingenuous to claim they don't have the option of a sniper.

I believe the only faction without the option to take/'ally' a sniper unit is Orks.

For Chaos, that's also assuming we are playing with forgeword. Not everyone is playing forgeworld. Nothing in core GW allows chaos to bring snipers.

Forgeworld is "core GW." Everyone plays Forgeworld, just like everyone plays Necrons. Now, not all players have any Necron units in their army, but they can still use them if they want.
And Forgeworld is EVEN EASIER to use, because instead of starting a whole new army of Necrons, which I am unlikely to do, I am quite likely (compared to choosing Necrons) to stick some Custodes hover bikes from FW into my army.
The stigma against FW is stupid, especially considering we just dropped a new edition.

 Elric Greywolf wrote:

Eldenfirefly wrote:

Eldar Vampire Hunter wrote:
Chaos gets Renegade Marauders with Sniper Rifles. Whether or not you want to use them is another question entirely, but it's disingenuous to claim they don't have the option of a sniper.

I believe the only faction without the option to take/'ally' a sniper unit is Orks.

For Chaos, that's also assuming we are playing with forgeword. Not everyone is playing forgeworld. Nothing in core GW allows chaos to bring snipers.

Forgeworld is "core GW." Everyone plays Forgeworld, just like everyone plays Necrons. Now, not all players have any Necron units in their army, but they can still use them if they want.
And Forgeworld is EVEN EASIER to use, because instead of starting a whole new army of Necrons, which I am unlikely to do, I am quite likely (compared to choosing Necrons) to stick some Custodes hover bikes from FW into my army.
The stigma against FW is stupid, especially considering we just dropped a new edition.

The fact there is a stigma just exemplifies that not everyone plays Forgeworld. Plenty of people REFUSE to play Forgeworld.
The new edition gave the stigma even MORE power considering that so much of the Forgeworld book was absolutely broken.

Around here FW is opponent's consent only and not for tourney play. The basic problem is that a lot of the units are stronger for their points than regular codex units. This creates a sense of "pay to play". If you can afford the money and modelling time to build FW, you get an unfair advantage.

the_scotsman wrote:

 DarknessEternal wrote:
Not really necessary. Except for the Vindicare, snipers are basically trash.

And it takes some extremely unlikely rolls for the Vindicare to threaten big characters. He's mainly dangerous against small characters that can actually be threatened by d3 damage.

Excuse me but my ratlings have been freakin' beasts. 7ppm Bs3+ sniper rifles yes please.

Wolf Scouts are pretty good.
11 points per model packing Frag n Krak, Bolter and Bolt Pistol 4pts per Sniper Rifle, arrival from any board edge until turn three. Pity the Boltgun is replaced by the Sniper Rifle or Chainsword though because choosing between the Bolt Pistol and Chainsword would be wonderful.
Plant a WGBL near them for re-rolls to wound and chances are you'll just get more wounds or fail to wounds but those magical sixes send characters to dirt naps.

As for countering Snipers - keeping characters out of their line of sight is definitely the big one.
I'm not sure if they're specific to Khorne or not in this edition but no Sniper or Sniper unit likes Flesh Hounds, actually, not much of anything welcomes the attention of a pack of Flesh Hounds.