Snipers, are they really that scary?

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**Falconlance**

Last weekend there was a doubles tournament at my local GW and there was a guy playing eldar who had Eldrad and a farseer inside a 10 man pathfinder squad on top of a ruin. TEQs were all the rage at this tournament and his one one squad of rangers just made a bloody mess out of termis, sanguinary guard, etc. He was using Guide rather than Prescience, because guide allowed him to reroll to hit in shooting, while prescience only allowed him to reroll MISSED hits.... so any dice that didn't roll a 5 or 6 to get AP1, he picked them up and rolled them again. Combined with Doom and Misfortune...

Once he was out of TEQs to shoot he started picking off special weapons, attack bikes... anything that approached got wraithguard'ed, firedragon'd, and bladestormed. Guy didn't take a single vehicle, he just let his space marine team mate grab all the objectives after the elite stuff had an Altaioc lobotomy.

They came in second with 2 wins and 20 VPs, a necron/space marine team scored just as many wins, but scored 22 VPs total.

**MrMoustaffa**

DarknessEternal wrote:
HawaiiMatt wrote:
Kingkaneda wrote:The snipers in IG actually synergize REALLY well with the sanctioned psykers. Remember that power that lowers a units leadership? It almost an instant pin if you can pul of 1 unsaved wound(wich isnt hard if you take about 10 snipers). Pinning an expensive squad is awesome.

You could say the same about a heavy weapon team with mortars, or a basilisk.

-Matt

Except mortars are more accurate at picking out models than snipers, are easier to protect, and useful against a wider array of targets.

Welcome to the imperial guard. What's that, you snipe with a rifle? That's silly. We snipe with heavy artillery and mortars

**Ratbarf**

Well personally my sniper scouts havn't shined, but they have actually won one game and tied me another out of my four games of 6th. I only take ten, but so far they've been mighty useful in getting my opponent to maneuver differently as well as getting the occasional precision kill in. Generally I find that I kill about one special weapons person a turn in addition to two to 5 other models depending on if MEQs or GEQs.

They may not have won their points back directly, but they've definately been worth taking so far.

**HawaiiMatt**

DarknessEternal wrote:
HawaiiMatt wrote:
Kingkaneda wrote:The snipers in IG actually synergize REALLY well with the sanctioned psykers. Remember that power that lowers a units leadership? It almost an instant pin if you can pul of 1 unsaved wound(wich isnt hard if you take about 10 snipers). Pinning an expensive squad is awesome.

You could say the same about a heavy weapon team with mortars, or a basilisk.

-Matt

Except mortars are more accurate at picking out models than snipers, are easier to protect, and useful against a wider array of targets.

Yup.
Really, Ratlings should be troops and score. Then they'd be worth it every time. As an elite choice, they are fun to have, just to have something different, but far from awesome.

-Matt

**Ratbarf**

Falconlance wrote:Last weekend there was a doubles tournament at my local GW and there was a guy playing eldar who had Eldrad and a farseer inside a 10 man pathfinder squad on top of a ruin. TEQs were all the rage at this tournament and his one one squad of rangers just made a bloody mess out of termis, sanguinary guard, etc. He was using Guide rather than Prescience, because guide allowed him to reroll to hit in shooting, while prescience only allowed him to reroll MISSED hits.... so any dice that didn't roll a 5 or 6 to get AP1, he picked them up and rolled them again. Combined with Doom and Misfortune...

Once he was out of TEQs to shoot he started picking off special weapons, attack bikes... anything that approached got wraithguard'ed, firedragon'd, and bladestormed. Guy didn't take a single vehicle, he just let his space marine team mate grab all the objectives after the elite stuff had an Altaioc lobotomy.

They came in second with 2 wins and 20 VPs, a necron/space marine team scored just as many wins, but scored 22 VPs total.

So unless the Eldar rules for Guide got faqqued you got totally screwed, as Guide only allows the re-rolls of failed to hit rolls.

**Ailaros**

I'd note that the guard does have alternatives to ratlings. A sniper SWS costs only 45 points, and comes with 3 sniper rifles and 3 extra bulletcatchers. And it scores.

Also, you can take a PCS and load it with 4 snipers for only 50 points, and you get to issue orders, and it scores. Or you can take a CCS and pack it with 4 snipers for 70 points that gain BS4, and actually good orders (always being in range of BiD or FoMT is a nice thing).

Heck, even vets will do the job. 85 points for 3 BS4 sniper rifles, sure, but you also get 7 other guys in the squad, which makes it a fair bit more survivable than their points in scout snipers (or even perhaps rangers), and they also score.

There are lots of ways for guardsmen to throw around a few scoring sniper rifles for cheap. They're not as good per point as ratlings as far as causing sniper damage, but they have other qualities.

**Biophysical**

SWS are 35 base, so it's 50 points for the sniper squad. I keep thinking about it, but if you're looking for a cheap, low profile scoring unit, a Mortar Team is only 10 points more, and can stay entirely out of line of sight. Still, the sniper squads are just cool enough to put in anyway, in my book.

The PCS with 4 snipers (and a bolter for 5 Precision shots for the squad) is something I've used. I like it for low cost and good range on a vulnerable scoring unit, I like it because it's cool, and because it looks cool. Not a high price to pay for a little functional style.

**farrowking37**

MrMoustaffa wrote:So as an ork and a guard player, I've been noticing a lot of worry over snipers and their ability to "pick out every useful unit we have", and I want to know where this fear is coming from? We're talking about a weapon that only gets to allocate on a 6 to hit, always wounds on a +4 (in most circumstances at least, ignoring guys like vindicaires), has to get through armor unless they get a 6, and then has to hope the opponent fails their look out sir!, or that its a special weapon or something that doesn't get the roll. With all those "ifs" I hardly see this as the bringer of gloom and doom that some people are worried about. Even a guard sergeant has a fairly reliable chance to survive it, and guys like nobs or marine sergeants would have to get very unlucky to get killed by a single shot.

Yes, an army like guard or space marines spamming snipers could be a problem, but if your opponent is obsessed with picking out models to the point where they're going to focus only on that and ignore their ability to deal with heavy armor, horde infantry, and fliers, then congratulations, I'll let them pick off a few special weapons and sarges a turn, while my leman russes go play.

Is there something I'm missing to this? Because honestly, I really don't see the big deal with these things. I'll probably field an IG sniper rifle spam army sometime for kicks and giggles, but even there, I really don't see it being an uber death machine at all.

So what are your thoughts guys. Sniper rifles almost as useless as before, or are they now the most rediculous weapon upgrade guard can buy for 5pts?

While one sniper is going to have issues killing a unit, SM can get them in squads of 10 for about 150 pts if i recall correctly. This and they are pinning weapons, so it can stop that nice unit from moving or shooting.
While not as scary as people make them seem, they excel at slowing infantry down.

**Razgriz22**

Used my eldar rangers again today. This time I had a group of 10 of them guarding my rear objective. They had no support from psychic powers the whole game. It ended up being night fighting the whole game so that helped and hurt them. The had 2+ cover in the ruins most of the time. Shooting wise, they were nothing special for most turns. They did pin a group of space marines making that group notbe able to charge the unit they were planning next turn. That was nice. Most other turns though they didnt do too much.They picked out one melta gun I believe. The best turn they had was during an overwatch where they rolled three 6's and effectivly put the unit charging them out of charge range. That part was HUGE. So overall they didnt shine. But they did their job. I will be taking a 10 man unit of rangers again.

**Axemanadam**

They add a new element of fun to the game I find. I tend to just put a pair of rifles on my standard bearing HWS babysitting CCS. 10 points isn't much of a buy in really for the chance to bust a valuable special weapon or standard bearer. Someone pointed out it can synergise well with a few of the CCS orders too. I wouldn't invest too heavily in snipers or rely on them by any means, but since I've started running the pair I find them hard to leave out of the list.

I wouldn't say it was that scary to face them but it all depends on what kind of army you run at the end of the day. The new direction the armies seem to be going in is having a distinct squad leader character who has the potential to drop the squads leadership by a point and take a fair bit of wargear with him if someone happens to shoot him through the grape.

**Rex-Nine**

Wolf priests give the unit they join preferred enemy right? If he does you could put him in a squad of 10 wolf scouts with sniper rifles. hitting on 3s with re-rolls, wounding on 4s with re-rolls could cause damage.

**Ratbarf**

I've found that Eldar Rangers/Pathfinders are rather good. Any rolls to hit of a 6/5+ respectively ends up ignoring armour saves and autowounding. It means that they have a rather easy time either eating enemy SW/HW as well as sargeants and the like.