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Yeah, either BS 4 or free camo cloaks would make their point cost much much more reasonable.

Largo39 wrote:
Yeah, either BS 4 or free camo cloaks would make their point cost much much more reasonable.

You know GW gives nothing away for free. The fact that you even mentioned it is repulsive.

Snipers are gangbusters vs high toughness values. They are pretty good at fragging sergeant models, too. Other than that... they have a heavy flamer away from disaster. I don't hate them, but they usually get squeezed out in my lists.

precise shot is worth more than high killy volume to me

But they still get look out sir.

Martel732 wrote:
But they still get look out sir.

The Guy with a Multi-Melta gets "Look out Sir"?

LOL. I never use devastators so I didn't even think of that. I guess you can kill off my meltagun guys with it.

Martel732 wrote:
LOL. I never use devastators so I didn't even think of that. I guess you can kill off my meltagun guys with it.

maybe.... math says it's not likely enough to be relied upon however.

-Myst

My friends uses two 5 man units of sniper scouts with a missile launcher and telion to meet his minimum troop requirments, then spends the rest of his points on Hammernators, pedro and sternguard, and storm talons.

Don't ever expect to reliably use Scouts as subs for Tactical Squads. You're better off supplementing the Tacts with Scouts, thus leaving the grunt work to the Tacts. Scouts are for providing firing support and to free the Tacts up from claiming Objectives.

Look at it this way. A effective tact squad cost between 205p to 225p, while Scouts are effective at 140p. This point difference allows for better wargear on your big units and provides more bodies on the table.

When I play Scouts I think like an Ork Player, works thus far.

For every 3 Tact Squads I'd take 1 Scout Squad. That would be my limit.

In general, Scouts underperform compared to Tactical Squads. BS3/WS3, 4+ Armor. 3pts less than a Tactical Marine for some pretty big differences. No free heavy weapons. No Flamers/Meltas/Plasma Guns.

I'm pretty sure i posted some math earlier in the thread, but yeah. I'd rather a Tactical Squad mounted in a rhino than scouts. Generally, infiltrate only gains you 6" of deployment on a standard board, which isn't very useful.

And if you want to make them a full blow "Telion mans the Quad gun and you shoot sniper rifles at people" it costs 227pts for the Squad w/cloaks and a ML, and that's not including the Aegis Gun's or Icarus Lascannon's cost.

They are almost worth never looking at for the odd number. >.>

Scouts in general are a "meh' choice. Similar to dreadnoughts in this edition.

They are the cheapest model you can get in a marine army, but a replacement for tacticals they are not. (Too much Ap4 to rely on these guys trying to push things off objectives)

That being said, I still agree with what has been mentioned earlier and think sniper scouts could be worth it.

Why? Because the Sniper rifle has pinning and rending going for it.
How? Tactics involve shooting units and hoping for precision shot on a special/heavy weapon.

My verdict:

Sniper scouts out of

sniper scouts are good troops to leave on backfield objectives and with camo cloaks are incredibly resilient to enemy fire. i take them for that purpose, and do equip them with sniper rifles so they can hit units at long range.
while their killing power isn't good, and i very rarely find they do their own points back in damage, they can, and often do secure your own objectives, can threaten MC's, and when the precision shots do take out an enemy model, thats one special or heavy weapon trooper less to worry about, and simply taking out a couple of them each game can come close to equalling the points investment. the pinning aspect is something that rarely comes up, but can also be a gamechanger, i don't count on it happening, but when it does, it can be a very nice plus.

I certainly wouldn't replace tactal marines with scouts, the more limited weapon loadout, lower WS and lower save mean that tacticals are certainly a better troops choice for general usage, BUT sniper scouts do fill a nice niche, and scouts in general can be far more mobile with a LS storm than any tactical marines which grants them, arguably more tactical flexibility than most other units, albeit with all the disadvantages associated with scouts

Sniper scouts got one use, and one use only.

Sit on the backfield objective and provide limited fire support.

And in that-they are much better then tactical due to one lone reason-weapon range.

If a tactical sits backfield, it's target list is basically limited to whatever the enemy sends directly to them, snipers on the other hand shoots at units further away and nick away hidden weapons on occasions.

Gamebraking? sure as hell not. must-tank? don't think so.
Effective? yes. very.
As long you remember why you took them and not throw them around doing nonsense.

Ferrum_Sanguinis wrote:
My friends uses two 5 man units of sniper scouts with a missile launcher and telion to meet his minimum troop requirments, then spends the rest of his points on Hammernators, pedro and sternguard, and storm talons.

I have done that before. I usually didn't play with telion so that the points opened up more for me at the top end with Pedro and his sternguard retinues.

I use them. I don't think they are worthless, but I don't think they always earn their biscuits either. I'd say their utility is a matter of personal preference and certainly experience; they are an acquired taste.

Scouts have great synergy with a TFC.

Tech marine bolsters a ruin, place and objective on it, and hold the objective with camouflage cloak scouts. Dakka that attempts to shoot them off now has to deal with t4 2+ cover saves and as a scoring unit they effectively become as difficult as terminators to shoot off an objective.

Holding objectives wins games, and with a tech marine scouts hold backfield objectives better than tac marines.

That being said scouts at the back of the battlefield are not going to do much damage regardless of what weapons they have. Given the likelihood of scouts spending most of the game over 12" from the enemy sniper rifles should do the most damage over 5 turns.