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Hey all,
I want to make an army (probably for lower pts) using nothing but scout snipers - is this possible?

The reason i want to do this, is I have some awesome camo ideas and want to have a blast putting the army together, and play some fun games. I am kind of enw to the game, so I am not sure if this will outright just get facerolled by anything I play against, or if they have a chance

I mean, come on take a look at the attached image, how can I NOT make an army of these guys and just hide everywhere and shoot


The other option would be to make an army of Ork stealth guys (forget their name) but I can't really dress them in camo and give them sniper rifles, so it's not as fun

Thanks guys!
Jon

It is certainly possible.

The drawbacks you will have with this army:

1. you have to have at least one space marine in there as the HQ. (they should really have a scout HQ option.) (but you can always take telion who is pretty cool, but is not an HQ slot choice.)

2. scout snipers don't put out a lot of damage. 10 shots, half hit (on a good day). then half wound. (2 or 3?).

3. you won't have a lot of tactical decisions. Your army will set up and roll to shoot each turn without moving at all. Your game will be a shooting gallery unless you do something cool like have some sniper guys outflank to take a side objective and snap fire as they run and have another sniper group infiltrate and assault one of the enemy units.

So there are some ways to make this fun, but trust me that you will need an opponent who will also make it fun, or else your games in my opinion will not be as epic as you imagined.

I use scouts a lot and have over 40 of them to use as my swarm of scouts. they can be very hit or miss.

i am reduced to using the typical 5 man sniper squad to hold a back field objective while the rest of the army does stuff.

Best of luck on your endeavors though!

Sniper weapons got a nerf. They do not cause Pinning tests nor have Rending anymore - just AP2 when damage non-vehicles with a 6; against vehicles they're S4.

You'll need even more support from other stuff to make Scouts armies playable

Scouts have a few neat tricks that can support them as the core of, if not quite all of, an army.

Firstly, Camo Scouts in multiple small units can be a real pain to remove, and thanks to Combat Squads you can easily put down many targets without running out of FOC slots. With some ML, you can do some damage while remaining pretty well hidden.

I've not tried this myself, but apparently using a Land Speeder Storm with shotgun scouts is pretty good. Scout/nfiltrate to get in range fast, hide for a turn, and then drive up, unload with the shotguns and then charge what's left. No one is saying this will break a battle-line single-handed, but they've got a good chance against weaker backfield units.

It's an easy thing to miss, but on the charge, Scouts with CCW/BP hit like Assault marines against anything WS 4-6, with 3 attacks a piece and S4, WS3 doesn't come into play until they hit you back, but on the whole, you're still doing good damage (and a 10-man squad of CC scouts with a Chaplain is both fluffy and surprisingly dangerous).

Scout bikers can be cool for rapid redeployment and objective grabbing, now that everything is scoring and objectives can move from turn to turn.

The other nice and fluffy option is a First and Tenth list, where a core of scouts sets up a position and then uses teleport homers to call in Veteran heavy-hitters like Sternguard or Terminators.

But that model looks crazy good.

You could probably run a "counts as" with the Tau codex reasonably well. Kroot can take sniper weapons, and outflank, and infiltrate, and get stealth in forrests.

Stealth suits in your elites, model up something like that guy above except with a LMG to count as a burst cannon.

Pathfinders as FA. You could even get some of your anti-armor in that list if you take their special weapons options (which people rarely do). Model them as anti-material rifles or LAWs. Markerlights are laser target designators. I'm almost certain we use something somewhat like them in real life now.

Sniper drones as HS. Spotter and snipers. Pretty standard.

HQ, a cadre fireblade or Ethereal is easily done as a coordinating leader of some kind.

That's a reasonably serviceable army without straining the credibility of your theme at all.

You basically want Raptors.

Check out their chapter tactics on FW, and think of the possibilities.

Short version: Stealth on first turn (not sure if they get scout as well?) and option to turn tactical boltguns into 24" hvy1 rending shots.

And they look so good when painted with weathering and camo.

Thanks everyone for this insight... looks like I can't live my dream lol... maybe if there was a mode to play with people where you were only allowed troops and no vehicles/heavy hitters?

@Inky, thanks for the suggestion, but on ForgeWorld, the only raptors I find are space marines with jetpacks? I've never even heard of these units...

I really want camo and sniper rifles cause they look so cool
On FW, the LEGION MKIV RECON SQUAD looks more what I am looking for...

also, can Grey Knights take scouts?

EDIT: What about ORK Kommandos? How are they as "scouts"... i mean, all they have is the infiltrate rule, so I don't how "Scouty" they are, but yeah...?

Ossidium wrote:
Thanks everyone for this insight... looks like I can't live my dream lol... maybe if there was a mode to play with people where you were only allowed troops and no vehicles/heavy hitters?

@Inky, thanks for the suggestion, but on ForgeWorld, the only raptors I find are space marines with jetpacks? I've never even heard of these units...

Combat patrol, practically no heavy armor (max total armor there is 32 combined front+side+rear), no air units, and no HS allowed, and you don't have to bring HQs (0-1 HQ, 1-3 troop, 0-1 elite, 0-1 FA). usually plays in the 400-500 point range.

As for raptors, its a chapter from the badab wars. look at downloads at the forgeworld site for "Forge World Space Marine Chapter Tactics V2 (18/11/2013)" (direct link below) "scout" armies that do not use real scouts gain alot from raptors (basically half their tactics is the RG non-jumppack part), real scout armies might want to look at mantis warriors or something.



http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/Downloads/Product/PDF/B/FWchaptertactics-v2.pdf

 BoomWolf wrote:

Combat patrol, practically no heavy armor (max total armor there is 32 combined front+side+rear), no air units, and no HS allowed, and you don't have to bring HQs (0-1 HQ, 1-3 troop, 0-1 elite, 0-1 FA). usually plays in the 400-500 point range.

As for raptors, its a chapter from the badab wars. look at downloads at the forgeworld site for "Forge World Space Marine Chapter Tactics V2 (18/11/2013)" (direct link below) "scout" armies that do not use real scouts gain alot from raptors (basically half their tactics is the RG non-jumppack part), real scout armies might want to look at mantis warriors or something.

http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/Downloads/Product/PDF/B/FWchaptertactics-v2.pdf

Thanks Boom!
Is Combat Patrol played at all? is it popular?

Landspeeder storm with shotgun scouts is my favourite unit.

Free heavy flamer, 12" scout move.. its very rare I don't get either a burn and shots out of it or a burn, shots and assault.

Scout snipers with a techmarine in a ruin are potent as well just for the 2+

I love scouts, they look cool and are fun to play. Running an army of them might be tough but if you're in it for fun and not WAAC then go for it.

Ossidium wrote:

Is Combat Patrol played at all? is it popular?

Not very popular, its mostly played when you are short on time, or with groups of rather new guys who only have a handful of models to begin with.
Its the step between kill team games to small-scale 40K, and as such most people neglect it once they can play bigger.

However, from time to time local gaming shops might run small combat patrol tunnies (my first game ever was in a 500 point combat patrol game, though armor limit was 34, so I could take my devilfish) and ofc you can set up such games with your friends-and due it its quicker nature (smaller sized armies, smaller boards, many of the strong stuff are outright banned-for example it is usually played with "no models over 4 wounds" and "no 2+ saves" rules as well-meaning no super-durable units, allowed "depleted" units where you pay full and get nerfed to fit the limits is also sometimes played.) you can run more games, and with less need to plan ahead. you can even run 5-6 games in a gaming night if you are fast players and dont go hordish.

How its USUALLY played (as there are no official rules ATM)
48X48 board, mild terrain.
0-1 hq, 1-3 troops, 0-1 elite, 0-1 FA, no HS or fortifications.
Max 4 wounds on a model,, no T greater then 5. no 2+ saves (2+ armor either can't be taken, or treated as 3+, depends on group), if you are supposed to gain more mid-game, you don't.
max 1 model per 10 points of game. (so 450 will have max 45 models, prevents flooding with hordes of glibbrets)
Usually played as relic/killpoint type mission, and without FB/STW. (sometimes both relic and KP at once)

Quick, simple, fun game of a fight between two armies that don't have access to the heavy toys, and focused on making plays and taking the fight to the enemy rather then hiding. the balance of the game naturally changes here (for example 1K sons and vespid ignore the best armor out there, so they have potential)

Thanks for write-up Boom!
I guess I am better off playing around with my Orkz since I have more models, than getting SM scouts and trying to find these small games...

Are Ork Kommandos any good to use as 'scouts" ?

I just found something online.. the Ork Blood Axe clan... this would let me paint my Orkz in camo! And i could use some COOL models and replace heads with ork heads and it would "make sense"
Something like these would be really cool Blood Axe Kommandos
http://www.anvilindustry.co.uk/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=258
The Ork codex says Blood Axes can wear camouflage, but does this actually give them a special rule?

Snipers can be a distraction, they have to devote firepower to kill a low point unit, if not be plinked all game if they ignore them taking point shots at them for turns at a time.

And often unit sent probbly will cost more.

You dont need to have snipers to make cool models with cool camo. Why not have a stealthy force of guys (with camo) and have them carry an array of weapons with their signature gun being the sniper rifle?

Id suggest guard or scouts, your call. But you keep yourself flexible and still use cool camo models.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I recommend guard personally.

HQ can take sniper rifles and camo along with 4+ armour. They (like the rest of the army) can take other weapons if you please too.

Troops have veterans which can also take camo and 4+ armour along with a bunch of extra weapons including sniper rifles. So many options with those.

Fast attack can have scout sentinals with camo (all their vehicles can have camo) which can carry some of the bigger guns and act as somewhat stealthy and so on.

Elites can use scions for dropping down and doing whatever.

Heavy support doesn't really have any "stealthy" options but their tanks can buy camo.


That is only using the codex, rather than all the other bits from forge world. You can have an army of camo units with a lot of versatility and more importantly they can take on a wide range of armies.

Thanks Swastakowey,
I think I will seriously consider Guard for my combat patrol-ing

Quick question (kind of alluded to it above), but for Blood Axe Orkz, is the fact that the codex and their fluff says they can wear camouflage just that; fluff? Or do they get somekind of camo bonus if they use it? Couldn't find anything in the codex so I am pretty sure it's all fluff, just wondering. Would love to make some Kommandos wearing bits of "borrowed" armor and all decked in camo

Thanks!
Jon

2000 point unbound scout list that will beat damn near anything.

18 squads of scouts in landspeeder storms.

All sergeants have melta bombs, and 11 of them have combi weapons.

Take iron hands or white scars chapter tactics for either the 6+ fnp and IWND on speeders or hit and run.

I say yes... I was toying with the idea of a Necron Deathmark/Doom Scythe army...