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So the question is in the title. Are space marine scouts worth using over tactical Marines? What do you outfit them with l? Do you get them their sppeder as dt?

No. People who say they are, are wrong. Also sniper riles suck in thise game besides the Tau ones that rapid fire at 2 feet and hit on twos.
Scouts are worse at shooting a 3 points less a mode

So they are 21% cheaper, and 17% less likely to hit. Sounds good right? Well they are also 17% when wounded and that's a low estimate when considering that their armor will be negated more often

If you want a useless unit you're afraid to move into the open take scouts. If you want a cool sniper team that makes you feel good and may take out a special character 1 game out of 1000 ( but damn that would be sweet!) go for it

They are better if you need to min-max a list and spend as few points as possible on troop tax.

Other than this they were used in a competitive SM imperial fist list with bolters and drop pods (allied) a while back.

Overall I prefer tac marines due to special weapons and better dedicated transports, but I wouldn't say scouts are worthless.

Yeah, I love my Scouts in Mantis Warriors.

15 S5 attacks on the charge, as well as 5 S4 HoW attacks for 55 points is a bargain.

Or Sentinals of Terra where you can Infiltrate them into Rapid Fire/TL range.

Or White Scars where they get Hit and Run.

Scouts are so versatile, but it does depend on the chapter tactics you take. Snipers + Camo is a no go though, they'll rarely make their points back.

I use Landspeeders in Mantis Warriors as it has a Blind Weapon so WS3 suddenly doesn't seem like an issue.

I was being extreme the things Bill said was right and they are good in that way

How do scouts get hammer of wrath?

Not sure how hit and run on a scout is great. You'll get extra attacks next turn but only you can only kill units that will go first anyway. how many scouts will be left after two rounds of attacks? Seems really bad to play scouts for attacks

jakejackjake wrote:
I was being extreme the things Bill said was right and they are good in that way

How do scouts get hammer of wrath?

Not sure how hit and run on a scout is great. You'll get extra attacks next turn but only you can only kill units that will go first anyway. how many scouts will be left after two rounds of attacks? Seems really bad to play scouts for attacks

Mantis Warriors CT

 Frozocrone wrote:

jakejackjake wrote:
I was being extreme the things Bill said was right and they are good in that way

How do scouts get hammer of wrath?

Not sure how hit and run on a scout is great. You'll get extra attacks next turn but only you can only kill units that will go first anyway. how many scouts will be left after two rounds of attacks? Seems really bad to play scouts for attacks

Mantis Warriors CT

Sounds like something only forge world would do. Never heard of it. Still seems like a very bad way to play scouts to me but I'd like to see it in action because I really have no idea how that would play. I guess a lot like a tyranid gargoyles I'd guess but worse unless they are relentless as well.

As was mentioned, they can be worth it if you want to spend as little points on troops as possible. You are giving up a lot in durability and offensive killing power, but then Tactical Marines have never been particularly impressive either.

If you do run them, just give them free options.

Give them camo cloaks, reserve them in storms and hide them on objectives. That's all they are good for now... And cheap too.

In the tourney metas scouts are surprisingly good, definitely better than tac marines. No one brings much ap4 except by happy accident, (no one brings power mauls etc) so either both the scout and the marine will get their armor, or both will get cover, or neither will get a save.
Add on infiltrate/outflank, scout, and move through cover, and you have a very versatile model that can do anything from be a body providing initial pressure early to hiding on an objective, dog-piling on a relic, or coming in from reserve from sneaky locations, like say the side of the enemy deployment zone when you have linebreaker as a maelstrom this turn. If you have good chapter tactics to back them up, even better.
The tourney metas just don't deal with 4+ as efficiently as they do 3+. You can bank that inefficiency into having more boys or more toys.

For my BA, I have a bunch of cc scouts to thank for putting me in the running for top BA player in the ITC, and winning me a pro painted knight errant, as well as winning 1st in a local tourney. In practice for wargamescon, I've even beaten a no holds barred eldar list with scatbikes, wk, and webway d scythes with my current list that features EIGHT squads of scouts.

So yeah I'd say scouts are pretty ok. They aren't superstars, but they provide marines with cheaper bodies combined with flexible deployment options for very minor trade offs.

Scouts are pretty good if you use their scout + infiltrate effectively.

I feel they're better off as an offensive - midboard unit rather than backfield with snipers or heavy bolters.

 Big Blind Bill wrote:
They are better if you need to min-max a list and spend as few points as possible on troop tax.

Other than this they were used in a competitive SM imperial fist list with bolters and drop pods (allied) a while back.

Overall I prefer tac marines due to special weapons and better dedicated transports, but I wouldn't say scouts are worthless.

Nick Rose's list which came in 2nd place at LVO this year. It wasn't Imperial Fists strictly, but Sentinels of Terra, which modified Bolter Drill so it works better for Scouts, and allowed him to take a Gravstar as well as the full 3 Heavy Support slots.

Scout suit stay in reserve and use outflank special rule. Made sure to fool your opponent and both side are useful to you.

If maelstrom objective or tournament, made sure place your objective in their deployment zone on both right side and left side.. Scout come in and capture objective in at least turn 2 and upward. Useful when your objective turn up and grab it.

Or
Made your scout as Anti-opponents backfield unit.
If it is Imperial, Anti-tank weapon add to your scout. Made Imperial Knight confused which Ion Shield apply to... Tank? Rear armour value


Scout is good if you know opponents have hard choice which unit to target. Never, ever never allow your opponent have a easy target.

Scouts are good when they have enough terrain to hide in. I played in a local tournament without enough decent terrain and the scouts were just a waste of points.

Snipers really depend on who you're fighting.
I like my 2 units of snipers, infiltrating something with good lines of fire. 2 units of 10 covers all the troops I could need, combat squads into 4x5 if needed.

I find that I usually get ~3 kills, one of those is usually a snipe.
I don't try to get characters, LoS wrecks that; but rather I pick off special or heavy weapons.

Between the 36" range and the ability to take out special and heavy weapons, I've done well with my scouts.
They aren't great, but space marine troops aren't great. They are fillers that you take while the rest of the list does the heavy lifting.

They're better than Tactical Marines, that much can be said. Cheaper to outfit and have a transport better than the Rhino. Drop Pods are nice, but Sternguard make better use of those anyway.

Several ways you outfit them. I personally would go all Shotguns + Storm w/ Heavy Flamer + Melta Bomb. 105 points for a tool that does what's needed.

I'm a fairly inexperienced player, using Dark Angels, and I normally include a squad of sniper scouts. It may just be that I haven't figured out how to use the other unites effectively, but I find the scouts tend to do well, by my standards.

The most competitive way to use scouts is to take them as MSU with camo-cloaks, infiltrate them onto objectives and spend the game going to ground.

At 65 points a squad you can take 6 squads for less than 400 points. That leaves you a ton of points for centurions or whatever else you want, and they're so cheap that killing them will almost always be points inefficient.

With camo-cloaks and GtG, they have a 2+ cover save in 4+ cover and a 3+ in 5+ cover. That means even more wasted firepower on taking them down, and since they're ObSec your opponent can't really ignore them.

If you are playing Black Templars, use them as Neophytes (aka meat shields) for your Crusader Squads.

Another viable use for a cheap scout squad is an anti infiltrator unit. If you opponent has infiltrators or rolls the "3" on the strategic warlord trait then this unit can be a godsend to keep his infiltrators back.

Also you can add a speeder storm and infiltrate, move up and jump out first turn to apply pressure to a flank. Support them with a drop pod and this can especially work well.

It's a quick way to get two objective secured units across the board quickly and score meslstrom points.

Their a very good unit to have some of, the most useless army to have them is dark Angels but that doesn't mean they aren't good to have. Much like the drop pod or the tactical marine squad having one squad lying around means you have the cheapest squad available to field and the second cheapest unit (one land speeder being the cheapest tied with the tech marine). The unit is great at being ignored as it's considered harmless even more so than tacticals that tend to just get shot away the scout is just ignored totally. This means they can pop up and bug units from the flanks and rear and that makes them a good pinch hitter in small numbers.

Scouts also can be fed to enemy cc units and because they are basically free as far as marine units go the scouts can buy you time to move elements into position to deal with them. Making them a great way to stall for time.

Scouts are best used by codex marines because of the lss and sending the storm across the table late game full of scouts can mean a late game objective capture.

Are they a tournament grade seal clubbing op Megaunit, no there isn't any reason to take it at all. But for regular joe averages that ya know don't sit around sucking the math hammer nipple all day the scout sits right next to the whirlwind. Own one at least but bring sparingly.

 BlaxicanX wrote:
The most competitive way to use scouts is to take them as MSU with camo-cloaks, infiltrate them onto objectives and spend the game going to ground.

At 65 points a squad you can take 6 squads for less than 400 points. That leaves you a ton of points for centurions or whatever else you want, and they're so cheap that killing them will almost always be points inefficient.

With camo-cloaks and GtG, they have a 2+ cover save in 4+ cover and a 3+ in 5+ cover. That means even more wasted firepower on taking them down, and since they're ObSec your opponent can't really ignore them.

Yeah, unless objectives are placed in the open then they get a 5+ cover save. I like placing objectives in the open, makes it easier to knock the enemy off them. I have seen scouts with camo cloaks be very effective, but my own experience running them has left me less than impressed.

I run scouts in my list just to outflank and grab objectives (ideally) on turn 3-4+. Heck, just outflanking, hiding in a corner, and getting linebreaker is pretty good for 55pts.

Honestly, scouts in a LSS are an excellent unit. They are great for meeting troop requirements but I have to say the unit performs on it's own and if I had 4-6 LSS I would probably use them every game.

I arm the scouts with cc weapons and give the Sargent a com-bi melta and melta bombs and the speeder a multi melta.

Usually goes like this - infiltrate, scout, and take 2 melta shots at a vehicle turn 1. Then they gotta deal with a jinking assault vehicle with a melta bomb and 12 str 4 cc attacks - you can't ignore it - those who do pay the price. Also the large blast str 3 can not be ignored - it can immobilize some really tough units. Basically when taking space marine ally there is no other choice for your troop requirement.

An Infiltrating Heavy Flamer Land Speeder Storm with Bolter Scouts is a great way for getting some Ignores Cover down field and some bolter fire as well. My bolter scouts have done very well doing just drive-bys.

In my experience the land speeder storm is pretty decent with obsec and either an assault cannon or heavy flamer. I wouldn't put a melts on it though. There are better melta delivery systems in the SM codex. My only problem is that they are so fragile it's not even funny. I think white scars tactics might mitigate this a little though.

I agree with your assessment of sniper scouts. I tried them out yesterday and they sucked. Meanwhile the bolt pistol ccw scouts performed admirably.

Mavnas wrote:

 BlaxicanX wrote:
The most competitive way to use scouts is to take them as MSU with camo-cloaks, infiltrate them onto objectives and spend the game going to ground.

At 65 points a squad you can take 6 squads for less than 400 points. That leaves you a ton of points for centurions or whatever else you want, and they're so cheap that killing them will almost always be points inefficient.

With camo-cloaks and GtG, they have a 2+ cover save in 4+ cover and a 3+ in 5+ cover. That means even more wasted firepower on taking them down, and since they're ObSec your opponent can't really ignore them.

Yeah, unless objectives are placed in the open then they get a 5+ cover save. I like placing objectives in the open, makes it easier to knock the enemy off them. I have seen scouts with camo cloaks be very effective, but my own experience running them has left me less than impressed.

The trick is to put your objectives in your backfield and tucked in cover so your scouts can sit on them all day, while the Centurion-star and Thunderfire cannons/Knights you were able to afford due to your troops costing 13ppm blast your opponent off of his objectives. Cover saves mean little to those units.

Try playing with scouts in storms. Two hundred points get you 4 highly mobile OS units with lots of deployment shenanigans that are not reliant on chapter tactics

It will be very hard to go back to tacticals. Especially if any form of maelstrom is a thing. I routinely steal objectives in my opponents deployment zone with my scouts in storms.

Storm is just soooooooo good. Blind, deep strike protection, OS fast skimmer, open topped, heavy flamer....

So good!!!!

Yeah, I forgot about the Storm. It was the one thing that would have made me go BA when they came out. If they could charge out of a LSS at I5, S5, against a potentially blind enemy...

Mavnas wrote:
Yeah, I forgot about the Storm. It was the one thing that would have made me go BA when they came out. If they could charge out of a LSS at I5, S5, against a potentially blind enemy...

Yeah, the fact that BA can't take Land Speeder Storms is downright criminal. BP/CCW Scouts charging out of a fast moving transport would be brutal. But, alas, twas not meant to be.