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I feel like buffing snipers would be good, but it's worth noting that the effects of this might be far reaching in ways not expected. The example I'll give, is that I could take 20 kroot with sniper ammunition for 140 points. I feel like any real big buffs to sniper rifles could make this set up good/absurd, and I'm certain that other cases where there are cheap sniper rifles in high numbers you could have some grade A cheese if the actual price for a sniper rifle doesn't get a points raise.

I'm not going to look for any other examples where a change could lead to some wonky cheese, but I'd like you guys to keep in mind that some worrying things could pop up if you're not careful with your suggestion.

yellowfever wrote:
I think the range is good. I'd make all snipers hit on 2's and wound on 3's. And all shots are precision shots. Then they would be closer to being like a real sniper. Also no more units of snipers. In the military we had two guys max (shooter/spotter). Sometimes one guy.

The problem there is that 40k is a battlefield with munitions and energy blasts, smoke, stray rounds, shrapnel and bodies all over the place, not a covert assassination mission. You are not lying in ambush, waiting for the succubus to wander into your sights, you are responding to a raid, the dark eldar are racing through the streets, gunning down your comrades with and slicing them up with razor blades and whips.
Consider the guard sniper squad, a six man team of 3 reasonable marksmen and their spotters. The choice is to fire now and kill/suppress/rout the enemy soldiers or let them race towards Beta platoons position with poison knives drawn while you wait for a good shot on their leader.


You have an archenemy unit in a ruin. Can both of your snipers see the sarge at all times? No, you see glimpses of movement at the windows. Both cannot shoot at the sergeant.

There is a horde of orks rushing from cover . Which one is the Nob? Quickly now, they are getting closer...that guy looks bigger than the others. But he's not holding a power claw. Maybe this Nob just has a cleaver? Wait, there's a guy with a metal arm there, but it could be just a bionic. You're about to take the shot anyway when you are taken out by a gretchin sniper , who also hits on 2's and wounds on 3's.

The precision shot represents that one time (in 6) that the cult leader falls right in your view, waving his holy icon at the unbelievers. The rend represents that one time you catch the chaos marine you were targeting gesturing with his arm, a clear shot to his armpit allowing you to bypass ancient ceramite and pierce his twin black hearts.

Hitting on 2's never made sense as a mechanic, as there was no practical difference between a marine scout and a guard firing the weapon.
A fixed to wound value is supposed to represent toxins I believe, and I'd have no problem bumping that up to 3+.
I wouldn't have a problem improving the AP of the gun to 4 either, and even ap3 makes sense if longlas pattern sniperrifles are supposed to work as singleshot long range hellguns..

Got an Idea...

Snipers are S4 vs vehicles, why not say they're S4 vs infantry as well and you get to choose whether to use the strength value or the sniper rule? That way if you're firing at Tau, Guard, Eldar, etc you can wound them on 3s, and T4 and above you wound on 4s.

Alternatively just give them back Pinning.

I'm fine with all of this, as long as it is established that sniper rifles cannot be fired during movement (Including yes, the sniper drone). This is mitigated somewhat by the fact that most snipers have a secondary weapon; the vindicaire has its super special exitus pistol, the marine sniper has his bolt pistol, etc.

But what I'd ask for is no shooting in movement. No Snap Fire, no Relentless, and no Slow & Purposeful.

I was sure that elder Eldar snipers had 48", but no.
Instead of Rending, they got AP1.

48" does make more sense, for a long-range weapon a sniper rifle is supposed to be.
Since cover saves are used to imply more than just intervening obstacles, ignore cover does not feel right here. Lowering cover saves though, that would be better.

Yes.

Sniper Rifles should have Range 48". At the very least.

Standard longarms - bolters, lasguns, splinter rifles, etc - should have sniper range -6", while we're at it.

With the exception of the Basilisk, every weapon in this game's range is horrendously foreshortened to the point where it's possible for someone to run up and punch you in the face before you can get a second shot off with a standard infantry rifle, assuming you fire the second they come into maximum range.

if you want realism in your game, place your blast marker when firing a deathstrike and wait a turn for it to land to show the time it takes for the ballistic track of the missile to travel.

Come on, you folks are trying to justify that a sniper round has the same range as a missile? (Missile Launcher, 48"Rng, Heavy 1)

 Furyou Miko wrote:
Yes.

Sniper Rifles should have Range 48". At the very least.

Standard longarms - bolters, lasguns, splinter rifles, etc - should have sniper range -6", while we're at it.

With the exception of the Basilisk, every weapon in this game's range is horrendously foreshortened to the point where it's possible for someone to run up and punch you in the face before you can get a second shot off with a standard infantry rifle, assuming you fire the second they come into maximum range.

Yes, because otherwise, nobody would ever be able to run up to you to punch you in the face You know, like in real life, hehehehe.

38,000 years in the future, people run a lot faster?

If you wanted to make it "realistic" anything other than a 20th century pistol would be able to shoot anywhere with LoS on a 6x4 table, and a jet -- anything from a Xiphon to a Helmock -- would move the entire table in one turn. But then again, one single office building would also take an entire table.

 carldooley wrote:
if you want realism in your game, place your blast marker when firing a deathstrike and wait a turn for it to land to show the time it takes for the ballistic track of the missile to travel.

Come on, you folks are trying to justify that a sniper round has the same range as a missile? (Missile Launcher, 48"Rng, Heavy 1)

only if vehicles have momentum and turning arcs.

yellowfever wrote:
I think the range is good. I'd make all snipers hit on 2's and wound on 3's. And all shots are precision shots.

Even if this happened I still wouldn't take any snipers until they ignore LoS.

I used to want snipers to be better, but then after a while I decided that in a battle of the type 40k usually represents a dude with a sniper rifle probably isn't going to be massively more effective than a dude with a regular rifle, at least not more so than their current rules (in the swirling maelstrom of battle they MIGHT get lucky and have a shot at someone important or MIGHT get lucky and and spot a weakspot in armour and actually manage to hit it).

upping them to maybe 36" or 48" range sounds reasonable though.

What annoys me most about "Sniper" weapons is the way they currently work makes precision shots less about the actual BS of the firing model, and more about having large numbers of rookies firing wildly downstream. A BS 2 Conscript using the "Take Aim" order is just as effective as a BS 5 Sniper Drone when it comes to actually landing precision shots.

Generally I prefer the Stargrunt II approach to sniper weapons:

1) Remove "Precision-Shots" as a unit-wide rule. "Entire Units of Snipers" should not be a thing, except for very small units.

2) When a weapon with the Sniper rule rolls to-hit, roll two dice for every shot.

If either die results in a hit, the sniper weapon hits, and the defending player allocates as normal.

If both dice result in a hit, the sniper weapon hit, and the attacking player allocates the hit.

Thus, a BS 2 "Sniper" has a 1 in 9 chance of landing a Precision Shot (needing 2 dice on 5+) but has a 5 in 9 chance that it will hit something. A BS 3 model has a 1 in 4 chance of landing a Precision Shot (needing 2 dice on a 4+), but has a 3 in 4 chance of hitting something, etc.

i think that would ether slow the game a little since you have to do each sniper twice.
but i like the idea.

I think it might be simpler to say you can take a shot at -1 Bs and if you hit with that you get to allocate.

also scout snipers can only go up to 5 per unit.

That and kroot should probably fixed to have precision rounds instead of sniper rounds that give it the 6s for allocating, OR piercing rounds which give it the presudo rending.

 MagicJuggler wrote:
What annoys me most about "Sniper" weapons is the way they currently work makes precision shots less about the actual BS of the firing model, and more about having large numbers of rookies firing wildly downstream. A BS 2 Conscript using the "Take Aim" order is just as effective as a BS 5 Sniper Drone when it comes to actually landing precision shots.

Generally I prefer the Stargrunt II approach to sniper weapons:

1) Remove "Precision-Shots" as a unit-wide rule. "Entire Units of Snipers" should not be a thing, except for very small units.

2) When a weapon with the Sniper rule rolls to-hit, roll two dice for every shot.

If either die results in a hit, the sniper weapon hits, and the defending player allocates as normal.

If both dice result in a hit, the sniper weapon hit, and the attacking player allocates the hit.

Thus, a BS 2 "Sniper" has a 1 in 9 chance of landing a Precision Shot (needing 2 dice on 5+) but has a 5 in 9 chance that it will hit something. A BS 3 model has a 1 in 4 chance of landing a Precision Shot (needing 2 dice on a 4+), but has a 3 in 4 chance of hitting something, etc.

A much simpler solution would be to make Sniper like FNP, where you can be Sniper (6+/6+) or Sniper (5+/5+) and so on. So something like a cheap unit of Guardsmen snipers would be Sniper (6+/6+), more skilled snipers and/or snipers with guns better for getting through armour would have lower numbers.

40k needs better operation of their existing rules, not even more complicated ones

I dunno, it seems simpler to directly tie the ability to snipe stuff to the actual BS of the model doing said sniping. It would only be an issue for really large units that already do Precision Shots, which shouldn't be a thing anyway IMO.

21 Conscripts cost 84 points, and with "Take Aim", at point-blank will fire 42 shots, averaging 7 Precision Shots. Rerolls (mostly meaning Prescience) give another 5.84 precision shots, for a total of 11.84 precision shots on average.

By comparison, 5 Deathmarks at point-blank give 1.66 precision shots.

Of course, theoryhammer is one thing, and actually getting 20-something conscripts in point-blank range without being Thunderfired/Smart Missiled/etc doesn't actually happen in-game, but mechanically it feels off that complete newbies can average per-shot as many precision hits as ace models.

 MagicJuggler wrote:
mechanically it feels off that complete newbies can average per-shot as many precision hits as ace models.

That's not what's happening though. The rank amateurs have no inherent ability to get precision shots. What's happened is that a mighty hero of the Imperium has intervened and shouted to shoot the one with the biggest horns/mechanical jaw/antennae/headcrest/lisp and given confidence by his stern, authoritarian voice, they pause their paniced firing and aim carefully, looking for such a target before they let loose.
They're no more likely to hit than before, but the majority of the squad will be aiming at or near a suitable target.

It would be nice to have them precision shot on a 9 on 2d6 whereas a guardsman hit on an 8 in 2d6 but with just a 1d6 system its hard to get that kind of granularity.

 MagicJuggler wrote:
I dunno, it seems simpler to directly tie the ability to snipe stuff to the actual BS of the model doing said sniping. It would only be an issue for really large units that already do Precision Shots, which shouldn't be a thing anyway IMO.

You method might be conceptually slightly simpler, but it's significantly more fiddly on a gameplay level. You still have things like Space Marine Scouts where you could have 5 to 10 models all equipped with Sniper rifles, it's just not practical to have them rolling 2D6 for each individual shot.

At 36" a sniper in the middle of the board can shoot anywhere on the board.

Longer ranges generally come from massive cannons and artillery.

I don't think a longer range is needed at all.

 MagicJuggler wrote:
I dunno, it seems simpler to directly tie the ability to snipe stuff to the actual BS of the model doing said sniping. It would only be an issue for really large units that already do Precision Shots, which shouldn't be a thing anyway IMO.

21 Conscripts cost 84 points, and with "Take Aim", at point-blank will fire 42 shots, averaging 7 Precision Shots. Rerolls (mostly meaning Prescience) give another 5.84 precision shots, for a total of 11.84 precision shots on average.

By comparison, 5 Deathmarks at point-blank give 1.66 precision shots.

Of course, theoryhammer is one thing, and actually getting 20-something conscripts in point-blank range without being Thunderfired/Smart Missiled/etc doesn't actually happen in-game, but mechanically it feels off that complete newbies can average per-shot as many precision hits as ace models.

See, I interpreted Skink's suggestion slightly differently to you.

I thought he was suggesting we put both rolls onto the one die - so if a model needs a 3+ to hit, they Precision on a 4+. If they need a 4+ to hit, they Precision on a 5+... the problem is that with a D6 system, you don't really have a lot of wiggle room on the dice thresholds (this idea would work much better if you could have, say, a quarter of all hits as precision).

What about a rule where the squad leader plays Spotter.
He dsoent shoot (no big deal) but can then confer rules on the unit - say night vision, +1 to BS that turn or something like monster hunter?

 Ratius wrote:
What about a rule where the squad leader plays Spotter.
He dsoent shoot (no big deal) but can then confer rules on the unit - say night vision, +1 to BS that turn or something like monster hunter?

If any army but Tau used actual tactics that would make sense. The Tau however have Markerlights that do exactly that.

 Ratius wrote:
What about a rule where the squad leader plays Spotter.
He dsoent shoot (no big deal) but can then confer rules on the unit - say night vision, +1 to BS that turn or something like monster hunter?

Totally in favor. It should just be too one weapon though, while the other models shoot as defense.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Desubot wrote:


I think it might be simpler to say you can take a shot at -1 Bs and if you hit with that you get to allocate.

also scout snipers can only go up to 5 per unit.

Hey, MagicJuggler, this idea is way better than yours. Snipers get fewer hits, because they improve their accuracy by taking fewer shots.

I got a good compromise between the old 'hit on 2s wound on 4s' shtick.

Sniper weapons INCREASE the BS of the firer by one. So an IG Vet or SM Scout is BS 5, regular guard BS 4, etc. etc.

As far as range goes, really all the guns in 40k are really really oddly short ranged, so nah, not a big deal.

I'd like the bump in BS skill, rending, precision shot and even a model is killed that unit MUST test for pinning even if fearless. Cause even a fearless person is going to at least stop and try to see where the shot came from that took Berzerker Roy's head off.