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This week we're switching from most iconic to "best" purely in terms of fluff and we start with Snipers.
Any I missed, chime in and I'll add them.
Remember fluff only, ingame rules dont count.

An orbital cruiser armed with a lance cannon.
The pin point precisions with those orbital strikes are stuff of legends, and you are sure that the target is dead ( at least in the fluff)

What if a Ratling shoots the cruisers Captain first?

I'm not sure how there threads work exactly but I'll join in anyway

An IG guardsman. Not the most effective, but I'm going on pure utility here. It's easy for the Imperium to train a bunch of IG infantry guys to use a sniper rifle; at least compared to creating and training a space marine or an assassin. They're scarce, and is it really the best use of an Astartes to be given a sniper rifle? In the fluff?? In the fluff I imagine the most basic astartes to be WS5, BS5 and have two wounds with better than their in-game armour save. I wouldn't waste those guys by giving them sniper rifles, I'd give them bolter weapons and close combat weapons and use them for what they do best

There are countless billions of humans on the other hand

For pure effectiveness the vindicare probably wins

Did you want to add the named snipers? Sgt. Talion, or Illic Nightspear? Or just count them as a SM scout and Eldar Ranger? 30k recon squads? It’s also worth noting that if you are talking about the best Eldar snipers, you are going to be talking about Pathfinders, not mere Rangers.

But I voted for the Vinicare. Outside of named characters, they are the pinnacle of sniping.

No named characters Im afraid. I'll edit Eldar to PFs.

 Ratius wrote:
What if a Ratling shoots the cruisers Captain first?

This is why you have to have a strict no rats on board of your ship policy.

I voted Deathmarks myself.
If you're talking about pure, relentless, cold logical killing I cant see anyone else trumping them. IIRC in the fluff they'll wait literally hundreds of years to get an opportunity for a kill. Even a Vindicare hasnt got that sort of stamina/dedicatton.

Vindicare, all the way. Sure others might have better stamina (deathmark), stealth (pathfinders), tactics (pathfinders again), or dumb luck (Ork Kommando), but the Vindicare is pretty much every one of those combined, even if not "the best" in any one of them. This makes the Vindicare assassin the best sniper in the biz.

To counter Ratius' point specifically, the Deathmark may wait hundreds of years for a kill, but in those hundreds of years, the Vindicare might topple hundreds of governments, armies, and threats to the Imperium. One kill in a hundred years is pretty bad from a strategic point of view, even if very impressive from a patience and stamina sort of view. To poke extra fun at the robot, you could also say that a loose rock that falls from a mountain and kills someone has incredible stamina by waiting thousands or millions of years for its "kill" too :-P .

Missing full Space Marines running around with Stalker bolters (from Chapters that don't leave the recon to the recruits, the Deathwatch, or the Legion org chart from 30k) and Tau Pathfinders from the list.

I didn't even know kommandos used sniper rifles. The closest I have personally seen to an ork sniper was a shokk attack gun mek who was a good shot in the sanctus reach books. Kommandos prefer to get up close and personal.

Yeah thats why I said if the Ork is feeling up for it

I'll add in SMs with stalkers. Im not overly familiar with Tau, do the sniper drone teams not cover off Pathfinders?
Are they seperate entities?

 Ratius wrote:
Yeah thats why I said if the Ork is feeling up for it

I'll add in SMs with stalkers. Im not overly familiar with Tau, do the sniper drone teams not cover off Pathfinders?
Are they seperate entities?

They're separate units in the Codex with distinct sniper rifles (sniper drones have longshot pulse rifles, Pathfinders have rail rifles); the sniper drones are specialized drone teams with a Tau controller/coordinator that are generally fielded in support of the front line, Pathfinders are advanced scouts/recon units that sometimes make use of sniper weapons.

You may also consider adding Kroot snipers.

Lootas, the Orks version of a Sniper

 cranect wrote:
I didn't even know kommandos used sniper rifles. The closest I have personally seen to an ork sniper was a shokk attack gun mek who was a good shot in the sanctus reach books. Kommandos prefer to get up close and personal.

What are you talking about? Orks totally have snipers! That's what took out the Celestial Lions apothecaries.

They're listed twice in the poll, though. The eighth and third options.

 Spinner wrote:

 cranect wrote:
I didn't even know kommandos used sniper rifles. The closest I have personally seen to an ork sniper was a shokk attack gun mek who was a good shot in the sanctus reach books. Kommandos prefer to get up close and personal.

What are you talking about? Orks totally have snipers! That's what took out the Celestial Lions apothecaries.

They're listed twice in the poll, though. The eighth and third options.

Vindicare Orks are da best

I had to vote Vindicare because they eat, sleep and breathe sniping. I'd also give a mention to Skitarii as well. You've got the Transuranic Arquebus with a hilarious range and the Radium Jezzail because riding around on a giant mechanical emu like a glorified big game hunter is just amazing.