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It is apparent that the meta is changing. Characters are no longer able to sit peacefully amid their troops ignoring enemy weapons.

With powerful new sniping units, like the Vindicator coming into play, low toughness characters, such as a weirdboy can now easily be picked off. Armies that relied upon such characters as their 'clutch combo' can now face some serious hard counters.

How will this effect your list building?

Not a bit. I have been running 3 squads of 5 scouts with sniper since last big faq. They have been army heros for my force since i got them, and i want more lol.

Last game i played vs knights i had a scout team with sniper get shot at by a knight ( Paladin ) and he sent his heavy stubbers at the squad. Killed 4 of them. My comment "That lone scout i gonna kick that knights ass in retribution for his fallen comrades" opponent laughed and said "not if i step on him first" and charged. I rolled a 6 to hit on overwatch. Then rolled a 6 to wound. He rolled for his armor save and rolled a 1. His response? "Huh... so now that happened.....". Then scout captain "Asskicker" got stepped on lol.

Out of the entire game though that knight took 8 mortal wounds from snipers.

I have had snipers kill all sorts of things they should not. They punch way above their weight if you take lots of them. Even a person with an hq that shouldnt have to worry about snipers suddenly is interested in keeping his hq alive and out of sight after a team takes 2 or 3 wounds off of him droping him down to half health. New units that can also snipe only makes that kind of force better if it focuses on sniping. Will it win gsmes? Not on its own. And if you spend too much on that kind of thing all you will end up doing is killing an hq or support chr then getting hit hard in the face by an enemy force.

Have been running scout snipers since the start, much like Azuza. They perform admirably, and are easily underestimated.

we have a local Dark Angels player who typically has 20-25 sniper scouts, you get used to not bothering with 'critical' characters.

personally it needs limiting in some way, or characters need a decent further points drop.

main issue though being how some armies can be basically "all sniper" while others have zero access to them

leopard wrote:
we have a local Dark Angels player who typically has 20-25 sniper scouts, you get used to not bothering with 'critical' characters.

personally it needs limiting in some way, or characters need a decent further points drop.

main issue though being how some armies can be basically "all sniper" while others have zero access to them

I am only coming up with orks, tyranids and daemons as having no snipers... it seems they are more available than psykers to the general population.

So...meh?

I've been working on building up my IG command squads with sniper rifles. They're only 32pts for 4 dudes. T3 models but still hit on 3's rerolling 1's is nothing to sneeze at. Figure 3 or 4 units of those guys will mess with you...

I lost a smash captain to a 10 man scout squad - that sold me right there

the_scotsman wrote:

leopard wrote:
we have a local Dark Angels player who typically has 20-25 sniper scouts, you get used to not bothering with 'critical' characters.

personally it needs limiting in some way, or characters need a decent further points drop.

main issue though being how some armies can be basically "all sniper" while others have zero access to them

I am only coming up with orks, tyranids and daemons as having no snipers... it seems they are more available than psykers to the general population.

So...meh?

feth Orks I guess?

Grot Snipers need to be made along with a Grot codex.

E - on topic I hide those characters I can and take ablative wounds where I can. Or put characters on bikes for that sweet T5.

Much like far too much in 8th edition, volume is key.

1 squad even a couple of charictors without half a page of spacial rules won't be able to make an impact.

Now take 10-20 of them and your going to get results, go all in with 40-50 and your going to wipe charictors of the board no issue but get steamrolled by a number of other builds.

Well since the Titan Houses have access to Shield breaker missiles I seem to have to hide my Psykers inside my Wave Serpents till I take out the titan.

The turn I know I can do it I jump out and cast Doom or run and hide a wounded Autarch in a Transport.

The only character worth sniping in my Custodes force is T5 W5 2+/4++ and -1 to hit. If my opponent really wants him dead they can have at it, and by turn 2 when they finally kill him the units he’s buffing will be in combat anyway.

The best thing would be if you additionally have a way to get +1 to wound, then 5+ to wound will cause a mortal wound. Personally though I think that in general characters that really matter are too hard to kill (like Guilliman), and the ones you can reliably take out are redundant (like company commanders).

leopard wrote:
we have a local Dark Angels player who typically has 20-25 sniper scouts, you get used to not bothering with 'critical' characters.

personally it needs limiting in some way, or characters need a decent further points drop.

main issue though being how some armies can be basically "all sniper" while others have zero access to them

If they're bringing all snipers bring all tanks and laugh as you wipe them off the table. Snipers are fine, and if anything they're too weak. Perhaps you should try to build a functioning army instead of a CCG-style list of character buffs and stratagems?

Snipers outside the Vindicare are all bad. If you bothered to math it out, you'd see that Scouts aren't scary even with a bunch of rerolling.

the_scotsman wrote:

leopard wrote:
we have a local Dark Angels player who typically has 20-25 sniper scouts, you get used to not bothering with 'critical' characters.

personally it needs limiting in some way, or characters need a decent further points drop.

main issue though being how some armies can be basically "all sniper" while others have zero access to them

I am only coming up with orks, tyranids and daemons as having no snipers... it seems they are more available than psykers to the general population.

So...meh?

Orks don't have any.
Chaos doesn't have any, outside of Renegade and Heretics which suck.
Nids don't have any, but GSC do.

the_scotsman wrote:

I am only coming up with orks, tyranids and daemons as having no snipers... it seems they are more available than psykers to the general population.

So...meh?

How about Battle Sisters, with neither snipers nor psykers?

 MacPhail wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:

I am only coming up with orks, tyranids and daemons as having no snipers... it seems they are more available than psykers to the general population.

So...meh?

How about Battle Sisters, with neither snipers nor psykers?

#Imperium

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Snipers outside the Vindicare are all bad. If you bothered to math it out, you'd see that Scouts aren't scary even with a bunch of rerolling.

Rangers with TAs are pretty good imo.

GSC snipers take out psykers like champs and cause collateral damages all around.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Elimiinators are absurdly though for 24 points and 3 squads of 3 take out a char per turn.

Everytime I've fielded Necron Deathmarks they've done work. Deep strike, rapid fire, easy access to -1AP with Mephrit.

They can target characters and use weight of dice with their rapid fire guns to cause major problems.

The beauty of that is your opponent generally find she has to shift his target priority pronto to defend/avenge their warlord.

I don't think the dark elves have many snipers. Wracks but I think its one gun per unit.

Headlss wrote:
I don't think the dark elves have many snipers. Wracks but I think its one gun per unit.

True, but given the benefits that an alaitoc battalion brings to pretty much any Eldar army, that's not a huge problem.

I think that most of the snipers that use the basic sniper rifle are probably a bit weak, though rangers are an exception to this. But we're seeing an increasing number of specialist snipers like the GSC biker, Eliminators and the buffed Vindicare. Against the right opponent, these guys can cause some real problems to armies that rely on character and psychic buffs. You can hide characters of course, but doing so will often make things more difficult, especially with aura effects. Something like a herald needs to be near units that are attacking the enemy, and it's difficult to hide while doing that.

 greyknight12 wrote:

 MacPhail wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:

I am only coming up with orks, tyranids and daemons as having no snipers... it seems they are more available than psykers to the general population.

So...meh?

How about Battle Sisters, with neither snipers nor psykers?

#Imperium

Yeah, but no: I shouldn't have to go outside my faction for core mechanics like targeting characters or dealing mortal wounds. I'm counting on the next year's codex to remedy this.

That said, the new assassin package looks pretty worthwhile.

A space marine scout with a sniper rifle is exactly the same offensively as a ranger, for 1ppm more. The scouts get a much better deployment rule (AFAIK nobody deep strikes rangers with their heavy guns) +1T, +1Ld and ATSKNF, and the rangers get -1 to hit with shooting weapons.

They'd seem to be pretty much identical, except for the fact you can make scouts 3PPM cheaper just by taking them with boltguns. Which you would absolutely do with the rangers if you could, but they are locked into sniper rifles.

how does that 1ppm make rangers amazeballs and scouts terrible?

I believe when I did the math, in terms of damage for the points you spend, you see the following:

-Versus a model with 3+ or better invuln: Vindicare.

-Versus a T3 5++ target (most guard-level HQs): Ratlings. Ratlings do a solid 20% more damage than the vindicare againts any target they wound even on a 5+, that jumps to much more against T3. The vindy only wins vs 3++ or better invuln. Their downside is their durability.

-versus a power armored psyker: Vindicare. Vindicare actually does over twice as much damage per point against every psyker I can come up with than the sanctus, even with his perils rule. The only thing holding the sanctus up is his ability to shoot twice turn 1 and his safety being a character. He does solidly less damage than pre existing named sniper characters like telion and illic against psykers on any turn he doesn't get his free stratagem. The fact he has to successfully wound with his S4 AP-1 gun seems to be a bit of a killer for him.

-versus any non-infantry character: 5 man ranger squad with 2 TA's. Vindicare drops off against most non-infantry targets since he doesn't get his wound on 2s rule against them and most of them are T5 or better meaning he wounds on 4s.

Haven't really messed around with Eliminators much since I don't know their big boy points value (only PL).

Illic Nightspear is pretty much useless, his points in rangers do way more damage vs nearly anything.

Sgt Telion in order to match the damage per point vs power armored characters that the vindicare puts out needs to be actively buffing at least 7 marine scouts with sniper rifles, so you can pretty much say he's useless.

Both Troop Unit snipers (rangers and scouts) put out solidly less damage than most elite unit snipers.

The Harlequin death jester gets the award for biggest turd, putting up the worst damage per point of any character-targeting unit in the game that I can find vs almost everything.

Necron Deathmarks are an interesting one - they have an ability that allows them to theoretically shoot twice, and if you deep strike them within their rapid fire range they do solidly better damage per point vs everything that isn't a T3/T4 Infantry character with 3++ or better than the vindicare does. They are obviously much riskier though.

The other hilarious sniper unit I think needs to be considered is Mordian Plasma vets, because of course guard squads are one of the most points efficient snipers in the game, why not, they're the most points efficient everything fething else. At 12" range these guys do more damage per point than any sniper against non-infantry high-invuln targets (nobody beats the vindicare shooting into an Archon's 2++ save, of course)

 MacPhail wrote:

 greyknight12 wrote:

 MacPhail wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:

I am only coming up with orks, tyranids and daemons as having no snipers... it seems they are more available than psykers to the general population.

So...meh?

How about Battle Sisters, with neither snipers nor psykers?

#Imperium

Yeah, but no: I shouldn't have to go outside my faction for core mechanics like targeting characters or dealing mortal wounds. I'm counting on the next year's codex to remedy this.

That said, the new assassin package looks pretty worthwhile.

I’m not sure whether I agree here. I do like cohesive armies made from the same codex but at some point the factions have to be different – good at some things but not others. If every faction has snipers (or cavalry, big mecha LoWs or whatever else) then that would be quite boring.

That said, SoB snipers could be cool. I’m not saying they shouldn’t exist. But neither do I have the objection to using soup that some people do.

Mandragola wrote:
I’m not sure whether I agree here. I do like cohesive armies made from the same codex but at some point the factions have to be different – good at some things but not others.

That would require Sisters to be particularly good at something, however. I exaggerate, of course, they're not terrible-- people can win consistently with them depending on the local meta-- but they really lack substance right now.

the_scotsman wrote:

leopard wrote:
we have a local Dark Angels player who typically has 20-25 sniper scouts, you get used to not bothering with 'critical' characters.

personally it needs limiting in some way, or characters need a decent further points drop.

main issue though being how some armies can be basically "all sniper" while others have zero access to them

I am only coming up with orks, tyranids and daemons as having no snipers... it seems they are more available than psykers to the general population.

So...meh?

Chaos doesn't have snipers. And that's both Daemons and CSM.

Eldenfirefly wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:

leopard wrote:
we have a local Dark Angels player who typically has 20-25 sniper scouts, you get used to not bothering with 'critical' characters.

personally it needs limiting in some way, or characters need a decent further points drop.

main issue though being how some armies can be basically "all sniper" while others have zero access to them

I am only coming up with orks, tyranids and daemons as having no snipers... it seems they are more available than psykers to the general population.

So...meh?

Chaos doesn't have snipers. And that's both Daemons and CSM.

Chaos has Snipers, they are just stuck in one of the worst indexes.....

 kastelen wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Snipers outside the Vindicare are all bad. If you bothered to math it out, you'd see that Scouts aren't scary even with a bunch of rerolling.

Rangers with TAs are pretty good imo.

i consider them close to the new vindicaire, and 100% better than the other snipers in the game, for 65 pts theyre super cheap too

Eldenfirefly wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:

leopard wrote:
we have a local Dark Angels player who typically has 20-25 sniper scouts, you get used to not bothering with 'critical' characters.

personally it needs limiting in some way, or characters need a decent further points drop.

main issue though being how some armies can be basically "all sniper" while others have zero access to them

I am only coming up with orks, tyranids and daemons as having no snipers... it seems they are more available than psykers to the general population.

So...meh?

Chaos doesn't have snipers. And that's both Daemons and CSM.

I guess with my mixed Tsons/Daemons army I just nuke characters from orbit with psychic powers so often I didn't notice they don't have actual sniper shooting weapons.

At the moment I think I just despise the character targeting system for the same reason I disliked AP, or the "super heavy" designation in 7th - if it's an all-or-nothing system it creates this weird unnatural area where a character becomes WAY less durable...by gaining 1 wound.

"Character: If your opponent selects a model with the CHARACTER keyword to be the target of a shooting attack, he must roll 2d6. if he rolls equal to or lower than their Wounds stat, the character may be targeted. If the roll is higher than the model's Wounds stat, you may select another friendly unit within 6". Resolve the shooting of any models in the unit that attempted to target the character against the selected unit instead."

^I am not saying the above is by any means perfect, but it's an example at least of how easy it would be to make an alternative rule that scales smoothly, presents a tactical choice for both players, and gives a bit of risk/reward.

You can't just declare every lascannon you have on the board into your opponent's space marine captain unless you're OK with him directing your antitank weapons into his infantry. But you also can't just have guilliman standing completely invulnerable amid a sea of tanks.

It is nice to see snipers coming more into relevance since they have been so bad all of 8th. Even if some of them have had their impact a little bit...exaggerated (cough cough gsc sniper characters).

I am not sure how you nuke heroes from orbit like snipers using psychic. Smite spam? Smite targets nearest target and all the same rules protecting heroes within a big blob of chaff applies to psychics too. So as long as the hero has stuff in front of it, psychic powers can't target it either.

Sniper are a bit of a sore point for me because imperium gets vindicares and other snipers so easily. While I play chaos. Everytime I look across a sea of cheap infantry to that untargettable cheap company commander and the other imperium heroes which basically can't be targeted... Whereas if I am facing vindicare or a large enough number of snipers I have to be really careful about my heroes.

Eldenfirefly wrote:
I am not sure how you nuke heroes from orbit like snipers using psychic. Smite spam? Smite targets nearest target and all the same rules protecting heroes within a big blob of chaff applies to psychics too. So as long as the hero has stuff in front of it, psychic powers can't target it either.

This is wrong. Smite targets the nearest unit but not all psychic powers do. The protection for characters only applies to shooting - not psychic powers.