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So I was fooling around on Battlescribe seeing what variations I could make on the core list I've been coming up with and got a little cheeky with myself thinking spam Scouts. I've toyed with the idea of 10, and MAYBE Telion for a bit, but this time I went overboard. Or did I?

I've still got (most of) the roaming castle with G, Tiggy, Aggressors, Bladeguard, and Chapter Ancient/Apothecary in Primaris form with two speeders for distraction/flanking threats. But now instead of the Chaplain the scouting Troops and tanks I've got 30 Sniper Scouts, a Phobos Cap and LT, and 3 Las Fusil Eliminators. It's possible this could result in your (my) backfield being nearly empty except for the Guilliaman moving castle, the Captain, Sniper Scouts and Eliminators setting up deep field in a stationary castle, the Phobos LT airdropping in on Turn one because strangely neither Phobos LT can infiltrate, the Reiver can't DFA, but the Phobos one can. Whatever, that gets his bubble in line with the Phobos Cap, and all the sniper scouts on turn one in a rather silly dance. 30 shots 18 hit, 6 miss, 6 miss and reroll for another 4.5ish hits 22-23 hits, 3-4 mortal wounds, 11-12 fail to wound, 3-4 reroll to push it to over 4ish mortal wounds total. Everything in the Stationary Castle is Camo Cloaked except for maybe the Lieutenant whos Look Out Sir'ed from 4 different squads, 3 of them 10 model units.

Did Scouts just get nasty?

Breton wrote:
So I was fooling around on Battlescribe seeing what variations I could make on the core list I've been coming up with and got a little cheeky with myself thinking spam Scouts. I've toyed with the idea of 10, and MAYBE Telion for a bit, but this time I went overboard. Or did I?

I've still got (most of) the roaming castle with G, Tiggy, Aggressors, Bladeguard, and Chapter Ancient/Apothecary in Primaris form with two speeders for distraction/flanking threats. But now instead of the Chaplain the scouting Troops and tanks I've got 30 Sniper Scouts, a Phobos Cap and LT, and 3 Las Fusil Eliminators. It's possible this could result in your (my) backfield being nearly empty except for the Guilliaman moving castle, the Captain, Sniper Scouts and Eliminators setting up deep field in a stationary castle, the Phobos LT airdropping in on Turn one because strangely neither Phobos LT can infiltrate, the Reiver can't DFA, but the Phobos one can. Whatever, that gets his bubble in line with the Phobos Cap, and all the sniper scouts on turn one in a rather silly dance. 30 shots 18 hit, 6 miss, 6 miss and reroll for another 4.5ish hits 22-23 hits, 3-4 mortal wounds, 11-12 fail to wound, 3-4 reroll to push it to over 4ish mortal wounds total. Everything in the Stationary Castle is Camo Cloaked except for maybe the Lieutenant whos Look Out Sir'ed from 4 different squads, 3 of them 10 model units.

Did Scouts just get nasty?

isnt that a ton of points invested for a unit to kill like one enemy unit?

I think your own numbers probably show why this isn't great. Look at the number of units you've got all pulling together to do...4 mortal wounds and some actual wounds. The Scouts are fairly fragile and taking up valuable Elite slots too.

If you were Raven Guard this would maybe be viable with their buffs in Tactical doctrine, but it seems kind of weak otherwise. Notably, this is something that's been possible for a while and hasn't appeared in any good lists so it's safe to say it probably isn't good, no. With how much free wargear many SM units now get I'm pretty sure Scouts are not the new hotness you want to spam as a SM player.

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

Breton wrote:
So I was fooling around on Battlescribe seeing what variations I could make on the core list I've been coming up with and got a little cheeky with myself thinking spam Scouts. I've toyed with the idea of 10, and MAYBE Telion for a bit, but this time I went overboard. Or did I?

I've still got (most of) the roaming castle with G, Tiggy, Aggressors, Bladeguard, and Chapter Ancient/Apothecary in Primaris form with two speeders for distraction/flanking threats. But now instead of the Chaplain the scouting Troops and tanks I've got 30 Sniper Scouts, a Phobos Cap and LT, and 3 Las Fusil Eliminators. It's possible this could result in your (my) backfield being nearly empty except for the Guilliaman moving castle, the Captain, Sniper Scouts and Eliminators setting up deep field in a stationary castle, the Phobos LT airdropping in on Turn one because strangely neither Phobos LT can infiltrate, the Reiver can't DFA, but the Phobos one can. Whatever, that gets his bubble in line with the Phobos Cap, and all the sniper scouts on turn one in a rather silly dance. 30 shots 18 hit, 6 miss, 6 miss and reroll for another 4.5ish hits 22-23 hits, 3-4 mortal wounds, 11-12 fail to wound, 3-4 reroll to push it to over 4ish mortal wounds total. Everything in the Stationary Castle is Camo Cloaked except for maybe the Lieutenant whos Look Out Sir'ed from 4 different squads, 3 of them 10 model units.

Did Scouts just get nasty?

isnt that a ton of points invested for a unit to kill like one enemy unit?

To kill the one you want, and potentially 1 Per Turn. Its about 20% of the army. With AOO Dets giving you 4HQ's and 3 Elite (Character Slots) it's not hard to see a potential meta shift in that direction. Of course in an AOO boarding action game with the short corridors and walls and junk, it doesn't matter. But on a regular board, 4MW and ~ 2-3 regular wounds after armor saves will delete a lot of HQ's and Elite Characters over 5 turns.

I mean yeah, I think it's not worth it, but I think its also stronger than first impressions. I also think Chaos Marines don't get scouts, and Rangers cost a little more and are more tempting to use as infiltrating troops more than snipers- but could shift if the Meta does too. MV71 sniper drones are even more expensive, Nids don't have snipers, Orks don't have snipers, Knights don't have snipers. Again I don't think its strong enough, but it also isn't something you'll see enough of for the counter (BODYGUARD units) to start becoming auto-include either which could be a weird situation. How many bodyguard units are good enough to include on their own, and not for the Bodyguard rule? I'm lucky in that the Victrix Guard are nice on their own, plus the changes to how bodyguards work makes Honor Guard not so bad. Company Vets still have to pay for wargear so ironically the generic Bodyguard is bad. Like I said, I doubt it catches on, but I was just dinking around in Battlescribe and I realized how completely annoying that would be if it was played against me and all the Chapter Command stuff I like to layer in.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Slipspace wrote:
I think your own numbers probably show why this isn't great. Look at the number of units you've got all pulling together to do...4 mortal wounds and some actual wounds. The Scouts are fairly fragile and taking up valuable Elite slots too.

If you were Raven Guard this would maybe be viable with their buffs in Tactical doctrine, but it seems kind of weak otherwise. Notably, this is something that's been possible for a while and hasn't appeared in any good lists so it's safe to say it probably isn't good, no. With how much free wargear many SM units now get I'm pretty sure Scouts are not the new hotness you want to spam as a SM player.

Possible yes, but far far more expensive. The sniper rifles and camo cloaks are now free, scouts went down, the cap and lt went down. UM CT also feeds into it - in Tactical Doctrine, they can move and fire without penalty.

I'd take Scouts if they were in the Fast Attack slot. As is, no.

Breton 808494 11479436 wrote:

To kill the one you want, and potentially 1 Per Turn. Its about 20% of the army. With AOO Dets giving you 4HQ's and 3 Elite (Character Slots) it's not hard to see a potential meta shift in that direction. Of course in an AOO boarding action game with the short corridors and walls and junk, it doesn't matter. But on a regular board, 4MW and ~ 2-3 regular wounds after armor saves will delete a lot of HQ's and Elite Characters over 5 turns.

Two squads of devastators in a drop pod can do the same, and they blow up stuff like tanks, monsters, Knights etc. They can even tailored with one squad running around with MM and the other with grav weapons. Same with two 5 man squads of sternguard in a drop pod. And non of them require the investment in to characters or creating castles out of slow moving and low resilient marines, with lower then regular defensive stats.

If scouts had a rule that lets them deploy mid field no matter what other rules say about units not being able to do it, then maybe it would make some sense. But then the primaris units would get the rule too, and why take the scouts instead of them then?

Getting those scouts to see all the same target will be pretty difficult.

EviscerationPlague wrote:
I'd take Scouts if they were in the Fast Attack slot. As is, no.

The AOO det has pretty much removed any care about slots, but in a regular Det sure. I halfway expect Scouts to move back to Troops if the AOO Det is the way of the future. Of course since I only halfway expect the move, I also halfway expect GW to screw it up.

Breton wrote:
the Phobos LT airdropping in on Turn one

FYI: in normal games units can not arrive from reserve on turn 1, only on turn 2 or turn 3.

Aecus Decimus wrote:

Breton wrote:
the Phobos LT airdropping in on Turn one

FYI: in normal games units can not arrive from reserve on turn 1, only on turn 2 or turn 3.

Isn't that Strategic Reserves specific, or BRB Eternal War Missions. My GT 2021 rule book both dropped that part of the reprint, and didn't name their missions Eternal War.

Edit to add, or it wasn't reprinted, it was rewritten and swapped Eternal War for Grant Tournament Yadda Yadda. Well that makes the lack of a Deep Striking Captain, or an Infiltrating Lieutenant even dumber.

Breton wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:
I'd take Scouts if they were in the Fast Attack slot. As is, no.

The AOO det has pretty much removed any care about slots, but in a regular Det sure. I halfway expect Scouts to move back to Troops if the AOO Det is the way of the future. Of course since I only halfway expect the move, I also halfway expect GW to screw it up.

Well according to GW "rules writers", we're playing wrong if we fill out the troop slot with Scouts. Don't expect them to return to that slot.

Breton wrote:

Aecus Decimus wrote:

Breton wrote:
the Phobos LT airdropping in on Turn one

FYI: in normal games units can not arrive from reserve on turn 1, only on turn 2 or turn 3.

Isn't that Strategic Reserves specific, or BRB Eternal War Missions. My GT 2021 rule book both dropped that part of the reprint, and didn't name their missions Eternal War.

Edit to add, or it wasn't reprinted, it was rewritten and swapped Eternal War for Grant Tournament Yadda Yadda. Well that makes the lack of a Deep Striking Captain, or an Infiltrating Lieutenant even dumber.

It's in every matched play book. Section 10 (declare reserves and transports):

In War Zone Nephilim: Grand Tournament missions, Strategic Reserve and Reinforcement units can never arrive on the battlefield in the first battle round. Any Strategic Reserve or Reinforcement unit that has not arrived on the battlefield by the end of the third battle round counts as having been destroyed, as do any units embarked within them (this does not apply to units that are placed into Strategic Reserves after the first battle round has started).

Breton wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:
I'd take Scouts if they were in the Fast Attack slot. As is, no.

The AOO det has pretty much removed any care about slots

That's not necessarily true for Elites. Those slots can still be pretty tight for a lot of armies given how crowded those sections tend to be, doubly so if you're not taking any Elite characters to use the extra 3 slots provided for them. SM are one of the armies that are quite likely to get close to the Elite limit for a lot of different builds.

Devoting multiple HQ characters, and the lions share of elite slots, to maybe kill one enemy character a turn is really not a good call.

No, scouts did not just get nasty.

I've been using a scout heavy force as a labor of love during 9th. Their single wound is a hindrance. I've been tabled by Orkz the last 3 games I've played.

I was so excited when I saw the BT Neophytes. I want my scouts to see some love!

 Nightlord1987 wrote:
I've been using a scout heavy force as a labor of love during 9th. Their single wound is a hindrance. I've been tabled by Orkz the last 3 games I've played.

I was so excited when I saw the BT Neophytes. I want my scouts to see some love!

The single wound isn't a problem, the problem is they are in an already overly crowded slot, even for the lax army building restrictions that exist, and it's an expensive wound to boot.