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Two things I've noticed: sniper rifles are hardly worth the points; and there used to be a flavorful but irritating rule called overwatch.

So here's the new idea.

Overwatch rule - Any unit containing models armed with sniper rifles may be placed on overwatch during their turn. The unit may not move, shoot, charge, or fight in an assault that turn. They must pick an enemy unit in line of sight and range of their sniper rifles. During the enemy player's turn, if the target unit attempts to move, shoot, or assault, the overwatch unit will fire all their weapons first. After casualties are removed, the target unit tests for pinning with a -1 Ld modifier for each model killed by overwatch fire.

Hmm, sounds good, and in many ways, thats what USMC snipers do alot today, they will watch over something or someone, and if a violent move is done, they get blasted by the snipers. BUT, one thing though...in the game, are you going to have to declare who you are putting overwatch on, cause lets say there are enemy troops 12" away from an overwatching unit who is ranging in on them...they know you are watching them...so basically they will either A) totally ignore your snipers, which again will prove to be a waste of points, or B) flank around yoursnipers and give them a 2 from fire fight...

The *last* thing 40k needs is Overwatch to bring it back to boring static "don't move" play.

And Snipers are fine for their points - provided you aren't taking them against Sv3+ opponents.

JohnHwangDD wrote:The *last* thing 40k needs is Overwatch to bring it back to boring static "don't move" play.

And Snipers are fine for their points - provided you aren't taking them against Sv3+ opponents.

Wait...there are armies without 3+ saves? I had no idea.

So rather than just shooting them in your shooting phase you wait till they move during their movement phase? That doesn't really do anything for you other than your opponent can just not do anything with his models and you've wasted a perfectly good firing opportunity.

JohnHwangDD wrote:The *last* thing 40k needs is Overwatch to bring it back to boring static "don't move" play.

And Snipers are fine for their points - provided you aren't taking them against Sv3+ opponents.

JohnHwangDD agrees that snipers are worthless in 95% of games and 100% of tournament environments. Cool.

Personally, I prefer the more strategic and careful play that overwatch provides for rather than two armies mindless charging across the field while the players yell out "Waagh". I really don't think forcing players to think slightly will kill the game. I found the Rhino Rush style play of armies charging across the field and entering close combat at the top half of turn one far more boring than static but intense short range firefights.

Play Necromunda sometime. You still need to maneuver and move, but overwatch provides for tension and excitement and a calculation of risks rather than the enemy just looking at you slack-jawed as you cross the entire board and whack him with a pointy stick.

That said, I think they just need an AP value to make them worthwhile. Re-introducing overwatch would be too much of a special rule just for one weapon. The simplest option would be to just give Sniper Rifles 'Rending' - on a roll of 6 to hit it's AP1 and auto-wounds. That would give them a role against MEQs but wouldn't make them a total no-brainer.

Sux to be you if 95% of your pick-ups and 100% of your tournaments are MEQ.

Overwatch isn't strategic at all. It's turgid and leaden. It removes the strategic movement from cover to cover to avoid sniper fire by always allowing the sniper to shoot. Mindless shooting.

Sniper vs Waagh means the Sniper shoots every turn. Seems fair to me.

Sniper vs AP / effect on a 6? That's an Eldar rule.

36" BS5 Rending guns on basic infantry? Yeah, that's a good idea... If this happens, that's the death of the Tactical squad in Space Marine armies - all you'd see would be SM armies of 60 Scouts.

If you really think Snipers are overpriced, cut the price, but I'm not convinced that anything here needs repricing.

If you think Snipers really need a bonus, Rending isn't the answer. Snipers can cause Pinning checks, and automatically "Torrent of Fire". That would be plenty enough Tactical bonus.

But mindless Rending? No.

I have to agree that rending on sniper rifles would get out of hand quick and place Tactical Squads in back seat. However, giving Space Marine snipers the "Roll a 6 for AP 1" rule that Eldar have might not be so bad. In a squad of 10 that's only one enemy that's going to take it to the face with no save. The leadership modifier for pinning doesn't seem to mean much anymore with so many fearless or Ld 10 armies out there, but it would also suck if getting hit by sniper rifles meant an auto-pin or close to.

As for it being boring when two armies sit back and lob shots at each other this could be debated until the end of time. However, it does seem ridiculous that there are races with the ability to harness plasma into a rifle and yet still feel the need to charge across a battle field to shank their opponent with a butter knife and stapler. I wouldn't mind seeing more fire fights in 40k as opposed to MEQs slapping power weapons on everything because it's easier to kill the opponent. Overwatch or some equivalent would certainly help reduce this, but there is always a balance issue. Some armies are made almost purely for H2H while some armies are made with standing back and shooting heavily in mind. Overwatch could put some armies at a serious disadvantage without the ability to completely addapt.

So I was thinking more about this thread and possible changes to sniper rifles. Here's and idea. What if Snipers used a hidden deployment similar to Lictors. At any point during the game you can unveil the snipers and take one free shot (each model with a sniper rifle) at an enemy unit you deem is within range. This can even be during your opponent's turn. If however your target is out of range then you fail to hit anything and your unit is reveled. Obviously you would have to set up in some sort of terrain and things like an Auspex could have a chance to find you, but I think it would be an interesting choice. Any comments?

I'd prefer to handle Hidden Deployment as Deep Strike.

JohnHwangDD wrote:I'd prefer to handle Hidden Deployment as Deep Strike.

That would work as long as they didn't scatter.

Hiding close to the enemy is more risky.

So you mean when you reveal the unit to make their opening shot they have to roll a scatter first? Or you pick a piece of terrain for them and roll a scatter before the game starts?

Overwatch was, by far, the worst thing about second edition. Every first turn was basically the same. All my hand to hand units move up and hide. Everything else in my entire army goes into overwatch…your turn. The second player then could either move and get shot, shoot and get shot, or do nothing and get shot. Not exactly a lot of choice. It completely eliminated tactical movement since if you tried to move from cover to cover (with the 4” basic movement of most units) you could just get shot by everything that was on over watch. Keep in mind also, this is in the days where transports were rolling death traps and most heavy weapons had a 72” range.

Even if it were applied to this edition’s shorter ranges and increased movement, it would more or less eliminate the ability to hide anything and still move it. Shooty armies would be the only possible option because it would be impossible to ever get hand to hand troops to the enemy lines. While that may be the game you are looking for, it seems kind of bland to me. I want the game to include and encourage tactical movement. I want to see hand to hand units be just as viable as shooty units. I want to see tanks be just as viable as infantry.

As far as sniper rifles go, the base problem everyone seems to have with them is that they don’t do enough damage. I tend to agree. However, putting in weird movement/deployment rules for units with sniper rifles is not going to make them do more damage. I think, in general, all that’s really needed is a point decrease on them. Sure they may not live up to what people want them to be, but at least they become a more viable option. Rending is a bad idea in any non-hand to hand application. I really wish they would stop trying to give it to ranged weapons. This is no exception. I don’t want to see 10 space marine scouts with sniper rifles that rend. Just think about what they would do to tanks…if either die came up as a 6, another d6 would be rolled. That just seems like too much.

So in the end, the simple fix is to just make them cheaper. The not so simple fix would be to rework all the various armies so that leadership 10, fearless, and leadership rerolls were much rarer. If that happened, taking a pin check would actually be something people would work on avoiding and thus make snipers more useful.

You could give snipers the Divine Guidance rule from Sisters of Battle, that when they roll a 6 to wound it is AP1. Not to hit, just to wound. That would make them a bit more exciting to use.

Yeah, I guess this idea really only works in a game with more motion. If there was no IGOUGO (for instance, alternating phases of movement, then shooting, then assault) it would maybe work better.

But nothing can convince me that sniper rifles, or storm bolters for that matter, are worth five points.

Asmodai wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:Play Necromunda sometime. You still need to maneuver and move, but overwatch provides for tension and excitement and a calculation of risks rather than the enemy just looking at you slack-jawed as you cross the entire board and whack him with a pointy stick.

Except that has nothing to do with Overwatch, but is instead due to the higher density of terrain and fact you only have around 8 T3 models with bugger all armour. Lacking vehicles you can scream up the field and charge out of and power armour helps to.


The rules for sniper rifles are pretty reasonable as they are. They shouldn't be weapons of ultra-death, and they should be overshadowed by the superior rifles of the Eldar. They're a few points overpriced, and if they pulled them back to +1 or +2 points they'd be worth the investment.

I agree wiith most of the above.

overwatch!
although overwatch seems practical and life like, it was boring.
also you had problems wherein the player knows what is hiding from snippers behind a building, and declines to shot at something in LOS and wait for the hidden unit to present itself later...
Lets leave that in space hulk where it belongs!

snipers
rending is a eldar perk
pinning is lame as is

I think that if they added a modifier to the pinning Ld test it would make them work better.
I hate that fearless can stride through sniper fire, the pinning should apply to every one! no one should be so happy with their 66% effective armour to stay in the open after a commrad gets hit in the neck or eyeball and dies!

the modifier could be based on how many shots hit
example
if a squad of 5 scouts fires at a squade of Ld10 fearless MEQ
it makes 3 hits and cause one casualty
the MEQ take a pinning test on 2D6 +3
it'll be pinned on a 8+

Maybe fearless gets a reroll...
that doesn't seem to bad to me?

Panic...

I think the big problem with sniper rifles is that the mechanics are backwards. A sniper rifle in 40k is easy to hit with but not terribly easy to wound with, which is the opposite of real world sniper rifles. A real world sniper rifle takes a great deal of skill to hit with but generally slay their target outright (.50 caliber rounds are nasty). I think sniper rifles should hit on BS and wound on 3+ (because 2+ might be a little absurd) and perhaps have a base AP value of 3 or 4 (most likely 4 as ignoring power armor would be quite powerful).

I have a novel idea here. Snipers should randomly generate their AP value, on an individual basis per gun after wounds. You'd need a different rule to represent the superiority of the Eldar rifles, but this could represent the way that the damage done by the rifles depends entirely on where you hit.

ihockert:
Hard to hit with a sniper rifle?

Im not sure what we are talking about here, the way I see a sniper rifle is a very accurate rifle with a good scope.

Well being a hunter I have a .30-06 rifle with a decent scope, fairly often when I go to target practice friends of mine tag along and try a few shots, many of thise being completely untrained people who have never fired a gun before coming with me.

In anycase, most of thise novices do very well against stationary objects and even after just a few shots can hit within the killing area of a moving target well above 50% of the time.

The big scare of my gun is the noise and the recoil so the people who find it most difficult are slender girls but still after just a few shots they will land hits more than misses once they know how to hold the gun and get over the initial fear... and this is unbraced.

Thus in my opinion no weapon is easier to hit with than a sniper rifle, a pistol for example is by far more difficult.

As for killing power... well I agree a .50 will stop just about anything in its tracks.

Now looking at the game, 2+ to hit, sounds good to me, always wound on 4+, well I agree that this is rather weak as compared to reality but then... and finally AP6 wut?? Ok this I agree is odd Personally I liked the old rules of the sniper having AP1 if a natural 6 was rolled to hit but for the purpouses of 4th edition and vehicles I supose it is better to make that AP2.

Now looking at the game, 2+ to hit, sounds good to me, always wound on 4+, well I agree that this is rather weak as compared to reality but then... and finally AP6 wut?? Ok this I agree is odd Personally I liked the old rules of the sniper having AP1 if a natural 6 was rolled to hit but for the purpouses of 4th edition and vehicles I supose it is better to make that AP2.

While that may be real, it's over the top for the game. 10 space marine scouts, 10 sniper rifles. If you work out the math on it, that's 4.1 dead targets a turn, regardless of what they are. Sounds way over powered for it's current cost and avilibility.

All I really changed was proposed to bring back sniper rifles old armour pen rule. Yes it would change the power of the weapon and tusly the points value would have to be changed but that is a given.