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I suggest that the roll to wound cant get worse than 4+. T2 would be 2+, T3 on a 3+, and T4 and higher 4+. And AP-1.

Edit : Sorry wrong forum, please move this to proposed rules.

No.

The point of sniper weapons is to allow for you to go after characters with no penalties, not to mulch through squads.
The AP isn't a factor since a Wound roll of 6(although it really should be 5+ rather than an actual roll of 6) causes a Mortal Wound plus the normal damage.

Characters are infantry, arent they ? Ok, not all, but most are, i think. A T5 DG character with 5+++ almost dies from laughter as the bullets from the 10 model sniper unit tickle him. He should be hiding from them in fear of getting his head blown off.

MW on 5+ is to strong. Some armies probably can stack +2 to wound, they would cause MW on a roll 3+.

Snipers would be more relevant and more interesting if they were single-model special weapons (the way a Vindicare Assassin is) rather than rifle squads of ten snipers. The image of a sergeant standing off to the side of a kneeling line and a standing line of infantry with scoped sniper rifles shouting "On my order, ready....FIRE!" is just kind of silly.

I think sniper weapons should be across the board at a minimum

Str 4 AP -2 MW on a 6.

A squad of snipers mulching through infantry is fine. Snipers guns are reflected in the price of snipers (or at least should be).

I agree sniper rifles need help and also need to be more special and unique. I am also not a fan of Mortal Wounds (and Invuln saves they are designed to counter) but it is what we have.
I would like to see sniper rifles taken from full sized squads and reduced to one per like other special weapons (the sniper team with a covering squad of infantry is absolutely common).
So my take on snipers (playability factored with more believably I guess):
Limit one per squad (or make them their own squad of 1-2 models only one has a sniper rifle)
Sniper rifle: Range 36" S4 AP-2 D: d3, this weapon causes a mortal wound on a wound roll of 6, in addition to the normal damage. (I do think this should be higher, but as others pointed out, there are too many buffs to the wound roll. Sadly this means armies without these buffs have crappy snipers.. Can't change the whole game.)
This more reflects the head shot/find a joint in armor roll of a sniper to me.

Of course, we all know that 40k has the worst snipers in history.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
Snipers would be more relevant and more interesting if they were single-model special weapons (the way a Vindicare Assassin is) rather than rifle squads of ten snipers. The image of a sergeant standing off to the side of a kneeling line and a standing line of infantry with scoped sniper rifles shouting "On my order, ready....FIRE!" is just kind of silly.

I mostly agree with this. There's nothing really wrong with the various non-character sniper units in the game. They all tend to fill niches pretty well. But they're more like rifleman squads than long-ranged assassins. Having 10 guys all plinking away at a single enemy character and failing to drop him is almost comical minion material. Any other media that wants to portray snipers as cool makes them either a single person or a small team (usually 2 people).

Something like edwardmyst's suggestion would probably work pretty well. Just have the character version of the sniper (team) as its own dataslate, and give their sniper a profile or special rule that actually threatens characters. A while back, I suggested something similar using eldar rangers as an example. I think I pitched something like...

* A troop character with a ranger's statline
* A sniper rifle that did d3 damage and had AP-1 or something.
* A special rule that said you could forego shooting for 1 turn to instead "aim." In your following shooting phase, you could add +2 to to-hit rolls and +3 to damage rolls against characters.

I may be misremembering that, but the idea was to let them remain viable troop choices without making them amazing non-character killers while also making them a meaningful threat to characters. They're relatively fragile (being only a isngle wound), and they have to telegraph their offense for a turn in order to have a chance at one-shotting any character with more than 3 wounds.

TLDR; the "rifleman" snipers we have are fine, but they don't feel like snipers.

All your ideas dont help against infantry characters with T5+, you would still only wound them on 5+. 10 snipers from any faction should be a real threat to a T5 infantry character.

I do not like that they are strength 4 to be honest, I feel a sniper rifle should fire a high calibre shot. They could do something like "Always wounds on a 4+. On a 6+ you inflict a mortal wound, including a standard wound"

Edit: Just reread what you put and you basically said the same thing. I think hitting with a sniper is more important that the wound roll also, maybe add something to a bonus on hit.

Always wounding on a 4+ is part of the reason they weren't good last edition.

I'd be totally ok with snipers going to the following

Wound Infantry on 3+, AP -1, d3 damage.

I'm completely in favor of removing mortal wounds from the game wherever possible.

 iGuy91 wrote:
I'd be totally ok with snipers going to the following

Wound Infantry on 3+, AP -1, d3 damage.

I'm completely in favor of removing mortal wounds from the game wherever possible.

I agree there's a lot of Mortal Wounds going on now, which is obnoxious.

Tbf sniper rifles could Auto wound on a hit roll of 5+. Well the basic one.
Secondly implement sniper pinning for any squad with sniperrifles that shoots at infantery said target squad loses 1 M and lowers it 's bs by one.

Still would not particulary damage squads but could be very usefull Tool for surpression.

I would give them a rule which:

1: Lets them wound infantry on a 4+
2: makes then S4 AP-2 (it's armour piercing rounds, after all)
3: on a "to hit" roll of a 6+, the profile is doubled (S8, AP-4) with D3 damage against non-vehicles only. This represents the headshot, without using mortal wounds.
4: Only gives these benefits when targeting models over 12" away. Give -1 to hit when targeting models within 12".

The last one is crucial for balance. if someone is running at you screaming, a sniper rifle is only helpful when they are some way off.

the extra damage with the powerful shot is to make it scarier for FnP models. It has to be for non-vehicles, because a team of snipers shouldn't be taking out a battle tank. it's not their job.

This can easily be presented with 2 profiles for the weapon (like missile launchers have):

Sniper rifle
Long Range 12-36", heavy 1, S4, AP-2, D1, sniper (the doubling rules)
Short range 12", heavy 1, S4, AP-2, -1 to hit

I would also like for them to be able to target characters even if they aren't the closest unit, but that might be too much.

For me, a simple fix that doesn't require a redesign of each Faction's sniper rifle profile would be ideal.
Let each faction have their own unique snipers.

But the current standard that they all share (can target Characters and MWs on 6s) is fine.
I might remove the "in addition to the other damage" part, though. A 6 to wound shouldn't be doing BOTH a MW and a regular wound, just the MW.

But what I'd like to see is Sniper units getting +1BS with their Snipers and bring back "Precision Shots"
Snipers may not be meant to "mulch" infantry, but they should be able to pick out important members of a unit.
Precision Shots: "If units with this rule roll any unmodified 6s to hit with their sniper rifles, those hits can be allocated to a model of your choice, rather than your opponent's. If the target unit already has a wounded model, however, that model must still be allocated to first"

That simple rule alone would greatly improve the viability of Snipers. You can either shoot at characters, fishing for MWs, or target units with special/heavy weapon models to remove that threat

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I agree with Galef - I’d rather that the Sniper can choose the model to wound on a To Hit roll of natural 6 (so it can take out characters or special weapons) and deals a Mortal Wound on a To Wound roll of natural 6.

 Stormonu wrote:
I agree with Galef - I’d rather that the Sniper can choose the model to wound on a To Hit roll of natural 6 (so it can take out characters or special weapons) and deals a Mortal Wound on a To Wound roll of natural 6.

Yeah, short and simple.
Perfectly represents a Snipers ability to pick out a specific target and hit just the right vulnerable spot.

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The point of a sniper should be to take out key people and to pin down armies. the later doesn't really function in 40k.

id say snipers need to influence moral way more. but the moral system really does nothing outside of a very few number of cases.

if anything 40k sniper squads are more akin to marksman vs actual snipers which i think is mostly fine.

The thing is that what the game calls "Sniper Rifles" aren't actually Sniper Rifles. They're Designated Marksman Rifles, which are precision squad support weapons meant to give accurate fire at longer ranges than the battle rifle or assault rifle of the basic soldier.

The only real Sniper Rifle in the game is the Vindicare assassin. Sniper Rifles are for the elimination of high value targets from EXTREME ranges. The Vindicare's rifle does also have some Anti-material Rifle crossover too. A real Sniper Rifle as mentioned doesn't really apply to 40k. Except maybe as a single model with a very very long ranged weapon which can always target characters or specific models in units.

Note this is the way NATO countries define snipers vs DMRs. Snipers in former Soviet Bloc countries are more similar to DMRs in that they are a support weapon team/soldier embedded in a unit. NATO Snipers are 2 man teams of intelligence operatives who operate behind enemy lines and eliminate high value targets, and only rarely provide some fire support to troops. The latter is how we tend to think of Snipers, but the game is using them like DMRs.

Make Vindicares a flat D2 or D3. Bam, done.

 Grey Templar wrote:
The thing is that what the game calls "Sniper Rifles" aren't actually Sniper Rifles. They're Designated Marksman Rifles, which are precision squad support weapons meant to give accurate fire at longer ranges than the battle rifle or assault rifle of the basic soldier.

The only real Sniper Rifle in the game is the Vindicare assassin. Sniper Rifles are for the elimination of high value targets from EXTREME ranges. The Vindicare's rifle does also have some Anti-material Rifle crossover too. A real Sniper Rifle as mentioned doesn't really apply to 40k. Except maybe as a single model with a very very long ranged weapon which can always target characters or specific models in units.

Note this is the way NATO countries define snipers vs DMRs. Snipers in former Soviet Bloc countries are more similar to DMRs in that they are a support weapon team/soldier embedded in a unit. NATO Snipers are 2 man teams of intelligence operatives who operate behind enemy lines and eliminate high value targets, and only rarely provide some fire support to troops. The latter is how we tend to think of Snipers, but the game is using them like DMRs.

The original military term "sniper" is indeed how you describe... But colloquially a "sniper" is used to refer to any marksman wielding a precision weapon. The colloquial form is even starting to creep into military parlance.

There are many different snipers so I don't agree they should all get some universal statline.


I will agree that they are mostly too weak atm.
Mabey just add on something like this:

Sniper: May target models and characters even if they are not the closest available target. On a wound roll of a 6+ they cause an additional mortal wound to the targeted model or unit. If a model using a Sniper weapon spends a turn aiming, the following turn they automatically hit and deal an additional mortal wound to the target model or unit.

I agree that extreme range is what a sniper should be about. I don't think the gun deserves to be more deadly than, for example, boltguns that are within their effective range. It's a little silly that it takes so many snipers to gun down a character, but it's equally silly that the character can shrug off so many lasgun blasts, too. That's just the way the game works.

What if in Sniper Rifles had Str: X (whatever each one currently is) AP: -2 D: 1 dealing a MW on a 6+ against units. Dealing 1 MW Characters on a 5, and dealing 2MW on a 6+ against any unit with more than 10 wounds.qqq The firing unit must fire all Sniper Rifles against the same unit for the following effect. Against Infantry units, if more than half the shots hit, the enemy unit is "Suppressed", result in a -1 to hit during their next turn, and cannot charge that turn. I think this might make them more viable. Any thoughts?

Sniper Rifle: A weapon with this keyword always hits on a 2+ if the model firing the weapon did not move in the preceding movement phase. In addition, this weapon will always wound on a 4+ unless it would normally require a lower roll. A roll to wound of 6+ causes a mortal wound in addition to a normal wound. Weapons with this keyword can target characters even if they are not the closest enemy unit.

This allows Sniper Rifles with higher strength stats to retain advantages over those with lower strength stats.

The other thing is not to be better against sqauds in terms of wounds but to also cause a Break test if they suffer a casulty - thats more how Snipers work

 Mr Morden wrote:
The other thing is not to be better against sqauds in terms of wounds but to also cause a Break test if they suffer a casulty - thats more how Snipers work

Yeah, bring back Pinning!

 p5freak wrote:
Characters are infantry, arent they ? Ok, not all, but most are, i think. A T5 DG character with 5+++ almost dies from laughter as the bullets from the 10 model sniper unit tickle him. He should be hiding from them in fear of getting his head blown off.

MW on 5+ is to strong. Some armies probably can stack +2 to wound, they would cause MW on a roll 3+.

If modifiers are problem why not just make it unmodified 5+ counts? It's not like natural X is unknown concept in 8th ed

Why not keep as is, but the sniper rule allows the sniping player to pick model removal? Like earlier additions.
Fits the theme of the sniper picking their targets. It would also make the sniper rifle more relevant to the game.

Poly Ranger wrote:
Why not keep as is, but the sniper rule allows the sniping player to pick model removal? Like earlier additions.
Fits the theme of the sniper picking their targets. It would also make the sniper rifle more relevant to the game.

Does it though? Most units are compossed of non unique models with equivalent wargear. One dying is much like any other. Snipers need to be able to target characters regardless of what units are around/inbetween them. And the increase in over all health of characters means snipers need the damage to compensate.