Marine Snipers

If you read my recent battle report, you'll notice my use of marine snipers. I don't know. The juries still out.

I've noticed that GW has this habit of making a weapon that's almost okay. Hits always on a 2+ (cool). Wounds always on a 4+ (cool). Full armor save (nearly useless). The same is said of nearly every harlequin weapon available, ultimately making that army not worth playing. I don't know. I haven't seen the new Eldar codex so I dont' know if Harlequins are in it whether they've been improved or what, but as it stands now, you either take the target's toughness out of the equation or their armor out of the equation, but never both. Some weapons should have that capacity. Without such potential, harlequins kind of suck.

As for the marine sniper rifle, who exactly is it good against? Eldar Wraithlords? Tyranids? Anyone else. I mean, a bolter against most infantry grant a better to "wound roll" and have a better capacity to ignore armor saves. Plus you get two shots at close range. Like I said, the jury is still out.

Two things, I think, keep the marine sniper squad in the game. Well...three unofficially. The unooffical "third reason" is that I have about sixty space marine scouts and I want to play them as a "10th company army." With that many scouts, you kind of hope you can pull their cool force--the sniper rifle--out of the pit of uselessness.

The second reason not to immediately abandon the sniper rifle is its ability to kill low armor vehicles. It's alright at killing walkers, sentinals, and all manner of hover vehicles. I know what you're saying: "no it's not very good. It has to roll a 10 minimum on two dice." Well, yeah, but a whole squad with those weapons gives you a pretty good shot that someone will roll a 10 or higher.

This brings up the third advantage, and one that I keep forgetting. Scouts have inflitrate. The real trick then is to make a scout assault squad and send it forward, but there's another advantage to having infiltrate beyond being able to get as close to the enemy as possible. Infiltrate allows a squad like snipers to set up with a clear shot at whoever they're mission is to take out that battle. They don't have to get close, and they shouldn't; that's not the point. But you can set them so that they are perfectly positioned, after everyone has deployed, to have an open shot at the speeder or whatever.

I just wish they could insta-kill. That would make them loads better.