Musings on Snipers

I received a request after my last battle report asking me to elaborate on a statement I made. The statement was, "I am beginning to suspect that all snipers in any faction are just absolute garbage."

I am referring, obviously, to any unit that has the capability to ignore the character screening rule. So I'm talking Vindicares, Scouts, Eldar Rangers, etc. These units typically have Heavy weapons with a rule that is very close to "on a wound roll of 6+, the target suffers a mortal wound in addition to other damage." This right here is the trap, I think. Whenever we see something say it deals mortal wounds we picture our little sniper popping heads and executing HQs all over the place. It's a super appealing prospect! Taking out a force multiplier is a great strategy. The reason why it's a trap, though, is because those sniper units so rarely actually roll 6s, and even when they do it rarely changes anything.

Let's take Eldar Rangers, for instance. Let's say they're shooting a Primaris Lieutenant. Who wouldn't want to shoot a Primaris Lieutenant? The Rangers fire 5 shots and, assuming they didn't move, are getting ~3 hits. They are wounding the Lieutenant on 4s -- let's be generous and say they wounded twice. Then the Lieutenant makes two 3+ saves. Rough math tells me that on average the Lieutenant is going to take .5 wounds from being shot at by the Rangers, which he definitely won't give a shit about. With only 3 chances to make a 6+ to wound roll from that volley, the possibility of additional mortal wounds isn't even going to make me blink. Snipers may sound scary, but anyone who actually looks at their 0 AP weapons will see that they aren't going to make your average T4 character itch.

But all that is whatever. None of this is news, and these Troops snipers are usually pretty cheap. I think a Scout Squad with snipers is like 65 points. Generally you are taking these as your Troops choices for other reasons (forward deployment, ObSec, battalions), and the possibility to make an enemy HQ hurt is just a bonus. There's a reason we see Rangers in all the top Eldar lists.

It is my opinion that dedicated sniper characters are mostly trash, and should be judged harshly by anyone with discernible taste.

I love my Vindicare. She's unique and cool and adds a dramatic touch to my Grey Knights whenever she comes along.

She is always on her phone, though.

Theoretically, her big honking sniper rifle should threaten every Character on the board. If ever I see my opponent fielding a lot of juicy backfield HQs, I always bring her. I find her a nice perch, thank her for taking the time to be here today, and then wait for her to start popping skulls. But she almost never performs, and I am always disappointed. This is for a couple reasons, but the biggest of which is that her big honking sniper rifle only gets 5 shots per game (4 if I placed her in deep strike). Yes, there's a stratagem to make her shoot twice, but if I'm already spending 2 CP just to have her show up to work I am really not eager to pay more just so that she does her job right. The Grey Knights have a really hard time generating CP in the first place! I think I can count the number of characters she's killed on one finger. She damages people from time to time, yeah, but her actual bodycount is shockingly low.

All in all, she is a semi-expensive Elite choice that rarely ever makes her points back.

My buddy who plays Harlequins says a similar thing about his Death Jesters. They have some very cool ability that seem super intimidating! Leadership reducing, bonus mortal wounds when slaying a guy... If they start killing models in a unit, then that unit is probably fucked. The problem is he is paying 45 points for 1 shot per turn. And when that shot misses, or he fails a wound roll, or I make a 2+ save because my Grey Knights are in TDA and cover, it just feels bad. Death Jesters look so rad, but, oof. I don't think I've seen them ever do anything.

Such cool models.

I played against Raven Guard successors a couple weeks ago and my opponent fielded Eliminators. I was real scared of their horrendous bolt sniper rifles, but I actually can't remember if they killed anything. The squad had 2-3 shots per turn. The ace character-killers of his list were actually his Suppressors when they jumped in and slaughtered my GMNDK. The Eliminators were just kind of... there.

Now, I probably don't have the most accurate assessment of the quality of snipers because everything I run is wearing Terminator plate. That's fair. Most sniper shots just bounce off of my guys. But I rarely actually see snipers successfully sniping, even in games that I'm just observing. Thy look rad and they read really rad, but they are largely ineffectual. Even the dreaded Sanctus in the Genestealer Cults Codex has never really done much to my army which is made up entirely of psykers. One shot per round is really rough.

All that being said, snipers do have one extreme advantage, and that is controlling where your opponent places their characters. Even though my Vindicare never kills anything she still shifts games dramatically. I set her up in a spot that views most of the board and 90% of the time my opponent will then hide their precious characters behind buildings and rocks. She influences what my opponent does, which is super valuable by itself. She's closed off entire lanes of firing before because my enemies are afraid to place their commanders in a spot where I met get lucky and roll a 6+ to wound them.

It's possible that I am entirely off base here. I'm going to keep fielding my Vindicare because I think she is really cool, but I'm not expecting her to do much.

You know, the actual request was that I do some followup science behind my statement "all snipers in any faction are just absolute garbage." I think I will start monitoring her kills each match. See if she's making rent.