Space Marine Scouts

[unregistered]

I'm a little bit worried about the effectiveness of these guys.:puppy:
There weapons are costy but not very effective.
Shotguns are cheaper but don't always knock back
Sniper Rifle can one shot light infantry but is not very effective against medium infantry(not saying it should be one shot one kill). I often don't see the use of these guys other than capping.
My suggestion is giving them specialized ammo like in campaign but different dmg.
Shotguns would get armor piercing round which would be in a smaller area but more knock back, less dmg. Great against light infantry, decent versus medium infantry & commanders, some AV dmg and lttle to none vs heavy infantry.
Snipers would get high powered shot. Insta kill vs light inf,
Heavy dmg vs medium infantry,Medium dmg vs commanders, Little to none vs vehicles and heavy infantry.
This would make them somewhat feared by other races but still vulnerable :cylon:

plz report any IMBA in this post:reporter:

[PzyCow]

In my opinion they are fine as they are, giving them special ammo would just make em crazy OP when massed, especially the snipers.
Shotguns are fine as they are, they do decent damage to low armored units, and knockbacks bigger targets like ASM.

[Ellye]

I find scouts to be a good unit overall. If I had to change anything about them it would be to up their bolters damage a little bit - they are way too weak without upgrades.

But, in my experience so far, the Shotgun and the Sniper Rifle are both very good and useful weapons as they are.

[Aokin]

oh..Space Marine Snipers can be effective, devastatingly so. Consider how an Eldar army is forced to respond if the battle goes in that direction. The first Sniper units costs 150/20 or so ? Early infiltration is great as well, Eldar simply cannot spot unless they purchase Rangers or chance a Webway. Both have their general uses but the costs and counters are still mostly in favour of the Space Marine army.

[Buguba]

There weapons are costy but not very effective.
Shotguns are cheaper but don't always knock back
Sniper Rifle can one shot light infantry but is not very effective against medium infantry(not saying it should be one shot one kill). I often don't see the use of these guys other than capping.

That's not true at all. Shotguns are super cheap (40 req and 20 power i believe) and allow scouts to infiltrate. Shotguns are amazing at pinning/knocking down enemy commanders, and they give scouts enough kick to take on other T1 units (like Guardians, Gaunts, sluggas, etc.). The infiltration ability is worth its weight in gold too, it allows scouts to flank weapons teams with ease and it increases their survivability as well. Scouts in infiltration mode will take less ranged damage.

The Sniper rifle is awesome for its job too. It's a lot more pricey (150 req and 35 power), but it has long range and pretty good damage. The damage is decieving though, because damage is usually spread out amongst the squad rather than killing members outright. However, if you're smart about positioning your snipers, they can put out damage similar to that of a plasma tac squad.

Scouts are dirt cheap as a squad too. They are more expensive per member in comparison to other capping squads, but the total squad cost is the cheapest in the game (210 req). They're great for capping in T1, and they make good support units with upgrades. I always have room for shotgun scouts in my army. They're practically essential.

[NewZeta]

the only thing I'd see in scouts is cheaper sniper rifle. like 100/30 would be a good cost.
Seriously, it's almost similar cost as power fist...

[Sin Fang Bous]

Infiltrate + Shotgun can tie up any platform of HWT long enough for the cavalry to arrive.

Poor SMs have ONE squishy squad to look after... Scouts are fine.

[hellic]

Cheaper sniper rifle? As if sniper spam doesn't rile people up already?

[KirilliusTown]

Scouts are one of the best t1 units... Cheap, fairly fast, and super flexible. They can close, medium, or very long range and evendo well a little bit of melee if used right. I've killed a vanilla tsm squad with a vanilla scout squad utilizing cover and micro... no bullshit! Gained them a level... and yes he was a noob, sitting in the open, but still!

[Gunbuster]

Scouts are fine as they are, making them cheaper or more powerful would make them imba and thus SM tactics would resume in scouts spam fest, so don't try to fix things that ain't broken.

[FooF]

Scouts are like many units in DoW2: you have to invest in them in order to make them worth anything.

There are few units out-of-the-box that are worth their up-front cost. Most of them that are are highly specialized and don't have a lot of upgrades (think HWT). Most of the general infantry are either super-cheap (gaunts/rippers, sluggas/shootas) or cheap with the possibility of some nice upgrades later (guardians, scouts). On their own, they aren't impressive but they can be with a little TLC.

Even Tacs, ranged and melee powerhouses in T1, are dubiously worth their cost. Most people get them for the inevitable heavy weapon and Sgt, not their bolters and HP. The Tier 1.5 units (ASM, Banshees, Rangers, Warriors, Stikkbommas, Storm Boyz) can also be dubbed "over priced" because they sometimes don't fulfill their role very well in T1. They mature in T2.

Scouts are no different. They're weak early and in most cases, have to run from both ranged and melee threats. With a single upgrade, however, they become AoE disruptors and stealthy cappers. To be honest, paying 250/20 for a unit that can decimate swarm squads and give your Tacs/ASM/Commander a huge advantage isn't that bad. In T2, the Sgt gives them a pretty powerful grenade and detection (in addition to a little more meat and firepower). Scouts just have to mature, like Guardians or Banshees or Warriors. Upgrades is what makes them. If you don't upgrade them, they're not much more than ninja-cappers and repairers. You pay for what you get.

[JaxGaret]

Scouts are fairly fast

Tied with Exarched Banshees for fastest non-Nid infantry in the game.

[Troubleshooter]

I'm a little bit worried about the effectiveness of these guys.
There weapons are costy but not very effective.And this is where you lost me.

Scouts are more dangerous than tacs most of the time... I easily get more mileage out of 2 scout snipers than I do out of a tac squad... they are really, really deadly. In my experience, in a SM mirror match, the guy who uses his scouts to the greatest effect wins the match most of the time. If I can infiltrate snipers and keep tabs on your movements, I can easily avoid traps and pick off stragglers. And all it takes to put ASM over the top vs. a Tac squad is a single sniper shot... that will start the cascade effect where the tac squad takes a casualty and starts to take damage at a far faster rate than it dishes it out... leading to a route.

What people fail to realise is that you don't have to kill a unit to sufficiently weaken it to the point of failure under stress. Here is where the scout evens up the odds!

Shotties are crowd control... put 2 scout squads in front of a tac/def squad and "sweep" units back for just an extra second or two and you will get massive improvements in performance from your units... retreat before they become entangled and your core units will still be fresh for the fight while the enemy will be severely degraded.

Scouts are very good as they are now. My only complaint is that the squad leader is a bit expensive on power, which makes early tier 2 trade-offs about Razorbacks or Detectors/Nades. Its a fair trade to have to make, but if you fail to defend your energy production well enough in tier 1 you may find that you only get one chance to make that decision... so I'd like to see the squad leaders cost come down to 20 energy, and if nades cost 5 energy more as an add-on, so be it.

[Aokin]

is that so JaxGaret, I guess that explains my futile attempts to chase multiple Scout squads :)

I am really not sure how to best counter them as Eldar, experience has taught me that a Ranger unit must be obtained and yet the differences between the armies' counterparts is generally in favour of the Space Marine side.

[Troubleshooter]

Rangers will be picked apart by scout snipers. But if you time it right, you can turn the tables on the snipers and get the upper hand. As always, its going to take coordinated effort to pull it off, unless you are spamming rangers and can actually compete with snipers for the field. Hmm....

[Sin Fang Bous]

Rangers are trash compared to Scouts. Trash.

[unregistered]

Nah uh!
Rangers for a single upgrade get new abbilities but by default they are given the ability to suppress. They can infiltrate and make others infiltrate. They can also detect stealth units.

[Kratos]

They are "okay". Probably the most fragile unit in the game though.

[notastatwhore]

They are "okay". Probably the most fragile unit in the game though.

one scout nade will gibb rangers. Even with pathfinder gear.

[Frigidair44]

As an Ork player, during patch 1.13, the only time I lost to scouts was due to a rush to scouts with shotguns with a FC leading the charge to a rush to scouts with sniper riffles.

It was quite effective at killing the boyz, though I imagine hella expensive. I lost the match.

With the *cough cough* Space Marines not getting as much req as they are used to, its a different game and scouts are very micro intensive and support only. They can be deadly... but the boys don't have much trouble putting them down.

My 2 cents? They can be very annoying. Especially in the late 100 v 100 tickets left capping game since they move so damn fast. But their killing power can chalked up to how well the player micro's them.

[Vertrucio]

Scouts with shotguns basically negate the Kommando Nob. Every volley of blasts will knock a commander off his feet since they're firing on a single model. They also detect the kommando at a pretty long range.

[Chris]

one scout nade will gibb rangers. Even with pathfinder gear.

One guardian grenade will gibb scouts. I've lost so many games to Eldar because I was looking away from my scouts for 1/2 a second and didn't have time to dodge a grenade. Scouts are awesome but god damn, if you blink you can lose your starting squad in an instant, swiftly followed by losing the game.

[FooF]

Like the Ork Nobs, Scout Sgts are overpriced on Power. The grenade is spiffy but, realistically, you need Shotguns or Sniper Rifles to use them effectively as the Scout squad will get minced before getting in throwing range. Therefore, it takes at least 45 Power to throw a grenade.

Dropping them to 20 would be fair, in my opinion. Not all Sgts are created equal and the Scout Sgt is not near as powerful as Tac or ASM sgts, yet they cost the almost the same. 15 Power is probably too much of a drop because every Scout squad would then have a Sgt. I don't want Scouts to become the new Guardians.

[The Voltr0n]

I use sniper scouts all the time, i can 1 shot members of eldar dev teams and such, they are very effective atm, giving them more power would only make the game more of a imba mess lol...

plus if snipers got anycheap they would be spammed... they are hard to kill atm because they run in and out while cloaked

[tehzenmaster]

I find shotgun support to be godly vs. swarmy races.

Plus, scouts can ninja-nade! That alone makes scouts awesome imho.

So in short: scouts are good.

[HiveMind]

Scouts are fine. Unupgraded they're good at ninja capping, with shotguns they're godly and with sniper rifles they're good at harassment. Snipers also seem to one-shot Warp Spiders, which really hurts. I would bite off my own leg for Eldar to have Scouts. Well, maybe not. Someone else's leg. As long as they were tasty. Maybe a chicken leg.

[Brenil]

Scouts are fine. When properly used they're devestating and any SM army that doesn't have at least one upgraded squad are shooting themselves in the foot. Some of the best builds for SM involve heavy Scout usage and screening, such as double ASM + two Scout-sniper build with the Apothecary or the double-shotgun + Tactical build with the Techmarine (or Devestator if you're reckless).

I would venture the only problem with Scouts is that the Sergeant is a bit too heavy on the power side. Reduce that slightly and they'd be just fine.

[descara]

Double ASM + two scout one of the best builds? It's ridicolously vulnerable to any non-walker vehicle. That said, snipers are very useful, and extremely potent against eldar ([scout]scout, tac, t2, razor, ML) as well as in mirrors. Shotguns are also powerful, more so versus orkz, and will likely see some more use now that tac sarge melee got nerfed. In no way are scouts underpowered.

[Brenil]

Double ASM + two scout one of the best builds?

With an Apothecary yes, but being one of the best builds doesn't mean it is one without weaknesses. A Tactical heavy build is also a good build but it vunerable to mass melee units, just as an example.

[descara]

That isn't a weakness. That's a direct-bloody-hard-counter-pwnage.

[Brenil]

I'm not sure what you're trying to accomplish in this diverting conversation, Descara. I stated off hand that one of the best builds for SM is going ASM heavy with an Apothecary and you're writing this off because it has a counter?

What's a build or strategy that has no counter? Overpowered and imbalanced, that's what.

So... what's the point here exactly?

[descara]

You called 2x ASM "one of the best builds", which just aint true. Try it at any kind of high level and you will get hit by an early well-microed vehicle and easily pushed back, or simply overwhelmed since your apoth can't support both your ASMs (which are rather bland 'til you get sarges for both AND stimpacks for your apoth). You're weak anyway in early tier 1 and will likely hit tier 2 ages after your opponent.

And that a build has a counter doesn't mean it's bad, but there's a difference between being countered and bloody torn apart.

For the record, the point is, 2x asm is in no way "one of the best builds", rather tactical suicide.