Scouts+shotguns

[MasterBlaster]

This isnt a, WTF there imba thread, but I have been finding myself that shotties prettymuch counter tacs really easy, agasint shootas or guardins its suicide, but agasint tacs its pretty much an autowin.

You can effectively have 2 shottie scouts per enemy tacsquad.
You run up and close then use knockback to knock the marines out of cover and finish them off.

If they do retreat its normaly with around 33% or so health left

You just run and keep up with them finishing the poor buggers off before there speed modifer gets highenough they can outpace the scouts.

It might just be the SM players im playing are sucking bad in not knowing how to deal with them, so I figured I would bring it up and see how others are finding them.

assuming you dont lose a whole scout squad, SM needs to kill 4 scouts per tac lost to come out ahead.

[Makille]

If you are having problems with blobbing scout-shotguns running up to your tacs, there is a very simple and cheap solution: flamers.

The downside of flamers is that they have limited range and you have to run up to enemies to use them. Scouts with shotguns have almost no range: they either have to run up to you and get hit by your flamer, or get hit by the 2 bolter tacs at a distance without being damaged back.

And flamers do good damage against scouts. Of course, if he chances up to tacs you will have a problem with plasma rifles. But you should also have more gens and thus the first to T2, as your flamers will cost half the power as the shotguns, and will rape his power gens.

[MasterBlaster]

shotguns rape gens too.. and shotgun knockdown removes the flamer.
ALso the scouts normaly aint in cover and so take pitiful damage from the flamers.

[swizzle1million]

Takes about 20 seconds for 2 scout shotgun squads to kill a tac squad in the open. The double knockdowns give them free shots for about 5~ seconds? Takes a tac squad(bolters) a little less than 10 seconds to kill a scout squad in the open.

So while the match does favour the scouts a little, it's not exactly a sure thing.

Also, a flamer vs scouts is better DPS than a bolter even in the open. No fire resistance on them. If you can get all 6 models in the AoE, bonus.

Shotties vs gens is essentially the same as tacs or GU's vs gens. Not great, but serviceable.

[craft-star]

pitiful damage from the flamers.
Thats not true.
Also my basic B.O.:(Tac,HBDev,Sarge for ss) rapes this. Or if you have more problems tech to t2, and dred or plasma dev.

[WhiteDeVile]

shotguns rape gens too.. and shotgun knockdown removes the flamer.
ALso the scouts normaly aint in cover and so take pitiful damage from the flamers.

Wat ? Are we playing the exact same game build here ?
Cause I honestly dont recall such things.
Sorry mate, but it looks like you are trying to find something wrong, somewhere where it isnt wrong at all.
Also Scouts just MELT, MELT to everything so its kind of funny to consider them imba in any extend.

[MasterBlaster]

lol WhiteDevile
My currenlt build is always upgrade 2 scouts to shotgun and send them to the enemy power to raid, they can take out 1-2 gens before the enemy can come deal with it and due to scout knockdown they have to send a decent force, a single slugga,banshee,gaunt squad will be killed by the scouts which is awesome :).

You have to make sure they fire at pointblank range so they do full damage if you use shotguns at standard range your pissing in the wind.


Upgrading a tac squad to flamer increases the total squads damage by a maissve(assuming they only get one scout squad at a time)
from around 42 dps to
54 dps
Incidently your almost haved its damage per member and increased the ammount of time before a single scout dies.
Which means your tacs actually take more damage overall.

As I said they do pitiful damage, your just spent 70req and 20 power, and the scout squad by sending just 5 more req and power can increase its hitpoints by more then the extra dps the flamer does(even to 4 members) and increases the squads damage by 33%

The scouts also keep your tacs on the floor for the first 6 seconds or so of the fight.

BTw WhiteDevile I wanna give scouts a hp increase :P need to check shotguns aint imba now you can afford to mass them, in my playing only Sm seems to have problems countering shotguns early game leading to steamroll effect.
Shoots, Gants, guardins all counter them fine. But the fact you can have 3 squads agasint 1 tac squad+hero to tie it up, agasint enemy commander tac and scout, and they are good at killing commanders, the enemy SM scout squad is pretty much dead or retreating as soon as the battle starts even if they have shotguns.
Leaving either the enemy commander or tacs laid out with knockdown.


Anyways Seriously try shotguns at close range for killing gens, they do work.

The reason I want to increase there health is so they take 2 shots from rangers instead of one, making them a counter to mass rangers for cost.
Hp change from 140 per member to 165.
Leaving them with 5 health after a range strike.

[Demonhorde]

shotguns are good if they had abit longer shot to have to run out fro mcover to use abilit yreally make scouts a dangerous investment. And they also have a tendency to bug out and not shot the shot and run after if the guy is smart enuff to move his troops.

[swizzle1million]

Like I said, for gen razing, they're not bad. But they're not that good. Same general dps as a GU squad/tac (and now a glandy termagaunt squad I guess) but cost power.

One thing to keep an eye on is that (last time I checked) scouts suffer horribly from the auto attack accuracy bug. If you just order them to stand next to a node, they'll auto attack it, but frequently get 100% misses until you specifically order them to attack it. This doesn't make them any less effective at gen razing if you're paying attention, but can give the impression that they're crap at it if you're not.

As to the cost effectiveness of the flamer you're forgetting you're talking about double shotgun scouts. They already spent 30 on power, upgrading with a sergeant means he's nearly tripled your 20 power flamer investment, and even discounting the free starting scout he's approaching your investment in req (210 + 75 + 75 + 75). Also, adding models = more DPS from the flamer. I would more have argued that the damage you lose from the short range of the flamer on approach offsets whatever damage you gain from it's higher DPS.

An Apoth with an MCB backing your tacs, flamers or not, makes a mockery of this.

[Dux]

Yeah... sorry MasterBlaster, but one Tac Flamer will absolutely rape Scout spam. Add ASM later for even more lolz.

[MasterBlaster]

Dux flamer does 8dps* 3 scouts(assuming your facing someone who is smart enough not to let you flame more then one) is 24dps
normal tac bolter is 14dps

not exactly a massive boost.