Yeah, I may be wrong here. Range stretching certainly implies that range applies to if you can attack, not what can be allocated hits.

to clarify I think sniper should be a ranged attack ability only it should not apply in engagements either to firefight OR close combat rolls, it may be viable in engagements, but just adds fiddliness, plus it opens the door for further fiddliness in the form of infantry CC snipers, it also doesn't abstract well IMO, snipers are not best employed against armoured vehicles and their ilk.

If you want to represent a sniper in engagements, first strike represents the sniper scoring a surprise headshot, if you want some kind of melee attack boost, infiltrate is great at representing someone sneaking up and assassinating a target

that's my opinion on how to fix the issue, I'll make sure to avoid engaging Ginger's rangers, or MikeT's tank destroyers should we face each other at a tournament in the future and otherwise I honestly don't think it's likely to even come up

I'm just repeating myself now and I think the discussion is veering worryingly into the dreaded rules lawyering territory which is something I thought I'd left behind when I abandoned WFB/40K, so I'll leave it here

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Agreed.


Very much agreed. It's just getting more and more complex and fiddly the deeper we go and frankly while the RAW are not the best, they're going to be better left alone in the long run. In this case we're actually better adding a new rule/ability from scratch I think instead of tinkering with an established, albeit imperfect, existing rule. List designers and ACs can then choose to adopt as they wish (read: SG "fixing" Banshees).


Here's where we disagree. Sniper has nothing to do with AT vs AP vs MV. It should be applied on the unit as a whole, indicating that any shooting the unit has can use sniper OR on an individual weapon (which while not in the original rules is defacto how it gets applied) which then states that shooting with that weapon can chose to use the sniper ability. While AFAIK, there's no AT snipers in EA lists at this time, there's nothing preventing it in the future. In fact the EUK tank destroyers have AT sniper I believe so that's a case where it logically makes sense. In a nutshell, sniper is how your weapon can be used, not what it can effect.


YES

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What the hell is fiddly about declaring at the beginning of rolling hits that a particular assault hit will target a particular unit? The rules themselves are a little fiddly (though I think it's mostly that people have been making a lot of assumptions about how things work), but the actual implementation certainly isn't.

As to the whole armoured vehicles thing - it doesn't actually improve damage that much against armoured vehicles. 4+RA will save 3/4 of hits and 5/9 of Sniper hits. At 5+ FF (or CC), Sniper will kill something with 4+RA 4/27 (15%) of the time instead of 1/12 (8%). At 4+FF, Sniper kills 2/9 (22%) instead of 1/8 (13%). At 3+FF, Sniper kills 8/27 (30%) instead of 1/6 (17%). At 2+FF, Sniper kills 10/27 (37%) instead of 5/24 (21%). So against tough armor, Sniper's likely to be about a 10% or 15% improvement.

That's basically equivalent to improving FF by one. Obviously, it's exactly equivalent to that when dealing with ordinary armor. That's good, but I don't think it's unbalancing - list designers just need to remember that that's the effect and cost accordingly. Nor do I think the idea that Snipers are that much better than their counterparts is that implausible - we accept that an Assault squad can kill a Russ with bolt pistols, after all. Is the idea that Snipers could shoot weak spots on a vehicle really that implausible? Just pretend the rule's called "precision" if it bothers you that much.

The problem is that I think most designers are after the ability to pick a particular target in assault. If people are that worried about the save penalty, make it not apply in assaults. List designers can choose whether or not to use Sniper in CC or in assaults at all, and I'm sure some will choose not to do so.

But it's not particularly fiddly, it's not somehow outside the rules or going to require lots of new FAQs, it's not any more ridiculous than killing Russes with bolt pistols, and it's not unbalancingly powerful.

Hell, barging has got to be at least as fiddly, and we kept THAT.

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OK, I've given this some more thought.

How I Think the Sniper Rule Works in Assault
You begin the assault and begin to make your attacks. You roll the Sniper attack along with everything else, keeping the dice separate (as one would when shooting). You could roll it before or after everything else, but you don't get to roll and allocate before everything else, so I wouldn't worry about it either way. Then we get to hit allocation, and we follow the shooting rules. Sniper tells us that the Sniper hit can be allocated to any unit in range and line of fire of the Sniper unit. Assault weapons have a listed range of base contact, Small Arms have a listed range of 15cm. Those are thus the targets we can allocate our Sniper hit to.

When's that allocation decision made? It's presumably up to the player whose Sniper it is, but since those rules above mean you have to pick someone in range, it doesn't really matter that much. EDIT: Do it before the rest are allocated, you spread your shots wider, do it afterward and you may get to place two hits on the same unit. :EDIT

If you can persuade your opponent to do it after the hits are resolved, it still won't make much of a difference. If you wait until everyone is base contact is dead, you can't use Sniper on your CC weapon - nobody's in range. Wait until everyone within 15cm is dead, and you can't use it on your FF weapon - nobody's in range. Much like with shooting (if you've been letting people stretch their Sniper shots...why?).

Yes, some dilemmas arise (what about MW CC Sniper?*). But nothing that doesn't already arise when shooting with Sniper. Is it fiddly? I don't think so.

*If there's still somebody left in base contact, you can pick them. Otherwise, you're stuck with just a normal MW hit. But since the guy you wanted to kill is dead, why are you complaining?

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SN and others, Hit allocation is really simple and follows the standard processes.

Whether from shooting or assault, there are potentially two rounds of hit allocation for 'standard' hits and MW hits. "Sniper" hits are allocated with the other hits of the appropriate type, but the attacker can choose to allocate them either before or after the Defender allocation. In this way the Attacker effectively gets to choose whether to double up hits (allocating after the Defender) or to get the widest spread (allocating before the Defender). Hits are only resolved *after* all the allocations of the relevant type ('standard' or MW), so it is possible to waste "Sniper" hits to ensure the demise of a particular enemy unit - but that is the attacker's choice.

The only departure from the normal process is that "Sniper" hits have to be allocated to the appropriate target type within range, whereas all assault hits from both CC and FF are pooled together and allocated front to back. As to the definition of 'in range', Shooting and FF hits are self-explanatory, and I think we agree that for CC, 'range' is restricted to enemy units in B-B.

If there are no enemy of the appropriate type in range in an assault, the unit can still use its basic factors it just cannot claim "Sniper". And obviously in shooting, it merely lays a BM and nothing more.

I do understand what you are presenting here, let me try to explain why it ends up the same as "Sniper".

If the "special rule" has a different impact to normal attacks (like MW, or that a hit causes -1 to the defender) this attack has to be rolled for separately and care must be taken to ensure it is allocated properly. If it is allocated as part of a 'pool' of hits so the defender gets to chose where this hit is allocated, he will put it on the least valuable unit thus minimsing the impact of the rule, whereas if the attacker places the hit - we are back to "Sniper".

As to adding the word "Infantry", I did suggest that earlier but others objected to it as 'clunky' and I tend to agree.

So basically what I said, except without the bit where I stupidly forget that things that allocate hits don't immediately drop dead?

Edited my post to reflect that...

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Ok, so the 'easy' bit of the re-write is looking good. In summary we are proposing a change to the current wording that will leave existing lists and units unchanged, that will only allow those units specializing in assault to gain "Sniper" under specific circumstances, and then only against limited targets.

So did anyone spot the small flaws in this approach and wording

1. IG snipers have "Sniper" specified against their AP weapon
2. Only 2 of the assault specialists have ranged weapons, the others do not have weapons that distinguish the target type

For the IG Snipers we can either re-write several lists to bring the units back in line with the intentions, or we can change the definition to require the weapon to specify assault distances (CC or FF) before it can be used in an assault.

To get round the lack of ranged weapons, we could revert to specifying that these are AP attacks unless the ranged weapon target type specifies something else.

So, do we also need a FAQ to prevent IG Snipers from gaining "Sniper" in assault?

I'd state that any unit with assault sniper would by definition require the following weapon line on their stats:
(small arms) sniper
or
(assault weapons) sniper

this would require any units that an AC is going to want this in to specially add it to a stat and every existing unit does not require any change to continue to work as is.

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IG Snipers don't have it mentioned as being on their Small Arms, so I doubt they get it in FF.

jimmy, the FAQ already states that (well, it says Small Arms. I think Assault Weapons should be added for clarity, but I think it's implied).

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