Quote:
I really can't see the point of this, I'm in total agreement with kyrt, sniper should be a ranged attack ability only, if you want to represent it in CC, then use an existing rule to represent it,
Are you saying "no Sniper in CC" or "no Sniper in assaults"? There is a distinction.
If the former, OK. Arbitrary, but OK. If the latter, no, because it already works in assaults.
A rules breakdown on how Sniper appears to work, to me:
"Roll separately when attacking with a sniper unit. If they hit, the attacker can choose which enemy unit is hit from those within range and in the line of fire of the sniper unit. In addition the target suffers a -1 save modifier."
"Roll separately when
attacking with a sniper unit" - "attacking" is not used exclusively for shooting. Assaults have attacks, too. Whose hits are, conveniently, allocated as in shooting.
"Choose which enemy unit is hit from those within range and line of fire". With BC weapons, range is base contact. With FF weapons, range is 15cm. Simple enough. Since the attack is made separately, one of two things would seem to happen: it's made first (in which case the range should be obvious) or it's made second (in which case you have no one to blame but yourself if you've killed everything in base contact or small arms range). An FAQ may be good for clarity, but I'm not sure there's actually an issue as such.
But what about MW hits an range stretching, I hear you cry? That's different. MW attacks are made at the same time, but allocated separately. Sniper attacks are made at a different time. Since the attack is made individually, if there's nobody in base contact you
can't use your CC attack. And under normal hit allocation rules, if there's someone in base contact with you, you have to allocate the hit to them. Problem solved.
Basically, if someone tries to sneakily have Sniper CC hits stretch, they're probably wrong under the rules. Which doesn't mean we shouldn't have an FAQ anyway, just that they're probably wrong. Sniper MW attacks might still be an issue, mind.
On melee units Sniper seems to mostly be used to represent units which challenge others to single combat, or which pick out particular targets in the enemy, and that sort of thing (the Emperor's Champion is the obvious one that I can remember). I'm not sure that's well represented by other abilities, honestly. It's the "choose your target" aspect that appeals, not the armor save penalty.