Okay, just as an item for discussion, as the question says what (published - not fan created) weapon do you consider to be the best for sniping/assassinating? And why?

It can be off the shelf or have any of the listed alternate ammo types or weapon modifications but it must all be from published FFG material and conform to any printed restrictions or rules.

The best snper will without a doubt be the Nomad in the Inquisitor's Handbook (Hive World). with the exception og clip size it is far superior to both the long las and the hunting rifle (but also far more expensive and very rare).

for close range assasinasion there is little that beats a concealed sepentine power blade, though the actual damage is slightly less than that of a normal power weapon it is very easy to conceal and has the Fast special quality.

Although I would like clearer guidelines for the creation of unusual Force Weapons, the desciption of the weapon type seems to allow one to treat the weapon type as equivalent to an upgrade. If so, one could model a Force Weapon on the Landrian "Devil's Kiss" Stilletto, creating a 1d5 + Psy Rating damage weapon with 3 + Psy rating penetration and the Fast quality. Also, although many overlook this, Force Weapons are automatically Good Quality, giving a +5 WS. Nasty little weapon, that. Alternately, a lathe-bladed Devil's Kiss is 1d5+3 damage with 5 pen, +10 WS, and Fast. Also rather nasty in itself.

Tetragon is probably right about the best, but this one is certainly fun.

Low price range, The Long-Las with hotshot-charge and either a red dot sight (if you have the marksman talent) or a telescopic sight if you don't.. Hit targets at 600 meters with no penalty, 1d10+4 E pen 5 damage, tearing, accurate.

If money is not an issue, Angelus with either of the sights and inferno shells. Maximum range 400 meters, 2d10 X pen 5 damage, tearing, accurate and sets people on fire.

But my personal favourite is the Nomad. It's a great all round weapon, it does great damage with the hyper density penetrators (about the same as long las, loose one penetration gain one damage) but that ammo brings the range down to slightly below long las. Without the HDP ammo it has outstanding range (1 km maximum range) but so-so damage compared to the others.

I'll take one of those for most missions. Outfitted with a fire selector, two clips of HDP and one with manstoppers, whatever sight I need and a silencer.

That gives two possible statlines.

With HDP ammo: 1d10+5 I pen 4, tearing, accurate. Maximum range 500 meters.

With manstoppers: 1d10+5 I pen 3, accurate. Maximum range 1 km

I'd personally love to see some rules for the other kinds of widower ammo that's mentioned in the flavour text. It could possibly be a new favourite if it had some poisoned or explosive darts.

For the close range assasinations you need a galvian needler in the forearm mount mentioned in the books, it's concealable and shoots semi-auto toxic darts.

Oh, yeah, and for a brutal, Hive Gang execution killing, it's hard to beat the Meat Hammer. One shot with three slugs, 2d5+6 scatter. Because it only has one shot, it's hard to say how it interacts with the Compact upgrade, but if we assume that the halving of the clip size rounds up, then you get a 2d5+5 scatter weapon that is concealable. Great for walking up behind a snitch and giving them the "Gunmetal Goodbye."

Hodgepodge said:

LOL - I love that term. I'll be using that in game. Brilliant.

Then there is the hold out exterminator. Basically an exterminator married to pistol grip. It's something most assassins carry for emergencies. In my games most snipers prefer needlers or darklight las weapons as not revealing your position is more important than damage. (Darklight lasgun are UV lasweapons.)

As far as sniper weapon damage it's obvious any accurate boltgun, followed by the nomad. That said the longlas is nasty enough and very cheap. This of course assumes you are using the errata rules for accurate weapons.

Long-Las with hot-shot charge and telescopic sight. 'Nuff said..

For long range, max-damage, armor piercing, guaranteed 1 shot 1 kill (assuming you hit) sniping:

Red dot sighted* MP Las Cannon - accept no substitutes

(I wonder if there's a way to overcharge/hotshot this puppy?)

*[substitute telescopic scope when firing at extreme range. Add Photocontacts for darkness]

Dalnor Surloc said:

Actually, a hot-shotted long las beats the nomad in damage.

For Las weapons, also note that Hotshot Packs are amazing for snipers.

Edit: Beaten like a heretic. That's what I get for leaving the window open and replying without hitting refresh.

DocIII said:

Not trying to be "that guy" here, but wouldn't using an MP Lascannon sort of blow your cover if you're using it as an assassination weapon?

I mean not only does lascannons send out this decimetre thick, clearly visible ray of light but the gun isn't the most "quiet" one either.

Just sayin'

I guess it might work on a battlefield, but you sort of just upgraded the assault from an assassination to an artillery bombardment ;-)

Either the Angelus or the Nomad, fitted with a targeter and either one of the sights, and loaded with either Kraken Penetrator (how I refer to Lathe HDP for bolters), Inferno or Tempest rounds (the Angelus), or manstoppers/Lathe HDP (the Nomad). Silenced, in the case of the Nomad.

Another option is a targeter-enhanced, bipod mounted MP-lascannon, particularly if in the hands of a psyker with Divine Shot or Unnatural Aim. It isn't massively subtle, but I seriously doubt there is anything that can shrug off a hit from a 5d10+10, pen 10 anti-tank weapon, with a maximum range of 1200m...

There actually is an NPC in my game who has an Angelus for just such a purpose (and for use as an impressive execution weapon)- red-dot sight, targeter and just standard astartes-class bolt shells. I'm currently waiting to see how long until one of the players kills him and loots it (as the targeter and sights would allow them to ignore the penalty for not having the talent).

-edit- beaten to it: I'll simply add that the telescopic sight and red-dot are both limited to Pistol or Basic weapons. The Targeter upgrade, however, isn't.

Hodgepodge said:

Precisely what I was thinking.

Then there's the cheese factor to include. I mean an assassin is supposed to be... well an assassin. It's like one of the players in my group who had an assassin, clanking around in power armour and was armed with a heavy stubber. I mean, how subtle and "assassin-like" is that on a scale of 1-10?

Varnias Tybalt said:

He didn't specify a traceless undetectable kill (a different set of parameters), just a sniper/assassination weapon. Assassinations are not necessarily required to be stealthy.

Using heavy/support weapon as a sniper has a long and respected tradition. In the Korean and Vietnam Wars it wasn't all that uncommon for .50 machine guns to be used as sniper weapons. With a good sighht and loading a single round at a time it was a more powerful, accurate, long range option than other availble at the time and one of several influnces on the development of present day large caliber dedicated sniper weapons. Up until it was beaten in 2002, the world record for longest range confirmed sniper kill was made with a tripod mounted Browning M2 .50 Caliber machine gun (courtesy of Carlos N. Hathcock, USMC).

DocIII said:

True. But if we're talking assassinations then it's generally preferable for the assassin that it's conducted in a stealthy manner. Don't you agree?

Sure, for a suicide agent, they could simply strap a melta charge to their body and run up to the target and blow everything in the vicinity to molten slag. But if you intend to assassinate someone behind enemy lines without back-up, it would be nice to be able to escape once the shot has been taken.

Thus firing with a long range weapon at extreme range. More space/time to escape after the kill.

Which is generally viable only on battlefields or with truely awesome lines of sight (which would probably take a series of tests to find in a Hive or most other game environments). Battlefields have lots of people looking for that sort of thing as well, so you're looking at a tough concealment test in the first place or you'll be sniped by the enemy's watchtower guards.

An ambush is an option. I'd like to see some actual rules for concealing heavy weapons, but I'd make doing so a Very Hard test, so that it could be best offset by spending 15 minutes to conceal your position as per the IH's +30 bonus for doing so.

I also just realized that you can't scope a heavy weapon. Another score against my argument about them over in the Rules forum. So pulling off a sniper shot with one at Extreme Range is pretty impressive.

That's a lot of planning compared to a good old basic weapon. I'd say setting up that kill would be a small scenario in itself, complete with a distraction mission by the other team members.

Just a note to say thanks for all the responses and discussion so far. The question was intended to provoke discussion and it's certainly done that - it was also intended to be about the method or tactics of sniping as much as the weapon itself - which is certainly teh source of a lot of the debate.

Hodgepodge said:

Hehe, just imagine the players faces when asking them: "Okay, who want's to play the Vindicare Assassin?"

(I see, frantic nerd rage where the players tear at eachothers throats screaming: "ME! ME! ME! ME!")

Hodgepodge said:

True enough, however if you are talking sniping you're talking distance and sightlines. The up close short sight sline stuff you're talking about can definately be assassination, but isn't an issue of sniper fire. Its a matter of choosing the weapon for the job.

As to heavy weapons not being able to have a scope (when as mentioned above such weapons have in reality been used with scopes) is more of a problem of the rules for scopes not making sense than a problem with the weapon, but since the OP did ask for specifically within the rules stuff, ok. You may not be able to scope a heavy weapon, but you sure as hell can slap a targeter on there.

You have the same problem with th shot being seen with a long las as with a lascannon. Both are brilliant lances of concentrated light which don't blend much into the background.

So lets take a 500 meter shot at a target.

Long las w/ hotshot and telescopic sight

- 0 for range (-30 extreme range eliminated by sight) + 20 full round aim, + 10 accurate = net +30 BS

Damage: 2d10 +4 E, pen 4 (effectively tearing)

Must reload between shots

braced MP Lascannon w/ targeter

- 0 for range (-10 for long range eliminated by targeter) + 20 for full round aim = net +20 BS

Damage: 5d10+10 E Pen 10

4 more shots left in battery

So long las guy has 10% greater chance to hit; Lascannon guy on average does 20 more points of damage with 6 more pen.

And we don't even get to the fact that the las cannon guy gets his short range bonus at anything 150 meters or less. Or that the rules haven't really addressed limit to max effective range (which with a base range of double that of long las, the lascannon likely has a much greater max range)

Hmmmmmm.........

Yeah I'm gonna have to stick w/ my lascannon sniper rifle. Sure its heavy and I need to take time to brace, but I can shoot you from a lot further away, and if I know where you are I can shoot you through an armaplas wall (which you sure won't see a long las doing)

And if you add suspensors from RT (which I admit is outside the bounds of this particular thread) the weight and bracing problems go right away.

By taking time to conceal the lascannon, I was reffering to the difficulty of concealing a 55kg weapon that is normally mounted on a vehicle as compared to a hand-held rifle. Keep in mind that I have in mind a scenario in which one has to manage to pull off the shot undetected against active survelliance. That's hard to do with a weapon almost twice the size of a Missle Launcher, at least if it's weight is any indication.

Likewise, scopes are likely not mountable on a heavy weapon for balance reasons. The range of the Lascannon and MP Lascannon may well reflect inbuilt scopes, or the Targetter may be meant to represent the equivalent of a scope for heavily specialized, military-grade weaponry.

There's also no reason not to add a targetter to the Long Las, since it is not a scope. That decreases the difficulty of the shot one step. That makes 2d10 from Accurate quite plausable. Finally, if we're comparing targets at that range, the weapon best used in comparison is a Nomad (listed range 250 meters) fitted with a fire selector to optimize between normal rounds for fully armored targets and Dum Dums for targets with available unarmored locations.

Edit: Also, you can add a Silencer to the Nomad.

DocIII, the hot-shotted long las does 1d10+4 pen 5 in damage, roll two damage dice and drop the lowest (why didn't they just say tearing? Stupid). You were one short on penetration.