Strike teams with a sniper are awesome, no argument.

But it is to the point that if you don’t include snipers, your list will suffer competitively, either by not utilizing the increasingly low cost for extra activations, or through just not being able to attack units from across the table. Almost all competitive lists include 2-3 strike team snipers for just those reasons, but is it too good. When a unit shows up in that many list that consistently, FF usually makes a change to somehow nerf the unit.

Personally, I think it would be nice to see a little more variety in the Special Forces (including my own lists), but what if the strike team sniper was nerfed, either by points or some other means and it wasn’t worth or we couldn’t play strike team snipers? Core units being reasonably cheap may fill the roll of a cheap unit, but they are still not as cheap and so activation counts would reduce too. Is this a good thing, a necessary thing, or something FF should avoid at all costs. Doing such a thing may be the impetus needed to increase point counts from 800 to 1000 to counter the reduction of overall number of units in lists and because of the lack of very cheap units, unit counts wouldn’t increase or would only increase by one unit.

Thoughts?

they are REALLY good, almost too good. problem is how the **** can the Empire compete against Rebel high activation with 2 commanders costing 200 points without these cheap but good units.

They are good, but anyone who has run Snipers has seen them roll 2 blanks into 2 blanks and do absolutely nothing. Even a naked Stormie squad probably dumped a suppression or grabbed a box. They are good but you must be careful to make sure you have 'real' activations in your squad as well, aka DLT Storms or the like. It can be a real temptation to go 3 Snipers and then find you are thin on mainline infantry. 2 Snipers vs. 1 DLT Storm (+20 points of extra upgrades) is a legitimate toss-up question and is not an auto choice. Yes, sadly, you really need at least 1 Sniper in your list, but most competitive lists include at least 1 of something else in the special forces slot. I was just at Adepticon and wandered the floor on the championship day, and almost every Imperial list had 1 Royal Guard, and many Rebel lists had 1 Wookie. I think there is variety, it's just the Snipers are like the DLT Storms of the Special Forces. You are going to slap 1-2 on with very little question, but that doesn't mean there isn't real list variety. Just because every Imperial list has DLT Storms, doesn't mean list variety is a problem.

32 minutes ago, SirCormac said:

They are good, but anyone who has run Snipers has seen them roll 2 blanks into 2 blanks and do absolutely nothing. Even a naked Stormie squad probably dumped a suppression or grabbed a box. They are good but you must be careful to make sure you have 'real' activations in your squad as well, aka DLT Storms or the like. It can be a real temptation to go 3 Snipers and then find you are thin on mainline infantry. 2 Snipers vs. 1 DLT Storm (+20 points of extra upgrades) is a legitimate toss-up question and is not an auto choice. Yes, sadly, you really need at least 1 Sniper in your list, but most competitive lists include at least 1 of something else in the special forces slot. I was just at Adepticon and wandered the floor on the championship day, and almost every Imperial list had 1 Royal Guard, and many Rebel lists had 1 Wookie. I think there is variety, it's just the Snipers are like the DLT Storms of the Special Forces. You are going to slap 1-2 on with very little question, but that doesn't mean there isn't real list variety. Just because every Imperial list has DLT Storms, doesn't mean list variety is a problem.

As far as rolling blanks, I’ve rolled a full squad of Fleets with Scatter Gun and come up with nothing, so it’s not just the snipers that it happens to, but I guess with two dice it’s waaaaaay more common.

My local meta is 4-6 corps, 3 sniper, 3 emplacements and commanders / operatives to taste. There are two problems with snipers in this meta.

Firstly, activations. You need sniper teams to not get completely out activated at the end of every turn.

Secondly, there is no counter to snipers other than snipers because they can sit across the table out of range or non-sniper units. 3 sniper teams will do significant damage to an army if left unchecked so you need to bring your own snipers to deal with them.

The result of this is that if you want to be competitive you bring snipers. That is super boring to me and I think something needs to change.

My preference is to make the strike team unique. It makes sense thematically and would stop the spamming while still giving people the option to run three snipers if they really want to by shelling out the extra points for the full units.

You could also make snipers range 2-4 instead of any range. Gives other units a chance to do something about them.

I think if triple sniper lists are dominating your local meta, you need to be putting more LOS-blocking terrain on the table. The new smoke grenades should also help with making snipers more situational.

Also, once the upgrades from the tank are available, I look forward to killing Snipers with SURGING mortar fire ;)!

Competitive min max is a pain, news at 11.

I've always found throughout xwing 1.0 ffg always had a fix in the works with a later release, it's just usually they create a new bugbear by the time it gets there and noone cares by then.

Also if you lose snipers from lists you just neuter rebels in the current game, with death trooper flavor and their r4.

There might be a counter to snipers incoming in the clone wars starter (and sometime thereafter with a rebel and imperial unit) - the smoke grenade.

While we don't know what exactly it does, it seems that a unit within a certain range (likely range 1) of the token can not have line of sight drawn to them.

49 minutes ago, That Blasted Samophlange said:

There might be a counter to snipers incoming in the clone wars starter (and sometime thereafter with a rebel and imperial unit) - the smoke grenade.

While we don't know what exactly it does, it seems that a unit within a certain range (likely range 1) of the token can not have line of sight drawn to them.

Good catch.

I wonder.

If it’s presumably a five point upgrade, will it counter snipers well enough to not take such a cheap unit?

I suppose it depends on how long it lasts and what it does, cause it doesn’t seem a perfect solution since you can just fire at another unit that doesn’t have smoke up.

Either way, that’s a card that should be included in every Rebel list. 😁

4 hours ago, JediPartisan said:

Strike teams with a sniper are awesome, no argument.

But it is to the point that if you don’t include snipers, your list will suffer competitively, either by not utilizing the increasingly low cost for extra activations, or through just not being able to attack units from across the table. Almost all competitive lists include 2-3 strike team snipers for just those reasons, but is it too good. When a unit shows up in that many list that consistently, FF usually makes a change to somehow nerf the unit.

....

Thoughts?

You can build really good lists without sniper strike teams. I only have 4 tournaments with more than 20 players under my belt so far, but I won every single game except one.
I used one sniper strike team in 3 of these tournaments.

Strike teams are one of the best units in the game for the reasons you stated, but they are not broken. I admit that I design most of my lists in the anticipation that about half of my opponents will bring three of them.
A list that is not able to play every objective against snipers on a table with no place to hide unfortunatly has a problem.

As good as they are though, they also have a few weak spots as well. The activation count can quickly become a weakness instead of a strength for snipers if you have means to take them out fast. It will usually not be possible in turn 1 due to their range and their heavy weapon team rule, but it is very possible to take them out before turn 3 or 4 with relativly little effort. While their output and range are great, their defence is relatively weak in comparison to their points.

Plus, there are more and more counters comming up. Fast and aggressive units could become a problem for snipers. Smoke grenades may be yet another one.

My issue with snipers is they negate most ways to mitigate damage. You can't:

- Dodge due to High Velocity

- Roll saves due to Pierce

- Heavy Cover because it becomes Light Cover due to Sharpshooter 1

- You can't stay out of range because they have Infinite Range

Not even the most powerful, iconic and expensive characters in the game can't even use Dodge and only have Immune: Pierce.

So because they negate most ways mitigate damage, as a defender it's a bit of a negative play experience. "Oh you rolled 2 hits / a crit? Welp I guess there's nothing I can do but remove this mini and add a suppression"

The only thing you can do against snipers at the moment is to stay out of line of sight, or have snipers of your own to counter snipe

What exact variety are you looking for? Pathfinders and Deathtroopers are just corp units taken to the relevent faction's tactical extreme ( rebels being hit hard and fade with the empire being precisely applied firepower. Unlike Warhammer it isn't easy for units to get into melee range so the melee special forces are both expensive and not easily used yet (there might be future upgrades that buff them) thus sniper strike teams are that balance of price and usability while once hit they crumble.

I'll be the voice of dissension here and say that snipers are vastly overrated. Yes, they can be brutal, but they also tend to fold really easily when you decide to deal with them. Leia, Veers, AT-ST mortar fire, Boba Fett, etc are all great counters. Deathtrooper or Pathfinder Range 4 shots could also tip the scales against snipers if deployed properly. My local meta ran snipers pretty heavily a few months ago, but it has dropped off to no more than 1 per army, if that. Granted, my local meta probably isn't the most competitive in the world, but I do wonder how much of the "sniper meta" is due to the idea that it IS the meta, and should be followed.

Snipers are heavily terrain dependent. If you play with a lot of terrain (we do) their effectiveness goes way down. The advantages of cheap activations sound good until you realize just how easy it is to lose those cheap activations.

Personally, I stopped using snipers after experiences in two back to back games. First game, a Sniper team made shots every round for a six-round game and did all of two damage. My rolls were atrocious. The second game, the sniper team did one damage, and then was obliterated, while in heavy cover, by my opponent's first activation. Experiences may very, but snipers just aren't worth it to me. For the Imperials, I find E-Webs to be a more reliable investment, while the Rebels have a lot of other options for those points.

3 hours ago, Irokenics said:

My issue with snipers is they negate most ways to mitigate damage.

...

So because they negate most ways mitigate damage, as a defender it's a bit of a negative play experience. "Oh you rolled 2 hits / a crit? Welp I guess there's nothing I can do but remove this mini and add a suppression"

The only thing you can do against snipers at the moment is to stay out of line of sight, or have snipers of your own to counter snipe

I do not agree.

Heavy cover extremly reduces the damage output of snipers. A naked rebel squad does more damage per shot than a sniper rifle against heavy cover.

Maybe I got it wrong, but it seems you are not cool with taking any damage at all.

A non-core unit should be a little bit better at what it does than a core unit. Snipers reliably deal small amount of damage on extrem ranges. Thats just what they do.

Like others have said, smoke grenades very well could be a way to counter snipers. If so, problem is solved.

The other possibility is that from what we have seen so far from the droid army, snipers won't be very effective due to their higher body count. Since in competitive play you can't be 100% sure of what faction your playing against next, we might see a minor drop in snipers due to this uncertainty

9 hours ago, JediPartisan said:

As far as rolling blanks, I’ve rolled a full squad of Fleets with Scatter Gun and come up with nothing, so it’s not just the snipers that it happens to, but I guess with two dice it’s waaaaaay more common.

Yes, but that is the same as rolling blanks on several sniper activations.

Snipers are cheap because their damage potential is low, with a maximum of 2 wounds per activation.

Comparatively, those Fleets could be passing 12 wounds, hypothetically able to delete an entire enemy unit each activation. A sniper unit at best can remove 2 per game (or a single unit of wookie warriors)

I assume they will add mortars in time. We see them used by clones in Umbara

Spit-balling here. Maybe strike teams have 1 courage value instead of 2? (so then it's not aim-shoot every round until dead)
Maybe both minis have to have LOS on the target otherwise you lose sharpshooter? (kills sneakpeak)

Alex Davy recently said (on the Adepticon livestream) that the special forces force org slot will continue to become very competitive as more units are released that fill it.

14 hours ago, Qark said:

My local meta is 4-6 corps, 3 sniper, 3 emplacements and commanders / operatives to taste. There are two problems with snipers in this meta.

Firstly, activations. You need sniper teams to not get completely out activated at the end of every turn.

Secondly, there is no counter to snipers other than snipers because they can sit across the table out of range or non-sniper units. 3 sniper teams will do significant damage to an army if left unchecked so you need to bring your own snipers to deal with them.

The result of this is that if you want to be competitive you bring snipers. That is super boring to me and I think something needs to change.

My preference is to make the strike team unique. It makes sense thematically and would stop the spamming while still giving people the option to run three snipers if they really want to by shelling out the extra points for the full units.

Heavies wreck snipers, especially the atst

I’ve found snipers are decent. They generally aren’t broken. There are counter strategies.

Veers/Leia command cards negate them pretty quick. There’s other ways, Terrain and list specific. A varied table will have ways to counterplay even if situationally so.

6 hours ago, M.Mustermann said:

Maybe I got it wrong, but it seems you are not cool with taking any damage at all.

Yeah you got it wrong. I'm not cool with being a defender that can't use the defence mechanisms in the game 😁 . I'm cool with it if the attacker has to pay the points and/or do the work to make it happen like with Luke, Vader, Boba Fett and Palpatine.

Otherwise just my 2 cents.

17 hours ago, Qark said:

You could also make snipers range 2-4 instead of any range. Gives other units a chance to do something about them.

I have thought it odd that they weren't less effective at close range.