I got the chance to hang out with 12 awesome people at my last RPQ (June 8 in Derry, NH). One of the many things we talked out about was how we were all pretty tired of sniper strike teams, and how lots of people all over the place seem to be too. We didn't entirely agree on how to "fix" them, but we all agreed that despite not being busted, they definitely lean toward the unhealthy side of balance, at least from a hardcore point of view.

So while I was thinking about sniper strike teams today I started to wonder: "why do I feel they're unhealthy for the game? What makes them that way? Why do my friends and I find them boring, and why do we think they need to be changed?" To be honest, I don't believe it's for the reasons many people have mentioned - I don't think it's because they're cheap, efficient, or reliable for their cost. These are all attributes that the basic core-box corps troopers share, and I haven't encountered many people who think those units are harmful to the game.

To me the main problem with snipers is that they shut down one of the core mechanics of the game - the ability to spend dodge tokens. Introducing rules like High Velocity is something I've learned to avoid as an amateur game designer myself, mainly because their inclusion seldom makes a game more interesting to play. High Velocity seems in theory to be a cool rule for a sniper to have. It makes thematic sense, but I think it's a very bad rule for the health of the game as it is now. Allow me to illustrate:

When defending against attacks in Legion, you essentially have five options for mitigation - rely on your dice rolls, put your units in cover, stay out of range, take dodge tokens, or stay out of line of sight (LoS). Snipers of course ignore the first die-save, reduce cover by 1, and have infinite attack range. This is obviously powerful, but I don't think these abilities are what make snipers problematic. Why? With these three abilities put together the defender still has two and a half-ish options left for mitigation: dodge, heavy cover and staying out of LoS. But preventing your opponent from dodging too? That brings the total available mitigation options to one and a half; either sit in heavy cover and pray, or avoid line of sight entirely. Say goodbye to Nimble, say goodbye to Deflect, and so long as no enemy unit besides a sniper strike team can threaten you, say goodbye to the dodge action too! Might as well not take it since you won't be able to use the token anyway. That's not an interesting way to make a unit unique. This isn't such a problem with just one sniper per team. But two or three? Bleghth! 😝. Add Heavy Weapon Team to the mix and you've got a 2 health unit that's surprisingly hard to kill.

So what would my solution be? If I were a designer on the game I would remove High Velocity altogether. However, if that wasn't an option I would find a way to change it so it doesn't shut down one of the game's core mechanics. Here's some ideas I thought up over the last few hours:

"Free action: While attacking, if each weapon in your attack pool has High Velocity, you may gain 1 suppression token to gain 1 aim token" ...Or...

"While attacking, if each weapon in your attack pool has High Velocity and two or more minis in your unit have line of sight to the defender, gain 1 aim token"

I'm looking forward to reading your thoughts! Cheers!

I think people don’t use enough scenery.

I've barely ever seen it come into play. The Pierce and infinite range is what makes them good.

Its a 2 black dice attack that can ONLY ever have 2 black dice. Typically, its going to do 1 wound and thats it. Which is fairly borderline for a 28 point miniature, who also has a 16 point miniature who is going to spend most of his time sitting and contemplating his belly button.

If you could spend dodge tokens against a DLT sniper, the snipers would probably see zero play. They need to be a guaranteed 1 point(plus maybe a 2nd point) of damage to be anywhere close to worth it. Its 44 points for a measly 2 black dice, and sometimes another 2 black dice against another target. Thats not very point efficient at all.

Dodge does need a buff IMO. Dodge should let you reroll 2 defense dice instead of what it currently does. That would give more symmetry to the tokens, be a little more streamlined, and focus on actual dice manipulation rather than a static damage mitigation.

1 hour ago, BrickDaniels said:

I got the chance to hang out with 12 awesome people at my last RPQ (June 8 in Derry, NH). One of the many things we talked out about was how we were all pretty tired of sniper strike teams, and how lots of people all over the place seem to be too. We didn't entirely agree on how to "fix" them, but we all agreed that despite not being busted, they definitely lean toward the unhealthy side of balance, at least from a hardcore point of view.

So while I was thinking about sniper strike teams today I started to wonder: "why do I feel they're unhealthy for the game? What makes them that way? Why do my friends and I find them boring, and why do we think they need to be changed?" To be honest, I don't believe it's for the reasons many people have mentioned - I don't think it's because they're cheap, efficient, or reliable for their cost. These are all attributes that the basic core-box corps troopers share, and I haven't encountered many people who think those units are harmful to the game.

To me the main problem with snipers is that they shut down one of the core mechanics of the game - the ability to spend dodge tokens. Introducing rules like High Velocity is something I've learned to avoid as an amateur game designer myself, mainly because their inclusion seldom makes a game more interesting to play. High Velocity seems in theory to be a cool rule for a sniper to have. It makes thematic sense, but I think it's a very bad rule for the health of the game as it is now. Allow me to illustrate:

When defending against attacks in Legion, you essentially have five options for mitigation - rely on your dice rolls, put your units in cover, stay out of range, take dodge tokens, or stay out of line of sight (LoS). Snipers of course ignore the first die-save, reduce cover by 1, and have infinite attack range. This is obviously powerful, but I don't think these abilities are what make snipers problematic. Why? With these three abilities put together the defender still has two and a half-ish options left for mitigation: dodge, heavy cover and staying out of LoS. But preventing your opponent from dodging too? That brings the total available mitigation options to one and a half; either sit in heavy cover and pray, or avoid line of sight entirely. Say goodbye to Nimble, say goodbye to Deflect, and so long as no enemy unit besides a sniper strike team can threaten you, say goodbye to the dodge action too! Might as well not take it since you won't be able to use the token anyway. That's not an interesting way to make a unit unique. This isn't such a problem with just one sniper per team. But two or three? Bleghth! 😝. Add Heavy Weapon Team to the mix and you've got a 2 health unit that's surprisingly hard to kill.

So what would my solution be? If I were a designer on the game I would remove High Velocity altogether. However, if that wasn't an option I would find a way to change it so it doesn't shut down one of the game's core mechanics. Here's some ideas I thought up over the last few hours:

"Free action: While attacking, if each weapon in your attack pool has High Velocity, you may gain 1 suppression token to gain 1 aim token" ...Or...

"While attacking, if each weapon in your attack pool has High Velocity and two or more minis in your unit have line of sight to the defender, gain 1 aim token"

I'm looking forward to reading your thoughts! Cheers!

They do, on their best day, 2 points of damage per round. I’m hard pressed to care about them. Death Troopers are far far far more threatening.

Yeah, I think the primary reason for taking snipers is to fill out a list for max activations. Once all your corps slots are filled, they are the cheapest option available.

Say they made Pathfinder strike teams featuring Bistan or Pao. You might see them being taken in lieu of a sniper strike team since you can have range 4 and more durability for capturing objectives late game.

Yes. They’re more about jury rigging a loophole in the order of operations than anything else.

If they actually dominate combat it’s due to lack of scenery. But I never found them to damage my guys much.

Just a thought what if snipers teams became a unit detachment like the upcoming vets

Or, get rid of Strike Teams, or remove their Pierce. Without Pierce they are balanced and dont make other units useless (Bikes, ...)

The problem with snipers isn't any one thing, it's the perfect storm of keywords, price, and range. They're a cheap and easy to use two man unit with infinite range, pierce, and high velocity. They work great into activation spam lists, tables that are suffering from terminal terrain deficiency syndrome, and even lists designed to counter snipers. Besides Veers and Leia, the best counter to snipers right now is other snipers, and that just adds fuel to the fire.

4 hours ago, Alpha17 said:

The problem with snipers isn't any one thing, it's the perfect storm of...

This is why I think it’s hard to find a fix. It’s like how big vehicles have too many things going wrong for them. But on paper all these things have a reasonable points cost. It’s better for designers to do nothing than to over compensate. Because overall Legion is pretty good so you don’t want to upset the apple cart.

You actually have to kinda try to imbalance Legion. If you take this and that it’s usually a pretty fair game. I’ve played games where some factions are just blatantly better or worse to such a degree that random thematic lists even lead to horribly one-sided games. Points-buy systems are not easy to balance while maintaining any kind of differences between factions.

Make the sniper rifle exhaustible?

The whole point of snipers is that the don't move, right? so now every turn they aim and shoot. Make them have to recover once in awhile.

Here we go, "limited ammunition: 2" Every time you fire this weapon place a wound token on this card. When you have as many wound tokens as your limited ammunition value you cannot fire again until you have recovered."

That way they can aim and fire but they don't get to do that every single turn.

Just now, Zrob314 said:

Make the sniper rifle exhaustible?

I don't get why this thing wasn't an exhaust weapon. It feels more WWII movie-like that the sniper has to act with intent for each shot.

19 hours ago, Thraug said:

Or, get rid of Strike Teams, or remove their Pierce. Without Pierce they are balanced and dont make other units useless (Bikes, ...)

The average of 1 damage, virtually unmitigatable (besides armor, and Jedi) is pretty much the only thing Sniper Strike Teams have to recommend them.

Otherwise, their damage is low, they’ve the fewest hit points in the game.

19 minutes ago, Derrault said:

The average of 1 damage, virtually unmitigatable (besides armor, and Jedi) is pretty much the only thing Sniper Strike Teams have to recommend them.

Otherwise, their damage is low, they’ve the fewest hit points in the game.

This is why I can’t get behind penalizing them. But the cheapness of activation has unintended consequences. If they restrict them artificially perhaps then the next cheapest activation becomes the new thing.

I am getting more interested in my idea of bidding via fewer activations instead of fewer points as a possible balancing mechanism.

I've never used high velocity or seen it used.

Sharpshooter + pierce + unlimited range = near certain ability to remove a single model per shot.

14 minutes ago, TauntaunScout said:

This is why I can’t get behind penalizing them. But the cheapness of activation has unintended consequences. If they restrict them artificially perhaps then the next cheapest activation becomes the new thing.

I am getting more interested in my idea of bidding via fewer activations instead of fewer points as a possible balancing mechanism.

If it’s truly that beneficial, then I see no reason when it wouldn’t be the case. Then again, I sincerely doubt that it matter so much, otherwise lower activation lists simply would never beat higher activation lists.

14 minutes ago, Derrault said:

If it’s truly that beneficial, then I see no reason when it wouldn’t be the case. Then again, I sincerely doubt that it matter so much, otherwise lower activation lists simply would never beat higher activation lists.

It is A benefit. This would make it a bit more interesting choice than a few points for bids do now I suspect.

Course there’s also the real chance that fashion (some call it groupthink) is at play in lists too.

Guys smoke grenades are coming out soon. Ffg will probably wait to see what effect they have on the game and then maybe do a fix.

I personally like the idea of High Velocity only applying if:

1. Both minis having LoS to the target

OR

2. The target is in Range 4

I'm telling ya make them detachments it's solves the spam issue

I think overall they are balanced it's just the point and click nature of them that is really really boring

1 minute ago, Tirion said:

I'm telling ya make them detachments it's solves the spam issue

If you did, you could only ever take 1 strike team?

11 minutes ago, Irokenics said:

If you did, you could only ever take 1 strike team?

And that's a bad thing?

Alex said on the World's cast that snipers are defintely being looked at. Something like out of a possible 24 snipers at Worlds, there were 20. 1 player used 3 saboteurs. One other had 2.

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