I plan on making the Astartes Sniper Rifle be covered by the Astartes Weapon's training. Since scouts use it, I think we can safely assume that even if the Marine didn't use it during his Scout days, he at least recieved training in its use.

Why not use the Stalker Boltgun with telescopic sight?

Santiago said:

No reason not to, if that is what the individual player wants to do. I am just saying that I think Space Marines should know how to use the Sniper Rifle based off of the fluff.

Well 2 of the 6 chapters in the main book weren't actually scouts and if they were scouts maybe they didn't use it. That might be why it was a seperate skill originally.

For the the chapters that did have scouts though there's no reason to stop someone being able to use it. Even if you let them have it as a cost price elite advance. I know the Stalkers the same (better) but you can't start with it.

Baradiel said:

+1

I'd do the same.

That's what our group is doing as well.

I do agree. Most Chapters do require that the Initiate go through the Scouts as they learn what it is to be a Space Marine. It is also known that they are trained and use sniper rifles in the Scouts. This is a perfectly good rule that I would impliment if any of my players choose to use the Sniper Rifle.

muzzyman1981 said:

I agree that based on 40K lore this would have to be the case. However I'll keep it as it is. It serves to to make the sniper rifle a bit more special.

Alex

I'm glad me personally that I'm a Space Wolf player and not really interested in Sniper Rifles =P I'd rather a Bolt Pistol and Combat Knife with some high explosives for those tough jobs =0P

I've also made ruling that Sniper Rifle is covered by Astartes Weapon Training. In addition to this I've made Piloting: Personal a Basic Skill for all marines (because they have most likely had at least some training in Assault Marine field) and a Trained skill for Blood Angels (because all of them HAVE had advanced jump-assault training by the time they are experience enough to be inducted into Deathwatch).

Furthermore, I don't think its gamebreaking in any way because most of the time 100% of the team won't be going around in Jump Packs wielding Sniper Rifles... and even if they were I think they may have just wasted a **** lot of perfectly okay requisition points

I also made Pilot:personal basic for SM and added the sniper rifle to their training, for exactly the reasons given. It's interesting that so many of us are making exactly the same changes.

The Astartes Sniper Rifle is covered in the Armory of the BRB as is the Stalker Boltgun, the difference being the Stalker can use Specialized Ammo and has 50m less range (200m). This is a bit of a moot point with RoB introducing the "Ultra" Pattern Mk. IX Sniper Rifle being tailored to the shooter and coming with optcs bonuses built in. Still, no ability to use Specialized Ammo like the Stalker. I guess it would depend on the missin as to which would be the better choice.

You can use the same rules the "Ultra" Pattern Mk. IX sniper Rifle comes with, and I quote straight from RoB

" Astartes Weapon: While this sniper rifle is in the Exotic Category, for Space Marines it counts as a Solid Projectile Weapon. This means that the Astartes Weapon Training Talent (see page 113 in the Deathwatch Rulebook) is all that is needed for a Space Marine to use this weapon."

I personally just apply this to normal sniper rifles, since all marines tend to have some training in the use of those weapons to some extent.

In the errata, they added a Rank 1 advance to the General Space Marine advances table: Pilot (Personal) 100 XP for Trained Level.

Now, if they added the weigh limit for the Jet Packs, I could decide about a flying Devastator... Of course, it would be even better to have the requisition cost of a Land Speed in RoB XD

Argus Van Het said:

Keep in mind that the Jump Pack and Ammo backpack are incompatible as they take the same slot on the power pack.

ItsUncertainWho said:

A Heavy Bolter can five 6 times before needing 2 full turns to reload (unless a backpack is used). Playing Emperor Protects with a bunch of 5 PC's ended with the Dev firing the HB less than five times... ^^

WTF was the dev doing then? Picking his nose?!

Siranui said:

Killing everthing everytime he fired till it wasn't worth firing at again, I suspect is the answer.