So what is wrong with a Stalker Boltgun as a sniper rifle? Why are you putting something as mundane as a sniper rifle that shoots mere bullets as having nearly the same effect as a rocket-gyro-propelled grenade-missile sniper rifle or some other, similarly wtfinsane heavy-duty tech-heavy weaponry? Keep in mind the setting - bullets tend to have this "richochet" thing when they're aimed at Deathwatch Astartes. It literally takes a hail of bullets to even POSSIBLY damage a Space Marine. What can hurt a space marine? Super-tech heavy (melta, plasma), RPG shooter (bolter), and monstrously nasty death in melee (Powerfists and the like).

Have you modified your intended Sniper Rifle stats in any way during this discussion? If so, please share - we'll help you balance it into the system. (Some of us might be snarky, though).

I Did mention it was based off the Exitus Rifle from the Vindicare Temple Assassins In ASCENSION, I even gave it one less PEN so maybe that is A GERNADE also. Last post about this you guys figure it out, well see how much fun your sniper has not killing targets as your other characters wipe the floor with them then maybe people will look into it with fresh eyes.

Unusualsuspect said:

Plus how EXOTIC is a weapon that Scouts use?

In the first edition ( Rogue Trader ) and second edition of WH40K, Space Marine Scouts were issued Needle Sniper Rifles . These weapons were specifically noted in Warhammer 40,000: Wargear (1993) as having poor armor penetration. These days, they are just given something that looks identical, but is only called a Sniper Rifle ... GW dropped the word needle along with 95% of the fluff that used to be present in their older books.

Frankly, I'd just up the range of the sniper rifle already in the DW book by 100m. Remember, this is an anti-personnel weapon, not an anti-material rifle analog to the modern day .50 caliber weapons. Although, I think one of the Dark Heresy supplements contained rules for the Exitus Rifle .

In any reasonable sort of conversion on tabletop stats to FFG stats, the best an AP 6 gun should get would be 2 at most, which is for most purposes insignificant. The Rending and Pinning rules have to do with the way the Accurate quality works with aimed basic weapons (the pinning, well... all sniper weapons get that in tabletop. That doesn't get associated much with sniping in Dark Heresy).

3d10 damage (a good, i.e. 4 degrees of success, shot) has a decent shot at wounding just about any non-Space-Marine-toughness target, and even has an acceptable chance of wounding a Space Marine, especially that Captain with his helmet off looking so heroic and commanding on a hill in broad daylight. From there, the Toxic quality generally has an above average chance to deal an extra d10 of unmitigated damage. Will it one-shot-kill a Space Marine Captain or a Daemon Prince. No, it's a frickin' needle. Can it kill an Imperial Guard General or a distracted Farseer or a Tau Shas'ui, and thus sow confusion and fear into the enemies ranks? Yep.

I think, for tabletop balance purposes, Astartes Scouts don't use weapons much differant than almost any sniper in the tabletop game uses (4+ to wound, AP 6, 36", Sniper), when in fact they really aught to spring for Stalker patter boltguns for every Scout. Unfortunately, like the very ponderous Imperium they've designed, GW isn't likely to change that sort of detail any time soon... at least, not until they can make money off of forcing you to buy new models!

40k Imperial sniper rifles are not designed for taking out heavily armoured targets at long range. For that you get a lascannon, missile launcher or something similar. The Imperial sniper rifle is the needle sniper rifle, a weapon optimised for silent killings. As said, it fires a sliver of crystalised toxin which is propelled by the low power, invisible laser. Now, this needle is brittle which means it is awful at penetrating armour (not subpar... awful). In 1st edition 40k it gave a positive armour save modifier, ie it made armour perform better than normal. A guy just wearing clothes was given a 6+ save. However, this was compensated for by the fact that it could be equipped with a poison which would automatically kill or paralyse anyone (including Space Marines) unlucky enough not to make their save (ie no toughness check), and, probably less importantly, that units could use the gun and still remain "hidden".

Now, it has been renamed as the generic "sniper rifle" but it remains the same gun (the Scouts are clearly using needle sniper rifles. It looks like a lasgun, but then it is a laser, and it has a port in the side to put the needle in (or extract it if there is a problem). The term "sniper rifle" is just used because it is a wargear entry that covers a wide variety of weapons, including eldar weapons and the long las (which was an invention of Dan Abnett for Gaunt's Ghosts... which I understand for some reasons, but irks me slightly as well). The AP 6 (and rending) is more to do with being able to target unarmoured areas with extreme precision than any representation of armour piercing ability.

The 40k rpg rules don't really represent the needle rifle very well, probably for balance reasons. "Toxic" is nasty, especially to Dark Heresy characters, but it isn't bad enough, and is really a bit "meh" against big gribblies like Space Marines, but it looks like it was always intended to be a stop gap measure in Dark Heresy until more detailed poison rules came out (in the GM kit. "Toxic" as is is basically the same as "Necrotic", just Necrotic allows for more flexibility). Now, I think the new Deathwatch gear that allows the creation of needles of any poison is a getting to a "true" representation of their ability. Take one of the stronger lethal (or paralytic) poisons from the DH GM kit, the couple they have in Deathwatch itself, or create your own. Also, all needle sniper rifles should have Felling, not just the Astartes one. Being big and tough is no protection against the poison (though their various organs of course would normally provide their relevant protections).

The needle sniper rifle has never been meant to be compared to things like .50 anti-material rifles. In fact, it was never really meant to be compared to anything in real life military equipment. It was based on pre-existing sci-fi ideas of needle rifles which, when people looked at it carefully, were always going to have awful armour penetration. The closest thing to purpose and effect so far was probably the umbrella gun used to poison that Russian defector in London during the Cold War but turned into a long range weapon.

Nimon said:

Do you even read what you type?

Just a question.

Not trying to provoke anything, but in the 15 months on the Iran border did you often have to shoot sentinel walker pilots through windows? Do you really think the Exitus Rifle is a NORMAL sniper rifle?

And I am not seeing all this "AK is so wrong it hurts" areas you refer to. So far, everything he has said is in the rules and works just fine. Yes the bolters are only 50M shorter on range, normally. But at extreme, when you use the times four distance, they are 200M shorter on range. Whats more, a heavy bolter cannot take advantage of some of the other aspects the sniper can, such as the accurate bonus, or scopes and sites.

Besides, while the weapon is important, the sniper is the most important part of the equation. His BS, his talents, his skills.

All you need is a decent rifle, Eye of Vengeance and Mighty Shot and Crack Shot and your target, is going down, while he is smoking his cigar ourside his hooch.

For the record, myself, two tours in Afghanistan. Not as sniper, but spent much time attached to the infantry and their snipers.

hope this help....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sniper_rifle

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-materiel_rifle

Peacekeeper_b said:

To be fair, I can understand why someone would be disappointed by an Astartes Sniper Rifle having no penetration if one has modern day sniper rifles in mind. Also personally I'd rather ask the Master of The Forges Harl Greyweaver if the vaults of the Watch Fortress don't contain a Nomad Hunting Instrument per chance.

I think sometimes comparing real life technology and 40K technology turns into a stretch. The Astartes Sniper Rifle is probably made for infiltrating a xenos hive and sniping a civilian xenos leader or other "soft targets". The Rifle has its problems against enemies with a high Toughness and/or many wounds, such as hive tyrants, and as such will not be able to guarantee a one-shot kill of even an Ork warboss.

Alex

Standard Astartes Anti-materials rifle = Lascannon.

Sniper Rifle = Weapon given to Space Marine Scouts for the purposes of obtaining information and practicing marksmanship from a safe distance. (Note: I refer to the table top game, in which, only space marine scouts can be given sniper rifles.)

You know what I do with my marines when I want to shoot high value targets over long distances? I shoot it with a lascannon. Long range, high power, precision weapon. Ticks all the boxes. (More precicisely I engage pieces of high value wargear, I would never, EVER engages live enemy personnel with my extremely accurate high powered anti-materials weapon... those said pieces of wargear just so happen to be attached to the bodies of certain high value enemy personnel. Or contained within transport vehicles loaded with said enemy personnel.)

For anyone who cares. 25200074.

Yes, in the tt game my IG Lascanons are often used to obliterate command squads, high value targets and 2+ armour save bad guys. But in the RPG it is different.

However, I suppose the game has no real rules on how to conceal a lascanon or anything like that, and I am sure the encumbrance rules allow for a space marine to run, walk, swim, practice yoga, play soccer and eat with chop sticks while toting around a lascanon.

But how much energy is put out by a lascanon? How big is its muzzle flash? How much noise does it make? How hard is it to crawl to within 700 meters of the target, concealed in a field of grass, take the day or two it takes to snipe out the Tau Ethereal, and after taking the shot slowly scooting away unobserved?

Even the stalker bolt gun is lousy for that. Heck with the proper timing you could fire the astartes sniper rifle, kill old Tau and Guts commander as he smokes a cigar ourside his hooch and if no-one was around the immediate vicinity of the tau leader no one would know he was even dead until they came to report ot him at his hooch.

You fire the lascanon and chances are y ou are going to wake up the entire tau command post, leave a burning blaze of woods, grass and foilage leading right back to your location and give away any chance of hiding wiht muzzle flash from hell.

Plus you dont get the accurate trait with the lascanon and I am unsure if it can have a scope/site attached to it.

we are in the 40.000 millenium....consideration

the space marine wear super ceramite armor....why ceramite? because offer better protection to the standard laser weapons.....

why the space marine are so superior if they wear power armor? because in this way we don't have problem from toxic, adverse meterology, hillness.....etc.etc.etf...

the space marine are the best armored infantry....they use bolt weapons with rapid fire self propelled explosive rocket...and they was created to help the reunification of the imperium.....in that time they fought with the less armored eldar.....the non armored psyker...and many other....but none of this have good power armor like the marine....

so the super armedarmored space marine infantry really need a sniper rifle?

by the way....the scout are really precious....they became the next generation of marine, but they are much vulnerable without the power armor.

so the scout are best in infiltration and recover information, they are armed with bolter to defend himself, rarely they have plasma or melee....better if they give us cordinate to destroy target insted of combat action....in time of need better they have a sniper rifle in order to kill a non armored target and remain absolutely hidden!!! (but if the scout use exotic weapons, all marine have the exotic weapons skill?)

they are too value to the chapter.

if you are a marine and want a sniper rilfe, convert your sacred bolter to the stalker pattern and add a scope.

if you are an assasin, use the exitus weapons....

but we play DeathWatch mission.....the best of the best xeno killer....

hope this help.....

and as usual sorry for the english

cheer

Just to wade in on the sniper front with a few examples from our campaign

I've been playing a sniper character in our DW campaign (technically 2 after an incident with a firewarrior squad finished my wolf-scout off) and I have used both the Needle rifle and the Stalker. My GM decided that as scouts are trained to use them all marines can use needle snipers, so my starting sniper weapon was the needle rifle.

Now having read the thread above i'll agree that its a fairly un-impressive statline for a sniper rifle HOWEVER when used to engage low-level enemy commanders (squad and platoon level (we are figthing Tau) or against smaller nids (after the Apothicary in the group played with the ammo) the needle rifle seemed sufficient for the task. Yes it lacks AP, but put a silencer on it and good luck to anything trying to find you. Put a scope on it and range becomes less of an issue. Take the time to aim and the extra damage dice are very useful. all in all a great weapon for dealing with soft targets.

After a few sessions my Wolf-Scout graduated to a Stalker, just in time for a full blown do-or-die extraction mission from a Nid held world.

I've got to say the upgrade was impressive. We have rulled that if a weapon gets tearing then all of its damage dice gets tearing, so my stalker tanked up on hellfire rounds aiming + a preysense sight was a rude shock for our GM when he sent a few big gribblies at us. First of he ambushed us with a lictor - which started trying to quietly drag our Black Templar Assault marine away. Being a wolf I noticed the lack of marine, spotted the lickter, and proceeded to 1-shot kill it with the stalker. Later on in the same mission the Apothicary managed to create some toxins and treat a clip of hellfire rounds for me making the end of mission battle a little odd.

We were holding out on the roof of an imperial facility with nids climbing the walls waiting for a thunderhawk to pick us and our objective up. About halfway through the holding action a Carnifex lumbers into view and splats a few npc's with a venom cannon. I very lucky roll later and mr fex is feeling less healthy thanks to the teams heavy bolter, allowing me to tip him over the edje with a single stalker round. Now the GM is clearly wanting to keep things interesting and so throws a Hive Tyrant at us a few rounds before the thunderhawk arrives. As everyone else is engaged in dealing with the hordes it fell to me to try and kill the Tyrant. Lady luck liked me that evening and 100+damage later Mr Tyrant has gone the way of Mr Fex.

Now move on a session and my wolf has gone to Russ's halls thanks to getting caught in the open by 25 firewarriors, so im now playing a Storm Warden who was training the 10th company scouts before his deathwatch rotation so is something of a recon specialist (something our group lacks)

Now im back to 0 renown again so its back to the Needle rifle, and in the first session I managed to take out a Tau Sergeant from 500m without the Tau being able to spot me.

In short I've used both the Astartes Sniper options, and I gm Dark Heresy so i've used my fair share of other snipers in the 40k universe, and if you use them as they were intended they are both viable sniping options - just don't expect a needle rifle to take out a light vehicle, for that you need a stalker and some kraken rounds - and don't expect someone to mistake the victim of a stalker for being asleep at his post or having died from an illness, thats what a needle weapon is for.

Regards

Surak

I don't consider the Sniper Rifle's stats to be out of line with where they are used in the Space Marine's career. In thier training. As has been mentioned, any full fledged battle brother should be using a Stalker pattern boltgun as soon as they can if they want to be sniping. I do agree it shouldn't be an exotic weapon for a Space Marine though, since you do use one in your time in the training company.

As for your houserule on Tearing Surak, we tried that in DH. It ends up being WAY too powerfull because of all the extra chances to trigger Righteous Fury.

In Dark Heresy one of the characters in my group has grown very fond of her Long las. Combined with high BS, Talents and Hotshot-shells it is doing pretty bad-ass damage. For marine sniping purposes the Sniper Rifle and the Stalker pattern both do their stuff. One is for ultra-stealthy soft-target elimination, other for more general purpose dedicated marksmanship job. If you need to positively kill every Tyranid in the room then you are better off with heavy weapons like Heavy Bolter or Missile Launcher anyway.

One thing I would change, though, is that Sniper Rifle is Exotic Weapon. I mean 90% of existing chapters have their young scouts use that weapon so how in earth doesn't a basic marine have the skills to use it? If you are building a starting character and want him to be a sniper of sorts, I would suggest Tactical Marine with standard Godwyn Pattern bolter. Give him some longer range bolts (Kraken rounds, if I remember correct) and targeting scope for the bolter and he will do his job just fine. Sniper Rifle is a special tool, for special jobs, not something a squad dedicated marksman would carry to battle. God knows US army dedicated marksmen sometimes do their job with simple M4 + scope (although they really shouldn't).

BTW, unlike Hollywood says "sniper rifle" is not a synonym of .50 BMG and "snipers" do much more than just extremely long-range shooting... In my youth in army I did qualify for sniper and later helped in training some more. The weapons used by the snipers varied, according to job at hand, from silenced .22 LR to 14,5 mm heavy machinegun.

Peacekeeper_b said:

Wow wasnt going to respond to this any more , but since you asked there Peace ill answer some questions

No, I never shot through a setinel walker while in diala prov, though after 72 hour overwatch jacked up on methanphetimines sometimes I thought I seen them HA., but I am not a memeber of Deathwatch-They would face corrupted guardsmen fairly often I would expect or PDF.

He was wrong about several points I stated them all, gave a page referance and even typed out the discrepencies.

You say a decent rifle, and all I have said was that it is not a decent rifle. I am trying to give players that want to be snipers something to start with that is more on par with the other weapon types. Someone suggested allowing one of the later bolters to be used, if you want to do that go ahead. The Exitus Rifle I know is not your average sniper rifle, though I fail to see how the Elite of Elite in space marines would use an average sniper rifle.

So, in your time in afganistan did you witness the snipers using crystalized needle weapons propelled by laser technology poisoning the afganies? See how rediculous that question sounds? Sound familar?

I think this is another case of, them buffing the basic bolt weapons to the degree that all other weapons are pointless.

Firstly a needle rifle is what space marine scouts use, although why they felt the need to have the basic needle rifle stats from DH with the felling trait to represent it I don't know, the Widower in the I:HB for DH is an example of a upgraded needler (albiet a pistol but at least demonstrates the capabilities).

Especially seeing as the toxic trait is pretty much pointless by this point, tyranids don't even feel it and space marines need to roll something ridiculous like 85 or less to pass. So they really need to use some of the expanded poison rules from the DH GM screen book.

But as it's by far the most subtle weapon, quiet flashless, it's always going to have a place, especially if it's actually being used by scouts.

Secondly, the Stalker Boltgun is the direct upgrade, especially with the decent ammo so I don't know why you don't just that, especially if you are house ruling stuff why don't you just let them start with a stalker? Yes it doesn't have the range you would expect from a modern sniper rifle, non of the weapons have the ranges they of they modern equivalent that's just the way they did it.

Thirdly, yes we have AMR's in the military service, but they are well and truely in the feild of heavy weapons, you might as well have lascannon. Other options are a single shot autocannons, multilasers (monolaser?) with accurate trait, seeing as heavy weapons don't get additional accurate damage you have to go for overkill (there at thread on the DH forums discussing accurate damage in excruiating depth). Basically we are already outside of anypublished materials discriptions of Astartes weapons here so there no real point of refference.

Nimon said:

In your time with your head up your a$$ did you ever see Jesus? This Entire thread you have been nothing but a troll and an argumentative jackwit. PeacekeeperK and AK WERE trying to help you.

Perhaps you've never heard of Errata, it's the little corrections that are issued from time to time. It's RAI made RAW. Things like Aim, Accuracy, Scope, and Talents all end up playing a part in how lethal a weapon in the game can be

Personally, I do not care if you do not like or use the Astartes Sniper Rifle. It is not intended to single shot a Space Marine. You made house rules to make something, yay for you, people do it all the time. Sometimes they even post them in the 'House Rules' section of the DeathWatch forums.

Welcome to DeathWatch, your rules growing pains may vary. Real World comparisons to the WH40k Universe Technology fails at the most basic of levels.

This isn't Iraq or Afghanistan, we are not shooting at you or trying to kill you, so Frakking chill.

I agree that the Astartes Sniper Rifle looks a bit (a lot) week compared to the Exitus rifle. But that's as it should be. It's like comparing a handgrenade with a 12cm grenade. Both are lethal but made for different purposes.

I imagine the Deathwatch (or any Chapter for that matter) would consider the job to be done when they descide which weapons to use.

• Assassinate someone without a trace? Astartes sniper rifle. The corpse wouldn't even have a noticable wound.
• Assassinate an ork warboss and sow confusion (and hopefully fear) into the mob? Stalker pattern boltgun. The boss' head would suddenly explode and the other orks wouldn't even see where the shot came from (and would probably start a fight over the possition as boss!)
• Kill a Hive tyrant from a distance? Possibly stalker bolter, but most likely lascannon or missile launcher.
• Destroy an advancing horde of genestealers/orks/mutants etc.? Heavy bolter, flamer, assaultcannon... Anything BIG and rapid firing
• Taking out a Demon Prince? Two words. Orbital bombardment. Or if that doesn't do it: Exterminatus or maybe sending a message to the Grey Knights. Demon princes are WAY out of the average marines league.

Back to the OP's animosity towards the needle rifle. I wouldn't give a projectile of frozen poison penetration. It's far to brittle. But with the Accurate rules it doesn't really need penetration to be lethal. With a fair shot you'll do 3D10 damage (aprox. 17 on average). If you hit an eldar with mesh armour you'll deal 14 wounds to the poor sap! And if he then fail with his T-70% roll, he'll get another D10. One shot. Most likely one kill. Even without Righteous Fury.

Against a traitor marine (8 AP, TB 4 - no unnatural since the weapon is Felling) you'd deal 5 points of damage and with a failed T-25% roll (one re-roll due to oolitic kidney but no +20 from the promnor since the toxin isn't ingested) he'll recieve 1D10 more. Not enough to kill him, but not entirely useless. You'll hit him again next round without him knowing where you are! And the next, and the next...

Fresnel said:

Imo the advantages of the Astartes sniper rifle are:

• The ammo is very, very light. Allowing the scout initiates to operate independently for very long periods. If I recall correctly scouts carry the device that generates the ammo.
• The operation is virtually silent and flashless
• Using called shots on unarmoured locations - one shot kills are likely

As far as DW is concerned, an Astartes sniper rifle (with scope) is a nice secondary weapon to have. Btw I would be inclined to rule that the snipe rifles always come with scopes - and this is included in the req cost.

Clearly it is not the equivalent to a modern sniper rifle. But how many 50-caliber rounds does a modern sniper carry? Is he dropped behind enemy lines and expected to operate independently for months?

If you want the 40K equivalent to a modern sniper rifle - perhaps a Lascannon...

But how many modern day snipers are space marines with unnatural strx2? Thats my point they should have exceptional weapons beyond what we have now. A modern day sniper behind enemy lines would use a .308 if western or 7.62 if eastern of corse thats in general if you were some black ops badass im sure you would have something more custom.

Just to be a jerk about it, the difference between .308 and 7.62x51mm is not East vs West. It is a measurement in calibre against a measurement in mm, or more commonly civilain variant versus NATO variant. This is the same with .223 and 5.56. The latter NATO variants have a minisculy larger diameter bullet and require more headspace in a chamber. Practically this means that weapons chambered to 7.62x51 can fire both 7.62 AND .308 rounds, but weapons chambered to .308 can ONLY fire .308 (same with 5.56 and .223).

This doesn't pertain to the larger questions in this conversation at all. I am just a stickler about crap like this.

Apologies, continue.

ANYONE taking into account that this is a GAME? Direct correlation to existing military technology is irrelevant......they don't even have stabilized turrets in their tanks and fighting vehicles FFS.....they HAVE to stop to shoot and rub the tanks down with sacred oils to keep the machine spirits within the metal happy.

ANYONE taking into account that this is a GAME? Direct correlation to existing military technology is irrelevant......they don't even have stabilized turrets in their tanks and fighting vehicles FFS.....they HAVE to stop to shoot and rub the tanks down with sacred oils to keep the machine spirits within the metal happy.

This.

This gets overlooked way too often. Amen.

I do agree it shouldn't be an exotic weapon for a Space Marine though, since you do use one in your time in the training company.

There's a slightly updated sniper rifle (along with quite a bit of other updates to 'scout' kit - armour, shotguns, etc) in Rites of Battle .

Two things worth noting are that (a) it has a built in scope at no cost, and that (b) whilst an exotic weapon it is explicitely covered by the Astartes Weapon Training talent, even though other exotic weapons are not.

Another point...

Space Marine where pretty impressive armour, they are frontline fighters....want snipers, play Imperial Guard.

S.