Killing is My Business...

A lot of people overlook snipers in the Imperial Guard, and I don't know why. I have two veterans I currently field, one for offense Grae's Grenadiers (covered in a previous article), and another for defense, they are the subject of this article.

With Cameleoline they are afforded the stealth special rule, and with snare mines, they are even better on defense. Now the reason I don't field my snipers as part of a special weapons team, is those only have BS 3, and don't have stealth or snaremines. Veteran's have BS 4 and all that snipery goodness. Now what makes snipers worth it? Well for starters they lend a fantastic weapon to the unit, it can take anything out, regardless of toughness on a 4+, and on rolls to wound that roll a 6, it is an instant wound, regardless of any saves. On top of that, it counts as pinning, and has 12 inches on a normal rifle. This saves my but against Tau, which are easy to pin, and hate it when you have them in range, and they don't have you in range. I use my snipers for all sorts of things, and just to make sure that the job gets done, they have an autocannon in the unit.

The sniper rifle is truly a great, and overlooked weapon, it can deal with light-infantry by pinning them, and heavy infantry, even monstrous creatures, with its rending rule, and the fact it ignores toughness.