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Bolt Action Locked & Loaded – Sneaky Sniper Team Tactics
April 8, 2016 by dignity
We're back with another trip into the warzone that is Bolt Action. John & Chez from Warlord Games are going to be looking at the best uses for your Sniper Teams in this episode.
There are plenty of options open to you from hunting officers to special weapons in squads or maybe something else. Never underestimate the sniper!
Check out Bolt Action Locked & Loaded XLBS where we will be discussing the tactics involved in Using & Countering Recce Vehicles.
How do you use your snipers?
@dignity theres something up with you you tube vids today
thanks for the spot bud
No problems 🙂
The Youtube channel direct seems to work for me. Try…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WwnN6tg1u48
Its ok i have it fixed now, there was one letter missing from the code 🙂
As soon as I can afford I’m gonna get a Bolt Action army. Probably a small British carrier company, maybe with some howitzers.
Snipers…. great if you have one, nightmare at times if you’re facing one as a well positioned one will cause you a lot of bother.
Personally I use one with my germans, and use it to pick off certain threats, e.g. MG/mortar teams, gun crews. Once they’ve been dealt with, then it can move on to targets of opportunity – NCOs, heavy/special weapons guys in squads.
As yet I’m not running a sniper in my US Airborne list….
7:00 – Oh man! @dignity wants to snipe him some medics! Don’t let your opponent capture any of your men after you pull a stunt like that. 😀
Snipers still apply modifiers for range and ‘small team’ but they also have a positive sniper modifier which means John only needed a 2 and Chez a 3.
Yup, snipers are the only unit I’m aware of that can automatically hit (point-blank range, +1 sniping bonus= 1+ to hit).
I assumed a roll of 1 is ALWAYS a miss. I checked the BA Rulebook again and could not find a rule to that effect.
So apparently auto-hits are possible in BA.
I stand corrected. Thank you good sir.
Yeah, that’s how I would have thought it worked to, but I think in the FAQ they actually addressed this situation saying the sniper automatically hits. I only seen it happen once when a sniper team was a assaulted before they had activated.
Though I haven’t got to playing the game, yet, pretty sure the Sniper Team is a must for me in a list. If I take my 25pdr then I’d probably not take a Mortar, but most times I’d consider a Sniper Team and some indirect fire a must for keeping down enemy field guns and weapon teams.
Yes you both forgot that Snipers when sniping get a positive modifier to their roll. I generally field a sniper or even two when I’m using my Japs. My favoured targets are Artillery/Air observers and spotters as they can ruin the best battle plan. Next I go for NCO’s, troops win battles in most games and BA is no exception. So I think it pays to cripple squads. NCO’s are a good target as you avoid the small team modifier so the chances of success are increased. If you take him out, then that squad squad is on permanent -1 to order/morale tests, added to the pin they got for the hit in the first place. It doesn’t take lot more damage before they are failing tests and going down.
Going for team weapons as you say can be very damaging one shot and you take out the whole unit. It also loses your opponent an order dice as would also be the case with Justin’s target the medic. I’d shoot him too for that reason alone 🙂
We don’t deliberately target medics, but you do become obsessed by the little buggers who can lock down areas of the battlefield.
I really like including snipers in my force. As someone that doesn’t make use of AFOs and FOs (even as the U.S.), I find snipers to be my best counter to an opponent that does use observers. Observers are my primary target with a sniper team and I try to place them on the table I can snipe early and until removed.
My next target would be machine gun teams if they made it onto the table were is usually pretty rare. Additionally, it would really depend on how much I would have to re-position the sniper team before I would bother. I would include German (and only German) squad machine guns as sniping target due to both of its National Traits. Their LMGs put enough firepower to be a concern, and their Initiative Training make sniping the NCO risky of accomplishing anything at all save removing a man + pin.
Possibly the last target I want to snipe is my opponent’s Officer if they are a 1st Lt or above. I’ll try to shoot a 2nd Lt if the opportunity presents itself, but I am not going out of my way to do it as Shooting the NCO of a squad has basically the same effect so long as that squad has pins.
I wouldn’t bother sniping a medic. One, like John I find the idea pretty horrible to target a non-combatant. Secondly, Bolt Action medics rarely help anyways in my experience. It is pretty much better snipe nearly any other target.
In summary, the only target I go out of my way for is AFO/FOs. Everything else is pretty much a target of opportunity .
Every list I build for my Soviet force includes a Veteran Sniper. That one sniper can do so much to wreak havoc that it’s sheer presence on the board has caused my opponents to stay as far away as possible, or charge right up to it to eliminate it early. In either case, since the sniper is not what my force is built around, I don’t care if it lives or dies as long as it continues giving me some kind of control over where and what my opponent is doing his thing.
As far as target priority, a lot of people go for the big guns, but I usually try to to go for NCO’s in units. Taking out an NCO puts a pin on the unit that is harder to remove and gives me more opportunities to deal with the LMG’s and other weapons later. I also try to go for small teams that can be easily taken off the board before I’ll go for larger squads, because the more Order Dice I take out of the bag from my opponent, the less flexibility he’ll have as the game goes on.