Why are Scout Marine bolters so ineffective?

[saltychipmunk]

having almost the same or slightly better = bad. again this is light infantry vs heavy infantry. 420 in scouts technically has the same dps as a tac. but that tac has more hp and takes 50% less damage from arguably the most dangerous damage type for light infantry units like scouts.

when you factor that in , having basically the same damage values per cost point is horrible.

the rest of your argument relies and buying all of their utility via upgrades.

With the exception of being able to kite melee units, harassing things and ninja capping (which other comparable units of other races can do reasonably as well, although i concede scouts are ahead there). scouts are ehh.


Their upgrades are also extremely expensive.

that grenade is technically the most expensive t1 grenade option in the game. sure you get a detector for it and an extra model. but for just a grenade .. its the most expensive upgrade and for its power cost your opponent can field a t1.5 unit.

the shot guns too. sure they are comparable in cost to other upgrades but they also have rather insane limitations. like that fall off and range which effectively makes their kiting play harder to pull off. it is much more difficult to keep shot gun scouts safe from focus fire since they need to be in the thick of it to do anything.

their upgrades barely break even on their own and require a combination or the sm player to generally be better with them in the first place to get real potency.

So i again make the same point .. you are arguing that a unit that you have invested an assault marine's worth of money into performs well to justify that non upgraded variant..

I wont for a second argue that a fully upgraded scout is some trivial unit. It is not. but money does not materialize out of thin air and for the cost of that fully upgraded scout or even partially upgraded , other races can get a ton of other options on the table.

Options mind you they are not pressured into getting.

[Codex]

I don't believe the rest of the argument relies on buying their utility via upgrades. SM has always been about engagement selection and pressuring focal points, scouts are the ideal way to handle that. Even in the early game they can whittle down priority targets before decisive engagements allow for such pressuring. The upgrades are a boon, not crucial to their functioning as mobile light infantry, cappers, harassers and information. By the very fact they do all these things, this is what allows tacs and ASM and HBD to stand there and do their dps. That's why I compared them to buffers: they effectively allow the heavy armor TO DO THEIR DAMAGE.

I would've made my post longer and explain all these things, it's just that typing a wall of text on my phone on the way home from work is not so fun, especially when it constantly autocorrects "melee" and "dps" for me. Thanks autocorrect. (And proofreading posts are a pain in the arse)

Scouts are amazing. Riku or I could show you that. Or even Noisy. You're constantly talking about stats but don't care about the context. For reference, I care MORE about having my scouts running around in virtually every game than I do about ASM. ASM are great, sure, but if you can't actually get the heavy armour blob rolling you're dead in the water without your scouts.

If that isn't a sign of a great unit I don't know what is.

[Crewfinity]

^^agreed with everything he said (especially the phone autocorrection)

I played some games last night against Yaay's techmarine which reminded me just how frustrating basic scouts can be to play against with proper use of LOS blockers, kiting, and garrisons. Scout bolters absolutely do not need any buffs. Their utility and speed more than makes up for their lower dps. They're an amazing unit which provide the basis for SM playstyle and scale excellently through all stages of the game

that grenade is technically the most expensive t1 grenade option in the game. sure you get a detector for it and an extra model. but for just a grenade .. its the most expensive upgrade and for its power cost your opponent can field a t1.5 unit.

Inquisitorial Storm Troopers would like to have a word with you
25 power for a detector is standard, you also get a die last model and good stats (250 health vs 140 on a normal scout) as well as the grenade.
IST pay the same price for a grenade which does a third of the damage for no timer, but can't be used as a grenade spike as well due to a minimum range and friendly fire. plus scouts have access to infiltration which makes their grenade much scarier since it can come anytime, anywhere.


at the end of the day, good scout play is the bread and butter of SM play. if you're using them right, scouts can force the enemy into fights that are more advantageous to you, draw apart the enemy army to limit their effectiveness by trying to chase them down, and securing a map control advantage while your beefier units do the heavy lifting. like sentinels, this unit performs exponentially better when microed well. They may not win stand up fights with other ranged units, but they will outmanuever them and slowly whittle them down from cover or garrisons while the enemy is trying to catch them, and melee units have no hope against 2 scouts microed well.

furthermore, not only are they good as a cheap capping/skirmisher unit, but they can be upgraded to be absolute terrors. infiltration lets them avoid bleed and enhances their skirmisher role, grenades let them counter setup teams or wipe squads, which can give you a huge advantage in the early game (see noisy's scout play in MRT 17 against me, an early squad wipe gave him the game), and their shotguns let them hard counter melee, and are cheap enough that they can be purchased for the first engagement, which is a huge deal.

really, scouts are how you use them. if you blob them up with your tacs and hope for the best, they might not do that much to change an engagement. but if you let your tacs fight while your scouts cap up half the map, even if you lose the engagement you'll be ahead overall.