Scouts: shotguns vs sniper rifle

[xerrol nanoha]

Back in the day there was a pretty obvious distinction between the two:

Shotguns trade range for high DPS and anti-melee screening for other ranged units.
Getting a sniper rifle increases threat from bleed, but since they no longer bleed on the first shot and are much more likely to overkill and waste DPS by doing say: 180 damage to a 100hp unit, they seem much worse for providing almost no utility. That said, the scout sergeant benefits much more from shotguns than from a sniper rifle.

What are other people's impressions of this choice? When would they prefer one over the other?
In what matchups are the sniper rifle viable?

[Torpid]

Well snipers do often overkill on their dps so their dps values are very misleading, but with snipers that isn't terribly important. It makes more sense in one's head to just consider their damage per shot and the CD per shot. I don't even know what it is mind you, but that's because I've used them so much I don't really need to know the exact numbrer as I can 'judge' it right anyway.

What I am trying to say is that they are still far better at picking off models than bolter scouts. Especially models in cover. That's the best thing about snipers - they ignore cover. Bolters take forever to take off models in cover. Snipers don't. I find myself doing best though when I go for a 3x scout, tac, dev build. Without the third scout in a 1v1 I have no anti-melee potential if they get a jump squad and quite a lot of melee. Snipers are fundamentally a ranged unit counter - just pop them alongside devs, or behind tacs in green cover and you win vs shootas where otherwise you are doomed.

Think of a scneario - tacs in green cover, 2 scouts 10metres behind, there is 2 fully upgraded shoota boy squads at the opposite side of the tacs, 15 ranged away. If you have shotgun scouts here you lose unless you have sarges. That's too expensive though and you will bleed models. It also gives you no counter if he has a loota there too. If you have snipers you might still lose tbh since it does take a while to kill the shootas but you will not lose any models and you will bleed them a lot for them to win. The tacs absorb the shoota fire with their high hp, low model count (meaning easy for all models to be in cover) and heavy infantry armour, while the scouts are behind bleeding. The tac dps in consequential but only while the foe is in cover. If they move forward to press the snipers they will lose models faster and the tacs can beat the foe up in melee, snipers will be able to back off behind additional cover on most maps within seconds without losing any models.

[Oddnerd]

There is some wasted DPS against low HP targets, but scout snipers are still amazing at peeling off tacs/csm in a firefight (their sniper rifles do +27 bonus damage against HI armour). Even against infantry armour races, snipers are great for putting pressure on your opponent - if you are in a static firefight over a VP and you have snipers, you can steadily peel off his models unless he either backs off, or decides to go all in and attack you on your terms.

I like the way snipers are in this game, anyone who remembers the days of retail would not want snipers insta-killing low hp units again, they were so toxic (the only people who want that back are the shitheads who abused it to their own advantage).