So first, what makes a good sniper?
1. Massive MOD stacks.
The obvious sources of such stacks are TO camouflage and MSV2, but these produce very different snipers (discussed below). Sometimes you can get multiple things on one unit, like the intruder and nises, but it's rare.
Another source is the simple 4 dice of TR and neurocinetic units. However, regular readers will know of my disdain for TR bots. The only exception is the combined army Q-drone because it is mimetic. In all other cases, a single smoke shooting unit will end your TR bots without the slightest bit of trouble.
OR
2. Cheap but still effective.
Sappers are the most obvious candidate. A mimetic sniper that can deploy in the best possible spot in your DZ and still have cover for ~20 points is good stuff. Examples include the Shasvasti Haiduk and Aconticimento Regular with MULTI Sniper rifle.
Link team snipers sit in between these two options (massive MODs or cheap). They often need the 5-man link team bonus to be effective, but then they are soooo effective. Sixth Sense level 2 reduces the usefulness of smoke against them, and going face to face with a BS15 unit with 2B in unfavourable range bands is always tough.
I will talk more below about how to mix and match these different types of sniper. But first, let's finish the list of what makes a good sniper...
3. An appropriate weapon.
The best weapon for a sniper unit is the missile launcher, especially if they have TO camouflage and unless they have MSV2. This is because the missile launcher only needs to get off one hit to kill just about anything, and it has the glorious blast, which means that it can wipe out entire link teams in one shot. B1 means you can't really do anything on the active turn, but this is an ARO piece after all. If it's an MSV2 sniper then you want a multi-sniper rifle so that they can wreck TR bots and other short range units with smoke shooting or just active turn sniping. The Autocannon is a mixed blessing for a sniper. The extra damage and B2 in active is handy, but 16-32 allows a lot of attack units to get into a favourable range band where their burst advantage will often be too much to handle.
Tactical Principles part 1 - the basics
1. Some very basic principles
1.1 Snipers are meant to slow your opponent down, not win the game
This is the thing that most new players don't grasp. Your reactive turn is shit. It can't be helped. 1 burst against 4 is almost always going to be pretty dicey (see what I did there?). Your snipers exist largely to disrupt your opponent's plans, channel his models into traps and firelanes that suit your active turn, and prevent him reaching objectives. Do not expect your snipers to survive.
An important consideration in this vein is that it is often better to position your sniper not to kill your opponent's heavy hitters, but to instead pick off impetuous units, weak specialists and LI as they emerge from the deployment zone. They are less likely to be able to face-to-face against your sniper, and killing orders is often better than killing guns. Note that camouflage snipers are much better at this job because they are unexpected.
1.2 Snipers work better in multiples
There are two points to make here. The first is that if a sniper does survive into turn 2 and 3, it will be a massive pain. By this stage, a lot of your opponent's long range units will be dead, and he will be distracted by AROs in the midfield, allowing your sniper to get off cheap shots unmolested. Your opponent will also be short of orders and trying to make efficient moves up the field. This is hard when you have a sniper covering the optimal lanes of advance.
However, you are unlikely to be able to keep a sniper alive in this way unless you have mutliple snipers. This is because with 3, 2 can die. Furthermore, with 3, your opponent will stall in the midfield in their first turn, allowing your to sweep in and crush him. Additionally, with 3 snipers, you can set up a kill box (see below). This also happens to be the second point alluded to above.
1.3 Snipers need the range band advantage
When you've only got one burst to work with, having a massive spread on the target number is critical. If your sniper has a 12 on 1 dice against 9s on 4 dice, you're usually going to lose. Conversely, if you have 15 on 1 dice against 1 on 4 dice because your noctifer (TO camo) ML in cover is clipping your opponent's HMG when it is out of cover at 34", you're on to a winner.
The most important range band for snipers is being >32" against HMGs. This is especially true for camouflaged snipers as it makes them amazing HMG hunters. Don't forget that sniper rifles have shock ammo standard. You put that HMG straight to dead it doesn't matter how super the Djanbazan doctor is he ain't getting back up.
This is NOT true for TR bots. Too many people set up TR bots on a nice spire in their deployment zone thinking that it can see the whole board from there. You are inviting a sniper to axe it from long range. TR bots should be set up such that they cover 2+ access lanes and can only be engaged from 16-32. This maximises their effectiveness on defence and increases the likelihood that they will be able to do something on your active turn as well.
1.4. Most snipers are weak to smoke
The most common strategy against snipers is to lay a smokescreen and move forward into better range bands. MSV2 snipers obviously ignore this and there isn't much eclipse in the game, but MSV2 snipers don't stack MODs other than range against most HI and TAGs.
If you intend to use TO camouflaged snipers then try to deploy them such that MSV2 units at least have to move in order to smoke-shoot at them. Also consider deploying them to cover the flank where the smoke isn't so heavy and they can knock off a few cheerleaders. Super tasty for biotechvore.
2. How to use camouflage snipers versus MSV snipers
MSV snipers are tough to stack a MOD on other than burst. When they're in a link team (basically Djanbazans) even burst can be hard to come by. They also perform a nice attack function smoke shooting on your active turn. However, as B stacks are pretty straightforward for just about any link teams, MSV snipers either need to be awesome (basically intruder, Nises or Atalanta) or working in multiples, notably in steel phalanx.
When you have multiple MSV2 units (or 2 with a TR bot or some such), set them all up so they can see the whole board. This means that anyone trying to attack one will have to take hits from the other two. Most lists only have one or two long range weapons with which to take out a sniper. Without smoke shooting, these will die and you will have a sniper left standing to harass your opponent for the rest of the game.
Camouflage snipers perform a different function, especially if they have a missile launcher. Their job is to get off an ARO on an unsuspecting adversary, hopefully taking down a key unit or shutting down a lane of advance your opponent has already committed too. It is often useful to place these where they will have cross-table fire lanes on turn 2 and hold them. TO camouflage that doesn't emerge until turn 2 is often more powerful. Holding snipers to hit link teams when the spearhead moves out of LoF is also extremely powerful for catching specialists, secondary SWC and simply dropping the size of a link team by 1.
Camouflage snipers are the ones you want for setting up a trap or kill box. MSV snipers are more like defensive rocks.
3. How to set up a kill box
I will describe this as a kind of sequence because this makes it easy to understand. Such a sequence will not always be possible or desirable in practice, especially if you have TO camouflage against MSV2 unit.
You will need:
* A TO camo sniper OR a camouflage sniper and many decoy camouflage tokens in your DZ (for example, Ariadna with Spetsnaz, Tank Hunter, Brouant and Cateran);
* a juicy draw unit to act as bait, preferably one that is tough and has a 16-32 weapons. TR bots are ideal because they demand to be dealt with and take resources, but aren't that hard to stack a MOD on, leading to overconfidence. TAGs are also good, because they can survive a hit but draw your opponent out. Just remember that you want your opponent to be uninterested in splitting their burst between the bait and the TO sniper. If they put all four shots into the TO because your bait is an empty camouflage token, this won't work so well.
How to proceed:
3.1. Set it up your bait to draw fire from within its range band. This forces people to spend orders moving out of their DZ in order to engage it, and means they can't stack range bands on you.
3.2. Set up the camouflage sniper such that when your opponent tries to hit the bait, they get snapped from >36 by the TO dude. This means that the TO gets a free shot because the MOD stacks will encourage your opponent to direct all their attention to the TR bot. It means they will also get another good shot against the target unit if it survives, because from >36 that unit will still be at bad range even if it moves 4".
3.3. Have your third sniper unit (i.e. another cheap one, like a Haiduk) set up so that they have a >36" range shot to the point where your opponent gets 32" on your original sniper. This sniper is optimally deployed from reserve so that you can choose a position from where they won't draw much fire from heavy hitters moving out of their DZ, but from where they can be a nuisance on turn 2 and 3. Your bait and TO sniper will die, but the shitty cheap dude will survive to harass your opponent's attempts to grab objectives and advance efficiently.
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