Question of the Day: Ratlings

[Vice-Shogun Himura]

So I have ratlings, both the ye olden ones and I just bought 20 of the new ones. Why does everyone hate them? I never seen anything positive about them. yet I don't see it. Yes they are Hobbits with guns. But I don't see the issue about it. Certienly the newer metals are interesting models

[Jackal-0311]

Just the way they look I guess. I really don't like them, I use catachans snipers and use the rats stats. My biggest issue with them is that any sniper worth their wait should get those same stats why is a hobbit any better then a human at sniping fools? But maybe I just have a phobia about hobbits, after all they are abhuman.

[Peter Cooman]

I have a squad of the old ratlings, and i must say i like them, if not only for the diversity that they bring to the guard.

I also like snipers very much as they are awesome

I do find the new models for the ratlings butt-ugly. Nowhere near as good as the older ones.

The fact that i have an entire army made up of old metal cadians should be taken in consideration with this quote

[Ponen19]

Look of the model would be the best guess. I'm with Jackal though, just bought some human snipers and use the ratling stats. Better BS (as snipers should have), and you can have 10 in a squad as opposed to the 3 of a SWS. Then if you really like the sniper idea you can still use the sniper SW squads to increase the total number of snipers to around 22-ish. I've used "ratlings" my last few games and I like the results, the higher BS certainly makes them more useful.

[sgtsamvimes]

I think they're awesome, stealth, infiltrate and BS4 snipers! hells yes! T 2 hurts i guess, but 3 of them is 30 points so... whatever

[TheHoboHunter]

I always try and find room for a disposable 3-man team of the little blighters. It's negligable points and they have JUST enough scare-factor at sniping special weapons etc that people will, in my experience, try to play around them/kill them.

IMHO, Ratlings either get used as minimum-numbers distractions as above, or full-10-(dwarf)men-squads that can actually put out the hurt. Anything else seems to just be going half-assed, and we all know the IG doesn't do half-assed.

[krasimirova]

They are the only place you should by snipers in the Codex: IG.. Snipers did get a little buff in 6th, but as it is mentioned you should bring max or min number of them, depending on the role you have for them, anything in between is half assed....

[littlemac]

I quite often run 3 of them in a squad, but use human sniper models. Honestly, it's one of my favorite units, because you get that sniper/spotter feel and it's cheap as hell. I never expect my snipers to do anything, yet they continuously surprise me by being effective, particularly against termies or MCs. The small squad size deters the enemy from shooting at them, (except to get first blood), yet they can still cause damage and pinning.

Others will disagree, but I've always felt they were worth it, especially since my elite slots are free.

[treadiculous]

I also use the human models, mainly as I started fielding Commissars and Preists and felt the abhumans wouldn't be tolerated.

I prefer any model that is aiming to one holding an apple, and have a number of the old ratlings whihc I still think look cool.

[Jackal-0311]

And they just gross looking.