How do you deal with snipers?

[Ralphabetsoup]

I'm at a plateau, skill-wise. My big problem is that I can't consistently deal with snipers. Offense, defense, doesn't matter. I'm playing two games on Foundry right now where I nearly lose a pair of soldiers on every turn. What's the best strategy to deal with them?

[Uvafan173]

I find that it's often helpful to move a soldier five spaces away from it to "box it in" so that it can't move any farther in the direction that you don't want it to move, or else it would be killed by your soldier.

[ElPared]

it depends. Generally I do it by stacking up units. like, I put a runner in front of my soldier and block the sniper's vision. He can only kill what he can see, so he kills the runner, then the soldier jumps in and kills the sniper. (assuming there's only the sniper to be dealt with, if there are other units I do it with something less fragile, like other soldiers)

other times I have runners lurk just out of the sniper's vision and double tap him to death. This assumes he has 2 HP of course, if there's just 1 you can spam runners at it till it dies.

on Foundry you can do either tactic, Snipers are pretty easy to take out there because they don't have a lot of cover except for enemy units and those posts in the middle. You just need to figure our what your opponent can see and what he can't. If you can hide some runners in the FOW and then double tap the sniper that's the way to go IMO even though it takes more wits

[connor34911]

Boosted soldiers. Runners. Mobi.

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Personally, I'd say just boost your soldiers. 3hp soldiers are pretty useless unless you have them hidden behind 4hp soldiers. Even then, your opponent may bust through your 4hp wall and 1 shot your 3hp soldier.

You can also use runners, if the snipers are unboosted this is a good strategy. If they boost the snipers it is harder. Id say using two runners to take out a sniper is situational. It really depends on how high of a value target the sniper is. Sometimes I'll do it if I'm ahead in the unit/wit count or i need to remove the sniper to get a strategic advantage on one part of the map.

The other way is mobi...

[vegaprom]

In Foundry (other maps it might be different) I find myself deal with snipers by a pair of runners. Sometimes I fetch runner from other spawn to deal with this sniper in conjunction with a runner from the base spawn. (Since in this map having a runner for vision is EXTREMELY important than any other maps.) Good players (it's my tactics, though) don't usually move out a lone sniper but hide a sniper in a pair of (boosted) soldiers. In my opinion (it might be wrong), move back and set up BOOSTED soldiers around your base.

[Ja Karta]

Replay?
Also, for what it's worth remember that snipers that are on the offensive (moving) are incredibly costly to the opponent. (# 3 wits to make, +1 to bost, +1/move) If a boosted sniper moves just three spaces it costs the same as a bombershell.

So while they can be a huge pain, remember they're also an opportunity for you to cause a huge pain to your opponent. That's a lot of wits that have been sunk into a very fragile and inagile unit.

[ElPared]

Another thing I find helpful is to remember that (unless a mobi is involved) if you can get a unit to where a sniper *used* to be last turn, you can definitely attack it because he can only move 1 space at a time. As long as you know where it was a turn ago you can figure out where it went, basically

[LortGob]

Mix and match two or more of the following options and you should be fine:
- Faster units (runners, multiple soldiers)
- Tougher units (4HP soldiers, heavies)
- Bigger range (bombshell, mobi)

[TheGoldenGriffin]

People are using thorn patches now for the unbuffed snipers

[XtreM Q]

even buffed snipers