DaedalRogue said:

Actually in the core rulebook it states the needle rifle as an exotic weapon and the astartes training covers all but exotics.

One of my Killteam players wanted to have a less bulky armor ( disliked the looks of it ). So i had her play a Devestator marine with some adjustments:

that instead of MK7 Aquila Space Marine armor wore a Scout armor. This results into dropping of the -30 mods on concealment and silent walking. due to all marine armor being heavy armor. She now has Scout armor wich even gives ( core rulebook rules ) +10 to concealment but the normal penalty for firing heavy weapons.

And instead of the Heavy Bolter I let her start with the Needle Rifle as default weapon. Some might say this is to overpowerd but consider the 2 full action reload per shot with the fact that the needle needs to do a wound to deliver its poison. She now cannot take on heavy armored targets nor hordes due to her brittle and slow reloading sniper. Instead her team needs to handle that for her but she can do some real nice roleplaying now.

Along with this she can do all the Devestator advances in wich are already placed some neath sniper focused skills. So I did not have to create a new specialty as this is my first time GM, i did not want to take that risk.

I did not read your specialty though, but i think it will give your player the feeling he or she is playing somehthing special. wich is always good. I just chanegd it this way wich i find to be workign quite effectively to.

Nogard said:

Many people apply the RoB rule (astartes weapon: While this sniper rifle is in the exotic Category, for Space Marines it counts as a Solid Projectile weapon. This means that the astartes weapon training Talent (see page 113 in the Deathwatch Rulebook) is all that is needed for a Space Marine to use this weapon) and apply it to the standard astartes sniper.  It makes sense, really, seeing that all Marines have supposedly been trained as scouts already. 

 Nogard said:

There is no penalty for firing heavy weapons.  Heavy weapons need to be braced in order to fire unless you have bulging biceps, which all astartes have.  The only real penalty I'd see for having scout armor and a heavy weapon is there is no real place for the standard ammo pack to go.

Nogard said:

I don't know anyone here that would say that's overpowered.  The default Needle rifle is a very specialized weapon.  Thumbs up for the RP, but it's definitely not a more powerful loadout.

Nogard said:

Devestator is a pretty good speciality for snipers.  I personally suggest using the stalker pattern boltgun though.  I've seen devs go with scout armor as you say (and get a +10 to conceal rather than -30), pick up that stalker, and spend most of their req on silent ammo and chameloline cloaks.

I created the specialty as a means to an end. When I looked at what scout marines do in tabletop as well as how it's been applied to the various virtual versions of the world (Dawn of War, and Dawn of War 2 being the prime examples) the scouts do more specialized functions than were permitted for any of the core specializations to do. It was difficult to by default craft a tactical marine, or a devastator into the role of having the scout specialized focus and extended training. This is what inspired me to craft this in the first place.

In the end the mixture I came up with is a bastardization of Tactical, Devastator, and Cyrus from Dawn of War 2 based on the rules provided in the Rites of Battle and Core rule books. Now that I have First Founding I may integrate some of the features from the Wolf Scout specialization they added in there, or generally mine could get tossed out the window as they have the full specialization there.

In hindsight I could've made this a prestige class along the lines of Chaplain, or Forge Master which would be selectable at Rank 1 or Rank 2 for Tactical Marines and Devastators. But I like having it as a starting option for someone. Via the fiction for Dawn of War which is considered cannon to some degree now. Cyrus as a marine was selected for his unique talents and choice of tactics. While those tactics were considered cowardly by the usual Space Marine methodology they proved immensely effective. Davion Thule Acknowledged these talents and even said his influence on the current generation of Blood Ravens would change the chapter forever.

In another view the Raven Guard follow the similar ideals of how this Scout Marine functions of Infiltration and Ambush. They adopted the tactics after a great deal of their numbers were annihilated in the Horus Heresy. For them it became a means for survival as a chapter while still combating enemies of the immortal emperor.

Take it or leave it for how I did this in the end, it functions for the group I'm running. The player using the Specialty opted for going the route of a sniper and has been using it to play an advanced vanguard infront of the rest of the killteam. It has proven effective and the player doesn't feel weak or useless compared to the rest of the kill team, while no severe balance or power issues have arisen either.