Viscount Vash said:
On the whole with this sort of thing I tend to 'do unto others as they do unto me'
But no its a stinky way to play and very un-sportsman like and I try to avoid playing people who do this sort of thing just to win.
Losing is good for you as a person and a gamer, it forces you to change, improve your army and tactics.
Indeed, and using sniping is one such tactic. Its perfectly legitimate, and well supported in the rules.
If you want to moan about realism, then I assume you'll roll a dice for casualties in each squad and those with the lowest scores take the wounds and are killed. After all, thats a good way to randomise shooting casualties and make it more realisitic. Whats that? You want to keep the guy with the big hand and take a bolter caddy off instead? Cheese!!
If you want to avoid sniping, don't move all of your weapons to the front and edges of your squads. You may want to get better shots for next turn or move your fist guy to get in B2B, but be aware you may pay the price.
Ever use torrent of fire? Torrent of blows? Is it realistic to force you to take one save on a specified model? No, but neither are flying space elves. Ever pulled casualties out of range of the powerfist/IC so it can't strike at a different I level? Same applies.
These are tournament level tactics and are quite legitimately used in that level of game. If you want a fluff-fest then go for it. But if two like-minded gamers are playing a league or tournament type game, or if you use any of these sort of things above, then don't be surprised if sniping happens.
Oh and before someone mentions the use of 2 rhinos to allow a lascannon to snipe a model, if someone wants to do that, and lose both rhinos and then lose the lascannon as I snipe it back, be my guest. Its a bad tactic from a strategic sense, never mind anything else.