Vindicare Assasin in 6th ed

[Denied]

How do people think the Vindicare is holding up in 6th ed? Prior to this edition I didn't see him as very playable because I had Psyfileman Dreads to do his job for cheaper and they were more survivable. Now with the nerf to vehicles my Psyfileman get glanced to death by turn 2 and it makes me a sad panda. He has a good set of stats T4, BS8, 4+ invo and a 6+ FnP with Stealth and Infiltrate. He comes with some cool abilities to choose his shots (wound on a 2+, Super pen, or cause 2 wounds per hit) and he has deadshot so you can always allocate his wound, but does that become less effective with Look Out Sir? I think if you place him into 4+ cover for a 3+ save and put enough other threat on the board he could be an MVP.

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How do people think the Vindicare is holding up in 6th ed? Prior to this edition I didn't see him as very playable because I had Psyfileman Dreads to do his job for cheaper and they were more survivable. Now with the nerf to vehicles my Psyfileman get glanced to death by turn 2 and it makes me a sad panda. He has a good set of stats T4, BS8, 4+ invo and a 6+ FnP with Stealth and Infiltrate. He comes with some cool abilities to choose his shots (wound on a 2+, Super pen, or cause 2 wounds per hit) and he has deadshot so you can always allocate his wound, but does that become less effective with Look Out Sir? I think if you place him into 4+ cover for a 3+ save and put enough other threat on the board he could be an MVP.

For as many points as he is, I feel totally comfortable throwing a full unit's round of shooting at him. Comparative to the Pysfle dread, his range is only 36 and a couple of heavy bolters can knock him right out. Personally, any time I've gone against one, they get one shot off against one of my vehicles (usually blowing it up) and then I kill him. This, frankly, ALWAYS comes down to positioning. My opponents want to take advantage of his shooting against my full army, so place him in the center. I don't think that's his role. I think he needs to bully a few separate units and really make them regret their own position. This would mean going after flank-deployed Long fangs/Devastators and other high priority targets that will sit in the backfield and otherwise ruin your day.

Me, I've never fielded him and I don't really see the need. What it comes down to for me is that he's going to get somewhere between 5-7 shots if he's lucky. He can do a lot of damage with those shots, but I'd prefer the reliability of multiple shots and so I believe an extra psyfleman dread would be the way to go. :)

[DarkLink]

The only times I've seen him played, or heard about him played, he literally died the first enemy shooting phase he was present for. Half the time he was alpha struck and never got to shoot. I've heard one or two people say they've had good results from him, but never firsthand and I can only imagine they were playing against incompetent opponents and/or non-competitive lists that for whatever reason couldn't deal with him. I don't think there's a whole lot that's changed with 6th to make him any better.

The only thing I can think of is that if you take an Aegis Defense Line, he gets 2+ cover. He might survive a little while in that case. But even then, he can be torrented to death pretty easily. I'm frankly not optimistic.


On the other hand, Land Raiders have become my new favorite thing (again, since with Daemonhunters you always took Land Raiders). Since there's a lot less melta and heavy anti-tank in 6th in general, they're pretty much guaranteed to do their job, and people have some trouble with them because people take so much more plasma and anti-infantry now.

[Mr.Pickelz]

When the Vindicare isn't shot to death he is a nice addition to GK's, however he will always take punishment for being in the good positions. The trick is to have him sit back and cover the middle ground or objectives and not the opponent's deployment zone, placing him in front of or near the front of your forces is just asking him to get shot. Being that he no longer has his old night-fight rules anymore, if he can see someone, so can they see him, this leads to the issue of someone getting the first shot on him. Overall if used defensively he's good, if used offensively he will suffer.

[Wildcard]

Biggest issue for me is the "Look out Sir!". I have no problem for a soldier / security to stand in front of his VIP and take the shot if someone gets close and pulls a gun from his jacket etc, but to be a f*ckin psychic to jump in front of the bullet that is coming a mile away in a manner that you cannot hear the sound of the shot, nor see the muzzle flash.. Kinda ridiculous..

Imo he is good for a couple of things now, based on what you are fielding yourself:
1) To take out those high AV vehicles with turbo penetrator
2) Take out invulnerable saves of some high performance enemy HQ close combat monster (if the invulnerable save is from wargear of
3) Take out enemy skyfire guns if you are using lots of stormravens..

Theres so many plasma guns available that i dont see any use for taking such a high prised model to be able to remove 5-7 plasmaguns at best in the game.

[Learn2Eel]

The same points cost (cheaper?) gets you a Psyflemen dreadnought, who isn't as obvious a target as one model. A Vindicare can get seven shots off at most in a game. He will probably die long before gets to fire his fourth shot. Not really worth it, especially if you roll badly. As much as +2/+4 is awesome to hit, and 4D6 +3 is amazing, it isn't infallible. And even then, he still has to roll a 4 on the damage chart to destroy a common vehicle.
And against infantry, in reality the best thing he can do is kill a model here or there or remove a storm shield.

[plawolf]

The Vindicare needs a lot of skill and thought and a little bit of luck to make work.

When you play him, you need pick very carefully where you place terrain and objectives. The biggest trick is in picking a good sniper's nest for him. The key is not to get greedy or be too aggressive and want to have LoS at every juicy target, as they will shoot back and likely kill him before he can do much.

I prefer to pick somewhere with no direct LoS to anything other than one or two targets I want him to shoot (I often pick somewhere with no LoS to any of the opponents army, and that can do amusing things to the opponent), but good LoS to key positions or objectives that a good enemy would seek to take advantage of or grab. Such areas and objectives will also be places you would want some of your units to be, and if you get there first, the Vindicare can provide good covering fire.

Don't bother tying yourself in nots trying to find somewhere with LoS to the enemy's tooled up Lord or deathstar but not to his long range guns, have a think about where that Lord or Deathstar wants to be, and position your own forces accordingly so that Lord and his unit will have to walk across the Vindicare's LoS if it wants to eat that juicy unit of yours or grab that object and shoot him up en route.

Opponents would either get obsessed with trying to take him out and end up putting key units in bad positions in order to get a shot at him, or forget he is there, and put something in his sights without realizing.

The Vindicare can be hit and miss sometimes, so he might not be what you are looking for to win GTs, but he can be really fun to play with, and can open up all sorts of interesting options and potential for your and your opponent to play mind games with each other, which is the main reason I like him.

The key is to be smart and careful with placement so he isn't an obvious and easy target to get blasted off the table first turn. The longer the Vindicare is on the board, the more survivable he gets as enemy units gets destroyed or are pre-occupied elsewhere, and so you can be more aggressive with him later in the game if the situation permits.

[Anggul]

Hopefully they'll update them to ignore "Look Out Sir!" Otherwise his role as a deadshot sniper is completely gone and he can't do his job. Shield-Breaker is so immensely useful, but if they're just going to ignore it on a 2+, you're better off just buying a squad and firing lots of shots at it.