Assassins - Take em or leave em?

[xarius]

I've killed a Land Raider with a Zzap Gun. Doesn't make it reliable :P

Does however make them hilarious

and that the point

[Rookie1]

To sum up the post of the first page:
- Assassins have their place in the showcase but not on the table.
- There are some neat tricks when combined with PBS
- (other post are rather rant than helpful hints ).

Other thoughts, comments are welcome, of course.

[Lerra]

The Callidus Assassin is nearly worth her points just for the "A Word in Your Ear" ability (you get to move an opponent's unit up to 6" after deployment). Nothing like taking an IC and moving him out into the open to be eaten alive

[Valhallan42nd]

I do love the Callidus. The word in your ear, plus a turn one, plus imperial guard = fun.

[Lord Sandwich]

Strangely enough, my favorite is the Culexus assassin. I started off with an Eversor assassin, who proved his worth time and time again, but after a while I got bored of a unit that would basically kill off his points value, then promptly die. I moved on to the Callidus, hearing many good things about it. I was, frankly, disappointed. True, the Callidus ignores all saves, can jump out of combat, appear anywhere, and use her neural shredder, but targets are a problem. Anything worth ignoring all saves will probably kill her before she gets to jump out again, targets with low enough Ld to be hurt generally aren't worth using your 120 point assassin to go kill, and appearing anywhere isn't that great if she fails to do anything. I've never used a Vindicare: that's what Telion is for.

Now the Culexus. True, it's the weakest of all the assassins in close combat, but the Culexus is much more of a surgical scalpel than any other Assassin. Consider simply the Animus Speculum. In and of itself, it's a good gun with 2 S5 AP1 shots. But, when you start adding in psykers, it becomes an absolutely brutal weapon. And yet, a psyker could be considered fairly rare. So if not the Animus, then what?

Soulless.

This rule is the living, breathing reason you take the Culexus. Any other rules are just nice bonuses to help him do what he does. If you get a Culexus into the middle of an enemy force, then those nice Whirlwind barrages are pinning the enemy on Leadership 6. Your Assault squads that won by four kills? Yeah, they sweep the enemy if they fail a Ld THREE check. You can keep their entire army tied up with just a few good barrages, and pinning. IG benefit from this even more, with artillery pieces and mortars out the wazoo. Oh, and the Etherium makes it extremely hard to take the Culexus out, more so than any other assassin.

I like the sound of that

[TheKingElessar]

Back in 3rd, or early 4th (not sure which, twas several years ago) I lost an entire Squad of Wraithguard, and a 'Lord, to an Eversor. Since then...I honestly don't think I've seen one grace a table.

[mkerr]

Hi Rookie1 -- we've done lots of talking about Assassins on our end too. The new 5E rules were a bit of a blow to them (mostly the changes in the way close combat works), but they can still be a very effective addition to an army. I think they even have their place in competitive armies, especially using the "Using WH/DH as Allies" rules for Imperial Guard.

I'm just going to talk about using assassins in an Imperial Guard army (not using Inducted Imperial Guard) because that's where you can find the best tricks.

1. Astropath: The +1 (or +2) to reserve rolls can make almost all of the Assassins more effective. In combination with outflanking, you suddenly get a lot more options for the Culexus and Eversor.

2. Battle Psyker Squad: This relatively inexpensive squad can yield 9 psykers, making the Culexus Animus Speculum an Assault 11 gun. Make sure to put them in a Chimera (to keep them from having to make Leadership tests).

3. Weaken Resolve: There are a couple of nasty tricks here. First of all, you can use Weaken Resolve in combination with the Callidus Neural Shredder (giving you a wound on a 2+, AP1 insta-kill T4 template). It does nasty things to Nobs and T4 characters. Secondly, the Eversor's pinning shots become a lot more formidable. Finally, the Culexus Ethermium and Psyk-Out grenades become very effective against units targeted by Weaken Resolve.

4. Orders: Assassins can be the target of Imperial Guard orders, so you can use Bring the Big One Down! on the Callidus' Neural Shredder, Fire on My Target! for the Culexus' Animus Speculum or For the Honor of Cadia to give the Eversor Furious Charge or Like the Wind! to give your Assassin an extra D6" move.

5. I still love the Vindicare, but he took a big hit (although I do like the Rending Exitus Rifle) in 5E. The ubiquitous cover save makes his job tougher -- even with the Spy Mask. And I really hate losing the second shot with the Exitus Pistol. But he's still great for taking out Chaos Icons, Power Fist Sergeants and

So if you like options, then an Assassin is great. They add a lot of chaos to a game and can even rarely turn a loss into a win. I suspect I'll keep using my Vindicare until I finally bring down a Landraider with a turbo-penetrator. Then I can retire him.

-- MKerr

[Aegis]

Not understanding the absence of the Death Cult assassins. Running a WH force, I find the DCA's make for wonderful distractions for a number of reasons.

First, for 40 points a pop, they can easily make their points back once in combat. Secondly, because they are moved/targeted independently, it makes it difficult to take them all out in a single turn of shooting (this is, of course, barring multiple units firing at them, or a template weapon). Running two or more, and having them work in tandem makes them very devastating.

Admittedly, a lot of their success depends on liberal use of cover, and smart placement during deployment (in your deployment zone, or through infiltrating). However, using them in combination with almost any of the temple assassins, or even as a way to counter an opponents infiltrators, I feel they have become a valuable mainstay of my forces.

[mkerr]

Not understanding the absence of the Death Cult assassins. Running a WH force, I find the DCA's make for wonderful distractions for a number of reasons.

I've always been a staunch advocate of DCAs, but they lost too much in the new addition. They just aren't as effective at controlling close combats (running down enemies and slamming into the next fight). You'll get one decent close combat out of them and they'll be dead -- giving tons of KP to your opponent.

5E has just changed the game too much; while they may get their cost back, they certainly won't get back their kill points.

I fully intend to find a place for my DCAs (I have 9 of them, lol), but it may be in Planetstrike.

-- MKerr

[Aegis]

9 DCA's just sounds sexy.

I keep forgetting about KP games (as my group tends not to play those often, as we grew bored of standard meat grinders sometime ago). Though, I suppose a case could be made for them as a way of tar pitting cheap, ineffective assault units the enemy has... But then again, I am likely grasping at straws in that case.