Assassins - Take em or leave em?

**Rookie1** · 08-02-2009, 06:05 AM

Last evening I had a discussion about Assassins.
Take em or leave em?

Background: Friend of mine plays Witch Hunters with inducted IG. Most of the time my army (orks atm) faces three exorcist tanks, immolators, chimeras, melter troops... whatever, not the point here.

Question is, if assassins are worth taken?

Drawbacks (all of them)
Generally they have only T4, so they are instantly killed by S8 weapons and power fists in CC.
"Only" S4 with 4 attacks on the charge.
Pricey from 95 to 120 points.

Advantages (all of them)
Invul save of 4+
Decent stats, besides T and S.

Culexus:
Don't know what to do with this guy overall. Gimme hints, please

Callidus:
C'tan Weapon: Looks nice, no saves for the enemy in CC
Neural shredder: Reads fun, because you have to hit the enemy's LD instead of T. But you have to roll a 5+ to hit LD 9. Bad chances. Only affective against orcs, I assume.

Eversor:
Was a monster in old editions, but in 5th, I don't know.

Vindicare:
Is he more than an average sniper (Eldar, IG)? He can pick single models and shoot into CC, which is at least nice. Special ammo is for single use only.

So whats the deal with the "we look fancy, because we wear black" guys???
I'm looking forward to your comments.

(btw. If some unit descriptions read odd, please excuse me. I only have german rulebooks here

).

**Legionary** · 08-02-2009, 06:50 AM

The assassins were hugely improved with the new Guard codex and the Psyker Battle Squads.

PBS+Culexus - for every psyker within 12" the Culexus gets an additional shot with his S5AP1 weapon. Full PBS means he has a S5AP1 Assault 10 gun.

PBS+Callidus - reduce a squad's leadership to 2 using the PBS' Weaken Resolve then hit it with the Neural Shredder to wound on 2s with an AP1 template.

The Eversor and Vindicare don't benefit from the PBS, and remain pretty underwhelming. Out of the two the Eversor will perform better. Get it into melee with appropriate targets and it'll do damage. It's too easy for the Vindicare to sit around doing nothing. It'll wound on a 4+ which is extremely easy to fluff and it only has one shot per turn. It does have one special round that wounds on a 2+, and that's really one guaranteed wound - hits on 2+, wounds on 2+, AP2. Beyond that, he won't make his points back or contribute anything useful.

**TheRico** · 08-02-2009, 07:26 AM

Legionary makes a great points about the PBS - very nice combo.

Personally, im not the most competitive gamer .. i tend to use what i think is cool rather than what i think will win games... case in point, i have a marine army based on flamers (built in the days before Vulkan's kick *** rule) surprisingly, the army is pretty decent...

Anyway.. Assassins. . Gamers tend to rate units by how much the can kill OR how hard they are to kill.. but one often over-looked advantage of any unit is how disruptive they can be to the opponent's plan.

Assassins, especially the Vindicaire and the Callidus, are great to force the other player to change his game. They need to be used carefuly, with precision.. but thats what assassins are all about.

The 'deep strike' ability of the callidus is just nasty... nuff said.

The vindicaire, i think he's a bit underestimated. The ability to pick out and kill specific targets at a distance is very powerful... knocking off a Sarge with a PFist before your Pen. Engine charges in is great. Slicing down apothecaries in command squads... a melta gun model thats getting too close to a vehicle you want to keep alive... I wish he was MORE reliable and that his special rounds weren't one use only.. but sitill.

In Apocalypse i use the 3 Vindicaire formation and its great fun. You'd be surprised how often the enemy pumps all his fire at a lone 100+ point model instead of the 400 point unit nearby.