# Assassin Help



## Silb (Jan 28, 2008)

Which of the different kinds of assassins is the best for a WH/DH army?


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## Jacobite (Jan 26, 2007)

Most people tend to go for the Callidus. Personally (and as I don't play much) I go for the Vindacre just because the fluff of the ultimate sniper is to good to pass up. Its cheesy but my god its good. Plus the mini is nice. But yes *ahem* back on topic, ah the Callidus is the way to go.


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## roricon (Jan 11, 2008)

The Callidus, as has already been mentioned, is the best value for points, and has a wide range of advantages and possible uses.

You could pretty much write the thing its own tactica.


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## Captain Galus (Jan 2, 2008)

why not use a vindicare?


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## Jacobite (Jan 26, 2007)

Statistically it doesn't kill as much as the Callidus due to it using a ranged weapon that isn't blast.


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## The Son of Horus (Dec 30, 2006)

I think it sort of depends on what you need in the army. I like using all four of them (not at the same time, of course!) just to use 'em. The Vindicare is the most fun to use, I think, even if it's not the most effective overall. My experience has been that the Eversor is the best buy for the points, as it's quite inexpensive, it's very quick, and it'll pay for itself in close combat without breaking a sweat.


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## Mad King George (Jan 15, 2008)

i used to use the vindicare before 3rd ed and now i realised you cant use him.

i believe all assassins are great depending on which army you face


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## Wrath of Khaine (Dec 29, 2006)

I'm personally an Eversor fan. He's just a beast in combat...


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## Lord Sinkoran (Dec 23, 2006)

i would go for vindicare. I like the idea of an umltimate sniper


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## Silb (Jan 28, 2008)

which one has the most powerful stats?


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## angels of fire (Dec 4, 2007)

Why can't you use the vindicare anymore? Anyway the vindicare can kill indepedant characters and sergeants and on a good roll...tanks. In addition he has some awesome fluff and the model of him standing on the skull is sweet.


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## asianavatar (Aug 20, 2007)

Sadly the vindicare isn't as cool as the fluff states. It only has less than 50% chance of wounding a model, even less if the model is in cover. Most of its cool stuff is one use only. It is a very tactical unit and don't expect it to make its point back in the game. That being said you can do some nasty things with it, picking off pw fist sergeants, or my favourite picking off the middle guy in a devastator squad to make the fall out of unit coherency.

I say go with the callidus or eversor


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## Firewolf (Jan 22, 2007)

>> I say it depends on what army your playing. If you playing as WH against Eldar wi Farseers and/or Warlocks, then use the Cellexus as its hard as fuck against psyker heavy armies. Anything else with either WH/DH, then take the one you think will fair better against enemy. Vindicare for sniping big gribblies, Callidus against combat troops, specially meqs. Eversor for just about owt. Other peeps will say differernt, but these are just my thoughts.:victory: Buy them all dude, then you dont have to decide on only one.


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## Lord Sinkoran (Dec 23, 2006)

these are pors and cons of the assassins which i've come up with there are probaly a lot more for each but this is what i've got so far 



vindicare
pros:

opponent has to roll to see them
AP2 sniper
always wounds on a 4+
different types of rounds
good models
 cons:

expensive points wise
rarely gain points back
an obvious target for assault squads
a command squads nightmare
bad model
 callidus
pros:

good special rules polymorph etc
c'tan blade
neural shredder can be very nasty
cons

slow moving
obvious target for shooting
Evesor
pros:

very quick
lots of attacks
always wounds on a 4+
bio-meltdown
good model
cons:

obvious target for heavy weapon units
difficult to deploy when infiltrating.
cellexus
pros

a psykers nightmare
great model
lots of special rules
cons

only usful when facing an army with a psyker
will get raped incombat
obvious target in opponents tactic relys on the psyker


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## Captain Galus (Jan 2, 2008)

dark angels can take assassins now ya?
i talked to a dude about it and he said u have to take an inqus before u can take an assassin, but u CAN do it now


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## angels of fire (Dec 4, 2007)

Nope, you have to have an inquisitor to have the assassains. Plus the Dark Angels want to avoid the inquisition so it would be unfluffy.


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## Alexander_67 (May 5, 2007)

I field a vindicare in my witch hunters 90% of the time. If i have a very specific objective in a game i take the callidus as she is essentially a one use only assassin. You put her somewhere she kills what she's told to then she gets shot loads and dies. But she usually gets the job done. 
If i'm just going to wing it i'll take the Vindicare. Sniping out powerfist/plamsa pistol champions is always a good option. If you get lucky maybe even a HQ choice


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## Silb (Jan 28, 2008)

firewolf said:


> Buy them all dude, then you dont have to decide on only one.


The reason I started this thread is because I only want to pick one, two at the most. At least until I get a large army and a decent sum of money, getting all of them is out of the question for me.


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## Culler (Dec 27, 2007)

The vindicare is probably my favorite assassin. It may not get its points back but when your enemy buys 75 points worth of space marine tactical squad to field 1 lascannon by taking out the lascannon you take the teeth out of that squad and it's like they wasted 75 points. The most dangerous part of an ork mob to a Demonhunter is the nob with the power klaw. Take him out and your termies/whatever will have a much better time in cc.

The points killed by the vindicare really don't reflect its usefulness.


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## Blackhiker (Dec 28, 2007)

also the strength 5 AP 2 pistol that the vindicare carries does a decent amount for anybody who attempts to get in close to him. mine has personally forced an assaulting chaos space marine to retreat from only himself.


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## winter117a (Jan 12, 2008)

I surprised no one's mentioned death cult assassins yet! These girls rock! They cost very little for what they can do, and once you get them stuck in with the enemy, you'll be amazed at what they can do! Two of them cost less than an Eversor and you can get three of them for the price of a Callidus - pretty awesome if you ask me.

Three of these girls give you 12 attacks on the charge, six of which ignore armor saves (someone please correct me if i'm wrong :grin. Another cool thing; since the girls are independent, the squad you are attacking has to direct their attacks to *only one* DC assassin per assualt phase. :victory:

I read in some tactica somewhere that an army of the Inquisition should take no less than six DC assassins. This is simply because when they work together, they kick rear in close combat. :so_happy:

Anyway, hope this was helpfull!


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## O'sharan (Nov 3, 2007)

First of all the OP i think is refering to the the special assasins but yes i agree death cult assasins are good.

If you read through the posts you will see many of the reasons why the callidus is the best but many fail to see the utter physcological and tactical explosion it can cause.

I have see many a tactic thrown out due to her. And static army is at risk.
Plus many player get scared and try and counter by spreading there army out, leaving your army which should be specialised with the assasins special rules in mind, to finish off the job.

Many people failed to mention "Word in your Ear" where you can move your enemies unit 6". This is amazing if used right. Pop falcons turn one, move devs behind the cover so they have to walk back in etc.

Besides the special power (which in themselves make her worth while) you have a marine killing machine. not to mention what her neutral shredder can do to that basilisk hiding over the hill, or the hammerhead isolated from the rest of the army (6" move, 6" assult, HHmoves 12", 6"move, 6"assult) rinse and repeat.

Hope that help, I am in no way biased :grin:


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## Silb (Jan 28, 2008)

:biggrin:Now this thread's a poll.:biggrin:


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## shortgoth (Feb 5, 2008)

It's impossible to pick 1 "best" assassin.

Vindicare and Culexus are, however, undisputedly the worst. The former is lucky to kill 2 models in a game and doesn't even have a power weapon - grots can beat him up in CC - the only reasons he's ever chosen are that the idea of a "Ultimate Sniper" appeals to a lot of players and the models are pretty nice. The latter is only useful if you get them within 12" of psykers - but most Psyker-based armies have very nasty CC units that will tear it up once you get it within 12".

The Eversor presents the best "Bang for Buck". Going on averages, he'll kill more of the opposing models than any other Assassin, is the only one that's any good against tanks (don't believe the lies about the Vindi busting tanks - his "armour piercing" round is only 3D6 and therefore can barely glance the rear armour of most vehicles on average rolls), and is the cheapest of them all to boot. Probably the best for (and easiest to fit into) all armies.

The Callidus is the most expensive, but the most tactically flexible. "Word in your Ear" is very handy for certain armies/situations (but won't be useful all the time), the polymorphine is effectively a deepstrike that never scatters and allows you to assault in the same turn, and her "jump back" rule (depending on interpretation) can keep her quite safe. However she is not a model you send up against enemy HQs as anything tougher than a guard command squad will tear her apart, for weak troop killing she's fine[1] and against decent troops she can prove very annoying by tying them up for half the game. The best use of the Callidus is really just psychological - your opponent will know that you'll be shifting one of his deployments about if you want, and they'll know that she can appear absolutely anywhere. She injects a healthy dose of paranoia among many players .

If you're running a WH army (DH already have enough CC ability that you won't want/need them), DCAs are also not bad. You need at least 3 to be useful though due to their fragility. A full "Assassin wing" of Eversor (or Callidus)+6 DCAs can tear through entire armies. However, they only really work vs troops and too many armies you fight have nothing but skimmers/MCs/CC units that are better than assassins, which renders them just pointless, expensive (en masse), non-scoring models.

I've run all sort of assassins/combinations in WH, DH, and Guard armies and truth be told, the only ones I ever bother with these days is the Eversor (along with a cheap HQ Inqui) in a Guard army and occasionally the EVersor or Callidus in Inquisition armies. 

The things you always have to bear in mind with assassins are that:

a) They never score.
b) They'll likely die before the game is over
c) The Eversor is the only one certain to "make his points back" if he hits the opposing force.
d) The Callidus is the only one that can ever 100% guarantee hitting the enemy (Eversors can and have been killed before even making contact).

[1] NB: Weak troops only. I don't know what sort of marines other posters are slaughtering with their Callidus but they aren't the ones I see. Marines are usually Ld8 at a minimum, usually higher. The Neural Shredder needs 4+to even wound a basic Ld8 marine, let alone ones with boosted morale. And even on the charge, she only has 4 S4 attacks. That's far from a marine-killer in all honesty, a pair of DCAs does better on average for 40 points less, and the Eversor kills far more again for fewer points. she can tie up marines indefinitely, but actually kill lots of them? You need very lucky dice rolls to even take out a 6-man las/plas squad w/out upgrades. Vs Chaos Marines, Necrons, and Orks she fairs even worse (Shredder is nice vs Orks but she will die soon after - she can't clear the "kill zone" and gets swamped under their return attacks). 

If you can find sufficient 6-8 man squads close enough, she's best off just nibbling 1 or 2 from this unit, 1 or 2 from that unit, jumping around and annoying the opponent, forcing him to divert a CC squad to attack her. Again, it's more psychological/upsetting his gameplan than her actual killing power that counts.

One final thought - if that 5th ed "leaked PDF" is in any way accurate, Assassins become a lot worse. Giving up 2KPs each is pretty bad, but with no more "kill zones" and shooting becoming effectively longer-range (if 1 model in a unit can shoot it, every model can shoot it), even the mighty Eversor/triple-DCA-assaulters will start getting attacked back in CC (and they can't really soak attacks all that well due to being insta-killed by so many things) and they'll start getting torn apart from shooting when you could previously manouvre them so only a couple models could actually hit them. However the Eversor will become the absolute pick of the crop - coming in from a side edge with a potential 24" charge is a vicious idea and having him in reserve to come in from a side edge will protect him from potential early shooting.


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## Apokra (Jan 28, 2008)

Culler said:


> The vindicare is probably my favorite assassin. It may not get its points back but when your enemy buys 75 points worth of space marine tactical squad to field 1 lascannon by taking out the lascannon you take the teeth out of that squad and it's like they wasted 75 points. The most dangerous part of an ork mob to a Demonhunter is the nob with the power klaw. Take him out and your termies/whatever will have a much better time in cc.
> 
> The points killed by the vindicare really don't reflect its usefulness.


Case in point the Vindicare is not about straight damage for his points. He is specifically for damage mitigation. He generally prevents over his points value in damage to your force and to me that's where he shines in his own light.


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## O'sharan (Nov 3, 2007)

shortgoth i agree withmost of your points but how can u say tha callidus is not a marine killer. 

For example say you have a ten man marine squad,

8 are under the flame template, 4 die: no hit, no save except inv
then with four attacks she kills on average one. right so thats 75pts racked up already! 

with 6 men 
3 die to flame 
1 in combat still 60pts but they are under half

with 5
2 die from flame
and 1 in combat
again under half

not to mention the havoc she causes to assult marine, devs, command squads etc.


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## O'sharan (Nov 3, 2007)

And a pair of DCA's could never do better.:grin:

remember vs the like of worlocks, shield drones, deamons, thousand sons etc dont get inv


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## Culler (Dec 27, 2007)

winter117a said:


> Another cool thing; since the girls are independent, the squad you are attacking has to direct their attacks to *only one* DC assassin per assualt phase.


Nope. A squad can split its attacks as they please. Against ind. characters, only models in base contact with them or who are assisting models in base contact with those characters can attack them, even if those characters are part of a unit. However, when the DC assassins are running up to their enemy, the squad has to direct all of their shooting at a single assassin, killing one several times over but leaving the others free to charge into melee. However, if there are several squads, each can target a different assassin, making the tactic less than helpful except in certain situations.


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## Galahad (Dec 21, 2006)

I'm really surprised how many people favor the vindicare.

Over the course of 6 turns, he;s going to be extremely lucky to score three wounds.

sure he can pick off characters and specialists...if he's lucky enough to make his 50/50 wound chance and the target doesn't make his save, but that's far, far too unreliable for me. If they had given his gun a higher AP, a higher wound chance and/or more shots he'd be more worthwhile.

I mean, you only get one and they cost quite a bit, you might as well go with the most effective choice (which is generally the Callidus)


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## Dirge Eterna (Apr 30, 2007)

I like the Culexus myself, basically because he can eviscerate the pesky Lash DPs.

-Dirge


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## Galahad (Dec 21, 2006)

Yeah, but he's too limited.
Plus the calli cans till do a lot of damage, even to a DP


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## Dirge Eterna (Apr 30, 2007)

I suppose so, but imagine the carnage. Tzeentch versus WH, with a whole Assassinorium Executoner team of Culexus.

In pick-up games I would go for the Vindicare. Nothing says "Hello!" quite like losing your suupa-commander on the first turn. Even more embarrasing if it's the first shot.

-Dirge


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## Galahad (Dec 21, 2006)

Dirge Eterna said:


> In pick-up games I would go for the Vindicare. Nothing says "Hello!" quite like losing your suupa-commander on the first turn. Even more embarrasing if it's the first shot.
> 
> -Dirge


Except that the vindicare can't do that, unless you know of any 'suupa-commanders' that only have one or two wounds.

The concept of an ultra-sniper is awesome.
However, the execution (so to speak) falls flat. I'll give him credit for owning the only sniper rifle that's worth a damn against armor, and the ability to targert anyone is handy...but he can;t actually *do* anything with it.

He gets one shot per turn that has a 50% chance of inflicting one wound (two if you use your only TP round), and no chance of ever causing Instant Death.

If a Vindicare could actually, truly, assassinate a character, that would make him awesome. Give him some kind of force weapon round or something that can actually kill a character with more than two wounds.

But the fact of the matter is, using your only sniper shot that turn against an IC is a waste. The best way to use a vindicare is to kill less important targets like that expensive aspiring sorcerer int he 1k son squad, or hitting someone in the middle of a dev squad so they have to waste a round getting back into coherency instead of shooting.

So the master assassin ends up being a tool to annoy and disrupt the other player tather than to actually assassinate a valuable model


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## Dirge Eterna (Apr 30, 2007)

Well, I'm speaking with more than one. Usually I try to use two or three. They work better together.

-Dirge


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## asianavatar (Aug 20, 2007)

I still don't see how 3 Vindicare assassins are useful. I can see them now being able to pick off super characters. But than you are still most likely wasting shots and special ammo rounds just to kill a character. Also, only game you can use 3 vindicares is in APOC and in that case, killing that one character is most likely not going to make a difference in the grand scheme of things.


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## Blackhiker (Dec 28, 2007)

With them though you are able to make other units to make pinning tests in the same area as the unit which was shot.


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## Galahad (Dec 21, 2006)

Dirge Eterna said:


> Well, I'm speaking with more than one. Usually I try to use two or three. They work better together.
> 
> -Dirge


As far as I know you can't have more than one in anything short of Apoc. And using several of the same overpriced, ineffective unit doesn't really make it better.

It just means you're compounding your error.

bottom line is: Concept wise, the vindicare is cool But rules wise, he can;t actually perform as advertised and isn't worth the points.


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## Culler (Dec 27, 2007)

I ran a vindicare for a long while in my IG army and he always performed admirably, taking out pesky warlocks, sergeants, heavy weapons, and giving me a hand with the wraithlord. Over the first 4 rounds of the game that usually decide who is going to win or lose he generally took out 2 crucial targets, swinging the battle in my favor. To be worthwhile he only has to kill 2 heavy weapon-toting space marines. Point for point it's not buying his points back but it is taking out high priority targets without having to go through the ablative wounds.


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