# assassins......assassins as far as the eyes can see



## sini (Nov 5, 2010)

fought a battle with my WoC against DE and i have to ask what tact are you guys using against assassin and arrow spamming. the arrows aren't such a hassle but when you charge the only melee unit the other players has out jump assassins.. using some gift of khain or something to gain insane number of attacks and when ever they hit they always kill my model.
bin fighting a couple of battles against this guy and he always uses this tactic...it dosent matter what i do his assassins are always killing my units,leader and heroes before i can do anything!....
sorry for bad grammar....working on a battle Axe from green stuff as i write this


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## experiment 626 (Apr 26, 2007)

right, so the idea behind those DE assassmo's are;
- ASF + I10 = re-rolls to-hit.
- lots of attacks to overpower characters
- KB to ensure the offending characters die horribly!
- scouting, skirmisher w/rending stars + manbane for annoyance value.

so, to combat that with your warriors, here's a few ideas;
- give your fighting characters the mark of tzeentch + ward save. throw on one of your 'immune to KB' suits for your lord/s and you have one helluva tough nut to crack!
bronze armour + talisman of protection even leaves room for a killy weapon...

- if you take exalted champs, don't put magic items on 'em! against elves, they don't need help beyond a MoT + extra hand weapon or even sword & board... T3 vs chaos means things go squish pretty easily...

- take a hellcannon and obliterate the unit.

- don't send characters into the combat!!! seriously, elves drop like flies to hard-core fighty armies like chaos... a unit of Tzeentch warriors or chosen w/hand weapon & shield will fight those assassins all day long.
remember too that assassmo's are still characters, thus you can simply allocate rank & file attacks to them.

- magic the unit. the slaanesh spell ecstatic seizures is particularly nasty towards elves.
treason of tzeentch will decimate any dark elf unit! or you could just try for the gateway approch.
not taking a mark of chaos allows a sorc lord to get heavens magic. curse of the midnight wind is a particularly funny way of dealing with assassins since it all but negates their KB postential! iceshard blizzard also helps take care of a missile unit too, or even the offending assassin's unit.

anways, hope this helps,
cheers!


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## Vaz (Mar 19, 2008)

Kill them with return attacks - supporting and step up reduces Assassins horde killing power. WoC for the most part are too tough to need combat heroes to match up.

If you want killer power, try playing against Skaven in larger games with front rank assassins, or Empire Captain Halberdier units (2 wounds, 4+ Armour Save, and 3 I4 S5 Attacks. On the bright side, Dark Elves can't have much more.)


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## Tim/Steve (Jan 25, 2009)

yeah, assassins are expensive and squishy- send in a suicide unit that is strong enough to kill the unit if the assassins dont reveal themselves and if they do you just allocate all your attacks to the assassins. They'll die, you'll lose and quite probably break... either then you escape and it doesn't matter, or you get caught and die. Either way you then bring in another unit with your characters and real combat power that smacks through the enemy army.


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## Treesnifer (Jun 13, 2010)

Does your opponent have to reveal there are assassins in his army? I realize assassins in a unit are not declared until the player announces that there is an assassin in such-and-such unit, but when deploying an army, at some point does one proclaim, "I have two assassins in this army."?

Or once you've charged a unit, does your opponent calmly tells you, "Oh. I have an assassin in that unit." And promptly replaces a model with his assassin, leaving you with an "Aww, **it." moment?


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## ultor (Dec 6, 2010)

They don't have to declare the number of assasins or where they are at the start of the combat. They just need to take a note at the start in which unit they are hiding.

By the way you don't replace the model with assasin. Model is moved to the back rank which means +1 model count for the unit. (when you reveal an assasin from a unit of 6 shades you end up with 6 shades+1 assasin)


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## Tim/Steve (Jan 25, 2009)

You don't know where assassins are or if the opponent has any... but you can normally tell if they have them and roughly where they are.
If the enemy's army seems a little small then chances are they have a couple of assassins hiding around and if the opponent is advancing a weak unit towards one of your strongest (especially if its going towards your general) or he's setting it up to face you as you advance then chances are there are assassins in there and you should smack it with something else.

Then again some people overestimate what assassins will do for you- back in 7th I had a unit of 20 bulls and 5 characters (it was a legendary battle) smack through 2 units of black guard with 1 assassin a master and a dark lord in a single round of combat while I lost a butcher and a bruiser (even funnier since the 2 units of RXB with 2 sorceresses behind broke from terror on my overrun and both got run down... my unit was 1800pts and it managed to kill its own points worth in a single turn.
If the assassins hadn't have been in those front units the enemy would probably have played sensibly and just blocked/baited my stupidly uber unit
... incidently it showed that there is nothing as terrifying as an ogre deathstar, its not as strong as others but its funny as all hell :laugh:


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## Treesnifer (Jun 13, 2010)

LOL! That is pretty funny!

I was asking as I am trying to aid my wife in building her skaven army and stumbled across the assassin in the hero list, but it was vague on when you declared it, other than the surprise attack.

I must admit, if this DE player only has one unit of melee - melee would be the last thing I'd do against it. WoC is outside of my knowledge and you're a better judge of your army, Sini, but Roshambo (Rock, Paper, Scissors) never steers you wrong when you plan an attack.

If such a unit is available, I'd take a couple fast units to simply run past this melee unit and sweep up a flank through the bowmen - rather like Alexander and his Champions in the Classical Era.

Otherwise, I second what Experiment said - Take a Hellcannon and obliterate it.


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## Masked Jackal (Dec 16, 2009)

Assassins are sadly not that good anymore, although still cool as all hell. 100-something points for 2 wounds and no real protection is no investment I'm willing to make.


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## Freedirtyneedles (Oct 22, 2009)

played a game against this dark elf cult of khaine themed army, was pretty fun.I did a khorne themed army and had to chuckle when the assassin was revealed and kinda just bounced off the Exalted hero, then the khorne warriors proceeded to rip the elves to pieces, nowhere near a contest. maybe I was lucky, but I don't fear am assassin at all.


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## DeathsShadow (Oct 12, 2010)

i play both WoC and DE and though i dont like assassins i have had to fight them before and have developed a few methods that work well.

1st thing-know thy enemy
because i know the dark elf codex when i play an opponant i do a quick sum of how much points his models cost and whatever is left is magic items or assassins, although not full proof this method prevents you from underestimating what your opponant might or might not have. similar to this is bragging before a battle (never underestimate bragging). by throwing out bait eg my hero could take on anything etc tends to make a lot of players try and top that. they tend to say"i would just use my assassin to counter that. if someone brags about an assassin in their army they tend to have one simple as that

method 2-ranged attack
warriors of chaos are more limited in range. the hellcannon can decimate units but is expensive and can sometimes make your plans go south. this is where magic shines. anti infantry/horde killers are needed and they have multiple uses.
a)destroy-completly wipe out the unit thus making the assassin unable to enter play
b)limit- kill as many rank and files as possible so if you do get in combat more of your troops will be safe and you can win by combat res.
c) sniping- some spells allow for character targeting. if the assassin is revealed use them
the thing is the DE player will probably have multiple units that could have the assassin in them so it will take some guess work. on the plus side every assassin that they have fills up the character spot that will not have a sorceress hence making your magic slightly easier to cast

3 close combat-as stated above you could use suicidal units to draw him out or throw at him cheap killy units(dont include characters) this will make them reconsider revealing the assassin until something juicier turns up and so if you wipe out the unit the problem will be solved with relativly cheap troops. marauders with MoK with charge will come out on top of most elf core units and warriors can take on the elite choices easy enough.
also stated above anything that can survive an assassins attacks can win,the assassins rely on killing the enemy first. ward saves = a win if uyou survive the initial assaulteven with the assassins high ws you should be able smash him with any assault unit worthy of the name

4 avoid- as simple as staying away from their unit that contains(or is supect to containing) an assassin. but i have to say this is not reliable at all and is wimpy. IF your a devotee of chaos shame on you if you choose this. WE DO NOT RUN AND HIDE!!!!
If the assassin is already in combat then try and flank or rear charge his unit with characters, hounds, ogres etc etc

the assassin may be quick and skilled but there are bigger threats when facing Dark elves


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## ultor (Dec 6, 2010)

DeathsShadow said:


> on the plus side every assassin that they have fills up the character spot that will not have a sorceress hence making your magic slightly easier to cast


Assasins don't count for Hero slots so he can take sorceress or masters to 25% of army value and also assasins in the same army.

One tactic for assasins while playing with WoC is that feed that assasin with a champion when offered a challenge. And then beat the remaining elves to get combat resolution.


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## Masked Jackal (Dec 16, 2009)

ultor said:


> Assasins don't count for Hero slots so he can take sorceress or masters to 25% of army value and also assasins in the same army.
> 
> One tactic for assasins while playing with WoC is that feed that assasin with a champion when offered a challenge. And then beat the remaining elves to get combat resolution.


Not to mention that there isn't slots anymore. Regardless, Assassins can and will eat up huge chunks of points that would be better spent on troops. I'd be far more afraid of facing 10 more Black-Guard than some Assassin.


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