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Is fielding all four imperial assassins ever effective, or will they just die before earning their points back?

 hippyjr wrote:
Is fielding all four imperial assassins ever effective, or will they just die before earning their points back?

They will absolutely die. I rarely make my points back with a single Assassin, because 3 wounds and a 4+ Invuln is not a substitute for actual durability. Taking 600 points of Assassins, some of whom are extremely situational, is a recipe for disaster.

The Callidus and Eversor are the only ones to have a chance to make their points back whereas the Culexus and Vindicare are more for Tactical use.

Just to be thorough:
The Vindicaire is not good. For 150 points, he's really incapable of causing more than one wound a turn, and his average is closer to 80% of a wound, assuming he's not shooting someone with an Invuln. He can snipe out one-wound characters and special weapons well enough, but unless you're facing someone with lots of footslogging expensive 1 wound models that don't have invulns, you're never going to get your points back. (You can ignore invulns, but then you wound on a 4+. You can cause multiple wounds, but then you wound on a 4+ AND have to get past invulns.)

The Callidus is not bad, thanks to their ability to pop up like a whack-a-mole right next to an enemy and force snap shots for the first turn to survive, but their damage output isn't that great and - As with all the assassins - Their 3 wounds and mediocre save isn't going to keep them alive for long once turn one is over.

The Everseor is neat for their ability to shred hordes, but that's actually pretty crappy, because being able to kill 3-4 Space Marines, or 7-8 Ork Boyz or Termagants isn't actually a useful skill.

The Culexus is easily the best, but also semi-situational. In non-ideal circumstances, you're putting out 3 S5 AP1 shots, getting hit on 6s in shooting and 5s in melee, and dealing out a good number of AP2 attacks in Close Combat. That's still not significantly worse than the other assassins, and more durable than anyone except a Callidus on turn 1.
Under ideal circumstances, though, you could put out 8 or 10 or even more S5 AP1 shots, cancel out Blessings, heal your own units of Maledictions, sap warp charges from your opponent, AND you're still putting out a good number of AP2 attacks in close combat.

I have used the full four once but it was back in the day of allied transport shananagins. It was great as the assassins were in the opponent's face before he knew what was happening and the rest of my force was able to capitalise on the carnage they dealt before they could be wiped out (they did all die eventually). Currently you can't just pod in the celexux and the evisior so they will get shot down before making contact most likely.

There was someone on here who fielded a full 1,850 list of Assassins. I think a summary of at least one game was written too. You might be able to find it (I'm on a phone right now).

One LVO participant brought 2 execution forces plus something else - Space Wolves, I think? - and, not surprisingly, did fairly poorly. It's an interesting idea, though.

MilkmanAl wrote:
One LVO participant brought 2 execution forces plus something else - Space Wolves, I think? - and, not surprisingly, did fairly poorly. It's an interesting idea, though.

One guy at my club played double execution force + Tau OSC, I think that was what he played at the LVO (I'm not sure though, it might have been flying circus daemons)

To be harsh, they are Ok to take in fun / casual games, But are nothing more than rubbish in competitive play. All four of them are toooooo vulnerable being a "Human" with only T4, 3W, 4++ and lack of EW. They are all toooooo slow for being merely infantry, and compare to FMC, Eldar Jetbikes and WKs, toooooo expensive for what they can do as well as for what environment they can survive. Put it simple, for the price of the a full Execution Force (590pts), you get right 2 WKs, or 2 winged DP of Nurgle / Tzeentch with decent upgrades like Balesword or Impossible Rope. Which one you want to take, you can feel it.

MilkmanAl wrote:
One LVO participant brought 2 execution forces plus something else - Space Wolves, I think? - and, not surprisingly, did fairly poorly. It's an interesting idea, though.

I want the link for this. Now. That sounds amazingly terrible.

I typically run a full EF when I want to quickly make my list significantly weaker when facing a newer player.

It's poopy.

Vindicare is nice.

Callidus is nice.

Culexus is BOSS.

Eversor sucks.

Ive done the double execution force + 700pts of whatever you like.

Its pretty funny how well it does.

 hippyjr wrote:
Is fielding all four imperial assassins ever effective, or will they just die before earning their points back?

I faced off against one once. It did not end well for them. They played alongside the Imperial Fists.