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Mavnas wrote:

Even when facing a non-psyker army, he remains a ridiculously hard to kill unit that pulls its weight in far excess of any effort the enemy should conceivably spend into killing him. Sure, you can burn your template weapons on him, it just means that you're not shooting other, more threatening units in his army.

Actually, I think a couple wyverns could drop him pretty much anywhere on the board. They don't care about the BS nerf between twin-linked and barrage. 75% chance per template to put a wound on him, 50% chance for it t get past his invuln, you're looking at a little less than 3 templates on him per wound from a 48" range unit that doesn't need LoS to fire. Incidentally, they also play the role of taking out annoying heavy/special weapons, sgts. etc far better than the Vindecare. Granted the downside is you can't just slap in a couple wyverns without taking some additional guardsmen.

I don't think any of these guys are game breaking unless you're a better tactician than your opponent or he's relying on a one-trick army whose one trick your assassin is a hard counter for (in which case he deserves to lose for bringing an unbalanced army).

Thing is the wyvern needs to hit on that first shot otherwise it has a scatter of 2d6 -1" which makes it very unlikely (if it scatters) that many later blasts in the sequence will be able to hit it, as you will have to use the 'hits' just to walk it back to the assassin. The wyvern has a 5/9 chance of hitting with that first blast.
If it does hit with the first blast, all other blasts then only have a 5/9 chance of actually hitting the assassin.
Wyverns mathmatically are not so great at shooting single model units. Especially when scattering 2" further (if it does scatter) on the first shot.

So whilst the 75% chance to wound and 50% chance to fail is correct, you should also factor in the chance of the first shot hitting and future shots hitting.
The chance for the first shot to cause a wound is 5/9 x 3/4 x 1/2 = 0.21, the chance of shots after the first shot causing a wound is 5/9 x 5/9 x 3/4 x 1/2 = 0.12. So it is more like 1 in 8 or 9 will cause a wound. Even if we assume the first shot hits, the chance of a blast causing a wound is 0.21 so ~ 1 in 5. A whole wyvern unit will struggle to *reliably* take an assassin out. They NEED to hit on that first blast. And even if they do, averages say 2 wounds (maybe 3) will be caused.

The problem with single model units compared to sniping a heavy weapons trooper in a unit is that if tye firstshot hits, further misses ddon't hit other models to build up the hit count.

 Dilt wrote:
Note the precision shots special rule. The first paragraph states that a model with this special rule has precision shots when it rolls a 6 to hit.

By the text, the Vindicare does not have this special rule - it's the shot itself that has the rule. Therefore, the first paragraph is not relevant to the text, as the shot has the rule thanks to 'all successful to-hit rolls have the precision shots special rule'.

The second paragraph is what would then apply in this case, which basically means the Vindicare allocates freely.

Poor rules writing at its best. Exists to confuse people. I bet the game guy who named the Gun Emplacement with <Weapon> and Emplaced <Weapon> back in 6e did this naming schema.

EDIT: 5 am on the internet

The Vindicare has Precision Shots for every hit and not just 6s. The precedence is the Instant Death rules. If the Strength of a weapon is double the Toughness of the target, it causes Instant Death. But a weapon that just has the Instant Death rule doesn't automatically fire at double the Strength of whatever he's targeting.

I'm not really worried about a Cullexus, yes it's a target Priority but it's not like you can't just blast over it with 8D3 ST4 hits, or target it with shooting that's twinlinked.

He doesn't really bother Daemon Summoning lists that badly either, Oh I can turboboost 24 inches away or fly over you and hit you with a bunch of gak or summon something to shoot you. OH NOES.

He doesn't cancel Grimoire.

Vindicare is the one that I wouldn't want to play against.

What worries me about the Cullexus is that if he is no longer (Unique), someone could bring several of them if they Know they're playing against a faction like Grey Knights or Daemons, Cruise them forward in vehicles, then Flat Out, so the front 6" of their enemy's deployment Zone doesn't produce Warp Charges, Only Harneses them on a 6, and have to destroy the transports before they can even get to the Assassins. Once they do, the Cullexus Assassin cannot be affected by Psychic Powers, and can only be attacked at WS or BS 1.

I haven't seen the Dataslate for myself yet, but if the Cullexus is 145 points, and a Rhino is taken as a Fast Attack (35 points), that's 180 point each, and 6 of them could significantly shut down the front line of a Psyker army for 1080 points. That's 6 Rhinos that have to be destroyed, and a total of 18 wounds dealt at WS/BS1 on T4 models with a 4++ Invulnerable save, BEFORE the army can face whatever else the enemy is pummeling them with.

The only limiting factor on this is that tournaments limit the number of detachments they allow, and someone who does this won't get very many friendly games.

Also Precision shots is the name of the rule as well as the shots that for normal people that have hit on 6's. Since it is after hit rolls have been declared, it can only refer to the second part of precision shots.

Cule's effect on demons is that not only he cancels out all the mastery levels, and cancel out your buffs-he also shoots quite good.

Vindi however, will snipe out the grimoire carrier.

Oh, bummer. I guess it's gona be close to impossible to play footslogging orks now with the new vindicare. Will have to scratch-build some battlewagonz for my boyz.

 koooaei wrote:
Oh, bummer. I guess it's gona be close to impossible to play footslogging orks now with the new vindicare. Will have to scratch-build some battlewagonz for my boyz.

I don't see most people taking the Vindicare as against a lot of lists the Vindicare won't do enough to justify the points. He literally fires one bullet a turn.

The vindicare is excellent against av12 and lower skimmers as long as said skimmer is not a waveserpent with its shield up.

2 tactics for use with the vindicare:
Put him in 4+ cover, and as long as you have a techmarine/master of the forge/tfc, your vindicare will be rocking a 2+ cover. That's quite a few krak and las you will have to send his way to kill him.

Buy a rhino or similarly cheap vehicle. Move it out of the way in the movement phase, shoot with vindi, turbo boost it back to cover him.


The Eversor can infiltrate into the opponents deployment zone behind some LoS blocking cover. Then hunt backfield shooting units and artillery. He has a weapon for everything barring 2+. It forces the opponent to leave a unit to protect their heavy squads.

If taking the formation, just overload their target priorities turn1.

For example, in 2000pts as BA you can have 3 furiosos, an honour guard with full melta all coming down in pods turn1 with a large DC unit with Reclusiarch slingshotting forward with a bunker and escape hatch, along with the 560pts needed for the assassin formation (as well as 2 assault squads in pods and an empty dc pod to ensure the others cone down t1). Infiltrate and hide the eversor and cullexus until you spring them turn 2. Put the callidus in their face and the vindicare shooting from extreme range. So many target prioritites that if they focus on the assassins the rest of the list will wreck face. If they don't then the assassins get into combat where they want to be (sans vindicare - but no-one will be shooting at him anyway).



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 koooaei wrote:
Oh, bummer. I guess it's gona be close to impossible to play footslogging orks now with the new vindicare. Will have to scratch-build some battlewagonz for my boyz.

Its the eversor orks need to be worried about. 8 attacks wounding on a 2+ with rerolls, then if you kill him his bio-meltdown will decimate any squad who had the audacity to do so. That bio meltdown rule is lethal to blobs. Worse than an exploding trukk. Mek gunz are not safe with him around either.

i'm surprised no one is talking about the callidus assassin. having a template spewing unit appear within the backfield is just awesome!

how does the polymorphus thing work for infiltrating? does she appear within 2" during infiltrate or as a reserve roll?

She infiltrates as close as she wants outside one inch, or when coming in from reserves may come in off their table edge.

That's awesome. adding that to snapshots only to hit and a 4+ ap2 template? she can really put the hurt on backfield units.

imagine torching a TFC or a long fang squad just as the game starts? or shooting inside a bunker with a template? just a distracting unit full of carnage and awesome.

Any talk of associated model releases?

 Tiger9gamer wrote:
That's awesome. adding that to snapshots only to hit and a 4+ ap2 template? she can really put the hurt on backfield units.

imagine torching a TFC or a long fang squad before the game even starts? or shooting inside a bunker with a template? just a distracting unit full of carnage and awesome.

Wait, what? Before the game even starts? I thought that torching would happen on Turn 1?

Super Newb wrote:

 Tiger9gamer wrote:
That's awesome. adding that to snapshots only to hit and a 4+ ap2 template? she can really put the hurt on backfield units.

imagine torching a TFC or a long fang squad before the game even starts? or shooting inside a bunker with a template? just a distracting unit full of carnage and awesome.

Wait, what? Before the game even starts? I thought that torching would happen on Turn 1?

your right my bad! ment turn 1 rather than before the game starst! fixing now

Super Newb wrote:
I don't see most people taking the Vindicare as against a lot of lists the Vindicare won't do enough to justify the points. He literally fires one bullet a turn.

But that single bullet can deal D3 wounds!
Against Iron Halos I'm not sure which Exitus Ammo I would take.
A 100% chance for 1 Wound or 50% chance for D3 wounds; I assume you only roll for invulnerable once and then lose D3 wounds?

Personally, I would use the Vindicare to snipe out squad sergeants and the like. Maybe peg an IC who already is down to one wound, but ICs will still get a 4+ LOS against it.

Poly Ranger wrote:

Mavnas wrote:

Even when facing a non-psyker army, he remains a ridiculously hard to kill unit that pulls its weight in far excess of any effort the enemy should conceivably spend into killing him. Sure, you can burn your template weapons on him, it just means that you're not shooting other, more threatening units in his army.

Actually, I think a couple wyverns could drop him pretty much anywhere on the board. They don't care about the BS nerf between twin-linked and barrage. 75% chance per template to put a wound on him, 50% chance for it t get past his invuln, you're looking at a little less than 3 templates on him per wound from a 48" range unit that doesn't need LoS to fire. Incidentally, they also play the role of taking out annoying heavy/special weapons, sgts. etc far better than the Vindecare. Granted the downside is you can't just slap in a couple wyverns without taking some additional guardsmen.

I don't think any of these guys are game breaking unless you're a better tactician than your opponent or he's relying on a one-trick army whose one trick your assassin is a hard counter for (in which case he deserves to lose for bringing an unbalanced army).

Thing is the wyvern needs to hit on that first shot otherwise it has a scatter of 2d6 -1" which makes it very unlikely (if it scatters) that many later blasts in the sequence will be able to hit it, as you will have to use the 'hits' just to walk it back to the assassin. The wyvern has a 5/9 chance of hitting with that first blast.
If it does hit with the first blast, all other blasts then only have a 5/9 chance of actually hitting the assassin.
Wyverns mathmatically are not so great at shooting single model units. Especially when scattering 2" further (if it does scatter) on the first shot.

So whilst the 75% chance to wound and 50% chance to fail is correct, you should also factor in the chance of the first shot hitting and future shots hitting.
The chance for the first shot to cause a wound is 5/9 x 3/4 x 1/2 = 0.21, the chance of shots after the first shot causing a wound is 5/9 x 5/9 x 3/4 x 1/2 = 0.12. So it is more like 1 in 8 or 9 will cause a wound. Even if we assume the first shot hits, the chance of a blast causing a wound is 0.21 so ~ 1 in 5. A whole wyvern unit will struggle to *reliably* take an assassin out. They NEED to hit on that first blast. And even if they do, averages say 2 wounds (maybe 3) will be caused.

The problem with single model units compared to sniping a heavy weapons trooper in a unit is that if tye firstshot hits, further misses ddon't hit other models to build up the hit count.

Ah, true. Still probably more reliable than a lot of the other units that could fire at him at BS1. At that point you just need a ton of fire. If someone were to twin-link a punisher, that would also probably do it. (Note to self, include some high RoF units in every army.)

Vindi however, will snipe out the grimoire carrier.

I thought we established that he's bad at killing ICs with an invuln save unless they have a single wound.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Poly Ranger wrote:
The vindicare is excellent against av12 and lower skimmers as long as said skimmer is not a waveserpent with its shield up.

2 tactics for use with the vindicare:
Put him in 4+ cover, and as long as you have a techmarine/master of the forge/tfc, your vindicare will be rocking a 2+ cover. That's quite a few krak and las you will have to send his way to kill him.

Buy a rhino or similarly cheap vehicle. Move it out of the way in the movement phase, shoot with vindi, turbo boost it back to cover him.

I don't think anyone will go through much trouble to try to kill him if he's taking potshots at AV12 vehicles with his 1/9th chance of blowing them up. There are cheaper ways to strip a single hull point from a low AV vehicle.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Kangodo wrote:

Super Newb wrote:
I don't see most people taking the Vindicare as against a lot of lists the Vindicare won't do enough to justify the points. He literally fires one bullet a turn.

But that single bullet can deal D3 wounds!
Against Iron Halos I'm not sure which Exitus Ammo I would take.
A 100% chance for 1 Wound or 50% chance for D3 wounds; I assume you only roll for invulnerable once and then lose D3 wounds?

No, I imagine you'd roll for all three. You also seem to be leaving out the Wound roll... so a 50% chance for 1 wound or a D3x (a 25% chance at a wound). Also if the target is an IC, he still has a 50% chance to have some random underling take it for him. So really, against an IC, the D3 is superior as those guys won't have invuln saves anyway.

Good point with the vindicare. Im wondering apart from shooting low to mid av vehicles what he can reliably shoot to justify his points then... characters won't get a good LOS but independent ones still do. And what (non independent) characters justify 150pts?

I think the vindicare offers some promise, however the problem is that in a dice game, he is just going to be too reliant on the dice.

In some games it will just go poorly, in other games it will be amazing.

I assume you can take one per elite spot?

So my DE could take 3 for dealing with Wave Serpents easier?

Yes I know it's not fluffy but it solves some short term issues.

They are technically their own formation and they are counted as elites, they are one per formation.

However they are also a dataslate so it will be interesting to see how they are ruled.

You can take multiple of them though in separate slots.

Poly Ranger wrote:
The vindicare is excellent against av12 and lower skimmers as long as said skimmer is not a waveserpent with its shield up.

2 tactics for use with the vindicare:
Put him in 4+ cover, and as long as you have a techmarine/master of the forge/tfc, your vindicare will be rocking a 2+ cover. That's quite a few krak and las you will have to send his way to kill him.

Buy a rhino or similarly cheap vehicle. Move it out of the way in the movement phase, shoot with vindi, turbo boost it back to cover him.

Combine those tactics. Put the rhino in the 3+ cover, and put the vindicare inside.

I wonder if we can place the rhino into some bigger transport with shooting holes

I think it would be scarier to put a Culexus in a stormlord.

Just to point this out: those assassins are some really, really wel--thought out concept by GW. Yes, they are charging too much for it, as usual, but the rules are actually...good. All seem to have a solid concept and counter they're designed for and overall, I really like it.

Just to sprinkle some positivity in

Considering I didnt get to use assassins for nearly 3 editions because they sucked. I am 100% cool with paying for these rules.

Now I just need to convert up a culexus that I want to use......

I haven't seen the slate yet. Could you stick the Culexus in those empty FA slot drop pods that SW players will be taking by the double handful? Drop pod assassins sounds sexy to me.

it is a formation