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Is the vindicare assassin worth now?

Not worth it. He only has one shot, that can miss since he merely hit on 2s compare to previous edition in which he had BS8. He now only wound infantry on 2s, and need to wound biker / monster on 5s. And still, math shows that on average he only dealt 1.35 wounds on an infantry character in power armor. Generally speaking, he is pretty trash compare to other assassins like Culexus

Is this actually the received wisdom on Vindicares?

They seem pretty decent for their cost, to me.

It seems to be.
I'Ve only used him once against harlequins and he did very well - basically hit, wound, no save, boing to the face.
But it IS true that a single shot, 2+ weapon has a good chance to fluke and do absolutely nothing. If you take out a character in turn 5, that is not much of a help either. Characters need to die fast in order to have an effect on the game and a single vindicare is not enough. Multiples? Yes, that might work.

Is 1 in 6 a good chance?

Would you then agree that there's a 'good chance' that the Damage of a Vindicare's shot will be D6, rather than D3? That's 1 in 6, also.

I'll be using the Assassin in an AM army that has 15CP and the Grand Strategist WT, so if they whiff a re-roll at 1CP isn't at all a problem.

Twice.
1/6 and then another 1/6, since you need to wound. He'd need some kind of reroll like he had earlier to be more consistent.

On avg, he will only hit and wound ~70% of the time, then deal D3 damage on 83% of that again with an avg. of 2 wounds per shot there...
So yes, I can see why people, on avg, consider him not worth it.
IF he hits tho and IF he does the D6 AND rolls high, it is glorious.

Its about consistancy and eith a single shot hes highly inconsistent compared to the other assassins

Shouldnt his Rifle be doing D6+3 Dmg to infantry based units? This guy is meant to be able to assassinate high profile targets

 Elfric wrote:
Shouldnt his Rifle be doing D6+3 Dmg to infantry based units? This guy is meant to be able to assassinate high profile targets

Shouldn't one Marine be able to take an entire planet with his bare hands?

I exaggerate, but fluff is NOT a balancing tool.

 Excommunicatus wrote:
Is this actually the received wisdom on Vindicares?

They seem pretty decent for their cost, to me.

Any of the other assassins are more reliable and more effective. I've heard of people going Sniper heavy, with 3 Vindicares, a bunch of Ratlings and SWT snipers and then just taking out any infantry sized characters that show their faces, but it has disadvantages. The point investment is big, and if your opponent isn't relying on support characters it probably isn't going to be worth it. But again, that's with a ~500 point investment.
A single Vindicare just doesn't get much done. To be fair most sniper characters fall into the same boat, they just don't get enough done unless you build half of your list around the concept (the sniper component + a component to protect the snipers).

Considering you either need to bring 3 or spend 1CP, or that bringing 3 is essentially spending 5CP to not have a Loyal 32 Battalion in situations where you're limited on the number of detachments you can bring, no, they are not worth it.

If they could re-roll 1's to hit, maybe they might be worth it.

 BaconCatBug wrote:
Considering you either need to bring 3 or spend 1CP, or that bringing 3 is essentially spending 5CP to not have a Loyal 32 Battalion in situations where you're limited on the number of detachments you can bring, no, they are not worth it.

If they could re-roll 1's to hit, maybe they might be worth it.

This seems like the biggest reason. If you have an imperial soup army then two detachments are already going to be taken up by your staple knight and guard detachments. Most tournaments limit you to 3.

 JNAProductions wrote:

 Elfric wrote:
Shouldnt his Rifle be doing D6+3 Dmg to infantry based units? This guy is meant to be able to assassinate high profile targets

Shouldn't one Marine be able to take an entire planet with his bare hands?

I exaggerate, but fluff is NOT a balancing tool.

Are you saying Astartes player should be able to field a lone Space Marine model that can deal with 1750 points of imperial guard on the table top? At the very least a Vindicare should be able to one shot 1 character at least once a turn. He is supposed to be the best Sniper in the universe. I just remember he seemed much better in 7th Ed. The other three assassins are still good. The Solitaire is amazing. Why isn't the Vindicare?

Vindicare's sniper needs to do the same think the knights missles can do only without spending CP.

 Thairne wrote:
Twice.
1/6 and then another 1/6, since you need to wound. He'd need some kind of reroll like he had earlier to be more consistent.

On avg, he will only hit and wound ~70% of the time, then deal D3 damage on 83% of that again with an avg. of 2 wounds per shot there...
So yes, I can see why people, on avg, consider him not worth it.
IF he hits tho and IF he does the D6 AND rolls high, it is glorious.

I tried him a few times - and year - a couple of 6's but also 1's to wound or hit :(

Vindicare used to be so awesome when he had different ammo. Great at killing vehicles. Miss his anti vehicle ammo

Codex Assassins next month?

 Elfric wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:

 Elfric wrote:
Shouldnt his Rifle be doing D6+3 Dmg to infantry based units? This guy is meant to be able to assassinate high profile targets

Shouldn't one Marine be able to take an entire planet with his bare hands?

I exaggerate, but fluff is NOT a balancing tool.

Are you saying Astartes player should be able to field a lone Space Marine model that can deal with 1750 points of imperial guard on the table top?

YES. My lone Astartes model should in turn get to be Guilliman. And he should get to start in close combat.

 Elfric wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:

 Elfric wrote:
Shouldnt his Rifle be doing D6+3 Dmg to infantry based units? This guy is meant to be able to assassinate high profile targets

Shouldn't one Marine be able to take an entire planet with his bare hands?

I exaggerate, but fluff is NOT a balancing tool.

Are you saying Astartes player should be able to field a lone Space Marine model that can deal with 1750 points of imperial guard on the table top? At the very least a Vindicare should be able to one shot 1 character at least once a turn. He is supposed to be the best Sniper in the universe. I just remember he seemed much better in 7th Ed. The other three assassins are still good. The Solitaire is amazing. Why isn't the Vindicare?

I think that was his whole point. Everything in 40K has such unbelievable fluff that self aggrandizes the army that is being played. Almost without exception- the one exception being Imperial Guard (when I read that codex i recall all of the fluff about my small Vostroyan army was that "they fought hard, then they all died with honor for the emperor".

The entire point he was making is that you have to suspend the fluff so you can get an actual working rule set and a balanced *game* that is fun for both players. Nobody wants to play a game where Imperial Guard and Orks almost always lose and Space Marines always win. What we want is a game where the different armies are roughly balanced to play against each other. So just because a Vindicare is a super dope sniper in the fluff, he should probably not have a d6+3 sniper rifle. I mean... what do you think they should do with Illic? Rules =/= Fluff, just a reflection thereof. That is not to say that the Vindicare and Illic shouldn't be buffed, because they are currently pretty poorly costed units, but they should be buffed to the point they are useful, not to the point where they become a win button vs characters that cost 2-3x as may points as them. yea?

I get what he what he was saying. Thinking more i think his rifle should do a flat 6damage for one shot. This would kill most characters in one go and seriously hurt high profile targets such as Ghaz, Abbadon and Guiliman.

They got the other 3 assassins pretty close to how deadly they should be and that should also apply to the Vindicare. If the vindicare can't present the threat that he could delete 1 character a turn then what's the point of him.

Guiliman is going to be a hard target to drop anyway, as he’s not infantry.

Vindicare wants to be a kelermorph when he grows up

Going up against a model with a 3+ save outside of cover, you have a 53% chance of dealing damage with a Vindicaire. With a 2+ save or a 3+ in cover, it's a 45% chance. With a 2+ save in cover, it's a mere 34%.

When you do deal damage, most buff characters are 4w. You have only a 6% chance of killing a 4w character in one shot. If they have a source of Feel No Pain, that number drops even lower.

The overall average for a Vindicaire Assassin against characters is a little over 1w per turn, (about 1.3, by my math) though that varies based on saves and whatnot. Killing a character will likely take three turns, though that result can swing if you have hot dice, or they might not do anything at all.

Considering that most buff characters fall in the 40-80pt range, with 40pt characters falling on the "easier to kill" end and 80pt characters generally being harder to kill.
That DPS is just too low. A good damage/cost ratio for dedicated shooters is 3 to 1, not 4:1 or even 6:1 in bad situations. Sure, the Vindicaire ends up looking unfavorable because he's paying for the sniper ability, but even with that in mind you're just not going to get your money's worth.

Vindicares ignore cover.

His gun really should function like the two-handed thunder hammer in deathwatch. Always d6 damage, and wound rolls of 6+ auto 6 for damage.

 JNAProductions wrote:
Vindicares ignore cover.

Oops, forgot about that. Ignore the 2+ In Cover and the 3+ In Cover comparisons, then. (The math still doesn't shake out favorably.)

He needs a drastic pts reduction so you can take them as multiples

Or a rewrite so instead of being a gun its an ability

3+ target non character single W infantry model is slain
4+ target non character multiwound infantry model is slain
5+ target character infantry model is slain

As it stands as long as your a single shot weapon you wont be reliable even with 3 shots across the game

I’d like to see him get the ability to pick specific guys out of squads. He can pick out the captain behind the front, but not the guy with the lascannon?

It’s a little gamey (why doesn’t another guy in the squad just pick up the gun?) but it gives him a lot more versatility and ability to get his points back and affect the battle, without just erasing all the other characters on the table.