Rebooting Assassins

[T.D.]

I was disappointed with the nerf to Assassins in the 8th Army Book. Dark Elf Assassins have always been one of the coolest of troops in Warhammer, and only in recent editions have they come close to being the badasses they are supposed to be. Nerfing them reminds me of the mistake the developers of the Alien vs Predator (2010) computer game made in nerfing the Predator -- it took away the sense of power, and therefore fun out of the character. Contrast Crysis with the Crysis warsuits leading to an awesome games playing experience of badassery. But I digress. Onto tweaking 8th Assassins to make them a competitive choice:

Assassin (not Khainite, that just sounds silly)
stats as is
special rules as is plus Scout
Equipment: Hand weapon, Rending Stars, Additional Hand Weapon (+2 points), Repeater Crossbow (+5 points)
Magic items: up to 50 points

Rending Stars - thrown weapon, range 12", quick to fire, multiple shots (users attacks)

Upgrades:

Forbidden Poisons

Black Lotus as is

Dark Venom as is

Manbane as is

Nightshade Ichor* +35 points

Brewed from the blood of daemons and the poisons of rare Lustrian plants, the Hag Queens of Naggaroth utter the darkest prayers to the lord of murder when preparing this, the most ruinous of all the deadly poisons of the Temples of Khaine. Even the colossal raging creatures of Chaos and Magic that infest the Warhammer World can be brought down by an infusion of this vile draught, such is its potency.

D3 wounds


Only one Forbidden Poison can be taken. If taken the Forbidden Poison replaces the models Poisoned Attacks. Note that neither Poisoned Attacks or Forbidden Poisons can be combined with magic weapons. Both Poisoned Attacks and Forbidden Poisons are effective on both non-magical melee and shooting weapons.


Gifts of Khaine

Dance of Doom as is, free

Rune of Khaine +50 points

+ D3 attacks (applies to both h-t-h and Rending Stars)

Aspect of the Night +15 points

Blessed by Khaine, this Assassin has gone beyond the arts of camouflage and concealment into a supernatural ability to effect the mind of his prey; even that of magic users. Seeing a shadow in the corner of their chamber suddenly come to life is the last thing many enemies of the Witch King ever witness...

-1 to hit from shooting and all BS based attacks. MR 1.

Shadowstalker +20 points

Whether the soaring spires and battlements of the cities of Naggaroth, the walls and cliffs of country fortresses or the blasted wastelands, forests, swamps and mountain ranges in between, nothing can prevent this master of murder from reaching his victim. Running up vertical walls, leaping across chasms and floating across broken ground this Assassin is an incarnation of Death.

Strider




Shadowblade
as is plus Scout
Must take Manbane
Has all Gifts of Khaine
Cost: ?


Rationale:

Assassins should be bad, invincible and teeth-cutting out. I want to have Assassins that pop out from units and kill things, or run about in the opponents backfield causing havoc like the Predator from the movie Predator . I think with these tweaks Assassins can be made more powerful without being broken. For example the costing of the D3 wounds potion and the no choice of Manbane on Shadowblade is to prevent HeroHammer-style S7/8 D3 wounds shenanigans.
Giving Shadowblade Scout would enable him to be more of a terror to the enemy whilst not being a one turn kill your general gimmick like in earlier editions. Giving regular Assassins a cool multishot throwing weapon would make them a good but not OP complement to Shades, that can even be run solo more readily with access to both Strider and -1 to shooting.
The best Assassin ever in FB to my knowledge was 4th edition Deathmaster Snikch. I don't want to create anything as broken, but I do think that Dark Elf Assassins, being superhuman Elves trained from birth and taught by manifestations of Khaine -- rather than degenerate ratmen -- should be the pre-eminent Assassins of the Warhammer World, with in game rules to match



Comments, suggestions on pricing and all other Assassin related ideas welcome.


*best name I could come up with

[Thraundil]

By and large, I like all these rule suggestions, but in one iteration it would cause the assassin to become broken. An assassin with d3 wounds and +d3 attacks to match, you're looking at a very pricy guy that has S4, obviously you run him with a potion of strength. But he would cost close to 200 pts, and with an average of 6 attacks at S7 he would hit, realistically 5,6 attacks (he would get rerolls). Vs most lords, sporting T4 or even T5, thats also a subsequent 4-5 wounds easily at d3 each, with maybe 5+ armor save and then whatever ward you have, and vs monsters at T6 or even T7 (star dragon) he would score at least 3 wounds. These numbers would be enough to POP most lords and monsters where they stand. A little too strong.

I do agree that assassins in its current form is all about the fluff, or certain specialised roles (obsidian blade in a WE unit for example). Trouble is most other heroes can do the same job, and better. To be competitive, they need to be able to reliably kill about their own moneys worth in either troops (which would be a LOT of troops, so not realistically) or enemy heroes or lords. Its a hard balance - either you make them able to drop anything in one combat round, and they are broken. Or you make them able to do it sometimes, and they will surely die when they fail, and waste their points without having fulfilled their objective, thus not being competitive.

[T.D.]

I tried to set it up so that you can't combo D3 wounds (35pts) with potion of strength (20pts). But I didn't make the 50 point cap clear. I'll have to rewrite it so that either Forbidden Poisons or Gifts of Khaine come out of the Magic items allowance -- then it would be impossible to get that particular combination.

[Gerner]

But I have been thinking about how one could rule wise fix the assassin.

Option 1: Ambush, Scout, Skirmisher & "Assassin Repeater Crossbow". (Assassin Repeater Crossbow: Range; 24'', Strength; 3, Special Rules; Armour Piercing, Multiple Shots (4), Quick to Fire).
Suddenly he would be a viable poison shooter, that could field up backline.

Option 2: Dance of Death (See Page 45 under Sisters of Slaughter).
He would be a lot better in melee, and actual dance around in the unit (or model) in CC. 4++ Against everything in CC makes sense for an Assassin.

Option 3: Either of the above. Your Assassin had to choose a schooling which had to be one of the above. So you basically choose between a Vindicare or an Eversor.

I would of course prefer to have both, but let us not get carried away.

This was my quick thoughts. I actual think that Dance of Death would have been so f***ing brilliant on the assassin. A 4++ save in CC, denying rank bonus's and they have no parry save. I would have been a happy elf!

[T.D.]

4++ in h-t-h would be both great and fluffy. But I think if the Dance of Death was duplicated or taken off Sisters they would lose their selling point.

I also agree that the Assassin needs access to better shooting. Maybe not the mini bolt throwers of last edition, but something useful and flavoursome

[Kargan daemonclaw]

I think you are buying into the assassin press releases too much.

Assassins in stories kill their victims without their victims getting a chance to fight back. They take their victims when they are asleep or unarmed in their tent. Also assassins don't go after large monsters and daemons they kill normal sized opponents.

If an assassin in operating on the battlefield they have already lost their best opportunity to kill their opponents.

On the battlfield the assassin is a sort of super scout. Killing enemy warmachine crew and specialists such as wizards or enemy units of fast cavalry or warbeasts allows them to net kills without dieing.

Attacking enemy combat characters seems more like a holy matyr mission rather than a covert assassination. The big problem for assassins is that they might kill their target but then they get killed by the vengeful mob of rank and file attacks.

The rule that assassins need, if there is one, is to be able to force the enemy to accept a challange.

[Dalamar]

Assassin shooting is really easy.

Sniper, KB on shooting attacks.

As for other issues with an assassin:

They're supposed to be masters of combat, yet they die to a choppa wielding orc. The problem is with the WS vs S table that can't be fixed without rewriting the tables.
Fix - 4++ CC only (Don't skaven assassins have 4++ all the time?)

They are supposed to be character killers, but they are usually thwarted by champions, units, or characters being on a mount, becoming immune to KB.
Fix - HKB against characters only. This is better than d3 wounds as d3 wounds puts assassins as alternate monster killers, they're not meant to be that.
Fix #2 - When in base to base contact with an enemy character, the assassin can't be a target of attacks by any model other than the character he's in base contact with, and can't attack any models other than the chosen character as if they were in a challenge (without actually being in a challenge). This is not a challenge so there is no overkill. Seeing your leader suddenly fall lifeless on the field is less disconcerting than seeing him hacked apart and his heart eaten by the enemy that's standing right in front of you. This ability can't be used if the assassin is not part of a unit (he's got nowhere to launch the stealthy assault from)

I think this would make assassins more than useful.

[Maimed]

Assassin should have a rule where he can hide again in plain sight upon one of the following conditions:

- No wound is suffered by the Assassin during that round of combat
- The Assassin's target has been killed (in a challenge, or kills a character/champion outside of a challenge)

I would like the idea of the Assassin being able to bounce around from unit to unit similar to Shadowblade. This makes for quite the interesting dynamic... in my opinion anyway.

[Searinox Nagharha]

Also something fun to add might be the ability to reveal the Assassin as a reaction to a challange.
So your enemy declares a Challange, and instead of declining or accepting with your Unit Champ or Character you reveal the Assassin and have him take the challange.

In essence he is trying to assassinate the one foolish enough to challange his lord

[MangoPunch]

They're supposed to be masters of combat, yet they die to a choppa wielding orc. The problem is with the WS vs S table that can't be fixed without rewriting the tables.

They could have -1 to hit in CC like Glittering Scales.