Assassins

[BloodBrother]

hello,im interested

Could Imperial Assassins (vindicare,Eversor,Callidus,Culees,Vanus,Venumus) defeat space marine in close queters fighting

being elite assassins and all

plz reply :huh:

[Skirax]

Yes. Do you have the rules? They own.

 

Edit: Woops, didn't see fluff-wise. ha. Ummmmm....well, rules and fluff work well togethor, plus, take the Calexus assassin. If they go against a Marine, marine gets scared, Calexus runs and chops his head off. Simples, *chirping noise*

[Grand Master Tchezzarus]

As in the title, He mean fluff-wise!

And my answer is yes! Assassins don't fight in duel, it's not a "fair" game... they've got patience and skills, they will hit your weak point when you don't except them... even space marine can't deal with them.

Tchezz.

[BloodBrother]

well i mean no dirty tricks,you just stand in plain field,you are vindicare assassin and angry cheos marine run at you,could you defeat him,anybody who played dawn of war dark crusede,seen that vindicare knows Kung-Fu (dunno if there is any martial art in 40k)

[glayvin34]

Gladiator-style it would be more even, much of the assassin's skill comes from setting up the attack. But since they are roughly equal in hand-to-hand combat, the assassin is going to have better weapons, so he'll probably win. But the SM has better armor. I'd say a veteran Space Marine with a Power Weapon would stand a pretty good chance of defeating an assassin in gladiator-style combat.

 

Assassin against an average Tactical Marine with bolter and chainsword, though, my money's on the assassin.

[Captain Malachi]

Depends in which assassin. I doubt a vindicare assassin could actually take out a marine in CC (well maybe if he hit him with his exitus pistol), but an eversor would slaugter marines. Of course this is assuming they have their equipment, without them then I think the marines raw power would overcome the assassins superior agility, they just wouldn't be able to hurt the marine in any meaningful way.

[Prathios]

Fluff wise the Vindicare is going to be the best bet. He could wipe out whole squads of marines if he gets the jump on them. He just doesn't miss, ever (not that you would know that from the table top.) The Callidus would be more than a match for a basic marine but sergeants and up would give her big problems but due to her weapon she still has the upper hand. I can't see her going toe to toe with a chapter master though and librarians would be too much for her, chaplains might be too. She can kill all of em though with a sneak attack. The Ervy would likely be able to kill several basic marines in quick succession after the initial shock of his attack wore off though he would get butchered. Finally, unless its a librarian the Culexus wouldn't cause the marines enough discomfort to even notice and they would manhandle him. Librarians would have a very hard time focusing on him to even fight back. From a fluff only standpoint thats about how it would go.

[ValourousHeart]

Depends in which assassin. I doubt a vindicare assassin could actually take out a marine in CC (well maybe if he hit him with his exitus pistol), but an eversor would slaugter marines. Of course this is assuming they have their equipment, without them then I think the marines raw power would overcome the assassins superior agility, they just wouldn't be able to hurt the marine in any meaningful way.

 

I am going to have to go ahead and disagree with you there.

If you are current with the Horus Heresy books you will remember a dual with an assassin vs a person in PA in the Alpha Legion novel.

Using his bear hands he broke both the larynx and vox with the first strike through the armor.

This guy wasn't in any of the major temples, but his skills crossed the lines of all of them.

 

Now the assassins won't be able to take on an entire squad at once, but should be able to go toe to tow with any single marine, including a chapter master.

We are talking about the =I= after all and so it would be to hard to round up a marine or 20 for combat practice for an assassin temple.

The practice would be similar to how marines practice... first blood.

But it is after all the job of the Assassin to be prepared to stop any threat to the Imperium... and that could be a Space Marine.

 

Also wasn't one of the Primarchs assassinated... the one that could see the future... Mangus I think.

So if they can kill a Primarch, a chapter master should be possible.

[glayvin34]

I am going to have to go ahead and disagree with you there.

If you are current with the Horus Heresy books you will remember a dual with an assassin vs a person in PA in the Alpha Legion novel.

Using his bear hands he broke both the larynx and vox with the first strike through the armor.

This guy wasn't in any of the major temples, but his skills crossed the lines of all of them.

 

Surely you're not referring to John Grammaticus? That guy wasn't an assassin, or even in the employ of the Inquisition (which didn't exist yet), he was a 1,000-year-old Eldar-enhanced Cabal operative. Nonetheless, his skills were comparable to an assassin, and that one scene was a good descriptor. He managed to take out the PA security guard but got pretty messed up in the process. Suggesting 2 sec guards would have taken him out.

 

Now the assassins won't be able to take on an entire squad at once, but should be able to go toe to tow with any single marine, including a chapter master.

We are talking about the =I= after all and so it would be to hard to round up a marine or 20 for combat practice for an assassin temple.

The practice would be similar to how marines practice... first blood.

But it is after all the job of the Assassin to be prepared to stop any threat to the Imperium... and that could be a Space Marine.

 

I agree with Prathios and ValourousHeart on this one, but it really depends on which assassin. And even more on how much the assassin gets to choose the point of contact. I'd say most assassins (except the Callidus) are level with a SM Sergeant based on pure combat ability. Of course they work better on the table than a sarge because of their infiltration abilities, which is half of what an assassin is.

 

A Vindicare shooting at a tactical squad from on top of a building would kill all of them. A Vindicare could handle one or two marines in CC, but any more than that and I think he's in trouble.

An Eversor might be able to take on 5 Assault Marines right after drug injection, but if there's 10 he might run out of steam.

Callidus are closer to captain-level, so they'd be more able to handle SMs

Culexus would have a ton of difficulty, but their equipment does work on non-psykers, so they'd have a chance if not too badly outnumbered.

 

Also wasn't one of the Primarchs assassinated... the one that could see the future... Mangus I think.

So if they can kill a Primarch, a chapter master should be possible.

But any assassin that kills a primarch isn't a Temple Assassin, the temples don't get developed until years later.

[Silent Shadow]

There's a piece of fluff in the 5th edition rule book during the time line where it mentions that when the High Lord of the Assassins had all of the other High Lords assassinated a strike force comprising of 450 marines, were sent to eliminate him. After breaking into the fortress they were confronted by 100/150 eversor assassins. The only survivor of the battle was one marine who then proceded to deliver the emperors justice via his boltgun.

 

Going by this story one eversor is roughly worth 3 marines, but it's all open up to opinion, make of this what you will. ;)

[Chengar Qordath]

Like others have said, context matters a lot in comparing Assassins to Marines; assassins are generally much more narowly focused and specialized than Space Marines, so an Eversor would have lots of trouble vs. a Marine with a long-range weapon in open terrain, a Vindicare wouldn't do to well in assault versus a Marine, and a Culexus assassin is wasted vs. non-psykers. However, in the right context, like a Vindicare in a well-concealed sniper nest, they can easily take down multiple Marines.

 

Also, for a mass engagement like major Eversor vs. Marine conflict Silent Shadow mentioned the Marines would have a major advantage as they are trained to fight as a co-ordinated group, while assassin training presumably assumes that the assassin would be working alone (except for Death Cult assassins).

[Prathios]

But any assassin that kills a primarch isn't a Temple Assassin, the temples don't get developed until years later.

 

This isn't a good call due to the fact that he has the scenario a bit mixed up much like before when he thought John Gramaticus killed a marine in CC when it was actually a elite guard trooper, big difference. The primarch he refers to is Konrad of the Night Lords. Konrad was assassinated by a Cally when he grew tired of living and knowing how screwed up everything was so he actually let her kill him. He see's her comming and stops time (or perhaps it was simply time slowing in his mind so he could have a nice juicy monologue) but the fact remains he doesn't stop her though he was fully capable since she wasn't the first time he had an assassin try to smoke him. So this doesn't really count. So there you go. The Ervesor can get maybe 2-3 marines, Cally about the same, Culexus much less perhaps only 1, but the Vinny can likely take whole squads out with his wicked rifle.

[Grand Master Tyrak]

Silent Shadow Posted Today, 12:24 AM

There's a piece of fluff in the 5th edition rule book during the time line where it mentions that when the High Lord of the Assassins had all of the other High Lords assassinated a strike force comprising of 450 marines, were sent to eliminate him. After breaking into the fortress they were confronted by 100/150 eversor assassins. The only survivor of the battle was one marine who then proceded to deliver the emperors justice via his boltgun.

 

Yes, this is part of the Assassin Wars around the time of the Age of Apostasy. One of the lesser known Thorian reforms was to physically separate the Assassin Temples, so that whilst you still had a Grand Master of Assassins on the High Lords, in the event of another Assassin War the loyal Temples could neutralise the traitor Temple in a Rock-Paper-Scissors effect.

[BloodBrother]

i fought that temples were Pre-heresy,and were active in times of Great Crusade

[Grand Master Tyrak]

BloodBrother Posted Today, 11:28 AM

i fought that temples were Pre-heresy,and were active in times of Great Crusade

 

They were, but in a combined way. So you'd gain entry to the Assassinorum, do your basic training, and then be selected for a Temple. After the Thorian reforms, you apply/are picked for an individual Temple. You do not have contact with the other Temples or their Operatives except on missions. You certainly aren't told the whereabouts of the other Temples.

[Captain Malachi]

@Glayvin34: How do you figure a callidus is more like a captain in skill than the others? If anything she's a worse fighter, callidus' specialise in stealth and infiltration work, not all out fighting. Yeah she had her nifty phase blade, but that doesn't matter.

 

A space marine captain is, by far, a better fighter than these assassins for raw skill, the assassins get an edge from their equipment. In the right scenario with the beneit of polymorphine and the C'tan phase blade, the callidus could kill a space marine captain, by assassinating him, not by dueling him. Huge difference.

 

The same goes for the other assassins, though I imagine the eversor would have a little more trouble as his job is to duel him.

 

 

Also, yeah John Grammaticus didn't kill a marine, he managed to kill a single security guard in power armour and got beat up in the process. If his skills really are comparable to an assassin, which they probably are, then he'd get killed by a marine no problem. Especially as their armour is better than the armour that security guard was wearing. This is assuming you guys are right and he was wearing power armour, honestly I haven't read legion in quite a while and had thought he was wearing carapace armour. If I'm right then the assassin would stand even less of a chance against a marine.

[BloodBrother]

well as i recall 1 eversor could deafeat ~2 gray knights so its like 4 to 6 space marines (tactical)

[glayvin34]

@Glayvin34: How do you figure a callidus is more like a captain in skill than the others? If anything she's a worse fighter, callidus' specialise in stealth and infiltration work, not all out fighting. Yeah she had her nifty phase blade, but that doesn't matter.

 

*shrug*, I think I was influenced by the rules, not the fluff. I figured that, compared to the other assassins, her talents would be most effective in CC regardless of weaponry, but I guess that's true of the Eversor, too. And the Death Cult. Poor saps haven't been mentioned in the whole thread.

[Prathios]

Death cult assassins would likely get ripped apart by marines. After ambushing and killing a marine from hiding I think the DC assassin would have run its course. They are good in a fight but they aren't augmented and pumped up like the other ones. They don't come from some giant imperial temple or anything. Death Cult Assassins are basically a poor mans eversor.

[Captain Malachi]

I dunno, a death cult assassin probably couldn't even kill a single marine (fluffwise*), they just aren't that good. I mean, the whole point of marines is that they kick everyone's butt :blink:

 

 

 

*For the record, all my arguments in this thread are fluffwise.

[Grey Mage]

It could go both ways. A HtH orient assassin has a decent chance of taking out a spare marine going by the Inquisitor game rules. On the other hand if the marine was armed and armored and ready for it the fight would be pretty rough....

 

Remember that Assassins are trained to take on chaos space marines even if needed.... I think they could get the job done 4/5 times. More so if its against a librarian.

[Chengar Qordath]

Personally, I think there's a bit of a fallacy involved in the question of "How good is an assassin vs. a Marine in a fair fight?" because assassins, pretty much by definition, do not fight "fair". A Callidus assassin would much rather stab her enemy in the back than in the front, the Vindicare gives no sign of its presence before firing it's first shot, etc. Forcing an assassin to "fight fair" means taking away most of their advantages, which means the fight isn't really fair at all.

[BloodBrother]

im writing fan fiction about vindicare and i was interesting if he could takeout marine unarmed,in my story,he is ambushed by 2 space marines who in all cheos of fithing think he is enemy,i mean assassins are trained from use of power weapons,bolters,heave flamers to unarmed combat right?

[Captain Malachi]

i mean assassins are trained from use of power weapons,bolters,heave flamers to unarmed combat right?

Yeah but the problem is marines are too, and they have the fact they're fraggin' superhuman to go with it :) And I think a vindicare wouldn't be so well trained at unarmed hand to hand combat.

[Chengar Qordath]

i mean assassins are trained from use of power weapons,bolters,heave flamers to unarmed combat right?

Yeah but the problem is marines are too, and they have the fact they're fraggin' superhuman to go with it :lol: And I think a vindicare wouldn't be so well trained at unarmed hand to hand combat.

A Vindicare is definately going to be at a major disadvantage in hand-to-hand fighting; they don't have any sort of melee weapons as standard wargear, and while the Vindicare would be trained in weapons besides the Exitus Rifle + Pistol they would probably be at a disadvantage vs. a Marine. After all, Vindicares presumably spend at least 75% of their training focused just on using the Exitus Rifle in order to become the ultimate sniper.

 

That said, I'm pretty sure a Vindicare would have training in escape & evasion for when their sniping position gets compromised. Taking down a power-armored Marine in hand-to-hand would be difficult, but a Vindicare could certainly evade the Marines, find a new position, and then take them down in the usual manner.