Assassin Changes - March White Dwarf leak

[H311fi5h]

Agreed Culexus is still lacklustre as an anti psyker...

Maybe null zone was a bit too much but -2 to rolls doesn't help that much tbh... 

 

-2 won't do much against smites or other easy 5+ powers, but it will make those potentially game turning powers like Doom or Death Hex quite hard to get off on a target you want to protect (such as a Knight).

In my local meta there are a few Ynnari players. It's not fun to have a knight get Doomed and Jinxed, followed by Vect on the Rotate Ion Shields and a double salvo from a full squad of Dark Reapers or haywire Skyweavers. Speaking from experience.

Now I can just set 85 points aside and bring in a Culexus when playing against such a list.

[WarriorFish]

I agree, a lot of powers are pretty easy to get so a -2 isn't going to do a great deal there but the others will see some decent hindrance. With how poorly the Culexus does in combat directly I'm not convinced of his use yet though. Vindicare seems useful but it's still probably going to take a couple of turns to tackle a target, unless you spend some command points.

 

Evesor is as straight forward as ever it seems but I'm not sure if Guard needs that. Callidus appears decent but the ability to make opponent's stratagems more costly feels like the biggest draw; that could really mess with some plans. Given how so many regurgitate the same tricks the ability to make it cost them is quite delicious!

 

Overall I think it's not a bad result for Assassins, stratagems as always being one of the main parts of what can make an "army" good and I think there's some potential. I'll be very interested to see how people make use of them :)

[brother_b]

The benefit of the 1cp strategem is that you don't have to choose which assassin it is you're taking until the game starts. So instead of paying 85pts for a specific assassin, you keep 85pts in reserve and then spend the 1cp at start of game to use the one you want for that match. It seems like it may be useful, especially for guard with a million CP anyway.

 

That is nice. Thanks for the explanation. 

[Gothical]

The Culexus is an odd one, but to my mind one of the best.

 

The Soul Horror stratagem can be absolutely amazing, it is an upgraded version of the Vexator Mask that I use on my Dark Eldar Haemonculus all the time. Forcing a unit (well, unitS) to fight last can be utterly brutal, especially if targeting something critical like a Castellan or character plus bodyguard to prevent the opponent using the "interrupt" stratagem and to neuter chargers.

 

Being able to make his gun Assault D6 Damage D3 (and upgrading his grenade to Damage D3 at the same time) is huge, even if you want to keep a CP back to re-roll the number of shots. Do bear in mind that this increase applies based on the proximity of a Psyker NOT targeting a Psyker, so you can use the upgraded profile to shoot backfield units.

 

Sure, he doesn't have a special melee weapon but he still has the abilities to clear through bubblewraps and screens/counter-chargers thanks to the combination of hitting on 2s, bypassing saves, and only being hit himself on 6s followed by a 4+ invulnerable. It is also a powerful combination to stop psychic characters from counter-charging him to try to shut down his ranged attacks.

 

In effect he's the "troll" of the assassins - keep following round the enemy characters and shutting down their most powerful powers whilst blasting shots at them and swatting down any sacrificial units sent to try to stop him and disrupting the back field.

 

 

As for the Callidus' Acrobatic stratagem, it certainly won't be useful all the time but it can be a critical one to have. Advance + Charge gives her a huge threat range (or can put her into guaranteed charge territory) which, combined with appearing anywhere on the board the turn before, means it is very difficult to shut her out. Don't forget she can "fall back" (any direction) and still shoot/charge so can leapfrog intervening units too.

 

Reign of Confusion is great, but I dislike that it has a 50/50 shot against a critical stratagem (especially if it cost you 2 CP). Thus I think it is a trap to view it as a way to shut down Rotate Ion Shields, Agents of Vect, etc. However, I think it is brilliant for generally disrupting the opponent's plans since it affects ALL in-game spending of CP which, combined with matched play restrictions on regeneration of CP, could completely cut the legs off their strategy.

 

 

Whilst all of the assassins are going to be useful if facing the right opponent I think that the most useful ones for the Guard are going to be the Eversor (counter-charging, clearing screens or supporting other melee elements) and the Callidus (countering CP-heavy strategies and providing a way to kill MEQ/TEQ characters easily). The Vindicare is, I think, less useful since we can pack a lot of long-range guns and can shoot away screens to get to characters therefore the Callidus makes more sense for her tactical versatility; the Culexus is quite psyker-specific and Guard can make great use of their own Psykers and he now affects them too.

 

Ironically the Vindicare is going to be one of the biggest threats to our own characters, so it might turn out that it is worth taking one and go full Enemy at the Gates to try to keep our Orders rolling.

[MagicHat]

 

 

Agreed Culexus is still lacklustre as an anti psyker...

Maybe null zone was a bit too much but -2 to rolls doesn't help that much tbh...

-2 won't do much against smites or other easy 5+ powers, but it will make those potentially game turning powers like Doom or Death Hex quite hard to get off on a target you want to protect (such as a Knight).

In my local meta there are a few Ynnari players. It's not fun to have a knight get Doomed and Jinxed, followed by Vect on the Rotate Ion Shields and a double salvo from a full squad of Dark Reapers or haywire Skyweavers. Speaking from experience.

Now I can just set 85 points aside and bring in a Culexus when playing against such a list.

-2 also completely blocks smite from going high-powered.

[noigrim]

Was talking with a gk player and pointed out that the culexus would make his powers go in everytime.

Eversors seem like the great winners, with a possible 36 attacks at 2+ 2+ vs almost everything