The Venom Sword Assassin - 2500pts

[Meteor]

Assassin w/ Venom Sword (!!!) - 165
Lv4 w/ Black Staff (!!!???) & PoK - 350 (Shadow)
Lv2 w/ Tome & Lifetaker - 180 (Metal)
CoB BSB - 225

21 Spearmen w/ Sh & FC - 162
10 RxB w/ Sh & Muso - 115
10 RXB w/ Sh & Muso - 115
16 Corsairs w/ AHW & SSS & Muso - 210
5 DR w/ RxB & Muso - 117
5 Harpies - 55
5 Harpies - 55

16 Witch Elf w/ Flame Banner & Muso - 185
11 Executioners w/ Muso - 138
16 Black Guard w/ AP banner & Muso - 254
5 Shades w/ AHW - 85
5 Shades w/ AHW - 85

Total: 2496

An idea list, haven't tried it yet, it's basically tailored to promote the Venom Sword Assassin. The Lv2 goes with one unit of Shades and they run around sniping skirmishers and such with the Lifetaker. The Lv4 has the Black Staff because it's a nice risk free item to use that gives me 3 PoD casts to fund all these PD consuming Shadow spells.

I had in mind for the Assassin to go into the frenzy corsair unit just for the extra attack buff, coupled with the CoB, that'll give my Assassin 5 swings with the Venom Sword, which is much better than 3 swings. Though I doubt that's practical, and he might be better off going solo most of the time, since his job is to hunt monsters and chariots.

In order for the Venom Sword to work, it requires five factors, the Assassin hitting, wounding, enemy failing their AS, failing any ward/regen save, and for the T test to fail.

With 8th ed rules, the Assassin will be getting rerolls to hit in every round since he has ASF AND I10, so factor 1 is fairly well covered.

From Shadow lore, we're after 'The Withering' Spell, which works two fold;
1) Makes it easier for the Assassin to wound the target if he doesn't get any poisoned wounds off.
2) Lowers the target's chance of passing their T test on 2D6.
That's a win win in my books, factor 2 and 4 covered with this spell.

From Metal lore, we're after the AS reducing spells, of which there are 3/6, Plague of Rust, Enchanted Blades and/or Transmutation of Lead. The idea is to reduce the chances of our target to pass their AS so that the T test effect can be triggered. - Factor 3 covered.

This is in essence what I mean by promoting the Venom Sword Assassin, and it may as well be VERY impractical and hard to pull off. Even so, the Assassin himself with his 3 base attacks and poison and S4 should be enough to apply a poison wound that the enemy may fail considering most monsters and chariots have a relatively low AS or scaly skin on default. This eliminates 4 of 5 factors, he can't hunt every single nasty thing out there, so got to be selective, especially against ward save or regen targets. You can eliminate this 5th factor, but it requires an additional source, be it a bunker unit containing the flame banner, or a fire mage with flame sword, or a model with 'The Other Trickster's Shard', wards you can't do much more than that, so that's as far as this VS Assassin will go.

The rest of the list is really there to fill in the points, the multiple shade groups is useful for keeping the enemy guessing as to where your Assassin is hidden. And even if that fails, we've got three hard hitting combat units to follow through and plenty of baiting and redirecting units to control the enemy's movement.

The executioners are there as a flanking backup against tough enemies, mainly there to open up tin cans. The worst case scenario for metal lore is when we get Glittering Robes, Final Transmutation and Golden Hounds, ie, none of the AS modifying spell. In that case, I'd be happy too, since Glittering Robes essentially brings all our troop's AS to 3+, save for the WE, that's better than WoC at a cheaper cost!

As a side note, I was very tempted to abandon the metal lore and go shadow for my Lv2 as well. Actually, that was my original trail of thought, but that's not fully promoting the Venom Sword imo. Double Shadow helps to ensure I get Withering and Mindrazor, as well as double Miasma to stack it on an enemy. Mindrazor essentially replaces the need for an AS modifying spell from the Metal lore, and serves as a backup when Withering either doesn't go off, or isn't enough, and it'll ensure I obtain it too, when there's 7 spells to pick from between the two mages for the one lore.

What do you guys think? Is it feasible?

[Thanee]

The Lv4 has the Black Staff because it's a nice risk free item to use that gives me 3 PoD casts to fund all these PD consuming Shadow spells.

Well, the Black Staff allows you to cast another PoD (without your +4 to cast, so terribly easy to dispel), and since a dice roll of 1 or 2 is an autofail, you need to roll 2 dice in most cases to cast that spell, which grants you a whopping 1 net PD on average (if not dispelled).

The Darkstar Cloak does the same for less than half the cost without the dispel chance.

The Sacrificial Dagger is a lot better than that for the same cost, too.

The Black Staff is utter crap.

Bye
Thanee

[Malus99]

I like this list, the only thing I think it lacks is an LD10 general, but 9 is fine. Changes I would suggest are:

Black staff: Used to love this item in 7th, now bound items are cast with PD I don't, it costs too much and since you do not add the wizard level to your casting roll, but your opponent will add their level to their dispell, you are looking at probably having at least a 2 and probably a 4 point disadvantage, on a small, one or two dice spell that is very big, I think you might end up gaining very little with this item because if your opponent has +4, they can afford to roll 1 dice less than you if you get a reasonably bad roll and comfortably dispel it, or the same amount of dice and comfortably dispel it.

I think a better (and much cheaper) option is either the Darkstar cloak or the sacrificial dagger, it saves 30 points and gives you a certain amount of dice which cannot be stopped, I think that the black staff will lose you dice on a bad roll, break even on a normal to quite good roll and maybe gain you a max of two dice on a very good roll, against a Lv4 dispeller, they only need to roll 6 to beat a roll of 10, meaning that on average you need to roll an extra dice to your opponent to break even, not good odds for 55 pts.

Other than that combining the shades into a single unit might be something to consider, entirely depends on how you will play them.

If you do decide to scrap the black staff, I think the points could best be used boosting the number of Execs abit, every little helps.

The list looks good all round, fast units for soft-target hunting, solid blocks of nasty infantry, CoB and good magic, nice list. And assassins are always fun, I don't use them enough.

[Meteor]

Yea, it's true the Black Staff may not end up being great, it really is there as a bit of a sucker for DD draining or a Lv4 to fail to dispel. Idea being I throw a PD at it, if it doesn't go off, oh well, if it does, it does two things. Either they play safe and throw two DD at it to be safe. The true purpose is to tempt them to throw only 1 DD at it, making them take that 33% risk of failing to dispel on a 1 or 2. Thereby making the rest of my magic phase much much easier. Obviously if I fail to cast on 1 PD then my magic phase would be that much harder haha. Oh and if they do what I do, use a Lv2 to take those 33% chance risks, then I'll kill them!

Again, another testing item along with the Venom Sword Assassin. To me it's situational on how you use it, either as a 3rd PoD reliance, or a sucker for their Lv4 dispeller or DD.

I like to keep my shades in two separate groups because it gives me 5 WM hunting units, and generally allows me to have much greater flexibility in their use. It also means it's easier to sneak 5 into the enemy lines to immediately threaten any WM or gunlines if I choose to do so. Which is also why my RxB units are split into two blocks of 10, rather than a single block of 20.

Ld9 over Ld10 usually isn't much of an issue for me, so long as there's a BSB reroll nearby. Though that Ld10 problem can be easily rectified, I could either drop the musician on the DR and give the spearmen the Banner of Discipline, then put the Lv4 general in there for Ld10 Inspiring Presence. Or if I do drop the 55pt Black Staff, then there's more than enough points to invest in a Banner of Discipline.

[Red...]

In order for the Venom Sword to work, it requires four factors, the Assassin hitting, wounding, enemy failing their AS, and for the T test to fail

You missed 'enemy failing their ward or regen save'.

I think the list is feasible, but the venom sword remains a massive drag. You might win, but it will be in spite of, rather than supported by the character. The assassin is still so unlikely to get the result - even with the boosts you mention - he needs (unsaved wound and failed toughness test) that he becomes counterproductive against any hero/lord that you might want to use him against...and he's then so squishy that if the lord/hero does survive - as he probably will - then he's more or less guaranteed to die immediately.

[Calisson]

Nice to see the Venom Sword tested!

if he doesn't get any poisoned wounds off (...)
the Assassin himself with his 3 base attacks and poison and S4 should be enough to apply a poison wound

Magic items cannot be poisoned (p.73). No poison.

[Meteor]

Ooops yes stupid to forget ward/regen. Added it in, thanks Red!

Yea he can't really deal with heroes too well when they've got lots of great protective gear. However, that's where the CoB comes in, giving my Shades or Spearmen the KB blessing and neutralising them that way. It's always amusing when a fully tanked up badass hero gets killed by a 6pt model

Monsters like Stegs and Furnaces are the bane of my warhammer experience, even swarms like Spirit Hosts, I'm not that fussed about heroes, except for monster level ones like a Bloodthirster

[Burizan]

I like the idea, very well thought out and I hope it goes well!

As said, I would take sacrificial dagger over the black staff, and you can squeeze in a banner of discipline on the spearmen (if you use them as sacrificial bunker) to give you a ld10 general.

I love it, that witch elf unit (plus the assassin) plus one of many flankers would make an ideal force to take down a crypt guard bunker with regen banner.

Ogres beware!

[Meteor]

Nice to see the Venom Sword tested!

if he doesn't get any poisoned wounds off (...)
the Assassin himself with his 3 base attacks and poison and S4 should be enough to apply a poison wound

Magic items cannot be poisoned (p.73). No poison.

Argh serious??! All the more reason for Shadow Magic so he can actually cause the wound then :S

[Dangerous Beans]

Heya Meteor - really unusual list buddy and I like how much thought you've put into it, but sadly I think that the concept is a bit too situational - theres too many things that have to 'go right' for it to work - spells, saves, units surviving... and thats besides the targets themselves and deployment/setup - theres a chance you might not even end up fighting his targets easily

Plus, even if he does matchup, fight and kill off his desired target, they're relatively like to have a hefty bodyguard (chaos knights/chosen, graveguard etc) that will likely both strike you, and the corsairs down a fair whack - potentially costing the unit's life and that of the assassins.

I'm actually a big fan of the venom sword - have been since I first saw when I started playing, sadly though, unless you have a druchii army like they used to make (see this) I just see that there are simply other options that do the same thing, more effectively.

[Meteor]

The Venom Sword Assassin got his first piece of action today. Getting into position was relatively easy, since I hid him in a unit of shades. The only trouble was the easy panic checks and risk of the small group of 5 being wiped out beforehand. I fought WE who had no glade guards, two units of glade riders, 3 sets of 3 treekin, a treeman and a lv4 with beast and some other minor characters.

My witch elves dealt with the treekins very easily because they had the flame banner, coupled with enchanted blades, the treekins had no chance. The Lifetaker was exceptionally useful, and I had great fun running her around with a unit of Shades chasing after that Lv4 on a unicorn. In the end, the Lv2 and her unit got wiped out, but it was still fine because he pretty much devoted all his firepower into this unit, leaving the rest of my army relatively unscathed. Not to mention the Lifetaker took the life of the Lv4 before the user died.

He also miscasted his Lv4 in the first cast of the game, resulting in the losing D3 wizard level one. Which resulted in 3 Wizard Level loss, so I didn't need to go out of my way to neutralise her at all.

The Assassin maanaged to reach the treeman who copped a -3 T Withering, killed him outright with +1 attack from the CoB. But he shot the assassin and the unit down afterwards. But that's ok, a big headache was removed with ease, and it shows it works. Though I might need to improve his escort unit some how.

My Executioners held up his Dryads for 3 rounds of combat too, which is hilarious because of the CoB nearby granting them stubborn. Though I then scattered Pit of Shades onto my own CoB and destroyed it outright much to our amusement. That's twice its happened...

But meh, the flame banner WE romped his trees, even when he rear charged me, whilst there was enchanted blades AND +1 A in effect.

In the end, nothing substantial of mine died without a good gain, and we called it at the end of turn 4.

Btw, could someone point me to where (if any) it says the banner of discipline works with the general to give a +1 Ld bonus to the inspiring presence rule? The WE guy refused to believe it works like that when the general is with the unit that has this banner.

[Calisson]

Btw, could someone point me to where (if any) it says the banner of discipline works with the general to give a +1 Ld bonus to the inspiring presence rule?

Last FAQ inside "FAQ Warhammer Rulebook V1_1".

Q: If the General is in a unit with the Standard of Discipline will
he gain +1 Leadership and then be able to pass it onto his unit
(because he is in it) as well as other units in range of the Inspiring
Presence special rule? (Reference)
A: Yes.

[Malus99]

Nice to know the list worked well, I think combining the shades unit would give the assassin more protection there, but I always play units of 10 shades so that is just my personal bias.

Glad to know you got good use out of lifetaker, come join the sniper sorceress club!

Going back to the assassin and shades unit, I think the only thing that may protect that unit in games with reasonable amounts of missile-armed enemies is its (apparent) relative unimportance, 85 points of shades is not something to worry about, when the shades reveal 165 points of assassin in a 7 wound unit of armourless, T3 elves they will instantly get more attention as 250 VPs become very easy to get.

Light armour for the shades won't help much atall and unifying the shade units might make them more of a target before and after the assassin is revealed, so I think your best bet for keeping the assassin and those shades alive is clever deployment and keeping them hidden from ranged attacks, beyond that I think there is little more you can do in the shades.

Another option is sticking the assassin in the khainite units near the CoB, makes them stubborn and gives them even more bite to their bark, sticking an ASF I10 assassin in a group of ASL infantry will give your opponent a nasty surprise .

Are you considering placing the assassin in a group other than the shades?

[Meteor]

Thanks Cal!

Malus yes I do stick him in other units aside from Shades. It's easier to transport the Assassin to his target(s) but they're much more risky compared to standard infantry blocks. It's all situational where he goes, depending on the form of protection the target has aside from an AS. If they have regen, I'd be inclined to put him with the WE's so he gets the flame attacks to negate the regen. If I need that extra -1 to AS because I didn't get 3/6 spells from metal, he could join the Black Guards for their AP banner.

The Assassin successfully killed a Wyvern in one go in another game today too. I didn't get Withering off on IF and it got dispelled, but the +1 attack blessing was more than enough for me to generate 2 wounds where he failed one and failed his subsequent T5 test. The Spearmen unit he was with ran down his general afterwards too. The Assassin did nothing else that game, except to swap places with the Lv4 Shadow mage so she got away from a mob of Orks and the poor Assassin got charged instead. But hey, at least he dealt with the Wyvern, which would've caused me endless headaches.

The rest of the army fared quite well too. Well, the frenzied Mindrazor Corsairs to be precise, since I was forced to engage in 1v1 combats on all fronts from turn 2 onwards. The combined charges are deadly, and the khainite WE and Executioners make excellent cheap tarpits when near the CoB. He marched, then cast Wargh spell, he was less than 10" in front of me by the start of my turn 1... >.>

[Meteor]

An updated version of this list was tinkered with for a tournament today. Came 4th so I'm quite happy with that, lost 3rd place because 5 DRs tripped, which costed me the 1 battle point I needed to hit 3rd place.

Assassin w/ Venom Sword
Lv4 w/ Black Staff & PoK (Shadow)
Lv2 w/ Tome of Furion & Lifetaker (Dark)
CoB w/ BSB

35 Spearmen w/ Shields, FC & Banner of Discipline (7x5_
16 Corsairs w/ AHW, muso & SSS
5 DRs w/ RxB & Muso
5 DRs w/ RxB & Muso
5 Harpies
5 Harpies

18 Black Guards w/ muso & AP (7x2+4)
16 WE w/ FC & Flame Banner
Chariot
5 Shades w/ AHW
5 Shadws w/ AHW

Major difference is the loss of the two RxB units and the Executioner unit, in replacement of an additional unit of DRs, a bigger block of Spears and a chariot. The 21 Spearmen was just too small and had no impact into the game. At 35 models it gives me more attacks and a better bulk to support with SCR as well as steadfast where needed. The Chariot because I found it a bit hard to flank constantly when there's so many units running around the table, factoring in unfavourable terrain at any given point.

I found the RxBs were impractical because it required a fairly static army to make best use of their shooting. With DRs and Shades running around, it made both advancing combat troops whilst shooting at things at full efficiency, possible. Their combined shooting allowed me to cripple a unit of 16 Swordmasters in one turn, resulting in two 4-6man units by end of turn 2, which eventually got picked off in the end.

Venom Sword Assassin killed off a Keeper of Secrets in another game, just as planned. Withered to T4, had +1 attack and was in the frenzy corsair unit, resulting in 5 attacks of which, three wounds got through. Assassin died too, since we're both ASF, but a 165pt model for a 560pt model? Yes please!

Although as pointed out, he is a very situational character, since he was only useful in that one game of the three played. But like I said, this list isn't really designed to take on monsters like a Keeper of Secrets, it's not scared of tanked up Chaos Lords at all though, since a KB or Mindrazor will solve most problems.

Oh and as a final note, that Black Staff is just AWSOME! Not worth its 55pts? I don't agree to that. It successfully caused a Lv4 wizard to indeed fail to dispel with 1 die at one point. It forced countless DD to be thrown in to stop it (at 2+ DD to my 1PD to use it). And whenever my opponent's magic defense was wide open, it gave me more PD to throw more hexes at targets. A truely flexible and powerful item in my book. Give it a try too, rather than the same old boring Dagger.

[xFallenx]

I may actually give the Staff a try next week. The dagger is fun and all, but I haven't been having much luck using it to tell the truth. Maybe switching to the staff will prove to be a little more effectual. Thanks for your input!

[xFallenx]

damn double post....grumble...grumble....

[Rabidnid]

damn double post....grumble...grumble....

You could always use the delete button for your second post, removing it and this as well.

[Meteor]

Not now that you posted after him/her

And hope you find the Black Staff more useful than the credit people had been giving it! Let us know, always nice to have more feedback of its use from hands on games.

[Jbtheslipperking]

Hm.. Venom Sword. I must admint I have never used it or never seen it used in my 10 year or so playing wfb. I mean :
Need to hit
Need to wound
Then the monster
Need to fail armor save
Need to fail ward save
Need to fail T test
And if fail ---> asassin is DEAD.
For 75p this looks to me like a VERY risky choise.
Im gonna stick to my booring manbane/rending star combo, but good luck to you and kudoos for trying out new things.

[Meteor]

My first post covered all that and steps to make sure the Assassin passes most of those conditions in order to survive and/or kill his target. Thus a Venom Sword Assassin list, everything in this list is tailored to help the Venom Sword work, probably 7/10 times now, whilst maintaining a competitive level in general since the Venom Sword Assassin is only a cog in the works, and you wouldn't win because he did his job. It's just one part of the grand scheme of things.

As a refresher

Need to hit = ASF @ I10 should cover that. +1 attack blessing and frenzied corsair bunker can help improve your chances with more attacks.

Need to wound = Withering spell from Shadow Lore

Fail AS = Lv2 with Metal, taking up plague, or enchanted blades and/or transmutation. Otherwise there's an AP banner bunker.

Fail Ward/Regen = my list relies on you failing ward yourself. But you can take a BG with The Other Trickster's Shard if you want to go all out. Regen I have a WE with flame banner bunker, he'll definitely sit in there if we're after regen targets.

Fail T test = Withering helps here too

It might seem restrictive and very specific, but all you really need is the Withering spell and you're largely set. Ethereal Slanns and Stegs and even Carnisaurs have nothing against the Venom Sword Assassin.

The rest of the magic banners aren't there just for the Assassin, AP on BG is standard, Flame banner on WE makes sense. Frenzy on Corsairs is common too, so it's not like my unit's capabilities are held back because I took a useless banner all for the situational Assassin.

But regardless, thanks for the compliment jb, I personally was quite happy with how the list turned out. Not perfect, and certainly could be tinkered with some more. But yea, it's as optimal as it can get for the Assassin without hampering the army's structure imo.