I was kinda wondering why a PC would ever want to buy the talent Assassin Strike

Description of talent:The character’s natural agility and graceful martial form turn him into a dervish of death on the battlefield. After making a melee attack, a successful Acrobatics Skill Test allows the character to move at half rate as a Free Action. The character’s opponent does not receive a free attack resulting from this move. The character may only make this move once per Round.

If you move a half action (as a free action) you basically line up either a free point blank attack (with the range modifier +bs being accounted for here) from any of the enemy npc's (if they are using a ranged weapon) or you allow them to engage you in melee with a charge (giving them a +ws advantage) the moment it is their turn again. At least when you engage in a normal melee attack you can force opponenets to be locked into melee combat with you (which can be advantageous if they don't have quick draw, suck at melee, ect) but with Assassin Strike you seem to be buying a tier three talent for something that will be extremely disavantageous is most(read: all) situations. Is there any advantage to this talent (maybe you don't break stealth with an attack?) because it seems pretty sucky

One thing I can think of is if you had two weapon wielder and want to get in a shot at the enemy you can use Assassin Strike to back away and be able to get the point blank bonus instead of the plus 0. However though I would think the main reason to get the talent is so when you are with your squad and are fighting the enemy you can melee attack and hopefully jump out so then your squad mates can then shoot without the penalty for shooting into combat.

One thing I can think of is if you had two weapon wielder and want to get in a shot at the enemy you can use Assassin Strike to back away and be able to get the point blank bonus instead of the plus 0. However though I would think the main reason to get the talent is so when you are with your squad and are fighting the enemy you can melee attack and hopefully jump out so then your squad mates can then shoot without the penalty for shooting into combat.

That would make more sense, thanks!

Another would be if you use a dual wielding character you could attack, use Assassin Strike to move toward a different target, and then strike with the offhand weapon. Theoretically, at least.

However though I would think the main reason to get the talent is so when you are with your squad and are fighting the enemy you can melee attack and hopefully jump out so then your squad mates can then shoot without the penalty for shooting into combat.

Along the same lines, get back to cover, or out of sight of any friends your target might have had.

Or if you kill your opponent you can move into someone else so that you can't be shot as easily by other enemies and maybe save you an action in the next turn if they stay in melee.

@SgtLazarus - you make the off hand attack as part of the same action as the main attack so as far as Im aware you couldn't split them like that.

Depends on how you rule the use of Free Actions as to whether it interrupts what you're doing otherwise. I'm not sure if there's a standard convention.

This ability allows for a few particularly neat combos, but it gets a little RaI. Mostly, this hinges on an errata - it may have been a DH2 errata - that a successful Counter Attack allows you to move per Assassin Strike. This indicating that any movement allows you to potentially trigger the talent up to once per round.

So several talents later, you double move into melee with Sprint at AB 4-5 for 12-15 meters of movement. On the way you Hip Shoot a smoke grenade at your enemy's feet, and you Stealth as part of the move. You are now engaged in melee with an enemy that theoretically cannot see you (do not attempt against demons). If they move away, you get an attack. If you get an attack, you may be able to move per assassin strike. If you can move per Assassin strike, you can re-stealth (stealth is checked as part of movement). With Blind Fighting you aren't taking a hit penalty from the smoke. If the enemy draws melee on you, they have a hit penalty due to smoke, and if you parry you can Counter Attack, potentially move and re-stealth.

It's experience intensive, but deadly to renegades and potentially useful against Orks (high TB bastards). I think the primary use of the talent is actually to do things like popping out of cover and getting back. It's also especially useful if you happen to be high on Slaught.

Try JupiterExile's methods as a Dark Eldar for maximum effect

If you can move per Assassin strike, you can re-stealth (stealth is checked as part of movement).

So stealth can still activate during the free move from Assassin Strike? That would be pretty helpful

It does seem to be that way as stealth can be used as a free action during any movement. However Assassin Strike can only be used once per round so you would not be able to slink away if you do a successful counter attack, given that you have already used assassin strike as part of your own turn.

Going back to stealth though, it says stealth can be used as a free action with any movements so would assume that it includes sprint and run. In our campaign the gm has been saying that stealth can only be used with a half action movement so I would just like to clarify. His explanation has been that stealth is its own movement type, as opposed to a modifier to movement, as the book makes it seem.

It's of limited use in a fair fight (the clue's in the name!), and is largely useless if you're fighting solo.

It's especially useful if you're darting in and out of combat; suppose there's a master-level opponent that several guardsmen are engaging at once: theoretically each of you attacks, and then the opponent attacks back at whoever he's most likely to put in the dirt.

If you have two guys, one with assassin strike, then one of you can do a guarded attack (or even defensive stance), whilst the other does an all-out attack. After all-out attack-ing, he/she disengages with assassin strike so your opponent can't take advantage of the lack of a reaction. Next turn, they charge back in, stab them again with a charge bonus, and disengage again, and so on. Whilst they're doing this, the target is flailing uselessly at the guy with defensive bonuses.

It's of limited use in a fair fight (the clue's in the name!), and is largely useless if you're fighting solo.

It's especially useful if you're darting in and out of combat; suppose there's a master-level opponent that several guardsmen are engaging at once: theoretically each of you attacks, and then the opponent attacks back at whoever he's most likely to put in the dirt.

If you have two guys, one with assassin strike, then one of you can do a guarded attack (or even defensive stance), whilst the other does an all-out attack. After all-out attack-ing, he/she disengages with assassin strike so your opponent can't take advantage of the lack of a reaction. Next turn, they charge back in, stab them again with a charge bonus, and disengage again, and so on. Whilst they're doing this, the target is flailing uselessly at the guy with defensive bonuses.

I like this tactic, shame this forum doesn't have a rep system, but +1 anyway!

It's of limited use in a fair fight (the clue's in the name!), and is largely useless if you're fighting solo.

It's especially useful if you're darting in and out of combat; suppose there's a master-level opponent that several guardsmen are engaging at once: theoretically each of you attacks, and then the opponent attacks back at whoever he's most likely to put in the dirt.

If you have two guys, one with assassin strike, then one of you can do a guarded attack (or even defensive stance), whilst the other does an all-out attack. After all-out attack-ing, he/she disengages with assassin strike so your opponent can't take advantage of the lack of a reaction. Next turn, they charge back in, stab them again with a charge bonus, and disengage again, and so on. Whilst they're doing this, the target is flailing uselessly at the guy with defensive bonuses.

I like this tactic, shame this forum doesn't have a rep system, but +1 anyway!

It does! Just like their comment, it'll be visible on their profile and gives them a different "ranking". You can be seen as "Neutral", "Excellent"...

You tend to take it coupled with a high Agility Bonus so imagine AB 4 or 5 (or even 6 if someone managed to max fully) for the following exchange should he wish. Assassin guard and Standard guard fight. Assassin guard makes an assassin strike with a single attack leaving him one half action left to do things with, moves 5 away from standard guard (half move for AB5) and then five more due to taking a half move, leaves him 10 away. Standard guard is now ten away and his charge is only 9 (due to AB 3) so he can't charge nor can he get into point blank range and shoot, The assassin guard thus safely got out of melee and can line up his next shot well.Sure the assassin could just have run the whole time keeping the foe away but that hinders him from taking aims.

You cann also use it with the strike to stun action or the knock down action, another option is, if the terrain allows it, to do your move and then make a jump or leap to another place. You could also use it when one foe is engaged with all your friends to charge and then jump out of harms way, tag-team it with an ogre for a hard beaten combo, or be exceptionally cold-hearted and support-charge with your comrade and then leave him to die.

It is a very versatile talent, espesially when you have a high AB but you need to think a bit about how to use it and against opponents faster than you it can be troublesome,

I saw a character with the Furious Assault/Killing Strike build use it to kill two CSM with his Power Fist in one round as a human. Falcon punch one, Assassin Strike to the other, Falcon Punch the other one, no dodges or parries allowed.

Mainly it's useful if you have 2 or more attacks to make in the round and can't move for whatever reason. It can get pretty impressive with Jump Packs, too, since that half move distance can be substantial.

Dark Eldar Mandrakes use this trick: attack, move due to Assassin Strike Talent, hide in the shadows by successful using of Stealth. On next turn attack again, emerging from the shadows, surprising your foe, then move to the shadows again.

There is of course a risk of failing Stealth roll and receicing a shot, which can be reduced by utilizing Dodge skill.

You also can't dodge during your turn, so if they go overwatch that will probably beat it. But it's a good tactic regardless.

You can't shoot what you can't see. If guardsman fails his awareness test - he can't see him and he can't shoot him, even with his overwatch on. It seems quite op tactic, but consider that mandrake is elite NPC that has 6T from Demonic trait and 12 wounds(?).

I used Mandrakes when I wanted to bring my players down a peg. They did eventually win by grace of the fact they had a massive numerical advantage and ended up blindfiring into the darkness with full auto weapons, but they developed a healthy caution when dealing with the Dark Eldar.

I used Mandrakes when I wanted to bring my players down a peg. They did eventually win by grace of the fact they had a massive numerical advantage and ended up blindfiring into the darkness with full auto weapons, but they developed a healthy caution when dealing with the Dark Eldar.

Yep. My (Black Crusade) PCs fought Mandrakes twice, and here's how it went:

• The first time they almost died, and only survived thanks to a large application of grenades (frag, hallucinogenic, stun, and firebombs). They destroyed half their own camp, but in the end everything was on fire and the Mandrakes were quite thourougly dead.
• The second time they had a psyker and a techpriest. One basic divination power later the psyker knew where they were with Unnatural Senses, and then killed them all in about 2 attacks (and no, he didn't use "laughter of thirsting gods"). The techpriest could detect them with his inbuilt auspex and such, and he just killed his own opponents with melta fire. Most underwhelming boss fight ever

That's why I think that Mandrakes should be used like on the Tabletop: only against very specific targets. They are still a rock-paper-scissors unit, that can be hard countered by anything that can really see them.