Paingiver Bloodrunners

Bloodrunners have turned killing into an art and walk the narrow divide between assassin and warrior. The final release of death inflicted by their hands empowers them to flicker through shadows like phantoms. Working in tandem, a team of Bloodrunners scything through the enemy ranks looks like a macabre dance where it becomes impossible to discern one killer from another.”

Basic Info

Abilities

• Template:Advance Deployment
• Template:Pathfinder
• Template:Stealth
• Template:Ambush2
• Template:Anatomical Precision
• Template:Apparition
• Template:Gang
• Template:Reposition 3

Weapons

• Assassin's Blade - 0.5" reach, POW 3, P+S 8 melee weapon

Theme Forces

• Template:Disciples of Agony. They gain Sacrificial Pawn [Minion warrior] in this theme.

Thoughts on Paingiver Bloodrunners

Paingiver Bloodrunners in a nutshell

Paingiver Bloodrunners are an advance deploying unit of skirmishers whose job it is to kill other advance deploying units of skirmishers. They struggle to hurt anything that's not either a trooper or solo - but they have an excellent threat range and tech to ensure that they can shank skirmishers and remain relatively safe. In a shooting-heavy metagame Stealth and their high threat range really helps, as does the ability to jump back behind walls and obstacles. And as shield walls are the safest infantry in the current shooting heavy meta their Anatomical Precision can be really useful. (Metagames differ of course). Also at one point each these are an amazing bargain

Combos & Synergies

• Paingiver Bloodrunner Master Tormentor - their veteran leader gives them +1 to hit.
• Siege Animantarax - they make a great skirmish screen for it, and can stab it using anatomical precision to trigger its cantankerous nature just as well as beast handlers.
• Archdomina Makeda on feat turn can make them really really irritating to remove.
• Supreme Archdomina Makeda can send them odd places with Dash and granting them immunity to free strikes.
• Void Seer Mordikaar loves expendable units to Hollow and units that are good at getting weird places for Essence Blast attacks. His feat is also great on high def models.
• Lord Assassin Morghoul gives them Parry.
• The Disciples of Agony theme gives them Sacrificial Pawn, not that they often want it.

Drawbacks & Downsides

• They don't hit hard at all. Gang allow them to threaten single wound infantry, solos, and maybe the odd high-def, low-arm beast or jack, but don't expect them to take on MoW or protectorate jacks.
• Terrible ARM - they die to blast damage, and need to bunch up for gang and because of their melee range.
• Their only way out of melee without taking free strikes is Apparition or running Morghoul2.
• Ambush is a trap as you can't Apparition and Ambush giving them a surprisingly low threat range.

Tricks & Tips

• Reposition allows you to hide behind solid objects or trees too deep into a forest to be seen - and Apparition to jump out from behind them before charging.
• Reposition and Gang work really well together, spreading you out after using Gang before blast damage gets you.
• high mat, gang, and their veteran leader allow them to hit thoses annoying def 14-16 targets.
• Because of their high melee skill and gang, they are much more dangerous to most warcasters than normal infantry of that cost.

Other

Trivia

• The Paingivers are inspired by Japanese ninjas with generous helpings of sadistic fetishes thrown in.
• Released in Hordes: Metamorphosis (2009)