Mage Hunter Assassin

Mage hunter assassins are practiced killers and mage hunters with refined skills. Recruitment for this cabal is slow, for their chain blades are tricky and require exceptional reflexes. A skilled assassin can send the blade flying tremendous distances before whipping the chain to bring the weapon to hand for close-quarter fighting.

Basic Info

Abilities

• Template:Advance Deployment
• Template:Pathfinder
• Template:Stealth

Weapons

Chain Blade
File:Sword icon.jpg		RNG				POW				P+S
		0.5 (plus Chain Strike)				4				9
Template:Blessed Template:Weapon Master Template:Chain Weapon Template:Decapitation Template:Chain Strike

Theme Forces

• Template:Shadows of the Retribution. This model gains "optional Take Down" in this theme.

Thoughts on Mage Hunter Assassin

Mage Hunter Assassin in a nutshell

Just like the PBMT and Yuri, the Mage Hunter Assassin is a heat-seeking missile, with supreme mobility and with the ability to slash targets into kingdom come. Though she lacks Thresher for mass destruction, with Blessed and Decapitation she can deliver (mathematically) the highest damage onto a single target among her peers. Point her toward the enemy, charge in, and see it causing an awful lot of damage. Apart of the toughest opponents, the Assassin is quite capable of killing or badly damaging anything in the game with some lucky dice. She relies on her exceptional DEF and Stealth to stay alive, while a sweet package of Pathfinder + SPD7 + Advance Deployment ensures a superb mobility. For such a low point cost, she is one of the best solo in the faction.

Combos & Synergies

The price tag makes her extremely appealing in the Shadows of the Retribution theme forces, however, you must ensure, that her single strike will be telling. There's no bigger bummer, than rolling snake-eyes against a DEF9 opponent. Attacks, that cause knock-down to your target, or buffs, which help your dice rolls will ensure your points are well spent.

• Moros - Its Paralysis-causing attacks can line up targets for the Assassin's killing blow.
• Rahn - Force Hammer can knock targets down, while Telekinesis increases the threat range by up to 2"
• Issyria - Crusader's Call increases threat range, while her feat helps control the Assassin's attack dice
• Thyron - Storm Rager and the feat makes her more reliable, as well as letting her back up a bit with Side Step.
• Garryth - Gallows pulls the targets closer, or opens up charge lanes, while Mirage adds a great deal of mobility. Also his feat ensures that if you cause damage to a warlock, it won't be transferred away.
• Kaelyssa - Refuge offers you a safe way to get up to 11" away from your target, if you happened to roll poorly for damage. Her feat can also stop charges against your Assassin.
• Banshee - knockdown the target before you charge in to make sure your attack hits
• Void Archon and/or The Hermit - With each of them being able to shave 2 ARM off the target of the MHA you can squeeze even more damage out of an already extremely lethal solo. Against an ARM 14 target the MHA goes from an average of ~18 damage on the charge ((4d6-5)*2) to an average of ~26 damage ((4d6-1)*2), and that's just the average.
• Eilish1 - Puppet Master helps her hit her precious decap attack.,

Drawbacks & Downsides

• Nimble, but fragile - blast damage, collateral damage and electro leaps kill you
• One-trick pony - if you fail to hit, or roll really low for damage, she'll be in a world of hurt

Tricks & Tips

• Her melee range is 4" only during her activation. This is both a boon and a bane. You can charge, stay outside the target's melee range or strike over blocking models, deliver the attack, and then being unengaged so you can follow up with ranged attacks or avoid blocking further charge lanes. Being unengaged gives you the opportunity to charge again the next turn, but also opens you up to being shot at. You can also only free strike at 0.5".
• Advanced deployment is not just an extended deployment range, it's delayed deployment. While the extra range can let you get turn one or two punches in, consider using it more as a tool to give you information about where they should be deployed, then using them to strike after lines have collided.
• You've got a 14" threat range unboosted, use all of it. Flanking or held back deployments keep them safe from harm and can still be used to deny large areas of the board on later turns, they can contest and control objectives while still presenting threat.
• The perceived threat of a MHA is frequently greater then their actual threat. Mediocre MAT combined with low initial power means that high armour or defence (Set Defense is horrible to deal with) stops them cold, but sometimes they do hit and they do land all the sixes. Don't rely on them, expect them to be highly targeted. Smile maniacally when the stars align.

Other

Trivia

Released in Forces of Warmachine: Retribution of Scyrah (November 2009)