Dawn of War Codex

Suggestion for additional T2 GK subcommander: Vindicare Temple Assassin

General Role: energy intensive subcommander who helps fill some gaps in the GK roster: controlling powerful melee commanders, some soft AV, consistent model bleed

Reskinned scout sniper or ranger model

600 health, commander armor, small unit size. No melee resistance aura.

Upkeep would be fairly high, since its a non-bleeding unit that bleeds your opponent a lot

Cost: 400 req, 45 power

Can level to four, same as any other subcommander.

gives same XP reward as other subcommanders do, don't recall the exact value

Does the same damage per shot as a scout sniper (170), so he can't one-hit models off havocs or devastators. He would fire slightly faster however, and have the same range as other snipers.
I don't know what the exact DPS calculations would turn out to be. DPS on burst damage isn't really important, it's all about damage per shot and how fast you shoot. He has to set up and unsetup, same as any other sniper squad.

Speed is slower than scouts, but faster than rangers, since he doesn't get FoF.

Melee DPS is 10. He is not a melee oriented unit.

Abilities: Vindicare must be setup in order to use the rounds.

Infiltrate: 5 energy cost to start infiltrating, drains 1/s after that.

Shell Breaker Round: 50 energy cost. 120 sniper damage. Drains 50 energy from target. Intended to put some more pressure on stuff like ASM and energy-dependent commanders

Hellfire Round: 50 energy cost. 120 sniper damage. DoT effect. does 10 piercing damage per second for 5 seconds. (This adds up to 170 damage, but the DoT is not affected by retreat modifiers)

Turbo-penetrator Round: 50 energy cost. Can only target vehicles and monstrous creatures. Deals 150 melta damage. Snares for 5 seconds, but less of a speed reduction than a melta bomb or lascannon does. Has the same range as Full Auto does (need to be reasonably close to the vehicle to use this)


Shell Breaker Round and Hellfire Round share a cooldown (around 25 seconds or so).


Reasoning behind the unit/why is this not OP:

First off, energy cost. GK get fantastic energy synergy. The specialized ammo types all cost a lot of energy, and combined with infiltrate, make energy management very important to the Vindicare. Using canticle/purification rites on him is important. And if you are giving him extra energy, it affects how well you can buff your interceptors. The vindicare does no more than a scout sniper squad, so he will still one-hit shootas, dire avengers, gaunts, and the like. But he can't one-hit power armor squads like tactical marines unless he uses an ability on the same model he already shot with a normal attack. Making his two anti-infantry specialized rounds share the same cool down makes sure that you can't fire off three sniper rounds one after another, even at full energy.


TL:DR: The Vindicare can at most pick off two models from any squad before having to reload.


Shell Breaker Rounds could alternatively knock back a single model, but this wouldn't really be helpful vs Chaos Lords or Hive Tyrants, who GK have issues with IMO. Energy drain also goes along well with the whole GK anti-pysker and anti-demon thing.

Hellfire Rounds have some nice retreat-killing potential, but you have to be setup to use them, so you can't chase low health squads (compare to sorc teleport and sword of flame or even interceptors with canticle jumping after a target). The DoT and initial damage only add up to a single normal shot, but as stated above, can kill on retreat. Hellfire rounds also only affect a single model, and can devastate low-health commanders if used properly.

Turbo round gives GK an AV snare (krak nades too easily dodged). But using it has risk: lack of melee capabilities and no melee resistance means that if you over extend your assassin, he can get wiped very easily.

Possible counters to him are pretty much every jump unit. Vehicles such as tanks also put a lot of pressure on him. If caught by detectors that do ranged DPS (big shootas, Tcsm), then he can easily be focused down. Lacks AoE damage abilties, support, and disruption of other sub-commanders, but is capable of constant model bleed and controlling enemy commanders and other subcommanders.

If starting out with all three specialized Exitus Rifle rounds seems too good for only 400/45, the Turbo Round could be made into a 75/20 upgrade.


This new subcommander rounds out a fairly thin GK T2, gives them some extra soft AV, and some nice constant model bleed. However, the Vindicare is prone to dying if ever caught in melee, relies on energy replenishing abilities to stay effective, and offers no support to the rest of the GK army.

wtf do u have access to my secret files or something?

Needs some tweaking but sounds like a viable idea. Provided that the model exists/somebody is capable and willing to do it.

AFAIK we don't have a Vindicare Assasin model in any mod.

Without making a new and shinny model, a mix of the Catachan body repainted to black to simulate the "synskin"suit and the scouts animation, head with googles and sniper rifle could be a good model.

Now, some balance details:

- Beware with the burst damage. If the Vindicare Assasin do the same damage as the Scout Sniper rifle but with less cooldown could be OP. Not mention if the player also combines it with the Shell Breaker/Helfire Round could instantkill a CSM/Tac. Even if is shared, IMHO the Shell Breaker/Hellfire round cooldown is too low.

- How many speed reduction % would the Penetrator Round do? GK have shitty AV, but a combination of Interceptor Melta Grenade + Penetrator Round + GK dread could be too much strong (if Melta grenade and penetrator round snares stacks, of course)

Good idea.

If this really makes its way into the game I'll make the model for it. Sniper animation should do I guess.

Speaking of GK's AV and dread, what is the range of the melta on that thing? Seems too high to me. But then again, I could just be delusional.

Maybe make him switch ammo instead of ability different bullets? Like the Sternguard, he would require more micro to be effective, since without the right ammo type he would be useless. So here is my suggested change:

Hellfire Rounds: Large burst damage to Infantry, HI, SHI and Commander armor types. Can take down most non-(sub)commander models instantly (except Terminators and the like).

Shield-Breaker Round: Sniper damage as you suggested that bypasses energy shields and other damage-reduction abilities.

Turbo-Penetrator Round: High burst damage to vehicle-armored targets, no snare. Does almost no damage to other targets.

Also based on the bullet type he is usining maybe give him a different "reload time" between shots and once he has a shot loaded he may not change to another or something untill he fires. Good idea overall and either way it would be great to see him in-game.

Instantly killing a TSM unit with something that doesn't bleed seems too strong IMO. Leaving 10 HP or so (on full HP) on the unit so it could be easily finished by something else instead would be better I think.

David-CZ wrote:Instantly killing a TSM unit with something that doesn't bleed seems too strong IMO. Leaving 10 HP or so (on full HP) on the unit so it could be easily finished by something else instead would be better I think.

i hope ur joking.

if bleed is an issue one can always introduce bleed as a cost on the ability. req or power would a bit unorthodox but there's already a precedent for red with orks. high upkeep is another way to compensate.

shield breaker would also be a problem with all of the non true invulnerability abilities in the game. something that depleted energy would work better.

tbh, I was thinking of finally using sniper_av modifier for the first time in MP with the Vindicare Assassin, serving as a good transitional t2 option for AV and more careful/guerilla warfare.

Interesting.

Lost Son of Nikhel wrote:- Beware with the burst damage. If the Vindicare Assasin do the same damage as the Scout Sniper rifle but without less cooldown could be OP.

Rangers only do 10 less damage per shot (160) and fire each 7,5 seconds
vs 170 from scouts each 12 seconds. And the assassin would come in t2.
So 170 dmg per shot somewhere between those 2 values won't be a problem.

@Caeltos

I was actually just going through a list of GK units in their lore. Jokaero are out, since modeling them and balancing them is impossible. Not to mention that monkeys with magical tiny weapons are just dumb. My next thought was a sisters of battle melta gun squad, but then I came across an incident where some GK slaughtered a bunch of SoB and turned their blood into amulets. I moved on to the various assassins, and toyed with the idea of a suicidal non-leveling Eversor subcommander, but GK have plenty of melee already. Vindicare was the only logical choice after that. (There's a dreadknight too, but that's already in the works).

@Lost Son: if you are spending power for interceptors with nades and presumably their justicar, the assassin, and a GK dread, you better be able to deal with vehicles. That is 120+50+45+25+20=260 power. Keep in mind that the vindicare cannot snare from across the map as can a lascannon. Nor are krak nades an auto-hit like melta bombs.

As for killing a tac/csm model instantly, you have to hit the same model the vindicare you already shot with one of his ability rounds. It is not always easy to tell which one got shot originally. This also means you can't use a either Shell breaker/Hellfire round on his commander, bloodletters, ASM, etc

@Riku
Was thinking around 9 or 10 seconds.

Lost Son of Nikhel wrote:

HOOLY FUCK... It's gozilla size VindicareX.

The V.A. was a total pain in the ass in the other DOW. He didnt get much love and favour but for sure he was an under rated unit.... be nice to see him make a return!.

IM CALLING IMBA ON THAT SHIT

This This This is GOOD, Very Good . Kudos ,awaiting The Assassin

PePPeR wrote:The V.A. was a total pain in the ass in the other DOW. He didnt get much love and favour but for sure he was an under rated unit.... be nice to see him make a return!.

IM CALLING IMBA ON THAT SHIT

couldn't a V.A snipe a librarian sub commander or even your hero in 2-3 shots?

couldn't a V.A snipe a librarian sub commander or even your hero in 2-3 shots?

That's the whole point of the unit. Kill or force a retreat. Same thing is with 3-4 sniper scouts and that's even a T1 built.

fok12 wrote:

couldn't a V.A snipe a librarian sub commander or even your hero in 2-3 shots?

That's the whole point of the unit. Kill or force a retreat. Same thing is with 3-4 sniper scouts and that's even a T1 built.

i hope ur kidding. 3-4 sniper scouts in t1 is the most lame build and is super-easily countered.

fok12 wrote:

couldn't a V.A snipe a librarian sub commander or even your hero in 2-3 shots?

That's the whole point of the unit. Kill or force a retreat. Same thing is with 3-4 sniper scouts and that's even a T1 built.

I take it you mean 3-4 sniper shots?

I believe that ThongSong is referring to DOW1, where yes the Vindicare was pretty cheesy.

He could one shot possessed squad models (T3 elite chaos infantry) did insane commander DPS and insane demon high damage (good vs superunits).

Libby has commander armor in DOW2. They take significantly reduced damage from sniper weapons if I recall correctly.

Add him as a AV unit to the GKs, even a sub-commander elite unit with an AV upgrade, making him a stand alone 2nd commander i dont think will work.

I take it you mean 3-4 sniper shots?

Yes, I meant shots, sorry.

i hope ur kidding. 3-4 sniper scouts in t1 is the most lame build and is super-easily countered.

I was making a comparison with the Vindicare's damage. If it is a viable built or not is irrelevant .

fok12 wrote:

couldn't a V.A snipe a librarian sub commander or even your hero in 2-3 shots?

That's the whole point of the unit. Kill or force a retreat. Same thing is with 3-4 sniper scouts and that's even a T1 built.

Yes but scouts as do rangers , they bleed


and also why to the GK ? Isn't that the IG had the VA ?

Rataxas wrote:
and also why to the GK ? Isn't that the IG had the VA ?

Actually, that's a good point. My mind was thinking "becuz GK suck and need help in 1v1" but then I remembered, so do IG

Vindicare Assassins are often employed to hunt down demonic entities, or targets who are under the chaos influences. They don't really mesh well together with the general theme of Imperial Guard, who are more just generalist combatants, whereas Grey Knights are specialist in dealing with daemons.

Im not up to date of the lore but i remember back in the old game lore heads complaining that VAs are not attached to IG, only elite GK chapters and shouldnt have been added....

whats all that about? is it true?.

they're assasinorium or however it's pronounced. basically they're moved around by inquisitors an high level admins.

In DOW1, Vindicare had extremely high anti-demon damage.

Major lulz ensued when one picked off a Greater Gnarloc or killed a Bloodthirster.

They're trained to kill everything with big sniper rifles. I don't see why demons would be any different. And for all their awesomeness, GK are more suited in the lore to chopping things up with silver weapons of purity. They surely would understand the advantage of killing demons from range.

Lost Son of Nikhel wrote:
AFAIK we don't have a Vindicare Assasin model in any mod.

Soulstorm Titanium Wars mod