If you’ve ever flipped through the promos for the Warhammer 40K CCG, you may have been confused by the double occurrence of Vindicare Assassin:
(Scans available via Zarthbenn)
Unfortunately, I was unable to find any official reason as to why Vindicare Assassin was re-issued as a promo with different rules text, but I imagine it wasn’t any secret back in the day. I thought it would be a fun exercise to compare the two versions and deduce the reasons on my own. I was…shall we say…Vindi-curious.
Let’s take a look at the original (V1) Vindicare from Pandora Prime. As a Space Marine character, the Vindicare sports an average 5+ save and a 1-die drawback that is usually reserved for cards that are deemed overly powerful on the battlefield.
Moving on to the game text, we begin to understand why Vindicare may have gotten some attention from Sabertooth after its initial printing. Although there is some variability in how selective its “snipe” ability is, let’s remember that Space Marines will draw 6 command cards at every battle with the Vindicare. Let’s also remember that 3 of the 4 choices available to the Vindicare allow it to destroy a potential flag unit.
Although the Vindicare doesn’t possess a flag, it can certainly take at least one away from the opponent without any need for shooting or assaulting. This kind of direct destruction is exceedingly rare in the 40K CCG, let alone a repeatable ability built into a character that can make itself untargetable every other turn.
Imagine a Space Marines player deploys the V1 Vindicare alone to a sector against 1 shooting unit and 2 assault units. If the Vindicare goes first, it stands a good chance of killing 1 shooter and 1 assaulter before facing retribution (and even then it gets a 5+ armor save and thus a shot at killing the third unit).
In larger battles, the V1 Vindicare can kill your opponent’s best unit right off the bat, no strings attached. Then you can proceed with the battle as normal, forcing your opponent to – at some point – deal with the tapped Vindicare before it threatens to rally and snipe another unit. Alternately, you may have a Captain Miller also at this sector to help your units block for the Vindicare while it reloads for its next shot. Quite powerful possibilities!
In many cases, 1-die cards will come with a command line that is a drawback. But for our dear V1 Vindicare, what do we get? Possibly one of the most obnoxious command lines in the game! Multiple Vindicares in your hand? No problem! Just make your opponent lose a sector in the most unpreventable way ever.
Now, I don’t think the Vindicare is broken or overpowered in the same way as the Pandora Prime Avatar. But I can definitely see its play patterns being kind of obnoxious to play against. Despite being quite flavorful, having an ability that is incredibly un-interactive is probably a large reason why the V1 Vindicare was reworked into its Coronis Campaign counterpart.
The V2 Vindicare retains a lot of the flavor of the V1 counterpart. It takes one turn to set up, after which it will start sniping off your opponent’s units. There is also an interesting comparison to be made as to which cards you are ideally discarding to each Vindicare.
For the V1 Vindicare, you’d prefer to discard cards with die rolls 2-4, whereas the V2 Vindicare will demand more cards with die rolls 1 and 2 in order to target the most prevalent units (namely, units with armor 2 and 3). The V2 also gets bonus points for having a stronger armor save as well as the ability to kill characters by discarding cards of any die roll. The improved armor save is most likely a trade-off for being vulnerable to attacks for the rest of the battle (barring any outside ability to rally it).
Lastly, the V2’s command line is fairly strong, but is much tougher to apply as it must be played as your first BA – and one that doesn’t impact the current battle, no less. The upside of this command line is that it can provide support at other sectors much in the same way as Eldar and Dark Eldar, at the cost of tempo in your current battle.
Which Vindicare is better? To be honest, I have not played with either version so I can’t give you any empirical evidence. However, my first impression is that the V1 Vindicare is much easier to “run and gun” with, i.e., just throw a copy or two into your existing deck and watch it plink off your opponent’s units. The V2 still looks quite playable, but may require more forethought, planning, and deck building to maximize its potential.
What do you think of the Vindicares? Which one would you play? Let me know in the comments!
Pandora Prime Recon 