Vindicare

BOOM, HEADSHOT!

"Exitus Acta Probat - The Outcome Justifies the Deed."

– Motto of the Vindicare (and George Washington's family) Temple

"What I mean by that, sir, is if you was to put me and this here sniper rifle anywhere up to and including one mile from Adolf Hitler... with a clean line of sight... Pack your bags, fellas. War's over. Amen."

– Pvt. Jackson, Saving Private Ryan

"You want to know why they put me in charge? It's because I'm willing to do what needs to be done. Good soldiers follow orders."

– CT-9904 "Crosshair", who is basically a Vindicare in the wrong universe.

Vindicare (Latin: present active infinitive of Vindico, thus meaning "to avenge/vindicate/punish, to liberate/deliver/spare, or to defend/protect, depending on the context) assassins are one of the varieties of assassin fielded by the Officio Assassinorum in the Warhammer 40k universe. They are superlative snipers capable of making accurate shots from ridiculous distances (and also doing 360 noscopes without hassles), selected for their natural talent and further honed by extensive training and indoctrination by the Vindicare Temple. The primary weapon of the Vindicare is the infamous Exitus Sniper Rifle (Latin, lit. "exit" fig. conclusion, termination). In addition to the "ordinary" solid slug projectiles it can fire, an assortment of special munitions are available for the weapon, allowing the Vindicare to engage different types of target effectively. They also are some of the most lurvely looking, because of their bad-ass visors.

Occasionally known as "Ork Snipers" after a particularly humorous after-action report filed by the Inquisition.

/tg/'s most well-known Vindicare is LIIVI of Love Can Bloom fame, an agent sent to Kronus who turned rogue and deserted the Imperium when he fell in love with the Eldar farseer Taldeer.

Overview

"Super lengthy range / All is visible to me / I watch as you pee."

– Vindicare Assassin Zer0(Somefag)

As with all initiates to the Officio Assassinorum, Vindicare Assassins are either orphans or have been abandoned as young children, generally from the Schola Progenium but potentially also from elsewhere. They are taken aboard special training ships back to Terra for sorting, where they undergo grueling training regimes intended to winnow them down and sort out the exceptional candidates. When they reach Terra, they are sorted according to their aptitudes and reassigned to the temple that suits them best. Where they will undergo a further ten years of apprenticeship learning their craft before they are considered ready to take a mission of their own.

Dark Heresy also tells of VERY high profile, but "ordinary", assassins/bounty hunters/killers taken as adults to Terra and made into Vindicare Assassins. The Inquisition can sometimes make requests on behalf of a particularly gifted candidate, but the Officio Assassinorum has agents all over the galaxy scouting for new talent. If they are considered suitable may be given an opportunity to test their skills, typically by receiving an anonymous contract to assassinate a dangerous target. If they succeed then they are taken by a swift vessel directly to the Assassinorum Temple where they begin their brutal apprenticeship as if they were child candidates, receiving the same biological implants to increase their speed and accuracy as well as hypno conditioning to harden their minds and effectively burn their old identity away.

Though all Temple Assassins are augmented to some degree or another, usually to increase their reflexes and response times and sometimes aided by the Panoply of the Assassin that they wear, Vindicares are not shapeshifting infiltrators, drugged-up death machines with two hearts, or psychic voids; instead they are just a dude with a very nice gun. The Vindicare Temple is probably the least biologically interesting of the big four and is probably one of the reasons that adult candidates might be considered acceptable. Modifications are kept subtle, if powerful. For example, Vindicares don't need to sleep, and older ones cannot sleep at all even if they wish to.

While a Vindicare Assassin is still a perfect specimen of the physical human form, their particular direction is more related to maintaining mental discipline, allowing them to hold perfectly still for VERY long periods of time (we can be talking years) waiting for the perfect shot, without suffering from the stresses of loneliness or degrading due to physical atrophy. Perhaps because of this incredible self-discipline, it appears that they are most suited to leadership roles when the various Temples get together to form an Execution Force.

Fully fledged Assassins are ordered to avoid all human contact, except for their handlers. Even though sometimes there will be other circumstances that prevent them from succeeding (say their target chokes on a bagel and dies) and there has got to be some situations where interacting with others could be the key factor in getting to the necessary vantage point to put a bullet into the guy. This is meant to reduce the chance of heresy or desertion - if they don't know even the basics of socialization, it'll be hard for them to hesitate to fire or to be corrupted. Difficult, but not impossible. Grimdark indeed.

(Heck, Warmaster Horus managed to sway one of them to SWITCH SIDES and targeted Euphrati Keeler! He fails thanks to Garro though)

Armament

"I’m not a crazed gunman, dad. I’m an assassin."

– Vindicare Assassin Mundy

The primary weapons are the Exitus Sniper Rifle and the Exitus Pistol. These weapons are provided to the Assassin as part of a matching set, hand-crafted by a Magos of the Adeptus Mechanicus. They are perfectly customised to the specification of the particular individual and are some of the finest weapons that the Imperium has ever produced. Both Pistol and Rifle can chamber the same ammunition, meaning there is no need to carry separate magazines and they both incorporate sophisticated miniature machine spirits and silencers.

The ammunition for those weapons are just as interesting as the weapons themselves. Each round contains a micro-cogitator that turns it into a guided projectile that is able to make corrections to its trajectory mid-flight making it almost impossible for the target to avoid or dodge. This is especially good considering that they are being fired at by some of the greatest marksmen in the galaxy with one of the finest weapons available, meaning that a kill shot is virtually guaranteed. The casing of each round can also be programmed to self-destruct after being fired where it will disintegrate and leave no evidence, or any valuable technology that can be stolen and replicated.

Conventional rounds can also be used and are cheaper to manufacture, but are less effective…usually. It is still necessary however for the assassin to train with conventional rounds to improve his accuracy. The right to use guided rounds is earned. Usually after three confirmed kills. Additionally, it may be the Vindicare’s choice to use conventional rounds simply for the challenge.

The rounds can be further modified for various purposes, though these specialist rounds are incredibly difficult and time-consuming to manufacture, meaning they don't get issued in large amounts.

• Shield Breaker Rounds: each round is treated with a psychically charged imprint and contains anti-phase technology that allows it to pass through any protective energy shield from any source, whether technological or warp based. The Mechanicus don't really understand how this works, but they know enough to replicate it.
• Hellfire Rounds: The Exitus round contains a vial of mutagenic acid that can eat away at organic matter and corrode metal.
• Immolator rounds: The exitus round contains a “cellular disintegrator” that causes any organic object hit by it to explode in such a way that it leaves nothing behind. Explicitly used to cause fear and distrust. Either by framing the target individual as a suicide bomber, or to intimidate the target’s supporters if they are aware of who fired it. These rounds are usually conventional rather than guided, and are often used during conventional sniper operations.
• Turbo-Penetrator Rounds (whaha-hey!): a "hypervelocity adamantine jacketed shell surrounding a magno-sealed flux needle". Essentially a super-duper sabot round that can pierce any target down to the molecular level.

In addition to the Exitus Sniper rifle, and pistol combo. Assassins will carry a number of other long-range weapons, including Long-Las, Immolation Rifles, and very rarely stalker bolters. They also carry a couple of Blind Grenades in the off chance that the assassin gets wrong-footed and need to escape. For super close encounters, they are seen armed with a Power Blade, unfortunately, there are no rules for this weapon making the Vindicare helpless against CQC.

Aside from weapons, the suit the Vindicare wears is a work of art: their Synskin is a cameleoline bodyglove that bonds with the assassin's body to enhance their reflexes and protect them from exposure to hazardous environments as well as providing a modest amount of armour. The stealth capabilities render them invisible to several types of sensors while the cameleoline makes them simply harder to see when they remain motionless; making it the perfect tool for an embedded sniper.

In addition, the nature of the body glove allows for modular armour plates to occasionally be placed on the armour if necessary. Said plates are usually made of either Ceramite or Adamantium and explicitly spaced to allow for maximum coverage of vital organs in the event of the presence of a counter-sniper. The plates also incorporate electronic paint to allow them to be configured with a variety of camouflage patterns. These plates however are not used very often due to their bulk and weight interfering with most long-term assignments.

The Vindicare Spy Mask is also a sophisticated piece of equipment that contains a huge variety of tools from wide spectrum photo-visors, auspexes, magnoculars, and pict-recorders for finding their target at vast distances. It has a multi-channel comm sensor for monitoring enemy communications, as well as a rebreather and cartridges of concentrated food and water capsules for extended operations in unfriendly environments. The systems in the mask are barely understood by the Tech-Priests who manufacture it and each one is gene-coded to the specific assassin to ensure that it cannot be used by the enemy if it somehow gets lost.

Vindicare Fashions

Vindicare Assassins are some of the most sexiest beasts out there, with a tight latex suit, glorifying their abdominal power. They also are known to wear LOVELY masks, which are way smexy-er than the other assassins'. Reports of them being partial to pointy ears are unconfirmed.

On the Tabletop

Metal Grim Solid

	Pts/PL	M	WS	BS	S	T	W	A	Ld	Sv
Vindicare Assassin:	100/5	7"	2+	2+	4	4	5	5	9	6+/4++

He still keeps his Lightning Reflexes rule above, but now he's a CHARACTER, which means he can only be targeted if he is the closest unit, or by a weapon/unit with a special ability. I don't need to tell you how awesome this is. Speaking of characters, thanks to his Deadshot he can shoot CHARACTERS even if they aren't the closest models, and if you roll a 6 to-wound it does D6 damage instead of D3 damage. In addition, thanks to his Spy Mask, any unit he shoots does not receive any benefits from being in cover. Likewise, his Spy suit ability forces a -1 to-hit modifier which becomes -2 if he's in cover (which he should be). Suffice to say, don't ever think about supercharging Plasma against him.

His Exitus Rifle has taken a bit of a retooling. It's now a S5 AP-3 D D3 72" Heavy 1 weapon, that only forces a -1 to-hit modifier if the Vindicare moves. Not too bad compared to 7th, but as I said, it was retooled. It now wounds all INFANTRY on a 2+, and Invulnerable saves cannot be taken against wounds caused by it, but he forgot his Turbo-penetrator rounds and is stuck with his shitty base strength of 5 against vehicles. With the March 2019 mini-index for the Assassins, the Vindicare finally manages to recover his anti-vehicle utility with the Turbo-Penetrator Round Stratagem. For 1CP it lets him deal D3 mortal wounds if he hits instead of rolling to wound, letting him ignore the high toughness of vehicles and monsters. He can't use Head Shot if he uses this stratagem though.

His Exitus pistol is the same as above, but with S4 instead of 5, and is a 12" ranged Pistol (duh). The good news is, Pistols can now be fired into close combat. However, if your Vindicare is in close combat shit has hit the fucking fan.

Did I mention he's now much, much cheaper than he used to be? Yes.

The downside? 2+ to hit, with very few ways of getting him rerolls. Between 1/6 missing and 1/6 failing to wound, he'll fail to force an armor save a bit too often for some people's liking. Also, his 6+ to wound rolls don't cause mortal wounds, which means opponents with a 3+ or better will always get a saving throw. He's great against anyone reliant on cover/saving throws (assuming you don't roll any ones), but against good old fashioned tanky infantry, he's going to have a tough time. Consider hiding him in cover with a squad of your favorite snipers, so that both units can focus fire and give you a little more consistency while keeping enemies from targeting the assassin directly.

See Also

• The Samos Sanction
• Celestial Lions
• Vindicare doing some precise shots
• Vindicare recruitment video

Gallery

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  Holy shit... someone made one...

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  Needs more skulls.

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  A Vindicare Assassin. Not a crazed gunman.

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  Another Vindicare Assassin. He's a number.

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  A Vindicare assassin demonstrating what can happen to entire squads that forget that 6 attacks on the charge is not to be trifled with.

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  The 7th Edition update. Awesome as hell.

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  This is gonna require some precision shots...