Assassin strategies?

[sansanjuan]

Anyone with suggestions for assassin strategies? Including equipment and empowerment tips? If you script the battle spells for an empowered assassin will they cast the spells during an assassination attempt. Had my butt handed to me last night via 5 bodyguards.
Regards,
Sansanjuan

[ano]

Yes, they will cast.
One of the most obvious (and reliable) usages of assassin for the early expansion is giving him a skull talisman with "cast spells" script. An assassin placed at the rearmost corner is capable of killing any simple commander without bodyguards and sometimes even with them.
Later it is a good idea to give an assassin an ability to summon something (Lifelong protection, Skull staff for a mage who has D1, Bottle of living water on so on). If an opponent flees, he is slain

[Baalz]

Assassins are generally considered inefficient. Using them for early expansion is usually much slower than recruiting other units to just conquer the provinces, and later game most any investment in items or empowering is cheaply countered by sticking some bodyguards around your commanders. You don't want to invest too much in assassins (or really have an "assassin strategy"), but that said there are a couple situations where assassins are useful.

As a surprise. Several assassins taking out the critical commanders of an invading army before your opponent allocates bodyguards can be worth their weight in gold. Just don't expect that to work more than once.

Seducers can be worthwhile even if they frequently fail. Grabbing an enemy mage which expands your magic diversity is immeasurably valuable.

Mage assassins are often useful not only because they're obviously more effective at killing, but also because they're useful for stuff outside of it. Even most mage assassins are going to have trouble dealing with simple bodyguards so they remain most useful as a surprise, the difference is you can keep several around waiting for an opportunity without feeling wasteful.

[vfb]

If you are playing MP, and assassinate a unit of a nation who has Astral, expect your assassin to be mind hunted mercilessly (unless you have astral magic on your assassin of course).

It's not a great idea to spend too much on an assassin (empowerment or equipment), because it's really easy to lose them to getting caught by armies, rituals, or even bodyguards.

[Sombre]

What are these mage assassins of which you speak Baalz?

[Meglobob]

Ctis has mage assassins (1N 1D, I believe) and any stealthy mage is an assassin with the black heart.

[Shovah32]

Theres an A2 assasin for Tir Na Nog if I recall correctly. Very nice for throwing lightning bolts - or a thunderstrike if you feel like spending a gem to handle those bodyguards.

[vfb]

And LA Rlyeh has the S1 Star Children with astral magic (S1).

To hazard a guess though: Sombre was probably referring to some in joke between him and Baalz, where one or the other of them did some ginormous mage assassin attack or something.

[ano]

Actually any seducer (Oreiad, Rakshasi, Nagini) is an assassin. And also a perfect Tlahuelpuchi of Mictlan. 2B1N1D and flight for 25 slaves.

[Sombre]

No I just wasn't sure which mage assassins people would actually recruit and have hanging around doing research until they're needed.