[Sombre]

Assassins don't really work that well in Dom3. If you start giving them equipment and such, you have to be sure they will win or they won't be worth it, which means they have to be able to beat bodyguards, scripted spells etc

If you go for mass production you will find almost any basic assassin can be countered by a bodyguard or even a random spell, additionally they don't reliably take stuff like mounted commanders down, so again they usually aren't worth the cost.

If you give them the skeleton producing talisman, any assassin becomes much more likely to win, but you're right it's very boring.

Then there's the problem that if you do get assassins working, what you're really doing is forcing the opponent to micro orders and bodyguards, something which annoys them and isn't exactly 'fun' to play against.

But I do still use assassins sometimes and almost always without the 'cheap' skele-talisman, because I like them. Sometimes I thug them out with a little bit of equipment and use them to support armies as well, but mostly I just send several out and hope for them to cause a bit of disruption.