[HoneyBadger]

I'll go along with Sombre's suggestion. It's a good, reasonable idea.

I'd even go so far as to suggest that some assassins have an "assassinate" ability that gave them additional turns (and/or reduced the amount of bodyguards that the target got). Maybe "regular" assassins could have "assassinate 0", and they could go up to "assassinate 5", allowing you to fully script the best-of-the-best for their first 5 turns. This would be a mechanical expression of the relative ability of units to get close to their targets when they're at their weakest, and to "set up" their kills at the best possible time. Obviously, assassins like the Mictlan 'Lord of the Night' should be better at *setting up* the hits, (apart from just eliminating their targets with raw firepower), than some Ermor thug you hired for 20 gold.

That would make actual assassination attempts more realistic, I think, and the best assassins a lot more deadly.

I'd like to see a slight modification, though: If the target is wearing a Ring of Warning, the target always gets the first turn. The above 'assassinate' ability would still reduce the amount of bodyguards progressively, from 10.

As it is, it's usually not quite worth an extra slot on most units, except in special situations. Nice to have, but something you can do without, in favor of something better. If assassins are going to be better-and I agree that they should be-then there should also be a good counter for that.