I am still very early in the game. In the NCR Nipton quest, I was very displeased with the fact that the Legion wiped out the town, so I did what the leader dared me to do, I did something about it. Then, I got a quest to head east and save a few more Powder Gangers from the Legion. There's no love between me and the Powder Gangers, but the Legion's tactics are brutal and unjust, so naturally I took on the quest and went to rescue the captives. I managed to take out the Legion's guys at that without too much difficulty, and then continued on with my game. Some time later, I found myself traveling through this area again to get to the town of Nacon, only to be attacked by a group of five Legion Assassin's. These guys weren't just tough... I would imagine that they'd give my Level 30 Vault 101 Dweller from Fallout 3 a run for his money (mind you, in New Vegas I am about level 7). I managed to headshot one to death with my trusty Cowboy Repeater, and then was instantly mowed down by the remaining Legion Assassins. Well that svcked, so I reload the game and try again with slightly different tactics, only to die even faster. Then I reloaded and tried to outrun them, also impossible since they run faster than you and can hit you from (seemingly) a mile away once they turn aggressive. Then I discovered that if I stayed off the main road, they didn't seem to appear, but if I ever ventured into the main path, I was toast. Well somehow I made it through all that to Nacon, where, once I started to complete some of the quests I had racked up, who shows up but, you guessed it, the Legion Assassins. I tried every trick in the book I could think of to beat these guys, including laying down mines and powder charges. They just shrugged off everything I threw at them and kept coming. After about a dozen failed attempts to outfight/outmaneuver/outrun these Terminators, I decided to look back and see if I had a save I could revert to before I made the Legion hate me. Fortunately, I had one save left... otherwise I would have had to start over completely. As it was, I lost several hours of gameplay and exploration that will have to be done over. Sorry guys but this is not cool. Difficult is cool... making it impossible to continue the game is not cool and not fun. The difficulty of these Assassins needs to be patched somehow to scale to player level.

I ran into the SAME EXACT thing yesterday. At level 6 with an unarmed/melee build, these guys were wrecking me.

BUT I managed to beat them.

What I did was I ran away while spamming stimpaks, and they eventually stopped following me. I made it to Camp Charlie when they suddenly caught up with me and took out one of the NCR rangers there. But then I think the game glitched and they turned non-hostile towards me. I knew this might not last, so I equipped the frag mines I picked up at Primm and laid them down strategically, then I had some frag grenades on me. I crawled up to the top of the sniper perch and VATs'd the grenades at them. This took out one, injured another, and barely scratched the Vexillarius.

So I hopped down and ran around the side of the main building in the camp and waited. The one who was injured ran around the corner and I managed to strong attack him with my spiked knuckles twice which killed him and left the Vex. At this point, I was out of stimpaks, so I took a Sunset Sass and just ran in to close-quarters the Vex. I managed to kill him with ONE bar of HP remaining. It was crazy, but it was worth it.

The second of the assassins I killed had a Super Sledge on him. I got an awesome Melee weapon for my low-level character early on.

I had a very similar problem only while trying to release the captives. When i went to release them i could handle the first wave of legion troops. But after that there is about a min break and then a second wave of assassins come in and demolish me every time. They are brutal. I tried every weapon i have up to this point and all of them bearly make a scratch. I finally gave up and went to a save i had before i tried the resce and figured i would free them later after i lvl up a couple of time. Now that i hear your feedback i'm glad i didn;t finally defeat them at the camp. Apparently after they are pissed at you those tough bastards pop up everywhere you go.

I agree that they are incedibly powerful for the point in the game that they are introduced. I'm going to wait till i'm up a cpl more lvls and maybe have another new weapon that will get through their armor better. Hopefully their difficulty doesn;t lvl up in proportion to my characters lvl. It's one thing to do all you can to try and beat them once but then to have them pissed at you and popping up again and again??? At the same rediculous strength???

I came across the assassins at the same point as guenzak, a couple seconds after I freed the captives. As luck would have it, I decided to flee back towards Nipton and ran into some traders who were crossing a bridge with their mercs. Once I ran into them, they drew down on the assassins and we were able to kill them, though one of the traders didn't make it. Had some great loot on'em, but I don't think I ever would've been able to beat them on my own and I dread running into them again. Save often!

Same thing, I was level 2 against 5 Legion Assassins. Before that I went to Nipton and killed the Caesar's Co-lead and went on my way. I then saw 2 Caravan guards/Merchants and 5 NCR Troops near a bridge. I then ran by a highway board and there were 5 guys. I then ran over to where the NCR troops and Merchants were so they could give me some support... Guess what? They all died in less than 20 seconds. I'm like...."Wow."


It would have been better if it was just one Assassin or two but FIVE! What the heck?

I'm not sure they're properly balanced. I ran into them at level 9 - right about the point where you would get "Booted" as a quest I think. It doesn't seem like it should be a difficult quest, there's only a handful of legion at the camp and they all die easily.

Then you get a bunch of god-mode Legionary Assassins on your tail that magically appear...

They're a lot tougher then the Talon Company assassins in FO3. I think they need to have their spawn logic looked at - maybe only spawning a single one at lower levels, ranging up to 5 at higher levels. Right now, it's like they're using a howitzer cannon to swat a fly when they go after a low-level player (under level 15).

LOL Now I'm wondering if that's another glitch for me or something because I rolled up on four Legionnaire Assassins with a tire iron (High Melee) at level 9 and when it didn't freeze up on me (I save every 2 minutes... I actually have a stop watch to remind me heh) I wrecked their s#!t man.

They severely over-did and totally went nuts on the Damage Threshold in this game.

Just so you guys know, I looked them up in the strat guide (to keep spoilers to a minimum I've avoided reading any of the quest sections), while I can't find any info on the event of sending the assassins at you, I did notice that they listed them as Level friggin 20.

Does anyone know if this is like the attacks on you in Fallout 3 and it'll keep happening, or is this a one time hit squad?

It is unbalanced without some sort of help on it, my roommate was considering trading his game back in if he was gonna have to start over because of this.

AP Rounds and my Service Rifle, they stood no chance.

So wait, OP, you bit off more than you can chew and now don't want to have to deal with the consequences? Caesar's man let you live on purpose, because that early in the game YOU STAND NO CHANCE against the Legion. It's called storytelling. Don't piss off Caesar untill you can handle what comes next.

The prisoners I saved by waltzing up with a Stealth Boy on and just untied them.

This doesn't need to be rebalanced, there are actual bugs that need to be fixed first.

I agree jenovaproject. Alot of people think it needs rebalancing when it their gameplay that needs it. Im not trying to insult the people playing but a revision to their tactics might need to be done. I didnt mess with caesar until after level 12 or so and after i did i ran into his assassins and i was lucky i guess and only 3 attacked me but they was actually easy compared to what i had to fight earlier in the game of caesars men and if you use armor piercing rounds they fall like dominos, service rifle + armor piercing = dead legion. Id recommend better guns at higher levels but at 12 or 13 when i fought em thats what i used and it was just fine. Also 1 major factor might of been my guns was at 92 cause i go all out with that skill in the game to maximize my deadliness for such occasions

Yeppp... This is how the game goes and... I like it! I've got the game on the hardcoe mode with the wild card perk or w/e its called where the crazy monsters appear. First run through... Sh!t is TOUGH! It's awesome though, despite the glitches/bugs.


I ended up taking on the legionaries in Nipton @ Level 5 (or w/e it's called )... Tried walking out of town and they came and blew me away. So, I decided to bring them right in front of the Mojave Outpost (Fast-Traveled). Sure enough, there were 5 of them... What I ended up doing was that I relied on the NCR to take fire while I used my Service Rifle with AP rounds <-- Crucial. I had to pump myself full of drugs so that I could do any damage on them ... I'm surprised my character didn't pull an MJ. Psycho, Buffout, Jet, and Med-X were absolutely crucial. In the end, the situation was a win win. No one important died, none of my crew died, and two merchants got blown away so I got to snatch their loot. I haven't seen any negative repercussions so far.

Ever since that encounter I haven't come across the Legion again. I hope it stays that way for a while because I'm only Lvl 8.

What are you guys doing to attract them? Boone and I (mostly Boone) have killed mountains of Legion soldiers.

Is it because you guys took down Vulpus?

I ran into thos Legion Assassins too but luckily I had boone with me so we droped em pretty quick ( jk it took forever with too many closecalls ) and sold their armor and weps.

In the (3) attempts where I attempted to clean out the "Booted" CL camp to free the hostages, my tactics were fine. I was at maximum range that was compatible with the land and the camp layout (in order to get shots on some of the tent dwellers you have to close in a bit).

I even backed off about 30-40 yds from the camp after becoming villified and was hidden. Resting up and watching the compass.

The Legionary Assassins spawn in pretty much right on top of you, which is instant-death for an early player. Especially since they have the perception of a demi-god and can track you when they can't see you and you aren't moving.

So, I don't like it for a few reasons:

- First, it's magically spawning enemies out of thin air right on top of the player (or it seems to be). It should be done more like the NCR Ranger that hunts you down after you gain rep with NCR. He spawned way off in the distance and then ran to catch up with me. The way Talon Company was spawned in the original game was fine as well - they would only appear if you *entered* a random encounter area. They would not magically appear if you were already inside that encounter area and passed the threshold for them to appear.

- It's jarring at low level, requiring the player to reload and then choose a different course of action (not becoming villified). Which is fine, but requires that you have a deeper understanding of the factions then you do when you hit Nipton for the first time. At this point, you've generally only encountered NCRCF folks (who are always hostile) and NCR (who start neutral). You probably have not been taking pot shots at NCR troops because they look organized.

- The threshold for becoming villified by CL might be too low, or the threshold for CL sending assassins might be too low. Yes, all CL should go hostile after you kill their buddies, and they should go permanently hostile after you kill a few more. But I don't agree that the game should immediately send out an armed to the teeth hit squad after your sorry carcass as soon as you cross into attack-on-sight.

- Unless (spoiler?) Caesar already knows exactly who you are, CL should not be sending heavy hitting assassin squads after you at low levels. You're a flea, a gnat, you send around a low level grunt, not a highly paid group of assassins. If the grunt fails, you send 2 grunts. If they fail, you send a squad. If that still doesn't work out, then you bring out the really heavy hitting full-count squad of assassins.

The Assassins are fine and I can completely decimate them at level 18

Don't blame the game, blame the player.

Don't ask them to nerf my game just because you are having a tough time with a particular enemy

P.S I am playing on very hard+hardcoe and everything is way too easy.

I actually traveled through Scorpion Gulch very early in the game. Probably right around the time I stopped in Primm to activate the Mojave Express box and pick up some quests.

Having done so, I was able to get the housing (awesome) and then headed to Nipton FROM THE EAST. In doing so, I happened upon the "Booted" quest captives before even seeing the Legion before. Let me tell you, at level 3-4, I had to very stealthily kill the Legionnaires at that base.

I got "vilified" status from the Legion within 5 hours into the game...but oh well.

I also had the Assassin squad breathing down my neck instantly, but here are a few things I learned for people who are getting destroyed:

1) They only send one full-size (5-6 member) assassin squad at you, following that, they are usually 3.

2) They WILL NOT show up, not even as friendly, if you wear Legion armor. You obviously killed some to get the bad status, so just wear their armor and they won't attack you. Be careful, however. Wearing Legion armor in/around Primm and at the Mojave Outpost will get you killed by NCR.

3) The new types of ammo are ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL to survival. When fighting the Legion and other armored NPC's, always use armor piercing ammo. If you use standard, their DT will nullify all but a couple points of damage.

Eventually, these guys caught up to me at Mojave Outpost because I obviously couldn't wear Legion armor there. Ranger Ghost and the mercenary accompanying the merchant tore them a new one and I got a Shishkebab SUPER EARLY!

True all the way. Armor Piercing is essential. Although most armor piercing won't penetrate 'natural' armors on mutated insects and deathclaws. So a Giant Radscorpion and Deathclaw+ will usually not be affected by most types of armor piercing rounds. Best thing against those assailants is to use high powered guns like the sniper rifle.

Someone's a BA hahaha

Your best bet for alot of these high level enemies when you are a low-level are companions. Companions are god-like and will save your ass through the lower levels. I ran into the asassins at around level 8 i think and i just let ED-E and Boone do most of the work while I sniped with .308 Sniper Rifle. I am a level 17 now and haven't ran into any bugs yet. Not sure how many hours I have been playing, but at least over 20.

Love the game Bethesda and Obsidian! Keep up the good work *applause*

I use AP on deathclaws and get the broken shild symbo will means im [censored] them prettymuch so i disagree there but with radscorpions, i have NEVER been able to hurt them severly and i can kill em with a 10mm auto but it takes a hot minute and my companion punches the crap outta them with ballistic fist.

I don't understand how you can say you disagree with me when you just actually agreed with me 100%. Perhaps you didn't read my post all the way but you pretty much said exactly what I said in a nutshell.

Haha, well I think the whole point is that you don't go tempting a ruthless empire of slavers and murderers if you can't handle them. Isn't the whole fear of the legion the fact that they are insanely strong warriors, who show no mercy?

Maybe you all should of thought about your decisions before you made them.

I agree with the OP.

The assassins have now ruined the game for me.

I'm only level 10 and every time the assassins attack boone dies and I have to reload the game.

I don't like fast travelling. I would rather walk everywhere but I can't because I keep getting attacked by extremely difficult assassins. Even boone can't handle them and dies within seconds of them attacking.

I realise I've probably levelled my character up wrong but this is my first playthrough and basically the game is very tight fisted when it comes to giving skill points at level up.

I'm playing the game in normal difficulty. Now I might have to switch to easy but this feels like cheating.

I had both the Legion and NCR at villified so they sent hit squads after me, the Legion's Assassins and the NCR's Rangers. When I got to the spot to rescue the powder gangers, both the Rangers and the Assassins showed up to kill me, seen each other and began shooting, so I hid in the tent until they all killed each other except for one ranger with dangerously low health, which I walked up on and shot point blank in the head with a Caravan Shotgun, killing her instantly.

Got a crap ton of good armor and weapons.

Then again...that was a long time ago for me. Just figured I'd add in my experience with the hit squads.