A topic from AEG's L5R CCG Rules forum, copied for Oracle of the Void from a copy of the forum saved in October 2015, so pages it didn't save are missing. Players' names are left out; the rules officials are named. Rulings are as they stood on these dates; later rulings, the rulebooks and the Rules Archive may differ.
A player, 7 March 2008
Here: viewtopic.php?f=59&t=66162&p=849885&hilit=hired#p849885 and here: viewtopic.php?f=59&t=62003&p=793703&hilit=hired+killer#p793703
Hired Killer: Limited: Pay Gold equal to the target’s unit’s Gold Cost plus 2: Lose 3 Honor. Destroy a target Personality.
I got a simple yes or no question. Playing Hired Killer on personality with follower. Paying for a WHOLE unit. My opponents negates the destruction of a personality ONLY (via Few Aginst Many for example). Does it mean that his follower gets discarded/destroyed or no? Whats your statment for this?
Martin Lund (rules official), 7 March 2008
Hired Killer: Limited: Pay Gold equal to the target’s unit’s Gold Cost plus 2: Lose 3 Honor. Destroy a target Personality.
The card says Personality. No matter how much Gold you pay it never says to destroy any attachments.
Attachments get wiped out when a Personality leaves play due to game rules. If the Personality never leaves play then that game rule never kicks in to sweep away the attachments.
If you want to destroy all the cards in a unit, independently of the Personality living or dying, you need an effect that says "destroy the target unit," like Ruthless Advance.