One, four, or five? How many, and in what combination of the updated Warhammer 40k Assassins should you take for your army?
Assassins have all new rules now from the March 2018 White Dwarf along with stratagem support. Bottom line, these guys got a lot more flexible on the table. It may be a good idea to have one of every assassin in every Imperial player’s back pocket from now on. Let’s go over everything in detail here.
Keep Your Options Open
Before we break down every Assassin, we feel like we should cover this stratagem first. If you plan on taking an Assassin for sure, but aren’t certain on what you’re going up against, you can wait until you’re deploying in your game to use this stratagem and bring in any Assassin so long as you have the reinforcement points.
For example, if you pocket away enough points and you find yourself going against Orks during one tournament match, you can always bring in an Eversor and watch him rip Boyz limb from limb. However, if you find yourself going against a Psyker-heavy list, just throw in a Culexus! Keep those options open.
Remember you can also take all four in the Execution force as well, but it takes up a detachment towards your army’s limit. More on that later…
Eversor-The Blender
The Eversor is the worst nightmare to large Infantry blobs with T-shirt armor (i.e GSC and Orks). He’s got eight attacks on the charge at a heavy bolter profile and can re-roll wound rolls with his weapon.
To make matters worse, he gets another attack for each model he kills. That can be a total of sixteen attacks from one model! If he doesn’t kill the unit alone, they’ll run to morale.
Now, the Eversor is a glass cannon in every sense of the word. He has a 6+ save and is only T4. So, to help keep him going at least for another round of combat, you can pop 1CP and give him a 4+++ FNP. The cool thing is that you can use this stratagem in any phase.
Vindicare- The Marksman
The Vindicare should have one job and one job only. Sniping out characters and making them keep their heads down. This guy can really make your opponent shift their entire force in order to save their aura-givers.
Instead of doing a mortal wound on a 6+ to wound, the damage turns into D6. On top of that, whenever someone takes a wound from his rifle (remember it’s -3 AP), you can roll a D6 and on a 3+, they take a mortal wound. You even get to repeat this process increasing the dice value each time. Bottom line, you could do D6 damage +4 mortal wounds in one shot.
The Vindicare has options as far as stratagems go. You can shoot twice for just 1CP (although it has to be at a different target) or just finish off a character on its last leg. You’d really only use the turbo-penetrator round if you didn’t feel like taking a chance on invulnerable saves from the character. And yes, it sounds like they ran out of cool name ideas.
Callidus- The Disruptor
The Callidus is a Disruptor if we’ve ever seen one. She can be set up extremely close to the enemy during deployment and even cause stratagems to cost more or simply not even go off.
She can prey against some weak infantry that’s extended too far getting five attacks with her poison blades or, you can send her after a character and force them to eat all the damage from the phase sword.
Looking at her stratagem support, you can keep her back and use the Acrobatic stratagem to make her even more of a headache for your opponent when she rushes into combat. Otherwise, you can always pop the 2CP stratagem called supreme deception in the second battle round. This keeps her reign of confusion rule going until the end of the round. Really, this is totally worth it as most stratagems are spent in the 2nd and 3rd battle round anyway.
The Callidus is equipped with some of the Imperium’s most experimental technology and can do some real damage in the shooting and combat phase. Just don’t expect her to sit on the table too long with a 6+ armor save. She needs to kill whatever she connects with and have friends close by to support her.
Culexus- The Witch Hunter
The Culexus reaallllyy hates Psykers and really, everyone else that would try to kill him. He’s a strange Assassin when you look at how he operates from the rest. This guy can shoot and throw a grenade in the shooting phase (not pick one or the other). Plus, he can always target Psykers and anyone that targets him is going to have to always be hitting him on a 6+.
We know what you’re thinking. “just mortal wound him with smite”! That does seem to be the answer for everything in 8th edition’s meta. However, not with this guy. His Abomination rule makes him immune to any psychic shenanigans and ANY (friend of foe) Psykers must subtract 2 from any Psychic/Deny the Witch tests.
Imagine stacking two of these guys around Magnus. You know how much of a headache that would be for him?
If/when the Culexus finds himself in combat, you can pop a 2CP stratagem and force everyone within 3″ of him to fight last. He can essentially shut down the enemy’s assault and let your guys swing first. There’s no other ability in the game that’s quite like this one!
Assassins Have One Job in Mind
Assassins are really meant for taking out key targets that the Imperium doesn’t like. Each Assassin has a niche role to fill so which one is best comes down to the game you’re playing. However, if your Assassin does manage to kill a character/Warlord, you can generate CP back to give more fuel to the rest of your army!
Another key piece of tech to consider may be taking the Execution Force as a separate detachment (if you have one available to you). That way you can leave an additional 85 points of reserves open to double down on the one Assassin that would break open the game for you based on your matchup. All of the Assassins are good in their own way, however, there is always one that really gives you the edge in battle. If you have an extra 425 points for the execution force and one assassin in reserve, hey why not?
Assassins were seldom spotted on the table in 8th edition up until this point. However, we feel like we could be seeing a meta where some lists bring Eversors against Orks and Culexus’s against the Daemon Primarchs.
What are your thoughts on the Assassins? Which stratagem seems the most powerful to you? Which Assassin model has always been your favorite? Let us know in the comments of our Facebook Hobby Group.
About the Author: Wesley Floyd
Imperial fanboy, tabletop fanatic, King of sprues.
