Hey everyone, Reecius here to review the Assassin Dataslate. Check out the Tactics Corner for more great reviews!
So first of all, folks are still a bit confused on what that exactly means, so to be clear, the dataslate is a digital rules source that gives rules for a new Faction. And yes, they are a Faction of their own (Officio Assassinorium Faction), and included in the Armies of the Imeprium and as such are battle bros with all other Imperial armies.
An assassin detachment consists of a single Assassin of your choice. If you play unlimited detachments, you can just slap one into any army. If you play limited detachments (as is the case in most tournaments) taking an assassin will take up one of those slots. Conversely, you can also take the assassin formation, which is 1 of each assassin and looks like it would be a ton of fun to play!
In either case, you get a bonus VP if your assassin kills the enemy warlord. Further, in the Formation, the assassins gain Preferred Enemy: Warlord. They always act alone, too, and can never be joined by another model. They also ignore the penalties for charging through cover as well. Cool and fluffy, I dig it.
All of the assassins have a respectable statline of WS8, BS8, S and T4, W3, I7, 4 attacks and LD10 with a 4++. Not bad! A nice little boost over what they had previously. They also have the No Escape special rule that makes enemy LoS! rolls suffer a -2 penalty. For (Ch) characters that means they pass on a 6, for (IC) characters they pass on a 4+.
The Vindicaire is first out of the gates weighing in at 50pts over a Thunderfire Cannon. He comes with Blind Grenades, a CCW, a Spy Mask, his Exitus Rifle and Pistol. The Mask gives him Ignores Cover except when snap firing.
The Rifle and Pistol are AP2, Poison, and have special ammo. The rifle has a staggering 72″ range while the pistol is 12″. Plus, all of his shots are Precisions Shots. Not bad!
The special ammo is similar to what he had in the past, but slightly different. Shield-breaker ignores invul saves, Turbo-penetrator shots are strength 10 versus vehicles and cause D3 wounds against toughness based targets, and Hellfire rounds wound on a 2+. That is pretty dang versatile. You can use that to target key models in a unit and try to take them down, such as the Baron, a model with an important power or piece of wargear, vehicles, Monstrous Creatures, etc. With Infiltrate and massive range, he can safely park in the backfield and take pot shots on enemy models, relatively safe.
He comes with Infiltrate, Stealth, Fearless and MtC.
The Vindicaire is a really solid model and just for his MC and vehicle busting alone, he is worth his points. His other abilities are just gravy.
The Callidus is up next! She weighs in at 5pts less than the Vindicaire.
She also comes with Fearless, Infiltrate, and MtC, but she also has Fleet, Hit and Run, and Precision Strikes. When she Infiltrates though, her Polymorphine allows her to do so as close as 1″ away from the enemy or to come out of Reserves behind the enemy, ala Snikrot. In either instance, in the first turn she can only be hit by Snap Shots, which is pretty fantastic! Templates and Blasts can’t impact her on that turn, all other shots hit on 6’s. Nice little ability to keep her alive in the early game.
Her Reign of Confusion ability also allows her to reroll the Seize roll similar to Coteaz, which is great, and it gives your opponent a -3 to reserves on their first reserve rolls. That is really useful for armies that only reserve a key unit or two such as a Heldrake or Vendetta, etc.
Her wargear is cool, too. She has a Neural Shredder that is a template pistol, AP2, wounds on a 4+. Not bad, especially when you consider she can infiltrate 1″ away from enemy units! You will wound 50% of what you hit which against armies like Tau, or certain Marine builds like Grav Cav, etc. can be devastating if you go first. You see where they deploy, put her right next to a vulnerable target and splat!
In melee she sports a Phase Sword that is essentially an AP2 power sword that ignores invul saves on a to wound roll of a 6. Not bad at all. This can be great if you get luck vs. things like TH/SS Termies, Farseers, the Baron, etc.
Her secondary weapon are her Poison Blades, which are melee, Poison 3+ and Rending. The two of these together (or her Neural Shredder) grant an extra attack as well.
The Callidus is a solid backfield disruption unit that starts in the backfield! Not bad. You can either go for the alpha strike and hit them hard if you go first, or, reserve and come in behind them and do the same thing. She will be great for picking off weak units, and support units and in general being annoying with her speed, and Hit and Run.
The Eversor assassin is up next, and my favorite. Not my favorite for his rules per se, but because I love his look and fluff. An insane, murderous ninja hopped up on goofballs is just too cool! He is also the cheapest, at just 35pts over a Thunderfire cannon.
He is also Fearless, has infiltrate (finally!), and MtC, but he also has FnP (nice!) and Furious Charge. Shame he doesn’t come with Fleet but with his special rule granted by his Frenzon drugs, it may have been too much. Frenzon grants him a 3d6″ charge range and +3 attacks on the charge for a mighty 8! He also explodes when he dies for lols, at strength 5 in a D6″ radius.
His Fast Shot rule grants him 4 shots with his combi Bolt/Needle Pistol (the Needle Pistol is 12″, Poison 4+) and he can fire overwatch at full BS. He can mix up the shots between Bolt Pistol or Needle as he desires.
The Eversor sports a Power Sword, Melta Bombs and a Neuro-gauntlet which is a melee weapon with Fleshbane and shred…just in case you rolled a 1! Haha.
The Eversor is a light infantry lawn mower. He can wade through MEQs fairly well, too, with 8 WS8, Str 5 attacks on the charge. His ideal target is larger units of light or medium infantry that do not have the ability to kill him in a single shot (Power Fist). He is relatively safe here and his speed and bucket of attacks will cut them down in short order. He is also fairly resilient with a 4++ and a 5+ FnP. Now that he finally has infiltrate, he can begin the game in a good position, and almost certainly get a turn 2 charge. His array of weapons makes him a threat vs. pretty much any target be it vehicle, MC or infantry. Just be wary of things that can one shot him. Honestly, he is probably the least powerful of the assassins, but for a relatively low price point, he can really harass the backfield well and attack many MCs, vehicles, even fast ones like skimmers, with his big charge range and mass of strength 5 attacks or his Melta Bombs.
The Culexus is up last and is the most exciting of the assassins. He is a game changer! Weighing in at 40pts over a Thunderfire cannon, he is also quite reasonable for what you get.
As per usual, he is Fearless, Infiltrates, and has MtC. He also comes with Preferred Enemy (Psykers). On top of this, he has a boat load of unique special rules. His melee attacks ignore armor saves full stop and cause ID on a to wound roll of a 6, and against a psyker, all of his melee attacks are ID. His Etherium special rule is nuts too, all attacks against him are resolved at WS and BS 1! WOW. That really helps to keep him alive. Enemy psykers assaulting him (so long as he is not locked in assault already) do not get their bonus attack for assaulting.
The game changer though, without a doubt, is his Psychic Abomination rule. Holy crap does this change the meta. The Calexus has a 12″ radius debuff that causes all Psykers within it to suffer a -3 to their leadership, generate no warp dice, only harness Warp Charge on a 6, prevents the Calexus from being targeted or affected by psychic powers, and turns off all Blessings and Maledictions….holy crap!!!
That is just like, mind blowingly good. He essentially grinds the psychic phase to a stop within his bubble. Why this is so good is because a lot of the top tier lists in the game right now rely on psychic buffs to create deathstar units. Powers like Invisibility, Fortune, Guide, Prescience, etc. all just go poof! in the Calexus’ AoE. Daemon summoning got you down? Not anymore. Iron Arm too good? Kiss it goodbye! It also shuts down the tricks psychic heavy units have once they are within his radius. Gate for example, is most likely not going to allow a unit to escape once the Calexus has them in his sights.
The trick is getting him into position as any player with these units will throw everything they have at killing him before he gets into range. You can lean on his Etherium rule to survive, or stuff him into a durable, mobile transport vehicle to increase his radius and get him where he needs to be.
Further, he also comes with Psyk-out grenades which are a str2, small blast that if it hits a unit with a psyker, the psyker suffers a perils (and remember his -3ld debuff, too!). His Animus Speculum is basically a psychic machinegun: assault 18″, str5, ap1 that gets one shot per Mastery Level of all psykers within 12″ of him, plus up to 3 Warp Charge from your own pool. He can quickly stack up an impressive number of shots, and I imagine some players will add in some cheap psykers top their list to follow him around for just that purpose.
This guy is a game changer, pure and simple. He has the power to absolutely shut down certain deathstars which IMO, is nothing but a good thing.
In all, the Assassin dataslate is a nice addition to the game and gives players a lot of fun and useful tools in the tool chest. I think the Formation will be a ton of fun, if not the most competitive choice. At 570pts it isn’t crazy expensive, but it is a healthy chunk of points. You do get a fun mix of units though, and I will certainly be trying it out!
So a nameless Vindicaire Assasin is better at sniping than Illic Nightspear who has honed his skills for thousands of years and is the best the Eldar have ever seen. Voidbringer <<<< human sniper rifle… 🙁
Ah well, fluff aside, they look cool.
I gotta go get my violin that only plays sad songs for the poor Eldar.
Lol, yeah, they really do have essentially everything else awesome!
What gets me is that an assasin has a better statline then most named HQ’s. Genetically enginered supersoldiers pale in comparison to a human with nice gear. These guys seem a bit to good and I’m sure they will be the new thing everyone hates to play against.
In the fluff, the Assassins are actually extremely powerful physically, better than Space Marines. I think their stats are pretty accurate to the fluff, personally.
Yeah, the assassins were created to give the Imperium the ability to reach out anywhere. They were aiming higher (they were supposed to be able to kill primarchs) but the assassins never got to that level.
A Callidus killed Curze.
Curze allowed himself to be killed, though.
While I agree that they should have some pretty monstrous stats for the fluff, I don’t know how EVERY assassin would out duel the likes of Abaddon the Despoiler, Drahzar (who is ridiculously insulted to have one less WS than a fucking Archon lol), and so on. I think the WS stat is the most unrealistic stat in the entire game, especially since seeing something above 7 has been incredibly rare until recently. But this is also the game where in the fluff a terminator literally can’t get killed by lasguns (unless it’s chaos aligned lawl), but in the game you lose them in droves lol
Agree with Reecius. The Officio Assassinorum genetically modifies its agents AT LEAST as much as the Space Marines.
Some agents are regular humans selected for their savagery who undergo massive amounts of modification, while others are simply grown in test tubes for the sole purpose of being assassins.
That they are allegedly equal to Abaddon in-game has more to do with Abaddon’s rules than the assassins’ rules. Putting them roughly on par with a chapter master in game terms makes perfect sense (the veteran, go-to assassins who have completed scores of missions should able to take out a chapter master/warboss type character, while the newer, less experienced assassins would be more likely fail). I think those stats represent a happy medium.
Illic can still instant death a monster, which is pretty epic, and has a higher BS, and better stealth. I wouldn’t say that the Vindicare is a better sniper in all circumstances, but he’s more versatile, which he’s always been.
I’m confused by the lone operative rule. The way it is worded would seem to make it impossible for characters to join an assassin, but (if I am correct) allows assassins to join units. What if the unit has a character in it? how does this rule work?
Assassins are not ICs so cant join a unit anyway
I see, I’d missed that, thanks.
Good to see the assassins back!! It has been many years (2nd or 3rd ed.) since I last allied them with my Dark Angels but they still look like fun. Two things to remember: 1) don’t make them the linchpin of a plan because you will probably lose, and 2) only use them if you have a real sense of humour (any serious Ork player understands humour best) or just want to mess with your opponent’s head. I plan to have fun with them and maybe take them to tournaments solely to mess with the head across the table from me!
I agree you can’t count on them to be there as they are pretty squishy, but, they can change the game in a big way.
I love the idea what drop podding Culexus would do to an army with psychic deathstar…
Culexus assassin is perfect opportunity to use an unbound SW drop pod! I always wanted to deploy an assassin from a drop pod would be a cool conversion too, one man sized pod paint it black add a death wind launcher for extra lolz!
Yeah, a Claexus in a pod will be a common site, we think.
I think the culexus in a flying transport is scarier then one in a pod, sure he can’t shoot his gun but his deadzone aura is much bigger
Doesn’t need to be unbound either, it’s just a Fast Attack choice for Space Wolves.
That is an awesome idea!
After reading the new SW codex then reading about the Culexus psychic null zone, deep striking one in a drop pod was the first thing I thought of. Next to a fully loaded Jetseer death star he’d get over a dozen shots right when he popped out.
Yeah, and with no buffs, either!
The culexus is going to be great buds with space wolves who are so accommodating with sharing their drop pods.
We were thinking the same thing. Drop it down on the psychic deathstar, turn off their powers, then nuke it.
I like the culexus in a storm raven or storm wolf more my self. Putting him in a pod leaves him hanging out there.
Yeah, a flyer would be great, and take a Skyshield with the upgrade to let the flyer start on the table!
The only thing I hate about all these new allies is that it’s a bump to all imperial factions all the time because they are all battle brothers with each other. How do other factions use this guy. Great anti-invidibility for imperials, not helpful at all for the three armies out there that already have no psykers (Dark Eldar, Necrons, Tau).
Still, love these guys. Always have, always will.
Yeah, same her,e always been a big fan of the assassins.
Could….could you put the The Calexus in a vehicle? You know…like a land raider…just to be that guy…
Black Templar Zeal twitching here!
Thanks for the nice overview btw!
Exactly. Stock LR, move to mid field and park sideways. You just created a 15″ radius no fly zone for any psychic death star. The ONLY reason this doesn’t bother me that much is that it will end up eating one of the 2 force slots most tournaments will allow.
While the Calexus will make games against psychic death stars easier, she’s not super against any other army in the game. You’re going to be rock-paper-scissoring pretty hard core to take assassins in a tournie list.
I do love me some assassins though, and a drop pod army supported by the formation sounds like one hell of an army to play.
Nice!
I think it’s a pretty good take for an army which isn’t allowed to take any heretical witches in the first place. (Finally Black Templars!!!!). Plus everyone knows the first thing a black templar gets after a chainsword is a land raider crusader.
Lol, and here is your LRC, fella! Enjoy! haha
That’s why you take all 4!!
I plan on doing that.
I took 6 in an unbound army (as the r not unique anymore) and some psykers to power the culexus’s gun(as well as a drop pod for him) and it was insane!
Does psychic abomination effect friendly psykers and friendly buffs and malady tins as well as enemy?
Yeah, all psykers, friend or foe.
I love this Dataslate, but I think only the Callidus and Culexus are worth bringing. Vindicare is an awful lot of points to bring for a single shot per turn, especially when 2/3 of the ammo only wounds on a 4+. And while Turbopenetrator is highly likely to remove a Hull Point on any vehicle it hits, there are better and cheaper forms of anti-vehicle out there.
Eversor would be great in an edition where assault was more viable. He’s probably one of the best assault units in the game, but that doesn’t mean much in a game that’s so shooting-heavy.
Like you said, Culexus is great. He stops Psychic armies dead in their tracks, full stop. Hard to use as anything other than Battle Brothers, though, since he really wants a transport to get from place to place.
Cally is a great all-around-er. An AP2 template is never a bad bring, and she can assault pretty darn well against many things. Being able to put her gun anywhere on the board you feel is pretty devestating, and stopping a flyer from coming in is pretty great as well.
So yeah, if we start to see Assassins make their way into Tourney lists, I think it’ll be those two, with maybe the Vindicare in some fringe cases.
I think you may be selling the Vindicaire short, honestly. The Turbo Penetrator is Str10, AP2 (can kill a tank in one shot) and it ignores cover. That is pretty amazing, honestly.
I agree though, that all of the assassins have a use. I am excited for it!
I don’t think he’s bad, by any stretch. I just think for his price range, there are other options that may or may not be better depending on your primary force.
That said, you know what he is amazing at? Manning emplacements. Put him on an emplaced weapon, and he uses his BS8, Ignores Cover, Precision Shots, and -2 to LoS! rolls. That’s amazing, and even then he can choose to use his own gun if the situation arises.
As a Necron player, I’m really enjoying using Callidus. Never have to worry about One Eye Open since she starts anywhere else on the board, great anti-any-infantry, and brings plenty of utility all on her own.
It’s also a C’tan Phase sword, so it all circles back to Necrons!
Yeah, he is a bit squishy for sure, but, he packs a wallop as you said.
Don’t forget it’s 72 inch range, you can really reach out and swat something in the nuts with that rifle
Excited! This all sounds awesome. I think the vindicare will become super common
I think the Vindicaire and Calexus will be very common. I think I will run the Formation, actually.
Could you slam the Calexus in a Landraider with a PFG, park him in the middle of the table, surround it with centurions and watch every Jetseer council list avoid CC like the plague…is that doable?
You couldn’t put the PFG in the LRC with the Calexus, as only the Calexus could be in it due to not being able to join a unit. However, you could put the PFG near it to give it a save.
Well I for one welcome our new Assassin Overlords.
Running four is expensive, but I too am leaning that way. First, having four on the table will surely split enemy fire and thus the longevity of each assassin is increased. Second, each serves a specific purpose but combined cover a lot of threats. I’m starting to go over the Nova lists to see where each would best be used. Especially Serpent spam. Got to kill off that. That’s the true abomination in the game.
Since I play GK, I am intrigued about the idea of maybe allying one of the Calexus’ in and juicing him up. Hmmm… On the other hand, a Calexus could single-handedly shut down a good portion of my army if I play against one LOL I can just imagine GW headquarters now “NO THE GK’S HAVEN’T HAD ENOUGH YET, KEEP POURIN’ IT ON EM! YEAH THIS ASSASSIN WILL SHUT THEM UP!”
You could ramp him up to like, 15 shots pretty easily! haha
MAYBE just maybe GW will think of these assassin stats on the next DE Codex — buff Kheradruakh and drop his points – omg!
He might actually be playable that way! haha
The only one I think I’d bring is the Callidus, she’s pretty much universally useful, and is superlative in certain settings.
I was really down on the Eversor, but I think you sold me on him a bit more. I just really don’t like that he has no answer for 2+ armor saves. 🙁
Yeah, he is not good at taking on hard targets. You want him attacking Str7 or lower MCs, units of infantry with no fist type attack, and rear AV10 vehicles where he will do quite well. He will be a stud at killing wimpy little scoring units like Jetbikes, etc.
Snipe the PFist with the vindicare and charge in with the evassor, it’s a win win
It’s ~300 pts to take out a Tactical Squad easily… win win!
I used a Culexus with my Templar army against my buddy’s Nurrgle DP spam list. Mister Culexus got his own personal ride in a Land Raider and brought him up and center against the DPs. Holy balls, it was epic!
Biomancy buffs? Gone. Summonings? Gone. And the kicker against a Daemon list is the Daemonic instability, with -3Ld it’ll strip wounds crazy fast.
I like the land raider for a transport, it’s not cheap but it significantly widens the AoE and is crazy durable.
Oh wow, yeah, I didn’t even think about Daemonic Instability!
Any chance for a bat rep to see how you would apply assassins skills in 7th edition?
Definitely!
I think the assassins and, especially, their formation is awesome. As people have commented here, each of the assassins have their weakness but when you’ve got all of them together people won’t know what to deal with first.
There’s a lot of potential synergy too, if you’re scared of a hidden power fist against your Eversor? Shoot it with the Vindicare before you Charge!
Also, something easy to miss is that the Culexus “shoots” during the Psychic phase so he can also Run out of sight or throw a grenade during the Shooting phase.
This is a lot of pressure on an opponent immediately and whilst they’re panicking over the Assassins the rest of your army can be rolling forward to claim victory…
Nice point on the Calexus, I forgot to mention that.
I agree too, that the real strength comes in using them as a team as they all provide another target, and can work with one another. Great point on using the Vindicaire on a fist, too, that is true bro-fist team work right there!
Still T4, 3 wounds and a 4++ right? A buck fiddy you say? Takes up my detachment choice in every tournament under the sun?
You’ll never see ’em.
Culexus is awful. Try bringing that Culexus against Daemons and you’re going to take 9d3 slashing attacks from Screamers escorting the Tzeralds as all the psykers move out of 12″ before the psychic phase. Eldar Jetseers will simply move away. All FMC’s will simply move away. He can shut down a gravstar for a turn, I’ll give him that. Otherwise, he’s a non-factor against most psykers.
You could stash him in Land Raider. But come on now.
The Callidus is going to pop up, kill 3 of 7 Space Marines she hits with her template, then die. Eversor won’t make his points back.
Vindicare is solid.
I think you are underselling them by a significant margin, actually. Yes, they are fragile, but, you have an entire army to back them up.
The Calexus can be outmaneuvered but, as stated, the trick is in positioning them correctly. Timing is critical. You don’t just set them next to the death-star and do nothing, you time it so that you can hit the star with a killing blow the turn you take away their buffs.
As for the Callidus, I don’t know, she is essentially invisible to shooting for a turn, that is a solid defense. Again, positioning is going to be critical. We’ll see, though. You have to put them on the table top to really see the truth of it.
I’ve built a list around the assassins formation. It performs pretty well over here, as it has a bit of something for all situations. It’s basically an uber Wolf Star with an empty pod (for the Culexus) and the assassins.
3 WGBLs on Thunderwolves with 2+/3++ PF and 5 F. Wolves.
3 I. Priests on Thunderwolves
6 TWC with 5 shields and 2 PF.
1 Empty Pod
the Assassin Formation.
I would really appreciate if you could comment as your tactical skills in list building is way beyond mine… 😉
If it is run at all, it’ll be as a formation. As you say, it’s eating a detachment, may as well get your points worth out of it.
Any list that puts out assault or close-range pressure will compliment them very well. Thinking pod marines or bikes. Those sorts of lists will be win big/lose big, but it’d be one hell of an alpha strike. The target priority will be all over the place, and the amount of fire you have to dedicate to any one threat to neutralize it will almost certainly leave several big threats untouched.
It’s not point and shoot like most top tier armies, but I wouldn’t sneeze at it either.
Jesus Christ! The Calexsus in a Raider with Torment Grenade Launchers and a Crucible of Malediction? Talk about dropping a bomb on Psychers!! -4 Ld and being removed from play if they fail leadership test.. HAH! This is what DE really needed lol
Well not in the Raider… Can’t do that.. But in his bubble hell yea.
Thanks for the great write up.
I’m really hoping DE and/or Necrons get something similar to the Calexus. Be it a return of an old unit or a new item of wargear.
Ooooh! So that’s where Shadows of the Warp went. They gave it to the Calexus assassin. Got it.
It’s such a trade off to give up your allies for these. I find it hard to fit them in especially when they compete against things like a knight. Maybe we could count them as a LOW of slot if it’s unused, but I guess then I’d be having my cake and eating it too.
I like that you have to choose.
Funny reading this back. How wrong you all were about calidis and caluxes(sorry bout spelling I can’t remember)
Huh? Haha, the Culexus is absolutely brilliant! One of the most powerful single models in the game. What makes you think the assessment of either of the assassins you mention is wrong? The Calidus is a good disruption unit for the backfield and the Culexus is just crazy good for the points, he can single handedly win the game against the right opponent.
Guys my friend just bought a culexus assassin, i play eldar and i normally use my psykers to screw him over. What tactics are good against the assassins and what are they’re weaknessess
Twin Link some Scat Packs and just throw dice at him, he’ll die. 1 unit of 2 War Walkers with Scatter Lasers that is twin linked should kill him in a single volley.