TACTICA: All About Assassins…

Assassins are one of the most feared and least understood units in the game. Everyone has a “fish tale” about a terrible experience with an Assassin, but like all good stories most have grown with the telling.

Used properly they are fun and effective, but they won’t make your game (or break your opponent’s spirit). Assassins allow an Imperial player to add a new element and a completely different style of play to his army quickly and cheaply. Assassins also move from one Imperial army to another easily, which allows you to get a head start on your next army. Finally, every player should understand how Assassins work because eventually you are going to face one and the more you know, the better prepared you will be.

I’ll describe the basics of Imperial Assassins, including who can take them, when to take them, and which to choose. Assassins are a big subject, so I’ll follow this article with a smaller post on each Assassin. In those posts, I’ll cover the strengths, weaknesses and tips for using each of them.

The most common way to get Assassins is to play a Witch Hunters or Daemonhunters army, but it’s not the only way. Any Imperial army can take them, including Space Marines, Imperial Guard and ALL their variant lists (such Dark Angels, Black Templars, and Catachans). Yes, that means Assassins can be found in odd variations like Armored Companies, Mechanized Imperial Guard or Space Marine Drop Pod Assault armies. (Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it.)

Note: Once you take an ally from the Witch Hunters or Daemonhunters Codex, you can only take allies from that codex or another Inquisition codex. That means you can have Sisters of Battle (C:WH) and Grey Knights (C:DH) in the same army, but you can’t add Kroot Mercenaries (since they aren’t from an Inquisition codex).

Imperial Assassins are 0-1 Elite choices for Inquisition armies and they require the presence of an Inquisitor Lord or Inquisitor. Deathcult Assassins are an Elite choice but do not have the 0-1 restriction. That means a Witch Hunters army with an Inquisitor Lord can take an Imperial Assassin (e.g., an Eversor) and six Deathcult Assassins.

If you have access, read the Using Witch Hunters as Allies sidebar (C:WH, p25) or the Using Daemonhunters as Allies (C:DH, p21). That section describes how any Imperial army can ally units from the respective codex. Since the UWHaA rules allow you to ally 0-1 Elite units, you can take a Deathcult Assassins unit or an Imperial Assassin.

Note: Most veterans remember the old “Allies” rules. There are no Allies rules in 4th Edition and the “no Allies” restriction is finally starting to disappear from tournaments. This use of the word Allies causes a tremendous amount of confusion. Finally, this year the Grand Tournament section is allowing the “Using Witch Hunters (and Daemonhunters) as Allies” rules, so expect to see a lot more members of the Inquisition in Imperial armies!

A player wishing to take an allied Assassin must also take an allied Inquisitor Lord. Unfortunately, it must be an Inquisitor Lord (as opposed to an Elite Inquisitor) because you are using your single Elite slot for the Assassin.

Note: There are a few players make a case for taking a 0-1 Elite Inquisitor from the Witch Hunters Codex and a 0-1 Elite Assassin from Daemonhunters Codex. Somehow they feel that twisting the RAW is a reasonable workaround for this very clear restriction. It’s not. If you find yourself taking a long trip to avoid the rules, then you’ve gotten off the path.

A common mistake that non-Inquisitorial players make when take an allied Assassin is taking a “naked Inquisitor Lord with a couple of Familiars”. Don’t do that! You are just adding 60pts to the cost of your Assassin and getting nothing in return.

Instead take the time to build an effective addition to your army. For 100 more points, you can get a tough and dangerously effective unit. For some tips, review my Building an Inquisitorial Retinue Tactica post.

Assassin are like salt. Not every dish needs it, but used properly it can take an existing “flavor” and intensify it. Like salt, Assassin are much better at improving an existing flavor (or strength) in your army than creating a new flavor.

For example, an assault army gets more benefit from an assault Assassin than from a shooting Assassin. An army of infiltrators benefit more from an infiltrating Assassin than a Deep Striking Assassin. But fortunately, there’s an assassin that fits with (and improves) just about any army.

There is one thing that Assassin do better than any other unit and that is sew fear and confusion. Your opponent is going to worry about your Assassin. He’s going to play every turn differently until it is dead. An opponent unaccustomed to Assassins is going to play more conservatively and he’s going to make mistakes. Nothing disrupts your opponent’s momentum more than something completely unknown and unexpected in their backfield. The psychological impact of an Assassin is often greater far than the damage the Assassin causes.

Take a look at your current army and identify your army’s strength. Would an Eversor’s first turn charge setup an assault for your fast attack units? Do you struggle with hidden Powerfists or Icon Bearers? Psykers and Synapse getting you down? Well there’s a solution.

In the next few articles, I’ll cover each of the Imperial Assassin and Deathcult Assassins. But there are some aspects that are common to most (if not all) Assassins and I’ll cover them here.

Common Mistakes:

1. All Assassins are Independent, but they are not Independent Characters. That means that they can be targeted like any other unit.

2. Of the Imperial Assassins only the Eversor has two close-combat weapons. This means that the Culexus, Callidus and Vindicare do not get the additional attack.

3. Assassins may only Infiltrate when the mission allows.

4. As Fearless units, Assassins suffer from No Retreat! if they lose a close combat.

5. Although armed with some of the finest weapons in the universe, Assassins distain the use of Frag Grenades. This means that the best killing machines in the Imperium can be defeated by the use of cover.