8th Edition Assassins Codex Review

This month's White Dwarf featured updated rules for the Assassins you can field in an Imperium army. This review will look at the new rules for using the Assassins in your army.  

General

The Assassins can be fielded in any Imperium army, each costing 85 points. You can field them in a Vanguard Detachment, or they can be fielded for the cost of 1CP using a new stratagem called Operative Requisition Sanctioned. In matched play, this costs 1CP and you can choose to field any of the four Assassins, but must pay the reinforcement points for them. 

This is a good stratagem, as you don't need to specify which Assassin you are taking before you use it. For example, you could see your opponent's army and decide which Assassin is best suited to enhance your army during the game. 

Each Assassin has a 4+ invulnerable save and a similar general profile. They have 7" move, BS and WS 2+, strength and toughness 4, 5 or 6 wounds and between 4 and 6 attacks. 

The Assassin cannot be your warlord and can deploy from reserves using the standard rules. 

They also get another stratagem called Priority Threat Neutralised for 1CP. This can be played when an Assassin kills an enemy character. You gain 2CP (or 3CP if it was the enemy warlord). This is a nice way of getting a free command point if you have some left and kill an enemy character. 

Vindicare Assassin

The firepower specialist of the Assassins has gotten better in this new version of the codex. One big boost is that if he remains stationary, he always hits on a 2+ in the shooting phase. This is great for ensuring that he will have a great chance of hitting his target and is a great counter to negative to hit penalties from enemy abilities and stratagems. 

His primary weapon is the Exotus Rifle, which is range 72", Heavy 1, S5, AP-3 and D3 damage. It always wounds infantry on a 2+, giving you good odds of hitting and wounding with his shots. It also ignores invulnerable saves, as well as the Vindicare ignoring cover saves, so you have a good chance of getting through all but the toughest armour with ease. He can also target characters, even if they are not the closest. 

40k Grand Slam Tournament Battle Report 1- Dark Angels/Deathwatch vs Adeptus Mechanicus/Blood Angels/Astra Militarum

Here is my first 40k tournament battle report form the recent Grand Slam event held at Element Games. 

The first game was against Wayne and his mixed Imperial force, featuring a lot of firepower and some hard-hitting combat units. The first mission was a mixture of The Scouring Eternal War and Tactical Gambit for the maelstrom of war, using Spearhead Assault deployment. 

My army consisted of:

Battalion Detachment (Dark Angels)

Azrael (Az)

Primaris Lieutenant- Master-crafted Auto Bolt Rifle, Eye of the Unseen (Relic) (L)

Primaris Ancient- Bolt Rifle (An)

5 Intercessors- Bolt Rifles (I)

5 Scouts- Bolters (S1)

5 Scouts- Heavy Bolter, Bolters (S2)

5 Devastators- Heavy Bolter, Armorium Cherub (D)

10 Hellblasters- Plasma Incinerators (H)

Darkshroud- Heavy Bolter (DS)

Battalion Detachment (Deathwatch)

Watch Master- Guardian Spear (W)

Watch Captain- Jump Pack, Thunder Hammer, Storm Shield, Bolt Pistol (WC)

10 Intercessors- Bolt Rifles, Bolt Pistols (DI)

10 Veterans- 10 Storm Bolters, 2 Storm Shields, 8 Chainswords (DV1)

6 Veterans- 2 Missile Launchers, 4 Stalker Bolters (DV2)

Auxiliary Detachment

Culexus Assassin (CA)

Thinking Tournament Lists for Warhammer 40k- Dark Angels/Deathwatch

I have a couple of tournaments coming up in the next month, as well as a few planned for next year. This weekend, I began putting together a potential list to try and for the upcoming events. ]

Most recently, I have been using the Dark Angels and Deathwatch as separate army forces. 

The Dark Angels army performed well, but did suffer a few drawbacks in the force. The army had no reserves, meaning they were susceptible to the enemy firepower, as everything was on the board. The mobility in the army was provided by the Black Knights and Ravenwing Bikers, who suffered a bit in the army. They have some good firepower, but really lack the durability to stand up to the enemy firepower. 

The Deathwatch hit hard, with the special issue ammunition and stratagems doing well to give them some strong firepower and some limited mobility. 

I thought that it might be worthwhile to combine the two armies to get the best of both worlds. The Dark Angels to supply a solid firebase and some strong Plasma firepower, while the Deathwatch would give me some reserves to threaten enemy units, as well as giving me a degree of mobility with their deployment options. 

So here is my first proposed army. 

Battalion Detachment (Dark Angels)

Azrael

Primaris Lieutenant- Master-crafted Auto Bolt Rifle

Primaris Ancient- Bolt Rifle

5 Intercessors- Bolt Rifles

5 Scouts- Bolters

5 Scouts- Heavy Bolter, Bolters

5 Devastators- Heavy Bolter, Armorium Cherub

10 Hellblasters- Plasma Incinerators

Darkshroud- Heavy Bolter

Battalion Detachment (Deathwatch)

Watch Master- Guardian Spear

Watch Captain- Jump Pack, Thunder Hammer, Storm Shield, Bolt Pistol

10 Intercessors- Bolt Rifles, Bolt Pistols

10 Veterans- 10 Storm Bolters, 2 Storm Shields, 8 Chainswords

6 Veterans- 2 Missile Launchers, 4 Stalker Bolters

Auxiliary Detachment

Culexus Assassin

13 Command Points

Assassins Assemble!

As many of you may have seen from his recent posts, Rob (30Kplus40K) has been working on painting up the four Imperial Assassins for a commission. It was actually my Assassins that I had sent Rob, and they were delivered at the weekend so that I could marvel in their glory. 

When I was going through the list of models that I had left to get painted across my various armies, I was reminded of the Assassins from the Execution Force that I hadn't got round to painting. I decided to see if Rob would be interested in painting them up for me. I really liked the black armour that he had done for his Death Company army, so figured he would do a great job on the mostly black Assassins.

He did not disappoint! In fact, I felt pretty guilty about the effort that he had put in and how little he had charged to do them.

Caledonian Revolution 2016: Game 1- White Scars vs Tau/Grey Knights

Welcome to my first battle report from my games at the recent Caledonian Revolution tournament. The tournament was held at the North Western Gaming Centre down in Stockport and featured 75 players. 

I decided to take my White Scars to the tournament and had been practising with my list for a few months with varying degrees of success, so was feeling ok about my chances in my games over the two days of the tournament. Ideally, I wanted to win at least 3 of the 5 games and finish in the top half of the rankings table.

Overall, I had a fantastic time at the tournament. I play 5 very challenging games over the two days against some great opponents. The guys organising the tournament were fantastic, all the games ran on time with plenty of time for each match, and everything was run efficiently and with good humour. A big thanks to all of my opponents and everyone I got chatting to over the weekend for making it such a fun event.

A big bonus for me was how many players over the weekend recognised my army from the blog and how many people said that they read and enjoyed my blog and battle reports. It's great to get that kind of feedback from people I haven't met before and really makes the effort that I put into the blog worth it. I also got a few compliments on my army, which was great given the very high standards of painting you will see in the Armies on Display post. Over the weekend I got several comments along the lines of "it's so unusual to see a White Scars army actually painted up as White Scars", which made me chuckle.

I did not win any raffle prizes, but got a bargain of a sale. One of the winners decided he did not want to take his Betrayal at Calth prize with him on the flight, so I snapped it up for only £50! My resistance to starting that Emperor's Children 30K army is slowly diminishing as I type.

It was a really fun weekend and I got to meet some great new players and hopefully get a few new readers for the blog in my game opponents. 

After a disastrous drive down the motorway on the Friday (more on this in a later post) and a lack of sleep on the Friday night (my hotel decided that 5 am was the perfect time to use the industrial dish washer located directly below my room), I got my army ready to see what table I would be playing on. I was due to play Matt and his Daemons in my first game, but he had to drop out of the tournament. I was informed later that he had actually won the last Caledonian Revolution, so I was not too upset about this. 

My opponent for the first round turned out to be Sid with his Tau, Grey Knights and Assassins army. Things were already looking up, as Sid had only come in second at the last Revolution.........

My army consisted of:

Scarblade Strike Force

Hunting Force

Khan- Moondrakken (with CS)

Command Squad- Bikes, Apothecary, 4 grav guns, 4 storm shields, Banner of the Eagle (CS)

6 Bikers- 2 grav guns, sergeant with power axe and meltabombs (BS1)

6 Bikers- 2 grav guns, sergeant with meltabombs (BS2)

Attack Bike- Multimelta (AB)

6 Scout Bikers- 2 Grenades launchers, sergeant with meltabombs and homing beacon (SB)

Stormbringer Squadron

5 Scouts- bolt pistols, combat weapons, sergeant with meltabombs (S1)

Landspeeder Storm- Heavy Bolter, Cerberus Launcher (LS1)

Landspeeder- Multimelta, Typhoon Missile Launcher (L)

Combined Arms Detachment

Chaplain- Bike, Hunter's Eye, Meltabombs (with CS or C2)

5 Scouts- Bolters, sergeant with meltabombs (S2)

Landspeeder Storm- Heavy Bolter, Cerberus Launcher (LS2)

3 Bikers- 2 meltaguns, sergeant with meltabombs (BS3)

3 Centurions- Grav cannons and grav amps, hurricane bolters (C)

Drop Pod (DP)

Stormhawk Interceptor- TL assault cannon, Skyhammer missile launcher, Las-talon (SI)

Battle Report 46- 1500 pts Astra Militarum vs Eldar

This week's battle report was one of my campaign games from my Medusa IV map campaign. Armel's Eldar (a powerful faction in the campaign) had decided to try and usurp the Shield Generator tile from my Planetary defence force, so we found ourselves in conflict for the first time during the campaign. I know how strong the Eldar are at the moment and was interested to see how the game would turn out.

 

Thanks to the campaign rules, I would have a 50 pts bonus to my army, hopefully it would make all the difference. My army consisted of:

COMBINED ARMS DETACHMENT

Company Command Squad- Vox, 2 plasma guns, Company Standard, Laurels of Command (CC)
Priest (with S1A)
Priest (with S2C)
Commissar (with LT)
Commissar (with MLT)
Primaris Psyker- Level 1 psyker (with S1A)

Platoon Command 1- 2 Flamers, Vox (PC1)
Infantry Squad 1A- Autocannon, Vox (S1A)
Infantry Squad 1A- Autocannon (S2A)
Infantry Squad 1B- Autocannon, Vox (S1B)
Heavy Weapons Team 1- Lascannons (LT)
Heavy Weapons Team 2- Heavy Bolters (HBT)

Platoon Command 2- 2 Flamers, Vox (PC2)
Chimera- Multilaser, Heavy Bolter, Extra Armour, Dozer blades (C1)
Infantry Squad 2A- Grenade Launcher, vox (S2A)
Infantry Squad 2B- Grenade Launcher, vox (S2B)
Infantry Squad 2C- Grenade Launcher (S2C)
Heavy Weapons Team 3- Missile Launchers (MLT)

Veterans- 3 Meltaguns (V)
Chimera- Multilaser, Heavy Bolter, Extra Armour, Dozer blades (C2)

Wyvern 1 (W1)
Wyvern 2 (W2)
Aegis Defence Line

Culexus Assassin (A)

For my army, I decided to focus on an infantry heavy force backed up by two Wyverns. The army was led by a company command squad with a Regimental standard to help keep my units in check and the Laurels of Command to give me more control over the closer units. I then took two large infantry platoons- one armed with Autocannons and the other with grenade launchers. Three heavy weapons teams were also added to the platoons; lascannons and missile launchers to deal with a Wraithknight or any vehicles, and heavy bolters to deal with jetbikes or fragile Eldar bodies.
A unit of veterans with meltaguns in a Chimera would be there to grab objectives and deal with any armoured threats. I also took 2 wyverns as these should hopefully make a mess of any jetbikes or foot units and an Aegis line to keep the bulk of my army safe.

I decided not to take any battle tanks in the army. Between D weapons and Bright Lances, I did not think that any tanks would survive long enough to be useful.

I also decided to take a Culexus assassin to try and shut down any Eldar psykers that Armel decided to field. I bought the Assassins game in order to get all 4 assassin models and this is the first time that I would be using any of them in a game.

My plan was to swamp the objectives with masses of Guardsmen to win the game through a war of attrition- hopefully I had more bodies than Armel could kill in a game.

My warlord trait was Draconian Disciplinarian. This would be useful, allowing me to ignore morale checks caused by the Eldar shooting within range of the Warlord. My Primaris got Prescience and Foreboding.

Board games arrive

When I got home today my copy of Assassinorum Execution force had arrived. The contents look really good and I have liked what I have seen of the assassin models so far.

When I ordered the game, I picked up a copy of white dwarf too in order to get the rules for using the assassins in normal 40k (one of the main reasons I ordered the game was to get all the assassin figures), but hopefully it should be a decent board game. After checking out the rules for assassins, I cannot wait to give them a go. Just wait till the Culexus gets in amongst my friend's seer council or daemons (I wonder if it is too late to try and paint one up for my blog wars army?)

Also arrived recently was a copy of Space Hulk that I got from ebay. I've never played it before, but have always liked the look of it. I got it a bit cheaper as the terminator models are missing. I have enough terminators in my Dark Angels army to use in the game, so am looking forward to trying it out in the near future.

Has anyone played space hulk before (or even had a go at execution force)? Was it worth picking them up?