Officio Assassinorum. The Order of Imperial Assassins. The face of death to whomever is unlucky enough to see them, and many who never even catch a glimpse of their killers.

This is the “Head 1” version of the model. I think I have the alternative version, unpainted, somewhere. It utilises the same torso and body, and given the “throwing grenade” pose of the torso, I doubt we’re going to get a radically different model when I do eventually find and paint him.

The Culexus Assassin, of course was released last out of the four (five?) Imperial Assassin types. The first, obviously was the Rogue Trader-Era “Ninja” Assassin, of no fixed temple. Now my memory is a little sketchy, but I recall the original being superseded over the course of three months worth of White Dwarf by the trio of the Vindicare (Sniper), the Callidus (Close Combat Shapeshifter) and the Eversor (All-out Psycho-Killer Berserker). Later on, with Codex: Assassins, they introduced the Culexus, who is a psychic “null” and a thing called the Animus Speculum bolted onto their gigantic, Xenomorph-like heads. When the eye of the Animus opens, focused “negative psychic energy” is unleashed and does a right number on any Psykers nearby, and in particular on its target.

Having read through Index 2 to see what this guy is like in-game, I can see he’s a bit of a glass cannon, and appropriately nasty against psykers. Assassins were a nasty surprise to anyone who came near them back in 2nd edition, which was when I most often employed Assassins – this fellow in particular against a friend who’s Slannesh army was fond of rather potent psykers.

I’m not sure how often a weapon like this will manage to see the tabletop in my games of 8th, which will largely be focused on smaller, friendly games for some time as the forces are built up. Perhaps he could be rolled out for especially large games? Certainly once we get to the stage of Daemon Princes and Greater Daemons being rolled out to the table, he’d have a place then.