[InquisitorPandzerfox]

Before I start, I'm going to declare this: I fully understand neither of these units are the most effective or competitive in the game. However, I'd like some advice reguarding using them (IE: Do not contribute "don't use them" ) for fun and fluffy games.

My own thoughts on the culexus:
This assassin is vastly underrated. Most people simply go "Eh, if you aren't fighting psykers, don't take him." For WH, this may be true, but DH can throw an entirely different light on the matter. One rule so many people seem to forget is that every Justicar and Brother Captain in the army counts as a psyker (sorry, no codex on hand at the moment for the page number, can someone toss it out for me?).

This means that every Justicar/Brother Captain/Hero (or Daemonhosts, if radical) within 12” of the Culexus assassin will power up his shooting, in addition to Inquisitors, Sanctioned Psykers if IG is the parent army…you get the idea. The Culexus actually has a very nice gun, especially with all these extra shots. In addition, Daemonhosts and Grey Knights are both Fearless, so they suffer less from Soulless (Grey Knights still suffer on target priority, but Daemonhosts really lose nothing).

I’ve only tried using him this way once, but I must admit, I was gleefully overjoyed at his effectiveness. In this instance he met my opponent’s terminator squad w/attached Librarian (2 Wound variety). His shooting butchered the terminators, and then he charged in with Life Drain to quickly dispatch the Librarian. He probably made 2-3x his point value back in that one turn.

For the Culexus, I mainly want feedback on two things: A.) Do you think his incredible shooty-effectiveness and special rules make him a viable choice, and do you have any other tips for use?

Daemonhosts:
These guys I want help with. Getting maximum use out of them always seems to elude me. Before I’ve kept them near my lines in hopes of a Warp Speed result allowing a quick messy assault, but 9/10 times, I see them try to pin my own army (thankfully unsuccessfully in most cases). Is Summoning them to the battlefield a better choice? I have practically abysmal luck with all rolls (hurray for passing 20% of all 3+ armor saves!), so it seems I’m almost guaranteed a Terrify.

I’ve been pondering combining Daemonhosts with the above Culexus Assassin to spread some morale-crushing Soulless onto enemy units in anticipation of a Terrify on the teleport in. With Terrify’s 1’ radius, it seems this could potentially cripple a good portion of the enemy force with a bit of luck.

So, what are your thoughts on Daemonhosts (besides “don’t use them”, I have a puritan army as well, but I like to mix things up): To summon, or not to summon, and what sort of role can they fill besides “walking shield”?



Side note: In the next codex, I pray Daemonhosts ignore armor saves. I’d gladly shell out the equivalent points for a power weapon. Nothing should be able to get up to a S 9 hit, and allow a flak jacket to stop it.

Oh, yea, and a random question about summoning. They can't assault, unless they roll Teleport for their power. Does that mean you have to pick the model up and put it down for another potentially lethal deepstrike attempt, or does it imply the power's only effect is to allow it to assault? It makes sense, seeing as it already teleported in this turn.

 

[Goblin]

Ok well at the risk of damaging my brain from lack of sleep and reading small print, i generally didnt read most of your post, but i read random sentances. I am not sure if this is going to be of use, but i hope it is, maybe it can shed some light on some already (from what i can tell) bright perspectives:

tactica-culexus-assassin.html

tactica-daemonhosts.html


They have a tactica for each assassin and MORE there! very cool blog, i suggest you give it a read if you havent already!

 

[Xilconic]

yeah, BoLS has great topics on assasins and deamon host.

First: Deamon Host and Grey knight don't get along very well, you you can't use a deamon host next to GK to power your Celexus assasin.

Second, your range isn't that great, and if you wan't to have a lot of firepower as you suggested, it means you have to done one of the following:

1) Infiltrate the assasin, and DS GK's next to it.
2) walk with the GK's to your opponent.

option 1 has that you could potentially use your ability to shoot things to shreds in turn two. It also has a big chance of losing the assasin before he can do his job, or that the GK's deside to have some more tea, and come somewhere around turn 4 to start killing.

option 2 will mean you'll have the bodies you need, but also means you wi'll have to walk a long way.

Also, You'r army might get very clusterd to one spot, and this is not always a good thing. It could mean you are not a maneuverable as they could have been. A disbalace in your army could be axploited by your opponents in various ways, so you have to look out for that.

 

[Hasten]

Shoot, Goblin beat me to it with the BoLS links. There are some great ideas in that one, but I think my favorite one is his "bag of hammers" trick involving multiple DCAs and the Culexus. It's one I've always wanted to try, in any case. I don't think it's really worth the effort to pack multiple squads of Grey Knights together just to get a few extra shots on the assassin's weapon, nice though it is. You'll end up having to send massively-expensive squads along with the Culexus just to get a few extra shots per turn. I dunno, it's never seemed worth it to me.

It seems to me that the best part of the Culexus outside of the anti-psyker stuff is its anti-leadership bubble, so anything that you can get that will force leadership checks in that situation is good. Specifically, anything that causes pinning tests like barrage and sniper weapons. Just imagine a unit in range of the Culexus's soulless rule getting hit with a Basi -- they'd be testing for pinning with an effective leadership of 6!

Anyways, there's my take on it. Of course, I've never used the Culexus, so this is all just speculation.

-H