Culexus

"That which is unknown and unseen commands the greatest fear."

--Motto of the Culexus Temple.

Culexus (Games Workshop-Latin of "culex," meaning "fly, midge, or gnat") is an Assassin temple of the Officio Assassinorum in Warhammer 40,000. They are all psychic blanks (aka Pariahs or nulls), meaning they have no signature in the Warp and generally mess with psykers.

To regular humans, their aura is filled with some degree of sickness both figuratively and literally which makes them rare as most of the time they are killed during childhood. Those who survive become one of the deadliest assassins in the Imperium. A blank is the worst thing a psyker could encounter, as their mere presence is enough to cause considerable pain and even death to weak-minded psykers. The Eldar harbor a particular hate and fear of blanks, what with every Eldar being a psyker and whatnot. Blanks are totally invisible to daemons due to their lack of warp signature. The Culexus assassins therefore target exclusively psykers, as most psykers would rather chew their own arteries out and slowly bleed to death than face one. Since they're pretty much forced outcasts of society they really don't have much of a social life outside the Officio Assassinorum.

Culexuses Culexii These guys also somehow manage to have no soul so hard that they're able to fire beams of not-soul out of the gun attached to their heads and assuming there's enough psykers around, this beam can become arguably one of the best anti-infantry guns in the game.

On the tabletop these guys are absolute death, given that they have pseudo-invisibility (all attacks are Ws/BS1). In addition, all psykers get -3 leadership, cannot get warp charges, manifest on a 6, and all malediction or blessings are cancelled within 12'. These guys ignore armor and have instant death vs psykers, so eldar, GK, and Daemons will cry.

They may have been part of the Deceiver's plans to fuck with the Old Ones, but maybe not. Who knows. The Shadow knows!

On the tabletop

Given the fact that there's a new psychic phase, many opponents have begun taking psykers to try it out, some to bolster their gunlines with divination, others to cause massive amounts of rage with Telepathy. If you want to put a stop to these psychic shenanigans, then the Culexus Assassin is the pick for you, my friend!

Its stats are as awesome as all the other Assassins

WS8 BS8 S4 T4 W3 I7 A4 Ld10

They now have 3 wounds compared to 6+ FNP, and they have lightning Reflexes giving them a 4++ and the ability to ignore the initiative penalty for charging through terrain. Also has Infiltrate, Fearless, and Move through Cover too!

Now, here's where the Culexus really stands out. The Culexus causes Fear, which is mostly insignificant since, well, the game is inhabited by Space Marines who know no fear. More interestingly, the Culexus has Preferred Enemy (Psykers) which is nice and fluffy. But here's where it'll get ugly, real quickly.

Life Drain: All attacks made by the Culexus in close combat ignore armor saves, and if you roll a 6 to wound, his attacks have instant-death whereas just allocating wounds to a Psyker/Brotherhood of Psyker or Sorceror is instant-death.

Psychic Abomination: All psykers within 12" successfully harness warp charges on 6s, and all blessings and maledictions on any unit (friend or foe) cease within 12" of the Culexus. Now, that is pretty scary for people who rely on psykers as it is, get within 12" and that stupid invisibility's gone! But wait, there's more! All enemy psykers within 12" do not add their mastery level to their warp charge pool in their Psychic phase and drop their Ld by 3. Add all these abilities up, and you've just successfully created a 24" bubble (12" from the Culexus, picture it as if it were in the middle of a circle and measure the area of effect) no smart player using psykers will enter. Even if this ability doesn't come into play (more often than not it should, given you can infiltrate him), you can always exploit the psyker player being too chicken to do anything with this guy around.

And now, the best part: the equipment.

The Etherium helmet that the assassin's equipped with forces all units attacking it down to WS/BS1, which effectively gives him invisibility without the major stupidity of Invisibility itself. He also comes with Psyk-out grenades like the Grey Knights do, which either removes the extra attacks Psykers get when charging you (doesn't work if you're already locked in combat), or if you want them out of the way quicker you throw it as a grenade with S2 AP- Assault 1, Blast, and Psi-shock which forces a random psyker under the blast template to suffer a Perils of the Warp.

And most terrifyingly, the reworked Animus Speculum. It now goes off in the friendly psychic phase. It's a gun with S5 AP1 18" Assault X, with Absorb Warp Charge. The X is the total mastery level of all psykers (friend or foe) within 12" of the Culexus at the start of the psychic phase. It steals the respective warpcharges and uses it to fuel the weapon. Also, you can use absorb warp charge and steal up to 3 extra power dice from your friendly pool so even if no psykers are in range at all, you can guarantee at least 3 shots with this thing as long as there is a single Psyker on the table. So, because this thing goes off in the Psychic phase, it allows you to move out of cover, squeeze off shots with this thing, and then run back into cover or toss a Psyk-out grenade and charge in.

In all, the Culexus is for killing Psykers, and he is horrifyingly good at it.

Gallery

• 

  Culexus assassins are psyker's worst nightmare, though they are very friendly.

• 

  Culexus-kun has no friends.

• 

  Culexus will bring LOLWUT to the enemy.

• 

  Nobody likes you.