Editing Warhammer 40,000/9th Edition Tactics/Imperium (section)

==Officio Assassinorum==

These boys and girl have significantly improved going into 9th, or at least become more streamlined. Universally, they're power level 5 and 90pts, have {{W40kKeyword|Agent of the Imperium}} rule and keyword, can never be your Warlord, and can Deep Strike. Barring some slight differences, they all have the same statline; M7", WS2+, BS2+, S4, T4, W5 (Eversor W6), A4 (Vindicare A5, Eversor A6), Ld9, Sv6+/4++. 

Unlike Rogue Traders and Inquisition, you kept your previous stratagems prior to the Agents of the Imperium minidex! These can be found in Psychic Awakening: War of the Spider. These will be clearly marked in the below sections, all other rules will be from the minidex. 

===Special Rules===
*'''Independent Operative:''' Assassins can't be warlords and during deployment you can place them into reserves and deep strike them.

===Stratagems (Psychic Awakening)===

*'''Shadow Assignment (2CP):''' Before the battle begins and if you only have one Assassin in your army list, you can replace that Assassin with a different one. 
** One of the more useful Stratagems of the entire game really, being able to tailor your Assassin to your opponents army list can be invaluable. If your Eldar opponent is heavy on the Psykers, swapping your Eversor for a Culexus can remove or cripple a key enemy unit. 
*'''Priority Threat Neutralised (0CP)''': Gain +1CP If an enemy {{W40kKeyword|character}} is slain by one of your Assassins, or +2CP if said {{W40kKeyword|character}} was your enemy's Warlord. Only works once per character in case they are able to return through their own rules or stratagems (Angron's Blood Tithe, any Medic revive, etc). It's free CP, you have no reason to not use it. 

* Callidus-Specific Stratagems
**'''Acrobatic (1CP)''': Used in the Movement Phase, one Callidus can advance and charge this turn and enemy attacks against them suffer -1 to their hit rolls until the next Battle Round. Not bad, but your Callidus is most likely going for a turn 2 charge straight out of their Polymorphine deployment, meaning they cannot advance anyway, but -1 to hit is still neat. However if you sent second, the next Battle Round is your opponent's next turn. 
**'''Supreme Deception (2CP)''': One-use only, but during the start of any battle round after the first, one of your {{W40kKeyword|Callidus}} Reign of Confusion ability functions again until the end of that battle round (each time your opponent spends CP to use a stratagem, on a 4+ that stratagem costs one additional CP or has no effect and spent CP is still lost).
*** 2CP to grant a 50% chance to cost the enemy extra CP is pretty steep: you'd have to expect the opponent to use four Stratagems that turn to mathematically break even, and if course if you pop this they may choose to use no stratagems... Which may be a positive result anyway.

* Culexus-Specific Stratagems
**'''Pariah's Gaze (1CP)''': One {{W40kKeyword|Culexus}} Assassin's animus speculum becomes Damage d3 for one Shooting Phase. Now it's an actual Psyker-hunter at 18", assault d6, S5, AP-4, Dd3, can target {{W40kKeyword|Psyker Characters}}. 
**'''Soul Horror (2CP)''': At the start of the Fight phase, choose a {{W40kKeyword|Culexus}} Assassin. Enemy units within 3" cannot be chosen to fight until all other units have already fought, even if they charged, and if a unit has an ability that always lets them fight first (looking at you Slaanesh), they fight normally this phase (i.e. alternating picks). Note that the Culexus doesn't have to be in close combat for this Stratagem to work, meaning merely being near another unit or after making a heroic intervention can be enough to potentially lessen the effects of an enemy charge.

* Eversor-Specific Stratagems
**'''Hypermetabolism (1CP)''': At the start of any phase, give an {{W40kKeyword|Eversor}} a 4+++ FNP that for some reason doesn't work on mortal wounds for the rest of the phase. A tad bizarre that it doesn't work on mortal wounds unlike practically every other FNP equivalent in this edition of "no universal rules", but still incredibly handy. Supposedly, this is so you can't save against the mortal wound caused by the Stimm Overload stratagem.
**'''Stimm Overload (2CP)''': At the end of the Fight phase, choose an {{W40kKeyword|Eversor}} Assassin to fight again, but afterwards they suffer a mortal wound on a D6 roll of 1, 2, or 3. You know, just in case your bundle of fun and joy hadn't quite wiped that entire squad yet. Note that you can't consolidate 6" into another squad and trigger another fight, because you can only target the unit you charged on the turn you charged. Unless you had also declared a charge against that unit, of course, or were already in combat to begin with.

* Vindicare-Specific Stratagems
**'''Double Kill (1CP)''': Allows a {{W40kKeyword|Vindicare}} to shoot again at a different target after they've already shot during the Shooting phase. Bonus points if you can imitate the Unreal Tournament announcer's voice. Needless to explain how strong this is.
**'''[[FATAL|Turbo-Penetrator-Round]] (1CP)''': Whenever a {{W40kKeyword|Vindicare}} attacks with an Exitus rifle or pistol (so any ranged attack not made with your Blind Grenade) on a {{W40kKeyword|vehicle}} or {{W40kKeyword|monster}} unit, use this strat so that on a hit it deals 1d3 mortal wounds instead of regular damage, but you cannot use Head Shot. 
**This is more useful on larger units (the mortal wounds can splash, unlike the ones from the Head Shot that you lose) but also more useful the better the target's T, as you no longer need to roll to wound; of course, your gun already has decent T scaling simply because 6s to wound always wound ''and'' increase your D.  Similarly, this strat is more useful against targets with Sv3+ or better, as you no longer need to worry about the target passing a save.  However, genuinely good targets for this are rare; for example, against a Malanthrope at full health (T5 Sv5+ W9) you'll spend 1 CP on increasing your average damage from 1.51 to 1.67, on average. In order to compete with Double Kill, you have to shoot something with a 2+ or better ''and'' T6+.

===Elites===

*'''[[Callidus Assassin]]:''' The Callidus continues to be the odd model of the Assassins, being less of a murder machine and more of a tactical nuisance. Reign of Confusion means that any stratagem your opponent uses in the first battle round costs +1CP on a 4+ and if they can't/won't spend that extra CP, the cost of the Stratagem is still paid. Polymorphine allows it to Deep Strike d6+3" instead of the full 9" away from enemy models. Finally, Hit and Run lets it shoot and charge after falling back. It relies on messing with your opponent and keeping them on the back foot with their tactics. That's not to say it's a slouch in combat; neural shredder (9" assault 1, roll 3d6 if it hits and if the result is equal or higher than the target's Ld they suffer d3 MW's) is pretty unique and will most likely just dink MW's onto whatever it hits. This model's phase sword (melee, SU, AP-3, D2, ignores invulnerable saves) is great for eliminating enemy characters, but poison blades (melee, S2, AP-1, D1, +1A and always wounds non-Vehicles on a 3+) is underwhelming.  
** Regarding the neural shredder, the average of 3d6 is 10.5. Against single wound units, it'll simply murder 1d3 targets, and it's a ''lot'' better against low Ld targets. 
** If you want its assassination drop to be productive, it is critical you deep strike it close to the target, both so its shredder can contribute and so you have a realistic chance of making the charge. It is worth spending the CP to re-roll its distance if it has a promising target - if it is close enough to shoot and then makes the charge, the net result of its shooting and melee on an Ld9, T4, 2+/3++ target is 4.06 wounds, on average; and it'll do even better against lower Ld, T, and/or Sv.  Spamming hit & run tactics so you can charge after falling back can also prove to be very helpful at keeping them alive.
** Also note that while the recent changes to arriving from reserves prevent you from making full use of Polymorphine on the first turn, its Reign of Confusion ability works just fine because the rules don't say the model has to be on the table for it to work. 

*'''[[Culexus Assassin]]:''' The anti-Psyker Assassin, now with a few more nasty tricks. Its Abomination rule makes it completely immune to being targeted or affected by psychic powers, friendly or enemy, and all {{W40kKeyword|psykers}} within 18" suffer -2 to their Psychic and Deny the Witch tests. Furthermore, Etherium means any enemy model attacking it resolves at WS and BS6+; not a penalty to hit, it just forces their characteristic to a specific value, making it far and away the hardest of the four assassins to kill and very good at surviving just about anything that isn't piling on flamers until its invulnerable save gives out on it. Finally, Psychic Assassin means it ignores Look Out Sir with both of its ranged weapons against {{W40kKeyword|psykers}} and it can shoot both weapons in the same Shooting Phase. The animus speculum (18", assault d3, S5, AP-4, D1, becomes assault d6 against {{W40kKeyword|psykers}}) and psyk-out grenades (6", grenade d3, S2, AP0, D1, hits inflicts MW instead of damage against {{W40kKeyword|psykers}}  and {{W40kKeyword|daemons}}). That's it for weapons, with melee attacks it simply ignores armour and daemonic saves, making it quite terrible against those Psykers with invulnerable saves. 
** Not only can it pop up near enemy {{W40kKeyword|psykers}} to nerf them, it always pops up close enough to shoot its speculum, and it's just ''incredibly'' difficult to kill without specific tools (detailed below). Remember, it won't shut down psychic buffs, just make them harder to cast in the first place, so a Psyker-heavy enemy force will still usually have some tools to fight it. 
** This models weakness include auto-hitting attacks, massed attacks that gain +1 to hit (going from W/BS6+ to W/BS5+ doubles the amount of shots that connect), non-Psychic Inflicted MW's ("inflict X amount of MW's on a 4+ against a target within 1" after this unit has charged" stratagems for example). Don't blindly trust it to survive everything - use it intelligently, and it'll make a stunningly effective tank for the rest of your army.

*'''[[Eversor Assassin]]:''' The Kool-Aid Man in spandex. Its stats give it the usual Assassin line, but with W6 and A6. Bio-Meltdown gives him the same Explodes rule that {{W40kKeyword|Vehicles}} have, but triggered on a 4+ with a 6" range and dealing d3MW's. Sentinel Array punishes enemy units that fall back from him by giving him a free out-of-turn shooting attack with his pistol (as it is done before the enemy models move they would still be within 1" and thus only eligible to be shot at by pistols). Frenzon gives him a monstrous 3d6" charge distance and +2A after charging or Heroically Intervening. Lastly, Killing Rampage means that each time he kills an enemy model, he can make one additional attack against the same unit. Those attacks can't make additional attacks and he Consolidates 6". What does he attack with? He has an executioner pistol (12", pistol 4, S4, AP-1, D1, re-rolls wound rolls against {{W40kKeyword|infantry}}), a melta bomb (4", grenade 1, S8, AP-4, Dd6, re-rolls wound rolls against {{W40kKeyword|vehicles}}), a standard power sword, and a neuro-gauntlet (melee, S+1, AP-1, D1, re-rolls all failed wound rolls). 
** As you can see, he's a blender not an executioners axe. He's not to be charged into a Terminator Squad (where he'll kill maybe one or two before being turned to paste), but his targets are more like that backline Infantry heavy weapons squad that's been pinning your units down. 

*'''[[Vindicare Assassin]]:''' Everyone's favourite sniper is back and even more punishing than it always is. Deadshot allows them to ignore Look Out Sir and wound rolls of UM6 become Dd6, Faultless Aim makes all their ranged attacks hit on a 2+ regardless of anything if they did not move (except overwatch), Spymask gives them Ignores Cover, and Stealthsuit makes enemy ranged attacks suffer -1 to their hit rolls or -2 if this model is in/on a terrain feature. The piece de resistance is Headshot; an enemy model wounded but not killed by this model's exitus rifle/pistol suffers an additional MW on a 3+ and you can roll for this rule again but suffering -1 from the result. Rinse and repeat until the roll is failed or the model is dead. This only works against a single model, so you can't shoot into a squad and roll for MW's on different models. Their beefy exitus rifle is 72", heavy 1, S5, AP-3, Dd3, ignores invulnerable saves and always wounds infantry on a 2+. The exitus pistol is a 12", pistol 1, S4 version and blind grenades (12", grenade d6, units hit by this weapon do not take damage but suffer -1 to their hit rolls until the end of the turn) are situational, but can help a friendly unit counter-charge an enemy unit about to swarm your marksman. 
** The real let-down of this model is the variable damage of his exitus weaponry. He may hit on 2's and wound on 2's and ignore invulnerables and a significant chunk of an armour save, but you can still only inflict one wound.