Editing Warhammer 40,000/Tactics/Imperial Agents (section)

====Elites====
*'''Vindicare Assassin:''' The most expensive of the four, he's got a decent way to go to make that back for somebody who can shoot only once a turn (and who you do not want in assault), though thanks to his special goodies that let him kill things better it's not an uphill battle. In general he's the best for picking out targets thanks to 'Deadshot', making shots from the Vindicare Assassin have precision shots (unfortunately Look Out Sir! is still allowed, though thanks to No Escape it'll only work half the time on IC's), but unfortunately this doesn't apply to Snap Shots. He is also an Independent Operative, which means he can never have a character join him, however he can still join units, he can be the Warlord (ironically) but sadly he still can't have a Warlord Trait (though you were probably going to roll Fear anyway, so it's about the same).  Like all Assassins he has an awesome stat line - though the only stat he should be using is his BS and he is not meant to be the model that gets back his points in 1 turn - his job is back up, to take down the units that are bothering you. 
:Though the other assassins are great in their own right, the Vindicare is undoubtedly the best for most situations. His Exitus Rifle can quite literally deal with everything except large hordes, though even that isn't an issue thanks to the fact that the Vindicare can enter fortifications, which can then use his BS of 8.  Put him on something like a Plasma Obliterator with an attached Haemotrope Reactor so that all of his MEQ-killing S8 AP2 in that Massive Blast will ignore cover, and at BS8 on average it won't even scatter.
::Most fortress walls also offer fantastic vantage points for his rifle, so if you're getting him, try to get something extra that'll allow him to immediately set up and be able to shoot turn one.
*'''Callidus Assassin:''' The second most expensive, she is the sneaky, infiltrator type out of the 4. She has a special rule which allows her to be up to 1" from a enemy unit during her infiltrate, and enemy units can only snapfire at her during her first turn on the field, but you should try not to set her up this close.  She can be counter-charged, probably by something you didn't pay for her to be killing and even though she has Hit & Run, you don't want her losing Wounds against the wrong targets (or getting ID'd by them if you were stupid enough to set her up anywhere near a S8 enemy). 
:The Callidus is basically a mini-distraction carnifex meant to scare the fuck out of the opponent. Use this assassin to destroy low Toughness highly armoured models (Terminators, Power Armour, Daemon Princes with warp forged armour) as well as enemy leaders, thanks to her chance to ignore Invuln saves. With her high WS, BS and Neural Shredder she could properly take a few terminators before getting overwhelmed. Still, she is an assassin. Get her into the fight, take someone out and leave. Sticking around in fights will cost you. 
:Note that if you want to take advantage of her Neural Shredder the most and are confident enough, a ballsy tactic is to shoot an enemy squad with it, then let them charge her, killing one or two more in the Wall of Death that follows since all of its attacks are AP2.  She doesn't lose that much by not charging (just one attack, though the tradeoff could easily be worth it since she'll auto-hit at least one WoD anyway) and she'll almost always make her 5 attacks before the enemy can strike back, but if things don't work in your favour and the enemy retains enough models for when they get their turn, things can get sour fast.  Hit and Run can also help to abuse the Neural Shredder since even if you can't fire it normally before she gets charged again, she'll still get another Wall of Death use out of it.
*'''Eversor Assassin:''' The cheapest out of the lot, he is the overwhelming attacks assassin. The Eversor excels at killing hordes, MEQ's and GEQ's thanks to fast shot which allows him to fire 4 times in one turn (at the same target) and still charge, using 3d6 and gaining 3 attacks on the charge. If he dies, he activates "bio-meltdown" which is a strength 5 hit to all models within 6" before he is removed (though thanks to the wording Wounds are applied to the unit as they would a blast weapon, so the models who get hit might necessarily not be the ones Wounded) which is a nice and final "fuck you" to whoever you're up against (and seeing as how he should always be in combat, you should always get a few extra kills with it).  
:While he's very good in combat, two things that can be kind of an issue are actually getting him there, and Instant Death from anyone S8 and above with their ranged attacks.  A good solution for both is to just stick him in a transport, preferably one that can assault as the Assassins can now join units.  So long as he's sheltered until he can [[Rip and Tear]] you shouldn't be disappointed by the results (though you should try to avoid S8 opponents in melee anyway).
*'''Culexus Assassin:''' The second cheapest and easily the most survivable of the lot. While obviously meant to fuck over Psykers in every way imaginable, this isn't the only thing the Culexus is good at.  Firstly is the reason he's so survivable, Etherium.  All attacks against him are made at WS1/BS1, no matter who he's up against and this cannot be buffed up in any way, shape or form, not even by [[Tau|markerlight spam]] (so go out there and kill some blue commies).  On top of this he still retains the 4++ save for whenever anything does hit, if he didn't manage to kill whatever the hell it was first of course.  Secondly, all of his attacks ignore armour saves.  This is important as it means his AP2 doesn't come from any sort of weapon, and isn't actually an AP value so models [[Jain Zar|who can take AP values away]] and models [[Aun'Va|who use the AP values of others against them]] are completely fucked, regardless of whether or not they're Psykers, and especially if he rolls a 6 on his To Wound since that's now an AP2 Wound with Instant Death.  Thirdly is his Animus Speculum, which works on more than just Psykers and at an AP value that'll let it pop Rhinos and Chimeras so long as you get a lucky shot into their weaker armour.  Last is the threat he's meant to counter, Psykers.  As bad as he can fuck up everyone else, Culexus assassins fuck up Psykers twice as hard.  No Psyker within 12" can generate a warp charge, every Psyker within that distance makes his Speculum stronger, he has Preferred Enemy (Psykers) which can help the Speculum nuke a unit (so long as a Librarian is inside a unit of terminators the entire squad's fucked), and his close combat attacks always cause Instant Death to Psykers.
:The Animus Speculum is a fantastic ranged weapon, and one that can easily be abused now that the Astra Telepathica can now be allied in, as it's possible to abuse this weapon by buying some cheap Astropaths and running them near the Assassin, on average an extra 100 points can get you [[Awesome|7 S5 AP1 shots at BS8 a turn]].  The only downside is that thanks to his Independent Operative rule he cannot be joined by them directly, however [[Rules Lawyers|thanks to how it's written]], you could put him in a unit of Wyrdvane Psykers, then add the Astropaths to that as his rule states that his model can't be joined by characters, and in that case they're both just joining a different unit.
::Note that his Speculum is powered by ''Mastery Levels'', so he won't get an extra shot for every Wyrdvane model in the unit.
::Also, as he has Infiltrate, you can't attach him to non-Infiltrating units during deployment; see below for a (shitty) way around this.
:Another ballsy tactic is to use the Culexus as a shield for everyone else in a unit (possibly even the unit of Psykers, as mentioned in the above tactic) and put him front and center, so that the only shots that'll hit the unit will hit the Culexus first.  This effectively means the entire squad's invisible, only being hit on 6's, with no hope of buffing this up thanks to markerlights.
:A really ballsy (and frankly bullshit) tactic is to ally in an Inquisitor and try to get Master of Ambush (usually allying in two or three to take advantage of their abilities and increase the odds).  If you do get it, infiltrate the Culexus, and then infiltrate several Psykers alongside so that he can immediately use the Animus Speculum to tear shit up, before charging into melee to finish the job.  It relies more on luck, but even if you don't get it those Inquisitors were still going to come into handy, as were those Psykers, so failure doesn't really hurt all that much.
::Do this with a 5-ape Jokaero unit to make his Speculum 30" and Rending for the rest of the game.
:You also get bragging rights if you play with the Empyric Storm random results, the opponent's Warlord gets Psychic Apotheosis, and then you kill him with the Culexus, netting yourself a bonus VP in the process.