Venenum

Just because your assassin temple doesn't get as much screentime as the super snipers, morphing ninja infiltrators, soulless psyker hunters and screaming junkie berserkers there's no excuse to stop looking boss .

Venenum Assassins are an Officio Assassinorum clade that specializes in poisoning people (their name is the Latin High Gothic word for venom). They use all sorts of natural poisons, and presumably an impressive array of synthetics too. While one would assume they would just poison food and drink as well as use discreet injectors, they're trained to utilize unconventional delivery methods too, like poisoning chairs. They're also known to use blessed psi-negative poisons to kill daemons or chaos corrupted targets, suggesting that they don't just sit around palaces messing with the seating arrangements.

Despite the utility of such killers, they're a more behind-the-scenes type. Their specialization and training doesn't appear well optimized for battlefield roles, and thus Games Workshop doesn't seem to care much about them. Probably because the "I poisoned the well and caused your entire army to get sick and die" angle doesn't translate well to game rules.

Homebrew Venenum Assassin

Venenum Assassin

Pts	M	WS	BS	S	T	W	I	A	Ld	Sv/Iv
190	7	2+	2+	4	4	5	7	5	9	6+/4++
Keywords	Faction	Imperium, Officio Assassinorum
	Non-Faction	INFANTRY, CHARACTER, AGENT OF THE IMPERIUM, Venenum ASSASSIN

• Special Rules
  • Agent of the Imperium (1/detachment can be in an Imperium detachment without taking up a slot, without preventing detachment abilities in that detachment, without preventing army abilities in that army, and ignoring any rule that requires it to share a specific faction keyword with its detachment and any rules for determining your army faction.)
  • Deep Strike
  • Execution Force (If you have an Imperium non-Fallen Warlord, you can include this unit in your army as part of a Vanguard Detachment even if that detachment contains no HQ units. If you do so, that Detachment’s Command Benefits are changed to "None" and its Restrictions are changed to "This Detachment cannot include the same datasheet more than once.")
  • Fearless
  • Independent Operative (Cannot join or be joined, cannot generate Warlord Traits if made warlord.)
  • Lightning Reflexes (4++ invulnerable save, has no penalties on Initiative for charging through difficult terrain.)
  • Move Through Cover (Roll an extra die when rolling to move through difficult terrain.)
  • No Escape (-2 to Look Out, Sir tests vs wounds this model inflicts.)
  • Precision Strikes (2+)
  • Mithridatism: This model is immune to the Poisoned and Fleshbane special rules.
  • Lesser Catachan Barking Toad Protocol: When this model suffers its last unsaved Wound to a close combat attack, center the small blast template over the model. All models underneath the template, except for this model, count as being hit by one of this model's close combat attacks. After resolving these hits, remove this model as a casualty. All wounds inflicted by this special rule count towards Combat Resolution.

• Wargear
  • 2 Venom Injectors; dual profile:
    • Range Melee, S 1, AP-, Fleshbane, Shred, Unerring, Slow Toxin
    • Range 6, S 1, AP-, Fleshbane, Shred, Twin-linked, Slow Toxin, Pistol
      • Unerring: This weapon re-rolls all failed to-hit rolls in close combat.
      • Slow Toxin: Unsaved wounds caused by this weapon grant the special rule Dying to the model that suffered the wound. Dying: At the end of each of your turns, each of your models with this special rule must take a Toughness test. If they fail, they suffer a wound with no saves of any kind allowed. This wound has the Instant Death special rule.