Since I am about to have time to start playing again, I have been thinking on the latest releases and one in particular fulfills an itch I have been wanting to scratch for a while. I always had my scions in mind of an Inquisitorial task force, Xenos hunting experts. Now when Inq was released I was happy as it fulfilled this almost completely. But there was something missing that I really wanted to add, but they were stuck in the GK codex so it was not really worth bringing. But now the assassins are free at last so I can now add them to my Scions and Inquisitor and go happy Xenos hunting.
The assassins are a great ally option for the MT scions. Scions are great, don't get me wrong, but they have some weak areas that Assassins shore up real well. Scions are mobile and have great short range shooting, but are vulnerable to assaults. Well assassins fit in here nicely. You can either pick one that you feel the need for most, and go from there. Or you can bring their formation which is another really good option to have some great power added to your army. Assassins are great in that they are an amazing disruption unit, and while 4 are not cheap, two are hard to hit (on first turn for one) one is easy to hide out of range, and the other is not too hard to keep hidden first turn with good placement with infiltrate. Unless you make some bad mistakes, its not easy to give them away the first turn.
The Vindicare fills the long range role, having 72" range and the ability to kill multi wound monsters and threaten tanks means he is a big boon to scions, whose only long range shooting is their vehicles. He is great for taking out weapons in units that are dangerous or targeting characters that are providing buffs to the units around them.
The Eversor is a good lawn mower, but even with the gauntlet he is not that great against 2+ save opponents. Best to keep him against larger mediocre units. Honestly this is great for scions as they are not amazing in assault and struggle to put down hordes. Now you have an eversor to jump in and mow a large unit of orks or other horde unit down. If he can get a character alone too, he is actually not bad against them, simply for the number of attacks he can pile on and high enough I to go first most times.
The Callidus is a good choice in my opinion. She is very survivable first turn, and her gun is better than the eversors. She does not dole out as much attacks, but her poisoned 3+ rending attacks or Phase sword means she can deal better with tougher opponents. Honestly its her buffs that also give her a great boost as a choice. Reroll to seize is not bad at all, and the -3 to the first reserve roll is also good, if situational. She is a great disruption unit, that can wreak havoc in the back field shooting and assaulting units and giving your army time to get into position. She'll go down eventually, but not before doing good damage and taking a lot of fire her way.
The Culexes is also great, for the simply fact of being able to punk psykers out and nullify their powers. While they can only be shot at BS 1, they still can be hit by blasts which don't care as much about this, so expect this to be the norm for dealing with them. Template weapons as well, so watch out for those when placing this guy. That being said he is still very hard to hit and can do damage in CC, though is really dependent on psykers being around. If there are none, well you have a good disruption unit that can scare your opponent into wasting more fire against it than needed and save the rest of your army some shooting.
Personally I am leaning on trying all four out at once with my scions and an inquisitor and seeing how well they go. In theory they should do very well, scions can deal with tanks and MCs up close, the vindicare can hurt key targets at range. The Culexus and callidus will by screwing with them in the back and the eversor will be sneaking up to charge some unsuspecting units. How I see this playing is aggressive. Trying to get multiple turn two charges off into the enemy to hit them hard early. Use this to get control of the board and scions onto key points while the enemy is dealing with multiple assassins in their face.
Will see how this goes. Otherwise, any one of them will really help scions out, though I see the callidus and vindicare being my top choices. More to follow.
GG