Officio Assassinorum

Every miniature painter has a pile of shame (or more optimistically, a pile of opportunity). Mine probably isn’t any worse than anybody else’s – I don’t buy a lot of boxed sets, because I know I’m a slow painter and I don’t need specific models for wargaming. But over the years I’ve bought a lot of third party stuff, or specific older miniatures from eBay, so when I go into a hobby shop it’s more often to pick up painting supplies than new miniatures. My new project offers new possibility, so while I was in town last week I decided to pick up a miniature in person.

I decided on a Culexus Assassin to join the Primaris Marine I painted last week. I vaguely recall seeing the original sculpt in ’90s editions of White Dwarf and thinking the huge head looked daft (and I suspect the whole line of Imperial Assassins owed more to the presence of ninjas in early ’90s media than anything else). But I rather like the current model, and it offers a change from the previous seven days of smooth yellow.

The lore around the Culexus Assassin fits quite well with the Lamenters chapter of Space Marines, and my nascent Galactic Relief Imperial Expeditionary Force (G.R.I.E.F.), too. While the Lamenters are cursed with genetic bad luck (this is not a hard sci-fi universe) and bad judgement, the Culexus is a soulless killing machine (in a universe where the soul is detectable and used for all manner of technological and magical purposes). Both are misfits in their own way, and you’d count your blessings not to share a barracks with them during a campaign.

In any case, I imagine the Culexus operating largely independently of the main G.R.I.E.F. deployment. His closest real-world equivalent in a relief operation might be something like a de-mining specialist – going into the most isolated, high-risk environments to exercise a very specific skillset. Similarly the Culexus stalks the fringes of G.R.I.E.F.’s operation, his aura of unnatural emptiness unsettling even the Lamenters, but commanding wary respect for his expertise in scouring warp-tainted ruins, hunting rogue psykers, and nullifying sorcerous threats before they can fester. He is less a member of the team and more a necessary evil, deployed when psychic contamination must be excised.

But that’s all a bit too grim and dark for a relaxing Sunday afternoon, so here’s the Culexus with his Lamenter friend, who I’m calling Brother Bernado, getting ready for some R&R.