question about culexus assassin

quick question about culexus interacting with GK and enemy psykers.

The Animus Speculum's assault value is increased by 1 for every psyker within 12" of the Culexus when he comes to shoot at an opponent. So....questions:

Grey Knight squads (no matter their size) constitute a single pysker?
Psyker henchmen squads constitute a single psyker no matter if there are 12 in a unit?


Because if this isn't so the following could happen:

Culexus fires at a Herald of Tzeentch (12" away) with a Daemon Prince (with psychic powers) 10" away, a Chaos Sorceror 8" away and 3 Grey Knights strike squads (10 man) within 12" of the Culexus along with a Dreadknight 6" away.

The asasult value from that would be: 1 (herald of tzeentch) + 1 (Daemon Prince) + 1 (Sorceror) + 1 (Dreadknight) + 30 (Strike Squads) + 2 (base value) = 36 Str 5 AP1 shots!

Surely that can't be right......

I'm pretty sure units with the "Brotherhood of Psykers" rule count as a single Psyker. so in your example you would get 9 shots.

still....9 shots against a herald of tzeentch at Str 5 AP1 isn't that bad....

yeah but now consider that herald of tzeentch is a independent character and no daemon player would let them run alone... those 9 shots would hit a unit of horrors.. around 8 hits, 7 wounds at max... consider that horrors can reroll all failed saves of 1. meaning if they stand in ruins for example thats only 2-3 dead horrors. thats just 18-27 dead points. the herald isnt even 100 points at ML 3 btw.

now consider the enemy turn firing at that single assassin. i dont believe the assassin will make their points worth most of the time, if at all.

Souba wrote:yeah but now consider that herald of tzeentch is a independent character and no daemon player would let them run alone... those 9 shots would hit a unit of horrors..  around 8 hits, 7 wounds at max... consider that horrors can reroll all failed saves of 1. meaning if they stand in ruins for example thats only 2-3 dead horrors. thats just 18-27 dead points. the herald isnt even 100 points at ML 3 btw.

now consider the enemy turn firing at that single assassin. i dont believe the assassin will make their points worth most of the time, if at all.

^^ Pretty much this, only thing you're gonna see running solo is monstrous creatures. Against whom the str5 of the culexus isn't great.

I've actually had a lot of success with the Culexus. He's pretty great at shredding MEQ and TEQ, because of S5 AP1. And he's pretty insanely difficult to kill, because of Etherium. He does NOT, in fact, die that quickly.

i would love to hear how he does shred TEQ and MEQ. sure that S5 AP 1 sounds great on the paper but on the board where cover is literally everywhere that ap 1 reduces in efficency quickly.

as for ethernium.. well while it gives the assassin some survivability at least it isnt that reliable either, passing a LD 9 or 10 test with 3d6 may sound good aswell but give that can turn quickly against you. it would be worthwhile if the enemy wouldnt be able to fire at another target if he fails to fire at the culexus but now its just something like "that unit fires on the culexus.. oh failed check.. whatever they fire on something else then..." next squad fires on the assassin etc.

Every game I've taken him in, he's made up his points.
Now granted...these are games against newbie players, so I pull my punches, but still...he does stuff, especially at BS8 with 8 shots.

I'd never take him to a tournament. He's fun, not fantastic.

yeah thats the biggest problem... the options you got to take instead of a culexus.

given the example like yours the culexus fires 8 times at a unit of marines in cover thats 7,3 hits, 4,8 wounds, 2,4 unsaved wounds.

a 6 man strike squad with a psycannon costs 5 points less and against the same target does (stormbolters and psycannon combined): 9,3 hits, 5,5 wounds, 1,8 unsaved wounds.

now consider that 1,8 is closer to 2 than 2,4 is to 3. both are almost equal.

what the strike squad however in comparison brings: a objective secured unit. additional warp charge, 6 wounds with a 3+ armour save or possible coversave (of wich the assassin doesnt get boni off most of the time due to allready having a 4++), 24" range opposed to 12" of the culexus and the biggest advantage: the strike squad fires the same amount of shots, every time. the assassin has to allign itself pretty close to multiple psyker units in order to even get those 8 shots you have to have at least 6 psykers in 12" range for the culexus to be "worthwhile".

so while i do built multiple fun lists myself i think even there the culexus is outshadowed by almost everything in this book. sadly