Are inquisitors necessary with assassins?

[Brother Navaer Solaq]

I was thinking to myself. In a thematic xenos hunting army is an inquisitor needed when playing with assassins?

 

Or is there stories where space marines would use assassins?

[Bryan Blaire]

Couldn't the assassin be assigned to operate in the area for a purpose, and during the course of that, run across some Marines with a similar goal and simply act on the battlefield (or even a campaign, if their goals align), whether in concert and discussing with the Marines or not?

[Claws and Effect]

If I use Assassins I take an Ordo Malleus Inquisitor in Terminator armor, just so I can take them as a full detachment.

 

Assassins have no HQ unit, and if you stick one in a Space Marines detachment it kills their Chapter Tactics.

 

Inquisitors, however, have no keywords that get screwed by Assassins being present.

 

I use an old metal Captain Stern model for my Inquisitor.

[Toxichobbit]

No, you don't need an Inquisitor. That's because Inquisitor's don't sanction Assassins, only the HIgh Lords do. The Inquisiton has no control over the Assassinorum so including an Inquisitor to control an Assassin is no more lore friendly than including an Astra Millitarum Officer to control one. Likewise, Space Marines have no control over Assassins.

 

Higher ranking Imperial officials (almost certainly Inquisitors, maybe Chapter Masters if they are so inclined) can petition the High Lords to deploy an Assassin, but if the request is granted they don't gain command over that Assassin. The Assassin is autonamous (unless deployed with other Assassins in an Execution Force) and will pursue his or her mission while ignoring anything that doesn't contribute to said mission. That's not to say that the mission might not include supporting other Imperial formations, such as an Inquisitor and their retinue or a Marine strike force, but typically the mission is one of assassination. They're hitmen (and women), not soldiers. They do specific tasks, not general battlefield duties.

 

Translated into game terms this means that Assassins should stricly have rules to dicate their engagements based upon a player chosen mission. Something like their objective is to assassinate enemy character X, they can only engage other enemy combatants if they are within Z inches of them or their target, etc. Once the target is assassiniated the Assassin would either have secondary targets or leave the battlefield, again depending upon the mission the player chose. That would represent the Assassin going in, getting the job done and getting out. However, those rules would be clunky and user unfriendly, so while it's not fully representative of the way Assassins work, the current rules for them where a player picks their targets turn to turn without any lore justification are the best compromise. There's always the option for the player to head canon why the Assassin is there, but if they don't it doesn't matter.

 

As for how to include them, you've got a few options. You could drop them into any Imperial force as an Auxilliary Detachment. That's the most lore friendly way to include them because they don't have any connection to other forces. However, that comes with a CP penalty. The other easy solution is a Patrol Detachment. That gives you a tax of 1 HQ choice and 1 Troops choice. While the Assassins don't work with others there's nothing in the rules saying that a Detachment represents an in-universe formation. So you could have an Assassin, your HQ and your Troops all within the same Detachment but operating seperately from a lore perspective. If you go this route then I'm inclined to agree with people who take Inquisitors. Inquisitors are somewhat similar to Assassins in that they (and their warbands) are free agents rather than part of a millitary organisation. While the Assassin and Inquisitor might not have a shared command structure, they can both be operating in the same area while pursuing the same or different goals. The third option is to include them as part of a bigger detachment, whether Astartes, Millitarum, Sororitas or Mechanicus. While this is no less lore friendly than the other options, it is potentially the most penalising as the keyword system means the Assassin would prevent the Detachment making use of faction specific abilities (i.e. Chapter, Forgeworld & Regiment bonuses).

 

 

[Deschenus Maximus]

God I hope that Assassins (and Inquisitors/Inquisitorial Agents) get some sort of "Agents of the Emperor" rule that allows them to be included in Imperial detachments without having to sacrifice Chapter Tactics/Regimental Doctrines/etc whenever GW gets around to giving them a Codex.