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So the culexus has apparently become rather good nowadays, and psykers are more important than ever.
His ability to passively strip all psychic buffs within a 12" radius is only hampered by his mobility and survivability - so what if you stuck him in a vendetta or storm raven and zoomed him right over that screamerstar or jetseer council? Getting to measure from the hull of the transport rather than his base increases the area of influence massively to boot.

It may not be cheap, but you can still deploy him normally if your opponent doesn't field psykers and use move-shoot-run shenanigans, tankiness, and undeniable melee prowess.

You can put him in a Drop Pod and get him there

Well yes, but he'd have to disembark and would thus be vulnerable to shooting and assault. And there's the random element of scattering. But in a flyer he can sit safely and nullify everything below and you can place it exactly where you want.

The reason for the drop pod is that it always comes in on turn 1. You also usually only need one sure turn to kill or cripple most psychic deathstars.

In a flyer what do you do if it doesn't show up until turn 4? Also what if the opposing player outmaneuvers your flyer (ie GoI out of range, then GoI behind you next turn). I am not saying it doesn't have merit but the drop pod gives you one sure turn at the beginning of the fight to remove what is probably half your opponent's army.

kodi wrote:
Well yes, but he'd have to disembark and would thus be vulnerable to shooting and assault. And there's the random element of scattering. But in a flyer he can sit safely and nullify everything below and you can place it exactly where you want.

I would not call it vulnerable to shooting
You need 72 S4 shots to take him down, 43.2 at S7 and even 14.4 at S8 or higher.
How many points for this do they have left after they bought a PsyStar?

They could charge you, probably at S5, and they would need around 14 attacks to kill you.
But what is going to charge you?
The PsyStar just got 4 members shot dead in the Psychic Phase, the rest of the army also took out a couple of models since you cancelled their Invisibility.
Then they lost another model to Perils of the Warp.
They have no Psychic Powers, do not Generate Warp Charges and might even have had to make a Morale-check with a -3 modifier.
They gain no Bonus Attacks and will lose another 2 models before they get to strike.

But at this point they killed your 140 point Culexus.
You killed 9+ models from the PsyStar, totally ignoring their Armour with every single attack, and took down at least 350+ points.
Their PsyStar is now broken and you lost a single model.

I knew the etherium was good, but hadn't done the math. It really is pretty bonkers how tanky the dude is between it and his inv. save.

The beatiful thing is that if you have both a drop pod and a storm raven (which isn't exactly a rare thing..) you can decide on a case by case basis. If you're up against one of those ridiculous TauDar lists I wouldn't want to pod him at least. Against a soon-to-be-teleporting centurion blob however, it would however be pretty damn awesome.

Speaking of assassins, it's actually kinda funny how the culexus does the eversor's job better than the dude himself since he has ap2, instant death, and astronomically higher probability of surviving overwatch or a full phase of shooting.

The Eversor has higher Strength, explodes when killed, charges 3D6 with 8 attacks and has a 97% chance to wound anything he hits (usually hits 6-7 times).
Eversor's job is to find and kill small units with a bad safe and he is damn good at it, especially against MC's.
Remember that his ID is only guaranteed on Psykers!

All Assassin's are really good, they just have different roles and are kind of 'meh' when you use them for a wrong role.

Kangodo wrote:

kodi wrote:
Well yes, but he'd have to disembark and would thus be vulnerable to shooting and assault. And there's the random element of scattering. But in a flyer he can sit safely and nullify everything below and you can place it exactly where you want.

I would not call it vulnerable to shooting
You need 72 S4 shots to take him down, 43.2 at S7 and even 14.4 at S8 or higher.
How many points for this do they have left after they bought a PsyStar?

They could charge you, probably at S5, and they would need around 14 attacks to kill you.
But what is going to charge you?
The PsyStar just got 4 members shot dead in the Psychic Phase, the rest of the army also took out a couple of models since you cancelled their Invisibility.
Then they lost another model to Perils of the Warp.
They have no Psychic Powers, do not Generate Warp Charges and might even have had to make a Morale-check with a -3 modifier.
They gain no Bonus Attacks and will lose another 2 models before they get to strike.

But at this point they killed your 140 point Culexus.
You killed 9+ models from the PsyStar, totally ignoring their Armour with every single attack, and took down at least 350+ points.
Their PsyStar is now broken and you lost a single model.

This reads like a brochure written by the Culexus Marketing Division.

We're talking about a "PsyStar" consisting of one-wound, no-invul-save Psykers who move <12" and actually take Morale checks? In an army which has no means to kill a Culexus Assassin standing in the wide open other than chucking their deathstar at it.

Seer Councils are dead. The only real "psychic deathstars" that exist right now are Screamerstars and Centstars. Other than that, you're just talking about "a guy cast Invisibility on his most powerful unit."

I can tell you from experience that a Screamerstar flat-out does not care about a Drop Podding Culexus. Here's how that situation plays out in reality:

1. Culexus drops in, yells "boo!" and turns off Cursed Earth/Forewarning and/or Invisibility
2. Gathering 6-10 Warp Charge, he fires the Animus at the Screamerstar
3. ...into a 3++ re-rolling 1's, as the Grimoire is not a psychic power
4. Maybe one Screamer dies?
5. Throws Psyk-out grenade, with a ~66% chance of causing a wound to two-wound Heralds, assuming you don't feel like dumping Fateweaver's re-roll on trying to get a better Perils
6. Heralds, who move 12", decide not to be idiots and stand in the radius during their own Psychic phase
7. Psychic phase continues as if the Culexus wasn't even there
8. Shooting phase begins, you remind the other player that Screamer sweep attacks are a thing
9. Culexus dies with literally zero investment in taking him down (only 6 Screamers are needed on average to sweep him to death)

I could see Centstar being slightly more annoyed since they won't be guaranteed to be able to move out of range (and therefore, you might at least prevent them from casting Gate for a turn, which could be important in certain specific situations) but at the same time Centstar is also incredibly resilient to the incoming damage and would have no issue punching the thing to death, so it's basically just a one-shot "lose a turn" and some minor damage to a Centstar as a best-case.

Everybody I know who tried them, tried them in a Drop Pod first. Then they found that the intended targets just weren't affected to the degree they desired, and that the Culexus died too easily.

Then some of them tried it in Vendettas/Stormravens/Stormfangs, and found that they were basically auto-losing to Tau/Necrons/Knights/Serpents, as they'd invested 300-400 points into a one-trick-pony counter to two specific army builds. At that point it's no longer a competitive army--it's just a targeted screw-you to a couple of specific lists, and one that doesn't even work that well in the first place.

DJ3 you are ignoring the fact that the assassin list has only spent ~200 pts on the assassin and pod. This leaves a ~600 pts just in the psychic deathstar's price. Which equates to a lot of dakka you can use to kill a shield eternal chapter master or 3++ reroll 1's unit. For example the Culexus should average 1 wound with his own shooting. There is literally an exponential difference between an invisible unit and a unit without invisibility. Also a 3++ reroll 1's is also an exponential difference with a 2++ reroll 1's.

Really though a lot of the reason to take a Culexus is to stop invisible on powerful unit X. Invisibility is very simply the single most broken ability in the game if you cannot get enough warp charges to block it (which is true for most lists).

DJ3 is dead on although if your goal is simply to remove invisibility for a single turn then there's a small chance you can do that and possibly capitalize. Just remember most stars will have bubble wrap including scouting wrap and/or mobility to avoid the null area after arrival. That's one of the main reasons the culexus isn't seen more, well that and 2 source limits.

I think it's cool and disruptive to many forces but just not that good against star units for the above reasons.

Sounds like that culexus did his job for 140 pts against the SS. He shut down a whole round of pew-pew during the most critical turn in a match. The 1st turn.

But to echo the posting above, he's situational.

I find the cullexus a great fire magnet... or at worst, a "escort" to one of your unit.

FYI... he hangs out with my Imperial Knight, or simply provide distractions in the enemy's face.

I think a Culexus can be a pivotal asset in a local tournament for a player who's in touch with his/her local meta.

It's a bit short-sighted to think of him solely as a psychic-star shutdown, I've played him multiple times against a daemon player who usually runs a Nurrgle flying DP circus and it's proven extremely effective at neutralizing DPs long enough for the rest of your army to shred them.

The Culexus is great against any army that includes ANY number of psykers, whether it's a lone Librarian, or a summoning list.

He DOES need a resilient transport though, and IMO the pod is not it, since once it lands the Culexus will get either taken out or dodged.

If I field a Culexus I will normally make sure I have both a Land Raider and Stormraven available to carry him where needed. The Land Raider is the more defensive option as it allows the Culexus to be fielded turn 1 and deter any psykers from getting close, the Stormraven as a much greater reach and employed more aggressively. Both vehicles have a large footprint to maximize the Culexus' aura.

Final thoughts: it's extremely satisfying to insta-gib ANY DP (short of Belakor) with a guardsman-size model