Friday, October 4, 2024

Horus Heresy 2e Review: Clade Venenum Assassin

Warpstone Flux Rating: ⭐️
1.5/5 stars. Rounded down. Almost might and could be useful. But missing the mark very widely. 

Background.
Masters of toxic alchemy and recruited by the Clades to become assassins by means of poisoning their enemies. They are supposedly the most successful clade of them all. Narratively speaking that makes a lot of sense. On the battlefield, this is a gross miscalculation. 

Strengths.
At first glance, 3 wounds and a tonne of special rules seems great. But once you start picking some of them apart, it becomes apparent that this is yet another assassin that won't last terrifically long, but might take down a couple of standard marines if you're lucky. 

The template toxic ejector is actually useful. With poison and rending, it might well cause wounds! But its just far too close range for comfort and even a little return fire will probably do for this assassin. 

Being immune to rad phage and similar is great. 

The hook fang that they use will kill standard marines thanks to the AP3. Hence this is an assassin that is potentially useful in melee. They also cause additional wounds if there's an unsaved one on successive turns which is very helpful for a narrative.

Weaknesses.
If you are so close range that your toxic ejector fires, then the return fire - even by bolt guns - will see you off. 

In melee, even with the high initiative, you are not going to survive against space marines for long. At least you will take out a couple on a good day before they get you. The Venem special rule for repeating rules will hardly apply. But who knows. If you manage to scratch Abaddon (good luck), then it might plausibly be a good use of your assassin. 

In addition to this, the rad phage immunity from the unnatural conditioning is hardly going to matter much, and the poison globes will also not matter. A smart opponent will destroy this character at range, or via a shooting reaction. Even with a standard tactical squad (which costs less than this character).  

Builds.
There are no builds available to discuss here. I don't regard this assassin as playable in the game. 



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