Over the page уоu will find a new Warhammer 40,000 mission -Assassination! - which represents an Assassin being aided in a mission by friendly forces. This is just one of the ways you can fight unusual battles with Assassins. The next few pages feature a handful of different ways you can use your Assassins in your games of Warhammer 40,000.

A game with obvious appeal is the single Assassin versus an entire force. There are a number of ways you can do this. At the most straightforward level, the Assassin's opponent is allowed a small army - in other words, a commander and bodyguard. The Assassin starts a fair distance away (24" is a good rule of thumb), and must kill all of the enemy before he or she is eliminated. However, there are some variations on this theme:

A lone Vindicare Assassin is holed up in a commanding position, and is pinning down the enemy squads as they try to advance. He must be kilted before the army can continue.

When setting up your battlefield, make sure there is quite a lot of terrain that the Vindicare could be hiding in rocky outcrops, abandoned watchtowers, ruined buildings, tall trees and so on. The Assassin player does not place a miniature on the tabletop to begin with, but instead writes down the whereabouts of the Assassin's hiding place. The opposing player has 750-1,000 points-worth of units trying to advance across the battlefield.

Play as normal, except that whenever the Assassin player wants to check line of sight to a target, their opponent is obliged to turn away. It's a good idea for the Assassin's position to give him a line of sight over many of the obstacles on the tabletop. so that it isn't too easy to work out where he is hiding. Also note that the Assassin is allowed to change position as well - as long as he doesn't move within 2" of an enemy, then his location remains secret; just note down a new hiding place within 6" of the last and remember that his exitus rifle is Heavy 1.

The only way the enemy army can find the Assassin is to be within 2" of his hiding place at the end of a turn. When this happens, the Assassin is placed on the battlefield - it then becomes a fight to the death! This is a highly entertaining battle, as the Assassin sneaks about from vantage point to vantage point, while the opposing player desperately tries to look back along lines of fire to determine the Assassin's position, and his units lose men and get pinned in place, disrupting the search.

An Eversor Assassin has been dispatched to assault an enemy command post and destroy anything it comes across.

This game works well as a two-player game, but can be played solo as well. The command post is represented by floorplans (Space Hulk boards are ideal), which are laid out at the start of the game. With two players, the defending player picks an army of 750-1,000 points and assigns a unit to each room of the command post. These units are not placed on the table, and may do nothing until the Assassin enters the room or a friendly model, which has encountered the Assassin, enters the room. In addition, at the end of any turn in which there was

shooting or close combat, the defending player may roll a D6 for any unit in a room adjacent to the one in which the combat/shooting took place. On a roll of 4, 5 or 6 they are alerted by the sounds of combat and are placed on the table at the start of their next turn. Defenders who are broken fall back towards the nearest friendly-occupied room.

As a solo game, the Assassin player must pick the defending army, and when units would be placed on the table, randomly generate which of the units appears. You'll have to use a bit of common sense when controlling the defenders. Basically, most squads will attempt to stand and shoot at the Assassin. Close combat experts, such as Orks or Dark Eldar Wyches for example, will try to assault the Assassin.

An enemy army has unwittingly invaded a world used by one of the Officio Assassinorum Temples as a training ground. They suddenly find themselves beset by a veritable army of Assassins!

This is a pretty simple but fun battle. The Assassin player only ever uses one Assassin at a time, but every time the Assassin is killed, another takes their place. You should nominate a feature on the tabletop to be the entrance to the Temple's hidden complex - the Assassins must prevent any enemy model moving into contact with the entrance. Keep track of the number of Assassins killed, then swap sides with your opponent to see if they can do better!

The majority of the time, an Assassin will work alone. Occasionally, however, teams of Assassins are dispatched, or an Assassin may find him or herself fighting alongside other military forces (as in the Assassination! Mission given later). Not only that, but Assassins do not just fight alongside Imperial forces. In the Imperium's history there have been many occasions when it was deemed better to aid one enemy force over another, for the long term benefit of humanity. For example, consider two Ork warbands fighting over a world near to Imperial space. The winner of the war will then unite the survivors and possibly attack Imperial worlds. In these circumstances it may be better for a few covert Imperial agents to support the weaker of the two factions, which will then have a two-fold effect. Firstly, the war will last longer, thereby seeing the deaths of more Orks. Secondly, a weaker Warboss is more likely to spend time consolidating his grip on the world, fighting usurpers within own his ranks and so on. The Imperial agents may even change sides, thereby ensuring that no side claims a great victory, and postponing the potential invasion almost indefinitely.

What this boils down to, is the fact that it isn't totally unreasonable for an Assassin to fight alongside an Ork or Eldar army. However, I'd strongly recommend that the Assassin is played by a separate player, and that the Assassin be given very strict mission guidelines which do not necessarily benefit the 'allied' player all the time. The idea here is to make sure that the main army commander is not directly controlling the Assassin's actions. You can also do this in a regular army (say Imperial Guard or Space Marines) with the Assassin really fighting alongside the army for their own ends, rather than to help out the force commander. There are a number of ways of doing this. As mentioned above, you could have a different player using the Assassin, who sets themselves a mission which they must achieve (such as killing the enemy commander or destroying a set points value of units, etc).

Alternatively, you could say that the Assassin has to attack the most expensive enemy character model (or best psyker in the case of a Culexus) and once that character is dead, the Assassin's mission is complete and they vanish from view, never to be seen again. Another possibility is to keep track of the number of victory points scored by the Assassin. At the end of the Assassin's turn, divide this victory points total by 100 and deduct it from the roll of a D6. On a score of 0 or less, the Assassin decides they have done enough and leaves!

Well, those are just a few ideas off the top of my head. I'm sure that you're inventive enough to come up with lots more (have a look at the Assassin mission in White Dwarf 232's Chapter Approved).