Assassinorum: Execution Force was a Games Workshop board game that at first glance seemed to be a gimmick offering a discount deal on expensive plastic miniatures. Is the game itself any good if you don't play Warhammer: 40,000? Let's take a closer look.
Unless noted otherwise, images are from the Board Game Geek page. It's a complicated game, and my photography skill and setup don't do it justice.
Contents
1 Rulebook
1 Assembly guide
4 Assassins
15 Chaos cultists
3 Chaos space marines
1 Chaos sorcerer
1 Demon familiar
Various cards and tokens
Dice
4 game board sections
Gameplay
Assassinorum: Execution Force is a cooperative game where 1-4 players control an Officio Assassinorum Execution Force sent to execute a Chaos sorcerer before he can complete an evil ritual. Each player selects a different assassin, and the cartoon below describes the lore for how they each operate:
Check out their other work, too! Great 40K fan content!
Each assassin has a card with stats and tokens for their special abilities. Their goal is to explore the maze spanning three of the game boards, uncovering room cards as they go until they locate the teleporter card and the control panel card. The deck of room tiles is randomized each time, and there are rules for how many to draw and which to place. All the while, random event cards dictate how many cultists and marines patrol the halls, and arrows and die rolls randomize their movements until they are alerted by player actions. The demon familiar relentlessly moves forward on the ritual countdown clock to remind the players of how little time they have.
After turning on the teleporter from the control panel, the players can move from the teleporter card to the ritual chamber board. There is no going back from there. The final battle with the chaos sorcerer requires teamwork, because he is tough as nails and he deals damage like nobody's business. If he falls before the countdown ends, the players have averted a catastrophe that could have threatened an entire star system. If they die, or the countdown ends, the players lose as hell literally breaks loose.
The mechanics make the game quite replayable, and allow a single player to challenge the game on their own, although I have thus far only played with @generikat's family on game nights. We have found it's helpful to have one person play as a sort of game-master, though, running the AI decks and looking up rules while everyone else plays. It's fairly fast-paced, but there are a lot of elements to track the first few times through.
Models and Game Components
The four assassin models are quite nice, and are clearly the selling point of this game, since this was a good way to get these high-power game models at a good price.
As for the baddies, the chaos sorcerer has optional bitz to assemble the villain as depicted in the game, or as any of the other options in the Sorcerer Lord in Terminator Armor kit, because that is exactly what it is. The fifteen Chaos cultists are also just three of the current retail kits. The three Chaos Space Marines appear to have been made from an old monopose release circa 4th edition, though, as they don't have quite the same flair as the current or most recently discontinued kits. They're still quite serviceable.
The cards are all good quality, and the cardboard and printing are fine. In fact, the components of the game don't seem cheap and disposable at all. The dice are basic dice, but they're red, and that's cool.
My only real complaint is the rulebook layout. It seems to be lacking in the polish it needed to make the explanations as clear as possible. The layout and order of information presentation just feels a bit off to me.
Oh, and the box is not deep enough to hold the assembled minis without risk of breaking them. Boo!
Overall Impression
If you bought this game for the minis and tossed the rest, shame on you! This is a good game. Most standard 40K games are adversarial, but this is a cooperative challenge with all the grimdark tension you could want. It's a lot more complicated than the Space Marine Adventures game I reviewed back when HIVE launched. It's also better quality, thanks to all the miniatures for everything, and thus and a lot more fun to play, in my opinion. Too bad it's also out of print now.
