I wasn't really going to waste a thread on this, but I can't help myself; the Callidus has always been my favorite Officio Assassinorum operative, even if they haven't always been as efficient as their siblings, depending, but the mechanics for their iconic drug seem...weird? Say I'm a Callidus Operative, trying to sneak close to a secessionist planetary governor, maybe Malaki Vess, just for a name. The book says the drug's effects last for 2 hours, but does that mean 2 hours where some changes are possible, if need be, and then I'm frozen with that face, like my mother warned me about, as a child, or will it make me force-revert to my true self, wearing my gimp suit, carrying guns and blades that were under my skin, but are now forced back out? Not to downplay the skill of the Callidus, but it seems I might need more than two hours; sometimes it could take days, months, or even longer, and I can't always sneak away from my host, if you will. Four doses of polymorhine seems like a lot, but if it means only eight hours, total, of altered appearance, that's a problem.

As an aside, it's a very complex, exotic drug. For the long missions, would the Callidus be capable of occasionally making more of it, or is it like a control on their asset, and the group employing her service occasionally stashes some, in a pre-arranged drop spot? Again, as much as it seems a lot, if you spend four months infiltrating, getting intel, tying up loose ends, and then cutting the head off the snake, it's a long time with not much PM.

Lastly, and I've asked this on other forums, before, where does her gear usually go? When Callie lands on the target planet, she might be in the catsuit, wielding a C'Tan phase sword, a Neural Shredder, and the other Assassin goodies. Does her skin ooze up, and cover these things? Does she have several hidden compartments, inside her body? (I figure if a Space Marine can stow away 12+ extra organs in their enlarged frames, what's one collapsible sword, and pistol?) Does she ball up her suit, when she puts on someone else's clothes and just have to go without their benefits? My favorite Assassins, but they've often somewhat confused me, mechanically, down through the years. Always a bit weird that GW didn't just make an attractive female model, but the suited up model they did, that no one ever likely sees that way. Also vaguely wonder what they're like "at home", when not working, and how they get back to Holy Terra, or whatever planet their Temple is now on, afterward, to then get sent on the next one? 1d4chan might not be too popular here, with all the sarcasm, but they did a really nice example of the guy who needs to go turn Deadpool on for another mission, describing his file, the place, and prepping him for his next Kool-Aid Man entrance; I wish they had done something like that for the other three.

Like any other assassin; when she infiltrates in the open, she hides her stuff somewhere. I never intrepreted it that she hid it in her. Maybe one closed compartment for her pistol, but not much.

For the drug, I always interpreted it as being a drug that makes you malleable for 2 hours and then you become fixed, so you decide your appearance during this 2 hours, and then you're ready to go.

On rollforheresy.net, Messiahcide (cogniczar here) made a profile for a callidus assassin and posted rules for her drug in it.

Here you go: http://www.rollforheresy.net/bestiary/callidus-assassin

I always sort of assumed she wore the synskin, like her Assassin siblings, for all the benefits it granted, and maybe it has some "holes", if you will, sort of like some clothing Space Marines might don, but that won't block the connection points between the Black Carapace and the power armor, and these would allow her skin to "sheathe" over her suit, still benefiting from it, as subdermal plating would. (I figure if they can hide extra implants in their bones, when not in use, this is not a big stretch.) Otherwise, there's precious little reason for it to be allocated to her, if she's almost never going to wear it in the line of duty. I've never read Draco's books with Meh'Lindi, so maybe they describe stuff I haven't thought of, but if she isn't going to kill people with her iconic gun, her iconic sword, and wearing her iconic armor, it seems sort of weird for any of these things to be "iconic", but equally weird that she'd be able to get back to wherever they were otherwise stashed, to use at just the right time. Of course, I might also be reading way to much into this whole point, as it's not really so critical to anything else.

As an aside, what's a good target for her? I know that seems dumb, but I've always looked at the Callidus, even being my favorite, and said "a gun that targets the mind? Nifty!" Then, I realize that it targets based on their Ld score, which was bad, because the "leaders" she should be targeting have the Leadership to keep forces at the front, and now they seem to just be wound on a 4+, which is 50/50. In this game, I like that they target WP, rather than Toughness, but then I flipped through some books, and again, most things that will boss around other things seem to have a soft cap on their Toughness, being only so durable as a human seems capable of being, but having Willpower that can sail up into the stratosphere, making her gun chancy, at best, barring the Righteous Fury auto-targeting the Head slot. Except against dedicated Toughs, like Orks, and some Nids, both of which aren't too likely to see the infiltration of this Assassin, when Deadpool can just Kool-Aid Man his way in, as Eversor's are apt to do, or the Vindicare can snipe the Synapse critter from the next state. Aside from saying "the leader of the heretic cult", what's a good target for her, that won't have the better WP than T? otherwise, she might as well leave the gun behind, too, and focus on her C'Tan phase sword.

The gun isn't for killing the boss, though. It's a weapon that can hit multiple targets; best for spraying down the less-willful guards of the target before shanking him with a phase-sword. On top of that, while it might be against Willpower instead of Toughness... It still ignores Armor, which saves time and effort.

I always sort of assumed she wore the synskin, like her Assassin siblings, for all the benefits it granted, and maybe it has some "holes", if you will, sort of like some clothing Space Marines might don, but that won't block the connection points between the Black Carapace and the power armor, and these would allow her skin to "sheathe" over her suit, still benefiting from it, as subdermal plating would. (I figure if they can hide extra implants in their bones, when not in use, this is not a big stretch.) Otherwise, there's precious little reason for it to be allocated to her, if she's almost never going to wear it in the line of duty. I've never read Draco's books with Meh'Lindi, so maybe they describe stuff I haven't thought of, but if she isn't going to kill people with her iconic gun, her iconic sword, and wearing her iconic armor, it seems sort of weird for any of these things to be "iconic", but equally weird that she'd be able to get back to wherever they were otherwise stashed, to use at just the right time. Of course, I might also be reading way to much into this whole point, as it's not really so critical to anything else.

When she is infiltrated and passing as your mother, she doesn't need her armour, she will stab you with a fork in the windpipe and you'll die.

When she is going spy/commando, she will use her gear.

That's the same as FBI or CIA agent, on battle or in missions involving combat, they will wear appropriate stuff, when doing the sleeper agent stuff, they won't wear combat gear.

I've always felt that the Callidus was best suited for taking out "inconvenient" Imperial nobles. They live in armored towers so taking them out from the next zip code isn't really an option. The Eversore would likely just make a mess of things but the Callidus? She floats in as the girl the target has had a crush on since the scholarship! When the party's over, so is he... And that cute and well mannered Arbiter will be sure to investigate...

Indeed. There have been a few Black Library novels featuring the Callidus, so it's fairly well fleshed-out. The 'active' period of the drug is the time in which you can make physical changes - fat and gross musculature normally, skeleton and cartilage with the implants the callidus temple receives.

Their weapons are secreted wherever needed. They're compact and the average person wouldn't recognise them anyway. 90% of the time, a Callidus wouldn't use their 'signature' wargear anyway - unless going in as an execution force (i.e. the 'battlefield situation' that the 40k model represents), you don't need their gear. The phase blade is nice, but if secreting it would make it harder to infiltrate, it'll be left at home.

For an 'average' mission, a callidus would have an operation plan which probably only involved them replacing one individual - they'd get on-planet, shiv their duplicate, and turn up to work the following day in their gear. No phase blade, no neural shredder, unless they could sneak them in without being detected. That's why one signature item of callidus gear is the poison blades - guard-less, hilt-less stillettos that are little more than poisoned knitting needles, which could be easily hidden under clothing (they're the weapons on the garter-scabbard of the model), or as 'chopsticks' in a hair-do, or whatever.

Plus, as noted, they're still Assassin Operatives. Even if unarmed, they're still lethal. It's like attacking Jackie Chan in a room where there is stuff. The exact nature of the 'stuff' is immaterial, you're still going down to a soundtrack of 'twoings' 'clonks' and 'ka-thwacks'.

She'll stay 'in character' for anything from a day to years - remember that a callidus' weapons include deception as much as stabbing people. An assassin could kill the leader of a revolutionary council, but unless she's also going to wipe out all potential heirs, you've still got a rebel world. Killing and replacing the defence minister, and secretly sabotaging the world's battleplans before the Imperium's retribution fleet arrives.....a far better use of her time.

'At home' is just continuous nightmarish training/torture, study and surgery. As described, she has to maintain officio assassinorium combat standards, but also needs a proffesiorial knowledge of languages and cultures, and - at least when impersonating abhumans, mutants and xenos - needs specific surgical procedures to support the polymorphine.

As to appearance.....it depends on the assassin. Two good examples of a Callidus 'at rest' are Assassins on long-term secondment to Inquisitors.

Meh'Lindi, from the Inquisition War trilogy, always reverted to her 'default' face, and took a specific pride in recreating her tattoos and scars.

By comparison, Anna, from the Macharius trilogy, didn't. In fact the guardsmen aiding the inquisitor never find out what 'she' looked like - it's a fair thing to say 'she' didn't look like anything any more except the face she was wearing at the time. This leads to one of the guardsmen who forms a relationship with her picking up a (rather unfair) reputation amongst the uninformed members of Macharius' high command as a shameless womaniser...