Long story short, I'm preparing to play a game of the 2021 edition of Kill Team with three players who have never played any edition of Kill Team. We're going to adapt the Joint Ops rules from the current edition of Kill Team, sort of. The Joint Ops rules allow each player to take half of their normal kill team. This works fine with most of the factions since they use two fire teams - each such player would only use one fire team. Each of the Space Marine kill teams, however, consists of a single fire team, and most such Space Marine fire teams consist of roughly the same number of models as most of the other factions' fire teams. Two of the other players will be taking factions whose kill teams consist of two fire teams. One of the players, however, will be taking an Intercessor fire team. While I had bits collected to create a Grey Knights kill team during the 2021 edition, I didn't want to complicate things with psyker powers. Since this is an introductory game and not one that will be played with the intent to "win," I figured I would take a Deathwatch fire team and then the Intercessor player and I would be on opposing sides, with the other players (Adepta Sororitas and Necrons) siding with either my Deathwatch or the other player's Intercessors. This will give each player 5 or so models to control* and each side will be relatively even.

* We're limiting things to the Core Book and the Compendium, ignoring the balance dataslates that gave most of the Adeptus Astartes fire teams an additional model.

So I'll be fielding "Deathwatch" (they'll be painted as the Legio, but will follow the Deathwatch fire team rules). 

A Legio battle-brother from the

Griffon Lords Chapter

I figured I'd capitalize on the Deathwatchness of the fire team - focusing on weapons that distinguish the Deathwatch from the other Space Marine fire teams, not to mention the other factions of the Imperium.  Here's the kill team I'm currently planning to take:

• Deathwatch Veteran Watch Sergeant with bolt pistol and thunder hammer
• Deathwatch Veteran (Fighter) with grav-pistol and power maul
• Deathwatch Veteran (Warrior) with Deathwatch shotgun
• Deathwatch Veteran (Warrior) with Deathwatch shotgun
• Deathwatch Veteran (Heavy Gunner) with Infernus heavy bolter

And just in case we use the balance dataslate and I get the additional model:

• Deathwatch Veteran (Warrior) with storm bolter

I just realized as I'm typing this that Scouts can take shotguns, so perhaps I need to swap those out for Deathwatch boltguns or Stalker pattern boltguns. If I do that, I'm more likely to take the Stalker pattern boltguns since the Deathwatch boltguns come with power weapons. What I don't want to do is look like I've shown up with the intent to curb-stomp these players. The goal is to introduce them to Kill Team and, maybe, get them interested in picking the game up themselves (I'll have to be very clear that we're playing the previous edition and that the current edition is slightly different). If my own guys get shellacked, that's okay.

For anyone with experience playing the 2021 edition of Kill Team, does my planned list look like it's not optimized? While I've assembled the bits, I haven't assembled any models yet and there's still time to change things.

(The next blog entry will be about the color schemes and Chapters I've selected.)