Kill Team and Vehicles

[Sonic Para]

So I played my first round of Kill Team last night and immediately ran into a problem. I was using 6 Marines inside a Razorback (Las/TL Plas) and my opponent was using a Veteran Squad (Lascannon, Grenade Launchers, Chimera) and a Sentinel. We counted the vehicles for our respective morale check thresholds (once your force has lost 50% of models, you start making leadership checks to determine if you fail the mission).

 

The problem was that we both hit our morale check threshold on the same turn and we both had our vehicles on table. Due to the BRB stating that a vehicle's crew has unshakable faith in their warmachine, we played it as vehicles having leadership 10 for the sake of the auto-fail morale check. This seemed to make sense before the game but it meant that the game devolved into a race to see who could fail leadership 10 (and then 9, 8, etc...) first. It really made the other models on the table seem really insignificant and just felt like we weren't playing it right. The Kill Team mission offers no help for this situation though.

 

Anyone have any idea how to play this? Do vehicles just never take the morale check and so would auto-fail and lose the game if they are the only models left on table?

 

We were also thinking of playing the vehicles at the same leadership as the basic troop choice for our army as the crew for the vehicles still are Marines or Guardsmen. This doesn't explain the fluffy section about unshaking faith though...

[Vanor]

we played it as vehicles having leadership 10 for the sake of the auto-fail morale check.

 

The rules state on page 63 that vehicles never take a moral check for any reason.

 

I haven't had a chance to see the rules for kill team, so I'm not completely sure what the point of the check you're making. But my opinion would be that you simply wouldn't ever count the vehicles for anything that involved a moral check of any sort.

[Hellios]

Is it not a leadership test? otherwise fearless models would not be effected?

[Sonic Para]

In Kill Team, the victory conditions are a special Morale Check. Once one player has lost half or more of their models, the start taking a morale check at the beginning of their turn. They use the highest leadership present on the table and every turn that you pass the check, you apply a -1 modifier to the leadership. If you fail the morale check, then your entire force flees and the game is over (think Necron phase-out).

 

Fearless models still have to take it because it isn't a matter of falling back due to losing an assault or being shot at. Its an overarching, game-ending type deal. Its obvious that the idea behind it (due to you using the highest leadership model that is alive) was that a losing force can still fight on while their leader is present. The advancing enemy would then try as hard as they can to take out the high leadership model because the losing player would be forced to use the lesser leadership for their required test (same modifiers apply).

 

Vehicles auto-failing seems to be suggest by the BRB but in a game that is so fluff-centric and narrative as Kill Team (the mission even lets you split your close combat attacks and ranged shots between any number of models), it seems like the wrong way to do it. At the same time, running the vehicles as leadership 10 made the game-ending morale checks exactly the same for both player. Maybe I'm just sour on how we played it because we both hit our 50% threshold at the same time.

 

/EDIT: Also, in Kill Team you are allowed to make up to three models specialists by giving them a single unique Universal Special Rule (fleet, hit and run, etc...). My opponent and I both made our transport's Tank-Hunter specialists. Was that legal? Can you give a tank a USR in Kill Team? We agreed upon it working as the crew were effectively the specialists and, once again, the Kill Team mission in Battle Missions offers no clarification.

[Vanor]

Ok, thanks for clarifying the rules. :)

 

I think what I'd do is treat vehicles as if they didn't have a leadership value period. So you'd use the leadership from what ever unit had the highest listed value.

[Sparhawk]

That seems like the simplest way of going about it. Otherwise it can somewhat negate the advantage (and cost) of higher leadership models if all an ork guy has to do is park a trukk somewhere and then gets to make checks against ld 10 instead of the 7 or 8 they would normally have.

[Vanor]

That or run a land speeder around 24 inches a turn always keeping it as far away from everything as possible, just for the sake of the Ld 10 score.

 

As far as the USR, sure I can't see why you couldn't give a tank the Tank-hunter special rule. Even if you don't see them, there's going to be marines of some sort driving the thing, and they could very well have been given special training on how to hunt down and kill other tanks.

 

Also this is one of those things where it's really up to the people playing. The specialists rules are unique to the Kill Team mission, so you won't find anything else to cover it. If it's not covered there then it's up to the people playing to work out, and there likely isn't a right answer, unless they do a FAQ... Even other special rules in other advanced missions wouldn't likely be any help, as each mission seems to be self contained and generally the special rules only apply to that one mission type.

 

i.e. The reversed shooting order in the Close Quarters mission wouldn't ever apply to other missions.

[Arikel]

From my meager understanding of the rules, I actually wouldn't count vehicles as anything. Therefore they have no leadership values, don't count as a model in determining how many models there are in a squad, and don't count as loss of a squad model if they are destroyed. A player who loses all his models except for vehicles would lose the game.

[Seahawk]

Vehicles have no Leadership value, so obviously you can't use what's not there.

 

Yes, you can give "any model" a USR. The tank is a model, so of course you can give it a USR. Just remember, if you give three models USRs, they each have to be different USRs.

[breng77]

My biggest issue with Kill team is how to play transports... if each model counts as a separate unit can more than one embark a transport? Or can you embark only models that were purchased in the same force org slot? Or can anyone embark up to the max capacity? That said, there are instances in the rules where it says to count vehicles as LD 10 for certain things. I am not sure if this is a case such as that. However, it does pose a problem if someone fields 1/2 their army as vehicles, do they lose automatically when they reach half if all they have left are vehicles. I would say whatever you and your opponent agree to is fine. However, GW left some things out of the battle missions that make for interesting rules dilemmas.

 

The best one I have found so far is how do Characters that are vehicles (Bjorn, or Sammiel in his speeder) work in clash of heros?

[Ashe Darke]

My biggest issue with Kill team is how to play transports... if each model counts as a separate unit can more than one embark a transport? Or can you embark only models that were purchased in the same force org slot? Or can anyone embark up to the max capacity? That said, there are instances in the rules where it says to count vehicles as LD 10 for certain things. I am not sure if this is a case such as that. However, it does pose a problem if someone fields 1/2 their army as vehicles, do they lose automatically when they reach half if all they have left are vehicles. I would say whatever you and your opponent agree to is fine. However, GW left some things out of the battle missions that make for interesting rules dilemmas.

 

The best one I have found so far is how do Characters that are vehicles (Bjorn, or Sammiel in his speeder) work in clash of heros?

We played our first ones yesterday and that point got raised. We played it as only one guy is allowed in. A point about dedicated transports came up though. Obviously they're one unit when you buy them but when do they split? Deployment? I wanted to think that they could be deployed in there but once they got out they then became separate for the purposes of how many can go in a vehicle, but I can't find anything to say so which is a shame.

 

This ruleset it kinda bugged a bit, still fun though. I got stumped for what to give a guy so I gave him vulnerable to blast/templates for a laugh. That said there are ways of getting two Relentless guys and two Stealth people which is nifty. We though Doom Of Malan'tai with Eternal Warrior would be a funny one as well.

[Vanor]

if each model counts as a separate unit can more than one embark a transport?

 

Don't have the rules in front of me, but I believe that technically the rule is everything is treated as sort of a IC, and not just as a separate unit. So I'd say they can be at the very least deployed in the transport.

 

However I agree the rules do have a number of holes in them. Like the leadership value if any of a vehicle, or the transport issue, and so on.

[Hellios]

Rules as written only one person in a transport at a time... but this is stupid so we house ruled that any/all the kill team that can fit into a transport may use it if they are allowed. So people from multiple units, however a terminator couldn't use a rhino for example. We figure it's the Kill teams rhino and so it's all good :D. Obviously house rule.

 

Vehicles can have the USR Tank hunter, Black Templar dreadnoughts can select USR Tank Hunters or Furious charge... I think and Tank Commander Pask has Crack shot... which is Tank Hunter + re-roll wounds on MC's.

[breng77]

I'm pretty sure they don't count as IC because they cannot attach to anything they are just individual models. I was also pretty sure an IC can't attach to another IC, so I am not sure how they could all get in a transport even if that was the case. I like the house rule idea of anyone that fits can ride, it just makes sense from a fluff perspective. That said I have just avoided taking a transport thus far on a small table, it is not as important. especially given the mission objective.

[Vanor]

I'm pretty sure they don't count as IC...

 

They're not IC's persay, more like quasi-IC's. They act like IC's to a point, but aren't really covered by the IC rules, but rather by the rules with in the killteam mission.

 

I was also pretty sure an IC can't attach to another IC

 

They can attach to other IC's. Page 48 BRB, first paragraph.

[Hellios]

Thinks assassins and zoanthropes and so on... who work alone but don't join units ;)

[The_Crippster]

Since IC's can form their own units with each other, feel free to toss your whole unit of them in there, they'll likely just have to embark/disembark together.

[stinkenheim]

unless the model you are using has the IC rule then no, they can't join together The_Crippster. normal models fucnction as seperate units in kill team, not ICs, so they can wander around enxt to each other but are not joined together as a unit. you would have to discuss with your group about letting them all embark on a vehicle as technically they can't (you can only transport one unit at a time including any IC attached).