Kill Team games

[rat of vengence]

Hey all, my local GW is running a 200 point Kill Team campaign, and I was after some tips. I am planing to run a scout force along the lines of;

 

Squad 1

Missile Launcher (Tank Hunter)

3 Sniper Rifles

Sergeant with Boltgun

Camo Cloaks

 

Squad 2

Heavy Bolter (Relentless)

3 Boltguns

Sergeant with Boltgun (Feel No Pain)

Camo Cloaks

 

My thoughts on this are that as individual models, firepower is greater than assault. I might see a landspeeder or dread in these games, so the missile is needed, Tank Hunter to make sure the 50% hits I get count. I want long range fire from snipers and Heavy Bolter, and rapid fire from boltguns. One Sergeant has Feel No Pain to keep at least one Ld 9 model alive as long as possible, combined with 3+ cover saves (fair amount of terrain) they should be pretty durable.

 

And thoughts on this from the brothers here?

 

RoV

[rat of vengence]

Anyone? Yes, I did use the searchy the servo-sperm, but I was after advice on this particular squad setup.

 

RoV

[Mysticaria]

Are you expecting people to take vehicles? How crazy do you think people will be in this tournament? You don't think anyone will pod an Eternal Warrior Doom of Malantai down on you do you? Deathleaper, Ork Nobs, Plague marines? Kill Team is a really unbalanced format, and especially hard for marines to play. Nearly every other army has something better it can put out there. I mean, is there anything you can do to an army of... say, 30 Ork Boyz? With 10 scouts you are only hitting on 5 shots a turn, and even then you are only wounding 2-3 models. Orks will run each turn and assault you when they still have 20-22 Ork Boyz. Or, if they want to be really mean they just take shoota boys and start firing on turn 1 with 60x S4 shots. Are people going to play mean stuff like that?

 

Your army looks ok, but BS3 is not the greatest. 3+ cover isn't that good either. I'm not really a fan of scouts in kill team, just because you need to be hitting the enemy with all your shots. I've seen people play similar sniper type lists with Eldar using pathfinders (2+ cover save, higher BS and better rending) and they don't do well just because they get assaulted before they can kill enough. Seems like you could do better with power armored marines. They'll still have 3+ save, and would be able to hit better with a higher weapon skill. I've seen some people play well with tactical squads, and some others do ok with sternguard, but honestly the format is a really hard one for marines since we don't have anything really broken.

 

At the end of the day, Marines just play Kill Team for fun. Take what's fun, and hope you don't face something stupid.

 

-Myst

[greatcrusade08]

ive played a single kill team game against thantoes.. he used a tac squad i used: (IIRC)

Telion (FNP i think)

ML scout

2 ccw scout (one with furious charge)

sniper (stealth)

2 bolter scouts and LSS with MM

 

and i beat 10 marines with that little lot.. first i killed his ML and meltagunner, then the PF sergeant and nothing else could take on my speeder

[Hellios]

Anyone? Yes, I did use the searchy the servo-sperm, but I was after advice on this particular squad setup.

 

RoV

 

Kill-team is pretty broken (I love it myself) but needs a lot of house rules... like can daemons deepstrike and is so as a squad or on their own... How many people can sit inside a transport (each guy being a unit and all... my groups rule is any number up to transport capacity can regardless of what squad they are from)..

 

Other things such as rules that affect the unit... do they just have an effect on the one guy (if say have an apothecary... never mind how I got one!, will he just get FNP or will he give it to all the people from the same unit or have an area effect)... Another example might be sanctioned psykers (whatever DH versions are)... do they each get to drop a template and if they suffer perils do they only die or if they are near enough will they focus power but then all risk being killed?

 

 

I mean RAW answers exist for many issues but house rules are best I feel for kill-team as it changes how the game works at a very basic level...

 

From my experience in kill-team events... Vets in Chimeras are popular... I can see trueborn or the like in venoms/raiders... I remember someone saying they faced a Venerable dread with tank hunters (as a specialist) with two sets of twin-linked auto-cannons and that was hard... I mean if you can melta it great...

 

As for Firepower being greater than assault... depends on what terrain you have... I feel Kill-team should have a good amount... loads of places to hide but with places where you can set up fire points...

 

I do not like snipers and here is why... MCs are rare... the odd HQ and Heavy support which are not allowed means you have few MCs to face... average T means that bolters are normally just as good if not better at wounding (unless they have Grotesques or Ogryns...)... Against vehicles they can do damage but you shouldn't be seeing many (in one battle) and they are not reliable... thats why you have anti-tank man.

 

So lets take extremes... at one end you have the ven dread... which you might be able to glance with snipers if you can hit the weaker side armour (I'll assume he won't let you get his back!) but the only real shot is missile man... who will no doubt be his first target... It will be a matter of how many saves can you pass (on this note I've played Kill-team events that ban vehicles... that why house rules are important)... very much all eggs in basket... but I think you will find it tough...

 

At the other end you 50 grots and 5 runt earders... ok once they are below 50 they will break in most cases (and I've found in most games people break (rather than getting wiped out)... unless they have very high leadership! Can you kill enough of them? 23... before they have killed 5 of you... Before they start shooting lets say you have two long ranged fire power turns and one short ranged... Lets say the rocket/HB (do scout ones use toxic templates my memory has gone :( hits 3 guys on average... just because there are so many... but they can be spread out... and they provide each other cover... but I guess you will shoot the front ;))... you will hit with 5 shots each turn from everyone else... until you can rapidfire and then you get 8-9 (I haven't done the maths so don't shoot me people) Now if you wound enough of them and they are not getting saves... I can see them breaking... with that fire power... but if they can get good cover saves and half of those don't die... problems could occur just via volume... I wouldn't like to say which way this would go... but I don't think your snipers help you much... unless you house rule that pinning will work on people from the same unit the guy was brought from.

 

Lets take a more balanced look... one I've been using not saying it is the best... but...

 

Venom + splinter cannon + Nightshields and give it scout (way a vehicle your sniper rifles might be able to hurt)

 

5 x Trueborn with 2 splinter cannons and 3 blasters... the splinter cannons have relentless and Slow and Purposeful.

 

Basically I zoom up in my scout phase (to get my a position to shoot you from), if you have first turn I will hide from your missile launcher or heavy bolter using terrain/nightshield... As you don't have relentless on your anti-tank weapon I should be able to hide from that... but as I say everything else can still hurt my paper plane... Bolters might be out of range... Heavy bolter could be a problem as it can move closer and around things blocking LOS and shoot.

 

Now if the heavy bolter and missile launcher are close enough to hit both guys at once I'll fly out and unleash 24 splinter shots at them (12 each I guess :P) and maybe blaster shots for fun :P if they happen to be in range. Now if I can't hit both at once I will try and attack the one I think will be harder to avoid (again this depends on terrain)... Before the new dex came out I took 10 normal warrior and dark lances and used a stalk from the shadow method that worked pretty well... except my dark lances kept failing to destroy armour :P...

 

Now if you have a 'gunline' your snipers will be next in line and then I would move out of bolter range and just kill you from a distance. but it would be harder to chose between bolter marines closing on me and snipers at a distance.

 

By no means is this immune to your force but I like to think mine is a more tricksy army which is different from the other two example which operate on brute force... using either quality or quantity... Mine is still pretty small and fragile but not as extreme... Oh and remember once I kill one guy :P the guy who got the kill gets FNP :P

 

So I know I didn't give much advice on your list (except that I don't like snipers... personally for KT) but I hope I gave you some ideas of what you could face and then from there you can try and work out what could be improved or how you would face each foe!

 

but honestly the format is a really hard one for marines since we don't have anything really broken.

 

At the end of the day, Marines just play Kill Team for fun. Take what's fun, and hope you don't face something stupid.

 

-Myst

 

I disagree... well kinda... it is pretty hard for marines to do stuff with tacticals/scouts/sternguard/assault squads... but dreads are pretty hard in KT although they have the all eggs in one basket problem :'( Land speeders aint bad... No what you lack is the flexibillity of things like trueborn and IG vets or really tough units (unless we count dreads and speeders I guess are tough-ish) such as Ogryns or multi-wound nids. But errrm while eternal warrior doom is nasty it has to walk over the board while you shoot it... it can't pod as people can't hold units in reserve and even if the transport pod has the may always deepstrike/be put in reserve even if the mission rules do not allow it... the doom has no such luck... Unless I'm reading the rules incorrectly... which can happen... Most places I've played have a No deepstrike (even if it can always deepstrike rules) rule... the only problems being daemons...

 

So not wanting to ban daemons I've seemed a number of things done...

 

1) All start on the board and ignore daemonic assault.

2) Deepstrike all daemon units (as in how they are rbought in the codex rather than each model) on the daemon players first turn... as you would in a normal game... after the his movement phase they then all count as different units that can do what they want.

3) use daemonic assault as normal and split individual models into waves.

[rat of vengence]

Thanks fellas that is certainly helpful. I have never played Kill Team, but watched the guys at the store have a practice 3 way game. One BA with assault troops, one Eldar with Harlequins and one Dark Eldar with at least 1 splinter cannon. No vehicles, probably because this is a comped campaign. The pack says comp will frown on vehicles, walkers, mass amounts of troops etc. I can name a few guys who won't care though :tu: There was a fair amount of craters, and the centre piece was the Tower of Absolution, or whatever the great big Dark Angel bunker is called.

 

I hear what you are saying about the BS3 of the scouts. I can get a 10 man Tactical squad into 200 points, but only one heavy weapon. The advantages of the scouts in my mind are;

3+ cover with cloaks

2 heavy weapons available

2 sergeants

infiltrate

 

Of course, their lousy BS will hurt. I think swapping out some of the snipers for more boltguns might be the way to go. With infiltrate I should be able to set up in a way that will allow me to gang up on the opponent, or keep the hell away til I have whittled them down.

 

As an alternative, I could take Sisters of Battle, but they won't have any heavy weapons bar heavy bolters or a very expensive plasma cannon on servitors, which is again not getting 3+ armour.

 

RoV

[Cmdr Shepard]

I recently played two friendly Kill Teams games. We made lists just for testing purposes and we agree to rise the points limit to 250 (so 50 more than Battle Missions' rules)

 

First game I played Grey Knights:

Vindicare and a 5 men Strike Squad with one Helbard. I gave Relentless rule to Vindicare, Furious charge to Justicar and Preferred Enemy to Helbard GK.

 

He played Blood Angels : Furioso Dread with Claws and 7 men tactical squad, Sergeant with assualt bolter. Universal Rules: Stealth to Dread, Furious charge to sergeant and relentless to one space marine.

 

I wiped his force out from the table without suffering a single loss. We continued to play after he failed the first LD test and at the end he had no models left on the table.

Relentless Vindicare created a lot of troubles.

 

Second game I played GK against Tau.

I used a 5 man Terminator squad with psycannon and other equipment. My opponent played 6 Fire caste warriors and 3 Crisis with various equipment.

Crisis was the source of several troubles. They killed two of terminators but my psycannon delivered painful damage.

I easly killed his fire warriors and after I killed a Crisis he failed LD test.

he asked me to re-play the match to the last man.

Second time I wiped out his force with no losses.

 

I know you are not playing GK but I hope you will find some "hint" in my "battle reports", even though the scenarios were a bit peculiar :tu: