CSM in Kill Team

[Urauloth]

My GW is running kill team games on weekends at the moment and since I'm a long-time skirmish game fan I'd like to get in on this. I'm not quite sure where to start building one, though. Since you don't actually need any troops choices, it's tempting to skip regular CSM squads and go for plaguemarines, but even a small squad of those sucks up a lot of my points. Since cultists are so cheap, is it worth taking a bare-bones unit to stave off break tests and/or have more bodies to throw at the objective? The manuverability of raptors makes them tempting, but their price tag cuts out taking any elites.

 

Has anyone played any kill team games with CSM, and if so, do you have any advice? Is there anything I might be overlooking (a sub-optimal unit that might do better in this game format, for example)

 

Likely opponents will be DE (a venom is a horrifying prospect), all-foot IG, Wolves and very likely some GKs since my local meta is drowning in them.

 

(in case you don't have the kill team pdf on hand, restrictions are summarised below)

 

FOC:

0-1 Elite

0-2 Troops

0-1 Fast Attack

 

Minimum 3 models, no models with more than 3 wounds. No allies, no fortifications, no FW rules. Nothing can be deployed in reserve, no flyers.

 

Up to three models are specialists, choosing a USR from the list:

Adamateum Will, Armourbane, Blind, Counter Attack, Crusader, Eternal Warrior, Fear, Fearless, Feel No Pain,
Fleet, Fleshbane, Furious Charge, Hammer of Wrath, Hatred, Hit and Run, It Will Not Die, Monster Hunter, Move
Through Cover, Night Vision, Preferred Enemy (Everything), Rage, Rampage, Relentless, Shred, Shrouded, Skilled
Rider, Stealth, Strikedown, Stubborn, Tank Hunter

(no duplicate specialists)

 

 

With regard to specialists, capitalising on the lack of challenge-related issues to build a good melee champion seems like a reasonable idea, especially since there's going to be a lot of terrain.

 

While I wouldn't normally take a heavy weapon in a CSM squad, the chance to make the wielder relentless makes me think an autocannon (or even a heavy bolter) is probably a good idea.

 

5 Chosen might be worth looking at, too, they offer a variety of weapon options (albeit expensive ones) and while kitting them all out with different gear is a lousy idea in regular games, in kill team it could work pretty well.

[Trevak Dal]

Terminators and Dreds are always more awesome in lower points games, and we can really customize our terminators.  That said, at the same time more guys is better than fewer guys (though really, depending on how they do the rules for banners and such, MoS/IoE Terminators could Juggernaught most enemies).

 

Regular CSMs are pretty awesome in the sense that you can give a squad a special and heavy weapon, and have various 'specialists' within the Kilteam squad (since you don't have to go 'all in' with one specific style (Bolters/Bolt Pistols, Bolt Pistols/CCW, or Ubergrit) and can mix and match as you need to.  Bolters kill guys.  End Of.  And you can give Relentless to the Heavy Weapons guy (I'd suggest either a Heavy bolter or autocannon)

[Hellios]

Something from the elites or troops sections. I wouldn't worry too much about the Venom... One of my Kill Teams (we play with house rules where the entire Kill-Team counts as one unit for transport purposes) is a Venom with 3 blasterborn and 2 trueborn with splintercannons. The Splintercannons don't have a huge range. Auto-cannons, Plasma and the like should have a good chance of messing it up. I normally play a game of cat and mouse with my opponents using terrain to keep my venom alive and picking off the enemies key models.

 

You just need to be aware of that kind of game (if the DE player plays it) or play it against them if they don't. If they do manage to get blat you first... Just pray :D

[Dam13n]

The DE list isn't the one you should worry about, it's the 30 Ork Boyz or the 22 Horrors that rule at the moment.

 

22 Horrors will each count as a mastery level 1 psyker, so with the tzeentch primaris power can conceivably pump out 44D6 S5 AP4 shots a turn hitting on 4s, they have to pass psychic tests and get past DtW, but still thats pretty scary. Even if you hope to overcome that with a vehicle, they can roll for powers, enough will get the beam power to easily take out said vehicle with the rest taking the primaris to kill the squad inside. You'd be lucky to last a turn against them!

 

30 Orks with shootas can also throw out loads of firepower and can swamp you in combat too.

 

Chaos Marines work as an elite force, I like chosen with mixed special weapons and a minimum CSM squad or Cultists for extra bodies. Terminators might work as could bikes. You could make a case for a horde of cultists, but they are pretty weak compared to the other horde lists due to their GEQ statline.

 

The key is anticipating what your opponents will likely bring and arming accordingly.

[Urauloth]

Oh good gods, a single horror counts as a ML1 psyker? I haven't read up on those. Yeesh. The potential heap of orks I'm somewhat concerned about, I'm working on an ork kill team myself for later in the year and shoota boyz are just about perfectly suited to the game type.

 

It doesn't seem to me like the CSM 'dex is a very strong one for doing this with, but I'll give it a shot.

 

While I love terminators, and ours are very easy to customize, you still can't get many on the board and the things that kill them (like massed guard shooting) are even more problematic because you can't silence the barrage of lasgun fire with charges - I can easily see a TDA squad getting whittled down by failed saves while having to pick guardsmen off one by one. A very small squad backed up by cultists would be about the only way to make them work, and even then...

 

Plaguemarines are tempting because of how hard they are to kill. Ultragrit, poison and defensive grenades means they're not awful in combat, and while their T5 won't help them against DE shooting, it's useful against almost everything else. Taking them means having a real small team, though, and forgoing the autocannon that a chosen squad could pack.

 

Sketched-up lists so far, then.

 

List the first:

1 Chosen champion

3 chosen with standard ultragrit loadout

1 Chosen with autocannon (specialist: relentless)

1 Chosen with power weapon (specialist: undediced - fleet? rage? shred?)

1 Chosen with plasma gun (specialist: feel no pain)

 

this leaves me with 16pts in hand, not quite enough for another model. Just enough for another power weapon, though, or a couple of different special weapon setups. Also enough to buy the squad VotLW, but I can't quite see that being worth more than extra weapons.

 

List the second:

1 Plague champion

2 Plaguemarines with plasma guns

4 Plaguemarines

 

Again, a rather paltry 7 models. Tougher than the chosen, but without any options except a meltabomb for the champion. Here, both plasmas come with FNP by default, so all three specialist slots are free, but the usefulness of them to plaguemarines is somewhat less obvious. If I was prepared to drop a plasma gun i could arm the champion with a power weapon of some sort. This probably raises the ugly spectre of the leader/specialist eggbasket, though; one good plasma hit or a lucky shot from a lascannon and there's nothing but a FNP roll between him and 3 lost victory points.

 

I like chosen with mixed special weapons and a minimum CSM squad or Cultists for extra bodies.

 

I like this idea, although you can't get much gear for your chosen with even a minimum CSM squad; 35pts worth of stuff, I believe? What do you usually take? I can see 10 cultists being valuable for shifting the number of casualties needed to break the force, even if they are sub-guard in terms of gear.

 

A third sketch-list, then, with this in mind:

Chosen as above, but 5 instead of 7 (champ, PW, plasma, AC and one vanilla)

Vanilla 10-man cultist squad

 

This gives me a more agreeable 20pts to spend if my math is right. Yeah, this was a good suggestion, thanks.

[Dam13n]

35 points =

2 meltaguns and 3 flamers

1 plasma gun and 4 flamers

1 plasma gun, 2 flamers and 1 meltagun

etc.

 

You take the enemy with shooting, not combat. Flamers are good for guaranteed hits on multiple models, meltas for one-shot kills etc. Chosen still aren't shabby in combat, even without power weapons, 3A each (2+2CCWs) meaning they may hold their own.

 

With Horrors they have "brotherhood of psykers" so a unit is a mastery level 1 psyker. Each horror is a unit of 1 in kill team so therefore becomes a ML1 psyker. It's the same with GKs, just filth.

[Nehekhare]

no HS/HQ/flyers pretty much disqualifies CSM, but I'd take a look into nurgle spawn (fast, ignores terrain) and terminators (2+ save, combiweapons).

[Redtoof]

Spawn are good in kill team, and cultists are quite useful (I had a team of chosen with cultists, and used the cultists as human shields for the marines...)

 

I convinced a friend of mine to take a thousand sons kill team - that worked pretty well. AP 3 boltguns are pretty scary for those wolves/grey knights

[*Furyou Miko]

I love my Thousand Sons kill team. :)

 

Sure, it's tiny. But it's a tiny ball of fury, and Doombolt is insane in KT... as is Dark Apotheosis if you get lucky enough to roll it on Boon of Mutation.

[Ammonius]

I have an untested kill team that uses Noise Marines. I'm hoping that ignoring cover with the sonic weapons, and a Relentless blastmaster will help compensate for the fact that the team is only 7 guys:

 

1 Noise Marine Aspiring Champion (Leader) with a Lightning claw, Gift of Mutation, VotLW

1 Noise Marine with a Blastmaster, VotLW (Specialist: Relentless)

3 Noise Marines with Sonic Blasters, VotLW

1 Noise Marinewith a Pistol and CCW trade, VotLW (Specialist: Fleshbane)

1 Noise Marinewith basic loadout, VotLW (Specialist: Armorbane)

 

I know that there will be several Marine teams, so I went with VotLW (also for break tests). I also know there will be at least one Ork swarm and an IG team that might be a platoon, or a vet squad with a Hellhound. I am hoping to leverage the "may split its attacks" rule (2013 packet, last sentence in "every man for himself") since I have the salvo shots with the Sonic Blasters.

 

However it works out, if everyone who has seen us working on the kill team terrain actually fields a team, then we will have a lot of players, and much fun will be had.

[Urauloth]

That looks awesome. I'd absolutely love to run a team of noisemarines, the salvo weapons would be great and ignoring cover should be a huge deal if you have enough terrain. (I can't, unfortunately, because I don't have any yet...)

 

Giving armourbane to a guy with basic kit is interesting, I hadn't thought of that. I guess 2d6+4 is pretty reasonable, since you attack the rear armour of most vehicles.

[Ammonius]

That looks awesome. I'd absolutely love to run a team of noisemarines, the salvo weapons would be great and ignoring cover should be a huge deal if you have enough terrain. (I can't, unfortunately, because I don't have any yet...)

 

Giving armourbane to a guy with basic kit is interesting, I hadn't thought of that. I guess 2d6+4 is pretty reasonable, since you attack the rear armour of most vehicles.

Well, that also makes the krak grenades into 6+2d6.

 

Oh, and the thing that had to happen before starting the Kill Team league here was a planned expansion of the terrain collection.

[Spaz431]

I recently won a kill teams escalation league event at the Memphis battle bunker with my Night Lords. It was 200 points base with a free hq with a 15 point upgrade; no named characters. So I brought a dark apostle, free power weapon, free 4++ invul; uped to a 3++, and rerollable gifts. Yes, there may have been other better choices, but at the cost the early value was better. My first 3 games were against GK, I only lost to the first one, though I did put two wounds into a grand master. After the first game even losing I earned enough points to bring in Troqdour the Immolater; yes my helldrake. Night Lords do not win in a fair fight; so I made it unfair quickly. All I used were basic marines with bolsters and plasma, with the blessing of papa nurgle.

 

Sorry for any punctuation errors.

[Vesper]

I have an untested kill team that uses Noise Marines. I'm hoping that ignoring cover with the sonic weapons, and a Relentless blastmaster will help compensate for the fact that the team is only 7 guys:

 

1 Noise Marine Aspiring Champion (Leader) with a Lightning claw, Gift of Mutation, VotLW

1 Noise Marine with a Blastmaster, VotLW (Specialist: Relentless)

3 Noise Marines with Sonic Blasters, VotLW

1 Noise Marinewith a Pistol and CCW trade, VotLW (Specialist: Fleshbane)

1 Noise Marinewith basic loadout, VotLW (Specialist: Armorbane)

 

I know that there will be several Marine teams, so I went with VotLW (also for break tests). I also know there will be at least one Ork swarm and an IG team that might be a platoon, or a vet squad with a Hellhound. I am hoping to leverage the "may split its attacks" rule (2013 packet, last sentence in "every man for himself") since I have the salvo shots with the Sonic Blasters.

 

However it works out, if everyone who has seen us working on the kill team terrain actually fields a team, then we will have a lot of players, and much fun will be had.

Please, don't forget to tell us if that KT did well !

[Urauloth]

Does the armourbane affect grenades? A cursory look at the rules does nothing to answer this question either way. The Kill Team update just says it applies to the model's close combat attacks, so I guess it hinges on whether or not using a krak grenade on a vehicle is a close combat attack or not. It seems logical, but I'd bet there are plenty of people who'd want to split hairs about it, especially when you slam-dunk a near-meltabomb into their walker.

 

It certainly makes sense from a narrative-forging perspective; the guy who specializes in destroying vehicles can blow open a dread using a humble krak grenade.Very cinematic.

[Ammonius]

Does the armourbane affect grenades? A cursory look at the rules does nothing to answer this question either way. The Kill Team update just says it applies to the model's close combat attacks, so I guess it hinges on whether or not using a krak grenade on a vehicle is a close combat attack or not. It seems logical, but I'd bet there are plenty of people who'd want to split hairs about it, especially when you slam-dunk a near-meltabomb into their walker.

 

It certainly makes sense from a narrative-forging perspective; the guy who specializes in destroying vehicles can blow open a dread using a humble krak grenade.Very cinematic.

Where does it say that it only applies to close combat? I can't find that reference, just that they get the special rule as defined in the main rulebook. If we're seeing different things, I need to show it to the league organizer and get a ruling put into the league rules.

 

 

Also, I played a test game with the NM team last night against a 26-man IG platoon. He had a bunch of regular guys, a Commisar, a plasma gun trooper ,a melta gunner, and a autocannon team. The blastmaster was great. Its range makes me think that relentless is not needed. Sonic weapons are also great (especially vs IG) since I can assign shots against 3 targets and there are no saves if I wound. I did not get into hand to hand with anyone.

 

My opponent had some trouble getting his forces moved quickly (having to roll for each trooper individually) but once he was in range, he would just shoot one of my guys until I failed a save, and then switched targets. He killed two specialists and my leader, which was enough points for the win (mostly because we timed out, and I was still beyond 3" from the objective).

 

We played with the 30 minute time limit, and I think the league organizer will cut out that rule, since we aren't trying to get 8 games in one day. All in all, I think that my general plan for the Kill Team is a "sound" one, and I just need to tweak the list a little.

[Redtoof]

They FAQed the armourbane/fleshbane thing a little while back. I think it will be in the latest edition of the kill team rules pack, but I'm not entirely sure. The jist of it was that fleshbane and armourbane are applied to the model, not the weapon, so the rule only applies to melee attacks.

 

Which is a shame for my cultists who were loving their fleshbane heavy stubber.

[Ammonius]

They FAQed the armourbane/fleshbane thing a little while back. I think it will be in the latest edition of the kill team rules pack, but I'm not entirely sure. The jist of it was that fleshbane and armourbane are applied to the model, not the weapon, so the rule only applies to melee attacks.

 

Which is a shame for my cultists who were loving their fleshbane heavy stubber.

Where is the FAQ for armourbane/fleshbane? I'll need to provide objective evidence to the organizer so he can make a clean ruling, peferably

 

I don't see it in the ruleboook FAQ 1.4 (April 13). I also don't see such a ruling in the Kill Team 2013 event pack .pdf. As for the rule in the rulebook, it says on page 33 "If a model has this special rule, or is attacking with a melee weapon that has this special rule ..." and then at the top of the next column says "Similarly, if a model makes a shooting attack with a weapon that has this special rule...".

 

This is what has led us to believe that since the rule is applied to the model (as you say) then both melee and shooting attacks have the special rule. Now, if there is another FAQ document somewhere, I'd really appreciate it if someone could provide a link. Thanks!

[Dam13n]

It's in the kill team FAQ on the warhammer world events kill team page of the GW site.

[Ammonius]

It's in the kill team FAQ on the warhammer world events kill team page of the GW site.

Thank you! That's exactly what I needed.

 

It looks like if I put Armourbane on one of my guys, and specified the melee weapon as his krak grenades, then that might work out ok (but really wouldn't multiple 4+2D6 attacks be better than one 6+2D6?)

 

Oh, and I like how the update invalidates the "My whole team is a Riptide" business :)

[Dam13n]

The riptide would never have worked as you've always needed 3 models minimum to form a kill team.

[Redtoof]

The riptide would never have worked as you've always needed 3 models minimum to form a kill team.

 

Actually that was added to the FAQ. The killteam event immediately after the Tau codex came out was apparently swamped with riptides, which caused the rule change. (There are pictures on the WHW facebook page with about 10 riptide 'killteams' lined up.)

 

Back on topic: Has anyone had a go with a Helbrute? I painted up three of the buggers recently and I can imagine that they won't see much use in regular 40k :P