8e Horus Heresy Kill Team

[Ryltar Thamior]

It's possible I'm being somewhat premature here, but I was wondering if anybody'd put serious thought into running the recent 8th ed iteration of Kill Team in the context of the Horus Heresy. 

I am aware that there are a few fan-made Kill Team rulesets out there which may touch upon the Heresy, as well as some bold efforts to bring the Heresy to 8th Ed more generally - although I must confess myself a bit ignorant as to the precise ins and outs and completion status of any of the above [pointers, as ever, welcome]. 

I started turning over the concept in my mind earlier this morning (because a quarter past four in the morning is, as ever, the 'subjunctive time' in a hobbyist's daily life .. that is to say, the 'mood of possibility'), with a view to perhaps providing a greater degree of 'focus' to my ongoing truescaling efforts; and then began pondering whether to go down the 'option A' of a counts-as Heresy-era kill-team based on either the Marines/Primaris or the Deathwatch rosters. 

Or, whether some bright spark had already had the same idea and (started to) put together an .. autochthonous, so to speak, HH KT rules/rosterset, thus providing an 'option B' to work to. 

Admittedly, the 'Option A' constraints are rather .. constraining in terms of fluff accuracy and sensibility in some regards; due mostly to the limited range of units to draw from when compositing a kill-team, as well as the lack of seriously tangible differences in 'feel' between Marine forces in a manner commensurate with how the Legion characteristics work in FW HH etc.; but it nevertheless appears prima facie viable to a certain extent to run Legion Veterans, Tacticals, Recon Squads, and arguably Seekers, through one or other of the Marine or Deathwatch lists. 

But yeah uh .. thoughts ?

[Noserenda]

Our gaming group has been working it up already over FB (I think you can search for the dev group via Crusade and Heresy?) got all the core legions done and working our way through the others as and when we can, marines were a lot faster to write!

Generally KT just uses Troop choices with the odd stealthy/recon infantry units but its wildly inconsistent! We decided to run with Tacs (With Support as gunners), Recon, Breachers and Seekers. Seekers caused the most debate tbh but they seemed "right" for killteam games.

Anyhow, the current working document is here: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1a1kxPJ6u8KQRyY1NEL6KiAs5YPfZh-TM  but feedback is definitely best sent via FB group as i check this forum relatively rarely these days  

If you were running counts as, Deathwatch could rep for seekers and Recon with the main Marine list covering Tacticals and certain Blackshields well (As primaris). An argument could be made for the CSM list as well depending on exactly what you wanted to field? 
 

[Ryltar Thamior]

Our gaming group has been working it up already over FB (I think you can search for the dev group via Crusade and Heresy?) got all the core legions done and working our way through the others as and when we can, marines were a lot faster to write!

 

Generally KT just uses Troop choices with the odd stealthy/recon infantry units but its wildly inconsistent! We decided to run with Tacs (With Support as gunners), Recon, Breachers and Seekers. Seekers caused the most debate tbh but they seemed "right" for killteam games.

 

Anyhow, the current working document is here: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1a1kxPJ6u8KQRyY1NEL6KiAs5YPfZh-TM  but feedback is definitely best sent via FB group as i check this forum relatively rarely these days  

 

If you were running counts as, Deathwatch could rep for seekers and Recon with the main Marine list covering Tacticals and certain Blackshields well (As primaris). An argument could be made for the CSM list as well depending on exactly what you wanted to field? 

 

Ah yup, thanks for the feedback :D And it's great to see how the community's really come into its own on social media - I've seen a few legit groups on facebook spring up over the last year or two which are most useful. Is the dev group you refer to the Shadow Wars one, perchance?

 

Anyway, i've taken a brief skim through your working document, and it looks pretty legit. I'm particularly pleased with the rather 'broader' selection of particularly close-combat weaponry; along with the very characterful legion-specific equipment and tactics options. Definitely agree with the inclusion of Seeker Squads - you're right .. this is straight-up what they should be doing on the battlefield, so to speak; and as applies how 'haphazard' it appears GW's own design choices have been for the 40k iteration [c.f not just the frankly peculiar omissions for a number of armies, but also the difference between preview materials showing particular units being useable versus the rules uh ... not affording this in practice], I can only hope that as we move forward, GW will revise these sorts of things periodically.

 

Personally, i've previously tended to prefer 'always on' special rules over 'castable' effects for representing some of the different characteristics of particular Legions - but I appreciate that this isn't how 8th Ed seems to want to do things; and that, in any case, it would lead to quite the 'uneven playing-field' between different legions when operating at this scale, anyway. 

 

Also, I often tend to get carried away with thinking about ways to represent different modelling choices which at present have no in-game especial effect - things like different armour marks, for instance; wherein we've discussed for our Inq28-ish efforts , the possibility of Mk.III providing greater protection in the frontal arc, but perhaps less so to the rear; or Mk.VI providing superior stealthing capacities [and potentially, bonuses to perception checks - not that ht's a mechanic of relevancy to KT] ; or, for the other obvious example, potential differences in the various patterns of bolter. 

 

I mention these not because I necessarily think they should be included in your efforts; but because in a game which is likely to be "Marines on Marines" most if not all of the time, I suspect there's some interesting mileage to be made out of providing scope for 'differentiation' between Marines in a way that rewards 'conscious' modelling efforts and gives at least some level of effect to the incredible diversity of arms and armament FW/GW have put out over the years. 

 

A further thought, partially spurred by your comment around potentially using the CSM roster in my 'option A' paradigm, would be that even notwithstanding the potential desirability of non-Astartes factions [i.e. Mechanicum, Solar Auxilia, Imperial Army, perhaps even Talons of the Emperor] being included as their own rosters; there may nevertheless be a case for something not entirely dissimilar to the 40k cultists for Word Bearers [wherein they're uh .. cultists - and may perhaps provide 'fuel' for a daemon-summoning mechanism Tactic] , but also for a 'Dark Compliance' style Sons of Horus kill team. Or, from a rather different perspective, Mortal operatives of the XXth Legion, working in concert with their Astartes masters [which may be very, very different from warp cults tier conscript-cannon-fodder in handling]; and that is before one gets into the instances from fluff of smaller numbers [or even individual] Astartes from any number of Legions working closely with small groups of Imperial Army personnel and suchlike. 

 

As applies what I was looking to build/field ... all of my Marines are truescales. Some of which are uh ... a little "over-chadded" so to speak in terms of size :P . I'm functionally dang near allergic to the idea of building 'regular' Astartes anymore simply because they don't look nor 'feel' right. Especially givn the far more 'mythic' scale and scope of the Heresy as compared to the 'contemporary' era. I mention this, becaues if i were to use the 40k KT rosters, it had me considering running Primaris ruleswise  - they're roughly the same size , and  the additional wound and attack reminds me somewhat of the good ol' Marines In The Movies article from the halcyon days of early-2000s White Dwarf ... which really helps with that 'cinematic' feel, somewhat. Although i suppose that in a KT 'meta' wherein it's all Marines on Marines as much HH KT presumably would be [pending Mechanicum, Imperial Army, Solar Auxilia etc. ; or, more darkly, Warp Cults, Dark Compliance etc. ], the parity between sides means that additional wounds, attacks etc, are less noticeable in their 'feel' anyway so might be redundant to emphasize. But I digress. 

 

If going down that path, I would have been considering doing an XXth Legion kill team - head-hunter-ish perhaps ; [i have five lernaean terminators ready for cutting ... mostly; I still need to work out what to do about the blimmin' integral torso assembly], and justifying stalker bolt-rifles as being representatives of ... i forget what the name of the sniper bolter I ran across was. Wasn't th (Tigrus-)Exitus pattern, but those'll work too. , 'specialist ammunition' as 'specialist ammunition', (shocking, I know) that kind of thing. 

 

Or, alternatively, much the same sort of setup, but for my trench-running loyalist-exile IVth Legion force - representing a veteran recon/infiltrating storm-troops style unit. And potentially having the potato-masher style grenades some of them're equipped with [at least some of which are the big-as Goliath ones] to represent auxiliary grenade launchers - on grounds that I suspect an Astartes is perfectly capable of throwing a hafted object such as that *quite* some distance. But that may be taking it a bit far :P 

 

And, in either case, resisting the temptation (perhaps) to attempt to come up with a Heresy-era equivalent to the Frag Cannon based around a missile launcher with suspensor web or something. 

[Son of Carnelian]

That document is incredible! Saved!

[Zebulon]

Blackshields Kill Team is certainly tempting...

 

I will have a little look at that document there :tu:

[Yodhrin]

I mean if you're absolutely wedded to doing 8th-based stuff, sure, but given Tactical Strike exists and is, IMO, far superior to Kill Team's pretty limited scope and variety why not just use that instead.

[Zebulon]

Yodrhin, you just took the wind from my sails. Just saying.

 

Anyway, here’s something I am considering doing with 5 Mk III Marines that I happen to have lying spare...

 

 

 

Thoughts welcome, preferably positive ones, yeah?

 

Edit: points values based on the document posted above.

 

Edit2: pics rotated

[carlisimo]

I think I agree with Yodhrin. The greater detail we get in 30k seems to fit Tactical Strike better; Kill Team feels too zoomed-out for detailed rosters. I’ve been getting into it because it’s the deepest into miniature wargaming that my friends are willing to try, and it does a decent job of differentiating between Astartes, Orks, Eldar, regular humans, etc. while keeping them statistically similar enough for a balanced game. That makes it less worthwhile to differentiate between similar units.

 

But bring it up with your gaming group. My expectation is that if you try to use this Heresy-era roster in Kill Team, your friends will agree to it if they can add the 40k units (or at least wargear) that they feel are missing from their faction of choice. That could work out great, or it could lead to an arms race of nobody taking regular Troops-like units anymore. If the games are still fun, no problem.

 

Might want to rotate those images, if you can.

[Noserenda]

List looks cool Zebulon, let us know hoe you get on!

As one of the writers of the Conversion it would be helpful if folks could enumerate what exactly makes Tactical strike better in your eyes? Our group played the hell out of it when it came out but it quickly tailed off and hasnt been played at all since afaik but if we are missing something we could use we would certainly like to know! 

But please Edition war nonsense, youll just look a tool and bring down the mods :( 

[foto69man]

You can borrow from the Heralds of Ruin Kill Team. There's heresy lists there