Starting a Kill Team campaign

[MadEdric]

This weekend a couple of friends and I will be starting a killteam campaign.

I'll be facing Druhkari and Genestealer cultists.

Here are a couple of lists I've devised to face the Xenos threat.

Against the Druhkari:

Intercessor Sgt. w/ Auspex, bolt rifle, and chainsword. Leader.

Watch Sgt. w/ Xenophase blade and Storm shield. Combat.

Blackshield w/ Powersword and Storm shield. Zealot.

Veteran Gunner w/ Infernus Heavybolter. Demolitions.

Veteran Gunner w/ Infernus Heavybolter. Zig

100 pts.

 

Against the Cultists:

Watch Sgt. w/ Stalker pattern bolter. Leader.

Blackshield w/ powersword and Storm shield. Zealot.

Reiver Sgt. w/ Heavy bolt pistol, combat blade, grapnel launcher. Combat.

Veteran Gunner w/ Frag cannon. Heavy.

Veteran w/ Shotgun. Zig.

94pt.

 

These are just the starters, with 2 vets with boltguns to fill out the 12.

I can add 8 more, any tips on what should be added?

 

 

 

 

[Lemondish]

What your full command roster?

[Brother Tyler]

A Drukhari kill team composed primarily/entirely of Kabalite Warriors will function differently from one composed primarily/entirely of Wyches.

 

Two discussions that might be of interest to you are:

 

Kill Team Building - Deathwatch

Kill Team - Command Roster

 

The first covers different players' thoughts on building Deathwatch kill teams and command rosters. The second covers the importance of command rosters. I won't rehash the comments made in those topics, but you'll find quite a bit of helpful information within them.

 

To expand upon the point Lemondish made with the question, a "kill team" is necessarily derived from a larger command roster. You don't need to start with a complete 20-model command roster, but it's wise to have some degree of flexibility in your initial command roster (depending upon your resource limitations - suitable models). At the very least, we might assume that your command roster comprises both of the kill teams you listed (though I'm assuming that the Blackshield is the same guy in both kill teams). There are different schools of thought on how to compose your command roster. One is that you need to have sufficient models to tailor kill teams for five distinct styles of opponent. Another is that you simply need to have flexibility based on the options available to you. Regardless, an integral part of your strategizing will be choosing your kill team from your available command roster models based upon your opponent. An essential thing to remember is that your opponent is doing the exact same thing, and many factions have enough variability in their unit options to present distinct options regarding the kill teams they are able to build. So an "Adeptus Astartes" kill team isn't a single homogeneous type of kill team - different Adeptus Astartes players might bring kill teams that work differently from each other. The saving grace to this is that you study your opponent's command roster before the game and then you pick your kill team. So you might assess your opponent's potential strengths and weaknesses, then select a kill team that you think will lead you to victory. The fun part about this is that your opponent is doing the exact same thing, so you might find yourself facing a different kill team than the one you expected when you selected your kill team. It's like the battle of wits scene between the Man in Black and Vizzini in The Princess Bride.

[MadEdric]

The first 12 of the roster will be the 2 listed kilteams plus 2 vets with bolters. 

I'll give those two links a read. 

Being the teams will usually be 5 man, I figure most can be specialists. I can boost up to 6 if there are objective based missions.

[MadEdric]

Well Sunday was a sobering set of matches. 

I played this list both games.

Watch sgt w/ stalker pattern bolter. Leader

Vet w/ stalker pattern bolter. Sniper

Vet Gunner w/ Infernus heavy bolter. Heavy

Vet Fireteam:

Vet w/ bolter, power maul

Vet Gunner w/ Infernus heavy bolter

Vet w/ shotgun.

First game against Druhkari, I needed to capture or burn objectives in his deployment area. The wytches hid while my DW eliminated his Kabalites. My fault was I was too timid with my team. I took too many round carefully shooting and then assulting one objective that when the game ended at turn 4, I had one objective (3pts) and my friend had 2 (6pts). I liked this list, it had a lot of firepower, but also felt it lacked a good assault punch. It was a good game, my friend felt like he was on the ropes until the game ended at 4. I often get into the game and forget objectives. I will learn.

The second game was over turn 1. It was assassinate. A genestealer vet made his ambush roll, used the scouting advance to move again (and my attempt to shoot him did nothing), and then he made a 12" charge to my leader. Since I moved first, no chance to retreat. One wound got through, I failed the reroll, he rerolled the injury and that was that.

More lessons learned. Be more aggressive with the infernus heavy bolters, don't hide them. Get out where you have clear view of his chargers and try to get within 8".

 

At least on a good point. Both the sniper and fireteam got to lvl 2 after both games. Fireteam got Lethal, reroll 1's to wound when shooting.

[MadEdric]

So setting up for the next games this Sunday. I've got the original 12 which are:

Watch sgt w/ stalker pattern bolter. Leader

Vet w/ stalker pattern bolter. Sniper

Veteran Gunner w/ Frag cannon. Heavy.

Vet Gunner w/ Infernus heavy bolter. Demo

Intercessor Sgt. w/ bolt rifle, bolt pistol, and powersword. 

Watch Sgt. w/ Xenophase blade and Storm shield. Leader.

Blackshield w/ Powersword and Storm shield. Zealot.

Vet w/ bolter, power maul

Vet Gunner w/ Infernus heavy bolter

Vet w/ shotgun.

Reiver Sgt. w/ Bolt carbine, combat blade, grapnel launcher. Combat.

Vet w/ bolter.

 

I'll be adding more:

Reiver w/ Heavy bolt pistol, combat blade, grapnel launcher.

Intercessor w/ bolt rifle, auspex, bolt pistol. Medic.

Intercessor Gunner w/ bolt rifle, aux grenade launcher, bolt pistol. Demo.

Vet w/ powersword, storm shield.

Vet w/ bolter. Scout.

Reiver Sgt. w/ Bolt carbine, combat blade, grapnel launcher.

Blackshield w/ powermaul, stormshield.

Vet w/ Heavy Thunder hammer. Combat.

 

I'll be trying out a Fortis team, and did not make the reivers specialists this time because I think with 3-4 attacks each, they can handle combat well enough. I want to see how a medic works as well as a cheap scout.

[Prot]

I’m not the right person to give advice on this as my DW perform the worst out of all my KT armies, but I will say the idea of going deeper into close combat is interesting. I have a zealot Black Shield with Shield and mace combines with a Reiver and those guys do so much disruption for me in games I often think of expanding the role.

[MadEdric]

Both opponents have a conciderable close combat element. I need hard counters to them, hence adding more storm shield vets and Primaris. I figure the Intercessor and Reiver Sgts are good, both getting an ample number of attacks as well as maintaining shooting. The storm shield watch sgt gives me the best protection for a leader, since with such low numbers, I can’t afford him to be hiding. A zealot Blackshield with maul and SS causes a lot of concern for my opponents. So most likely I’ll be fielding 2 dedicated combat guys, the 2 Primaris sgts give me either option and then either a shooty guy with heavy weapon or another bolter and power weapon guy.

[MadEdric]

Another round of matches. I've still got to get my head around the Genestealer cult. He can field too many close combat threats, usually 2 abberants with power hammer/pick, one guy with the buzz saw, a pure blood genestealer, metamorph with bonesword, then able to pile in about 5 more regular goons for shooting. We had the scenario where you score each round, depending on which objectives you have, not a good scenario for a 5 man killteam. He was able to move more bodies into the center objective than I could, and the power hammer and pick removed my two reivers right quick. Moving in with those guys, he tied up my remaining intercessors, slowly whittling them down as he moved the goons onto the other objectives. Taking primaris against this list was a huge mistake. Too many Sx2 -3/-4Ap, multi dmg weapons to face. My dice were also terrible this game.

List was :

Intercessor Sgt w/ bolt rifle, power sword. Leader.

Intercessor w/ bolt rifle, auspex. Medic.

Intercessor Gunner w/ bolt rifle, grenade launcher. Demo.

Reiver fireteam:

Reiver Sgt w/ bolt carbine, combat blade, grapnel.

Reiver w/ heavy bolt pistol, combat blade, grapnel.

 

The second game against the Druhkari went much much better.

It was take prisoners, since you needed to be within 1" to capture models I went with a close combat list.

I took:

Intercessor Sgt. w/ Bolt rifle, power sword. Leader

Blackshield w/ powersword, storm shield. Zealot

Watch Sgt. w/ Xenophase sword, storm shield. Combat

Reiver Fire team:

Reiver Sgt w/ bolt carbine, combat blade, grapnel.

Reiver w/ heavy bolt pistol, combat blade, grapnel.

He took a balanced mix of wytches and kabalites.

This battle went much better, more suited to an elite army. The reivers were great, able to use the grapnel launchers to great affect to make charges over tall buildings. It helped that I made 3 charges first turn and rolled 11, 11, 12. That cost the Druhkari most of the kabalites. The zealot and reiver sgt both faced 2 wytches each, and the storm shield protected against the nasty weapons, and the reiver sgt faced regular wytches, so their many attacks just failed against T4 and 3+ armor.

My friend called a strategic retreat after turn 3 was over, since I had yet to lose a model, let alone get down to flesh wounds.

This was the list I should have taken against the GSC, storm shields would have been much more effective. 

The reivers made it to lvl 2, but I rolled the ability to reroll nerve tests, yay. I disbanded this fire team.

Leader also got to lvl 2, I took Inspiring.

[Mr4Minutes]

GSC are pretty good in kill team. I find a more shooting heavy army can be effective. I like the infernus personally, as you have a couple options to negate the hit penalties for firing both weapons.

 

I just try and shoot them all dead before they close the gap. Sometimes I’m successful...

[MadEdric]

Third round of games.

First was against the GSC, Terror Tactics. 1110 points (we add 5 points each week).

I chose:

Intercessor Sgt w\ powersword, bolt rifle. 2nd lvl Leader.

Blackshield w\ powersword, stormshield. Zealot.

Watch Sgt w\ xenophase blade, stormshield. Combat.

Vet fire team. 2nd lvl, lethal, reroll 1’s to hit in shooting.

Vet gunner w\ inferus hb.

Vet gunner w\ fragcannon. Novice.

My friend had 10 models, a little from each data slate.

I figured my best bet was to kill as many models as possible, not to try to leave the board. So my marines became the wall the cultists had to get past. The vet with the IHB was my MVP, most turns getting to fire both profiles as the cultists rushed us. The Zealot as well, chasing down ones too close to the edge. The game ended with my Deathwatch breaking the will of the cultists. I finally beat them!

Both the Zealot and Combat specialists got bumped up to lvl 2.

Against the Druhkari we rolled Ambush. I got defender, so got to field 130 points. Needing to get more than half my models off the edge.

I fielded:

The same leader and specialists as the previous list. Combat took Warrior Adept, Zealot took Exhultant, Leader took Inspiring. I was aiming for Combat Master for the combat specialist, Puritan for the Zealot, and Tactician for the Leader.

Fire team consisted of:

Vet w\ power maul, bolter.

Vet w\ shotgun.

Vet gunner w\ IHB.

All gained the reroll perk since they have all been in this fire team.

This was a well fought game. I lost the shotgun vet in turn 1, but my charges engaged this right flank. Turn 2 the IHB vet moved to block the witches from the rest of the squad, but I made a mistake, didn’t count on him charging his kabalite comms at him, no line of sight. That little locked down the flaming goodness. I lost my watch sgt to taking 2 wounds, failing one save and the following reroll came up a 1. Two down, the Druhkari lost around 4. We fought one more round, most my guys were in combat, except my leader, a dark lance took him out. I finished out the round and took out a lot more Druhkari, but since I couldn’t get over 50% of my models off the board I lost.

Then the tragedy happened, I rolled a 1 for my Combat specialist, he died! My fire team did get to 3rd lvl though, that’s good right? Nope, rolled a 3, Courageous. Worthless as I already reroll failed nerve tests.

So right now I’ve won 2 games, lost 4. My resources sitting at 5\8\6\7.