Thoughts on Kill Team 2

[NTaW]

Equipment being chosen pre-match could be interesting, if not for balance then for narrative gaming. I could see attaching quantities to the various pieces of kit and having supplies dwindle or be bolstered through use and mission objectives (or maybe I've been playing too much Chaos Gate).

 

I finally took a look and it would seem nothing's changed about unit options available to Necrons, still no option for Canoptek tomb defenders. Warriors, Immortals, Flayed Ones, and Deathmarks isn't quite what I'm after else I'd have played the current (or rather previous since v2 is out now?) edition.

Edited August 24, 2021 by NTaW

[Dolchiate Remembrancer]

Reporting back from our store's demo night.

This game is good.

 

Next week is our first KT night with the new edition. Looking forward to it but i have no idea which KT ill be playing.

[Sherrypie]

Got the books, read the rules, feeling good. It's certainly not the most involved game, but has the required bones for an enjoyable skirmish bash and the narrative campaign system with the multi-game operation packages feels fun.

 

Interesting to see what the quarterly released expansions bring, the Veterans and Kommando teams seem to offer plenty of fun operatives to play with.

[Mandragola]

So far I think the game looks good. There are some very interesting mechanics and the two teams in the core box are great. Personally I find the DKoK give the most choices, at least in list construction. I’m looking forward to playing. Honestly my lifestyle (featuring a new baby) means it’ll be tricky to get lots of games in, which then means I’d probably want to play a bigger game like AT. We’ll see.

 

I can say that I’m kind of excited to try my marines (maybe fielding Reivers!), Tau and Guard veterans. I think for the latter you do definitely want a second box so you can field all the options, as there are more options than you get guys in a box.

 

One area I find slightly disappointing is the equipment. In theory this is decided per game but I think in reality we’ll tend to use pretty standard stuff. Marine with heavy weapon gets suspended, stealth suit with fusion gets target lock and so on. Maybe I’m wrong, and anyway it’s nice to have the choice I guess.

[LameBeard]

We just picked it up yesterday. I have found to my joy that the guardsman veteran squad I made back for 4th Edition Kill Team (was this 15 years ago?) will be mostly legal (maybe slightly underpowered/tiny bit of proxy). Maybe I will even paint them now!

[Brother Tyler]

I haven't played yet, but I've read through the rules. One of the things that I'm not liking based on my reading of the rules is the use of shapes for distance. It seems so artificially and unnecessarily proprietary. I can see how such a mechanism might be appropriate in a game where maneuver becomes an issue, such as Battlefleet Gothic, Car Wars, or Gaslands, but it doesn't seem necessary in a game about people (and not-people). I'll reserve final judgment until I've been able to play a few games and given it a fair chance.

 

The other thing I don't like based on a cursory reading of the rules is that they still haven't fixed the issue I have with command rosters. In fact, they've doubled down on it. With the removal of points, the solution I proposed isn't workable, but there would have been ways around that. I think that the shift from individuals to fire teams makes the 20-man command rosters slightly less problematic, but I'll need more time to consider the overall impacts and whether or not I think that the 20-man command roster is still problematic.

 

Overall, though, I think this edition has potential to be pretty good. What I find most interesting is that the game is now clearly not a watered down version of Warhammer 40,000. The rules are distinct. This is both good and bad. Kill Team still serves as a gateway game, but there will be a learning curve going in either direction as things are so different. I'm wondering if they're looking at porting some of these rule changes into Necromunda, though there will be a strong argument to keep that game the way it is, making two very distinctive warband/squad level skirmish wargames in the WH40K setting.

[Cactus]

The relative power of a kill team is determined by the limits for each fire team, and the number of fire teams that can be taken. The extra slots on the command roster represent alternative options independently of their worth or points value equivalent.

 

The only problem I can see is if some factions can cover all their options in a roster of 20 and others can't. Even then I suspect it'll be of the nature of "I can't include all 5 possible sergeant loadouts, I'll choose the best 2 and that's ok".

 

The kommandos and veteran guardsmen share a design philosophy that's quite distinct from the slighty bland lists in the compendium so I guess we'll have to see how things shake out with future releases.

[Noserenda]

Got a game in tonight and approving of the game in general, though perhaps using my Stealth suit team for a first game was a mistake given how they mess with the rules. Ahhh well i did narrowly lose so it cant have been too bad lol. 

We had the usual issues with new games being a little slow but tbh we can definitely see the system flowing well once we have it down and get some unit cards knocked up because referring to the books so much is a ball ache and its really not the kind of game myself or my most regular opponent will stick with any one team for any length of time unless we get a campaign going, and even then i suspect we would be rolling the full 20 mini roster and switching around a lot to enable MOAR KITBASHING ;) 

So overall good, needs units cards, not as good as titanicus.

[Mandragola]

The relative power of a kill team is determined by the limits for each fire team, and the number of fire teams that can be taken. The extra slots on the command roster represent alternative options independently of their worth or points value equivalent.

 

The only problem I can see is if some factions can cover all their options in a roster of 20 and others can't. Even then I suspect it'll be of the nature of "I can't include all 5 possible sergeant loadouts, I'll choose the best 2 and that's ok".

 

The kommandos and veteran guardsmen share a design philosophy that's quite distinct from the slighty bland lists in the compendium so I guess we'll have to see how things shake out with future releases.

It actually seems to me like these two kill teams have a slightly different design philosophy, which is one of the more odd things about this release. The guard are far more flexible than the orks.

 

For the orks, there's really no reason to go beyond the contents of the box. You've got all the specialists and the standard boyz are simply worse than them, so there's no reason to take them instead. I guess it's just about conceivable that you'd want to take a slugga boy instead of one of the shooty guys against something like Tau, but I'm not sure. The shooty guys are perfectly capable of crumping Tau and also have big guns - and you can buy them a choppa in equipment.

 

The guard have far more choices and only come with 10 models instead of 12. That's not even enough to field the team unless you take artillery support instead of 4 extra guys. You do really need two boxes to make the whole kill team.

 

One thing I find interesting is that the DKoK sprue is different. It's a two-sprue infantry squad plus a smaller upgrade sprue with veteran bits. I wouldn't be surprised if, when the full release comes it didn't include that veteran squad - or possibly got boxed up with different options: a veteran squad and an alternative heavy weapon sprue, for example. It looks to me like the DKoK sprue is intended as the core squad for a new IG line, rather than just one of many unit options the orks have.

 

I'm curious to see which of the veteran IG options make it into the codex, and whether any of them are worth taking. Orks do get to take theirs, which is cool, though generally it looks like not an awesome plan to do so. They definitely add a lot of character to a unit.

[LameBeard]

We played a test game last night (5 orks vs 7 guardsmen).

 

Overall, I like the game. It works well, and the 4-turn limit actually helps make you think ahead and make tough choices in turn 3, so it’s quite tactical. And the orders system is pretty clever too.

 

I still think they are layering on unnecessary complexity in many respects. And then giving us a plethora of counters but not wound counters?

[Noserenda]

Yeah good call on the wound counters, we fortunately have stacks of bigger dice lying around to use but it feels like an oversight.

The different kill teams were definitely designed under different briefs too, i think i would definitely be happier if the Marine kil teams were designed by whoever did the Chaos ones for example, 2 Marine fire teams with a free sergeant for one to make 5 (up or down for the fatter or littler kill teams obviously) marine teams is much, much better than a fixed 5 for example, and a lot of their options being equipment is frustrating, though without points i can see how that would be awkward to balance.

[Cactus]

It actually seems to me like these two kill teams have a slightly different design philosophy, which is one of the more odd things about this release. The guard are far more flexible than the orks.

 

For the orks, there's really no reason to go beyond the contents of the box. You've got all the specialists and the standard boyz are simply worse than them, so there's no reason to take them instead. I guess it's just about conceivable that you'd want to take a slugga boy instead of one of the shooty guys against something like Tau, but I'm not sure. The shooty guys are perfectly capable of crumping Tau and also have big guns - and you can buy them a choppa in equipment.

You're right that for the kommandos it's an illusion of choice. Just taking one of each specialist clearly looks like the optimal and most fun way to go. I'm hoping future kill teams will have the same variety of characterful options as the Kriegers.

[LameBeard]

Yeah good call on the wound counters, we fortunately have stacks of bigger dice lying around to use but it feels like an oversight.

.

Every time we do that we end up forgetting and rolling the dice. I dug out some Age of Sigmar counters and we were fine from then on. That ork nob has so many wounds - I’ll need to save the meltagun for him next time!

[Cactus]

This is why the d12 is the King of dice. Stable and unlikely to be grabbed for a to-hit roll.

[LameBeard]

Good thinking that man. I have at least a couple d12s and d8s around that could be used, if I dig them out.

Meanwhile, my son painted up his Kommando nob, and wanted to show it off. This seems as good a place as any. It's a great model, and suitably chunky, fits his stats very well - it's very difficult for a guardsman to survive a round of combat with him.

We also played another 'half size' test game. Some strange rule interactions that we are still figuring out, and also found we played some rules straight wrong the first time. I feel this is a at least in part because of GW's current rules 'style' where they try so hard to make it unambiguous, it's actually difficult to read as natural language, and the complexity means there are bound to be interactions that haven't come up in playtesting.

I prefer the Titanicus style of rules writing - some people think its pinned together with hopes and dreams, but when you know you are relying on 'rules as intended' I find it all makes sense. With Kill Team it's impossible to figure out what was intended, so you end up like a Dickensian lawyer, forensically examining every word and cross reference. That 'obscuring' business took me about 10 minutes to get my head around.

I did finally manage to kill that nob though!

Edited September 1, 2021 by LameBeard

[firestorm40k]

I managed my first game of this new Kill Team last night; at this stage I'd say it's too early to tell if I prefer this or the previous version - at the moment I can only say it's 'different'. I only managed a few games of the previous edition - I liked that it was basically '40k lite', as my familiarity with those rules meant I could make an easy transition to playing it. This version, I think the way wounds/damage work is better (quicker, less clunky), and the use of 'shapes' for movement actually is helpful e.g. when moving over terrain. But I think I need to play this a few more times, properly integrating things like Tac ops, to say which I prefer. However, I'm looking forward to playing it again, so I guess that's a good sign..! :)

[Inquisitor Eisenhorn]

I finally got a game in, just solo.  I pitted some GSC *ahem* Brood Coven against some Deathwatch operatives, and the mechanics of shooting and fighting feel a lot more satisfying now that I don't just role a single die per shooting attack, meaning that the odds of just tanking an attack on an average of 4 dice feels low.  Even if the shots are shrugged off it feels less arbitrary, and inflicting SOME amount of damage is much more likely. 

 

I also had a few Acolyte Troopers with shotguns rush a marine with a heavy bolter and they both got to chip away at him a bit before getting absolutely destroyed by overwatch in response. 

 

I love that there are no points, personally.  Look, I DON'T CARE about fireteam rules.  My models take the gear they are modeled with, because that's what I want them to take, and the fact that all of the weapons are listed somewhere for deathwatch means I can just make a team of a mix of unit types, like Heavy Intercessor, Reivers, etc, all kitted out how I want and it plays exactly the same as if I kept to their prescribed lists.  Does that balance?  Again, don't care, as my interest in this hobby is purely narrative. 

 

My main complaint is that for narrative play, there are too many sheets to keep track of!  At least for me.  They really should have included a stat line on the narrative character cards, because now I have to reference 2 different places for the full options any given operative has.  I'm going to just get some graph paper and make my own hand written custom sheet and scan it to solve this, but it seems like the workflow of data is a little scattered, which is something I always hate. 

 

But my RPG-at-a-squad-level approach to playing makes this new ruleset a really cool toolbox that I'm excited for now that I've tried it out.

[Dr_Ruminahui]

I just got my copy and was going through its contents.  I've read a bit of the rules, and leafed through the book setting out the ork and guard killteams.  I didn't, however, see the rules for any other factions - where do I get those?  I want to figure out what a killteam using my chaos figures would look like.

[Brother Tyler]

You'll need the Compendium for that.

[Noserenda]

I just got my copy and was going through its contents.  I've read a bit of the rules, and leafed through the book setting out the ork and guard killteams.  I didn't, however, see the rules for any other factions - where do I get those?  I want to figure out what a killteam using my chaos figures would look like.

Rather than dropping £30 to find out, Goonhammer did a solid overview of Chaos Marines here: :) 

 

https://www.goonhammer.com/never-gonna-give-you-updates-chaos-space-marine-kill-team-tactics/

 

[Inquisitor Eisenhorn]

You'll need the Compendium for that.

Man I don't like flipping through that book while playing.  I think I like the rules for this new edition more, but yeah the roll-out stinks something awful and can't blame people for being put off for how diffuse the materials are.  Like I mentioned even trying to do something like narrative is too much book keeping across too many types of charts for your roster/characters/stats/ploys/equipment.

[LameBeard]

I’m with you on this. GW are forgetting we have something called “imagination”. The narrative can be formed by what the characters *do*, rather than all these additional layers of book-keeping on top. I haven’t fathomed them yet.

 

In our test games so far, it does seem pretty brutal. I have no had more than one guardsman survive a game. That’s an interesting story in the context of a “meat grinder” war the guard are fighting, but not necessarily one that lends itself to the story of a group of hard bitten survivors.

[Lord Raven 19]

If anyone does make unit cards (all in one narrative cards), please add them to the downloads. For all our sakes.

 

I'm enjoying the new KT a lot. I like the speed of the game and have, so far, enjoyed several wins woth both of the box teams and my chaos marines. I like the new measurement system more than I thought I would, it's much less clunky than it seemed. Overall, a very fun game that is better paced than the original.

[Mandragola]

That's very good to hear. This does look to me like a game designed around actually playing, which is great. Just wish I got to play more myself.

[barek]

I played for the second time yesterday. My wife's Dark Eldar killed my marines who joyfully gave their lives for the Emperor. It looks good, it is fast, cinematic and you really have to make tactical decisons, and the LOS and cover and concealments rules are briljant.