Potentially new to Kill Team

[Brother Christopher]

Hello Brothers. I'm a new visitor to this subforum and I'd like to ask a couple of questions and speculate a bit.

 

I have been engaged with the hobby for long years but haven't been interested in Kill Team since around 5th edition. The current landscape of the game appears to be extremely confusing: boxes, seasons, expansions one on top of another. I've struggled to find clear answers to my very basic questions and those that I've found appear to be counter-intuitive, especially when I remember how Kill Team (or whatever it was called back then) used to work. At the same time, the game - at least with regard to Space Marines - appears to be very limited.

 

Let me give you some context: I'm thinking about starting a side project and paint some non-black models. Just a collection of 15-20 Space Marine models from a home-brew chapter that I intend to perhaps use in a game of Kill Team. Am I correct in understanding that right now I need to field basically around 6 models that have to be be selected as a "squad"? I'm interested in Tacticus Primaris, so my choices - as I thing I gather from the Internet - basically boil down to:

- field 5 bolter guys (Intercessors) + 1 other model;

- field 5 melee guys (Chainsword Intercessors) + 1 other model;

- use them as count-as Tactical squad and field 6 models.

 

1. Am I correct in understanding that you can't mix and match models (I think the term is 'Operative') that you like and field, say, 3 Regular Intercessors, 2 Assault Intercessors and 1 Plasma Gun Tactical Marine?

2. If so, for how long has this been a standard?

 

And a bit of speculation. I think it's warranted since if you're up do date with the game, you can see some trends.

3. Do you think that the 'fixed squads' is likely to change? I.e. do you think it's probable tat GW will allow us to field more diverse squads of our choice?

4. How likely is it for GW to allow Jump Pack Marines and Terminators to be used in KT? (I like the new Termie models and would also like to add some jump packs to some Intercessors).

[Lysimachus]

1. You can mix and match to an extent, with 1 Assault or regular Sgt, and 5 Assault or regular Intercessors in whatever combination you prefer. But no, you can't include Tacs or whatever.

 

2. Since the current version of KT came out (2021, I think?)

 

3. It would be amazing if they did. Would be great if you could say one slot out of your 6 Marines could be a Hellblaster or Infernus or whatever. There are some signs of things going that way - check out Strike Force Justian, that has a mix of Primaris unit types.

But that may well be a one off.

 

4. TDA teams would have to be very small, very elite. What you could do would be to build them as a Counts-as Custodes KT, I guess?

If they did a KT season of jump troops, Swooping Hawks, Raptors, etc, then Jump Intercessors would obviously fit in fine. Otherwise, in regular KT, I wonder if their high movement would be unbalanced?

Again, maybe it would be cool to be able to take 1 in an Intercessor team?

[Brother Christopher]

Thank you for responding. I now feel that I have a good-enough understanding of the situation.

 

Also, thanks a lot for tip about using Custodes as TDAs - that's an added encouragement to work on some Terminators. I thought about using them as Heavy Intercessors, but I believe that Custodes' rules should be better - I'll check them out.

 

I've checked out Strike Force Justian - it's a cool mix of models, but a bit of a pity that the load outs appear to be fixed. But in the end, I wouldn't' worry about this too much. I think it's a bit of a trend in current GW's releases (like the Primaris Command Squad thingy for 'regular' 40k). I'm just looking for an excuse to use some models that I intend to paint in some form of a gaming scenario ;) (I don't want to mix my old marines with Primaris in my main collection).

 

 

[2PlusEasy]

The beauty of Kill Team is that it's self-contained: kill teams are (mostly) preset. It makes it a great pick up and play game that's over and dusted in 40 - 60 minutes.

 

If you're after a fully modular list building experience, then Kill Team likely won't scratch that itch.

[Brother Christopher]

9 hours ago, 2PlusEasy said:

If you're after a fully modular list building experience, then Kill Team likely won't scratch that itch.

 

Nah, I think simple is good. I'm just looking for an excuse to use some models and preset teams seem to be perfect for that purpose. However, I'm afraid that GW will have ideas in the future and there's a good chance they'll invalidate whatever I come up with, say remove tactical squads.

[2PlusEasy]

That's an understandable and very potential fear. The simple answer is that GW will eventually do it: it's a matter of when.

 

But, tabletop wargaming and RPGs have something in common: unless you're attending events that frequently chase the newest metas and rules, find what you and your regulars like and stick with it. There are still grognards playing Rogue Trader out there after all.

[Mandragola]

I'm currently building a number of marine kill teams, which is certainly a foolish thing to do.

 

There are lots of options. You should probably ignore all the compendium teams as those can't really compete with the full releases that have come since and they lack interesting options. That leaves you:

 

The Intercession kill team, which you can download here (PDF): https://www.warhammer-community.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/uctVTzdkCwtQPn9R.pdf. This is a pretty brutal team that lets you freely mix assault and bolter-armed intercessors. You get quite a few options but nobody all that special.

Strike force Justian, which is the current Space Marine Heroes box. You get 8 models and can field any 6 of them. Good team to start with as you have some interesting options but they're pre-set.

The Phobos Kill Team from Moroch (and subsequently quite significantly Errata'd). These are your Phobos guys: Infiltrators, Incursors and Reivers (but not eliminators). They're less tough and fighty than intercession but have way more tricks and sneakiness. Definitely the hardest to play.

The new Scouts in Salvation are very different in that you field 9 guys instead of 6. Individually they're all worse but they're still decent and pack a lot of firepower. They're probably somewhere between phobos and intercession, with a few little tricks but nothing too major.

 

If you run any team other than Justian you'd need something like 12-15 guys. I'm currently building scouts using the new models and 6 BT neophyte bodies to fill out the options (and give me 3 squads for 40k). For Intercession I used Black Templars, plus a few spare bits and pieces from my bits box, which was a fun little project.

 

Kill Team probably offers you something quite like what you're looking for I think, as a modelling project. As a game it tilts towards competitive play, with frequent balance updates and lots of tournament data. This means it's currently probably GW's most balanced game. That suits some people (me included) but not everyone.