Kill Team Kill Team: Hivestorm (New Edition)

[Indy Techwisp]

 

They have specifically said there will be a second and third wave of reboxed kits coming. Given the current wave are all getting the tokens added my assumption is that they will be doing that for the others as well.

 

I really don't think there is any need to be panicking

 

More of a PSA than an "Everyone Panic" thing.

Mostly that if you needed Kreigsmen for a Guard army or whatever, you're not able to buy them at the moment.

[Scribe]

 

Goons are wrong: without campaign play, this game isn't worth the paper it's printed on.

 

I played plenty of KT, before it was even being provided by GW, without Campaigns, who needs the extra overhead of tracking a bunch of stuff? I do that all day at work, I'm not paid to do it in a game of rolling some dice and moving some little figures around.

 

Quick, clean, set up, play and done. Thats all I would be looking for these days.

[Marshall Bretton]

 

 

More of a PSA than an "Everyone Panic" thing.

Mostly that if you needed Kreigsmen for a Guard army or whatever, you're not able to buy them at the moment.

 

Sorry, didn't mean to imply you were panicking!

But yes is is useful to know, it's the same for kasrkin which I use as the base for my guard so I can't get them ATM so I do get where you are coming from.

[Tastyfish]

I suspect those rules might reappear in a co-op focused supplement (or even a campaign one), as I've always found any kind of persistent XP rules for these games seems to need a sweet spot in players. Can't have too many otherwise the veteran teams just trump the new blood coming in (even with underdog bonuses depending on the injury rules), and with only a small number it tends towards being a 'win more' thing just rewarding players doing well and punishing those who have had a bad game.

 

Of course none of that matters in co-op, so it's the perfect place to then craft your dream team of spec ops veterans who increasingly stand head and shoulders over the goon squads pitted against them.

 

I kind of liked the idea of the special rules and upgrading your home base, but more just as the concept in the last edition as I never played a Spec Op campaign.

Edited September 21 by Tastyfish

[Mandragola]

With the DKoK I’ve always wondered if we’d see a release minus the KT gubbins sprue. I could imagine that happening when the guard codex drops, as we’re supposed to be getting an expanded DKoK range. Guard players don’t want to be paying for loads of tokens they don’t need. 
 

The fact the rules are all going to be available online for free presents a good opportunity for kit bashing in my opinion. In the past we’d often have got the models and books with their rules together but now there’s a bit more freedom, at least for a season or two. 
 

At goonhammer we wrote a load of stuff about the new edition. I reviewed the new nemesis claw rules here: https://www.goonhammer.com/kill-team-2024-review-nemesis-claw/

[firestorm40k]

 

without campaign play, this game isn't worth the paper it's printed on.

I look forward to proving this statement wrong with every game of this new edition I will play - with the improved & clarified core rules, and especially the co-op and solo play rules. 

 

And not just me, but the groups I game with, who will be incorporating Kill Team in a forthcoming 40k Campaign, as well as special gaming events, so quite a few of us will be enjoying this game and getting a lot of value from it, regardless of Spec Ops absence 

[ThePenitentOne]

 

 

I played plenty of KT, before it was even being provided by GW, without Campaigns, who needs the extra overhead of tracking a bunch of stuff? I do that all day at work, I'm not paid to do it in a game of rolling some dice and moving some little figures around.

 

Quick, clean, set up, play and done. Thats all I would be looking for these days.

 

 

Hey man, you do you. Giving us campaign rules (or just realizing that the game didn't need a new edition and keeping the ones we had) wouldn't have prevented you from doing that, but eliminating those rules does make this game absolutely useless to me.

 

Why even bother naming a character that's never going to grow?

 

@Tastyfish They may be released as a supplement; if so, there's even a chance they'll have more depth than what we had with KT 21, but I'm not counting on it, because the narrative content was always integrated with the KTs themselves. A generic set of narrative rules isn't going to cut it... Just like the stupid pool of common equipment doesn't cut- oh those Tyranids are just famous for their ladders and portable barricades, eh?

 

 

 

 

[Scribe]

 

Why even bother naming a character that's never going to grow?

 

Same reason people named characters, units, armies, chapters, for literal decades with no meaningful rules behind doing so.

 

They enjoy it.

[DemonGSides]

 

 

Same reason people named characters, units, armies, chapters, for literal decades with no meaningful rules behind doing so.

 

They enjoy it.

 

Yeah my captain isnt named "Sir Brainbasher" because he has grown over the years.

 

It's because he is awesome and bashes brains. 

[Arkangilos]

How customizable are the kill teams?

[INKS]

 

How customizable are the kill teams?

Depends on the kill team but fairly limited. In terms of list building.

They give you a list of "you can take one of each of these" and generally you can take as many basic troops as you want. Sometimes you can take 2 gunners or some combination of things.

with an addition of one leader and sometimes some special unit.

for example: The aqullions (name?) - the servo gun thing isn't that great. People will use it because it's cool but rules wise, not the best choice probably. So you can choose not to take it and take something else. Another trooper for example. 

 

 

If you meant customizable in terms of model bits? Then I don't know. I haven't looked at the sprues.

[ThePenitentOne]

 

 

Yeah my captain isnt named "Sir Brainbasher" because he has grown over the years.

 

It's because he is awesome and bashes brains. 

My point is that unless he's converted, in point of fact, he isn't awesome; he's identical to every other model. He will feel awesome to you, because you painted him. I'm not saying people don't develop personal bonds with their models- all of us do.

 

But just like there's no longer a point to saying "This Sister is Order of Our Martyred Lady and that one is Sacred Rose" since subfactions (except for Marines) are now functionally identical, there is no more difference between the King on your chessboard than the King on anyone else's. A "narrative" in KT is now nothing but "I won games 1, 2, 5, and 7, but lost 3, 4 and 6". Maybe next time I'll take a ladder instead of barbed wire."

 

Not worth my time. By all means, I'm sure folks who don't mind stand-alone games will have fun with this... And of course, I understand I sound like the grumpy old dude who doesn't want anyone else to have fun. I hope you guys enjoy the new edition. But to me, stand-alone games might as well be Backgammon, Chess, Checkers, Monopoly or whatever. They are no more exciting to me than any of those games, no matter how cool the models look.

 

And let's face it- chess, checkers, backgammon, monopoly... They are fun, but the reason no one bothers painting their chess pieces is that they really just don't matter all that much. Kill Team 24 will be "fun"- if someone else buys it, assembles it, paints it and lets me use their spare team- but it's certainly not worth it for me to do any of those things, since this game can no longer give me the thing that makes all of that time, money and effort worthwhile.

 

Again, these are my personal feelings, and I don't expect anyone to share them. I'll try to stay away from the forums for a few days maybe, because I'm just going to be a total buzzkill. 

[Antarius]

While I see plenty of reasons to feel attached to the models and their lore, even without rules for growth and development, I also think it’s super weird to cut that dimension out of the game. I mean, if you personally didn’t need it, I get that it’s not a problem for you, but it’s hardly strange that other people did, in fact, like that aspect of the game, seeing as it’s been part of Kill Team since it’s inception (all the way back in 4th) and that campaign play with growth is a super obvious game mode for a skirmish game.

 

To me it’s kinda like how you can play Blood Bowl without team growth, but I don’t think I’ve ever done so and, to me, it’s very integral to the game.

 

As always, the fix is obvious; DIY. Stiil, I get being really bummed out by this and I honestly don’t think it bodes very well for the new edition and its focus. But as always, I am just going to fix it myself, if noone else does.

Edited September 22 by Antarius

[TheArtilleryman]

It is a shame when they remove game features or units that people love to play. Of course, another fix is that it’s possible to just stick with the outgoing edition, but then you don’t get any rules for the new shiny things like the Vespid. That’s the only reason I haven’t stuck with older editions of 40k.

[tinpact]

No campaign rules is kind of a bummer, but hasn't killed it just yet for me - generally, a lot of the narrative stuff I want to represent wasn't represented in the rules anyway.

 

On the other hand, boy am I glad I picked up a scout squad at the old price recently...the first and probably last space marine purchase I'll make this year (at least until the next Horus Heresy release).

[Marshall Bretton]

I do get why people are annoyed by the lack of campaign rules. My assumption is that they didn't want to overload the book with stuff. Clearly the core rules are vital but after that they've chosen to only put 1 other ruleset in. They have obviously chosen the set they think will open the game to a wider range of people, those who prefer coop style games, are intimidated by starting to learn in a competitive scene and want a more casual introduction, or those like me who don't have active groups nearby who would like to play solo. They obviously think they will get more players into the game with those rules.

 

Personally I fully intend to build a solo narrative campaign for myself and level up my team as I go through. All my models are already heavily converted and named and I've never even played KT before so I really don't think the lack of formal rules is any kind of blocker there. People have always done this before there were any narrative modes with models being updated for doing cool (or stupid) stuff in games, just keep doing that. And ultimately it really wouldn't be too hard to just make your own campaign rules anyway so go for it if that's what you want.

 

I do suspect that the first new box set we get for this edition will introduce the campaign play though. The cynic in me believes that will get them more money as people will buy the box set just to get the campaign rules.

[INKS]

it's more strange they didn't address it in some article at some point. Hey we added solo play but we felt narrative play wasn't needed reasons reasons.

[Rusted Boltgun]

My cynical take is that the rulebook is a set number of pages due to cost.

They wanted to introduce new modes of play to broaden appeal and sell more sets (and  the new modes seem to have been warmly received).

Spec Ops is more RPGish and the people that play such games are more likely to have the ability to homebrew (my assumption and kind of a compliment?) So if Spec Ops is over the page count, out it goes. 

I do think it is a shame as it added another dimension so the game. I'd not used it but had dreamed of taking part in a narrative campaign and, ironically, am now more likely to do it with solo play!

Edited September 22 by Rusted Boltgun
One incorrect letter makes all the difference

[irlLordy]

Just to note there is apparently a mini-campaign in the Hivestorm Dossier book, which has 3 games between Aquilons and Vespids, with the results of the games impacting later ones. We can probably expect something similar to appear in the following boxes.

 

Given that theres no roster in the main game anymore (kinda needed to track operative progress) its likely that the spec ops equivalent will either be ported to single player/coop modes or come via WD or another book later.

[ThePenitentOne]

You can still campaign without progression rules.... It's just really dull.

 

Sometimes a victory in one game gives you a rule in the next.

Sometimes there are trees for win/ loss.

Sometimes different objectives in one game provide a rule in the next... And that's about it.

 

Now if you had all that stuff AND progression, it would be a campaign.

 

Houseruling out of this is both easy and difficult; the teams that already exist have spec-ops rules, and they're system agnostic enough that you may be able to just drop them in. There might be a bit of adjustment required, but very little. The difficulty is that new teams won't have anything, so you have to invent it from scratch.

 

Would a Vespid Home Base be a Nest? And if so, what are three things that you could add to that nest? What types of background traits might Vespid have? How might Vespid teams distinguish themselves- what do they value? What things might Vespids requisition? None of us will ever know. All of those things would have helped us understand Vespid culture a little more reliably than any BL novel ever could... Because, again, most BL Novels are bolter porn written by people who don't play the game, and should be seen more as fiction about fluff than as fluff itself. But we're never going to know any of it.

 

I'd like to be clear about something else too: the Spec Ops system wasn't as good as it could have been; I found the actual Spec Ops themselves to be a bit on the dull side- most told you that you had to play a certain number of games in which a particular Tac op was scored, and once you had done that, there would be a final game where a different Tac op was scored, and once you did it, there was a reward. That was always the weakest part of the system, yet it's also the most crucial to creating a narrative. The issue isn't just that removing what we already had is a huge disappointment, it's also that they gave up an excellent chance to make what was already there even better. As others have pointed out, theoretically that could still happen with an expansion book- it's just unlikely, because the Spec-op content tended to be integrated into the team rules themselves.

 

Coop and solo play may be part of the reason why we lost spec ops- either because the page count would have been too high, but more likely because GW couldn't figure out how to provide leveling to the AI element of the game necessary for coop and solo. In other words, coop and solo rules would only be suitably challenging for starting teams and any team that started to grow would quickly outgrow solo and coop.

 

The shame of course, is that this also leaves solo and coop rules shallow. I think that figuring out how to level PVE mode would have been one of the most interesting design challenges in the book, and I think that the fact it doesn't level (because nothing levels) will have people getting bored pretty quickly. Progression is its own incentive for replay.

 

I'd also like my free rules now, because that's the next thing we're all about to discover: it ain't gonna be as free as advertised. You'll be able to play a basic game with the free rules, but you won't have missions, warzone rules or access to Solo/ Coop. 

 

 

[sitnam]

 

I'd also like my free rules now, because that's the next thing we're all about to discover: it ain't gonna be as free as advertised. You'll be able to play a basic game with the free rules, but you won't have missions, warzone rules or access to Solo/ Coop. 

 

Any actual evidence of this?

[ThePenitentOne]

 

 

Any actual evidence of this?

 

It's how free 40k worked. No crusade rules for free; as dexes were released, what was once free was invalidated, and the new "free" digital content could only be unlocked with the code. I fully admit I could be wrong about this, and even though I'm unlikely to play this edition, for everyone else's benefit, I hope I am wrong.

 

Also: woo hoo, no more defense stat!

 

Are you wearing no armour? Three defense dice.

Are you wearing the toughest armour in the game? Three defense dice.

 

Save targets are different, sure, but now there's only one dimension in a defense profile instead of two.

[sitnam]

 

 

Also: woo hoo, no more defense stat!

 

Are you wearing no armour? Three defense dice.

Are you wearing the toughest armour in the game? Three defense dice.

 

It was almost always three, regardless of models. It was kind of a superfluous stat

 

I think the model for free rules will be similar to Warcry, tbh. All the core and faction rules are free, but stuff like the spec ops equivalent is paywalled

Edited September 22 by sitnam

[Tastyfish]

I think the only things that had four defence dice was the original recon drone (which got balanced down to three), and it might just be the Gellarpox grubs that had defence 2.

Easier to incorporate that as a special rule (roll one less/one extra defence dice) than keep it as a stat used by 99%+ of operatives

[Blurgh]

IIRC GW mentioned a Kill Team specific app is coming? Have they mentioned any particular features this app may have?