Kill Team Kill Team: Hivestorm (New Edition)

[firestorm40k]

 

Looks like the range rotation rumours were somewhat true as well. Year 1 teams will be dropping off tournament play list, but will continue to get balance updates over the lifetime of the edition.

Not sure how I feel about this - I've loads of Kill Teams that are in the year 1 bracket, including a few that I've not actually got round to building/painting yet (Kommandoz and Phobos) - I'm glad they're still being supported, but it's a shame they won't be 'Tournament legal'. Even if you're not part of that circuit, a lot of people still look as whatever is legal for tournaments as being 'official' - I hope that people don't start telling opponents they won't play those year 1 'Classified' teams after the first year has passed 

[Hfran Morkai]

I don't play (atm) but that sounds rough. I don't get why they can't just keep balancing them for tournaments.

 

 

When it says 'leaving the range', I take it they'll just rebrand to 40K boxes, right?

 

Because barring Pathfinders aren't most of them the only way to get those kits for 40K?

[Marshall Bretton]

It might be that when they leave the range they will go to online order only rather than being stocked in GW stores

[TrawlingCleaner]

 

Not sure how I feel about this - I've loads of Kill Teams that are in the year 1 bracket, including a few that I've not actually got round to building/painting yet (Kommandoz and Phobos) - I'm glad they're still being supported, but it's a shame they won't be 'Tournament legal'. Even if you're not part of that circuit, a lot of people still look as whatever is legal for tournaments as being 'official' - I hope that people don't start telling opponents they won't play those year 1 'Classified' teams after the first year has passed 

 

It's annecdotal but I've genuinely never met someone who will never play against Legends units or equivilants. There are those out there but they're such a small quantity

 

 

When it says 'leaving the range', I take it they'll just rebrand to 40K boxes, right?

 

Because barring Pathfinders aren't most of them the only way to get those kits for 40K?

 

From building the Fellgor Ravagers and the Eldar Corsairs, their sprues are very interesting as you can build a "Standard" unit from the main sprues and they have the "Specialists" sprue that's seperate, I would imagine this is the same for some of the other killteams too. Likely a rebranding and pivoted into the general 40k lines as they're gorgeous minis!

[Lord Marshal]

 

Looks like the range rotation rumours were somewhat true as well. Year 1 teams will be dropping off tournament play list, but will continue to get balance updates over the lifetime of the edition.

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2024/09/06/kill-team-managing-the-range-of-kill-teams-in-the-new-edition/

 

God damnit. Very disappointing to hear. I guess at least they will have a life in 40k, but that's still small comfort.

 

Sucks if you enjoy playing a particular team. Also means a lot of armies are going get a taste of not being able to play 'their 40k faction' in Kill Team eventually.

 

 

Legends

 

I think it's worse for Kill Team because the community massively skews competitive/tournament prep, whereas in 40k and AoS there's still a sizeable casual majority (even if most people used Matched Play rules) where something being Legends isn't so bad.

 

Edited September 6 by Lord Marshal

[TheMawr]

 

I'd suspect its some porch pirate trying to sell it off without realising its not been released yet. Actual influencers with review copies would know better to try to sell it before NDA date.

 

Looks like the range rotation rumours were somewhat true as well. Year 1 teams will be dropping off tournament play list, but will continue to get balance updates over the lifetime of the edition.

 

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2024/09/06/kill-team-managing-the-range-of-kill-teams-in-the-new-edition/

 

This has me very worried about the fate of the corsairs in the near future. The boarding actions rule supplement already is also ignoring their existence among the eldar options. 

[Hfran Morkai]

 

 

It's annecdotal but I've genuinely never met someone who will never play against Legends units or equivilants. There are those out there but they're such a small quantity

 

 

From building the Fellgor Ravagers and the Eldar Corsairs, their sprues are very interesting as you can build a "Standard" unit from the main sprues and they have the "Specialists" sprue that's seperate, I would imagine this is the same for some of the other killteams too. Likely a rebranding and pivoted into the general 40k lines as they're gorgeous minis!

 

Ah, I won't lie I haven't paid too much attention to the Killteams barring the ones that would likely interest me.

 

Like the T'au Pathfinders but that was also a way to update a kit, interesting others are also set up in a similar manner.

 

I don't think the T'au are going anywhere soon though as the Combat Patrol has the Kill Team sprue. Still, might be worth picking up a couple of sets of them now.

[skylerboodie]

I don't play Kill Team (mainly just a minis collector) but I really like the clarity this article brings to the next few years/seasons/editions(!) as at least lets people know where they stand and what to expect. I hope GW start to do more of this, rather than be so secretive of plans etc.

[Joe]

I may not agree with the plans, but it's definitely been a breath of fresh air in terms of communication on that frnot. I think adopting a more TCG-esque approach isn't strictly awful, although it'd be nice if they rotated older teams in with some rules refreshes on occasion just to keep things interesting.

[Lord Marshal]

 

 

This has me very worried about the fate of the corsairs in the near future. The boarding actions rule supplement already is also ignoring their existence among the eldar options. 

 

I think the 'full' kits are probably safe as 40k boxes, but they'll probably go Online Only like the Underworlds teams do for AoS or will be reboxed to count as sales for 40k alone. Ironically this is probably good for 40k players in the longer term as it means their Kommandos won't suddenly go to Legends. 

 

The upgrade sprue teams are probably vanishing into the aether though, with the possible exception of ones which are heavily integrated into 40k like the Chaos Legionnaire options (psyker, Big Axe, etc).

 

Edited September 6 by Lord Marshal

[Schurge]

I appreciate their honesty about the planned obsolescence of Kill Teams, and I can appreciate the reasoning. (Though other companies like Corvus Belli manage to support models they no longer sell. Perhaps they would be richer if they didn't.)

 

I don't know if the honesty makes me more likely or less likely, though, to adopt Kill Team. At least in the way they want me to. I can proxy Grey Knights for both Heretic Astartes teams and get a pretty nice experience. Assuming the design tropes stay relatively the same you could get away with never actually buying another team. Halberd guy is the two handed meat stick so many teams get. Falchions is the knife fighter so many teams get. Heavy weapons is the heavy weapons. And so on. And so on. Periodically assemble another strike marine to kitbash an approximation of something new.

 

I'm still excited about it. Probably won't be spending any money though anytime soon.

[Indy Techwisp]

"Angels of Death" team is probably an updated Intercession Squad team, right?

 

Also, that graphic has all 33 teams on it, so if you were a Faction that was still stuck in Compendium land, you don't have a team anymore and after Season 1 ends some more factions will entirely drop out of the game, like Thousand Sons and AdMech (and T'au teams that aren't just Auxiliaries).

 

I really hope they do a "Compendium 2" somewhen in season 1, otherwise they're massively impacting the playerbase (y'know, besides telling the existing comp players "You can't use the one team you're good at using because we range rotated it. Get ed.")

[Focslain]

 

"Angels of Death" team is probably an updated Intercession Squad team, right?

 

Also, that graphic has all 33 teams on it, so if you were a Faction that was still stuck in Compendium land, you don't have a team anymore and after Season 1 ends some more factions will entirely drop out of the game, like Thousand Sons and AdMech (and T'au teams that aren't just Auxiliaries).

 

I really hope they do a "Compendium 2" somewhen in season 1, otherwise they're massively impacting the playerbase (y'know, besides telling the existing comp players "You can't use the one team you're good at using because we range rotated it. Get ed.")

You do realize that that graphic was only for those that will be tournament legal right? All teams are getting rules and will be maintained. It's literally just the competitive scene that is getting trimmed. 

[Indy Techwisp]

 

You do realize that that graphic was only for those that will be tournament legal right? All teams are getting rules and will be maintained. It's literally just the competitive scene that is getting trimmed. 

 

To quote from the article:

At launch, the new edition will feature 33 kill teams with their rules updated and balanced for the new edition – and available for free online. You will be able to download these rules on Warhammer Community and on the Kill Team App.

The graphic underneath that contains 33 teams, which as stated above is the exact number of teams in the new edition at Launch.

[Mogger351]

I have a hard time being annoyed by this. Nice clear comms, well laid out direction and early visibility.

 

Beyond those short changed by having recently bought the older teams, it's a 1 box and you're done for factions generally. If you get 2-4 years of being able to play in competitions with a single £40ish purchase, that seems decent to me?

[Indy Techwisp]

 

I have a hard time being annoyed by this. Nice clear comms, well laid out direction and early visibility.

 

Beyond those short changed by having recently bought the older teams, it's a 1 box and you're done for factions generally. If you get 2-4 years of being able to play in competitions with a single £40ish purchase, that seems decent to me?

 

OK, so.

Besides the fact that if your faction didn't get a White Dwarf, Annual or Bespoke team, you straight up don't get a team anymore, another large chunk of factions will be losing all representation at the end of the first season, which isn't very good is it.

 

It's good Comms, yes.

But that doesn't change the fact those comms are just an advance warning of an upcoming kick in the nads.

[ThePenitentOne]

Yep. This should have us all worried.

 

This edition hasn't even started, and they've already announced the next one!

 

I'm not concerned about whether GW tells me that I can no longer use a KT as long is it continues to be compatible with the rules. When Novitiates came out, they said sisters from the compendium were no longer an option, but that didn't stop me. New editions are never all roses- I just hope there's more good than bad in whatever is on the way. I still need them to make a statement about Spec-Ops play.

[Indy Techwisp]

 

Yep. This should have us all worried.

 

This edition hasn't even started, and they've already announced the next one!

 

I'm not concerned about whether GW tells me that I can no longer use a KT as long is it continues to be compatible with the rules. When Novitiates came out, they said sisters from the compendium were no longer an option, but that didn't stop me. New editions are never all roses- I just hope there's more good than bad in whatever is on the way. I still need them to make a statement about Spec-Ops play.

 

Novitiates team didn't replace Ecclesiarchy tho.

The White Dwarf teams did because they were pretty much just the Compendium teams with added TacOps and stuff, but the other Bespokes didn't invalidate their factions compendium team.

[Joe]

 

This edition hasn't even started, and they've already announced the next one!

 

To be honest, if we're expecting KT editions to continue to track for approximately three years then getting nearly six years of play out of a £40 Kill Team box set (not including any rulebooks that pop up down the line) is inordinantly good value for the competitive community. I still wouldn't be surprised if retired teams cycled back into Classified on occasion, per my previous remark.

 

From now on, every kill team will receive consistently updated rules for two editions – updates will be quarterly, while smaller adjustments may be made as required. Every team will remain in the product range for four full seasons – seasons generally last 12 months, though they can be longer or shorter as required. This is to ensure a manageable range that we can keep in stock.*

[DeadFingers]

They've edited the article to add this at the bottom. Definitely eases some of my biggest concerns, even if not entirely.

 

. 

Edited September 6 by DeadFingers

[ThePenitentOne]

 

 

To be honest, if we're expecting KT editions to continue to track for approximately three years then getting nearly six years of play out of a £40 Kill Team box set (not including any rulebooks that pop up down the line) is inordinantly good value for the competitive community. 

 

 

My issue with edition churn isn't the value I get from models, it's the loss of development of new stuff that happens due to the necessity of reinventing the freaking wheel every three years. If we were still playing 3rd edition 40k, we'd already have an Emperor's Children army, the Dark Mechanicum would exist, we might have a Xenos Mercenary book, the Vespid auxilia would be the size of the Kroot auxilia, and we'd probably have Demiurg and Guev'sa auxiliaries too. But instead, we've had seven extra Space Marine dexes and I don't even know how extra many snowflake Marine dexes/supplements that nobody wanted or asked for. Yes, the space marine range would certainly have continued to expand- additional books for the new kits (or PDFs, or whatever) could still have happened without blowing up the edition seven freakin times.

 

The reason GW invents new things so dang slowly is that they're too busy reinventing old things, most/many of which weren't broken to begin with and didn't need replacing. You can add things to an edition without remaking the edition. Solo Play and PVE could have been a new book that worked with the KT21 ruleset. Universal equipment could have been a part of that or a PDF.

 

I'm still not sure if I'm going to go down the rabbit hole of KT24- I certainly won't be able to afford the launch box, which sucks, because it will be the biggest value of the entire edition, though it'll also sell out in 30 minutes or less. Then a month later they'll release the regular starter, which will be available for the duration, but will be far less value for the dollar (though it's price will be lower than the launch box). If they hadn't blown up the edition, the regular starter box release might have been the second set of models for the season... But see previous comments about reinventing the wheel.

 

Sorry to be negative guys- usually I'm not, but until Warcom lets me know what's happening to spec ops, I'm afraid I'll be looking at this edition through poop coloured glasses. KT18's campaign rules were terrible, and this time around, so much effort will have been devoted to solo and PVE that Spec-Ops might be severely compromised. It's even more likely because the digital rules for the 33 times already have to include everything players need for stand alone engagements. I don't KNOW that they're going to simplify and wreck Spec Ops... But a part of me knows they're going to simplify and wreck Spec ops. And until I hear otherwise, the part of me that knows that isn't going to let me see anything good in this edition.

Edited September 6 by ThePenitentOne

[INKS]

Well, they just killed kill team or me.

sigh... why do they do the things that they do?

I do not know why anyone would ever buy into ANY TEAM in season 1. They are literally killing those teams off after 1 season. So if you have them, then great play them but there is very little reason to spend money on them at all. Which is odd for a company to just pull these kits when these kits aren't even that old. SOME of them have a little 40k play. SOME. But most of them don't really have play there either. 

 

What's worse is they kill off Kommando's just so they can release a new Ork kill team that you now buy in to. To then turn around and in X time they will kill that team off. Who knows how long that will be. 2 years? 3 years? I am not buying into that.

 

I do understand that this is there way to manage teams because they already have too many and it's only going to get worse as the release new ones. I understand you can only have so many model ranges you can produce at any given time and the new gives way to the old. But these kits are not that old. 

 

I don't see why I would want to buy into a mini range / game where I need to throw my whole team out for play every 2-3 years. Imagine if your 40k army just became tournament useless in 3 years when 11th edition came around... I just don't get it overall and it's turned me off of the game. I am not buying into a new edition and new kill teams just to have them killed off in a new tournament season. I certainly who not buy ANY of  the old teams now, ALL of them are on borrowed time.

 

Am I crazy here? 

[Noserenda]

Well thats disappointing, once more the focus on trying to make a tournament game has negative knock ons for everyone. Depending on what gets released in the next year at least, because year 2 is when we had that whole load of human elites in carp armour which might make the game a lot more samey.

Its weird that they are narrowing their supported teams so much though, even a basic team as presented in last editions compendium can get people playing, and if they like the game, buying the current "legal" teams to play more seriously.

[Mogger351]

 

Well, they just killed kill team or me.

sigh... why do they do the things that they do?

I do not know why anyone would ever buy into ANY TEAM in season 1. They are literally killing those teams off after 1 season. So if you have them, then great play them but there is very little reason to spend money on them at all. Which is odd for a company to just pull these kits when these kits aren't even that old. SOME of them have a little 40k play. SOME. But most of them don't really have play there either. 

 

What's worse is they kill off Kommando's just so they can release a new Ork kill team that you now buy in to. To then turn around and in X time they will kill that team off. Who knows how long that will be. 2 years? 3 years? I am not buying into that.

 

I do understand that this is there way to manage teams because they already have too many and it's only going to get worse as the release new ones. I understand you can only have so many model ranges you can produce at any given time and the new gives way to the old. But these kits are not that old. 

 

I don't see why I would want to buy into a mini range / game where I need to throw my whole team out for play every 2-3 years. Imagine if your 40k army just became tournament useless in 3 years when 11th edition came around... I just don't get it overall and it's turned me off of the game. I am not buying into a new edition and new kill teams just to have them killed off in a new tournament season. I certainly who not buy ANY of  the old teams now, ALL of them are on borrowed time.

 

Am I crazy here? 

 

 

Yes, you are a little.

 

They very clearly state:

 

"From now on, every kill team will receive consistently updated rules for two editions – updates will be quarterly, while smaller adjustments may be made as required. Every team will remain in the product range for four full seasons – seasons generally last 12 months, though they can be longer or shorter as required. This is to ensure a manageable range that we can keep in stock.*"

 

So you can see any new kill teams released will be valid for the competitive game for 4 years, not 1 season. This is all very clear and it's an assumption albeit a safe one that any recently released kill teams (which you'll note they conveniently haven't done for a while and are sat on a few from last season to be released) will follow the 4 year plan, giving you a strong gauge on when they'll get nuked.

[Mogger351]

 

 

OK, so.

Besides the fact that if your faction didn't get a White Dwarf, Annual or Bespoke team, you straight up don't get a team anymore, another large chunk of factions will be losing all representation at the end of the first season, which isn't very good is it.

 

It's good Comms, yes.

But that doesn't change the fact those comms are just an advance warning of an upcoming kick in the nads.

You're knee jerking here. You don't know which factions will get a kill team in the first year, many already don't have representation. But it's not about whether every 40k army should or needs representation in kill team, nor should it be. I get it's a nice to have but it's not essential. That leads to inventing a load of stuff that doesn't make sense just to tick a box.