Faction-specific NPOs

[Brother Tyler]

The Core Book for the 2024 edition of the Warhammer 40,000: Kill Team game provides players with six different non-player operatives for the Joint Ops Mission Pack. These are relatively generic, giving 3 varieties each for brawlers (melee specialists) and marksmen (shooting specialists). Each of those types has a basic variety (trooper), an "elite" variety (tough for the brawlers, warrior for the marksmen), and a heavy variety. Those generic NPOs are sufficient as generic options. However, the Core Book also provides the following:

 

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Alternatively [to using the stock NPOs], you can create your own datacards to accurately reflect their stats using existing kill teams as a guide - just ignore rules that wouldn't be appropriate for standard soldiers.

 

This provides us with an interesting opportunity as a community - developing each of the existing factions into NPOs. We could use the datacard templates to create cards that members of the community might download. This is facilitated by the fact that the rules for all of the existing teams are freely available for download from the Warhammer Community website, giving us a basic starting point.

 

I think, though, that I need to modify the datacards a little so that the team can be clearly identified. That is my project for today.

 

I'm not sure if anyone is interested in helping out with this, or if it will be a solo effort on my part, but just in case, here's a list of the existing teams. If anyone commits to working on any of these teams, I'll list their name next to the team name.

 

Angels of Death

Blades of Khaine

Blooded

Brood Brothers

Chaos Cult

Corsair Voidscarred

Death Korps

Elucidian Starstriders

Exaction Squad

Farstalker Kinband

Fellgor Ravagers

Gellerpox Infected

Hand of the Archon

Hearthkyn Salvagers

Hernkyn Yaegirs

Hierotek Circle

Hunter Clade

Imperial Navy Breachers

Inquisitorial Agents

Kasrkin

Kommandos

Legionaries

Mandrakes

Nemesis Claw

Novitiates

Pathfinders

Phobos Strike Team

Scout Squad

Tempestus Aquilons

Vespid Stingwings

Void-Dancer Troupe

Wyrmblade

Warpcoven

 

If you want to spearhead developing any of these factions, please reply here with the name(s) of the faction(s) you wish to cover and I'll add you to the list. You can then post your initial recommendations in a separate topic that has the tag "NPO Project" used as the prefix, along with the name of the team/faction as the topic title. We can then debate and refine until we have a finished set of NPOs, at which point we can upload the finished version to the Downloads section under the Kill Team category.

[Brother Tyler]

Just some quick thoughts after looking through all of the official team rules...

 

I don't see the NPOs as always being directly comparable to the regular kill teams. After all, they're supposed to be "standard soldiers for their army." For example, the Blades of Khaine kill team may include Dire Avengers, Howling Banshees, and Striking Scorpions, all of which are elite units. The NPOs would be for regular Asuryani, most likely featuring Guardians (Storm and Defender) and possibly with some of the Aspect Warriors. Similarly, the Hand of the Archon includes elite Kabalites, whereas the NPOs would probably be mostly regular Kabalites. Some of the official kill teams may include "regular" models, such as the [Space Marine] Scouts, so converting those might not be as big of a challenge. Similarly, there are some factions that don't really have "standard" operatives, or whose "standard" operatives are elite, such as the Void-Dancer Troupe.

[apologist]

Fun idea! I'm, not familiar with the game mode, but from what I gather these are essentially game-controlled 'grunts' that operate as watchmen, sentries etc. Is that right? 

 

I agree with your note that some factions seem far more easy to draw out basic grunts from, while others are by their nature less easy to 'de-elite'. As a first sweep, I'd suggest the following are the easy options, with a fairly obvious basic NPO:

• Blooded
• Brood Brothers
• Chaos Cult
• Corsair Voidscarred
• Death Korps
• Elucidian Starstriders
• Exaction Squad
• Farstalker Kinband
• Fellgor Ravagers
• Gellerpox Infected
• Hand of the Archon
• Hearthkyn Salvagers
• Hernkyn Yaegirs
• Hunter Clade
• Imperial Navy Breachers
• Kommandos
• Novitiates
• Pathfinders
• Vespid Stingwings
• Wyrmblade
• Warpcoven**

These would benefit from a little more thought and creativity, as they're either inherently unsuited to being NPOs (by virtue of being super-rare and precious in lore terms), or don't have an obvious 'normal' archetype.

• Angels of Death*
• Blades of Khaine
• Hierotek Circle
• Inquisitorial Agents*
• Kasrkin
• Legionaries**
• Mandrakes
• Nemesis Claw**
• Phobos Strike Team
• Scout Squad*
• Tempestus Aquilons
• Void-Dancer Troupe

 

For all those marked with a * – in short, all the Imperial Space Marines plus the Inquisition – I'd suggest that lore-wise they don't make for a great set of antagonist mooks. The same arguably applies for all those marked with a ** – the Renegade Space Marines. 

 

I'd suggest using a combination of reskinned gun-servitors (from the Inquisitorial Agent list) or the Armsman (from Imperial Navy Breachers) as the standard for all * teams, representing the sort of Chapter serfs/requisitioned troops that accompany these forces to guard ships, man defences and patrol temporary bases etc.

 

With the exception of the Warpcoven, whose Tzaangor's are a great fit for worthless thralls, tje ** could likewise use the Armsman or perhaps Blooded as appropriate slaves, depending on your own interpretation.

 

 

[Indy Techwisp]

3 hours ago, apologist said:

With the exception of the Warpcoven, whose Tzaangor's are a great fit for worthless thralls.

 

It'd take a little work, but there's a Faction Specifc NPO I've been thinking about for Thousand Sons:

An Aspiring Sorcerer.

 

The Sorcs in the Warpcovern Killteam are supposed to be Character Sorcerers (Exalted Sorcs or Normal Sorcs), so there's a gap that's been left for the weaker and more disposable Aspiring Sorcerers that every unit of Rubrics have shepherding around.

 

It'd essentially just be a lower powered version of the Sorcerer, possibly taking some cues from whatever the Death Guard Sorc ends up looking like, but with no Boon of Tzeentch or extra Powers on top of the Spell=Gun one.

[Ace Debonair]

Ok, so: The circumstances in which I play Kill Team are as follows. The game is house-ruled like crazy and simplifiied down to the lowest possible amount of stuff to remember for the benefit of one of my nephews, who has learning difficulties and just likes to roll dice so his dwarves can be awesome. This effects my viewpoint on how this should work by a lot, so I feel it's important to state that context up front.

 

That said, I feel like a key thing to determine early on is just how different you want these all to be from each other.

 

For example, what level of difference would you want between a basic Blooded trooper, a Veteran Death Korps Guardsman, a Brood Brother, and the existing profile for basic Marksman Trooper NPOs?

 

Giving them all their own special rules seems redundant, (after all, at that point why not just use the existing Kill Team's rules as they are), but making them all function identically might not be what you want either.

 

There's also the question of granularity, for the lack of a more appropriate term. Presumably the point of making NPO datasheets will be to have less profiles than the existing Kill-teams have, but how far would you want them pared down?

 

To use the Blooded for the example again, you could theoretically trim the contents back to Blooded (Marksman), Blooded (Melee), Blooded Leader, Enforcer and Ogryn. Heck, you could just count the Enforcer as another Blooded Leader, if minimum number of profiles is the goal. Better still, in that regard, would be to use the existing Trooper NPO stuff (both brawler and marksman, as appropriate) for the majority of the Blooded, and the Heavy melee profile for the Ogryn, leaving you with just needing a profile(s) for the Blooded Leader(s).

 

I'm of the mindset that there is no shame in leaning on (or outright using) the existing NPO profiles, and the goal should be adding the absolute minimum of additional datasheets and special rules, but I'm aware that that doesn't mean everyone else would want the same thing. People who mainly play the Blooded might want something slightly more potent to represent their guys with, for example, even as NPOs. So I think it's important to first work out what level of complexity you'd want before tackling a project like this, and whether the goal is maximum amount of customised datasheets or maximum integration with existing stuff.

 

EDIT: oops, left out a few words 

EDIT: Left out a lot of words, actually 

 

 

Edited November 1 by Ace Debonair

[Indy Techwisp]

Chiming back in here to say that with the November FAQ update they have added a new NPO: The Sniper.

I'm somewhat hopeful this means that we'll get more NPOs in downloads like this throughout the edition.

 

That aside, any faction that has a Dedicated Marksman (or has a Squad Sniper) now has an NPO for that model.

[Brother Tyler]

The way I see it, the custom NPO datacards that Games Workshop suggests are about immersion and variation. Using the standard NPO datacards is perfectly acceptable, of course, but that method makes models interchangeable (i.e., an Ork warrior is the same as an Adeptus Arbites warrior is the same as an Adepta Sororitas warrior, etc.), but it also removes some of the flavor (i.e., when players see Ork models, they expect certain things that differentiate them from, say, T'au models). By using faction-specific NPOs, you still get simplified "mook" models, but they act in a way that is thematic and expected. They will be NPOs, so not up to the same level as the player-controlled operatives, but they'll behave in ways that fulfill player expectations of their respective factions. This can also be useful in exposing new players to different factions, helping them to better understand the different factions and, perhaps, identify some whose rules they might want to try out for their own kill teams.

 

Ultimately, it will come down to the models that are available. If I'm teaching my son to play the game, I can use the standard NPOs for our initial games, but I might then switch to custom faction-specific NPOs based on the models that are available to me. The easy answer here is to create custom NPOs for each of the factions for which there are Kill Team faction rules, simplifying them down to NPO level. I'm also of a mind to make other faction rules for those factions for which there are appropriate WH40K game models. The main example I have for that is the Asuryani. That faction has only the Blades of Khaine kill team, which consists of aspect warriors. I can see appropriate "standard soldiers" Asuryani NPOs as guardians.

 

     

 

     

 

Note that I'm not saying that the above should be used. Those are just what I came up with on the fly today to illustrate the concept. And since the "Guardian Leader" is something I just came up with, I'm leery of it. My alternative was to allow the Storm Guardian to choose between a power sword or a chainsword. I was trying to give the Asuryani something to approximate the Tough/Heavy brawlers without using an aspect warrior, an autarch, or a warlock. I also considered a heavy weapon platform. Ultimately, my goal was just to get something created to post here, so I didn't worry too much about whether these would be my final proposal. Also, I haven't finalized the Ranger (sniper) NPO card.

 

My intent, though, is to have faction-specific NPOs that are roughly on par with the standard NPOs while being representative of their factions.

[Indy Techwisp]

The WarCom downloadable Lt. Titus KT mission pack has Tyranid Specific NPOs, interestingly enough, meaning we've got those before the faction even got a Killteam.

Regarding those, they do seem to still be based on the main NPOs except the Lictor which as far as I can see is wholly original.

[Brother Tyler]

7 hours ago, Indy Techwisp said:

The WarCom downloadable Lt. Titus KT mission pack has Tyranid Specific NPOs, interestingly enough, meaning we've got those before the faction even got a Killteam.

Regarding those, they do seem to still be based on the main NPOs except the Lictor which as far as I can see is wholly original.

 

Yes, I think the Tyranid NPOs in that mission pack perfectly illustrate how NPOs can be tailored to each faction (and that mission pack saves us from having to develop Tyranid NPOs ).

[Indy Techwisp]

48 minutes ago, Brother Tyler said:

Yes, I think the Tyranid NPOs in that mission pack perfectly illustrate how NPOs can be tailored to each faction (and that mission pack saves us from having to develop Tyranid NPOs ).

There is still design room left over for Tyranids imo.

 

But yes, the Tyranid NPOs do make for good example "Faction Specific NPOs".

[Brother Tyler]

Okay, I took a first stab at "real" datacards for Asuryani Guardian NPOs. In the interest of organization, however, I'm going to start a separate topic for each faction so that discussion can remain focused. However, I made some minor tweaks to the overall format of things.

 

The mission packs show datacards that closely resemble those used by the main kill teams, rather than the smaller cards shown for NPOs (see this post for my take on these). When creating my examples using the smaller datacards, it quickly became apparent that the smaller format is too small, not allowing for faction/operative-specific rules or bespoke behaviours. Those smaller NPO datacards work well enough for the generic NPOs that use the standard behaviours, but they are inadequate for faction-specific NPOs. So I've switched to the larger size.

 

In addition, the datacards shown in the mission packs omit keywords, APL, and Move. This works fine when the mission packs provide mission special rules that dictate the composition of NPO forces and how NPOs move, but doesn't work for general use NPOs (i.e., when you're using the Joint Ops Mission Pack for regular gaming). Here are examples using the Guardian Defender for the Asuryani Guardian NPOs that I'm working on:

 

     

(click to see full size versions)

 

While I've included both formats in the latest version of the Datacard Templates file, my preference is to use the normal format (i.e., includes keywords, APL, and Move - the version on the left) and in cases where someone is including these in a mission pack with mission special rules that dictate NPO force composition and NPO movement, simply indicate that those entries on the datacard are ignored. I found that developing both versions leads to a risk of inconsistency, especially in cases where a card is developed and is later edited (and the other version doesn't get edited). In fact, there's probably a good chance that I may have missed some edits in the Asuryani Guardian cards that I developed (see here).

 

You'll also notice that I've included three things that aren't on the NPO datacards that appear in the mission packs. First is an icon for the NPO faction (appearing to the left of the NPO name), second is the NPO faction name (appearing below the NPO name), and third is the orange "Fan-Made Rules" (at the bottom left). The first two help in keeping things neat and tidy - players that want to use these NPOs can see at a glance which faction they are using (and limit themselves to NPOs solely from that faction); and it's clear that these are fan-made rules so that we don't see stupid false rumors popping up around the Internet.