Kill Team Dead Silence. Tau vs Space Wolves

[Karhedron]

On 10/4/2025 at 10:18 PM, Wispy said:

Grey Hunters can't take special ranged weapons anymore, how are we going to get plasma in our lists? Wolf Scouts will get plasma in our lists.

 

With the current edition, one or two special weapons in a squad just aren't that impactful anymore when you can field whole squads with plasma/melta/flamer. 

[Orange Knight]

4 minutes ago, Karhedron said:

 

With the current edition, one or two special weapons in a squad just aren't that impactful anymore when you can field whole squads with plasma/melta/flamer. 

 

I agree with this. It's visual squad customisation that has little impact beyond slowing down rolls for your unit when they attack.

It makes perfect sense for a kill team, but not for a larger wargame like what 40k has become.

 

Don't get me wrong, I'm happy this unit exists and they look awesome. Whatever rules they get in 40k, what makes them good will probably have little to do with the special weapon.

[Evil Eye]

1 minute ago, Jukkiz said:

Only updates Tau needs are sniper drones and tanks

Agreed. Sniper drones are still the old metal/Finecast sculpt, and whilst the tanks hold up pretty well all things considered there's room for minor improvements; mainly incremental upgrades to overall detail, ease of build and additional options rather than a complete redesign (think of the current Tyranid Warriors compared to the 3rd Edition sculpts they replaced, which they were so faithful to people thought it was an upgrade sprue in the old kit at first!).

In terms of actual upgrades to the grav-tanks I'd like to see (possibly excluding the Devilfish as I seem to recall it did get a refresh somewhat recently):

>The Sky Ray could get some alternate missile options, or alternatively a full alt-build as a "Wobbegong self-propelled artillery"; it'd use a "Smart Guided Mortar" to launch drone-guided munitions via indirect bombardment. This would be a highly accurate artillery piece that does not require line of sight to its target, being a barrage weapon and all, but can only fire on targets marked by markerlight.

>The Hammerhead would get the FW turrets again, with rules that actually make them at least somewhat useful compared to the "default" weapons (this would be considerably easier if wargear costs were still a thing admittedly, so the Hammerhead could be outfitted as either a more expensive main battle tank or a cheaper close support tank. Well, close by Tau standards anyway! I could also be tempted to add the Swordfish (from Chapter Approved's Vehicle Design Rules) as a build option- a twin-linked railgun with boosted killing power but no other weapons and lighter armour.

>I'd add another Devilfish-based duel kit; the Lionfish Command Vehicle (think a CVRT Sultan or a Damocles Command Rhino; basically a Devilfish that operates as a mobile command post, for coordinating air support, reserves etc), and the Drone Harbinger (ala Dawn of War- bringing more drones to the field!).

>Maybe refresh the Piranha to be buildable as a Tetra as well? Would be an excuse to redo an old kit whilst bringing something new to it beyond "it fits together better and has more detail".

>One very cool fanmade model I've seen was a Piranha-sized transport for 6 (or 8? I forget) Pathfinders, sitting 3 (4?) abreast either side of the main fuselage of the vehicle. The guy also made a light missile gunship from it that replaced the seats with a revolving missile drum, like a mini-Sky Ray. Something similar to that would be very nice; honestly I'd kinda love it if they reached out to the guy and said "Hey, we love this, can we make a plastic kit of it?" and credited him for it. Chances of that happening are basically zero but hey.

[Wolf Guard Dan]

Wolves players have been spoiled this year. Really nice sculpts. I may wait until the Wolf scouts are released separately. I still have a lot to chew through with the codex release boxes. Goes without saying it would have been nice to get this unit with the codex. I worry if I don’t get them now I may be waiting for them to be released with the 11th edition codex whenever that comes out. 

[irlLordy]

12 hours ago, Wolf Guard Dan said:

Wolves players have been spoiled this year. Really nice sculpts. I may wait until the Wolf scouts are released separately. I still have a lot to chew through with the codex release boxes. Goes without saying it would have been nice to get this unit with the codex. I worry if I don’t get them now I may be waiting for them to be released with the 11th edition codex whenever that comes out. 

 

They will 100% be released before 11th, as they're a kill team faction and required for that game. Most likely they (and the stealthsuits) will be released alongside the next kill team box, which will be ~3 months after the release of Dead Silence.

Edited October 7 by irlLordy

[Karhedron]

Kill Teams seem to average £42.50 in the UK (although there are some outliers). So the Dead Silence set would need to come in below £80 to be tempting for splitting.

[HeadlessCross]

On 10/5/2025 at 10:47 PM, Wispy said:

yes but I like to be pure Wolfy 

They are Space Wolves though. 

[Moonstalker]

11 hours ago, HeadlessCross said:

They are Space Wolves though. 

 

They don't get the Space Wolves keyword and don't count for many of our stratagems/detachment rules.

 

Edit: Seen a few influencers dropping vids and blogs about Dead Silence in the last couple days.  It's funny how many of them are absolutely clueless about Space Wolves.  I've seen the Fangbearer speculated to be anything from a comms tech to the team's basic spammable warrior.  In the unlikely event some Youtuber is out there reading, here's a hint: the Fang of Morkai is the dagger Wolf Priests use to remove a fallen warrior's progenoid gland.

Edited October 8 by Moonstalker

[beefeb]

a definite purchase if i can get one...i collect both wolves and tau, so its a nobrainer, they are absolutely gorgeous models.  I dont play killteam...but come to think of it i dont play 40K anymore, i just use one page rules ruleset.  these though....absolutely lovely sculpts.

[jaxom]

7 hours ago, Moonstalker said:

In the unlikely event some Youtuber is out there reading, here's a hint: the Fang of Morkai is the dagger Wolf Priests use to remove a fallen warrior's progenoid gland.

Also, non-Wolf Space Marine players should have recognized the Apothecary design language and color of his eye-piece.

If this were a Rumor Engine shot, how many people would say Phobos Apothecary?

[TheVoidDragon]

I just realized that 6 out of 7 of the space marines in the wolf scout set have a tactical rock.  The most I've seen included in any unit!

[lhg033]

ROI is up on facebook for Darksphere.

[HeadlessCross]

9 hours ago, Moonstalker said:

 

They don't get the Space Wolves keyword and don't count for many of our stratagems/detachment rules.

So I take it that you won't use any transports because they aren't Space Wolves coded?

[Moonstalker]

41 minutes ago, HeadlessCross said:

So I take it that you won't use any transports because they aren't Space Wolves coded?

 

You should ask Wispy that; I was just clarifying that there's more to just paint schemes for being Space Wolf when it comes to 40k.  Personally, I like foot hordes, and am more upset over the loss of Long Fangs (and the lack of access to Devastators to replace them, or even a Legends datasheet for them) than over the way they've locked up our units with keywords.

 

In that vein, I'm hoping the Rune Priest in this kill team will have the Character keyword when brought to 40k.  Combined with the Space Wolf keyword, that could do a fair bit to expand our options for Saga of the Beastslayer/Saga of the Bold.  I see a lot of players running regular marine detachments like Gladius instead of our bespoke ones because of the lack of sufficient keyword Space Wolf units.

[HeadlessCross]

4 minutes ago, Moonstalker said:

 

You should ask Wispy that; I was just clarifying that there's more to just paint schemes for being Space Wolf when it comes to 40k.  Personally, I like foot hordes

Well they can be ran in groups of 10. 

[Kassill]

Late to the party but these new wolf scouts are incredible. Following a fantastic range refresh earlier this year Space Wolves fans are winning when it comes to fresh kits. I'm still working my way through the fomo box and terminators as I type this. As much as I want these right now I need to get cracking on the growing pile 

[Lord Marshal]

Pre-order next week.

 

Standalone Tomb World releases too (Deathwatch are a 5-man box as had been speculated).

 

Edited Sunday at 06:07 PM by Lord Marshal

[Dark Shepherd]

Did the original preview not intimate Wolf Scout KT had 7 or 8 models or have I been inhaling too much glue and aerosols?

[Lord Marshal]

9 minutes ago, Dark Shepherd said:

Did the original preview not intimate Wolf Scout KT had 7 or 8 models or have I been inhaling too much glue and aerosols?

 

The Kill Team's rules has 7 unique operatives (well, 8 with the wolf), but most of them are dual-builds necessitating you buy multiple boxes. They like to show all the build options, but that's not necessarily how many you'll get in the box, if that makes sense?

 

Some Kill Teams you get enough to do a 'one box' but especially in the case of elites that's often not the case.

 

Edited Sunday at 06:12 PM by Lord Marshal

[darkhorse0607]

Super excited for the Deathwatch to release individually. Didn't get the large box so I have been waiting 

 

Planning on getting the Stealthsuits individually as well so hopefully they dont have a long turn around 

[Dark Shepherd]

2 minutes ago, Lord Marshal said:

 

The Kill Team's rules has 7 unique operatives, but most of them are dual-builds necessitating you buy multiple boxes.

 

Some Kill Teams you get enough to do a 'one box' but especially in the case of elites that's often not the case.

 

Well thats killed my enthusiasm

 

Suppose I have existing Plasma gunners and Runepriests :(

[Lord Marshal]

7 minutes ago, Dark Shepherd said:

Well thats killed my enthusiasm

 

Suppose I have existing Plasma gunners and Runepriests :(

 

Do you have any existing Phobos? Probably isn't too tricky to kitbash or proxy some of the unique Operatives from that as well.

 

[Lord Nord in Gravis Armour]

34 minutes ago, Dark Shepherd said:

Did the original preview not intimate Wolf Scout KT had 7 or 8 models or have I been inhaling too much glue and aerosols?

 

It was reasonably apparent that there were only five unique models (EDIT: durrp, not counting the Wolf of course), with the others being optional builds - the Pack Leader and Frosteye share a base model, as do the Fangbearer and Hunter.

 

While it wasn't explicitly called out in the article, the video (and accompanying photo drop on other socials) show a team of five operatives, plus the Wolf. This is why only the two shown optional builds from the article have Blackmanes iconography. The base five are a unit from Grimnar's Great Company.

 

More interesting to me will be the additional optional builds, which hopefully won't all be Hunter or whatever. I know Lord Marshal said there are only 7 unique operatives, but I haven't seen that spelled out anywhere. I have to say it does seem likely though, as otherwise they'd have presumably shown any additional operatives off in the reveal article.

 

 

Edited Sunday at 06:39 PM by Lord Nord in Gravis Armour
Woof

[CL_Mission]

Glad the Necron team is finally out on it's own though I might wait for the other side of Christmas to pick it up. Will definitely pick up the Twice Dead King Omnibus, I missed out on the books individually and have been waiting on this to come out.

[Silvereyes]

There are 2 Space Wolves players at my games club, so I'm going to buy 2 boxes, split one with each of them, and I'm going to keep 10 Stealth Suits.

 

Going to be interesting what the new Stealth Suit datasheet will look like, considering the current Stealth Suits are a pretty core part of the T'au meta. But saying that, it would be nice if Stealth Suits were now a useful unit outright, rather than just being spotting machines. I know it won't happen, but with the new unit size of (presumably) 5 or 10, I'd love it if they could get a leader, like a Commander. Probably won't due to the size difference and toughness difference, but a man can dream.