Kill Team 2021

[Primarch]

@ Karantu - Well, I'm not going to be at the gaming event until October (assuming Covid numbers drop) or November (when I will have had both shots and the vaccine should be fully active). So if anybody else wants those bits between then and now, I'm cool with them snagging the loot on those sprues.

[Karantu]

So I just got the Japanese Compendium and.... the wording on the IG orders is even worse in that. It says 「味方ガーズマン・サージェントの[pentagon]におり、かつその特務兵から視認されているあらゆる味方テンペストゥス・サイオン特務兵とカーズマン特務兵は、その指揮命令を受命する。」with the Scions before the Guardsmen which would make the both of them reliant on the Sargent for orders.

Edit: Also typos such as the the Death Guard Champion having 3〇 move and the Guardsmen Gunner having a 3+ save are there too which is weird since I've heard the other translated versions have those fixed.

[The Other Dave]

That sounds about par for the course for their Japanese rules translations, unfortunately - there are a couple bangers in the Underworlds cards.

[Jye Nicolson]

Dave and I played a few games today, and it was great fun!

- We played Compendium teams and they did not feel lacking. Death Guard were incredibly tough to take down with some very nasty offensive threats (though they hated hoofing it). Custodes were just overwhelmingly brutal. Intercessors, Drukhari and Sisters all felt like strong teams but where matchup and mission could tip the scales quite a bit.

- Vantage points felt incredibly important, cover mattered a lot for weaker troops but elites could probably take it or leave it

- Mission variety was good, though I think Dave had bad luck on the missions we rolled up (the poor Dusk Raiders had to cover much more ground than they usually like), and he lost the attacker/defender roll every game, which super mattered on the last mission.

- Tac Ops (secondaries) are absolutely vital, as is remembering their reveal conditions so you don't throw away points (we both did this)

- Weirdly, you don't seem to get anything for winning? We came up for a couple of ideas for things to give you an incentive to actually win the game rather than just focus on your Spec Op, see the Charadon Campaign thread!


The only thing I was unhappy with was the Thunder Hammer on the Intercessor Sarge, Stun as a crit doesn't seem to be good enough to make up for the lower Weapon Skill (especially with Death Guard rocking Contagion so she only hit on 5s!). Power Sword seems like a better call to me, though I must admit the Power Fist on the Plague Champion did work. Other than that I thought the Intercessors would make a very solid all rounder team, Auto Bolt Rifles are great, I just got outplayed in that match by Dave who was very canny in using the resilience of the Death Guard and the threat of his gunners to force me to spread out what was otherwise decent shooting and not score enough kills.

[Karantu]

- Vantage points felt incredibly important, cover mattered a lot for weaker troops but elites could probably take it or leave it

Don't forget that vantage points only work against enemies behind light cover, unfortunately I made that mistake while I was doing a LoS walkthrough. Against heavy cover it doesn't do anything so its a matter how much light cover you have on the board versus heavy cover. Also, even in the case of light cover it only treats the target as having an engage order which still allows them to get the benefits of cover during their save roll.

I like how the auto-save from cover works since its a lot more meaningful for units with bad armour saves, which is pretty thematic.

[The Other Dave]

Custodes are insaaaane

Yeah, it definitely was a lot of fun, quick-playing and very brutal. The biggest thing for me was just working through the very precise language of the rules - I'm glad for it, as it really seems that if you just read through the rules in order carefully it will cover basically everything, but GW has trained me not to worry too much about that kind of thing, so there's a bit of relearning how to interact with the rules qua rules. But it didn't take long at all to get the basic hang of things, there were just a few points where precise timing of when effects happen turned out to be important.

The relatively (to 40K and especially KT2018) small number of stratagems looks really limiting on paper, but the small number of CPs in play also means that you don't really feel the lack. The bulk of the tactics seems to be in how you use your soldiers rather than how you use stratagems, which makes the ones you do use feel all the more important (like, say, exploding in a torrent of filth and finishing off the Custodian Guard who had just stabbed you to death).

And really, my slow movement didn't seem too terribly crippling - even in the "escape off the opposite board edge" mission, I got every non-dead member of my team off, while still being able to plasma / plague spew the sisters helpfully lined up along either side of my route along the way. The only game I really felt on my back foot was the one where I took Poxwalkers, which just seem a bit too "passive bullet sponge" to really help secure mission objectives.

[Mattb]

Out of curiosity, were you guys playing online or in person?

It does sound good so far, I'm definitely looking forward to it. Although the reliance on decks of cards for the tac ops might be a problem if you don't own them - I might have to use some homemade cards before I can pick up some real ones. Also I couldn't decide between a compendium Guard force or a Veteran Guardsmen team... so I'll probably just run both.

I might look into picking up different team at some point though. I really like the idea that I can make an entire killteam from a single box of minis, especially for something like Chaos Marines or Tactical Marines.

[Jye Nicolson]

Out of curiosity, were you guys playing online or in person?

It does sound good so far, I'm definitely looking forward to it. Although the reliance on decks of cards for the tac ops might be a problem if you don't own them - I might have to use some homemade cards before I can pick up some real ones. Also I couldn't decide between a compendium Guard force or a Veteran Guardsmen team... so I'll probably just run both.

I might look into picking up different team at some point though. I really like the idea that I can make an entire killteam from a single box of minis, especially for something like Chaos Marines or Tactical Marines.

In person but in principle I don't think online would be that hard? You could just use TTS straight up for the most part. The real problem would be LOS as you're often trying to judge if you can see someone's whole base, but I guess you could get the camera in there and do your best.

Note on the cards that everyone who has them has two sets, so between Dave and I you can have four people play, and then two people for each other person who has Octarius or the Essentials kit.

Of course sleeves and print outs would be fine! The only time it matters is the randomisation at the start.

[The Other Dave]

I think you could manage the Tac Ops with a printout and some clever dice-rolling shenanigans even. The cards are super convenient, though.

And yeah, the Kill Team Easy Expansion bug is getting its teeth into me, too, especially since my 40K army is basically all done. I'm thinking of getting some Heavy Intercessors for my new little primaris kill team (especially if they're errata'd to actually have 3 AP), but the fact that I could get a completely effective kill team for any faction at all for about 10,000 yen is really dangerous.

[The Other Dave]

Hmm! Random slow-day musings!

It looks like one of the new boxes of Cadians plus a Cadian command box will give me (pretty shockingly exactly, if I don't mind always taking a medikit and a regimental standard as two of my pieces of gear) two fully-kitted-out all-grunt who-needs-Scions fire teams of guard, for just over the threshold of free shipping from Ringtail . The main downside will be that regular guardsman fire teams can ONLY use Security tac ops, and as one of those is "score VP if none of your operatives are taken out in a turn" it's a fairly limited set of possible side missions they can take, and (for narrative gaming) a likewise limited set of spec ops. I'm not sure how much that might make things get dull!

Still, it's looking like that might be the next painting project.