Kill Team Questions

[Balloonacorn]

Is the main Kill Team book the only thing you need for playing basic Kill Team? Do you need the codexes at all?

[Jye Nicolson]

Codexes don't have Kill Team rules.

You don't strictly need it but the most useful second book is Elites, it has subfaction bonuses, more tactics and units for all corebook factions. If you don't want to buy it straight away we can easily tell you what your subfaction bonuses are.

Everything else is optional and focuses on different sides of the game - Rogue Trader is a short narrative campaign with two cool (but not competitive) new teams, Commanders is a narrative-ish way to use HQ units which is fun but less balanced, Arena is a hyper balanced competitive game mode.

In about a week and a half the Kill Team Annual will come out, which collects a bunch of White Dwarf stuff, adds Sisters and does *some* points/wargear/etc changes but we have no idea what. Everything could get point changes or Heretic Astartes might just get wargear updated to match their current plastic kit.

You don't need the Kill Team box for your faction, unless you want the scenery, tokens and missions. You 100% don't need the commander boxes. The best actual model boxes to buy varies by faction - Thousand Sons' Start Collecting is perfect, whereas Marines can be a lot trickier depending on how you want to do your roster.

What team did you have in mind?

[Balloonacorn]

I picked up a small box of Grey Knights as my 'Learner Team."

I choose them because I had a Grey Knight Army a decade ago and ... it was the most inexpensive box I could find.

[Jye Nicolson]

GK are honestly a pretty good choice. They get a really strong faction bonus in Elites - they can choose a second psyker to manifest a power every turn and get +1 to cast and deny rolls. Every model has good melee and there are some decent shooting options. Your main problem is board control, you might struggle against a canny Tyranid player, but I've always found killing a lot of stuff helps with that sort of thing

[Balloonacorn]

I really enjoyed my first games of Kill Team.

During my first game the question came up as to whether I had my Grey Knights on the correct sized bases. How can I find out the correct size?

[Primarch]

I really enjoyed my first games of Kill Team.

During my first game the question came up as to whether I had my Grey Knights on the correct sized bases. How can I find out the correct size?

With the caveat that I don't play Kill Team...

The usual rule for base sizes is "Whichever ones come in the box." As GW have gradually been scaling everything up - including bases - for a while now, if you had bought old minis, they might have an older style of bases. If you bought an official Kill Team set, you should be ok.

[Jye Nicolson]

I brought it up because I was so surprised that the big mean Grey Knights were on itty bitty 25mm bases

As Primarch says, any base that comes in the box is legal from GW's point of view. Some big tournaments have their own basing guides, which is what counts as "right" for competitive players; obviously casual games of Kill Team is about as far as you can get from LVO or gunning for ITC rankings or whatever it is competitive 40K players do so you're under no obligation to pay any attention to that.

My personal opinion is that 32" is the "right" size for power armour troops, based on everything from Sisters to Primaris going on that size. In 40K there are a bunch of rules that combine to make this important, in Kill Team models act independently and auras are less of a thing so it's basically down to blocking movement. Base size is a double edged sword because larger bases will block the enemy (particularly in Arena), but will also block your other models. In your case the smaller bases will help you against shooting armies because it'll be easier for you to charge around yourself into the safety of melee, but will be less good against melee, particularly horde melee, who'll be able to dance around you a bit easier to engage on their own terms.

FWIW I've played a bunch of Kill Team using converted Stormcast as counts-as Company and Vanguard Veterans on their original 40" bases, which is totally wrong, and nobody really cared. Possibly just because I was causing myself traffic jams to no real advantage >_< Possibly because they didn't even notice.

[Balloonacorn]

I wasn't looking to call anyone out and I am not 'worried about' it so much.

I was just looking for a resource, be it digital or pulp, where I could make sure I was following proper protocol.

[Balloonacorn]

2nd Kill Team Question

I was told that I need a roster of 10(?) members from which the kill team is selected - I can't find this in the core rule book. Where is it?

[The Other Dave]

20, actually - it's under Choosing a Kill Team on page 62. Note that it's up to 20 models, and for Grey Knights in particular there's not really much need to fill out your roster beyond giving yourself access to all the weapon options you might want. (If you read the section you'll see that in the RAW you choose your 100-point kill team from your roster *after* you know what the opposing force and mission are, which allows you to tailor your forces and weapon loadouts to your opponent's faction and the needs of the mission.)