The other day I played my first game of Kill Team (KT), 2nd Ed. I have played the 1st Ed which is very similar to 40k. The only similarity between 40k and 2nd Ed is the names of forces and the models, otherwise it is very different. My first impressions is that it plays fast and has more tactical depth than 40k. Another difference would be in the nature of the collection you will acquire. The basic mechanic in shooting and fighting is comparing dice pools, which is essentially how Risk works. But, due to the number of special rules still provides a lot of player agency. An area where it is a bit sluggish is terrain, instead of over simplifying terrain (like many table top games) they have given terrain a lot more rules. This will likely not be an issue after a couple of games, once your group has decided how big and effective each structure is. One essential piece of kit, not provided in the box, is a laser!
Lists/List building. We used lists from the compendium, there is not much variety in each factions KT. KTs are currently one or two fire teams and while each fire team has choices there is usually an obvious best pick, always take the plasma gun! The major decision for your operatives is whether they will be good at shooting or fighting. After that it is what extra equipment to give your KT. In this skirmish the Tyranids KT consisted of 3 Warriors each with a shooting and melee weapon as well as 5 Genestealers. The ability to give each warrior both weapons combined with their 18 hit points makes them a very strong choice, the Genestealers also have a free dash special rule. The Chaos KT was a Fire team of Chaos marines with a plasma gunner and icon bearer as well as an aspiring champion and 8 cultists. The cultist were mostly equipped for fighting with two equipped for shooting and two gunners with flamers.
I think the real variety in KT will come from collecting KTs
from different factions. This will also diversify your collection which I think
is a bonus. I think the “Art of List
Building” if you will, is making a list that maximizes both the strategic and
tactical ploys of the faction. Once you
have master this for one faction, it will probably be time to move to
another. I think as the Meta gets
developed for this game then an important rating will be Action Point Limit
(APL) per KT. In our game the Tyranids
had 16 APLs/Team and The Traitors had 25 APLs/Team. Spoiler alert the Traitors lost, but that was
due to bad decisions not unbalanced lists.
The Actual Fight. Since it was our first game we just played
the standard one from the open play rules.
There were four objective on the table and you could score one point per
turn per objective (four blue circles), with the highest score wining. The Tyranids had the initiative (deployed in green ellipses), and even
though I had to set up my complete Kill Team (I was Traitors, and deployed in the red ellipses) first, I did not
feel I was at a disadvantage in the first turning point. The game took about
two and a half hours but we tried our best to get the rules right so were
looking up things in the rules constantly.
By the 3 Turning Point felt comfortable and the game trucked along very
quickly.
Turning Point 1. In the first Turning Point both sides spread out to secure and cover different objectives. Interestingly both sides lost sight of this aim once the lives of their operatives became at risk. Otherwise the first turn had minimal combat, essentially it was just the fighting on the catwalk between the Chaos Gunner and a Tyranid Warrior with both operatives getting wounded but not enough to injure either.
Turning Point 2. In this turn there was a lot of hand to hand fighting, with both KTs advancing aggressively on the objectives. I would say that any special rules that is activated after a critical role is rolled going to get solid use in any game. During the fighting there were lots of cultists getting incapacitated, with minimal damage to the Tyranids. Essentially Tyranids roll more dice and do more damage so the poor cultists didn’t stand a chance. A point on fighting, it is very hard to avoid damage completely while fighting. This leaves the winner of the battle quite vulnerable to counter attacks. This is where activation order and tactical depth become very important, charge with your cannon fodder first.
Turning Point 3. This Turning Point had a lot of combat, essentially with the Tyranids finishing off most of the Chaos KT and securing most of the objectives. Both sides did do some shooting with the star being the Chaos gunner incapacitating two Tyranid operatives. Of course this was only after three Chaos operatives had been incapacitated in the melee on the catwalk. While shooting is deadly, in KT it can be mitigated effectively by conceal orders and cover. This meant that the shooting was at its most effective when it was used to counter attack by fire, after an enemy operative and left their concealment to engage with an enemy in the open, at which point they were shot to pieces.
Turning Point 4. At this
point of the skirmish with two cultists on the top floor of the factory, hopelessly
out of position and the Chaos Gunner injured and not close to any objectives the
battle was firmly in the Tyranid’s clutches.
The Tyranid activations saw the KT taking cover and claiming objectives
while the cultists tried to climb down a ladder and the traitor gunner let off
some steam by blasting away at the Tyranids but not effecting the score. The final total was 7 to 1, interestingly the
total potential for the game was 16.
Conclusions. It was a
fun game and I will not play the same next time. For the force deployment I
will mix melee troops with shooting troops and I will not charge my leader into
a fight with an enemy that has 50% more hit points, 18 damage is not enough to
kill a monster with 19 hit points…. I
will also not send cultists armed with pistols onto a roof 6 inches above the
battlefield…..
Neither of us did a good job with our Command Points. During
a game you will normally accumulate 6 Command Points we spent 2 or 3 each… I really
think that at each turning point you need to be choosing one or two strategic
or tactical ploys and then spamming its effect as much as you can. For instance
Chaos can fight twice or shoot twice in one turn, If you save your command
point from the first turning point you could do each of these for the rest of
the game, too bad they don’t effect cultists.
Forces in depth (counter charge). Since fighting is so bloody, the victor is often
left vulnerable to counter attacks. A
great deal of planning should be put into who will charge and when, even
charging and not fighting seems more useful than you might think as it may provide
opportunities in the next turning point and is a great way to avoid enemy fire.
Anyway, fascinating game.
Can’t wait to play again. Maybe
even with painted scenery. Thanks for
reading.
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