




After a Christmas break spent eating my own weight in chocolate, meat and roast potatoes (no mean feat), I returned from the rural, family homestead and have been reunited with my codices. As soon as I had unpacked my loot, I grabbed the books not covered in the last Kill Team list-building article and started coming up with some fun things to use – and remember, I’m thinking more about fun than power-gaming. Check them out, and let me know what you think.
Space Marines: Bets on the Vets
5x Vanguard Vets with Jump Packs made up of:
Gunslingers: 2x marines with plasma pistols and bolt pistols
Musketeers: 2x marines with power swords and bolt pistols
Vet Sgt: Power weapon, storm shield and melta bombs
You’ve got the fire power, a wealth of blades and plenty of speed here. These guys don’t get a huge amount of table time in larger games, but I think they might do quite well in Kill Team Games. With this five man team, you can lay down plenty of shots, fear no one in close combat, and you get hammer of wrath attacks too. The melta bombs were a bit of a ‘had a few points left and not much to use them on’ sort of thing, but they’ll be useful if this team runs into any rare armour that might make it into a Kill Team list.
Chaos Space Marines: Slimy So-and-Sos
5x Plague Marines including a flamer and the champion takes a power sword.
10x cultists including a flamer and shotgun for the bossman.
We CSM devotees can be a little cynical about cultists. They may have other uses, but we like using them almost exclusively as meat shields. Well, that’s kind of their role here too, though I expect them to do more than they would in a full-sized game. They’re job is to soak up as much firepower as possible, allowing my Plague Marines to get into good firing positions and to take down all standing in their way. Their higher toughness should make them doubly hard to deal with in a game that won’t have any big guns trying to knock them out.
Chaos Space Marines: The Choir Invincible
7x Noise Marines made up of:
Noise Champ with power weapon, doom siren, plasma pistol and melta bombs.
3x marines rocking sonic blasters.
3x marines taking the additional CCW.
(and you can take VotLW if you think you’ll be taking on loyalist marines)
One of my favourite lists from 5th used Noise Marines and I’m happy to say, I’ve built another one, again packing plenty of shots and making the most of their increased initiative with some stabby-stabbies. What’s more, the Noise Champ is like a mini-Death-Star and, given a suitable USR to protect him, will be able to deal with a lot of the shots that are bound to head his way.
Eldar: Got Wind?
10x Windrider Guardians, including three with shuri cannons.
Possibly the simplest list and, though it has some downsides (no big guns, has to keep moving to survive), it’s got a hell of a lot of ups too. Speed of course, and the fringe benefits that brings are the easiest to spot, but it’s a damn good sized Kill Team too. Use what USRs you want to, and watch your opponents try to deal with the fastest team on the table.
Eldar: Flexible Arachnids
5x Striking Scorpions
5x Warp Spiders
Then the choice: Scorpion Exarch Upgrade with Biting Blade OR Spider Exarch Upgrade with TL Deathspinner.
Another 10 man Eldar Team with a lot of speed, this time using Elites and Fast Attack choices. Depending on whether you’re going to want your super-fast S6 guns or your melee masters to get a buff, you make the choice in terms of which Exarch to take. Either way, staring down the barrel of 10 Aspect Warriors isn’t going to be that much fun for your opponent, but it’ll be a laugh-n-a-half for you.
And I’m spent. Got any ideas of your own that you’d like to share? Or think there’s a way to get more fun out of my lists? Pop a comment below. Onwards!
Having got the new Kill Team supplement (as reviewed yesterday), I was itching to get home last night and start trawling through my codices to start coming up with some lists. Well, I only got to go through three (out of five) of them as I may have ended up in the pub and then watching Die Hard (best Christmas film ever!) while eating pizza. But I have got three teams that I want to try out from Daemons, Grey Knights and Space Marines. They’re not necessarily the best, but I reckon I could have some fun with them. Here are my ideas…
Chaos Daemons: Slaaneshi Barmy Army
10x Daemonettes (including one Aluress with 10 points of lesser gifts)
3x Fiends of Slaanesh
In the immortal words of Blackadder’s foolish yet charming sidekick Baldrick, I have a cunning plan which will probably end up being a little foolish too. Daemons will have to have a lot of work to do in Kill Team, no longer being able to pop into existence due to reserves not being a part of the game. That means they’ll have plenty of ground to cover with just their 5+ Invun save to keep them safe (using cover intelligently will be key too). So, assign three USRs to the fiends and make your opponent more concerned about them than the Daemonettes. Fiends don’t get much love these days so there may be an air of unfamiliarity from your opponent and they’re still big scary beasts and should attract the majority of any fire coming your way. And then (sneaky sneaky) your daemonettes get in charge range and destroy the enemy in close combat with their flurry of attacks. Interesting?
Grey Knights: Pure Gold
6x Purifiers (including Justicar)
Purifiers suited and booted with: 1x Incinerator, 2x sets of falchions, 2x Daemon Hammers
Justicar rocking: mastercrafted stormbolter, helbard, digital weapons
And everybody gets Psybolt ammo!
Now this is my kind of list! I’m more a fan of really small, elite kill teams and these guys will be joyous to fight with. Lots of attacks, lots of pretty strong shots, a template weapon and a couple of hammers. I can’t find anything I don’t like about this one. I even had a handful of points left over to give the Justicar digital weapons! Boom.
Space Marines: Scout Manoeuvred
5x Scouts (including a Sgt)
Wielding: Camo cloaks, sniper rifles, missile launcher and the Sarge gets a power weapon too.
5x Scouts (including a Sgt)
Wielding: Camo cloaks, sniper rifles, missile launcher and the Sarge gets a power weapon too.
No, I didn’t mistakenly type that twice. This ten man wall of pain will be great, especially against armies relying on their hand to hand abilities. These guys already come with a whole mess of USRs that are great for Kill Team games anyway (Stealth and Move Through Cover being two of them that might be particularly useful) and in this collection, you’ve got a bit of everything. A whole mess of gunfire, the versatile hull cracking or blast marker placing missiles and a little additional close combat strength for the sergeants. Should make for a bit of fun if nothing else.
What are your thoughts on the above lists? Love them or hate them? Stick a comment below either way, and feel free to pop in your own ideas too!
I’ve been thoroughly enjoying the Games Workshop/Black Library Advent Calendar this year. For a company often derided for the way it treats its fans, this was a lovely surprise that’s had people taking all December (especially about a certain Dark Angel who may or may not appear in the next couple of days, so the rumours say). I’ve read a couple of the short stories now (Typhus and Abaddon) and they’re nice little pieces which are well worth the £0.99 price tag if you’re a fan of those particular heroes. But the big winner, for me, has to be Kill Team. Best. Advent. Calendar. Ever.
For those unfamiliar with Kill Team, this is pretty much the smallest 40k you can play. I’ve occasionally indulged in a lunch hour, and I know many others who do the same. 200pts of minis from either troops, elites or fast attack. It’s a really fun little game that first appeared at the back of the Battle Missions book many years ago now, and it made the money back from the price of the book in enjoyment alone.
Well, for less than a fiver, you can get the brand new incarnation of Kill Team for your mobile/tablet device and enjoy an excellently updated version. Let’s dive in and I’ll reveal what I can about the booklet.
As soon as you hit the introduction page, you can see that this has moved far beyond the one-pager that used to set down the rules for a kill team game. As well as the points limitations, there are some special sets of rules for Dark Eldar, Daemons, CSM and Necrons that make them a little more suitable for the game. Speaking as someone that plays CSM, the slight rule adjustment for them is brilliant as my champions will no longer have to challenge everyone. That makes me very happy.
The game is designed for a 4’x4’ table making it easier to set up. Most kitchen tables can be set up with coke cans and milk bottles for terrain if you just need any old space to play, which is another reason why Kill Team is great.
We also get Universal Warlord Traits, called ‘Leader Traits’ for the purposes of Kill Team. There are six and all of them look pretty useful so no disappointment really. And another great move has been to stop people spamming the same sort of special rules for their ‘specialists’. For those who don’t know, you’re allowed to pick three members of your Kill Team (excluding your Leader) and assign them a USR. The USRs have now been split into five sections that range from Combat Specialist to Dirty Fighter. None of your three specialists can have USRs from the same section meaning that we should see a lot more interesting combos in each game. I’ve taken a long look at the table and if I’m honest, there are plenty of tough decisions to make here, but tough for good reasons.
As well as a small host of other rules that help to make Kill Team games a little more sensible, there are six new Missions for this game type. These look really fun and I could happily spend an afternoon trying out each one with various teams.
All in all, this is a great little book and I can see no problems for any force really (though pop a comment down if you’ve got any worries). I was worried that by adding to the small ruleset, GW would overcomplicate the easiest type of game we have, but they haven’t. For those who decry the company for its perceived lack of playtesting (which I really don’t adhere to), this will be a refreshing little clutch of missions and rules that can lead to some real fun. I highly recommend picking up this mini-tome.
In a year that has seen the mega battles of Apocalypse, enormous points-heavy miniatures and the new Escalation expansion, it’s really refreshing to see Kill Team make a comeback too. If you treat yourself to one little thing from the Advent Calendar this year, make it this – it’s half hours of fun!
p.s. I’m going to go through the codices I own a little later and try to build some hypothetical teams and I’ll post up my results here. Onwards!