After GW released that surprise trailer a few days ago, they sure didn’t disappoint when they said that Kill Team will be coming sooner than expected because they just dropped the complete preview of the entire skirmish, together with some juicy details on their release dates!
There’s so much information to break down, many of which hitting some key points on terrains, accessories, play styles, and the box sets. Here’s a quick low down of Kill Team as bombed by GW!
- What to expect?
According to Dave Sanders, the head of the Kill Team rules project:
“Kill Team is a standalone skirmish game set in the world of Warhammer 40,000. The game’s focus is on covert operations – players hand-pick their kill teams of die-hard special operatives to get a specific job done, whether that be reconnaissance, sabotage or assassination. The games are fast-paced with a rapid back-and-forth between players (and can include up to four players). There’s something in it for everyone: there are narrative missions and a campaign format for those who love telling their own stories, countless new challenges for hardcore games in the matched play rules, and for people new to the hobby, it’s a great place to start – the game has a low model count, and with the fantastic generator tables you can get a really thematic kill team up and running very quickly.
The result is a high-octane skirmish battler where you’ll command a handful of elite troops in action-packed squad combat. “
- How to play?
In a Nutshell, it’s a type of game that is focused on making your characters lethal by leveling them up and making them more specialized in a certain role. Here’s how:
You hand pick your squad of elite warriors, that consists of about 5-10 characters. You construct your kill team model by model – a squad of Space Marines could consist of two Reivers, a missile launcher-wielding Tactical Marine Gunner, a Scout with a sniper rifle and a Primaris Sergeant with a power sword, for instance.
Once you’ve assembled your kill team, you can customise them even further with a deep system of specialisms and advancements. These allow you to really distinguish your key troops – creating sharp-shooting Snipers, fearless combat Medics or vox-hacking Comms specialists.
Kill teams can be used in one-off missions or in campaigns where they grow in power, levelling up and developing their abilities with bespoke skill trees.
Here’s an example provided by GW, it’s the Demolitions:
3. Rules
GW has taken the best of skirmish gaming systems and combined them to create a brand new gaming experience. The new Kill Team takes the stuff all of us love such as – deep squad customisation, narrative progression and development, low model counts – and marries it to cutting-edge rules design, while ensuring the ruleset is as tight and balanced as possible.
This game has been designed from the ground up as a brand new gaming experience. While many of the core principles are closely similar Warhammer 40,000, several tweaks were done to represent the dynamic, lightning-fast nature of squad combat, making it an entirely different game.
- The Terrain – Kill zone
The field of battle in Kill Team is known as a Killzone – varying from lush jungles to churning manufactorums, each presents challenges and opportunities for your fighters. Your troops will interact with their surroundings more than ever before – diving from ruin to ruin as they close on the foe, disappearing into hidden tunnels and taking point in a sniper’s eyrie where they can survey the battlefield.
- Tactics and Missions
Tactics are Kill Zone’s Stratagems, which adds an additional depth to the game and allow you to represent the heroic deeds of your individual fighters. With only one Command Point a turn to spend, you’ll have to use them carefully.
The mission of Kill Team is a far cry from the take-and-hold warfare of Warhammer 40,000. In this game, your units are placed behind enemy lines with the mission to either subterfuge, assassinate, or sabotage the enemy. Some of the ways the game will let you do this is by planting bombs, slaying VIPs, and sabotaging supply lines.
- Multiplayer game play
You’ll be able to play Kill Team with a single opponent or in fast-paced multiplayer arenas with up to 4 players. Multiplayer is a core part of Kill Team, and you’ll find the game just as balanced, fast and fun with 1, 2 or 3 foes.
- Three ways to play
Just like Warhammer 40,000, Kill Team has three ways to play the game.
- Matched play – for a balanced, fast-paced and competitive squad combat.
- Narrative play – lets you duke it out in thrilling interlinked campaigns.
- Open play – if you just want to throw down models and have fun.
- Future proof with its long term support
This is just the beginning for Kill Team. This is a fully fledged Warhammer system that Games Workshop will be supporting for years to come with rules, models, expansions and more. On top of that, they’ll be holding organised play, store tourneys and independent events.
- What’s in the box?
Here’s what you’ll find in the box.
- Core Manual
The Kill Team Core Manual is your complete guide to skirmish warfare, containing all the rules you’ll need to assemble your kill team, pick your specialists and fight anything from quick open play operations to deep narrative campaigns. In the book, you’ll find datasheets, Tactics and rules for all 16 factions in the game (so far), missions for every type of play, generation tables for your lore and much, much more.
While this is included in the box set, it can also be bought separately.
- Starter Sets
The Starter sets will cost less than buying the contents separately. Each set can be used as a pre-made kill team in its own right, or as a starting point for one of your own making, featuring unique faction tactics cards you won’t find anywhere else. They all come with new rules, custom tokens, and terrain to bolster your collection.
Here are two of Kill Team’s starter sets:
- Space Wolves
- Accessories:
Of course, GW wouldn’t be releasing this new game without its own merchandise. They’ll be releasing a range of unique gaming aids and merchandise to go along with your Kill Team collection.
These accessories are as follows:
Mini-sized foam cases:
Kill Team Dice:
Blank data cards:
- Factions During Game Launch:
Each of these factions uses a specially chosen pool of units, designed to represent the kind of forces you’d find in a kill team, as well as unique tactics they can wield on the battlefield.
- We don’t have to wait long for the release!
GW will be previewing every faction in the game in the run-up to the game’s release with a series on Warhammer Community. The first on the list that will be getting a preview is the Adeptus Mechanicus.
