Warhams 40k Kill Team

[OgreBattle]

http://www.belloflostsouls.net/category/kill-team

Doesn't seem to have more model customization than army based 40k, but you have additional skills to assign, new unit compositions, and more individual model focused rules.

3-20 model limit.

For 'competitive play' the format is to have a roster of 20 models you've already given gear and skills to, then pick out a team until you have a 100pt force. There's some inherent imbalance in this as a guardsmen blob of 20 dudes is going to deply all of them, while elite deathwatch kill team space marines can select 5 dudes out of 20 for the job.

[Thaluikhain]

Eh, isn't this the same niche as Shadow War Armageddon? Though, they've dropped that already, like they like doing.

[Koumei]

They published Kill Team as its own book for 7Ed, back as a quick "Okay, select entire units from these categories, then they are all individual models. Also the following army-wide rules don't apply..." thing. Which aside from having to take entire mobs and not just "one Jumpadoo, one Bikerman, three Mans..." was generally the best of what they've published for these.

Then came Shadow War Armaged, which is super "we've taken Necromunda back from the dark ages, and replaced the Necromunda factions with 40k things. Complete with many of these having a new recruit option that is like a basic Troops choice but even lamer, still using that wargear". It still had problems aplenty but there were some interesting things at least.

Now this is out, and it's designed to work with the 8Ed (worst edition) 40k rules. A reminder that flamers are absolutely lethal for killing a single dude but can't fan out to roast a group of people. Penalties to hit all over the place. The dumb AP system. Indeed, there's a Tau weapon that has three separate profiles (up to 5", 6-10" and 11-15" range), with different strength and AP ratings, but those are specifically three different profiles (Close, Medium and Long Range). So if you fire it at Long Range but within 7.5", you don't take the -1 to hit for firing at long range (>half), but if you fire it at Medium Range in 6-10" you do take that penalty. And yes, if you're more than 2.5 inches away (ie "close combat with forks and lead pipes"), then you take a penalty to hit for firing it at long range when firing at Close Range.

A penalty to hit for firing it at long range when firing at Close Range.

long range at Close Range.

Long Close Range.

What the fucking shit, GW?

Apparently the two armies that can have psykers have a near-guarantee of straight-up killing one enemy model per turn in the psi-phase on top of any shooting or melee they do.

Also there are little box sets of "one unit, using the normal sprue but a special coloured plastic. Also some roster sheets and shit. And a pamphlet of rules or something. And a couple of terrain pieces. And tactics cards." that actually have unique tactics cards not included in the core rules. They just need to randomise that shit and they can get in on the lootbox thing.

Chaos that are not Blue Egyptians or Green pustules get the shaft (no Daemons, no Emperor's Children/Noise Marines or World Eaters/Berserkers, and the undivided/unaligned basic Chaos is really lukewarm). Wyches and Harlequins are really bad at actually hurting things (and good at getting killed). Apparently Tau aren't very good unless they cheese it with drone spam.

And they forgot the best faction but I assumed they would anyway.

[Thaluikhain]

Now this is out, and it's designed to work with the 8Ed (worst edition) 40k rules.

Ah...okey dokey then. I suppose they had to make a Age of Guilliman skirmish game.

And they forgot the best faction but I assumed they would anyway.

Sisters? Or someone else I've forgotten?

[Koumei]

And they forgot the best faction but I assumed they would anyway.

Sisters? Or someone else I've forgotten?

Correct.

[Koumei]

I'll mention it has added something worthwhile, or rather, something conceptually worthwhile. They tried to make deployment a bit more interesting, where you secretly select and write down one of a small list of strategems and that can change aspects of deployment - Infiltrate, Scout Move, Fire Overwatch at Infiltrators (and Scout Movers?), Booby Trap Terrain, Detect and Remove Booby Traps, and probably one or two others.

I like the basic idea that you're not just plonking your force down and only thinking about 1st turn cover/LoS and where you want to end up moving them to. That you can take turn placing models and then some things involve checks. But it looks a bit anaemic and half-assed, to the surprise of nobody. It's something that could (and should) be expanded upon, but it's nice to see it at all in a skirmish game.

The Raging Heroes team have promised that when their skirmish rules come out, deployment will be a tense, exciting thing and the ideas they mentioned sound a bit like the way this was handled. Of course, that was just a bunch of dot points on how it's going to be awesome, and not an actual example of rules so it's just like when Mike Mearls or David Cameron tells you things are going to be great.

[OgreBattle]

I heard Harlequins and Wyches were of the stronger factions as they're super fast, Kisses also wound better due to the flesh wounds rule or something.

Hahah those Tau pulse blasters sound retarded in that endearing Gee Dubs way.
So... it uses Sigmarines "wound on 3+ if higher, 2+ if double" system... that's unfortunate. Preferred AP to armor modifiers too...

Hmm seeing what units are available... Craftworld Eldar field none of their infiltration specialists and all of their "only called upon for massed formations" militia lol

So is this one of those situations where armor is really worthless or only the heaviest armor is useful? I figure for strength the magic number would be... 6? wound t3 on a 2+, and you won't be seeing much of anything above t6 at 100pts

[Zinegata]

Is the game actually any fun though or just a lot of pew pew?

[Koumei]

There's no real sign of it being fun. Do you like regular 40k but want to boil it down to a handful of models but at the same level of complexity per model that was always there?

I heard Harlequins and Wyches were of the stronger factions as they're super fast, Kisses also wound better due to the flesh wounds rule or something.

They both die really well with their T 3 W 1 Sv N/A. Wyches do not have shooting that you care about (and want to be in close combat anyway so that's much of a muchness), and then mostly make a bunch of S 3 AP - attacks. I can't remember what Harlequins do, but you get a very small team that still only have 1 Wound apiece.

Even Kabalite Dark Eldar don't do so good on the whole, with all of their guns wounding on a 4+ always - that's nice against Death Guard I suppose, but I think against everyone else you're left wondering why you're not just using shuriken guns or something.

So is this one of those situations where armor is really worthless or only the heaviest armor is useful?

Seems to be the case. Now, a lot of the basic weapons don't modify armour, but you can actually fit a fair number of -1 and -2 special weapons thanks to not buying a full squad but instead taking "three Ranger gunners and three Vanguard gunners and one Sicaran Infiltrator".

[Username17]

Is anyone actually happy with the Sigmarine attack and damage rules? I mean, I understand that comparing strength and toughness and weapon skills and shit is a pain in the ass, but without that there's no difference between different kinds of attacks. "Better" attacks simply have a ratio of equivalency with "worse" attacks in greater numbers. And with the number of attacks being made the variance isn't actually all that different.

One attack that hits and wounds on a 3+ is on average the same as four attacks that hit and wound on a 5+. The average is 44.44% of a wound. But one attack is much lower variance than 4, so that's a difference I suppose. However, in Warhams, you aren't comparing 1 attack to 4, you're attacking twenty times with the attack that's four times as likely to work or 80 times with the attack that's 4 times less likely to work. And I don't give a shit. Yes, the 80 die rolls have only a 79% chance of falling within 3 of the expected number of wounds while the 20 die rolls have a full 87% chance of falling within 3 of the expected number of wounds. And I don't give a shit. You still get a clean normal distribution either way, and the fact that the larger pile of low-odds attacks has a probability curve that's slightly flatter is not interesting.

-Username17

[Koumei]

My interaction with actual 40k communities is pretty limited, but on 3++ and faeit, nobody has said how much they like the changes, whereas a non-zero amount of people said they don't like varying things - specifically that you get all these weird gaps where a change in Strength makes no difference, like how against T 4, S 5, 6 and 7 are all the same. Or how some things used to have immunity to S 3 or whatever and don't any more. There's still more focus on the minis side of things (most people falling into the "I don't even play the game any more, I just like painting minis, or buying and never assembling them" category, which I totally understand), and that focus has also been negative of late. A lot of things are super overdesigned and a fucking mess to look at, where five different things are leaping out and trying to draw your primary attention.

I checked 4chan's /tg/ and you'll be pleased to know they're too busy calling each other racial and homophobic slurs and shitposting. I think they've moved beyond "We hate the new Primaris" and onto "Let's all pretend we love it and hate the old marines, we now call them manlets and marinelets". I think. I can't be sure, because it's a cess-pit of everyone racing to the bottom to be the most stupid. And that's the main debate going on still, and nobody seems to care either way about any aspect of the system.

[OgreBattle]

Now I’m seeing people talks about how it’s great kill team doesn’t ‘force you to buy more boxes’ by removing customization options you’d expect of squad scale named dudes of your own...

[Koumei]

It's weird: Scouts can take Chameleoline cloaks if they have sniper rifles, and only then. The reason? The Scouts box doesn't have cloaks, whereas the Scout Snipers box does. Now sure, if you can't make a cloak out of greenstuff (or honestly, paper towel soaked in superglue to make it fit a form and give some resistance, then maybe stick some twigs and crap to it) then you probably can't handle gluing the plastic together to make minis.

[OgreBattle]

So mathhammering some stuff out...

Orks can take a gunner boy (I forget if they're limited to 1 or 2?) for 7pts with Big Shoota's 36" s5 assault 3. With all the modifiers in Kill Team they'll be hitting on 6's anyways so you can pile on the negative modifiers to no detriment. So they can move 5"+1d6" and fire up to 36" hitting on 6's

You can also get up to 6 Spanna Boyz who come with a big shoota standard, but they're 10pts instead of 7.

Math hammering it out, every 3-shot big shoota hitting on only 6's has a...

11% chance of wounding a space marine
16% chance of wounding a t3 4+ sv
22% to wound t3 5+

These t4 6+ boyz then have...
16% chance to get wounded by s4 -1 (bolt rifles) hitting on a 5+ (3+ with -1 from range, -1 from cover), 13% without modifier (regular boltgun)

11% chance to get wounded by someone hitting on 6's (like a 4+ but then -1 -1) with s5 -1 fire.

The 7pt big shoota gunner boy is 1pt cheaper than a fire warrior, but the 10pt spanna big shoota boyz are a bit more expensive. They do have superior range and mobility (assault weapons so can fire on the go) though. So playing orks as hit n' run long range gunners seems like something that should work for Kill Team.

Looking through the rulebook again... yeah I don't think any other kill team has a shooter as efficient as the 7pt big shoota boy when you take into account how often -2 happens, and even the 10pt big shoota spanna is more competitively costed than the gunners of other factions.

-----

Wish they kept old style Strength, Toughness. It makes "more hits" almost always the better choice against "more S", especially in melee where they want you to think a +1S halberd is near the value of a +1 attack dual sword. Grey Knights look cooler with halberds than they do two swords, but the optimal way...

----

Hypothetical list...
2 gunner with big shootas
6 spannas with big shootas

That's 26pts left over for maybe...
6 grots as bullet catchers, there's also a stratagem to spend 2cp to resolve all hits against a grot instead of another unit, but you have to activate it at beginning of the shooting phase, can't use it as a reaction.

Orks have a 2cp stratagem to shoot again with one model after it shoots too, so that'd be 6 shits with the big shoota.

[Zinegata]

There's no real sign of it being fun. Do you like regular 40k but want to boil it down to a handful of models but at the same level of complexity per model that was always there?

A handful of high complexity models tends to be better than a big battle with lots of high complexity models, but if it's still mostly just tedious die rolling then no I wouldn't consider it very fun.

[Koumei]

That's the thing, I consider it to be very low complexity. So the whole thing is going to be boring as shit.

[Zinegata]

That's the thing, I consider it to be very low complexity. So the whole thing is going to be boring as shit.

Yeah, they're high complexity on paper with ridiculous numbers of stats and rules per figure but just buckets of really simple and same-y die rolling in practice, which is why it's boring as shit.

40K really in many ways is a game meant to never be actually played, but just obsessed over.

[Whiysper]

Confession: I still play 40k. And Necromunda 2017.

So, obviously, my judgement is easily swayed by pretty plastics.

No, the new damage chart is not better. Yes, lasgunning a Land Raider to death feels downright retarded.

Ambivalent on the AP - I don't mind save modifiers, I don't mind save ignorers. I understand that there's a difference in what it drives, but honestly I don't really notice it.

I have spoken to a total of no people who prefer the new damage chart. But most people just don't care.

It does make S7 kind of shite, as Koumei says, because with T4 being the default, and no change between being better by 1 or better by 3, you're paying for something that you'll rarely notice - and even then, you'll only be wishing for S8+ when you do.

[OgreBattle]

Interesting rules-as-worded strats with orks...

"Grot shield" means a grot within 2" must be selected to take hits directed at someone else, so you can put the grot out of line of sight, the ork boy in the open, use grot shield, and attacks are directed against a model not in LOS and thus ork boy can't be shot except by LOS ignoring weapons.

Grots can be leaders, grots are also tiny enough to be completely out of LOS with standard GW ruins and barricade terrain. Leaders generate 1CP every turn they're alive, so for 4pts (out of your 100 to build a kill team) you can hide that grot out of view or on an objective.

Figure I'll model the grot 'leader' as a comms array

[Koumei]

"Until ... attacks that are directed at ... must instead be resolved against ..."

The wording sounds more like "you attack the Ork, but any hits are transferred across to the Grot", not "you can't target the Ork and have to target the Grot". Arguably this just means you force the Grot to become a valid target (regardless of Range and LoS), and the most you can get is a cover-based penalty to the attack, and possibly a Range-based penalty if the Ork is within half and the Grot is outside half.

You could try for the old WHFB Invisible Conga Line tactic, but you have just as much chance of being told "No, your Grot is targeted like the Ork and loses its cover because you're shooting at the Ork who is holding the Grot up in front of it".

[shlominus]

it should say "any hits are resolved against the grot", cause that's what the tactic "grot shield" is clearly supposed to do (use the grot as a shield, d'uh). as written the "attack" is resolved against the grot, which leads to the stupidity ograbattle pointed out.

probably an editorial oversight, but rai seems obvious, so...

[Covent]

So my only exposure to the official GW Kill team game is noticing that it has the same name as the Heralds Of Ruin game of which I quite enjoy the cooperative varient Karneack, which is basically zombie apocalypse.

They do have almost all factions and even playing the competitive game I find it fun, but full disclosure one of my good friends writes for them and also wrote the cooperative zombie game.

Also some of the mini-codexes which they call opuses are not perfect. The quality depends on what armies have more players and also what armies have someone in enough love with them to write and play test an opus.

I do wonder how it stacks up against the official GW product, anyone with experience with both have anything?

[OgreBattle]

HoR has more everything, official Gee Dubs KT uses the wounds system nobody asked for so I’m cheesing it with sheer numbers of stuff

[Covent]

Also my buddy who writes most of the human factions for HoR is standing next to me and is wondering if there is anything anyone would like to see?

[OgreBattle]

Also my buddy who writes most of the human factions for HoR is standing next to me and is wondering if there is anything anyone would like to see?

Is there a wiki with all the rules? The PDF's don't let me search for key words. I can't seem to find how STR vs T wounding works in HoR, am I expected to have the 7th edition (8th?) rulebook? Does HoR use 8th edition "double their T to wound on a 2+"?

I'd prefer a WS chart instead of "X+" but that's a huge change.

Is there a single document with stats for all weapons across factions? Would be handy reference. Having the generic weapons listed in the faction PDF's would also be convenient.

I can't find the stats for stuff like shuriken catapults, grey knights melee weapons, etc. are they in the main PDF?

Another big big change I'd want to see is... some 'standardization' of certain weaponry (and damage types like poisoning), especially melee weapons like swords spears etc. I don't like that a grey knight's polearm might have radically different rules from a smoothy Eldar polearm of the same dimensions, which might be quite different from a spikey Eldar polearm of the same dimensions.

Same with force fields, dodge saves, parry saves, etc.