40k Kill Team review & thoughts

[OgreBattle]

Finished a campaign at my LGS, did surprisingly well! Here's my thoughts on things that slowed the game down, too fiddly, imbalances, fun and so on. Here's a reference for KT turn order and some rules: https://www.dropbox.com/s/1otdgq5khj3nu ... e.pdf?dl=0



This Demolitions FlashGit almost always got shot off the table, buying time for the Heavy to table them

True Line of Sight Is Very Slow & Very Bad
Ate up more time than anything else. Really annoying to think I'm out of LOS but my ork's chunky thigh is peeping out to get blasted. Sucks even more when Kill Team is suppose to be the dense cityfight type game. I thought arena used the grid to replace LOS and movement measuring but it doesn't (it is handy for symmetrical terrain placement)
Also makes everything feel like it's frozen in time instead of an active battlefield.

Solutions include...
-Have a gentleman's agreement of 'intention', say you intend to have this model be out of LOS from X and have LOS to Y.
-Total Overhaul. Mantic's Deadzone divides the board into 8x8 squares, with rules on movement, charging, shooting between squares. (https://www.manticgames.com/news/deadzo ... -overview/)
-Deadzone also gives a bonus for shooting a totally unobstructed model because the default assumption is everyone is in cover.
-Really, lots to say on how LOS should be handled on a tabletop game that's not on a grid.



There's already enough steps in rolls, additional rolls are Very Bad
I love Flash Gitz with their Snazzguns, after shooting I roll a d6 to see if their special ability "Gun Crazy Showoffs" proccs on a 6 and I shoot again.
Special abilities are better off as exploding dice or removing a step. adding a step that just eats up time and also makes the ability look much stronger than things that remove steps simply because it takes more tabletop time from everyone involved.

Tracking special abilities from level up on 5-12 guys in every enemy team is Time Consuming
Played campaign so there were lv3+ specialists and commanders with branching trees, plus new stratagems. New abilities that affect different steps in resolution, I would forget about one in a step and then walk back, taking up table time. Having everyone be lvl1 is simpler and I'd rather just play a bunch of games like that instead of leveling up and tracking opponent's level ups

Solutions for the above... If it is a campaign, then Bigger Numbers are the main level ups. Increase offensive numbers, increase defensive numbers. Really just getting an extra wound or bonus to causing injuries or resisting them is already universally applicable



Mission based gameplay, grabbing objectives instead of tabling the other dude is Good Fun, but...
So you can win even if you lost more dudes than the opponent, most games revolve around grabbing objectives so your ranged guys set up firelanes, your melee guys threaten, for you to go run up to the ubjective. There's "secondary objectives" lists to choose from too like "get into melee with two enemies" "get into their deployment zone" for more ways asymmetrical lists can compete with one another. There's over 10 of them though, criticizing them seems more a matter of taste as they are meant to be specific with different timing from each other.



Turn order, damage resolution... wonder if I really 'get' it
There's usually only 4 rounds which is surprisingly enough for a fun objectives grabbing and smashing dudes game. The turn order also means that no unit can shoot AND charge into melee at the same time, so pure melee or ranged-with-melee-warding is encouraged.
I had some games where I shot half a guy's team off the table or the same happened to me, but it was deployment mistakes or just luck. The luck factor though is big. Some better defensive stratagems would mean that you have high odds of saving a unit at expense of achieving mission goals or killing the opponent's dudes in turn.

General poor wording of how movement into combat, out of combat works. There's not immediately obvious things like... you can always walk out of a melee in a turn you weren't charged so if melee guy wants to melee he doesn't charge two guys in, he charges 1 and the 2nd guy waits to lockdown for a 2nd round. In some other skirmish games they have melee as super fatal (like you keep on fighting that turn until one side breaks or wiped out). Not exactly sure how it 'should' be in KT.

I've been thinking that 'reaction abilities' can be a solution, like you can snap fire back OR choose to go prone and get a big defense bonus (but lose actions or need to test morale to recover). Maybe 'failed saves result in blast markers that give a penalty, roll to see if they're fatal at end of phase', that's how Bighammer apocalypse works.


Tracking unique conditions that go away at different timings sucks
Some units can apply temporary debuffs and buffs that last some phases but not over rounds, almost everyone forgot about them or just didn't pick them as options.


Treated as mere gateway to Bighammer, unequal Specialisms, poorly edited
Killteam was meant to be the first reduced price crack rock to become a warmonger, but a bunch of accidental typos or lack even copy/paste skills means a lot of options don't carry over from one game to the other. It also leads to all-plasma guardsmen facing off against Dark Eldar who only get two armor piercing guns because bighammer options are applied unevenly.

Fiddly Stratagems, a bunch unique to specific models in a faction
A lot of Stratagems do similar things but are slightly different between factions, annoying to remember or they get fudged.
What Are Stratagems? Every Kill Team starts with X amount of command points to spend on stratagems, get 1 new CP every round. Having certain specialists and abilities can increase that. You can only use each stratagem once per game round.

If I Did It...
- Cut down stratagem use timing to something consistent, this also cuts the number of different. Maybe it's only "beginning of the battle round, beginning of your X phase"
- "Tactical Reroll: Reroll 1 of your rolls" sure is fun though, that can be an exception. People lose track of when they used it so I figure it should be a "an individual model can only use it once per phase but others can still use it". Really almost every stratagem in Kill Team is some form of "increase odds of killing for this roll" so that streamlines a lot
- Specialist stratagems, just having only a lvl1 one and maybe a lvl3 capstone would cut down on memorizing enemy team abilities. This problem goes away if you don't play a campaign with leveling up so that's got a solution.

[Koumei]

True Line of Sight Is Very Slow & Very Bad

Solutions include...

Yeah, I generally like what Relic Knights does: look overhead, and check from base to base, ignoring the models on them. It uses "if you could rule a straight line from one to the other, unobstructed, then you're good" but in a hypothetical different game you could instead use "if any obstruction is in the way in any part of this ~1 inch band, they're obstructed". You could also do the overhead base-to-base and specify "This thing here is terrain that causes cover if it intervenes", "This is a decoration so ignore it", "This thing here is a solid wall that blocks line of sight if it intervenes" for each piece of terrain beforehand.

There's already enough steps in rolls, additional rolls are Very Bad

No arguments there.

Tracking special abilities from level up on 5-12 guys in every enemy team is Time Consuming

Now, I want every table top game of any kind to be an RPG or a gateway into RPGs, so levelling up needs to remain. That said, last I checked, the game let you have 3 Specialists (no more), 1 Leader (no more), and then you could have a Commander (doesn't level up, but can just start at a higher level, with various abilities), and... do Elites also have customisation and level-up? I don't think there'd be much trouble if you only have 3 Specialists and 1 Leader, for strictly 2-player games.

Maybe just have stats increase: every "level", gain 1 Wound (there are a lot of multi-Wound weapons, and not a lot of multi-Wound models, and you can't even pile extra damage onto a downed model to skip the "get up with a flesh wound" stage straight into the "scraped off the floor with a spatula after the battle" stage) and then for level 2 improve WS or BS or Ld (back in the day I'd also add I to this but that no longer exists) which these days means decreasing because fuck it (given all the modifiers to rolls, a 4+ stat doesn't even MEAN 4+ all the time), at level 3 you can increase S or T or A by 1, and at level 4 you get to increase "one of the others that you haven't increased yet".

Or making all activated abilities be things you do on your turn or modifiers to your own actions. So "Increase weapon range by 12 inches", "Ignore intervening terrain when charging", "A 6 to Wound deals a Mortal Wound" and not "When an opponent spends a Command Point..."

Some better defensive stratagems would mean that you have high odds of saving a unit at expense of achieving mission goals or killing the opponent's dudes in turn.

This is true, but to some extent that's going to clash with your other desires, for reducing the amount of interruptions and "things you can forget that require going back a step".

Tracking unique conditions that go away at different timings sucks

Yeah, all conditions and effects other than "dead" should either *end* at the end of the Game Turn, or "check to see if it ends" (things that are conditional on being near friends/not being near enemies, things that end if you roll X) at the end of the Game Turn. A Resolution Phase that has 100% of resolution shoved into it. If you do the Blast Markers thing, this would also be where you figure the damage out.

Specialist stratagems

Honestly, removing the Specialist stratagems will make levelling up easier to keep track of. That way, all of the changes are there on the sheet, and not also existing as special stratagem cards that you need to keep aside just for that model. 8Ed leaned way too heavily on Command Points and Stratagems as the path to victory, and this is just an extension of that.

[Thaluikhain]

Minor gripe, but there've been...what, 3 different games called Kill-Team already? A new name would avoid confusion.

[Koumei]

Previously, "Kill Team" was a game mode in 40k (generally just in White Dwarf articles), usually just saying "select X models from Y unit types, to Z points value. Now they're individual models. Add such and such" and referring you back to your own codices. Much like how "Apocalypse" used to be "a splat book for 40k that adds some new stuff but is basically 40k still and you're using your base codices". But Apocalypse is now its own thing with its own rules and unit entries (more like old Epic 40k).

[Red_Rob]

Kill team was always a bit of a curiosity for me. 40k has always had a big problem in that actually getting an army big enough to play a game costs in the hundreds of pounds. As an entry cost that is huge, and will likely put off a lot of younger people who don't have that kind of cash or don't want to wait ~6 months buying a unit per month until they can actually play the damn game.

Having a game you can play with that first squad you buy seems like a no-brainer and it baffles me that it took them as long as it did to implement it. Necromunda was a big hit when it came out, and I love the background and gangs they came up with, but I always thought they should have gone with something like Kill team instead. An intro game to 40k that you can play with 10-12 models per side, and then grow those same models organically into a functioning army.

Given they recently re-released Necromunda I'm surprised they seem to have decided to use a totally different system for Kill Team. I'd have thought it would have made more sense to re-use the system, allowing cross compatibility and giving them better balance feedback for both games.

[OgreBattle]

Yeah, I generally like what Relic Knights does: look overhead, and check from base to base, ignoring the models on them. It uses "if you could rule a straight line from one to the other, unobstructed, then you're good" but in a hypothetical different game you could instead use "if any obstruction is in the way in any part of this ~1 inch band, they're obstructed". You could also do the overhead base-to-base and specify "This thing here is terrain that causes cover if it intervenes", "This is a decoration so ignore it", "This thing here is a solid wall that blocks line of sight if it intervenes" for each piece of terrain beforehand.

That sounds very straightforward and easy to grasp. Measure by base, look from top-down view. Will keep that in mind.
https://thepaintingmonkey.files.wordpre ... lebook.pdf ah cool they have a pervy old man pinching cute young butt

The terrain I played on included burnt out buildings with partial roof, we lifted the terrain off a bunch of times to determine if my sneaky ork was within 5" of everyone. around the building, so that brings up a point where dense terrain features should be a thing that characters occupy. Got brought up in this old thread about attacking trenches and cathedrals that bases don't really fit in: (https://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=5 ... sc&start=0)

Bighammer's fortification rules are the same as a transport vehicl, firing slots and if it is destroyed dudes inside get hit. Kinda useful for a starcraft teeny bunker. For a Ruined Cathedral some kind of "opposed dudes with chainsaws and pistols are fighting it out inside" rule needs to be jotted down.

Now, I want every table top game of any kind to be an RPG or a gateway into RPGs, so levelling up needs to remain...
...Or making all activated abilities be things you do on your turn or modifiers to your own actions. So "Increase weapon range by 12 inches", "Ignore intervening terrain when charging", "A 6 to Wound deals a Mortal Wound" and not "When an opponent spends a Command Point....

There's also rules for leveling up the non specialists once, they roll on a d6 table for things like "reroll 1's in melee/shooting, reroll morale, +1 movement", they can also die-> get replaced-> new dude using same model gains experience for new special ability, so fighting the same player again can mean their plain guardsmen has a different bonus ability

Maybe MtG sorcery timing would keep things the simplest
Beginning of Phase: Initiative stealing stragems and some things that affect your whole team
Beginning of your turn in that phase: Declare powerups for your dude before actions are taken. "I fire ttwice" becomes less "always use it after my first shot did not wipe them out" and more "I really need this one dude to die"

Another possibility is you have X amount of stratagem cards, say 7, and they last you the 4 rounds..

Given they recently re-released Necromunda I'm surprised they seem to have decided to use a totally different system for Kill Team. I'd have thought it would have made more sense to re-use the system, allowing cross compatibility and giving them better balance feedback for both games.

Wonder how their rules writing teams are organized. Necromunda seems to have less glaring faults and solid organization. The funnier thing is that right before 8e, there was "Shadow War Armageddon" that was 40k 7e scouting mdoels with Necromunda-ish resolution.

[Thaluikhain]

Wonder how their rules writing teams are organized. Necromunda seems to have less glaring faults and solid organization. The funnier thing is that right before 8e, there was "Shadow War Armageddon" that was 40k 7e scouting mdoels with Necromunda-ish resolution.

It had literally copy and paste from old Necromunda. Not sure if that was a good thing, Necromunda was about humans with lasguns (mostly), in Shadow War Armageddon you got Terminators and lascannon, the balance is different.

One of the editions of 40k (maybe 6th?) had a version of Kill-Team in the core rulebook.

[Koumei]

I think it was 4 or 5 that put it in the core book - and made it something like one page for the whole thing. They even just said "select a Universal Special Rule for each specialist" and people realised that included stuff like Turbo Boost so you could have one infantry model, even a Slow and Purposeful one, that goes ZOOOOOOOOM! across the entire map. 6 or 7 had Kill Team as a White Dwarf article or Chapter Approved e-book or something. It was still basically using core 40k rules though, simply taking a limited team (0-2 Troops, 0-1 Elite, 0-1 Fast, possibly 0-1 Heavy?, 200 points total, no named characters, need 4+ models that aren't swarms (or possibly beasts?) or vehicles, nothing that flies, no vehicles with more armour than a Chimera) and turning it into an army of individual models. Then a ~RANDOM TABLE~ of traits for your leader, and a few pages of special abilities that three of your models can choose between.

So you could seriously have taken 4 Canoptek Wraiths IIRC. On the other hand, you could have taken a whole pile of Necron Snipers, and then each one is its own unit so each one marks an enemy model that all of the snipers get re-rolls to... hit? wound? and it basically ends up being "your whole team have re-rolls against the entire enemy team". There were other abilities that are kind of weird and unit-wide that require arguments, like units of psykers, Acts of Faith etc.

[Thaluikhain]

Looking into it, 4th ed had 14 pages of Kill-Team in the rulebook (plus some pages for terrain), 160 points, limits on stuff, no random stuff and no universal special rule stuff. Expanded on in WD.

I do remember the one with the USR stuff (not great at all) and played that once or twice at my local. Can't remember if that was before or after 4th ed. Also, IIRC, they had a WD Kill-Team in the UK before they did in Australian WD, so which number you are playing depends on your continent.

Also, when I was young, a "Kill-Team" was a squad level organisation of Deathwatch Space Marines.

[OgreBattle]

In KT if you fail a charge then you're probably out in the open to get shot up. There's ways to boost charge range but failing means out to get shot up. Getting shot by overwatch plus full fire can be brutal.

In Epic 40k their charge move includes 'firefights' where units not in base to base contact but within 15mm can fire their small arms. So in Kill Team that's as simple as having a failed charge count as advancing and let pistol weapons fire too.

Regular 40k 9e has removed overwatch to be a stratagem, perhaps KT could go in a similar direction, as right now a model can fire overwatch as long as nobody makes it to charge, this makes auto-hit weapons like the frag cannon super brutal when they have LoS.

Maybe overwatch can be something that happens only if a model is readied (forgoes movement to shoot first in shooting phase, but charges happen before that)
---
A bunch of changes I want to try out...


Movement
- Alternating movement instead of IGYG
- Player with less units to deploy can skip their turn, player with more can deploy 2 at a time
- Only readied models can fire overwatch, overwatch hits at -1 and takes place of their shooting for the round.

Charging
- Models that fail a charge can fire non-heavy weapons at -1 to hit in shooting phase. autohit weapons shots are divided by 2 to minimum of 1.
- Charge reactions are to withdraw 3", fire overwatch, or countercharge (charge/2)
- Charges can be intercepted by hostiles within 2" of line you charge through, they roll their charge attempt.

Shooting
- Alternating, readied models that haven't fired overwatch fire first
- Can take reactions to shooting
-- Go to Ground: Pinned, +1 to obscured saves, shaken (so needs to roll morale to get back up), can move 2" away from shooter after resolving damage.
-- Hold the Line: Nothing as normal

Close Combat, remains the same but...
- Withdrawing from combat triggers one of the following reactions if hostiles aren't occupied by non-withdrawing units
-- Pursue: roll charge, if they make it counts as a charge so all charging and intercept rules apply.

And something that changes the feel of the game...
-Flesh Wounds: Rolled at beginning of morale phase, so there's a differentiation between an Injury token to be rolled vs a flesh wound that lasts through the whole game.
-Each token causes a -1 to rolls so some models can get off one last attack before expiring.
-A model can only have 3 flesh wounds or injury tokens, 4 means removed from play. Mortal wounds are rolled for immediately though so those sniping weapons can actually feel different from lots of bullets or plasma.
- Will you let a model fire back with just 1 injury token, or attempt to 'overkill' them with more attacks? Meltagun's 1d6 damage now feels more important compared to plasma 'only' putting two tokens down