Hi everyone!
With the announcement that Henry Cavill is producing a Warhammer 40,000 series on Amazon, I expect that over the next few years the searches for Warhammer content is going to trend all the way up, so obviously we need to get Hive ready for that enthusiasm.
In the 41st millennium there is only war.
Mankind has spread amongst the stars and found that it was never alone. Incomprehensible monstrosities desire only to devastate all in their path, there is no opportunity for diplomacy or understanding, mankind can only fight to survive.
I've loved the Warhammer 40K universe for decades. I played the tabletop games as a teenager, absolutely loved the Dawn of War RTS game and just recently purchased Kill Team as a means to get back into this hobby.
I got the Kill Team Starter Set for $99. This seemed like great value to me... especially considering how expensive GM stuff can be... I was filled with regret when I read this post comparing the Starter Set to another much better value box set... but now looking at the Kill Team: Octarius set on the Games Workshop site, it looks like they've completely changed that product, and it's just scenery now. Confusing.
There is a lot in the Starter Set:
I won't lie... putting together the models with this big good man hands has been challenging, stressful and frustrating... but so good when you actually get it right.
I feel like I've learnt SO MUCH since opening this box. It's been great to tackle something both brand new and familiar and I can't wait to really get into the painting aspect of it. I've started, and that's stressful too, but I expect once I get the hang of it it'll be super calming. I'm definitely excited to have less screen-based pastimes, especially with the electricity going off for days semi-regularly now.
The Warhammer 40,000 table top games are strategy games. You need to outplay your opponent by countering their forces with your own. It's a little like Chess, you maneuver to use the right tool for the job... but unlike Chess, there is the random element of the dice rolls. In the chaos of battle, you can miss the easiest shot in the world, or pull off the impossible!
Kill Team is a much smaller subset of the larger 40,000 games. Instead of an army, you're leading 10ish specialist troops. Using the right tool for the job becomes so much more important in these games.
There is an overwhelming number of rules for me to learn. It feels like learning a whole new language, but funnerer and with more pew pew.
Luckily this starter set has a few simple missions to learn the rules gradually, so let's get into the first one.
*Veteran Trooper Kliess looked up from his gun sight. *
"There's no movement in the smoke." The 3 other men looked East and scanned through the piles of junk and makeshift barriers, looking for threats that might prevent them rescuing the men and cargo from the downed supply ship.
"Let's move." Veteran Gunner Smirnek was keen to complete the mission and get back to the front lines, his beloved Meltagun could take down anything the greenskins threw at it. He knew he was the 10th or so owner of the gun, it had survived the entire civil war on his home planet Krieg and Smirnek knew no thrill like melting a greenskin mechanical monstrosity in this desert wasteland so far from home.
Um, apologies for the photos and everything... I was trying to avoid shadows but I've only now realised I've taken a lot of these photos upside down and with a weird skew...
3 Ork Kommandos versus 4 Guardsman. To win this mission the team who incapacitates an opponent operative and gets at least one of their own operative off the East side of the kill zone.
The Orks start in the green deployment zone, the guardsman in the red. Players choose one operative to move and/or shoot at a time, alternating between operatives until all operatives have completed their actions, then the turn is over. This mission can go for unlimited turns.
Veteran Trooper Kliess moves towards the East, he continues to scan his surroundings, and seeing no threat dashes towards the smoking wreckage in the distance.
Back in my youth you had a tape measure for everything... moving troopers, judging weapon distances, etc. With Kill Team they've provided this handy tool. An operative usually moves 3 of the circle side (on the right side above) but the dash is measured using the square side (at the bottom). You can move as zig-zaggy as you like which wasn't really a thing back in the day.
For this game, operatives on both sides can either:
Shooting distances seem to be unlimited for the Veteran Troopers and the Ork Kommando Dakka Boy, the others have to be within another guide tool which I think is 6 inches long.
1 Ork Kommando moves west and then dashes south west.
Veteran Trooper Khabir watches Kliess dash off to the south and scans the area nearby through his lasgun sight to see if anything reacts. Nothing does.
As Khabir lowers his rifle to follow, he hears heavy lumbering to his left and spins to see a huge Ork heading his way, the murderous roaring spittle catching the unrelenting sunlight... he shoots without aiming and misses his first four shots.
"Calm yourself" he hears in his right ear, and takes a stilling breath.
He fires again, four times, and wounds the massive greenskin twice... the brutish alien keeps roaring.
One thing I quite like, but kept forgetting was these little tokens next to each operative. The red side means they still have to activate (ie, they haven't done anything this turn) and the black side means they've already moved, etc.
The Ork Kommandos have 10 wounds each (the Guardsman have 7) so I put two dice equaling 8 to keep track of his 8 remaining wounds.
Another Ork Kommando moves and dashes South-West.
Veteran Trooper Pask can see the laser holes in the running greenskin. Pask can see the black, gluggy ichor pour out of the wounds... and can also see that it's not enough to put the monster down. He aims, calmly, and pulls his trigger.
His careful aim is rewarded... 5 more laser shots burn into the beast. The Kommando falters in his run, he stumbles as the gluggy streams intensify out of his body. Pask steadies himself and shoots again, the Ork's erratic stumbling saves the beast... only one shot connects but it bounces off the raw metal armor.
The greenskin kill team for this mission has two Ork Kommandos and one Ork Kommando Dakka Boy seen in the middle in the below photo:
The Dakka Boy has a special skill and an absolutely ruthless weapon:
Source
It can essentially move, and then move+shoot as his 'Dakka Dash' making it extremely flexible... and then the 'Unload Slugs' ability means you can reroll any failed shots, making this operative flexible and dependable.
Veteran Gunner Smirnek was no longer in a hurry to get to the downed supply ship and get back to base, he watched his brothers wound the monster over and over. They had hurt it badly, but it was still moving towards them. He lifted his Meltagun to finish the job.
There wasn't much in this brutal universe that could withstand the hot magma that would spew forth from the one thing he could rely on... but before he could pull the trigger, he heard unrelenting fire blast from his left.
Another Ork was sprinting and firing, catching Khabir in the head, shoulders, chest and arms... Khabir went down, Smirnek bellowed his name, as the monster continued to fill Khabirs lifeless body full of bullets... the Ork grinning maniacally, drool slooping from it's toothy jaw.
In the datacard above, you can see that the Dakka Boy's weapon, the Dakka Shoota has a huge 5 attacks and a Ballistic Skill (BS/WS) of 4+.
The Dakka Boy rolled a (3, 4, 5, 5, 6) during his Dakka Dash.. hitting on 4 of 5 shots. It rerolled the 3 but got a 1. Pask has a "DF" of 3, which means he rolls 3 dice in defense, with a "SV" of "5+" meaning any dice that is a 5 or 6 saves a shot. He's already been hit 4 times so you know at least one shot is going through and there's nothing to be done about it.
Khabir rolls (3, 4, 4) - no 5s or 6s and so saves nothing. All 4 of the Dakka Boys shots will wound.
In the D column of the Dakka shoota is a "3/4". This means that for every normal shot that hits, it causes 3 damage and for every successful critical shot it causes 4 damage. A critical shot is the roll of a 6. So the ( 1, 4, 5, 5, 6) rolled equals (miss, hit, hit, hit, critical hit).
Since Khabir's armour saves him from none of the hits, he suffers (miss=nothing, hit=3, hit=3, hit=3, critical hit=4) - 13 wounds. Khabir only starts with 7 wounds, so is incapacitated and removed from the board.
Veteran Gunner Smirnek is furious. He has only known war and can respect the aliens eliminating their foes to achieve their goals... even if their foes are his brothers... but the gleeful murder of his family is impossible to endure.
Endure he must. He has spent his entire adulthood in the Death Korps of the Krieg... he has witnessed countless of his kin fall, but one truth always remains... he must complete his mission for the Emperor!
He's too far from either of the monstrous murderous Orks to melt them to goo, but he must head towards the supply ship so he moves due east, behind Pask and then heads north-east... he's much further from the sprinting Ork but is within range of the stumbling Ork. He fires awkwardly behind himself and misses completely.
His fury intensifies.
This is the end of the first turn.
All operatives were activated.
One Krieg Veteran Trooper is incapacitated.
One Ork Kommando has 3 wounds left.
Closest to the Supply Ship in the East is a Krieg Veteran Trooper.
I'll be back the with remaining turns and conclusion of this mission later this week.
Thanks for reading!
