Learning Kill Team, Part 1

Some time ago I picked up the current edition of Games Workshop's Kill Team starter set. Partly to build up my collection of 8th Edition 40K Plague Marines, and partly to learn Kill Team. I may never play it as is, but it might be yet another ruleset to double for historical skirmishes like VBCW. As far as I can tell, it's not the "full" game, but that's alright, because I prefer simplicity anyway. The starter handbook has plenty of scenarios that work their way up to learning the rules. I'm thinking of just playing one a day and going straight thru the book in the course of a week.

In the event, I didn't do them all in a row like I hoped; often too tired after work even to play a quick solo game, I set them up and left them until I felt ready. I spent more time reading; on the other hand, if it was Games Workshop material then that raised my interest level!

The first scenario.

This "scenario" is simply one turn of choreographed fire and movement. First one figure fires, another fires back and then the two officers (upper left) clash in close combat. Finally, the Chaos marine (top center) moves to the objective, and depending on who did better in the previous "fights" one side or the other wins. Entirely random, but not bad to give a feel for the basics. In this case neither of the shooters did enough damage to kill, while the blue Space Marine Captain slew his green opposite number, so the good guys won this round. Next, the actual rules...

Scenario Two: shooting.

Weapons have a varying number of shots - for Space Marines, they hit on 3+. Sixes are "crits" and do extra damage. In exchange, defenders get three save dice, which again need 3+ with sixes as crits again. Successful save rolls cancel out hits, but you need either a critical save or two regular saves to cancel a critical hit. If more hits were scored than there were saves to cancel them, you add up damage; each figure has a variable amount of wounds.

In my first firing phase, my heavy intercessor gunner with a heavy bolter did nine damage to the opposing heavy gunner, who still had five HP left and thus could shoot back. The "solo" programming requires him to shoot back at the weakest opponent, so he takes on the Space Marine warrior who has fewer HP than the heavy gunner. His plague weapon hits on 2+. He scores four hits; only one is saved, so the Marine also takes nine damage and next returns fire. He scores only one hit, which is easily saved. The second Chaos Marine fires into him; the good guy takes a further seven damage and is taken out.

So that's how a turn of firing goes. Three more rounds later, and both green marines are down; the heavy bolter gets a lot of shots and the bad guys rolled poorly on their saves. Obviously, this is basic and we are ignoring special effects.

I've used dice to indicate hit-point loss.
I'd prefer individual cards for each character,
but this is what the box comes with; luckily
there is plenty of room on the table given the
small battle area.

Scenario Three: Movement.

This one has a plot; the three blue Marines have to carry their objective to the far side of the board. The catch is that the green Marines get reinforcements, so killing more than one in the process is contraindicated.

Handy tactic: Since close combat is not yet a thing,
and each figure has a 1" "control range," Green Marine
can block the other side's way - as long as he doesn't get shot.

In the second round, poor shooting failed to get the Plague Marine heavy gunner out of the way, and the bad guys concentrated all fire on the Sergeant carrying the objective, killing him. The Tactical Marine hastily picked it up and fired into the heavy gunner, finally taking him down, but now the good guys were nearly surrounded:

Fourteen inches to go - with a max of nine a turn...

By the end of Round Two, both blue Marines were severely wounded, and their choices were poor. Run the objective carrier away (and into the line of fire of two enemies, one with a powerful plasma pistol)? Or blast the one green Marine with LOS, leading to two new green Marines appearing wherever they like on the board next turn?

Well, that didn't work.

Perhaps next time I should use the special rules each "operative" has - in particular, the Marines get Bolter Discipline and may fire twice in a round. In exchange, as in the 8th Edition 40K starter sets, Plague Marines are Disgustingly Resilient and thus take less damage.

So I did try it, and it was a more interesting game. With the figures' special moves there are more decisions to make. It helps, too, that the Plague Marines have slower moves - on this small board it really does make a difference!

One slightly annoying bit when it comes to setup is that the board in the book is divided into eight parts; in reality it's divided in four (by the folds). Proper setup according to the scenarios thus requires careful angling and studying the board itself, which as you can see has lots of "textural" elements printed on it. I can't line up the buildings or place a figure in a specific corner, but I can look for the bits of wreckage printed on the board and compare them to the map in the book. Takes longer though.

And, boy, so did this post. I think I started it over two weeks ago! There are still close combat, action points, an "all-up" scenario and alternate setups to deal with, so I'll stop here and come back to it. To make sure I stick with it, though, I'll have to leave the set out on my table rather than pack it away, otherwise I'll never get to the rest of it. That's the problem with being a hobby butterfly.

In other news, the BEF/Home Guard figures are about done and ready to ship to my brother for painting. Hunting for painting videos to inspire him, I also found where the extra equipment on the sprues is supposed to go on the models, so I may go back through them and add it. Here's my crude standard-bearer:

If I wanted this to be an Anglican League platoon,
I could have used the curved end of the paperclip
for a shepherd's crook...

See you next time - hopefully sooner. Busy days...