Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I want Kill Team type rules for every unit in the 40k game so as to play at this level of realism with for example 1000 pts of marines with an HQ and bodyguard in a land raider.
Can this happen?
Will GW do it?
Are other people interested in such a thing?

I just want to see Killteam: Inquisition

 jeff white wrote:
I want Kill Team type rules for every unit in the 40k game so as to play at this level of realism with for example 1000 pts of marines with an HQ and bodyguard in a land raider.
Can this happen?
Will GW do it?
Are other people interested in such a thing?

Sounds like an insane amount of book keeping for larger games!

Kill Team is about small focused squads. So no, GW will not release Kill Team rules for every model in 40k.

Different scales of game are best served by different sets of rules.

The rules for squad scaled games like kill team are able to have highly complex rules for each individual model, because there are many fewer models on the table.
You can get through a turn in a reasonable amount of time because you only have to resolve activations and track information for 5 to 10 models.

As you bring the size up to a company scale game like standard 40k, it starts to take too long to resolve everything. That's where abstraction comes in, and you start thinking in terms of units rather than individual models. You can finish games in a reasonable amount of time by handwaving away all the little things that are unimportant at that scale.
The fact that private Jimmy in squad F took a bullet to the leg earlier in the fight and moves slightly slower than normal, just isn't so important when there are a hundred other soldiers on the field next to him, along with a battery of artillery and heavy armour support.
In something like kill team though, that kind of thing matters.


With that said, you could have a bit of fun throwing together your own sets of highly detailed rules for other units. Vehicles would be interesting at this scale, in that you'd want to track various parts of them at a high level of detail. Perhaps stuff like giving each crew member/machine spirit their own profile, to allow them to be skilled at different tasks (or killed off/wounded as the vehicle takes damage to different areas).

Stux wrote:

 jeff white wrote:
I want Kill Team type rules for every unit in the 40k game so as to play at this level of realism with for example 1000 pts of marines with an HQ and bodyguard in a land raider.
Can this happen?
Will GW do it?
Are other people interested in such a thing?

Sounds like an insane amount of book keeping for larger games!

Kill Team is about small focused squads. So no, GW will not release Kill Team rules for every model in 40k.

For <1000 points equivalent?

Perhaps not for every unit, but maybe rhinos, predators, even landraiders, light walkers, dreads, and so on?

And if GW doesn't do it,
does anyone think that there will be enough interest in such a thing that people will do it as a community thing?
Just gauging the interest...

I think it's completely missing the point of kill team and you'd be better off playing RT.

Land Raiders not a chance. Predators and Dread incredibly unlikely. Sentinels and Crisis suits... Eh, maybe one day.

I think they should have

a) Done Generic Marine with armoury etc rather than the dull restrictive units that they could copy paste.
b) Not said FU to various factions.

 jeff white wrote:

Stux wrote:

 jeff white wrote:
I want Kill Team type rules for every unit in the 40k game so as to play at this level of realism with for example 1000 pts of marines with an HQ and bodyguard in a land raider.
Can this happen?
Will GW do it?
Are other people interested in such a thing?

Sounds like an insane amount of book keeping for larger games!

Kill Team is about small focused squads. So no, GW will not release Kill Team rules for every model in 40k.

For <1000 points equivalent?

Perhaps not for every unit, but maybe rhinos, predators, even landraiders, light walkers, dreads, and so on?

And if GW doesn't do it,
does anyone think that there will be enough interest in such a thing that people will do it as a community thing?
Just gauging the interest...

Kill-Teams are soldiers organized into commandos. And commandos only include a couple of guys/gals. They rely on stealth to get the job done which often includes missions like sabotage, assassinations and rescue. How can you be stealthy with a whole army which even includes a giant land raider? I guess you are mising the point of this game. Watch the Dirty Dozen (1967) to get an idea what a commando looks like.

Play the FFG RPG game as a wargame.

Frankly I'd just take the turn structure and use the rest of the 40k rules.

You move, they move, then shoot one unit at a time, apply the same logic to the psychic and fight phases.

 Strg Alt wrote:

 jeff white wrote:

Stux wrote:

 jeff white wrote:
I want Kill Team type rules for every unit in the 40k game so as to play at this level of realism with for example 1000 pts of marines with an HQ and bodyguard in a land raider.
Can this happen?
Will GW do it?
Are other people interested in such a thing?

Sounds like an insane amount of book keeping for larger games!

Kill Team is about small focused squads. So no, GW will not release Kill Team rules for every model in 40k.

For <1000 points equivalent?

Perhaps not for every unit, but maybe rhinos, predators, even landraiders, light walkers, dreads, and so on?

And if GW doesn't do it,
does anyone think that there will be enough interest in such a thing that people will do it as a community thing?
Just gauging the interest...

Kill-Teams are soldiers organized into commandos. And commandos only include a couple of guys/gals. They rely on stealth to get the job done which often includes missions like sabotage, assassinations and rescue. How can you be stealthy with a whole army which even includes a giant land raider? I guess you are mising the point of this game. Watch the Dirty Dozen (1967) to get an idea what a commando looks like.

Not according to the compositions and unit choices - Ork Lootas are not stealthy nor are Guardians.

I think stealth was the wrong term here, but the gist of what Strg Alt says is correct.

The whole premise of the game is that it's a small, focused unit put together to perform a specific mission. Not necessarily stealthy in the sense of sneaky sneaky, but small footprint enough to pass under the enemy radar and not attract a large scale response.

Stux wrote:
I think stealth was the wrong term here, but the gist of what Strg Alt says is correct.

The whole premise of the game is that it's a small, focused unit put together to perform a specific mission. Not necessarily stealthy in the sense of sneaky sneaky, but small footprint enough to pass under the enemy radar and not attract a large scale response.

Which is why it was so disapointing for me that they just replicate unit templates rather than have a base model - be that "Marine", "Ork" or whatever and an armoury.

Special forces tend to have special weapon loads.

But hey - its alot easier to copy paste a template and add a single rule I guess

I don't know until I see the full rules. Too much freedom makes things exponentially harder to balance though, so maybe that is a factor. Maybe they are going for a tighter ruleset to make it more competitive viable, with the sort of philosophy they applied to Shadespire.

Stux wrote:
I don't know until I see the full rules. Too much freedom makes things exponentially harder to balance though, so maybe that is a factor. Maybe they are going for a tighter ruleset to make it more competitive viable, with the sort of philosophy they applied to Shadespire.

If they had gone for a whole new stat block I might have agreed but this does just look like Shadowwar with a few Necromunda rules thrown in and copy paste units.

YeOldSaltPotato wrote:
Frankly I'd just take the turn structure and use the rest of the 40k rules.

You move, they move, then shoot one unit at a time, apply the same logic to the psychic and fight phases.

Good start!

 Mr Morden wrote:
Which is why it was so disapointing for me that they just replicate unit templates rather than have a base model - be that "Marine", "Ork" or whatever and an armoury.

You realize this wouldn't work for a ton of the armies, right? Completely infeasible for Necrons and Tyranids, and you would need at least two templates for CSM to represent both CSM and cultists, possibly more.

I think the concept is to use it where appropriate.

Marine? yes. Guardsman? Yes. Guardian? Yes.
Necron Warrior? No. Termigaunt? Not so much. Dire Avenger? no.

 Mr Morden wrote:

 Strg Alt wrote:

 jeff white wrote:

Stux wrote:

 jeff white wrote:
I want Kill Team type rules for every unit in the 40k game so as to play at this level of realism with for example 1000 pts of marines with an HQ and bodyguard in a land raider.
Can this happen?
Will GW do it?
Are other people interested in such a thing?

Sounds like an insane amount of book keeping for larger games!

Kill Team is about small focused squads. So no, GW will not release Kill Team rules for every model in 40k.

For <1000 points equivalent?

Perhaps not for every unit, but maybe rhinos, predators, even landraiders, light walkers, dreads, and so on?

And if GW doesn't do it,
does anyone think that there will be enough interest in such a thing that people will do it as a community thing?
Just gauging the interest...

Kill-Teams are soldiers organized into commandos. And commandos only include a couple of guys/gals. They rely on stealth to get the job done which often includes missions like sabotage, assassinations and rescue. How can you be stealthy with a whole army which even includes a giant land raider? I guess you are mising the point of this game. Watch the Dirty Dozen (1967) to get an idea what a commando looks like.

Not according to the compositions and unit choices - Ork Lootas are not stealthy nor are Guardians.

Yeah, the unit choices are imo wrong. Guardians are not special forces and therefore should not belong in a commando. The same goes for Lootas. They are just the Ork version of a devastator squad. Here is a unit list for a couple of factions which I would deem appropriate for this game:

SM: SM Scouts.
CSM: CSM Veterans
Eldar: Striking Scorpions
Dark Eldar: Mandrakes
Orks: Kommandoz
Tyranids: Genestealers
Imps: Imp Veterans & Last Chancers & Marbo

All of these units are decribed as being stealthy and had a history of being able to infiltrate. I left the Lictor out because it is a multi-wound creature and may be op unless the designers give it really shoddy rules.

I think you could get Kill team to work up to 200-250 points, but would need to exclude any model with about 5 or more wounds.

Bikes, Dreads, Sentinels, Termies and the like should work in the game frame, but you might have to limit the monsters & one-man vehicles to 0-1 per force.

I feel like your game that is limited exclusively to the one stealth unit every army has would be significantly less fun.

I mean, part of the reason I don't like skirmish games is I like tanks and monsters and armies, rather than commandos. You can tell it by the armies I pick:

Superheavy Tank Company
Arsenal World Regiment
Legio Cybernetica
Slaanesh Daemons

None of those really fits a "kill team" sense. So I suppose this would get me to like Kill Team a little more, but I also think you've deviated from the point of Kill Team in the first place.

 Arachnofiend wrote:
I feel like your game that is limited exclusively to the one stealth unit every army has would be significantly less fun.

GW would have then the opportunity to sell use new unique model kits for these limited unit selection in no time. Take the Striking Scorpions for instance. They always had the chainsword, shuriken pistol and mandi-blasters for their equipment choices plus a few grenades. But with a new kit you could introduce new weapons available to them much in the same way like in Necromunda with all the various gangs. Just imagine a Striking Scorpion with a shuriken cannon to suppress enemy units from afar. Another model could be preparing a trap on the ground for their enemies and so on. Instead GW tries to peddle us the old stuff from 40K. I know the Rogue Traders and Nurgle mutants are new but all the other faction got nothing.

 Strg Alt wrote:
I left the Lictor out because it is a multi-wound creature and may be op unless the designers give it really shoddy rules.

You realise that lictors are in, right?

"Just imagine a Striking Scorpion with a shuriken cannon to suppress enemy units from afar."

Sure. Now imagine your Tac Marine carrying around a Lasgun. Or a Guardsman hipfiring a Tesla Destructor.

Not all units across all factions are as fluff-compatible with alternate loadouts. Rangers could do those things, but not Scorpions.

 Scott-S6 wrote:

 Strg Alt wrote:
I left the Lictor out because it is a multi-wound creature and may be op unless the designers give it really shoddy rules.

You realise that lictors are in, right?

I know that they are in but imo they shouldn´t be. You could of course create a special mission ´´Bug Hunt´´ where you have to hunt one down much like those monster hunter scenarios in Necromunda.

 Strg Alt wrote:

 Scott-S6 wrote:

 Strg Alt wrote:
I left the Lictor out because it is a multi-wound creature and may be op unless the designers give it really shoddy rules.

You realise that lictors are in, right?

I know that they are in but imo they shouldn´t be. You could of course create a special mission ´´Bug Hunt´´ where you have to hunt one down much like those monster hunter scenarios in Necromunda.

There is literally nothing more suited to stealth, assassination and disruption in the Tyranid genetic library than the Lictor. The fact that it totally outclasses it’s peers from other races is sort of the point, and would be a silly handled by making a “true to form” Lictor cost as much as a kill team from another race...

 Strg Alt wrote:

 Arachnofiend wrote:
I feel like your game that is limited exclusively to the one stealth unit every army has would be significantly less fun.

GW would have then the opportunity to sell use new unique model kits for these limited unit selection in no time. Take the Striking Scorpions for instance. They always had the chainsword, shuriken pistol and mandi-blasters for their equipment choices plus a few grenades. But with a new kit you could introduce new weapons available to them much in the same way like in Necromunda with all the various gangs. Just imagine a Striking Scorpion with a shuriken cannon to suppress enemy units from afar. Another model could be preparing a trap on the ground for their enemies and so on. Instead GW tries to peddle us the old stuff from 40K. I know the Rogue Traders and Nurgle mutants are new but all the other faction got nothing.

Like half the reason for Kill Team is to use the 40k models you already have in a smaller game.

And again, Necrons. How do you make a unique kit for Necron Warriors with a bunch of new weapon options when literally the whole point of the unit is that every warrior is an identical, mindless slave to their overlord's will?

GW sure isn't perfect, but nothing gives me more confidence in their game design abilities than alternative suggestions put forth by the community...

The last thing we need in 40k is more bookkeeping and special rules.

I do agree that 40k needs much better rules in terms of AP, cover, terrain, etc, but copying Kill Team verbatim will not really solve any of that.

I get that 40k 8th was probably designed to reduce the number of arguments and slow-play that comes from trying to measure exactly how much a model is covered by a piece of terrain from a specific angle, or to count how many tiny slivers of bases can be touched by a 3" pie plate, or whether or not putting your pinkie toe onto a slightly different shade of grass means you're in terrain or not, or if you're hitting the front or side of a curved alien spaceship as it's zipping over your head.

In those regards, 8th is superior, but there's a lot of immersion and balance that was lost.