Hello,

so in your opinion, whats the strongest Killteam at the moment? is it like in 40k that you can say (for example) Aeldari is pretty strong right now and in the right hands you can win everything. Or is Killteam "balanced" and all factions are simmilar strong / bad in special situations.

I played just 1 game by now and it was fantastic. i rly like the idea behind this skirmisher and it looks like GW wants to support Killteam for the next 1,5 - 2 years with ne updates etc. do you think there is a competitive way to play killteam? maybe a own league? with my new job + newborn + wife i´ve rly no time for 40k maybe 1 game / month. but for a killteam is always a little time. you just can invite a friend and play it on the table, no need for a 72x48" plate / terrain etc. i´m pretty happy

now its your turn, whats your experience with the game? do you wanna play 5-6 games in a row? or is it to boring and you go back to 40k after 1-2 games? can you imagine that there is a competitive szene around killteam?



(englisch is not my first language, so sorry about that)

Well only played two games but Tau stealth suits and drones or a Deathguard list with plague marines bubble wrapped with zombies both felt very powerful against my SM and IG lists.

3+ save with multiple wounds or a FNP is very powerful in this game when hitting something in the first place is pretty difficult..

I suppose we will play this more often than full 40k. It's just so much faster to set up and the logistics involved are so much lighter.

Death Guard, Death Watch, Harleys, and Tau I think round out the top.

Albeit, Space marine tactics that you get in their box are real good. 2 CP to not go out of action AFTER you roll and 1 cp for what tau would call savior protocols. It makes Space marines frustrating to take out. But I imagine the likes of Deathwatch and death guard are getting similar whenever they get a set.

I've had two games in a row where space marine tacticals x7 only took out 1 death guard plague marine.
And the death guard only took out 3 tacticals.

Both games 5 rounds and tons of buildings and cover.


I feel death guard is very strong but havent played vs the other "top" factions.

Scions

I found SM, Ork and IG (guardsman) lists pretty lackluster, so I'm going to build either Scions or AdMech next, already have the models at hand or some reinforcements ordered. Third contender for a new KT is Deathwatch, but I can proxy these pretty well with my SW models for the time being.

koooaei can you elaborate why you think Scions are top tier?

 Weazel wrote:
I found SM, Ork and IG (guardsman) lists pretty lackluster, so I'm going to build either Scions or AdMech next, already have the models at hand or some reinforcements ordered. Third contender for a new KT is Deathwatch, but I can proxy these pretty well with my SW models for the time being.

koooaei can you elaborate why you think Scions are top tier?

I would imagine the ability to build a list with 8 plasma guns (4 Scions, 4 Guard gunners) would be pretty strong in what is pretty much a power armour meta.

8 plasma lists mean every loss will hurt and let's be honest, it's guard it's very easy to lose models. There's also the fact that you can give re roll 1's to like 3 guys max (unless you have everyone clustered and the box strategems). Volleyguns is where it's at in my experience so far, they've got the volume of shots and AP to get wounds on marines fairly consistently and to force them to GEQ saves in the process to make sure some slip through.

That's not to say you shouldn't take plasma, after All overcharged plasma will quite happily chew through MEQ's and gives a good chance of killing them outright compared to Volleyguns, it's just I'd say you shouldn't take more plasma than you can safely overcharge.

I've played about 20 games or so with my Harlequins and have found Death Guard and Orks to be the hardest match-ups.

Death Guard are just resilient as hell and I really struggle to take them out.

The couple games that I got in against Orks involved my 6 or 7 Harlequins up against 12-15 Orks. I struggled to get through the bodies before becoming overwhelmed. Usually games came down to me taking a few casualties and then having to break off and hide.

As deathguard i got stomped by orks in melee.

Hard to take objectives when they are so many more models, and they dont fail nercetests in blobs.

They had two powerklaws in there who rips new holes in places you shouldnt let the sun shine.

God i despise playing against death guard. Having to roll to hit at penalties, roll to wound on 5s, make them fail armor, make them fail FNP, and THEN having to roll for OOA, just means they don't friggin die!!!

Do you have any ways to put out mortal wounds?
That gets past lots of stuff.

I don't think Mortal Wounds get past the Death Guard Ability. On that note, maybe bring high Str weapons? Most factions have access to them one way or another.

 iGuy91 wrote:
God i despise playing against death guard. Having to roll to hit at penalties, roll to wound on 5s, make them fail armor, make them fail FNP, and THEN having to roll for OOA, just means they don't friggin die!!!

death guard should cost the same as grey knights

It doesnt get past DS but it gets past the saves.

 gbghg wrote:
8 plasma lists mean every loss will hurt and let's be honest, it's guard it's very easy to lose models. There's also the fact that you can give re roll 1's to like 3 guys max (unless you have everyone clustered and the box strategems). Volleyguns is where it's at in my experience so far, they've got the volume of shots and AP to get wounds on marines fairly consistently and to force them to GEQ saves in the process to make sure some slip through.

That's not to say you shouldn't take plasma, after All overcharged plasma will quite happily chew through MEQ's and gives a good chance of killing them outright compared to Volleyguns, it's just I'd say you shouldn't take more plasma than you can safely overcharge.

Yes, massed special weapons on 3+bs models for not much more than your average power armored dudes with bolters. Too cheap, too killy. Also note that you're not forced to overcharge all the time.

 koooaei wrote:

 gbghg wrote:
8 plasma lists mean every loss will hurt and let's be honest, it's guard it's very easy to lose models. There's also the fact that you can give re roll 1's to like 3 guys max (unless you have everyone clustered and the box strategems). Volleyguns is where it's at in my experience so far, they've got the volume of shots and AP to get wounds on marines fairly consistently and to force them to GEQ saves in the process to make sure some slip through.

That's not to say you shouldn't take plasma, after All overcharged plasma will quite happily chew through MEQ's and gives a good chance of killing them outright compared to Volleyguns, it's just I'd say you shouldn't take more plasma than you can safely overcharge.

Yes, massed special weapons on 3+bs models for not much more than your average power armored dudes with bolters. Too cheap, too killy. Also note that you're not forced to overcharge all the time.

Guard are not at all remotely the strongest kill team

They do autowin vs primaris though.

The space marine kill team without the cards of the space wolf box are weaker than guard, but if you include the cards from the box, you effectively reduce several special weapons worth of shooting at your important characters while reliably destroying a model a turn with a missile launcher that hits on twos and rerolls ones

Harlequins basically teleport around with good invulnerable saves.

Deathguard are ridiculously hard to kill.

Those are the best.

 DarknessEternal wrote:
Harlequins basically teleport around with good invulnerable saves.

Deathguard are ridiculously hard to kill.

Those are the best.

Tau and deathwatch next to those two round out the top kill teams in my eyes.

I had 6 games with my AdMech so far, won 4 of them often pretty strongly. I lost only against SM, first time against full Intercessors with Bolter Stalker + 1 Grenade launcher that killed me a guy/a turn, and the second against 4 Sniper scouts, 2 ML (I think) and one regular TAC.

I have the feeling my AdMech KT is not bad at all, there is great shooting, good pistols (so lots of shots in CC) and the Infiltrators can easily be tailored against SM or E3 with the weapon choices. What has been killing me is morale but I've noticed I've been playing it wrong so it might get better now.

From what I've seen - if you're using the updated missions (NOVA event pack) and a Command Roster, every faction has options to deal with every other one. It's a small sample size though, and just my opinion - but we'll need to see top level events and the really savvy players trying to break the game to see what's actually the strongest. Everything looks fairly level at the moment, with a couple of outliers within factions.

Deathwatch with 4 Frag Cannons. 3 of them can be specialists (comms, sniper and demo). Seems balanced alright...

stratigo wrote:

 DarknessEternal wrote:
Harlequins basically teleport around with good invulnerable saves.

Deathguard are ridiculously hard to kill.

Those are the best.

Tau and deathwatch next to those two round out the top kill teams in my eyes.

are you talking about "tau" in the context of "nothing but stealth suits and gun drones" then? Because honestly, looking at all the fire warrior offerings besides maybe a pathfinder gunner or two, I'm really not feelin' it.

IMO Admech is solidly better than Tau. An arquebus sniper hits on 2s rerolling from downtown, army-wide reroll 1s to hit on the turn you want to smack the enemy with your Calivers on overcharge, and solid melee support troops in the Ruststalker and Infiltrator (Zealot trait infiltrator is hilarious but sadly still only gets to make one wound roll so I doubt it's actually worth it to stack him up to a million +to hits and get 8-9 hits with the same guy.)

the_scotsman wrote:

stratigo wrote:

 DarknessEternal wrote:
Harlequins basically teleport around with good invulnerable saves.

Deathguard are ridiculously hard to kill.

Those are the best.

Tau and deathwatch next to those two round out the top kill teams in my eyes.

are you talking about "tau" in the context of "nothing but stealth suits and gun drones" then? Because honestly, looking at all the fire warrior offerings besides maybe a pathfinder gunner or two, I'm really not feelin' it.

IMO Admech is solidly better than Tau. An arquebus sniper hits on 2s rerolling from downtown, army-wide reroll 1s to hit on the turn you want to smack the enemy with your Calivers on overcharge, and solid melee support troops in the Ruststalker and Infiltrator (Zealot trait infiltrator is hilarious but sadly still only gets to make one wound roll so I doubt it's actually worth it to stack him up to a million +to hits and get 8-9 hits with the same guy.)

Drones and a few suits and a heavy rail rifle thrown in, yes. Fire warriors are uninspiring.

Imo death guard and t sons are the strongest currently

 Backspacehacker wrote:
Imo death guard and t sons are the strongest currently

I think t sons suffer from paying very much for their rubrics and being a team that relies on mismatches

stratigo wrote:

 Backspacehacker wrote:
Imo death guard and t sons are the strongest currently

I think t sons suffer from paying very much for their rubrics and being a team that relies on mismatches

I have not had this problem, you just need to be careful in what you do. They are very much a team that is unforgiving if you screw up but if used right they can devastate. Especially running the demo soul reaper. The beautiful part about them is heavy is built into all their models so you can be really mobile with your heavy weapons which can be brutal. Plus with the warpflamer you can just roast people up close. If you are playing on a board with lots of terrain, which you should in kill team, they are just amazing

stratigo wrote:

 Backspacehacker wrote:
Imo death guard and t sons are the strongest currently

I think t sons suffer from paying very much for their rubrics and being a team that relies on mismatches

They are insanely brutal in the right matchups though. 2+ saves against D1 weapons is nothing to laugh at, especially since that's most things in the game. Necrons don't even have multidamage options (other than MWs on 6s for Deathmarks, but that's unreliable).

I've played both Death Guard and Tau. I only played a couple of games with DG and they seem really good (that flail...) and Tau seem really damn good. The rail rifle in the hands of a sniper specialist, backed up by a comms specialist reliably kills 1-2 enemies a turn from across the whole table, and is hard to reach with a couple of shotgun breathers and some drones and stealth suits in the way who also seem useful and pokey.

Not to necro the thread but I'm curious to know your opinions on the best teams so far ? I still believe AdMech may be top tier, I'm having 12 victories for 15 matches so far.

 Aaranis wrote:
Not to necro the thread but I'm curious to know your opinions on the best teams so far ? I still believe AdMech may be top tier, I'm having 12 victories for 15 matches so far.

Care to share your list?

It varies depending on the mission, but for example my average list against T4/MEQ will be:

Vanguard Alpha, radium carbine - Leader
Ranger Gunner, transuranic arquebus - Sniper
Ranger, galvanic rifle & omnispex - Comms
Infiltrator Princeps, power sword & stubber - Zealot

Infiltrator, power sword & stubber
Infiltrator, power sword & stubber
Vanguard Gunner, arc rifle
Vanguard Gunner, arc rifle

If I'm facing T3/GEQ/hordes I'd trade the arc rifles for radium carbines, and switch the Infiltrators' gear for taser & flechette blasters instead. Really it depends on the mission, I have a full command roster to chose from.

And how do you defeat Harlequins who will never get shot at?

 DarknessEternal wrote:
And how do you defeat Harlequins who will never get shot at?

My first game was against Harlequins and it was painful for my opponent as everything just died instantly when I looked at it, while he managed to kill two models. Granted it doesn't represent all Harlequins games ever but I was hardly impressed.

I'll just shoot them anyway because they can't hide 8 models every time and I'll just wait for them to come.

He wasn't playing very well then. 8 models means they were armed stupidly. And yes, not only can they hide their entire team, but also charge you from that hiding such that you'll never even get to shoot at them on overwatch, let alone in the shooting phase.

If a Harlequin team ever gets shot at, they've made a huge mistake, as it's brain dead easy for them to avoid that.

Then we will see how at the first tournament Harlies will take at least place 1 to 3? Would you bet on that? I'm not convinced.

Try and describe a scenario where in Harlequins are trying to win and they still allow themselves to be shot at.

 DarknessEternal wrote:
Try and describe a scenario where in Harlequins are trying to win and they still allow themselves to be shot at.

When there is little to no LoS breaking cover?

So a situation that the rulebook completely discourages?

That is not valid.

I think Harlequins can be strong in the right circumstances, but I am not sure they are the end-all, be-all. You still have other CC units, mission objectives, tactics to deal with, etc. As a small elite force they can still be overwhelmed by hordes, esp CC hordes. And you are still dealing with T3 4++ saves. You get caught out in just the wrong spot and Harle's go down fast. And there are still better CC units out there they could run into with tactics (Decisive strike) that can let them go first, even if charged. Last but not least, you have the always fickle dice gods.

All that said, one of the guys in our upcoming campaign is looking at playing Harles. I am interested to see how they work out.

 DarknessEternal wrote:
Try and describe a scenario where in Harlequins are trying to win and they still allow themselves to be shot at.

Tau have missle pods which can target without LOS. I thought there was also another tactic floating around that allowed another army to shoot at something they could not see. I will see if I can locate it again. You are also relying on a lot of LOS blocking terrain in just the right areas.

 Mordekiem wrote:

Tau have missle pods which can target without LOS. I thought there was also another tactic floating around that allowed another army to shoot at something they could not see. I will see if I can locate it again. You are also relying on a lot of LOS blocking terrain in just the right areas.

Well, Tau have missile pod (just the 1, and it requires a specific living fire warrior next to it, and it still only hits on a 6), but this is still valid.

Also, they do not need a lot of LoS blocking terrain. Two pieces of terrain that can hide 3 guys is enough to keep them from getting shot for the entirety of the game. And the locations of those terrains hardly matter, as their speed will allow them to hide half their team on turn 1, and half their team prior to turn 1.

Also, I'm playing devil's advocate here. I know of ways to fight Harlequins, but I'm trying to find more because fighting them isn't the same as beating them. "Shoot them" is simply not an option though. Something has gone catastrophically wrong in the brain of a Harlequin player to allow that to ever happen.

We found the mission can really change the game for some of the better teams.
When you have harlequins that only have six guys and need to cover five objectives.
Things go south fast...

For harlies - yep, the mission can really hurt. We had a "hold point each turn" mission, and whilst their saves kept them up far longer than they should, to get any VP, they had to stand on the locations, which meant that the opposing teams could move into a firing line. And really, it can be hard to hide the entirety of the miniature, especially if the harlies move first.

Yep, they are good, but they are not definitive winners - the three games I've seen them play, they lost to Ad Mech, won to Necron, and lost to Tau.

hvg3akaek wrote:
And really, it can be hard to hide the entirety of the miniature, .

Which isn't necessary in Kill Team.

 DarknessEternal wrote:
So a situation that the rulebook completely discourages?

That is not valid.

Half the boards I've played on don't have quite enough. I'm all for more terrain personally, so thank you for getting me look up the suggestions in the rule book regarding terrain. I've had opponents who'd rather play gunline simulator complain when i wanted more LoS blocking terrain.

 DarknessEternal wrote:

hvg3akaek wrote:
And really, it can be hard to hide the entirety of the miniature, .

Which isn't necessary in Kill Team.

For obscurity, sure.

For being a target of a shot? It is.

Don't worry - we mucked it up initially, too. Basically, there are two different categories of "what you can see". When working out obscurity (pg 30, "obscured"), you only consider the main body. if any of the main body is blocked, they are obscured, and the shooter takes a -1 penalty.

However, when testing to see if a model is a valid target (pg 28, "range and visibility"), all is needed is to be able to see any part of the target.

Thus - whilst it's really easy to be "obscured", it's quite difficult to be completely blocked by scenery.

The new Death World Forest Kill Zone terrain is interesting as I think it won't provide *any* complete LOS blocking, though it will be trivial and common to have Obscured.

I can see that being very difficult for Harlequins to deal with, as they ideally want to charge from completely out of LOS and range in order to prevent Overwatch, but may not be able to do so with such terrain.

The 4++ is good but fail just one injury roll and the game just got exponentially harder to win IMHO.

 Aaranis wrote:
It varies depending on the mission, but for example my average list against T4/MEQ will be:

Vanguard Alpha, radium carbine - Leader
Ranger Gunner, transuranic arquebus - Sniper
Ranger, galvanic rifle & omnispex - Comms
Infiltrator Princeps, power sword & stubber - Zealot

Infiltrator, power sword & stubber
Infiltrator, power sword & stubber
Vanguard Gunner, arc rifle
Vanguard Gunner, arc rifle

If I'm facing T3/GEQ/hordes I'd trade the arc rifles for radium carbines, and switch the Infiltrators' gear for taser & flechette blasters instead. Really it depends on the mission, I have a full command roster to chose from.

No plasma against MEQ? Interesting.

I think Harlequins are good and when played well can be devastating. However while they're easier to obscure than some armies, there is VERY LITTLE official GW terrain that completely blocks line of sight. They die to a stiff breeze and with the amounts of shots AdMech can make they'll be out of action or wounded faster than you think. They're the mascots of the Glass Cannon corporation.

And no one ever has all perfect conditions from the start, there's a few deployments that I can think of that will make half the team get shot at, and quite a lot of missions that requires objectives to be controlled, meaning a lot of missions that will see your Players standing there.

I'm not saying my army is unbeatable and Harlequins are terrible, but it's a difficult army to play and you require more luck than other armies to not get slaughtered.

 Weazel wrote:

 Aaranis wrote:
It varies depending on the mission, but for example my average list against T4/MEQ will be:

Vanguard Alpha, radium carbine - Leader
Ranger Gunner, transuranic arquebus - Sniper
Ranger, galvanic rifle & omnispex - Comms
Infiltrator Princeps, power sword & stubber - Zealot

Infiltrator, power sword & stubber
Infiltrator, power sword & stubber
Vanguard Gunner, arc rifle
Vanguard Gunner, arc rifle

If I'm facing T3/GEQ/hordes I'd trade the arc rifles for radium carbines, and switch the Infiltrators' gear for taser & flechette blasters instead. Really it depends on the mission, I have a full command roster to chose from.

No plasma against MEQ? Interesting.

I haven't tried it yet although I'm planning to do so. It's just that I have built a roster without one for a campaign and so haven't had the chance yet, maybe when I'll play a pickup game someday. But I'm quite fond of the Arquebus, too.

 Aaranis wrote:
there is VERY LITTLE official GW terrain that completely blocks line of sight. .

That's pure imagination. Nearly all the terrain that comes with any Kill Team box completely blocks LoS. Look at any of the pictures in the rule book.

 DarknessEternal wrote:

 Aaranis wrote:
there is VERY LITTLE official GW terrain that completely blocks line of sight. .

That's pure imagination. Nearly all the terrain that comes with any Kill Team box completely blocks LoS. Look at any of the pictures in the rule book.

Umm...do you actually own that terrain? I mean the corners block LOS but for the most part the rest of the terrain is full of gaps and holes. The corners could block LOS fairly well from the correct orientation but that is about it.

I have to be honest here, you are literally the only person claiming Harlequins are "OMG Over powered!" and it makes me wonder how many games you have really played against or with them.

 DarknessEternal wrote:
Nearly all the terrain that comes with any Kill Team box completely blocks LoS. Look at any of the pictures in the rule book.

That's just flat out false.
The terrain in the starter box is full of holes. Out of the 8-9 pieces that come in the box, only two can really block LoS. I'm not looking at pictures. I have the models right in front of me and have used them in game.
The munitorium and sector mechanicus are a little better with some solid hard cover, but absolutely have pieces that can't completely block Los.
The new terrain for Drukhari and Deathwatch have almost no angles where they can block LoS.

Kelbesq wrote:

 DarknessEternal wrote:
Nearly all the terrain that comes with any Kill Team box completely blocks LoS. Look at any of the pictures in the rule book.

That's just flat out false.
The terrain in the starter box is full of holes. Out of the 8-9 pieces that come in the box, only two can really block LoS. I'm not looking at pictures. I have the models right in front of me and have used them in game.
The munitorium and sector mechanicus are a little better with some solid hard cover, but absolutely have pieces that can't completely block Los.
The new terrain for Drukhari and Deathwatch have almost no angles where they can block LoS.

Two? There's six alone in that.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 vonjankmon wrote:

I have to be honest here, you are literally the only person claiming Harlequins are "OMG Over powered!" and it makes me wonder how many games you have really played against or with them.

Dozens. It makes me wonder if anyone else on this forum has played against Harlequins that are actually trying to win.

Share your harlequin kill team please!

 DarknessEternal wrote:
Two? There's six alone in that.

Have you actually played with those? Only the two large pieces have solid walls. Everything else has holes in it, and the solid wall height on the smaller pieces isn't tall enough. In practice, the 6-7 ruins pieces have a slight chance if you line it up perfectly to use the corner/columns for a single unit from 1 angle. None of this "fitting half of your army on turn 1" business. Believe me I've tried. Someone, somewhere can see you if you opponent has half a brain. Even taking this picture as an example, if you end up on the near side of the board during deployment, you are going to have an uphill battle time with a melee army.

Admittedly, the terrain in the Kill Team box can be put together numerous ways. And some ways provide better cover than other builds from certain angles. But 100% cover 100% of the time?

But what I'd like to see is pictures of boards where DarknessEternal is getting 100% cover 100% of the time. I'm guessing your boards do not look like most other people's boards. And certainly do not look like the ones shown in the KT book.

The very first game I played to learn Kill Team was with 7 harlequins against Tyranids. He only got to fire roughly half his termagants before I was wiped out XD

Granted, now that I know how to play I'd probably do a lot better. But on here and on 4chan harlequin kill teams always seem to be very polarizing so I'm curious how others play them. Never getting shot at sounds like a winning strat to me.

I've only ever played horde autogun cultists since then and have had great results against nids and GSC. Turns out cultist spam works just as well in KT as it does in 40k

I think Harlequins are absolutely top tier, and I'm saying that the day after completely flattening a Harlequin team. I was terrified, just assuming I would get locked in combat and flattened. My opponent had TERRIBLE dice, and it went south fast for her. They suffer from bad luck, all small model count, elite armies do. Still, I think 2 or 3 rolls turn and she crushes me.

With access to lots of special and heavy weapons, the Death Denied card, and 2 wound models, SM have some incredibly strong builds. Some of the factions (Heretic Astartes, I’m looking at you) are laughably bad. We’ll see how it all shakes out once all of them get their box with the special cards, but I’d have to say the game, at this point, isn’t very balanced at all.

I think plague marines are looking good. Their fighters have access to a scythe thing which turns their 2 attacks into 2d3 attacks. They have FNP and they have access to cheap pox walkers which can be used to obscure the marines. Lots of weapons which let 1e be re rolled.

 vonjankmon wrote:

 DarknessEternal wrote:

 Aaranis wrote:
there is VERY LITTLE official GW terrain that completely blocks line of sight. .

That's pure imagination. Nearly all the terrain that comes with any Kill Team box completely blocks LoS. Look at any of the pictures in the rule book.

Umm...do you actually own that terrain? I mean the corners block LOS but for the most part the rest of the terrain is full of gaps and holes. The corners could block LOS fairly well from the correct orientation but that is about it.

I have to be honest here, you are literally the only person claiming Harlequins are "OMG Over powered!" and it makes me wonder how many games you have really played against or with them.

plenty of terrain blocks LoS from the main box. You have all of one model to hide behind something. The pillars all can block a model, not to mention you can hide an entire team behind a wall

stratigo wrote:

 vonjankmon wrote:

 DarknessEternal wrote:

 Aaranis wrote:
there is VERY LITTLE official GW terrain that completely blocks line of sight. .

That's pure imagination. Nearly all the terrain that comes with any Kill Team box completely blocks LoS. Look at any of the pictures in the rule book.

Umm...do you actually own that terrain? I mean the corners block LOS but for the most part the rest of the terrain is full of gaps and holes. The corners could block LOS fairly well from the correct orientation but that is about it.

I have to be honest here, you are literally the only person claiming Harlequins are "OMG Over powered!" and it makes me wonder how many games you have really played against or with them.

plenty of terrain blocks LoS from the main box. You have all of one model to hide behind something. The pillars all can block a model, not to mention you can hide an entire team behind a wall

the columns are not that big. Big enough to give some obscurity, for sure, but to block an entire model? That's a pretty tiny miniature!

Only played one game so far, but deathwatch cleaned up against my friends tau, to a degree that surprised even me. I had six guys, only lost one and managed to kill all my opponents models by the end of the game.

Are Grey knights so far down I disagree

Was surprised not to see more Astartes teams in the top 10 at Nova. Was also surprised to see how weak the Astartes lists I took a look at were though, so perhaps that explains it.

 Weboflies wrote:
Was surprised not to see more Astartes teams in the top 10 at Nova. Was also surprised to see how weak the Astartes lists I took a look at were though, so perhaps that explains it.

Oh, can you share the teams of the Top 10 ? I'm curious to see what's up in tournaments in KT.

HoundsofDemos wrote:
Only played one game so far, but deathwatch cleaned up against my friends tau, to a degree that surprised even me. I had six guys, only lost one and managed to kill all my opponents models by the end of the game.

From what I've seen in our campaign, it's T'au who are wiping the floor with DW so far. Lots of variables !

 Weboflies wrote:
With access to lots of special and heavy weapons, the Death Denied card, and 2 wound models, SM have some incredibly strong builds. Some of the factions (Heretic Astartes, I’m looking at you) are laughably bad. We’ll see how it all shakes out once all of them get their box with the special cards, but I’d have to say the game, at this point, isn’t very balanced at all.

Heretic Astartes were in the Nova Open finals. The trick is to play cultist hordes with few marines, if any.

 DarknessEternal wrote:
And how do you defeat Harlequins who will never get shot at?

Apparently people can, not a single Harlequin team in top 10 at Nova

But it seems like no one played them. Maybe their weaknesses are easily exploitable.

Yeah, I've played against harlequins 4 times and as them twice and so far I'm not crazy impressed.

just recently as my Deathwatch I played against Harlequins and it was a total stomp, didn't lose a single model against them. I had a Reiver sarge with carbine and knife, a Frag cannon, a stormshield/power maul, a shotgun, and a Primaris marine with aux grenade launcher.

"you don't get shot unless you want to" is complete nonsense. Harlequins do hide out of los a lot, but they do occasionally "win" movement initiative, and then after they move, you move so you can see them. It's not always impossible, particularly playing with terrain setups out of the book which don't often feature a ton of pure LOS block.

First harlequin died to intercessor and Reiver sarge getting LOS to him and hitting him with 2+ to wound bolts and 30" range frag grenade, second died to a frag cannon getting within 12 and using the Shell profile for a 2-damage injury roll, frag cannon then got charged but used Tactical Retreat to jump back 6", blocking most of the counter-charge attempts. One harlequin jumped out at the reiver sarge to try and fusion pistol him, he whiffed the hit even with a reroll (definitely unlucky) then died to a bunch of bolt fire.

Then two clowns got in, one took a FW from the frag cannon on overwatch, then FW'd the cannon, second charged the storm shield because he was the only available target, didn't do anything to him then died to the swing back. Cannon fell back, everyone else shot that harlequin, opponent conceded with one model left having done a total of 2 flesh wounds the whole game.

its not that I think Harlequins are bad, it's just that I think it's pretty easy to beat them thru a combination of trading cheaper models for them and smart use of Retreat.

the_scotsman wrote:

"you don't get shot unless you want to" is complete nonsense. Harlequins do hide out of los a lot, but they do occasionally "win" movement initiative, and then after they move, you move so you can see them.

It's a stupid player who would move a Harlequin in any way except to charge.

If they aren't starting the game out of LoS on in assault, they've failed.

 DarknessEternal wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:

"you don't get shot unless you want to" is complete nonsense. Harlequins do hide out of los a lot, but they do occasionally "win" movement initiative, and then after they move, you move so you can see them.

It's a stupid player who would move a Harlequin in any way except to charge.

If they aren't starting the game out of LoS on in assault, they've failed.

you're either playing on some crazy boards or you're completely fabricating the number of actual in-person games you've played if you think it is a reality that you can hide 6 models out of LOS from an entire enemy kill team.

my opponent didn't move except to charge most of the time (he had one sword/fusion harlequin who did a regular move) but still, even if your charge target is out of LOS, which is admittedly very easy to do, it's tough to be out of LOS from both him AND the intercessor with a 30" range grenade launcher sitting on top of a building in the opponents deployment zone.

Your argument doesn't square here. Your argument is essentially "i am better than the entire top 10 players at the NOVA kill team tournament, and if I had been there I would have won first place" because NONE of those guys were playing Harlequins, and apparently according to you all the people who did play harlequins must have been "stupid".

either that, or, you CAN play harlequins intelligently and you CAN make good out of LOS charges the way you describe, but you still can't magically manufacture a situation where all your models are out of LOS at all times from all members of the enemy team AND you can make charge moves with those guys to get into combat AND they all make it AND your opponent can't move such that any of their models can see you.

That is bonkers.

Don't bother, DarknessEternal probably only plays on boards who look like this:


So far every argument he made in favour of Harlequins was that if you lose with Harlequins you're stupid.

 DarknessEternal wrote:
None. Harlequins have no weakness.

You can guarantee 2 guys charge on turn 1 with Forward Sentries (there's no way to counter this as Harlequins will use the move to get out of LoS and then just charge though whatever is breaking LoS), and a third with 1 CP on a Veteran.

Your other 3 guys will also have consequence free charges, as they'll just attempt to charge from out of LoS so there's no Overwatch penalty.

After that, you are in combat the entire rest of the game and will never be shot.

Every shooting or balanced Kill Team automatically loses to Harlequins.

Only all melee Kill Teams even have a chance, and they have to actually be better than Harlequins at it, so maybe Tyranid Warriors or something. And they'll still probably lose. And of course, they aren't nearly as good at beating any shooting Kill Team they run up against.

Maybe it's too early to say, but Harlequins break the game.

Their only weakness is the intelligence of their players it seems, otherwise they break the game with the flesh wound they can inflict with 4 attacks to be then killed because their target fell back.

the_scotsman wrote:
Your argument is essentially "i am better than the entire top 10 players at the NOVA kill team tournament, and if I had been there I would have won first place" because NONE of those guys were playing Harlequins, and apparently according to you all the people who did play harlequins must have been "stupid".

If you had seen the games I had, you too would be flabergasted no one else knows how Harlequins actually can play.

It's trivial for them to never be shot at. Even the worst player I know is capable of doing this in 100% of games with Harlequins. If this is not your experience, fine, but to claim it's not possible is just incorrect. It happens every single game.

It's so easy that I can't even comprehend how the rest of you are playing that you don't see this.

It's like you're trying to tell me that Guard can't generate a dozen command points in 40k.

If you never see this happen, good. I'm glad you never have to experience something so degenerate. But it exists.

Daetya wrote:

 DarknessEternal wrote:
And how do you defeat Harlequins who will never get shot at?

Apparently people can, not a single Harlequin team in top 10 at Nova

But it seems like no one played them. Maybe their weaknesses are easily exploitable.

I actually played them at nova. I went 3-0 in my pod and won it. Unfortunately due to the timing of he Sunday morning pod I couldn’t play in the finals against the other winners. According to the event organizers I was the only one who played them all weekend.

I played against genestealer cult, t’au, and death watch.

I'm assuming he wasn't able to stay out of LOS for 100% of the game?

 DarknessEternal wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:
Your argument is essentially "i am better than the entire top 10 players at the NOVA kill team tournament, and if I had been there I would have won first place" because NONE of those guys were playing Harlequins, and apparently according to you all the people who did play harlequins must have been "stupid".

If you had seen the games I had, you too would be flabergasted no one else knows how Harlequins actually can play.

It's trivial for them to never be shot at. Even the worst player I know is capable of doing this in 100% of games with Harlequins. If this is not your experience, fine, but to claim it's not possible is just incorrect. It happens every single game.
.

I mean, once you go into CaC, dont kill the model you charged (is not that unlikely, tbh) they can just fall back and shoot you to death. There's no way to avoid it. You won't always kill the guy you charged, you know.

cav0011 wrote:

Daetya wrote:

 DarknessEternal wrote:
And how do you defeat Harlequins who will never get shot at?

Apparently people can, not a single Harlequin team in top 10 at Nova

But it seems like no one played them. Maybe their weaknesses are easily exploitable.

I actually played them at nova. I went 3-0 in my pod and won it. Unfortunately due to the timing of he Sunday morning pod I couldn’t play in the finals against the other winners. According to the event organizers I was the only one who played them all weekend.

I played against genestealer cult, t’au, and death watch.

That's great news. I think they are very good, but DarknessEternal is exaggerating it a bit. How did you play them?

 DarknessEternal wrote:
If you had seen the games I had, you too would be flabergasted no one else knows how Harlequins actually can play.

It's trivial for them to never be shot at. Even the worst player I know is capable of doing this in 100% of games with Harlequins. If this is not your experience, fine, but to claim it's not possible is just incorrect. It happens every single game.

Still waiting for pics of this. Show us how you do it. Otherwise I have very little reason to believe you and you are the only person I am seeing who is claiming this.

 DarknessEternal wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:
Your argument is essentially "i am better than the entire top 10 players at the NOVA kill team tournament, and if I had been there I would have won first place" because NONE of those guys were playing Harlequins, and apparently according to you all the people who did play harlequins must have been "stupid".

If you had seen the games I had, you too would be flabergasted no one else knows how Harlequins actually can play.

It's trivial for them to never be shot at. Even the worst player I know is capable of doing this in 100% of games with Harlequins. If this is not your experience, fine, but to claim it's not possible is just incorrect. It happens every single game.

It's so easy that I can't even comprehend how the rest of you are playing that you don't see this.

It's like you're trying to tell me that Guard can't generate a dozen command points in 40k.

If you never see this happen, good. I'm glad you never have to experience something so degenerate. But it exists.

It's because we're playing by the rules, as mentioned before. If you can see any part of the model, you have LOS. That's what the rules say. Hiding 5-6 dancing murder clowns using setups as recommended in the missions just doesn't typically work. Having enough LOS blocking terrain to completely hide that many figures from every single opposing model is hard.

Or maybe we are all bad at hiding things maybe what we need to see is your setup, to show us how it's done.

Daetya wrote:

I mean, once you go into CaC, dont kill the model you charged (is not that unlikely, tbh) they can just fall back and shoot you to death. There's no way to avoid it. You won't always kill the guy you charged, you know.

They just charge again before you can shoot.

Look, I'll stop arguing this. I can't change your mind. But I know what I see with actual evidence.

No more posts from me on this matter. We'll just have to agree to disagree.

I'm actually interested, lol. If you charge a model and it survives the charge, i don't get how you are going to "charge again". If you have initiative in the next turn, your harlequin(s) will be stuck in combat and the enemy can choose to fall back when it's his time to move, and then shoot your harlequins exposed. To prevent this you would need to have a out of combat harlequin ready to charge the model who survives to prevent him from falling back. I guess this is what you mean with "charge again"?

Btw, RAW, if your opponent falls back, the model from which it fell back from cannot charge, even if it activates later.

“When you pick a model to move, if that model started the Movement phase within 1" of an enemy model, it cannot make a normal move”.

I believe this was confirmed at NOVA.

 DarknessEternal wrote:

They just charge again before you can shoot.

Look, I'll stop arguing this. I can't change your mind. But I know what I see with actual evidence..

Ah, so there's the problem: you're not playing the game correctly and it's making melee impossibly overpowered.

Please see p.22, "Fall Back". Per the other poster above, if your model began the Movement phase within 1" of an enemy model, then you can only remain stationary or Fall Back.

No charging allowed.

It's a huge check and balance on melee factions and it makes the game way more interesting to play.

Try playing the rules as written and you'll see, melee and Harlies are not the be-all, end-all

That's a real interesting point!

Now - if you were in melee, the opponent fell back (leaving you to either fall back or remain stationary), could you ready? Readying is "instead of a normal move", so does "you cannot make a normal move" mean it's still an option, or that it is not allowed?

I've played Harlies quite a lot. They're indeed pretty good, but they do have weaknesses.

As mentioned above, if you don't kill the model you charged, you usually get destroyed in the following turn. So against elite armies you can try to charge each model with a couple players to increase your chances to kill, but the dice gods are flickery.
This is especially true against Primaris/DG, because you often fail to kill them, and they can kill you when they hit back (especially reivers).

When you have the initiative and charge a few models, the other player can then charge your harlies that are already in melee. Many times I successfully charged, only to have my model killed before attacking because of a counter charge.
The 2CP tactic to hit before any other model in the combat phase is also pretty annoying for the same reason.

The psychic phase is after the movement one. So against GK you'll eat a MW per turn, without cover. There aren't many psychic KTs, but GK really is a bad matchup.

Terrain setup also plays an important role. I played a few times on tables that had plenty of LOS-blocking terrain, but also had pretty big open areas. If you hide on one side, and the opponent on the other, you quickly end up with needing >10" charge rolls. With 3D6 you often make some of them, but then you take the risk of having your KT split in half. You can't gang up on tough models anymore, and your Harlies end up vastly outnumbered in melee.

fresus wrote:
I've played Harlies quite a lot. They're indeed pretty good, but they do have weaknesses.

As mentioned above, if you don't kill the model you charged, you usually get destroyed in the following turn. So against elite armies you can try to charge each model with a couple players to increase your chances to kill, but the dice gods are flickery.
This is especially true against Primaris/DG, because you often fail to kill them, and they can kill you when they hit back (especially reivers).

When you have the initiative and charge a few models, the other player can then charge your harlies that are already in melee. Many times I successfully charged, only to have my model killed before attacking because of a counter charge.
The 2CP tactic to hit before any other model in the combat phase is also pretty annoying for the same reason.

The psychic phase is after the movement one. So against GK you'll eat a MW per turn, without cover. There aren't many psychic KTs, but GK really is a bad matchup.

Terrain setup also plays an important role. I played a few times on tables that had plenty of LOS-blocking terrain, but also had pretty big open areas. If you hide on one side, and the opponent on the other, you quickly end up with needing >10" charge rolls. With 3D6 you often make some of them, but then you take the risk of having your KT split in half. You can't gang up on tough models anymore, and your Harlies end up vastly outnumbered in melee.

This is the situation I often see.

The Harlequins are largely out of line of sight, but then when they make their charges, it's a 12" or higher charge, and only 2-3 of the team ends up getting into combat and the rest have to choose between advancing up the board or staying out of los.

hvg3akaek wrote:
That's a real interesting point!

Now - if you were in melee, the opponent fell back (leaving you to either fall back or remain stationary), could you ready? Readying is "instead of a normal move", so does "you cannot make a normal move" mean it's still an option, or that it is not allowed?

It seems quite clear that Fall Back's wording means that "normal moves" are expressly not allowed, and since "Readying" is something you do in lieu of a normal move, it's not an option. The only options are remain stationary and Fall Back.

With that said, nothing prevents the model that remained stationary from having the option of shooting, so long as the other conditions for shooting are fulfilled.

That's great news. I think they are very good, but DarknessEternal is exaggerating it a bit. How did you play them?

What are the kill teams that did well in that big tournament?

So there were a total of 5 pods of 8 people. 3 games per pod. Top two scores in each pod advanced to the winners pod. So this can lead to really random results and matchups matter. Also only 4 of 5 pods were able to send the top two people. My pod wasn’t. My pod was harlies 1 deatchwatch 2. There was a ton of tau in my pod only one death guard. The placing of kill teams can be found on best coast pairings however there was a mix of teams. Adeptus astartes won. There were tyranids guardsmen etc. basically all factions were viable

But is there anywhere where I can see the actual lists?

It's going to take a lot more playtesting and organized events before we see a trend. People may think that Thousand Sons or Harlequins are broken, but once you start memorizing your tactics and figuring out the counters, even those tough armies will start to fall apart.

 Niiai wrote:
But is there anywhere where I can see the actual lists?

There was, but probably not any longer unless you're willing to spend some dosh. BCP guys aren't running a charity

What is BCP? Also, I am finding this odd. In the mtg sphere none are running chareties (unless they are donating their money as some are) but we have full acess to full decklists.

 Niiai wrote:
What is BCP? Also, I am finding this odd. In the mtg sphere none are running chareties (unless they are donating their money as some are) but we have full acess to full decklists.

Best Coast Pairings. It's an app used for matching players in tournaments, and you can also use it to see the placings of those events.

I'm kind of surprised in a good way about the lack of agreement on any over powered faction. Makes me think that GW may have gotten the balance right for Kill Team, it's also good to see that the finals at NoVA were not all Harlequins or Death Guard.

It's still early but there is at least some level of balance out of the gate.

What's you guys opinion on Drukhari ? I love the army and as I struggle to build an army for 8th economically speaking I was eager to build 10 Wyches to complete my 10 Kabalites. I played my first game with them today against a beginner Harlequin player, and I did fine. We managed to round 5 where I finally killed his last Player.

I'm personally fond of the Splinter Cannon for all the shots it pumps out, it always managed to make a flesh wound. Also, it killed a wounded Player that charged him. The Player whiffed his 4 attacks, got Shaken at the end of the turn, then next round I fell back, used the Tactic to shoot anyway and killed him point blank. It was a fun plot twist !

Also the Wyches' 4++ in CC is really good, it helped more than once against the powerful swords of the Harlequins, and as my weapons don't have a lot of AP neither his own 4++ didn't change much. I had the +1 WS drug so I basically hit on 2s all game, which felt great with their number of attacks.

They're quite cheap, too, I could field around 9 dudes against his 6 Players. I feel I'm going to struggle more against shooting armies, though.

Did anyone go to the Killteam event at Warhammer World yesterday?

Any views on which team was the strongest?

 Aaranis wrote:
What's you guys opinion on Drukhari ? I love the army and as I struggle to build an army for 8th economically speaking I was eager to build 10 Wyches to complete my 10 Kabalites. I played my first game with them today against a beginner Harlequin player, and I did fine. We managed to round 5 where I finally killed his last Player.

I'm personally fond of the Splinter Cannon for all the shots it pumps out, it always managed to make a flesh wound. Also, it killed a wounded Player that charged him. The Player whiffed his 4 attacks, got Shaken at the end of the turn, then next round I fell back, used the Tactic to shoot anyway and killed him point blank. It was a fun plot twist !

Also the Wyches' 4++ in CC is really good, it helped more than once against the powerful swords of the Harlequins, and as my weapons don't have a lot of AP neither his own 4++ didn't change much. I had the +1 WS drug so I basically hit on 2s all game, which felt great with their number of attacks.

They're quite cheap, too, I could field around 9 dudes against his 6 Players. I feel I'm going to struggle more against shooting armies, though.

I haven’t had much luck with them unfortunately. I too enjoy the Splinter cannon, one of their best options I’d say. I used 7 Warriors and 3 Wyches mostly and every game except against Tyranids has my team slaughtered without doing too much back. Granted I play a lot against Deathwatch who can sometimes seem slightly unbeatable and hugely killy, but their low toughness and saves makes them die instantly and their firepower feels fairly lacking to me.
Maybe I’m playing them wrong, and a Wych heavy team works better, just how it worked out with the models I had (converted them from Van Saar to make an Inquisitor Assassin team).

P.S. I also probably just suck at the game, my time with marines hasn’t been as successful as most people say and my new Rogue Trader group enjoy spending their time out of action.

Nidzrule! wrote:
Did anyone go to the Killteam event at Warhammer World yesterday?

Any views on which team was the strongest?

I did.

Tyranids won, but death guard made out very strongly, getting 40% of the top 10. Players 1-3 went 5 for 0.


1 Tyranids
2 Harlequins (justifiably winning the 'assassin' award after managing a terrifying 19 specialist kills in 5 games!)
3 Tyranids
4 Guard
5 Death Guard
6 Orks
7 Ad Mech
8 Death Guard
9 Death Guard


Most Common Factions:
Adeptus Astartes x 16
Death Guard x 14
Deathwatch x 7
Adeptus Mechanicus x 6
Heretic Astartes x 6
Orks x 6
Tyranids x 6
Astra Militarum x 5
Necrons x 5
T'au Empire x 5
Thousand Sons x 5
Grey Knights x 4
Genestealer Cults x 3
Harlequins x 3
Drukhari x 2
Gellarpox* x 1
Unrecorded-Faction-Because-You-Forgot-To-Put-A-Faction-On-The-Scoresheet x 1

* Someone's a quick painter...


The best factions by average results were:

Tyranids - Average Position 22
Harlequins - Average Position 32
Orks - Average Position 34
Death Guard - Average Position 38
Drukhari - Average Position 39
Deathwatch - Average Position 41
Astra Militarum - Average Position 43
Heretic Astartes - Average Position 46
Grey Knights - Average Position 48
Necrons - Average Position 53
Adeptus Astartes - Average Position 57
T'au Empire - Average Position 59
Gellarpox - Average Position 60
Thousand Sons - Average Position 64
Adeptus Mechanicus - Average Position 67
Genestealer Cults - Average Position 73

Thanks for the information @iocarno24. Did you happen to see what models the top three players were using? Would be interesting to see overlap on the two Tyranid players.

Tyranid player #3 was a Leader specialist Tyranid Warrior Gunner with a Venom Cannon and 19 Termagants with Fleshborers (one veteran and one a scout).

I didn't see the Harlequins in action, but I gather it was high-powered pistols a-go-go. There were (as you can tell) a lot of death guard players, and fusion-pistol-to-the-face is a pretty good answer to disgustingly resiliant...

Tyranid player #1 had more of a mix of units - primarily hormagaunts as the lil' gribblies and I'm pretty sure at least one lictor - but still basically a mix of a small number of big guys and a synapse-commanded swarm.

twenty gaunts is pretty good.

And by twenty I mean 19 and a warrior

Zero Craftworlds, awesome. Well balanced.

 DarknessEternal wrote:
Zero Craftworlds, awesome. Well balanced.

The eldar have had it too good for too long

In fairness, all it proves is that no-one used them; you cannot objectively assess the performance of something no-one tried.

I can't speak for the proportion picking factions for fun, for perceived power, or because they already had them. The preponderance of death guard specifically including those bloody grenade launchers suggests you shouldn't ignore the bias of the UK having Conquest magazine in its early issues....

Equally, in hindsight, I suggest regular eldar might have done fairly well for the same reason the buggy nids did - these were all objective-heavy missions with unique secondary missions that could be won by manouvrability as well as killing stuff (look at the pack, it's non-standard missions and I think quite a few people may have missed that when planning kill-teams!) .

Storm Guardian heavy forces would, I think, have been ideal - more competent than termagaunts without being catastrophically less numerous, and a lot, lot faster (especially with tactics thrown in).

By comparison, watching skitarii who'd (not unreasonably) come loaded for death guard trying to shoot a dozen obscured gaunts off an objective with that single-shot arquebus thing and expensive plasma calivers was kind of painful.

These results are interesting, I didn't expect that after the NOVA results.

Just a question, in these kind of tournaments, do people come with their full roster and pick their Kill Team when they know who they'll be facing or do they have only a single Kill Team for all their games ?

Playing 20 models that can't be broken until the war is up shows how unbalanced toward hordes the nova rules are.
Everything is about taking objectives and swarming 3 of them with 6 termagaunts each and just holding objectives takes not much skill or tactical depth

Daetya wrote:
Playing 20 models that can't be broken until the war is up shows how unbalanced toward hordes the nova rules are.
Everything is about taking objectives and swarming 3 of them with 6 termagaunts each and just holding objectives takes not much skill or tactical depth

Why don't they just roll the missions like everybody ? What's the point of trying to balance missions in the Core Book if it's to use tournament-specific missions anyway ? Horde meta is already dominating 8th Ed, leave KT alone with that please.

Hordes did not dominate nova

Thanks. I am trying out storm guardian horde to see how that pans out. Harlequins dont have enough consistency for my liking but lets see.

 Aaranis wrote:
These results are interesting, I didn't expect that after the NOVA results.

Just a question, in these kind of tournaments, do people come with their full roster and pick their Kill Team when they know who they'll be facing or do they have only a single Kill Team for all their games ?

Roster of 20 and downselect for a mission.
Hordes definitely have an edge in some missions - depends on the objective setup and secondary missions. Secondaries are a choice, and non-hordes have an easier time with many - obliteration is impossible without a multidamage weapon, for example.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Nidzrule! wrote:
Thanks. I am trying out storm guardian horde to see how that pans out. Harlequins dont have enough consistency for my liking but lets see.

A 95% kill rate of enemy specialists is pretty impressive consistency

locarno24 wrote:

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Nidzrule! wrote:
Thanks. I am trying out storm guardian horde to see how that pans out. Harlequins dont have enough consistency for my liking but lets see.

A 95% kill rate of enemy specialists is pretty impressive consistency

I assume you played nova rules and therefore there was no scouting phase? if that's the case Harlequins pulling 2nd is quite impressive, the tables must have had many line of sight blocking terrains.
If not, forward sentries for Harlequins just push them to another level

Harlequins are very good. It behooves you to put enough mass one one or two enemies at a time to kill them in one phase before hitting the next target. You can effectively nullify the enemy’s shooting phase

You can lose 2+ harlies on t1 if the table doesn't have enough hard blocking los elements, and without taking forward positions from the scouting phase you wont be able to send 2-3 of them in melee on t1 anymore

Also, losing initiative vs hordes will result in your harlequins getting killed even by cultists/termagants/guards in melee easily

That said, they are indeed powerful under the right conditions

Daetya wrote:
You can lose 2+ harlies on t1 if the table doesn't have enough hard blocking los elements, and without taking forward positions from the scouting phase you wont be able to send 2-3 of them in melee on t1 anymore

This is just incorrect. The distance between people on turn 1 is well within 3d6.

Thanks for sharing those results. I am quite surprised that Deathwatch didn't rank higher!

 DarknessEternal wrote:

Daetya wrote:
You can lose 2+ harlies on t1 if the table doesn't have enough hard blocking los elements, and without taking forward positions from the scouting phase you wont be able to send 2-3 of them in melee on t1 anymore

This is just incorrect. The distance between people on turn 1 is well within 3d6.

This is just incorrect. The distance between people on turn 1 may be within the result of 3d6. It is definitely not within the minimum (3), and is often not within the average (10.5). Starting zones in the base missions vary between about 8" and 12", but can get as far as 22" in four player games. And that is if everyone is standing at the edge of the deployment zone. If people are wary, and start closer to the back, it is entirely plausible to miss half the charge rolls on turn 1, hence failing to send 2-3 of the harlies into melee on turn 1.

The issue is the terrain for harlies.

There are terrain maps for missions but if the terrain provided does not block LoS fully then Harlies (who are quite tall comparatively due to their bounding models) can get shot.

You need containers or blocks of terrain that Harlies can take advantage of in the centre or close to that space. Without these, they can get shot and once Harlies start dying the momentum quickly drops.

Also an issue with Harlequins, no side board.

Death guard can go into a game against Harlies and sub out the fifth generic plague marine for five walkers that can chump block charges and/or counter charge.

Harlies can switch some weapons around.

You guys use pistols with your Harlequins ? I'm trying to advise our Harlequins player here and it seems to me the best general loadouts would be 6 Players with Kisses or 7 with Embraces when facing MEQ. Pistols will most likely never be shot and I believe it's better to have one more Player than a few pistols.

The Scenarios at Annihilation do not use the scouting phase.
That said, the distance between deployment zones was not always standard.

In one - running battle - there was literally 0" between deployment zones at one point - and you couldn't exactly ignore it, because there was an objective within 3" of that point....

locarno24 wrote:
Tyranid player #3 was a Leader specialist Tyranid Warrior Gunner with a Venom Cannon and 19 Termagants with Fleshborers (one veteran and one a scout).

I didn't see the Harlequins in action, but I gather it was high-powered pistols a-go-go. There were (as you can tell) a lot of death guard players, and fusion-pistol-to-the-face is a pretty good answer to disgustingly resiliant...

Tyranid player #1 had more of a mix of units - primarily hormagaunts as the lil' gribblies and I'm pretty sure at least one lictor - but still basically a mix of a small number of big guys and a synapse-commanded swarm.

Thank you Iocarno24 for the information! Death Guard seems like such a resilient faction I can see why everyone wanted to play them. My biggest concern was what do they do against mobs of infantry.

Does the Harlies 3D6 charge over rule having to be within 12" of a target to even declare the charge in the first place?

MaxB wrote:
Does the Harlies 3D6 charge over rule having to be within 12" of a target to even declare the charge in the first place?

They already have a charge range of 18" for their baseline rule of charging 3D6.

xadmar wrote:

locarno24 wrote:
Tyranid player #3 was a Leader specialist Tyranid Warrior Gunner with a Venom Cannon and 19 Termagants with Fleshborers (one veteran and one a scout).

I didn't see the Harlequins in action, but I gather it was high-powered pistols a-go-go. There were (as you can tell) a lot of death guard players, and fusion-pistol-to-the-face is a pretty good answer to disgustingly resiliant...

Tyranid player #1 had more of a mix of units - primarily hormagaunts as the lil' gribblies and I'm pretty sure at least one lictor - but still basically a mix of a small number of big guys and a synapse-commanded swarm.

Thank you Iocarno24 for the information! Death Guard seems like such a resilient faction I can see why everyone wanted to play them. My biggest concern was what do they do against mobs of infantry.

Zealot specialist + Flail of corruption. If you encounter infantry 'bunched up' it's as near as damnit three automatic kills when that thing charges in.
Against guard that goes double, because they're IMPERIUM and Death To The False Emperor goes off (plus Killing Frenzy at the same time if you have a spare CP and are feeling like proving a point!).

Poxwalkers are cheap and expendable enough to get to objectives and form a 'wall' your opponent has to chew through (because they need to outnumber them on the objective). They're faster than they look because without guns you might as well advance if not charging.

Essentially, most of the Death Guard I saw at the top end tables:


3-5 poxwalkers block off stuff, whilst plague marine fighters follow up and smash stuff to paste. Flails seem broadly better than cleavers, although the latter is still scary. Champions were a mixed bag; a few with plagueswords, a few with power fists and a few lurking at the back with plasma guns

Cheap hordes with ways to ignore morale do very well in killteam when backed up by higher values models that do the killing.

The mechanics for survival versus points paid does favour the hordes e.g. the injury roll in addition to the 8th ed. mechanics on AP

Admittedly I've only played four games so far with my Primaris Deathwatch (Tyranids, Tau, Scions and Genestealer Cults)
I've found the Scions were the hardest to play against, that annoying AP on the hotshot lasguns. It's the only game I've had a model go out of action.

Are Thousand Sons good if you don’t use Tzaangors with them? I own a box of Rubrics so if I can make a good team out of them then I’d be pretty happy

 Tiberius501 wrote:
Are Thousand Sons good if you don’t use Tzaangors with them? I own a box of Rubrics so if I can make a good team out of them then I’d be pretty happy

They are worse without Tzaangors. Tzaangors are a bargain for 7pts, they have good weapons and are resilient enough to not die vs normal weapons.

Chaos - of any faction - do best leveraging their ability to field both astartes and 'cheap' units (cultist/tzaangor/poxwalker) in the same kill-team.

Thousand Sons are nasty, but I'd always take a mix of heavy units and chaff over a 'pure' kill team.

That said, there's no reason a pure team can't do well - especially one going heavy on warpflamers (which is much better equipped for crowd control!)

Ah interesting to know, thanks. Seems a comfortable spot for points is to have an aspiring sorcerer, 3 rubrics with some upgrades and 3 tzaangors

I've been enjoying just the marines (sorcerer + heavy cannon guy + three more with flamers). They seem to do well on their own.

My best teams have been a Scout list with a few Snipers, missile launchers and an Auspex, and Death Guard with Blight Launchers. Planning to build a Great Cleaver Plague Marine soon. I also have an all Kommando Ork team that is super fun and plays well to Missions, but struggles near the end game, as is the way with Orkz.

hvg3akaek wrote:
I've been enjoying just the marines (sorcerer + heavy cannon guy + three more with flamers). They seem to do well on their own.

Oh, don't get me wrong. They're better with tzaangors, but still viable by themselves.
That bloody rotor cannon is murderous against anyone whose kill-team has decent armour, and every so often, the icon can be game-winning.

The Nova and Warhammer Weekender / Annihilation missions seem to favor horde builds for a few reasons:

- Objectives are primary VP source. More bodies = easier to score as a general rule.

- More bodies = target saturation = even with efficient model removal, you can only kill so many per turn.

- Games end at the end of turn 4. If the horde player is even slightly clever they should be able to swamp objectives and shut down shooting (via melee) at least most of the turns.

Thousand Sons are strong.
Powerful psychic mortal wound options,
Their bolters are better.
2+ save.
Warpflame weapons.
Other things I can’t think of now, but seem super strong.

The sorcerer can cast into combat / even if he is in combat too right?

Psychic phase is independent of shooting and fighting yes. That said, depending on the wording of the smite you will likely have targeting restrictions.

You guys thoughts on Gellerpox in regular KT games ? My V8 nemesis (Nurgle fan) wishes to play with them next time I face him, and just reading their datasheets they already look anti-fun (like all Nurgle armies tbh) with their native -1 to hit on some models, DR and mortal wounds because they exist.

 Aaranis wrote:
You guys thoughts on Gellerpox in regular KT games ? My V8 nemesis (Nurgle fan) wishes to play with them next time I face him, and just reading their datasheets they already look anti-fun (like all Nurgle armies tbh) with their native -1 to hit on some models, DR and mortal wounds because they exist.

They're quite pricey for those rules and aren't top of the game. They aren't too bad but they aren't as bad as they seem, especially with all the bugs being easier to take out of action. What faction are you playing?

I think Death Guard make it to the top three (or one?). They have the option to run cheap blockers around solid gunners/fighters. They have a weapon set that can respond to any killteam roster without needing to use more than ~12 slots on their own roster. For instance, if you see a Tyranid roster with several flavors of warrior and genestealer but NOT 17 termagants, you know not to bring the flail in on that particular mission, regardless of what the actual Nid killteam ends up being from that player's list of options. That roster flexibility also helps when it comes to actually playing on the table's presented to you. If it's all LoS blocks, then you can go super melee heavy and throw a veteran spewer in on top (first turn pre-move to put them in LoS of potential chargers). They have a truly ridiculous shooting phase with two blight launchers. Even if you hit on 5's (which you shouldn't be but still) you'll probably land one shot from each, wound on 2's rerolling 1's in most cases (or in every case with a demo spec), AP-2 means it is unlikely they make the save, then give them D3 damage.

Then, on top of all of that, every model gets a "free" 5+ shrug on wounds.

I play AdMech and Drukhari, and the less fun games I've had were against DG, they're just so boring. Poxwalkers are just annoying and do nothing else, and a great deal of the arsenal from the PM is way too powerful, with auto-rerolls and such, combined to their absurd resilience.

GW looks to be basking in their new Nurgle creations and want people to buy them (can't blame them for selling minis) so they give them funny names and busted rules whenever they can. From a few games I've watched they're even more anti-fun in AoS with their -4 to Hit with some combos.

 Aaranis wrote:
I play AdMech and Drukhari, and the less fun games I've had were against DG, they're just so boring. Poxwalkers are just annoying and do nothing else, and a great deal of the arsenal from the PM is way too powerful, with auto-rerolls and such, combined to their absurd resilience.

GW looks to be basking in their new Nurgle creations and want people to buy them (can't blame them for selling minis) so they give them funny names and busted rules whenever they can. From a few games I've watched they're even more anti-fun in AoS with their -4 to Hit with some combos.

Really wish they'd follow that up with busted Primaris rules

I've got Gellerpox on the back burner, seem like fun to play. However the more games I get in with other teams - including my legacy CSM team - the more being combat-focused seems pretty bleh if you don't move fast and hit really hard, particularly with the ability to strand a charger the turn after if you get initiative on them. Last night I spent a game with my CSM combat specialist (with a chainsword lulz how do melee weapons work) being kited by a Death Watch bro and then doing nothing once he was allowed to charge. I'm not sure I want to relive that on a larger scale with G'pox, especially with being even slower and hitting on a 4+, even if all their combat weapons are better than a chainsword or power armored glove.

Still want to run the muties, just might be focusing on other teams for my weekly games and gettin' gud before heading down a particularly skew-y hole.

- Salvage

 Boss Salvage wrote:
I've got Gellerpox on the back burner, seem like fun to play. However the more games I get in with other teams - including my legacy CSM team - the more being combat-focused seems pretty bleh if you don't move fast and hit really hard, particularly with the ability to strand a charger the turn after if you get initiative on them. Last night I spent a game with my CSM combat specialist (with a chainsword lulz how do melee weapons work) being kited by a Death Watch bro and then doing nothing once he was allowed to charge. I'm not sure I want to relive that on a larger scale with G'pox, especially with being even slower and hitting on a 4+, even if all their combat weapons are better than a chainsword or power armored glove.

Still want to run the muties, just might be focusing on other teams for my weekly games and gettin' gud before heading down a particularly skew-y hole.

- Salvage

I don't even think the skew is the real problem. The problem is they're just worse Deathguard. Same statline, less mobility, no access to shooting, no choice of weapons, no choice of specialists. Gellerpox and Starstriders are fine against each other but fall apart pretty quickly against the core factions.

I spent some time yesterday angsting over how to face DG with any of my current or planned teams, and I just don't know what the answer is that isn't more DG. So I took a deep breath and decided to make some cool models and just play more games, preferably not against DG if possible - which should be doable, as there's not too many right now in the local meta.

- Salvage

So are tyranids not worth playing?

 Boss Salvage wrote:
I spent some time yesterday angsting over how to face DG with any of my current or planned teams, and I just don't know what the answer is that isn't more DG. So I took a deep breath and decided to make some cool models and just play more games, preferably not against DG if possible - which should be doable, as there's not too many right now in the local meta.

- Salvage

I actually won my first game against DG last night with Starstriders. I was the defender playing feint. I ignored the blight launcher and leader to focus down the rest of the army. His poxwalkers went down turn 1 so he didn't have cheap guys to blow up the objectives I couldn't contest. However the win was still pure luck as we tied in victory points, and tie goes to defender. My combat spec had 2 flesh wounds (each spec dead gives attacker a VP) and he failed the roll to make it go to turn 5. I don't think I would have lasted another turn.

Don't Starstriders have 7 specialists? Awkward side effect in Feint! But nice work, well played. I have to imagine that every victory with Starstriders tastes sweeter than most

Playing Gellerpox tonight for the first time, most likely against Grey Knights or Orks. If it's GK it'll be the rare matchup where they go up against a daemon - or two, since I've got two Glitchlings

- Salvage

 mjl7atlas wrote:
So are tyranids not worth playing?

I proxy'd nids for a game. The warrior with a venom cannon did some work, and the fact they have quite a few multi wound models was nice but, keeping guys from fleeing you when you are in melee for more than a round was an issue. I should have used gaunts to keep charging targets to keep them locked down maybe.

 Boss Salvage wrote:
Playing Gellerpox tonight for the first time, most likely against Grey Knights or Orks.

So! That went well I ran:

[Z] Gnasher-Screamer
Nightmare Hulk
[L] Gellerpox Mutant
[D] Gellerpox Mutant
[C] Gellerpox Mutant
Glitchling
Glitchling
Cursemite

Important to note that the map for both games had a huge 2-3 story ruin in the center with solid walls on the bottom floor.

Game One vs Deathwatch in Sweep & Clear: DW threatened to bunker in a two-story ruin and make me either come to him or draw the game (not a fan of this scenario, scoring at the end of the game is kinda meh), but then was a gent and deployed his combat bros on the ground. The Pox trudged forward, Gnasher absorbed a plasma wound. DW backed up, Gnasher + Hulk failed long charges in what was supposed to be my apply pressure turn, but I moved them up anyway and gellershifted the combat mutant into his backfield all the same. Turn 3, combat hammer vet + xeno blade leader pounce on the big guys, but I rancid vomit the hammer vet out, and his fight-when-you-die attaks do just one more wound to the Gnasher. The DW leader fluffs against T5 wall then gets eaten by the Hulk. Meanwhile the combat mutant charges a combi-plasma blackshield, dropping him with his sweet fire axe. Turn 4, frag cannon is overrun by big muties, while combat mutant climbs up the ruins and charges the sniper stalker vet, dismembering him as well. Clean sweep! After which DW player lamented all these hyper-elite marine armies he's got going on (just finishing GK up) ...

Game Two vs Orks in Terror Tactics: Ork player created his usual dakka bunker (2 big shootas + 2 rokkits + a comms buff mixed in) in some bombed out rhinos to one side, so the Pox collected to push down the other side, facing the boy boss, a burna and two grots shoved along in front of them. Gnasher hit those grots ... and only killed one, getting stuck. He puked on the burna for no wounds. The Hulk trailing behind took a scorcha wound from the nob, and another when he charged in next turn, but by Turn 2 the left flank had been mashed to a green paste, save for the leader grot high up in some ruins. At this point the dakka bunker took the kommando nob's cue and started legging it down the relatively Pox-free flank, judicious use of the Waaaagh! global tactic really kicking in. As for the nob, he took a wound from the combat mutant before crumping him, then rounded on the leader mutant, who had intercepted the dakka boys screaming down the board edge, but the nob copped a gellercaust mask mortal wound and died! Before long the demo mutant arrived to try to corral the scenario-minded orks, unfortunately both mutants had sustained flesh wounds on the way into the big shootas, meaning they couldn't get work done (apart from their masks ) and the orks simply retreated towards the objective edge, because rules. Sadly for the orks, the steady stream of casualties from the big muties - at this point they overwhelmed the rokkit boys still bunkered in the rhinos, including puking on the spanner when he tried to run from the Gnasher - had racked up a significant lead for the Pox, who had also gotten a glitchling, the cursemite and the hulk off the table. Game ended Turn 4 in a win to the Pox, 11 to 6. Turn 5 would have pushed that to a 13 to 10, so a close game.

TL;DR: Two wins with Gellerpox, they're definitely pretty cool, and as stark a departure from my Tau as I wanted them to be. DW player made noises about just playing DG, but being somewhat concerned about impending nerf hammer, also hating slow armies. I have to agree, 4" move is pretty rough But rancid vomit is amazing and I really dig the mutants, 8 pts gets you a lot!

- Salvage

 Boss Salvage wrote:

Game One vs Deathwatch in Sweep & Clear: DW threatened to bunker in a two-story ruin and make me either come to him or draw the game (not a fan of this scenario, scoring at the end of the game is kinda meh), but then was a gent and deployed his combat bros on the ground. The Pox trudged forward, Gnasher absorbed a plasma wound. DW backed up, Gnasher + Hulk failed long charges in what was supposed to be my apply pressure turn, but I moved them up anyway and gellershifted the combat mutant into his backfield all the same. Turn 3, combat hammer vet + xeno blade leader pounce on the big guys, but I rancid vomit the hammer vet out, and his fight-when-you-die attaks do just one more wound to the Gnasher. The DW leader fluffs against T5 wall then gets eaten by the Hulk. Meanwhile the combat mutant charges a combi-plasma blackshield, dropping him with his sweet fire axe. Turn 4, frag cannon is overrun by big muties, while combat mutant climbs up the ruins and charges the sniper stalker vet, dismembering him as well. Clean sweep! After which DW player lamented all these hyper-elite marine armies he's got going on (just finishing GK up) ...

This DW play makes me sad. Multiple rounds of shooting with plasma and frags and they get walked over by an excruciatingly slow army with minimal ranged capacity? Oi.

Tossed a couple shots in the post, you can see the ruin the DW bunkered in and around in the second photo. He didn't get all that much shooting in before his combat bros went ham and got puked on / eaten, tho he said afterwards that going aggro with the hammer was a mistake. He also admitted he's not getting much out of his combi-plasma, since he's afraid to overcharge with such expensive dudes, and that he's pretty disenchanted with his stalker sniper, who never gets anything done. Likewise for all the angst his frag cannon causes - which is a value in itself! - it also doesn't kill as much as he expects, even if it technically wins games through area denial

His list, if you're curious:

[L] Watch Sergeant - combi-plasma, xenophase blade
[Z] Black Shield - combi-plasma, power sword
[C] DW Veteran - heavy thunder hammer
[S] DW Veteran - stalker pattern boltgun
DW Veteran Gunnter - frag cannon

I keep telling him to make the frag demo at the very least But he's doing some tinkering to push for a 6-man crew, as the 7-man naked team is too striped down IMO, even with how sweet custom ammo is. I'm thinking he ought to plop for a storm shield if he wants to go hard with somebody, go veteran to really jam in there.

- Salvage

There's just so many points tied up in those Combi-Plas and Hammer boys, it's bringing the rest of the squad down. Has he looked to Primaris? They're devastating if used in DW lists.

It came up when we were talking, I think he's hesitant as he already has a Primaris 'SW' team and he fully magnetized all these DW monkey-marines, and to him they just cost even more points. I totally agree on too many toys currently.

Do you rate infernus heavy bolters? I really like them, and 2 points is very cheap. The frag cannon is a beautiful weapon and being able to swap to multi-damage is nice, but I'm curious about other options.

As an aside, his first outings with DW were xenophase leader + 2x infernus + 2x frag, which I mangled pretty badly with my CSM through shear luck in the first turn, as I managed to drop both frags with bolt rounds. He won that game in the end, as it was Terror Tactics and his infernus bros just roasted-and-dakka'd my dudes as they struggled their way past him. Helped that the DW never failed another save after those first two.

- Salvage

Infernus gives access to a MW strategem, and the HB profile is nasty in and of itself. Tends to be overshadowed by the "ZOMG FRAG CANNON" view, but it's a solid tool.

As to Primaris costing more, thats not really accurate for what you get. 18-21 points depending on the loadout (for context his Plasma baby marines are in the 24 range), and that second wound goes miles in Kill Team. Combine with things like innate AP from bolt rifles, or the capacity to infuriatingly move about the board as a Reiver, and they're very viable options spitting out SIA bullets at *everything*.