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I've been reading through the Killzone rules from Galaxy In Flames and it's astounding how good it is. SO much better then Kill Teams.

I was wondering if anyone knows how it did at Adepticon, results, etc.

And would love to hear from anyone else who's tried it, what works/doesn't, etc.

I played in it at Adepticon. Here is my impression of the rules and the event itself:

What Was Good:
The tables were gorgeous! If you look at the blog you can see how much time and money went into them, but they were sooo sharp!

Game Depth - This could be good or bad, but I think that all the additional rules make for a much more interesting game than normal kill teams. Not nearly as simple, not nearly as stream lined, but for me a more enjoyable experience.


What Could Use Improvement:

Game Balance – I think some of the rules still need fleshed out. A couple highlights of some of the things I think throw the game out of whack.
Player A goes second, moves his jump packers 18 inches (because they automatically run 6) out of hiding. The next turn he is more likely than not going to get initiative, which means his jump packers move another 12 inches and charge for a total move and charge of 36 inches without player B being able to do anything about it. (You could overwatch, but not with any gun of any importance, and even then your opponent can force you to spend your overwatch on a less useful model)
There were also some shenanigans with upgrading units like a callidus assassin by giving her a dodge save and other gear that made her unbelievably powerful.

Tables – Although they were gorgeous, many of them were far too open for this game type. In normal kill teams you are supposed to choke the table with terrain, and a lot of the tables were too bare to play a normal 40k game. They looked amazing but weren’t always appropriate for the game type.

Missions/tournament format – I know the event was geared more on the side of fun than competitive play, but for me the missions were so unbalanced that it detracted from the fun. Number one, everyone was playing different missions, the missions had differing numbers of battle points possible, and not everyone played each mission so the potential points were not the same for everyone. Then some of the missions were just not balance between attacker and defender. The worst case I saw was a scenario where one party only got points for moving models from one corner of a 4x4 board off the other corner. It literally would take a jump pack model 5 turns to make the distance if the ran every turn. A non jump pack model would take 8 turns. My game in this scenario lasted 2 turns before time was called.


My Overall Assessment:

Lots of work and love went into this so I say kudos to the guys who made it happen. I think it’s a great thing to break up normal play and still go with the flavor and aesthetic of the 40k universe. Not really something to be taken too seriously or judge one’s merits as a player.

Me and a friend were the ones using the callidus build and it had lightning reflexes and fnp for a 4+ x3 which was a bit overpowered considering the ctan phase blade ignores all saves as well. Now with the new codex it can be even worse with henchman led by an eversor seems even more broken I think a 25 pt limit on wargear for each model sounds right for balance purposes. It is an incredibly fun system though we brought it back to our store and have got a good amount of games going.

LegendJRG wrote:Now with the new codex it can be even worse with henchman led by an eversor seems even more broken I think a 25 pt limit on wargear for each model sounds right for balance purposes.

Henchmen ridiculousness would be nasty. I think the system is fundamentally tilted towards shooting which means the cheap versitile henchmen units would be very powerful. But that is another reason I feel like you can not have too much terrain in this game. The only thing that keeps the balance between shooting and assault the same as normal 40k is the fact that it's hard to get shots off without being very close to the enemy.

Ehhh even with how open the fields were at Adepticon we were able to win easily simply due to the Callidus as most of our other stuff hid back and waited, 4 Storm Troopers and a BroCap. Run for 2 turns absorbing all shooting usually kill any assaulters than the ridiculous flamer followed by more assaulting we did not lose a game or even have one close besides vs 2 war walkers supported by dire avengers as that was a LOT of dice to save and it was close though we still won. I do believe the space hulk type board with the doors was by far my favorite the fights in the middle were epic.

@ArtfcllyFlvrd: thank you very much for the feedback and the input. Killzone is less than one year old, and we are really keen to tighten it up considerably as we move forward. It's an experiment, but I believe that it has real merit -not, as you mentioned, for the more competitive gamer, but rather as a fun, fluid dynamic for those inclined toward a quick bit of sport.

With regard to balance, we are painfully aware that Killzone is a dynamic completely outside the manner the real game designers intended. As such, we are trying to find the most egregious imbalances while also recognizing that these will always be there to some extent (even in regular 40K. It's a tightrope, but it's the biggest ones that we're after. Thanks for helping on that end, and Both Big Jim and I would sincerely welcome any more insight -please email me directly if you are interested. We are very keen to get useful feedback and analysis.

The Callidus loophole is one we intend to shut imminently with the new Errata. If you have spotted others, we really need to hear about them in order to deflect the power-gaming in an already disrupted dynamic.

The table/mission issues were entirely my fault, and for that I must apologize. I muddled the mission construction in a manner that detrimentally skewered the dynamic on two of the tables (notice, for example, the way LegendJRG and his mates identified this issue and jumped on table one at every opportunity). If you are feeling generous, I will ask you to consider this a symptom of our growing pains. Again, apologies.

We have already started planning for next year, and intend to bring a brand new set of (more ambitious) tables. Much more terrain that is much more claustrophobic.

It should be great fun.

Thanks again. I hope to hear from you soon.
B.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
oh, and that email. gentlemanones at g mail etc...
Cheers.
B

b. smoove wrote:@ArtfcllyFlvrd: thank you very much for the feedback and the input. Killzone is less than one year old, and we are really keen to tighten it up considerably as we move forward. It's an experiment, but I believe that it has real merit -not, as you mentioned, for the more competitive gamer, but rather as a fun, fluid dynamic for those inclined toward a quick bit of sport.

With regard to balance, we are painfully aware that Killzone is a dynamic completely outside the manner the real game designers intended. As such, we are trying to find the most egregious imbalances while also recognizing that these will always be there to some extent (even in regular 40K. It's a tightrope, but it's the biggest ones that we're after. Thanks for helping on that end, and Both Big Jim and I would sincerely welcome any more insight -please email me directly if you are interested. We are very keen to get useful feedback and analysis.

The Callidus loophole is one we intend to shut imminently with the new Errata. If you have spotted others, we really need to hear about them in order to deflect the power-gaming in an already disrupted dynamic.

The table/mission issues were entirely my fault, and for that I must apologize. I muddled the mission construction in a manner that detrimentally skewered the dynamic on two of the tables (notice, for example, the way LegendJRG and his mates identified this issue and jumped on table one at every opportunity). If you are feeling generous, I will ask you to consider this a symptom of our growing pains. Again, apologies.

We have already started planning for next year, and intend to bring a brand new set of (more ambitious) tables. Much more terrain that is much more claustrophobic.

It should be great fun.

Thanks again. I hope to hear from you soon.
B.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
oh, and that email. gentlemanones at g mail etc...
Cheers.
B

No need to apologize for anything. Like I said I think you did a very cool thing, both with the rules and the terrain (the one with all the cliffs and bridges and stuff was especially amazing)

My group already plays a lot of kill team and I'm trying to get them to switch over to your rules. I'll be sure to send you an email if we think we've come across something especially egregious.

But seriously, good job with everything and thanks for all the work you put into it.

As the main writer of the Spec Ops Killzone rules I want to point out that these rules are not meant to be used for beat face competitive gaming; they are meant to create an environment for story driven gaming while adding tactical depth.

When properly planned for the priority roll adds a lot of depth to the game play.

We are looking at the feedback we have been receiving and will be making a few changes. First off there will more than likely be a 75 point hard cap on any single model, including skills and upgrades. There will also be a 30 point cap on all Killzone Wargear and Skills upgrades for any single model.

We are just now looking at the Grey Knights for the new codex FAQ. Assassins will not be able to take any Skills or Killzone wargear, they are after all pre-equipped to do their assassinations.

We will be going back and scrutinizing all the FAQ's; looking to find and fix any broken combos.

Any additional feedback is welcome, feel free to email me through Galaxy in Flames or B.smoove through his.

Cheers,
Jim

BDJV wrote:
When properly planned for the priority roll adds a lot of depth to the game play.

I like the priority system in games that are designed for priority like LotR and LotOW. But in both those games you have lots of things that tone down the importance of the priority roll. 1)The potential effects are built into the cost of assault units. 2) Both games dont really have a balance between CC and shooting, they are strongly titled to one of the other so getting into CC quickly is not as important for the game. 3) The characters in those games have abilities that let the player without priority act out of turn if they see a need to. Without all of those things I think the priority rolling becomes too dominent. Just my opinion.

BDJV wrote:As the main writer of the Spec Ops Killzone rules I want to point out that these rules are not meant to be used for beat face competitive gaming; they are meant to create an environment for story driven gaming while adding tactical depth.

In that case, it seems odd to have a tournie based solely around them...

ancientsociety wrote:

BDJV wrote:As the main writer of the Spec Ops Killzone rules I want to point out that these rules are not meant to be used for beat face competitive gaming; they are meant to create an environment for story driven gaming while adding tactical depth.

In that case, it seems odd to have a tournie based solely around them...

It's new and that was exposure. They're still working the bugs out. Their efforts in this thread alone pandering for suggestions is a good sign that they're intent is good.

DarknessEternal wrote:

ancientsociety wrote:

BDJV wrote:As the main writer of the Spec Ops Killzone rules I want to point out that these rules are not meant to be used for beat face competitive gaming; they are meant to create an environment for story driven gaming while adding tactical depth.

In that case, it seems odd to have a tournie based solely around them...

It's new and that was exposure. They're still working the bugs out. Their efforts in this thread alone pandering for suggestions is a good sign that they're intent is good.

I'm certainly not questioning their intent or that they weren't a welcome addition to the Adepticon staff. No flaming was intended.

It's just that, as a fellow narrative-based expansion designer, I find the basic premise of running such a system as a competitive tournie rather odd.

ancientsociety wrote:In that case, it seems odd to have a tournie based solely around them...

Killzone at AdeptiCon wasn't really meant to be a winner-takes-all tournament.

Please keep in mind that Special Operations: Killzone is a modest, fan-generated rule system and varies wildly from the manner in which Warhammer 40,000 designed. The Killzone dynamic aspires to colorfully narrative games that have an evocative cinematic feel – no more, no less.

It was designed to be a series of fun, narrative games. I'd hope anyone looking at a fan-produced set of rules (and all the care that went into the boards, tokens, cards, etc.) could step back from the typical tournament mindset and approach an event like this from a more traditional 'gaming' angle. I realize it is smack dab in the middle of a room full of tournament games, and perhaps the narrative aspect of the event wasn't presented as clear as it should have been, but I also find it difficult to believe people took Killzone as a super serious, hardcore tournament event that determined anything in particular.

ancientsociety wrote:

BDJV wrote:As the main writer of the Spec Ops Killzone rules I want to point out that these rules are not meant to be used for beat face competitive gaming; they are meant to create an environment for story driven gaming while adding tactical depth.

In that case, it seems odd to have a tournie based solely around them...

I do understand what you are saying, but it was never meant to be a tourney. I also understood that you were not flaming.

Now mind you I was not at Adepticon, but it was my understanding that the Events were meant as a break from the tourney game thing that was presented elsewhere at Adepticon. It was supposed to be a series of Narrative one off games.

I don't ever remember Killzone ever being billed as a tourney at Adepticon. Here are a few quotes taken from the Adepticon Dev Blog:

So just what will this Kill Teams/Killzone event look like at AdeptiCon 2011? Much of that is still to be seen, but we anticipate a series of one on one narrative missions played in 1-hour increments that will guide your team to glory or death! The event will accommodate 24 players and most likely run 4-6 hours.

For what is, at the end of the day, an informal and friendly 40K alternative, the Killzone system has been really quite rigorously play-tested. A whole team of contributors have hashed out various ideas and worked tirelessly to blend the standard 40K ruleset with the suggestions from 3rd edition, 4th edition, and most recently the Battle Missions supplement into the shape you see it now. Of course, there are unavoidable imbalances and some obscure potential for abuse but as AdeptiCon already hosts a tremendous spread of genuinely competitive events, we are not particularly concerned that anyone will approach this event with an attitude other than the irreverent, informal, cinematic, and friendly of which it is intended.

Maybe next year the events should have a "not a tournament disclaimer", just to be sure everyone understands that fact.

I do apologize if players were under the wrong impression about the Adepticon events.

In the end we do value any and all input. B.smoove and I are already working on some updates and changes to killzone for testing and release in the near future.

Cheers,
Jim

It looks like both BDJV and Matthias have beaten me to the punch (got sidetracked by work). So there is no reason to reiterate what they have already stated.

I am looking forward to the refinements in Killzone and while it is not a competitive game, the proposed changes appear to be tightening it up enough that semi-competitive/narrative events will be possible.

Having said that, I think anyone trying to play this as a competitive event is missing the both the beauty and the concept of game which appears to have been designed for the tactical aspect.

BDJV wrote:
Maybe next year the events should have a "not a tournament disclaimer", just to be sure everyone understands that fact.

I do apologize if players were under the wrong impression about the Adepticon events.

There's nothing to apologize for. Though I was originally registered to play, I dropped out for a FOW tournie and, what I did hear about the event was secondhand. And, the majority of what I heard was very positive which, for an inaugural tournie, is pretty great. God knows I mucked up the first Necro tournie...

Reading through the ruleset, I actually didn't get much of the narrative-basis until you mentioned it here. Up until now, it's seemed to be "40K Light" or possibly the mutant offspring of Necromunda and 40K. That's certainly not a bad thing. Perhaps I wasn't clear in my post earlier but that's mostly what I found odd about the whole thing.

Matthias wrote:I'd hope anyone looking at a fan-produced set of rules (and all the care that went into the boards, tokens, cards, etc.) could step back from the typical tournament mindset and approach an event like this from a more traditional 'gaming' angle...but I also find it difficult to believe people took Killzone as a super serious, hardcore tournament event that determined anything in particular.

Even a fun tournie like Necromunda attracts the super-serious....it's just some people's competitive play style.

ancientsociety wrote:

BDJV wrote:
Maybe next year the events should have a "not a tournament disclaimer", just to be sure everyone understands that fact.

I do apologize if players were under the wrong impression about the Adepticon events.

There's nothing to apologize for. Though I was originally registered to play, I dropped out for a FOW tournie and, what I did hear about the event was secondhand. And, the majority of what I heard was very positive which, for an inaugural tournie, is pretty great. God knows I mucked up the first Necro tournie...

Reading through the ruleset, I actually didn't get much of the narrative-basis until you mentioned it here. Up until now, it's seemed to be "40K Light" or possibly the mutant offspring of Necromunda and 40K. That's certainly not a bad thing. Perhaps I wasn't clear in my post earlier but that's mostly what I found odd about the whole thing.

I understand what you are saying, the really thematic stuff like the team member advancement and campaign system got put on the backburner to make sure the core mechanics were solid.

The thematic, narrative stuff will be entering the rules now that Adepticon is behind us. Also a lot of the thematic stuff is in the 18 Missions in the Missions book, most people have completely overlooked this fact. I can tell from the downloads that the rules and FAQ's are downloaded 3 times more than the missions.

Again even second hand thanks for the feedback.

Cheers,
Jim

While I have nothing to add regarding the rules, as my hobby seminars were during those times----I would like to add on how great the tables looked. Definitely piqued my interested---kudos to the terrain maker.

My first list was 2 vang vets and 3 sternguard decked out and I think very fluffy to the whole thematic overarch that killzone presents but so is an assassin leading a killteam. A 75 point hardcap is a bit much wargear hardcap but model hardcaps is not necessary considering assassins couldn't even be taken with their cost in the new book. I think the format at adepticon was fine and having killzone even though it's more for fun with a competitive edge is welcome as otherwise you're just turning players off if there's no point to all the narrative and backstory that KZ can be developed into. I hope to see it back at adepticon next year as I had a lot of fun painting for it and playing in it.

Are these rules online anywhere?

@ AgeOfEgos. Thank you very much. That was me.

We have learned tons and tons from this experience and fully intend to bring a tightened, solid, and fluffy bit of fun back next year. Looking forward to it already.

DarknessEternal wrote:Are these rules online anywhere?

I was wondering that as well. I checked BDJV's blog, Galaxy in Flames, but the link the the rules didn't work. I'd be interested to try this out, and I'm curious if anyone can say how it compares to other fan-made 40k skirmish games like Death Squads.

Cadaver, I don't know what happened when you tried to download them, but I just tested the links on the left sidebar of my blog and they are still functioning.

You could also try them at their new home on The Codex Project site, there are also forums for Killzone there too.

Cheers,
Jim

Huh, I tried from the link in the blog post and I got an error. I just tried again from the link on the sidebar and it worked fine. I'll give these a read and see if I can get my friends to try it out. Thanks!

@BDJV and b smoove

I noticed in the rules some them armies. This got a friend of mine thinking about taking it a step further and having army specific themes. For example: All harlequins, all marine scouts, stormtrooper army, inquisitor and retinue, etc.

The current ones are not usable by every army (well, except Marines for all but the 3 wound one). For example: 2+ save. How many armies can NOT do this? Dark Eldar, Eldar, Necrons, Tau, etc...

Gonna be playing some games this weekend. REALLY looking forward to this as I am all about anything propagating the hobby over the competition for a bit.

Just a thought about the theme armies though!

Termies haven't preformed all that great so far even TH/SS surprisingly got mopped really bad by an Eldar running 4 Firedragons and 2 exarchs with heavy flamers kiting and Reapers overwatching so the books balance out if you dive into stuff seldom used but work great in killzone, ala firedragon exarchs with HF lolwut in 40k very useful in KZ. I ran a 6 monkey army today after picking up my Jokaeros and it was....yea pretty bad lol just chilled and shot lascannons/multimeltas(rolled d6 for which I was going to fire in monkey spirit) all 6 had targeters and the leader had crack shot it was pretty funny and kind of sad how quickly no one wanted to play anymore. I really think other henchman lists can break the balance really fast as well, 15 point death cultists running around at I6 with power weapons? Throw reflexes on them all and you have 4++/5++ for the cost of terminators. Maybe make it so you have to take an inquisitor even though they're HQ seeing as they're 25 points it would be a cool and more thematic approach.

Walls wrote:@BDJV and b smoove

I noticed in the rules some them armies. This got a friend of mine thinking about taking it a step further and having army specific themes. For example: All harlequins, all marine scouts, stormtrooper army, inquisitor and retinue, etc.

The current ones are not usable by every army (well, except Marines for all but the 3 wound one). For example: 2+ save. How many armies can NOT do this? Dark Eldar, Eldar, Necrons, Tau, etc...

Gonna be playing some games this weekend. REALLY looking forward to this as I am all about anything propagating the hobby over the competition for a bit.

Just a thought about the theme armies though!

I like the way you are thinking, but things like the marine scout and Harlequin list can be done as is in Killzone, so that sort of theme is up to you. The themes in the rules are to allow units that are usually restricted due to the normal rules for a cost in points. This theme system will be radically changing in the next update.

LegendJRG wrote:Termies haven't preformed all that great so far even TH/SS surprisingly got mopped really bad by an Eldar running 4 Firedragons and 2 exarchs with heavy flamers kiting and Reapers overwatching so the books balance out if you dive into stuff seldom used but work great in killzone, ala firedragon exarchs with HF lolwut in 40k very useful in KZ. I ran a 6 monkey army today after picking up my Jokaeros and it was....yea pretty bad lol just chilled and shot lascannons/multimeltas(rolled d6 for which I was going to fire in monkey spirit) all 6 had targeters and the leader had crack shot it was pretty funny and kind of sad how quickly no one wanted to play anymore. I really think other henchman lists can break the balance really fast as well, 15 point death cultists running around at I6 with power weapons? Throw reflexes on them all and you have 4++/5++ for the cost of terminators. Maybe make it so you have to take an inquisitor even though they're HQ seeing as they're 25 points it would be a cool and more thematic approach.

Of course it can break the balance, but that is because we have not finished the FAQ for the new codex. For that matter since you must have an Inquisitor to field henchmen in the new codex, why are you fielding them in Killzone? So shame on you for trying to break the system, sorry dude someone had to say it.

We will be tightening all those loopholes that you seem to be exploiting; let me say thank you.

Cheers,
Jim

Holy crap, BDJV, we share a mind. I was thinking the identical thought about the game breaking. Maybe I need to get in on some of this development with you guys!

It's a system not meant to be abused. It can be, yes... but don't. It's meant to tell a story, draw you in and immerse the players in a more visceral way then a tournament setting would. Once someone complains that no one wants to play with them... well, I probably don't want to play them either.

But back to the matter at hand...

As for the theme, I was thinking more along the lines of very themed lists for each army. Not everyone has bikes or 2+ save guys or 3 wound monsters.

Would be neat, for example to have a Harlequin themed army: You ONLY take harlequins and, say 0-2 pathfinders. If you take this, you get something. Take an X list, get a Y benefit (with added cost I would imagine). I don't have it fully coalesced in my brain, but I have a feeling you know exactly what I mean and are building towards it.

My greatest feeling about Killzone aside from the hobby over competition aspect is how models no one would ever use get a new lease on life. Flayed Ones, Death Jesters, Flash Gitz, Stormtroopers... all models and units that rarely get used in full sized games become very prevalent in this. Things like meltas and flamers, OVERUSED in regular games, aren't nearly as dangerous. All my unused models love you.

Very kool Walls, I totally get what you are saying.

Once the rules and the FAQ's are updated we can look at some army specific themes.

If you'd like to help jump over to the Codex project forums and speak up! the link is in one of my previous posts.

LegendJRG wrote:Me and a friend were the ones using the callidus build and it had lightning reflexes and fnp for a 4+ x3 which was a bit overpowered considering the ctan phase blade ignores all saves as well. Now with the new codex it can be even worse with henchman led by an eversor seems even more broken I think a 25 pt limit on wargear for each model sounds right for balance purposes. It is an incredibly fun system though we brought it back to our store and have got a good amount of games going.

Yes and this was cheating. It's 25 pts total in war gear and not per model. And just so you know if you can't add, Lightning Reflexes 25 points, FNP was 10 points. So you had 35 points on one model. Nice way to cheat your way through the event. If I had not caught you cheating you'd have won the event that I was in.

This was my problem with the way the games went.

1. You had a team mate. This can hurt you in more than one way. The first way is that they end up stealing your kills or they do so badly that you are now facing two on one after two turns.

2. People can cheat with extra points. Did you really get the card that said double kill points? Did you really give that to the guy that killed the most?

3. The cards are cool but there should be the same cards for every one just in different rounds. ie I draw randomly for 4 rounds but all 4 cards are the same for everyone. I might get 2, 3, 4, 1 but you got 1, 3, 4, 2. We end up with the possibility of getting even points for accomplishing the same missions.

4. I didn't like rolling for who got to go first in each round. I see that it adds a level of danger but I can do with out the drama.

5. Missions were on the table and they were the same mission. So if you got on an easy mission table you could get a lot of points. I'd like to see everyone doing the same mission each round.

6. There was no tree so if you played 4 bad people you got max points. Winners playing winners makes it better to have an overall winner and not 3 or more people with just about the same points.

I did have fun but after I pointed out to the judges that the Callidus guys were cheating the event left a poor taste in my mouth. I finished 3rd but other people that got owned by the cheating didn't have a fair chance at doing well.