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I'm pretty sure that "full fat" 40k specifically has stuff written about the opponent not having models on the board meaning an auto win.
However, I can't find (or might have missed!) anything similar in Kill Team rules.
I know there are some missions where just having your team fail a break test will lose you the game, but other than actually scoring objective points I've found no other references to how to win a game.

I ask because I tabled my opponent without actually scoring any points.
I was playing Guard and we rolled the "prisoners" mission - which is about taking out enemy models in the fight phase for points.
Incidentally my opponent had also not scored any points, but we called it a win for me, as he agreed trying to argue for the draw was probably a bit douchey.

It's true there's no mission that I'm aware of that specifies that it's an auto-loose when you get tabled. However I believe they didn't include that rule to best fit campaigns, as your Kill Team may be all Out of Action while having completed its objectives (destroying enemy materiel, recovered Intel or such narrative stuff), think of it as the suicide operations we see sometimes in games or films, where there's no survivor but the HQ has the intel it needed to continue their mission.

If you can win by tabling in KT it's going the way of regular 40K where you build armies aimed at just killing everything. It's not the spirit of Kill Team and I'm glad it's that way.

I guess when you think about the actual objectives from the campaign point of view it makes sense.

It does just seem to exacerbate the issue with some mission types where gunline type armies (i.e. Guard and Tau) are going to really struggle (the take prisoners as one I view as a victory if I survive, let alone actually kill anything!)

T'au and Guard in this mission should aim to kill as many as possible with shooting and then overwhelming one model (or the Leader for extra points) to break the draw. I believe it's the only mission that requires kills in CC so it's not a big deal. Narratively, you want to take prisoners, if you kill everyone with guns you didn't take any prisoners so it's a draw if you didn't lose guys to the enemy as it is.

And Guard have access to CC weapons, it's possible to play cleverly so as to take at list a prisoner. T'au can hit hard with the XV88 with a little luck too !

Reading the rulebook, there's no doubt to me: each of the missions has a "victory conditions" paragraph stating how to determine the winner.quoting the "covert war" open play mission for example:

"At the end of the battle the player who has the most VP wins a major victory. If more than one player is tied for the most VP at the end of the battle, the player amongst them who had the least strategic advantage wins a minor victory"

Since you can't tie the strategic advantage roll, there's no ambiguity.
I believe this is one of those cases where KT differs from wh40k.
I personally like it this way, both from a tactical and fluff perspective.
Kill teams aren't armies whose purpose is to annihilate the opponent. They have specialties and skills to ensure they can carry the mission to a success

The rule book is pretty explicit about how to determine victory in the Take Prisoners mission.

1. Winner is the player with the most VPs and you ONLY score VPs by "capturing" enemy models. So killing models--up to and including tabling--doesn't do anything for you.

2. First tie breaker--which would obviously come into play in a 0-0 game--is "Force," a new term in KT which is short hand for "how many points did you put on the table." Lower Force wins.

3. If it's still tied after the Force tie breaker, it's a draw.

So, yeah--under RAW at no point does tabling come into play for determining victory. (In fact, if you're behind on points and you kill, rather than capture, all of your opponent's remaining dudes, you seal your loss.). So, for example, if you table your opponent and capture nothing, and he captures one of your guys but kills nothing else, he wins.

j33v3s wrote:
I'm pretty sure that "full fat" 40k specifically has stuff written about the opponent not having models on the board meaning an auto win.
However, I can't find (or might have missed!) anything similar in Kill Team rules.
I know there are some missions where just having your team fail a break test will lose you the game, but other than actually scoring objective points I've found no other references to how to win a game.

I ask because I tabled my opponent without actually scoring any points.
I was playing Guard and we rolled the "prisoners" mission - which is about taking out enemy models in the fight phase for points.
Incidentally my opponent had also not scored any points, but we called it a win for me, as he agreed trying to argue for the draw was probably a bit douchey.

In this instance, it would have been a draw. Neither of you got any points, so neither of your teams accomplished their objective, whatever that happened to be.

Play to the objective and you won't run into issues like this.

 Aaranis wrote:
T'au and Guard in this mission should aim to kill as many as possible with shooting and then overwhelming one model (or the Leader for extra points) to break the draw. I believe it's the only mission that requires kills in CC so it's not a big deal. Narratively, you want to take prisoners, if you kill everyone with guns you didn't take any prisoners so it's a draw if you didn't lose guys to the enemy as it is.

And Guard have access to CC weapons, it's possible to play cleverly so as to take at list a prisoner. T'au can hit hard with the XV88 with a little luck too !

drbored wrote:
Play to the objective and you won't run into issues like this.

And that is easier said than done.
I just finished a game vs TAU where we rolled the mission again. Even though I charged his last two models (a pathfinder and a drone) on turn 3 with everthing I had that could get there (3 guys including my leader - I rolled poorly on the advances and next turn charges for the other guys still on the board, similarly, I didn't want everything right in his face early on, as his breachers would have wrecked me meaning I had nothing left to charge with) I still managed to not kill either of them for two fight phases, at which point the game ended on a draw. Now if that had been vs anything that's semi competent in CC, my guardsmen would have been destroyed in that time, as it was vs TAU they similarly did nothing but swing blindly in my direction.
Important to note, this ISN'T a campaign, so I have a list I have chosen before we roll the mission, and for almost all other missions, taking that power sword or powerfist is not worth it over another better weapon (I feel at least). Nor is taking both sergeant models - who are the only guys with access to CC specific weaponry.

However, this question wasn't specifically to do with that particular mission type, so I think my question has been answered.

j33v3s wrote:

Important to note, this ISN'T a campaign, so I have a list I have chosen before we roll the mission, and for almost all other missions, taking that power sword or powerfist is not worth it over another better weapon (I feel at least). Nor is taking both sergeant models - who are the only guys with access to CC specific weaponry.

On this: outside of campaign, you can have a command roster (up to 20 models in matched play) from which you choose the specific kill team you want to field after you know the mission!

It really does bear mentioning, but according to the core rules, every single game of Kill Team, whether Open, Narrative, or Matched, whether within a campaign or not, follows this sequence:

First, choose the mission.
Then the players choose and announce their factions (though this done at the beginning of a campaign).
Only then do you build your actual team.

To emphasize-- when you're actually selecting the models you'll put on the table, you already know both the mission you'll be playing and what faction(s) you'll be facing. Seems to be some misunderstanding of that on the thread.

[Edit: typo.]

I actually like this. It always felt very gamey that if I'm ahead on points but I lose my last model, I'm done. Especially for kill team. Thematically, many of these teams are one way trips. My main army Death Watch certainly is most of the time. Your goal is to complete your objective, not save your own skin. I think Rogue One is a great example of that kind of story done right.

Some missions mention that if the battle ends because there's only one unbroken Kill Team on the board the one that's left wins. Now, obviously that means if you're playing one on one and you break, your opponent wins, but it also means if your team is all off the board, broken or not, they lose.

My IG fought deathwatch on this mission. I was a few points below in force so my main strategy was to play for a tie game and win through the tiebreaker. Worked out until round 4 when i couldnt avoid cc any longer, losing two models of which one scored my opponent 1vp. Game continued a 5th round and everything spiralled out of hand and a tight game turned into a curbstomp :(

We also pondered about tabling but also reached the conclusion that in some scenarios you can table your opponent and still lose.

drbored wrote:

j33v3s wrote:
I'm pretty sure that "full fat" 40k specifically has stuff written about the opponent not having models on the board meaning an auto win.
However, I can't find (or might have missed!) anything similar in Kill Team rules.
I know there are some missions where just having your team fail a break test will lose you the game, but other than actually scoring objective points I've found no other references to how to win a game.

I ask because I tabled my opponent without actually scoring any points.
I was playing Guard and we rolled the "prisoners" mission - which is about taking out enemy models in the fight phase for points.
Incidentally my opponent had also not scored any points, but we called it a win for me, as he agreed trying to argue for the draw was probably a bit douchey.

In this instance, it would have been a draw. Neither of you got any points, so neither of your teams accomplished their objective, whatever that happened to be.

Play to the objective and you won't run into issues like this.

take prisoners is just a bad mission. The others are largely fine