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Is it worth leveling up your specialists and Fire Teams when running a campaign? Seems like a lot of points that could be used to pay for more units.

Which is best for each faction, leveling these guys up for their abilities or bring more dudes?

Specifically asking as an Astra Militarum player who keeps forgetting to use said abilities.

Fire Teams: absofrakkinglutely. Getting reroll hits/wounds for 1ppm is an absolute steal.

Specialists: depends very much on the role you need them to fill.

Honestly if you can take a Sniper do it, mine is currently Lvl 3 and he is probably worth double the points I pay for him. Pretty much can hit any target regardless of modifiers

They at least make the game more interesting. Combining tactics with a specialist's bonuses make for interesting moments. My 9pt cultist combat specialist took down a +20pt death guard.

So basically the lesson is that I just need to actually remember to use the abilities.

Arcanis161 wrote:
So basically the lesson is that I just need to actually remember to use the abilities.

My goodness, I think that is the hardest part of killteam. You're definitely not alone in that regard.

Personally, I don't find it worth it to pay for the upgrades. Your team just shrinks so fast that I'd rather have more generic guys than a handful of mildly improved ones. Now, on some already expensive models (cult marines, deathwatch, etc.) I could see if being worth the relatively small increase, but I wouldn't want to end up paying 25% more for every gaunt or guardsman in a fire team or quadrupling the cost of a specialist.

Our group ended up dropping the increased costs for our campaign, after a while. It just felt wrong to be "rewarded" with a smaller team. Anyone who's wildly outclassed can earn an underdog bonus, but it hasn't really come up.

You really have to raise your points limits as you go to get in upgraded men without it costing you the game.

Also, I still suggest doing that, as it really brings Kill Team to life better to have guys who are leveling up.

Fanatics lvl 2 forcing to re-roll enemy hit roll of 6 it's a god send for long range trades or aproaching with harlequins.

Best part it's a 3" bubble around the spec and i can swear it worthwhile for some setups.

It depends on what the Advances are, and what model the Advances are on.

I'm playing Heretic Astartes in a campaign, and have re-done my cultists every time they have reached level 2, as the rolls were not very good. On the other hand, my Marines have had decent rolls, getting Lucky, Courageous and they just got Skilled, so Re-rolls 1 for Armour saves, Nerve Tests and 1s to Hit in the Fight phase are actually decent for 1 pit each on a Marine.

 DarknessEternal wrote:
You really have to raise your points limits as you go to get in upgraded men without it costing you the game.

Also, I still suggest doing that, as it really brings Kill Team to life better to have guys who are leveling up.

It does suggest upping the points to 150 after a bit, but why wouldn't you just take more boots over minorly better ones and keep recycling those with xp? I know I'd rather have 50% more men.

It just seems like a solution to a problem they created, and not even a particularly effective one, at that.

I much prefer having the upgrades be free when earned over the course of the campaign. That way you feel like your team is getting more experienced game by game, not like you're forced to cut down or "miss out" on more effective team comps to afford arbitrary upgrades that may not even be terribly useful.

The whole point of Killteam is having a small group of highly skilled individuals, a team.
Not lets shove as many models as we can on the board, you might as well just play 40k.

 Rolsheen wrote:
The whole point of Killteam is having a small group of highly skilled individuals, a team.
Not lets shove as many models as we can on the board, you might as well just play 40k.

But if more bodies is better then that's what players will gravitate to.

Well, in my campaign, I put in point increases from week to week along with a requirement that these points be spent on experience point increases. The info on our campaign structure can be found at the link within this thread:

https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/767039.page#10234997

 Trimarius wrote:

 DarknessEternal wrote:
You really have to raise your points limits as you go to get in upgraded men without it costing you the game.

Also, I still suggest doing that, as it really brings Kill Team to life better to have guys who are leveling up.

It does suggest upping the points to 150 after a bit, but why wouldn't you just take more boots over minorly better ones and keep recycling those with xp? I know I'd rather have 50% more men.

It just seems like a solution to a problem they created, and not even a particularly effective one, at that.

I much prefer having the upgrades be free when earned over the course of the campaign. That way you feel like your team is getting more experienced game by game, not like you're forced to cut down or "miss out" on more effective team comps to afford arbitrary upgrades that may not even be terribly useful.

Free upgrades is outrageously terrible. It makes winning teams win more.

Also, whether I would like more guys versus better guys depends entirely on what I'm getting for "better". Die hard on a fire team is worth way more than the 1 point I have to pay for it, for example. But Zealots higher than level 1 are pretty terrible.

Upgrading guys makes the game play more like what the game is intended to be.

For me, it's looking like they're increasing the points by 25 per 4 games. Right now, we're at 125 points. I've got a level 3 Sniper, level 2 almost everything else save for some spares and a scout. I've got a level 1 Special Weapons Fireteam who I still need to roll for, and a Level 2 Scion Fireteam with Lucky and Skilled.

My main issue, again, is remembering to use the darn abilities. Last game, I forgot about my sniper's +1 when readied ability until the last turn, and completely forgot about Eagle-Eye and my Scion Fireteam's rerolls. I *might* have won if I remembered those, but I'm tempted to just start bringing more guns.

 DarknessEternal wrote:

Free upgrades is outrageously terrible. It makes winning teams win more.

Also, whether I would like more guys versus better guys depends entirely on what I'm getting for "better". Die hard on a fire team is worth way more than the 1 point I have to pay for it, for example. But Zealots higher than level 1 are pretty terrible.

Upgrading guys makes the game play more like what the game is intended to be.

How does it make the winning team better? You get xp for playing, using a stratagem (specialist), being lucky while being knocked OOA (specialist), and killing someone (fire team).
Winning gets you nothing as far as team progression goes

Unless a game is ridiculously one sided (i.e. one side gets tabled before they can really act), you should both be earning about the same amount of xp.

And I did mention the underdog bonus for new people to the campaign that lets them catch up, but, again, that has nothing to do with winning, just surviving the crucible.

I'm also not sure how it's fluffier for a team of hardened spec ops guys to have to leave Jenkins at home because Corporal Jimmy found out that holding the trigger down means more bullets come out. How are you supposed to become attached to your team if you're constantly dropping members because they got more experienced? I was cutting at least one trooper after every game (not including the first game, obviously) to pay for upgrades the first time we ran a league. Why even name them at that rate?

As for Die Hard, it's amazing on a DW Vet, sure, but do you really want to pay 25% more for a termigant whose only purpose is board presence? That's a terrible trade.

 Trimarius wrote:

How does it make the winning team better?

You kill all of my guys and win because of it. All of your guys gain experience, and all of my guys then die (they can). You now have won again since you'll be getting stuff for free next game.

I think your trying to have all the advantages and none of the downsides.
You want as many models as you can get, you want the skills for your specialists but you don't want to pay the points.

DarknessEternal wrote:

 Trimarius wrote:

How does it make the winning team better?

You kill all of my guys and win because of it. All of your guys gain experience, and all of my guys then die (they can). You now have won again since you'll be getting stuff for free next game.

So your argument is that you are constantly getting completely wiped out and then roll nothing but 1s to have every single one of your guys die? All while never killing anything of your opponent's?

That seems unlikely, to say the least.

You've got a higher chance of a specialist gaining xp from being knocked OOA than of staying dead. And your fire teams maintain their xp unless completely wiped out, as in every single one dies (not just in that mission, on your roster, too).

Even if all that somehow came to pass (in which case, you should really stop antagonizing witches and burn your dice), my having reroll 1s to hit on a couple of troopers or a level two heavy isn't going to make the next game a forgone conclusion. Those are pretty minor bonuses, all things considered.

Rolsheen wrote:I think your trying to have all the advantages and none of the downsides.
You want as many models as you can get, you want the skills for your specialists but you don't want to pay the points.

How is it an advantage if everyone gets it? That's like saying someone just wants an advantage by upping the points limit to 150.

We didn't like how you had to abandon team members after nearly every game. It didn't strike us as particularly heroic and we felt it ran counter to the whole idea of growing a small band of individuals in an rpg-like setting.

I'd suggest everyone give it a try. It feels more like a traditional skirmish campaign and really gives a sense of danger to your guys going down, since they're not something you toss aside anymore and, even if a player doesn't care about emotional investment, they have an increased mechanical worth that's at risk.

Taking guys out of action is how fire teams gain exp. The team that loses is less likely to have done so. They gain less exp. Therefore they'll be more likely to keep losing as the winning team keeps getting exp and doesn't have to pay for it.

Free ranks is always a win-more scenario. There's no way around it, even if no one dies.

"Lt Simms. You have worked and trained and fought hard to join this elite group of the Emperor's special forces. Unfortunately you seem.to have learned the wrong lesson in our recent engagements and for that reason I'm afraid I'm going to have to.let you go. For the lovely the emperor, man, you can now.use your radio a bit better and you seem to think that this.means you deserve.special treatment? Maybe go.and try that upstart special.forces.group in the blah blah sector. I hear they'll take anyone."

 DarknessEternal wrote:
Taking guys out of action is how fire teams gain exp. The team that loses is less likely to have done so. They gain less exp. Therefore they'll be more likely to keep losing as the winning team keeps getting exp and doesn't have to pay for it.

Free ranks is always a win-more scenario. There's no way around it, even if no one dies.

Xp gained from kills is capped at one per game for a fire team, no matter how many kills they rack up. So again, we're back to you getting completely tabled without killing anyone. Which remains just as unlikely as the first time you brought this up.

Remember, everyone gains one xp for playing. Then specialists gain one from using at least one of their stratagems (and potentially one from being taken OOA, which, given how your games apparently go, means you should be earning more xp than your opponent). Only fire teams care at all about kills (to a grand total of one, max).

And obviously having more upgrades than your opponent is an advantage, just not a particularly relevant one if the difference is only a few of them. They're pretty minor, for the most part, and their increasing cost means that the player who's behind should catch up easily. This is a campaign, after all, not a matched play one-off.

We haven't had any issues at all.

@Flinty- Right? It seems ridiculous that just because your comms guys figured out which button turns the vox on Private Jenkins has to watch the fight against the chaos insurgents/necron menace/Ork pirates from the sidelines.

The theory about points cost is to get a balanced match.
Let‘s not discuss how well this is working.

To increase the capabilities of some models only without increasing the point cost, goes against this theory.

Because not all Teams advance at the same speed, you should not ignore the cost for levels.

Because teams loose experience at different rates. If a team looses a Lv3 specialist, it will be weaker than a team which doesn‘t, if the difference is not compensated. So you should not ignore the cost for levels.

Because not all Fire Teams have the same number of members, you should not ignore the cost for levels.

Especially as increasing the game size by some points is a very simple and balanced alternative.

brumbaer wrote:
The theory about points cost is to get a balanced match.
Let‘s not discuss how well this is working.

To increase the capabilities of some models only without increasing the point cost, goes against this theory.

Because not all Teams advance at the same speed, you should not ignore the cost for levels.

Because teams loose experience at different rates. If a team looses a Lv3 specialist, it will be weaker than a team which doesn‘t, if the difference is not compensated. So you should not ignore the cost for levels.

Because not all Fire Teams have the same number of members, you should not ignore the cost for levels.

Especially as increasing the game size by some points is a very simple and balanced alternative.

Campaigns are inherently unbalanced. That's basically the point, to have things change and grow over their course. If you don't want that sort of unpredictability and potential imbalance, you probably want to play a series of matched play games that don't influence each other, instead. Perhaps with an increasing point limit and the ability to buy upgrades, if you want to house rule those in.

Nothing wrong with that, but it's not a campaign in the traditional sense. People looking for that more rpg-like experience, of growing a band of fighters through thick and thin, would be better served by upgrades being earned rather than bought.

Anyway, as to your list, teams do all advance at the same rate. Everyone has the same opportunities, which I've pointed out before in this thread, and take the same amount of xp to level, so no one should be falling behind if participating. Especially not to a relevant degree.

The death of an experienced specialist is supposed to be a worry in a campaign. The ability to replace them instantaneously and without loss (as buying a new level one and two bonus guardsmen would be in a paid upgrade game) removes any sense of risk or danger and reduces the whole affair to just playing unlinked matched games. And again, that's fine (it's what most games of 40k/warmachine/etc. are, after all), but it's not a campaign.

As for your last point, the difference in numbers supports my argument more than yours. If we assume that the models' point costs are correct, having the upgrades be a flat cost for every model is inherently imbalanced, as that 1 point for a termigant is not nearly as impactful as the same 1 point spent on a DW Vet. Rerolling saves of 1 on a 20 point 2+ save (generally) Rubric is obviously worth much more than on a 6 point 6+ save Ork Boy. Just as no one is going to claim that a thunderhammer is worth the same on a chapter master and a conscript, there would need to be different costs for the upgrades to take into account the worth of the base model if any semblance of balance is desired. Making them "free" removes this introduced imbalance.

Increasing the point limit does nothing to rectify this, and while that could be used for a "slow grow" style league (with the understanding that it benefits certain factions over others), it isn't the same thing as a campaign.

There seems to be basic difference in what we expect in a campaign.

I expect a campaign to generate games, which are worth playing and flavoured with some fluff and RPG elements.

Systems like Mortheim and the old Necromunda (I do not know the new one) which didn't charge for levels, were only interesting for two games. After that some teams were so strong, that the others didn't have to play against them anymore, because the result was clear from the start, Not surprisingly the players with weaker teams wouldn't want to play against those teams, because nobody armed with a knife only enjoys going to a shoot-out.

This is what Kill Teams seems to try to avoid.
If two teams fight each other and to make things obvious all models in one team are Lv1 and all models in the other are Lv4 (without charging for the levels) you can leave the miniatures in the box, just as with Mortheim and Necromunda.

So there has to be some compensation e.g. in form of increased points cost, to keep the battles worth playing.

And of course a difference in fighting prowess exists between 2 models of level 2 and 7 models of level 2 of the same kind.
[edit]

I phrased that badly. What I wanted to say:
If only 2 models in a 7 model fire team were raised to higher level, it would be weaker than the same fire team with all models raised to a higher level.
The more kids get an ice cream, the more you have to pay.
[/edit]

So 7 models of level should have a higher extra cost than 2 models.
That it might have been a better choice to make the cost per level relative e.g. +10% instead of absolute, is not the point.

And, IMHO obviously, increasing the game size will allow the team with higher levels to keep up the number of models while keeping some game balance. So that battles will still be worth fighting even if the quality of models diverge.

For me it looks like you are not interested in balanced battles.
Your credo seems to be, who is leading the campaign, should have an advantage in every battle.
And here we disagree, I'm not interested in potentially one sided battles and I do not enjoy battles I can't win nor battles I can't loose.

The cost per level might not be handled in the best possible way, but it is way above not charging for levels for what I expect from a campaign.

It greatly depends on the team and what specialisms you have access to. Heavy lv 2 tactic is amazing, your best model gets to shoot twice in a row. If you have initiative and ready him, you get to mow down whatever enemy you're most scared of in the shooting phase before they can shoot back. For comms, you can generate extra CP. I rolled a 5 at the beginning of a turn tonight, used the extra point on an invuln re-roll, and forced a draw instead of losing the game because of that save. At lv4, you can take an ability that allows you to gain resources, which can decide a closely fought campaign. For demo specialists, it makes grenades much better and gives you a chance to gain 1 materiel. Scout, medic, zealot, and veteran are not worth upgrading IMO.

brumbaer wrote:

For me it looks like you are not interested in balanced battles.
Your credo seems to be, who is leading the campaign, should have an advantage in every battle.
And here we disagree, I'm not interested in potentially one sided battles and I do not enjoy battles I can't win nor battles I can't loose.

Yep.

brumbaer wrote:
There seems to be basic difference in what we expect in a campaign.

I expect a campaign to generate games, which are worth playing and flavoured with some fluff and RPG elements.

Systems like Mortheim and the old Necromunda (I do not know the new one) which didn't charge for levels, were only interesting for two games. After that some teams were so strong, that the others didn't have to play against them anymore, because the result was clear from the start, Not surprisingly the players with weaker teams wouldn't want to play against those teams, because nobody armed with a knife only enjoys going to a shoot-out.

This is what Kill Teams seems to try to avoid.
If two teams fight each other and to make things obvious all models in one team are Lv1 and all models in the other are Lv4 (without charging for the levels) you can leave the miniatures in the box, just as with Mortheim and Necromunda.

So there has to be some compensation e.g. in form of increased points cost, to keep the battles worth playing.

And of course a difference in fighting prowess exists between 2 models of level 2 and 7 models of level 2 of the same kind.
[edit]

I phrased that badly. What I wanted to say:
If only 2 models in a 7 model fire team were raised to higher level, it would be weaker than the same fire team with all models raised to a higher level.
The more kids get an ice cream, the more you have to pay.
[/edit]

So 7 models of level should have a higher extra cost than 2 models.
That it might have been a better choice to make the cost per level relative e.g. +10% instead of absolute, is not the point.

And, IMHO obviously, increasing the game size will allow the team with higher levels to keep up the number of models while keeping some game balance. So that battles will still be worth fighting even if the quality of models diverge.

For me it looks like you are not interested in balanced battles.
Your credo seems to be, who is leading the campaign, should have an advantage in every battle.
And here we disagree, I'm not interested in potentially one sided battles and I do not enjoy battles I can't win nor battles I can't loose.

The cost per level might not be handled in the best possible way, but it is way above not charging for levels for what I expect from a campaign.

Without the possibility for introducing inequity what you have isn't a campaign, it's a series of unrelated games (and since KT doesn't have inbuilt map support or any other means of organising games, you're basically down to pickup games). Which, again, is totally fine. It's how most games of 40k or any other wargame are played, after all.

It just isn't a skirmish style campaign.

I'm normally a proponent of straight laced competitive and tournament play, but when you sit down for a campaign, these sorts of minor imbalances (hyperbole like "battles I can't win" doesn't do you any service, we're talking about 1/3 of a cp a round and rerolling 1s to hit, here) within an individual game are part of the experience. Teams grow organically, fortunes change, and differences arise.

On the balance front, I'd argue that free is superior to the current flat pricing, anyway. As everyone is gaining xp at about the same rate (unless you're DarknessEternal and regularly have your entire team, including roster members not taking part in the battle, be taken OOA and roll all 1s to die without taking any enemies out), zero cost upgrades maintain the balance set out by the point costs of the units themselves. With flat costs, more numerous teams are spending a much greater proportion of their point allotment than more elite teams. A twenty man KT would be spending 32% of it's points just to reach level two, while a four man team would only be spending 16% (assuming four specialists per team).

Surely a 16% point advantage for one side is a major imbalance. With earned upgrades, each team spends nothing on upgrades, so they remain a match against each other.

Simply increasing the point cap doesn't change this at all. That only addresses the case of a completely new team versus an extremely experienced team, but that isn't going to occur unless someone joins a campaign that's been going for a while (and even then, they'll catch up after a few mildly disadvantaged game). Teams being roughly as experienced as each other is much, much more likely to happen, so I would rather that be the situation the game is balanced around.

Hyperbole is a rethoric tool to make a point clear, so what ?

I‘m more often the organiser of campaigns than not and love to try/develop different concepts i.e. https://www.the-ninth-age.com/index.php?thread/27062-cac-computer-aided-campaign/
But I have also played some as player „only“, one of them being a KT rule book campaign. And yes the teams increased levels at different speeds. And yes compensating this with the loss of a model or two helps game balance. I expect nobody to argue about charging every model for a device that allows it to reroll 1-s to hit. Why would it be different for the same upgrade by any other means i.e. experience ?

So over the years I have collected some experience regarding running and playing campaigns.
I have seen campaigns run into the ground in two rounds and other running for 20 rounds. The short lived were usualy the ones with imbalanced battles.

I‘m sure you have collected your own experience, playing and running campaigns, and I expect them to be different to the ones I made, or we wouldn‘t have this discussion.
Let‘s agree to disagree.