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

I know this was intended to be both a more competitive, theoretically balanced way to play a competitive game using 40k minis, but the prospect of it being a cheap game, I suspect is gone? If I am looking to get into Arena, I know I need the Arena expansion, and the Core Rules manual. Do I also need the Commanders and Elites, books (are they a part of Arena mode, essentially)? Is there anything else somewhat essential?

Also, if you own loads of 40k armies, do you still need their actual Kill Teams for cards, etc?

NewTruthNeomaxim wrote:
I know this was intended to be both a more competitive, theoretically balanced way to play a competitive game using 40k minis, but the prospect of it being a cheap game, I suspect is gone? If I am looking to get into Arena, I know I need the Arena expansion, and the Core Rules manual. Do I also need the Commanders and Elites, books (are they a part of Arena mode, essentially)? Is there anything else somewhat essential?

Also, if you own loads of 40k armies, do you still need their actual Kill Teams for cards, etc?

Commanders seems optional. Elites, OTOH, has entered at least the Bay Area Open in California (our League organizer gave me a photocopy of their tourney format). Having just played my first Elites game, I can say it does shake things up.

So Essentials ...
1. Core Book.
2. Arena
3. Elites.

The actual Kill Teams are optional if you already have figures. The question is just how much the Tactics cards are worth to you. You'll get some of the rules of the cards in the Core and in Elites. (At least with the Necrons, Elites includes the text of the cards once exclusive to the Necron KT box. Fangs of Ulrich still has four cards that were not printed in Elites, while some were.)

Commanders are not playable in the arena missions - you can only use commanders in missions that permit you to do so and the vast majority of these say you must take a commander (there are now a couple of (non-arena) missions that give you the option of taking a commander)

Elites are playable in all missions.

Some factions had some or all of the team box exclusive cards printed in elites.

So I grabbed the Core Book, the Elites expansion, and the big Arena box. Anything else?

I know Ash from GMG said tokens and unit cards are mandatory, but I don't see them for sale anywhere?

Likewise, since i'm only 75% familiar with the rules, do I need universal and specific tactics cards, or are they reprinted in the books (mostly)?

All of the universal tactics are in the books. Some but not all (depends on faction) of the faction specific tactics are in the books. If you tell me which factions you're interested in I can confirm for you.

If you want the faction cards and tokens then they are in the team boxes.

Here's a link to some printable tokens I made.
https://mega.nz/#!vuAX0Sbb!DCvk7OnMkRxWsmSXJ5T0cBaS6cBWsX2JliI3owsSgA0

Awesome on all counts. Thanks for the help!

One last question... are Commanders an element of competitive Kill Team? As I guess they're mission specific, do those missions show up at competitive (non-Arena) tournaments?

I'm not aware of a major tournament that has used them. I am aware of local tournaments that have.

There are 3rd party tokens. Some examples ...

https://litko.net/collections/litko-upgrades-compatible-with-the-warhammer-40k-kill-team-game-system/products/litko-combat-token-set-compatible-with-wh-kt-translucent-blue-red-50

https://www.etsy.com/listing/635530737/kill-team-token-set?ga_order=most_relevant&ga_search_type=all&ga_view_type=gallery&ga_search_query=kill+team+tokens&ref=sr_gallery-1-1&organic_search_click=1&bes=1&col=1

EDIT: This one comes with a sorting box.
https://www.etsy.com/listing/692146571/command-tokens-warhammer-kill-team?ga_order=most_relevant&ga_search_type=all&ga_view_type=gallery&ga_search_query=kill+team+tokens&ref=sr_gallery-1-22&organic_search_click=1

There is a decent selection on Etsy. Might be some on Shapeways, but I haven't checked.

NewTruthNeomaxim wrote:
SI know Ash from GMG said tokens and unit cards are mandatory, but I don't see them for sale anywhere?

Well then Ash is wrong. Tokens are a nice so neither player has to remember anything, but I don't usually bother with teams made up of less than 6 or 7 units as it is pretty easy to remember what they did. At the same time, I always use tokens for teams bigger than ten units as it becomes incredibly easy to forget who Readied and who didn't etc. Honestly, unit cards are a waste of card stock. I don't remember any of them outside the core box having blank ones and the pre-written (they are the same as the box art units) ones probably won't have load outs you want to have anyways if there are choices to be made. Much better to use Kill Team Manager or Battlescribe to detail out your roster. Tactic Cards are also a nicety, especially starting out, as you can have then front and center when you are searching to get out a pickle or really capitalize on something. Again, not really needed though. It won't take too many games before you figure out which Tactics you like and which ones you don't. Most, not all, are in the Core and Elites books.

There seems to be a lot of misinformation concerning Kill Team out there. I still believe a player can easily get by on just having the core rule book most of the time if they want minimal investment. I really haven't seen Commanders take off as something a player can expect to find PUGs and should probably be setting up special games within their group. At very least, I wouldn't expect a new Kill Team player to be ready to play Commanders straight away as it feels like a "Getting bored of the vanilla game but want more? Try Commanders, today!" DLC. Elites is pretty much default to Kill Team. At the same time, not a lot of factions really gained anything unit wise that is absolutely needed to have a decent roster. Many times, the Elites unit additions are highly situational to not very good. The subfaction traits probably being the most critical, but a player can easily see what each subfaction trait they could pick from online and get a good idea which one they want to use if their opponent wants to make use of them. Right now, I am in a kinda tough spot as my Orks roster kinda depends on if we using subfaction traits or not. I have my Orks painted as Bad Moons so with the Elites trait, I kinda want to bring more ranged weapons, otherwise; I want to load up on choppa boyz. Not that the subfaction trait is going to make Orks shooting much better, but at least it wouldn't be quite as bad.

My crew picked up several sets of these tokens, which basically recreate the official paper ones in delicious acrylic:

https://art-of-war-studios-ltd.myshopify.com/collections/kill-team-compatible/products/kill-team-compatible-token-set

Bunch of us grabbed point trackers since we play almost exclusively progressive scored games:

https://art-of-war-studios-ltd.myshopify.com/collections/kill-team-compatible/products/kill-team-compatible-command-and-victory-point-tracker

Really solid price as well, extremely happy we went with them.

 Saturmorn Carvilli wrote:
Tactic Cards are also a nicety, especially starting out, as you can have then front and center when you are searching to get out a pickle or really capitalize on something. Again, not really needed though. It won't take too many games before you figure out which Tactics you like and which ones you don't. Most, not all, are in the Core and Elites books.

I'm still a little salty that GeeDub never made the cards widely available, but I've been able to get copies of most of teams' cards anyway ... and you know, I don't really use them all that much either. I do put them all out and definitely have a better chance of remembering corner case ones if I've got the cards, and I prefer to slap the card I'm using down if I've got it, but yea, as long as you find a proper list of what your team has available you'll be good. With so few CP on hand you're often prioritizing a small handful of them anyway.

Thanks for the help guys! All of it is much appreciated.

@Boss Salvage, where are you guys playing? Its not the shortest trip, but I need an excuse to come visit. :-)

We play (almost) every Monday night at Flipside in East Greenbush, and every few months on a weekend at my place. The geeks in charge of Flipside keep threatening to hold a one-day KT event some Saturday, I can try to keep you apprised of that if they pull the trigger.

And would be good to cross paths again, been a bit!

 Boss Salvage wrote:
We play (almost) every Monday night at Flipside in East Greenbush, and every few months on a weekend at my place. The geeks in charge of Flipside keep threatening to hold a one-day KT event some Saturday, I can try to keep you apprised of that if they pull the trigger.

Please do! Nikki and I miss you guys. :-)

 Saturmorn Carvilli wrote:

NewTruthNeomaxim wrote:
SI know Ash from GMG said tokens and unit cards are mandatory, but I don't see them for sale anywhere?

Well then Ash is wrong. Tokens are a nice so neither player has to remember anything, but I don't usually bother with teams made up of less than 6 or 7 units as it is pretty easy to remember what they did. At the same time, I always use tokens for teams bigger than ten units as it becomes incredibly easy to forget who Readied and who didn't etc. Honestly, unit cards are a waste of card stock. I don't remember any of them outside the core box having blank ones and the pre-written (they are the same as the box art units) ones probably won't have load outs you want to have anyways if there are choices to be made. Much better to use Kill Team Manager or Battlescribe to detail out your roster.

There are events where unit cards are mandatory (anything that uses the GW packet). Blank unit cards are in the starter, the card pack and a bunch of the team boxes.

You are also strongly encouraged to use tokens in many events - it's about making it clear to your opponent what the status of your team is, not just to help you remember.

 Scott-S6 wrote:

 Saturmorn Carvilli wrote:

NewTruthNeomaxim wrote:
SI know Ash from GMG said tokens and unit cards are mandatory, but I don't see them for sale anywhere?

Well then Ash is wrong. Tokens are a nice so neither player has to remember anything, but I don't usually bother with teams made up of less than 6 or 7 units as it is pretty easy to remember what they did. At the same time, I always use tokens for teams bigger than ten units as it becomes incredibly easy to forget who Readied and who didn't etc. Honestly, unit cards are a waste of card stock. I don't remember any of them outside the core box having blank ones and the pre-written (they are the same as the box art units) ones probably won't have load outs you want to have anyways if there are choices to be made. Much better to use Kill Team Manager or Battlescribe to detail out your roster.

There are events where unit cards are mandatory (anything that uses the GW packet). Blank unit cards are in the starter, the card pack and a bunch of the team boxes.

You are also strongly encouraged to use tokens in many events - it's about making it clear to your opponent what the status of your team is, not just to help you remember.

Lots of digital options out there too. I still use Kill Team manager to start my team out, then I transfer it to pdf and add in any elites. It works well enough.