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 Insane Smile wrote:
Any idea when the imperial guard will be done bacause that has me very excited.

I do apologise, but I appreciate the courtesy you asking so nicely for that which I owe you.

Situation is...IG testing has not been going well, in addition to the logistics of the Article.

(Apparently, it's become too big. Instead of splitting it up, I'm thinking of simplifying it.)

The short version is that, unfortunately, our IG testing has been very inconsistent.

Here's our current thinking. At the risk of reinforcing stereotypes, the IG's strength really does seem to lie with its "big guns". By that, I mean their tanks, their access to quite a few Special/Heavy Weapons in their Veteran Squads. The new ruling on no Vehicles over Armour Value 33 total hit them way too hard, even though I can see a Hellhound Squadron before the rule was uber. The problem is in their Infantry, which really is very squishy, and their Lasguns just don't seem to do enough damage against anything not as squishy as they are. With Infantry playing a much greater role in Kill Team, the IG suffered.

Then, we thought we found a solution, a real God Tier unit: the Psyker Battle Squad. Although they don't operate as a Psychic Choir in Kill Team, as individuals they can be awesome with Specialist USRs. We tried these S1 Soulstorm Large Blasts with Fleshbane, Sniper, Poison (5+). That wrecked me when I wasn't prepared, with my Ork Boyz all clumped up in a piece of cover; problem was, it only works once before your opponent, even a dumb one like, figures out that I can abandon cover, spread my Boyz out, as I really have nothing else to fear. Thus, this Psyker Battle Squad didn't work out, either.

However, I'll send you our WIP post on IG now, in its very rough stage.

I'll send you what we

I wish there was more of a demand for KT in my community. I play guard and I think I could possibly make them work but I don't really have anyone to test theories on.

Stormtroopers/Sentinels?

The STR and range of the hotshots isn't great, but the AP will come in handy. Sentinel for support and troopers for cleanup.

For guard I do like the idea of Veterans in a Chimera. Quite a compact force with lots of different potential loadouts.

Wouldn't Marbo shine in kill team as well?

I have had great success with Storm Troopers in my kill team games. True that they are hurting in range but being that their guns are AP3 and no models can have armor saves against them pretty much if it wounds it kills. Also giving one a Plasma Gun with Preferred Enemy is a great way to go. Running them with a squad of veterans with a Relentless lascannon squad also gives you some board control as well.

This may be obvious to everyone except me, but does the 'no 2+ saves' caveat apply to cover saves the unit may gain in the game?

If not, that seems like it would be open for some pretty broken unit combinations (Tau Steath suit with the Jink USR for a constant 2+ in open ground comes to mind).

Basically, are cover saves of 2+ illegal or is it assumed being able to give 'ignores cover' to a specialist is enough to deal with any shenanigans?

We had a great mini tourney of this at our club recently

Dark Eldar were very effective Trueblood and Scourges - with their Dark Vision and Ignore Cover/Prefered Enemy / Relentless with Dark Lances / Splinter Cannons. The Splinter cannon is especially nasty with the ability to split fire amongst all targets.............

My Sororitas performed well - tried Serphim and Celestins (they are just better than Battle Sisters in this game) although tempted by Dominions for multi-melta guns/flamers.

I am looking at running a funsies list at the store with Harker, Marbo and a squad of vets with two sniper rifles. Not super tough or anything, more for the fun of it really, plus weaknesses aside, they've got a nice theme going on, which is what we're really hoping to go for.

If you run Marbo you should check with the TO first since the Kill Team games I have played Marbo had to start on the board and couldn’t infiltrate or anything like that since Kill team is meant to be a skirmish game with the two groups just encountering each other. Hard to justify a single guardsmen with only 12inch range that’s taking up more than a 1/4th of your army cost.

Marbo starts on the board just like everybody else, no hidden shenanigans or anything like that.

I played 3 games using Necrons the other night, and they were pretty ridiculous.

Wraith with Particle Blaster and FNP
Deathmarks x5 (Ignore Cover)
Warriors x5 (Shrouded on Leader who just hid all the time)

The Wraith was pretty useless besides being a distraction for a small amount of shooting. These things are no better than standard Marines, I'm leaving them out for more Deathmarks next time.

Deathmarks, with Hunters from Hyperspace, are ridiculous. Seeing as all my opponents only had 1 Unit as their Kill Team, I was wiping Plague Marines and Dark Angels off the board pretty fast. I think my game vs the DA it took us longer to deploy.

I thought each figure was a unit so each Deathmark chooses a single model as its target?

Did you suffer much from Night fighting?

We had a good mix from 30 Orks to 5 Wraiths

All models are chosen as a unit, so that's the way we played it.

Fair enough although I took it this bit to mean every model was a unit?:

All models operate as individual units in this mission, even if they were chosen as part of a squad or squadron. (Note – this includes upgrades that are represented by models with their own stat-line eg Tau Drones or Fenrisian Wolves).

Also did not Night Fighting reduce the effectivness of the Deathmarks?

 Panzer1944 wrote:
If you run Marbo you should check with the TO first since the Kill Team games I have played Marbo had to start on the board and couldn’t infiltrate or anything like that since Kill team is meant to be a skirmish game with the two groups just encountering each other. Hard to justify a single guardsmen with only 12inch range that’s taking up more than a 1/4th of your army cost.

Oh, great. Now you've done it. He's behind you. Right now.
And for blowing his cover, he'll go many miles just to smash my face into the keynfyrtbefvwdcwwzqzwcrvffvdtynyumujmukmlopi.ip,ukm

 Dez wrote:
All models are chosen as a unit, so that's the way we played it.

I've read an FAQ on this somewhere, and this is not quite right.

Each Deathmark should nominate one model to be marked, however any deathmark gains the benefits of shooting that model, not just the one that nominated it.
Overall this would work out similar to marking whole squads of smaller units, but would be less effective vs armies like orks.

I tried asking this elsewhere but got crickets. I need some help building a decent kill team with the CSM codex. So far I've figured out that bikers are great, MoN is great and that getting leadership trait rolls is awesome, lol. So I dunno, any tips for CSM Kill Teams? And more than just "plasma weapons wound on 2" please... if we can.

Also, anyone wanting to field a nice Kill Team for the Space Wolves should look at the Wolf Scouts and Blood Claws. They make a great combo on the field and make a lot of sense fluff-wise too.

If you are playing for fluff sure. But Claws and Scouts are obviously inferior in almost every way to greyhunters.

As far as chaos go, bikes are probably one of the best choices, Spawn might be fun too.

 Big Blind Bill wrote:
If you are playing for fluff sure. But Claws and Scouts are obviously inferior in almost every way to greyhunters.

As far as chaos go, bikes are probably one of the best choices, Spawn might be fun too.

Tell that to the kill team score sheet! Lol, serously though I'm hoping my SW pal doesn't realize GH cost the same as his BC...

I have been having luck with this list for CSM KT

1 Vanilla Rhino
5 CSM, w/ plasma gun, champ w. combi-bolter
4 Vanilla bikes

Works out okay, usually give plasguy FNP to help with the gets hot, the squad leader is my KT Leader and then usually the bikes get the other two specs.

I prefer 'preferred enemy' on my plasma guns, the re-roll misses of 1's covers the overheat, and the str 7 of the plasma gun means normally only a roll of a 1 will not wound...which can be re-rolled.
Of course FNP is better for adding survivability in general however.

I used to have a kill team of six purifiers with two psycannons and a hammer. Shame that they took "daemon" out of the specialist rules, I used to give that to the hammer guy and give preferred enemy and another shooting USR to the psycannons.

Hi guys, I wanted to quickly respond. Had a long day of gaming, exhausted, not at my best, sorry.

But I read your posts over the course of the day between games.

DISCLAIMER - I feel like I have the unfortunate task of shooting down some real good ideas. That's not my intent. Here, I'm just raising RAW interpretations that your opponent or your KT organizer would mention. Ultimately, I'm just an experience congregator, pls don't shoot the messenger.

--- White Scars Attack Bike ---

White Scars with Shrouded is great, I think I'll upgrade it after discussing with my KT Kommunity. There's 2 limitations that we noticed. I still really like the White Scars with Shrouded, but:

1. Points-wise, we'd rather get 2 Marines w/ Heavy Bolters, which you can fit in a KT. With 36 inch range, we rather put them in a tower and not move them. Another alternative is, for a little more than the Specialist Assault Bike, I'd take a Specialist Landspeeder with Double Heavy Bolters and it just overwhelms with sheer dakka. That really annoyed me when I last faced it. This one is a little bit more personal preference.

2. It cannot be the KT Leader as previously suggested, because the KT Leader always has to be a character model if available, and under the KT FOC you must take something, and all other options has a Sergeant. Even if you don't want to make him the Leader, you're locked in by RAW. Unless you only take the Attack Bike Squadron and leave around 50 points unspent. But I pointed out an exception to allow for this idea! If you take a Crusader Squad, it doesn't come with a Sergeant! But then, you're locked in to the Black Templars rule, and can't use that cool White Scars + Shrouded combo you mentioned.

The person who ran the Attack Bike was maybe biased because he's very point cost-sensitive and saw those things, but conceded Shrouded was good. I'm going to upgrade the rating.

--- Storm Troopers ---

Very quickly, we agree they're hotshot guns are good against MEQs' power armour. However, they are also more expensive than any MEQ now, with all the new MEQ codices except Grey Knights and things like Plague Marines. I think the last time we fought this I was deliberately playing Imperial Fist CT Marines and I just played defensively in cover, killed enough people to easily force a Break Test. IF I did NOT play defensively (I.e. very cowardly) I might have lost that bloody. It was the fact that despite being AP3, they were still S3 guns. Remember you can't Deep Strike in KT, otherwise I could see the point of sneaking behind Marines or something to neglect covers (yes, you can give 1 dude Ignore Cover, but 1 dude), that'd be really great.

--- Chimera ---

Yeah, this is great. It's one of the heaviest armoured things you can bring to a KT, has lots of dakka already included. And it has 5 Fire Points!

Now, there's a nuance, it's that when figures are inside the Chimera, from those 5 Fire Points, they can only shoot at 1 target. I used to think it was they can split fire to 5 different things. This applies to all vehicles, but we really noticed it with the Chimera. From the KT RAW:

Transports: You may transport all members of a squad in a dedicated
transport. Straight after they disembark, they become individual units,
as per Every Man for Himself.

Your ability to split fire, even from the same gun like a Heavy Bolter, comes from the Every Man for Himself rule of KT where every model operates as a unit. For some reason, perhaps because it was abused before, when in a vehicle the models count as a squad again. So our initial idea was that you put your Heavy Weapon or Special Weapons all in a Chimera and do a drive-by, and you can, but only at 1 model a turn. It still has a use, like you put your Heavy or Special Weapon guys out in the open and have just your 5 lasgun guys in the Chimera, but I kinda felt bummed up when I learned of the RAW interpretation. We actually made this mistake ourselves before, we just felt it intuitive in KT, if you got 2 Fire Points, you can shoot 2 different targets, I mean come on.

Nonetheless, all of us agree, it's still HIGHLY COMPETITIVE, mainly because it really adds some much needed durability to IG.

--- Marbo ---

This was the thing that personally upset me because, like you, I'd love for him to succeed in KT; it seems what he's designed for. He causes a lot of argument, because there's no Reserves in KT, but he supposed can do the Look Behind You even in missions that don't allow this. It's like the real fight is in the Rules Lawyering, rather than just playing.

Beyond that, he's the cost of almost a full Veteran Squad. He still is awesome with his insane gun and knife, he might actually be worth it to take out the enemy's Heavy Weapons or Leader, if we successfully argue he could use the Look Behind You rule. But he's going to be purely a kamikaze unit, and he's really expensive for a KT.

We're not ready to disregard! I just want a cooling down period before another big fight with my friends that's not on the battlefield.

--- 2+ Shenanigans like with Tau Stealth Suits ---

We haven't faced Tau yet, surprisingly few Tau players in our FLGS, and we couldn't get an experience Tau player in our little experiments. Now, I'm the strictest guy on RAW, but even I think this is okay. Just remember, a lot of people take the Ignore Cover save on some Heavy Weapon. But that's still a pretty cool idea. In previous editions, there wasn't this 2+ save restriction and I had to face Terminators and Meganobs and it really hurts, but I can still deal with them by being a total Blood Axe.

Thanks for that idea, I still that's really cool. Srsly, sometimes these experiments are an excuse for me to buy just 1 cool unit from a Codex I never want a full army, I think I'll try this soon.

But there's 1 thing even worse, in another top-rated Codex...

--- Necrons (Deathmarks, Wraiths, then their AV33+ rule breaking vehicle) ---

There's another instance of shenanigans with I think the Necron Ghost Ark. It's legal because it's technically 11 AV each side, 33 total AV exactly, at the very threshold for a KT. Then they have that Quantum Shielding thing that gives them effective 2 more AV each side. Still not invincible, and quite pricey, but that's an even bigger exploit...and IMHO it's very legal, your opponent or KT organiser'd be a total bastich to disallow this.

Each Death Mark chooses a single model as its target, yes. Yes, that's really good. I was confused about this before, but yeah, you basically mark individual models.

And thanks for the feedback with Wraiths, honestly, this unit is fascinating to us. We haven't played with/against this yet.

We got the impression that Death Marks and Ghost Arks are so OP in a KT. Thanks for sharing that experience with Necrons. I really want to do Ghost Piratey Necron conversions.

--- Dark Eldar & Adeptus Soritas ---

Dark Eldar usually perform well. I'm given to understand they're just great against Infantry and KT's simply very Infantry based.

One of us has the Soritas Codex, the new one, we just haven't gotten around to it yet, so thanks for this feedback!

--- Night Fighting ---

Yeah, we found Night Fighting to have a bigger impact than in a normal game, too, because you can deploy so close to the objective.

I believe you're asking because you noticed that too, yeah? Yeah, something like Orks just rushing at the objective, they'll get there in 1 turn, without worrying about being gunned down by them Snipers and Heavy Weapon guys your opponents usually hide way in the back. We usually have the objective in cover, so once something gets there, they're really hard to uproot.

--- Chaos Space Marines ---

We had all sorts of ideas for CSM, then we saw the new 6th ed Space Marines. We had a huge rethink.

1 of my 1st games with CSMs, but haven't played this much since early on, needs more testing.

It came down to this, what can you do with CSM, that's better than their Loyalist counter-parts?

Sonic Blaster Marines - they can ignore cover, but taking that Sonic Blaster upgrade makes them the same price as Sternguard, whose Special Ammo allows them to ignore cover and other options, so not worth it now. Sure, you can take some cool Heavy Weapons with them, but the Sternguard can too and augment them with the Ignore Cover. Net-net, I'd go for Sternguard in comparison.

Chaos Terminators - they come in cheaper, so unlike with their Loyalists where a KT used up all the points, you can mix and match with some other Troops. Awesome...but now they're banned because of their 2+ saves.

Chaos Spawn - really awesome, these were a game breaking unit, but now they're banned too because of their W3. Really miffed about that.

Cultists - you can mix some cheap troops with some MEQs in this Codex (remember, no Allies in KT), but we don't think they're worth it.

MoN - yes, it came down to this, and even then, their T5 (or T6 on Bikes) are not completely negated because everyone is taking a Fleshbane Specialist, then maybe Sniper Specialists, or just Snipers which are really prevalent in KT because of their 36 inch range. So even though I had success with things like Plague Marines before, I'm not going to field them anymore. I would instead maybe try 11 CSM w/ MoN and a Relentless Autocannon to shoot the enemy's Fleshbane Specialist, then win a war of attrition against other MEQs.

I'm planning a 1,000 pt Plague Marine army (Chaos Lord w/ MoN), so it pains me to say, for KT, I'd go for Loyalst SM instead of CSM at the moment.

--- Next Steps ---

I'm just going to shorten the Article. I'm going to have a section on just the most common USRs because I'm always seeing the same few ones now, shorten the unit entries. Thanks for this continued feedback, this has always been a consolidation of experiences, yours and ours.

Great feedback!

Concerning the article itself, have you though of having several articles? You could have an overarching general Kill Teams strategy, then a linked article to each Army based one. It's too bad there is a restriction on the article size.

My gaming group has been playing a lot of Kill Teams lately, we're planning on more this Tuesday. I'll try something different this week and report back. Perhaps something like:

Iron Hands:

Land Speeder
-Heavy Bolter
-Assault Cannon

Land Speeder
-Heavy Bolter
-Heavy Bolter

Scouts
-Sniper Rifle x4

I'll take some pictures too, my buddy has some killer Dwarven Forge terrain.

Hi again!

I was thinking about it, and the Space Marines have already been done. What do you all think about Nids or Daemons? How do you think Horrors would work?

I'm thinking (at least until Horrors are clarified):

5 Screamers
3 Flamers

While that isn't a lot of models, it is 16 wounds. Screamers jetbike all over the board (and Slash Attack) and are Str 5 AP2 Armourbane. Flamers are Jump infantry, and all have Flamers. Granted they could be giving away +1 to FNP saves, it may be worth it for the Wall of Flame and ignores cover. On the flip side, if they fail the T test whatever I shot is dead.

So they are fast and will control most of the board, even able to hide out of LoS while doing damage, and fairly killy. Low model count, but still 16 wounds. I'd take 3 more Screamers if I had them built.

For Nids, I'd try Hormagaunt spam:

30 with no upgrades, and just giggle. 20 points leftover.
25 with Adrenal Glands. Normally Toxin Sacs would be better, but if there is a vehicle there is nothing I can do.

I can also try out some IG shenanigans, but no Chimera due to board restrictions (Dwarven Forge!)

IG Platoon:

PCS:
Sniper x4

ICS:
Autocannon
Plasmagun

ICS:
Autocannon
Plasmagun

I'm not sure if that's broken, but it sure is a lot of models and firepower on the table. Autocannons are good if they bring armor, but kinda meh otherwise besides wounding on 2's. Sniper rifles I've found are the Bees Knees. Having 25 models on the board is cute. Who doesn't love Plasma? Grunts that roll 1's, that's who Preferred Enemy and FNP should help.

Daemons are very difficult to use in kill teams imo. The biggest reason is that kill teams does not favour melee combat (even less so than 6th edition). The lack of shooting abilities of most units really hurts them.
Furthermore they usually rely on grimoire or psychic powers to buff them...which do not work on the single model squads.

Trying to use horrors in killteams is opening a can of worms. They are either the most overpowered team, or the weakest.
It all hinges on the question, does each model generate and use its own psychic powers?
If so then a horror team (22 horrors for 198 points), could potentially put out 44D6 str 5 shots per turn. (Average of 154).
If they are not allowed to do this, then they are down to a really sub par shooting phase, where the whole team would only get the 2-4D6 shots shared between them.

Flamers might work, but imo the only list that would be ok is this:

Fast Attack
12 x Flesh Hounds

...Boring, but perhaps the only viable build?

Plague drones might work, but you could only get 4 per list, which is not putting many models on the board.

Played against Tau twice this weekend, the guy brought two different teams, playing against my Guard and a full Sternguard squad.

First time: Four suits, one with two plasma rifles, two with a plasma rifle and flamer, the last one with a cyclic ion blaster and airburster.

Second time round: Six stealth suits, leader with fusion blaster and markerlight.

The first list was deemed too OP by the owner and he swapped it for the second one, which worked a lot better for both parties, when he faced the Sternguard again.

 BrookM wrote:
Played against Tau twice this weekend, the guy brought two different teams, playing against my Guard and a full Sternguard squad.

First time: Four suits, one with two plasma rifles, two with a plasma rifle and flamer, the last one with a cyclic ion blaster and airburster.

Second time round: Six stealth suits, leader with fusion blaster and markerlight.

The first list was deemed too OP by the owner and he swapped it for the second one, which worked a lot better for both parties, when he faced the Sternguard again.

How is 4 suits op? Seems like a win hard lose hard list to me, although I guess it depends on how much terrain there is to JSJ behind.

I suppose some people do not bring str 8 weapons now that heavy vehicles have been removes, but ID'ing T4 models is still viable.

Hi Dez,

Some great points, I'm weighing options on how to best organize the Article.

Re: Land Speeders, they really are great, I had the displeasure of facing them, as IG. Y'know, I might take your idea, but I'll take 2 Land Speeders w/ Heavy Bolters and a Tac Squad w/ another Heavy Bolter.

I didn't want to recommend Land Speeders initially because they're quite expensive, but after facing them, holy cow. It's the fact that you can assign 1 Specialist USR to benefit 2 Heavy Bolters on this Alpha Strike unit.

Re: Daemons, we haven't done this yet, but in our planning (before we play, we try to get the right models, proxies get irritating after a bit), we had the same exact thoughts as you on Screamers and Flamers.

But I'm with Bill, if there is something I'd field in Daemons, it's Flesh Hounds. Yes, it's limited by melee (not only is it the 6th ed limitations, but also it limits your strategic options), but it is 12 models, and with 2 Wounds each.

Re: Tyranids, I'm not the Tyranid player, but my closest collaborator is, and he mentioned the thing about Synapses and the Hivemind and how normal units go into some instinctive behavior outside your control. Not many Tyranid players in our local meta, so you probably know better than I do, pls just keep it in mind.

Re: IG. I agree, Snipers from any army always seem to do great in KT. It's the rest of the guys I'm worried about. The more I play, the more I realize it's not just the number of models, it's the number of T4 models like MEQs and Orks. T3 S3 (melee and ranged) have really been decimated, playing as and against them.

So imagine this team playing against your awesome Double Landspeeder one, and you'll see why I'm so skeptical on IG now. If I was your Double Landspeeder team, I basically see only 8 models: your 2 Autocannons, your 2 Plasma Guns, then your 4 Snipers. I take out those 4 Heavy Weapons, I own the board. So pls be careful.

Hi Brook,

I like your opponent's sportsmanship. I do exactly the same thing; after taking so many experiences from many people on KT, I deliberately gimp myself, just to encourage people to play against me and try new things.

I can see how 4 Crisis Suits are really good. There's plenty of cover to go around in KT and, with the way most Codices buy Heavy Weapons, the Crisis Suits can probably wipe out the only real threats to them once they jump out of cover, then spend the rest of the game kiting. That said, I'm more afraid of a mix of this and Fire Warriors then pure Crisis Suits. I know I'll face this sort of thing soon enough, and I can't outgun them, but I can play to the mission and hug the objective, that's probably the best...perhaps only...counter.

Excellent counter points and suggestions!

I don't have any Flesh Hounds, but perhaps I can 'counts as' my WoC hounds instead. I only have 10 of them, but they are rather cheap if I recall. I'll mull that over. I'm also thinking about the close confines of the boards we are playing on, with hallways and stuff (think Space Hulk). Screamers will pass over units and take a corner out of sight, doing D3 S4 hits. This gives hit and run new meaning!

The T3 is a valid concern, but I've found that cover is your greatest asset. I can lose a few to Ignores Cover and that's fine. You could really benefit from Forward Sentries on Vets.

Instinctive Behavior gives the Hormagaunts the Rage rule. So they get +2 attacks for being out of Synapse. I'll take that as a free boost! So for Hormagaunts:

Positives:
-5 Attacks on the charge, 4 each turn after at I5
-Reroll 1's to hit
-Fleet
-Move through Cover
-Roll 3 dice to run, pick highest
-Cheap, you can take a lot of them!
-At 2 points per model per rule, you can give them Furious Charge and/or Poison 4+

Negatives:
-WS 3
-T3
-6+ save
-LD 6

Taken en masse, may not be so bad with Adrenal Glands (Furious Charge) Potentially could surround and catch those Land Speeders and glance them to death. Then again, it would only take 3 good turns for the Land Speeders to force Break Tests.