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I'm working on a list for a Cadian Kill Team and I'm looking for 2nd opinions. I'm most likely to be fighting Tyranids, Tau and Chaos, in a 4-player match (Tau player may swap out for Necrons after I destroyed him with Skitarii). It immediately dawned on me that my men might be horribly out-gunned, but without access to any real heavy weapons this seems pretty solid.
1. Veteran Sarge
- Camo Gear
- Boltgun
- Red-Dot Laser
- 1 Ammo Reload

2. Veteran
- Camo Gear
- Lasgun

3. Veteran
- Camo Gear
- Lasgun

4. Veteran
- Camo Gear
- Lasgun

5. Veteran
- Camo Gear
- Shotgun
- Ammo Reload
- Red Dot Laser
- Lasgun

6. Specialist
- Camo Gear
- 1 Ammo reload
- Plasma Gun

7. Specialist
- Camo Gear
- Red Dot Laser
- Sniper Rifle
- Toxin Ammo
- 2 Ammo Reloads

Ig are currently one of the weakest teams at the end game. And you need to focus on rushing to 15 promethium asap. What advantages you have: 3 specialist gunners with bs4 and good weapon choices for them.

I'd start with no gear for your leader at all - he's going to spend his time hiding and giving re-rolls of 1-s to shooting.

Start with 3 specialists from the get go. If you know who your enemies will be, take 3 fitting weapons, if not, take 2 plazmas (always useful) and a lazgun that you would be able to trade to your other fighter. If the enemies are mellee-oriented and are likely to hide out of los until they get to charge, take a heavy flamer, if it's a shooty horde like orks or genestealer cult, a grenade launcher with frag is ok. If it's something like csm or scouts, i'd just take the 3-d plazma.

Try to reach 9 team members from the get go. It means nothing other than a basic gun or even a knife for your troops. 9 is a vital number cause your ld is quite bad and you will loose fighters very easilly due to low toughness and meh armor. So, you need 9 to be able to withstand 2 casualties before starting to take bottle tests.

Be very careful with your gunners. They're basically the only ones who are going to kill anything. Lasguns and shotguns can still be used though, but it's to help your important special weapon dudes.

It's a good idea to promote your specialists first. Fish for wounds, ini, bs. If you get skills, i'd probably roll on guerilla first and than go for stealth. Shooting can be great if you get the re-roll for ammo tests or to-hit throws. Crack shot is fine too. But it has a potential of getting useless (for your specialists) fast-shot, pistol thing and not very useful hip shooting. It's also a gamble to roll on ferocity for your leader to fish for ld re-roll. Ld is going to be your worst enemy.

Utilise hiding to get into position and not get shot to bits. You need to be the one performing an alpha-strike with your special weapons. Get red dots asap. They help a lot. And don't forget that yo ucan set your dudes to overwatch. If you're facing a team like csm or scouts that will be able to avoid pinning easilly, use your lazgunners with red dots to overwatch them. They can't get up the same turn they get pinned, so you can still shut down a couple enemy fighters with lazguns while plazmas do the killing job.

Perhaps I should field a Skitarii Kill-team?

Skiitari are quite powerful with potent long-ranged shooting. Nothing else of note.

I used them in my test game against a Tau team and pretty much won both games decisively. I was considering the guard for a more leveled playing field, but if they're barely viable for a longer game, I dunno if it's worthwhile.

The thing is that they force you to rush. It's just a change of strategy. You can power up your team faster than your enemy. But your max is worse than your enemy's max.

 koooaei wrote:
Ig are currently one of the weakest teams at the end game. And you need to focus on rushing to 15 promethium asap. What advantages you have: 3 specialist gunners with bs4 and good weapon choices for them.

I'd start with no gear for your leader at all - he's going to spend his time hiding and giving re-rolls of 1-s to shooting.

Start with 3 specialists from the get go. If you know who your enemies will be, take 3 fitting weapons, if not, take 2 plazmas (always useful) and a lazgun that you would be able to trade to your other fighter. If the enemies are mellee-oriented and are likely to hide out of los until they get to charge, take a heavy flamer, if it's a shooty horde like orks or genestealer cult, a grenade launcher with frag is ok. If it's something like csm or scouts, i'd just take the 3-d plazma.

Try to reach 9 team members from the get go. It means nothing other than a basic gun or even a knife for your troops. 9 is a vital number cause your ld is quite bad and you will loose fighters very easilly due to low toughness and meh armor. So, you need 9 to be able to withstand 2 casualties before starting to take bottle tests.

Be very careful with your gunners. They're basically the only ones who are going to kill anything. Lasguns and shotguns can still be used though, but it's to help your important special weapon dudes.

It's a good idea to promote your specialists first. Fish for wounds, ini, bs. If you get skills, i'd probably roll on guerilla first and than go for stealth. Shooting can be great if you get the re-roll for ammo tests or to-hit throws. Crack shot is fine too. But it has a potential of getting useless (for your specialists) fast-shot, pistol thing and not very useful hip shooting. It's also a gamble to roll on ferocity for your leader to fish for ld re-roll. Ld is going to be your worst enemy.

Utilise hiding to get into position and not get shot to bits. You need to be the one performing an alpha-strike with your special weapons. Get red dots asap. They help a lot. And don't forget that yo ucan set your dudes to overwatch. If you're facing a team like csm or scouts that will be able to avoid pinning easilly, use your lazgunners with red dots to overwatch them. They can't get up the same turn they get pinned, so you can still shut down a couple enemy fighters with lazguns while plazmas do the killing job.

This is very informative, I'm also building an IG list... so let me ask you this, wouldn't it be better to start with an 8man team buffed out, then first chance add another body, and build up from there?

Is it worth cutting down men for a plasma gunner?

I'm certainly no experienced SWA player... but I think you should definitely take 3 specialists, as for cutting down men, you only have 7, I'd say more cutting down gear to add another specialist.

You also have Ammo Reload on guys with Lasgun's (which are already extremely reliable) and he isn't going to contribute nearly as much anyway, and the 2 weapons as well, if one does fail an ammo you can just use the other weapon; but still - I'd probably drop both the 2nd weapon and the Ammo reload on him.

Your serg seems pretty heavy on cost too.

Can you even use 2 Ammo reloads (on the sniper)?

It does indeed seem like you cannot take more than one reload (rip). The reload on the veteran was intended to be used for his shotgun, I was intending for him to using the lasgun until he would be able to close the distance and swap out for his shotgun.

1. Veteran Sergeant - 180
Camo gear
Boltgun
Red-dot Laser Sight

2. Special Weapons Operative - 170
Sniper rifle
Toxic rounds
Weapon reload
Red-dot laser sight

3. Special Weapons Operative - 215
Plasma gun
Weapon reload
Red-dot laser sight
Camo gear

4. Special Weapons Operative - 215
Camo gear
Plasma gun
Weapon reload
Red-dot laser sight

5. Veteran Guardsman - 135
Lasgun
Shotgun
Weapon reload
Red-dot laser sight

6. Veteran Guardsman -85
Lasgun

Grenade Launcher > Plasma Gun

28" range with a Str6 AP -3 for Armoured duders (I.e. CSM) and Large Blast for weaker stuff

weapon reloads are a waste of points.. Bodies > Gear

GodDamUser wrote:
Grenade Launcher > Plasma Gun

28" range with a Str6 AP -3 for Armoured duders (I.e. CSM) and Large Blast for weaker stuff

weapon reloads are a waste of points.. Bodies > Gear

That's arguable because plazma can have sights to increase it's range to 30 and it's sustained fire with s7. S7 allows to pin terminators, harlequins and tyranids. It also takes enemy fighters out of action on a 5-6 instead of just 6. And taking the opponent out of action is very important to slow their progress down with injury rolls. -2 armor modifier is ok. What's more important though is that you can fit a red dot to your plasma which is a cheap way of adding +1 bs. As for grenades, you can purchase them later on for basically any fighter. Sure, the range will be 9+movement but it's still good enough whereas you can't get plasmas for everyone.

Weapon reloads are great for plasmas as they have high ammo rolls and reasonable cost but i'd rather start with more plasmas at start than with one more reliable plasma. The earlier you force bottle tests - the better. It can even be a good idea to perform an alpha-strike, down just enough to bring them down to 75% and than crawl around hiding again. This means that unless your opponent has ld10 or re-rollable ld, it's going to be tempting for him to just rush you to even the odds. And if he does it, you can strike again. That's ig's tactics for easiest victories in kill-team mission. Note, however, that easiest doesn't mean best and you'll need to participate in bloody mellee from time to time anywayz.

Of course, other missions require a tweak in this tactics. If the mission is loot based, you're better off setting killzones near loot markers that are important for your opponent to capture. But never just run in the open vs shooty opponents. IG are extremely squishy and low ld means that you can fail a lot of break tests and loose momentum. And bottle tests are just dangerous with ld8.

 Gunzhard wrote:

This is very informative, I'm also building an IG list... so let me ask you this, wouldn't it be better to start with an 8man team buffed out, then first chance add another body, and build up from there?

Comes to personal preference. I'd rather take 2 naked bodies at start rather than one kitted out fighter with a lazgun. Naked fighters are useful too. Here's my logic:
- To inflict maximum damage to the opponent's killteam and to increase your chances for the next missions you need to take his fighters out of action to force injury rolls
- Shooting only puts someone out of action on a 6 or 5-6 for high impact weapons like plazmas. But if the opponent's fighter is down at the end of the game, he will just be ok and won't roll on damage table
- Lazguns are quite unlikely to take someone out of action or even inflict damage to someone other than an unarmored fighter
- You automatically take downed fighters out of action in mellee

Thus, i prefer more fighters at start that can do other jobs like running around with a knife and taking wounded fighters out of action, eat bullets instead of your more important fighters, bring up the numbers to start rolling for bottle tests later instead of earlier. And they're the ones more likely to get out of action themselves. No matter what you do, there will be blood. And it's better be blood of those who you haven't spent much resources on.

 koooaei wrote:

 Gunzhard wrote:

This is very informative, I'm also building an IG list... so let me ask you this, wouldn't it be better to start with an 8man team buffed out, then first chance add another body, and build up from there?

Comes to personal preference. I'd rather take 2 naked bodies at start rather than one kitted out fighter with a lazgun. Naked fighters are useful too. Here's my logic:
- To inflict maximum damage to the opponent's killteam and to increase your chances for the next missions you need to take his fighters out of action to force injury rolls
- Shooting only puts someone out of action on a 6 or 5-6 for high impact weapons like plazmas. But if the opponent's fighter is down at the end of the game, he will just be ok and won't roll on damage table
- Lazguns are quite unlikely to take someone out of action or even inflict damage to someone other than an unarmored fighter
- You automatically take downed fighters out of action in mellee

Thus, i prefer more fighters at start that can do other jobs like running around with a knife and taking wounded fighters out of action, eat bullets instead of your more important fighters, bring up the numbers to start rolling for bottle tests later instead of earlier. And they're the ones more likely to get out of action themselves. No matter what you do, there will be blood. And it's better be blood of those who you haven't spent much resources on.

I love your knife cleanup idea gotta say... but just to clarify, in the campaign when you get to the Resupply step. Do you get 100 points to spend on Recruits and another 100 to spend on Rearming? ...or is it just 100 total that you have to choose where to spend? If the former, wouldn't you be loosing out on that 100points for Recruits in subsequent rounds when you already have 10 guys? This is primarily why I was thinking it would be better to beef up gear with less guys to start - but then of course you do need to win as well haha... I dunno, thoughts?

 Gunzhard wrote:

 koooaei wrote:

 Gunzhard wrote:

This is very informative, I'm also building an IG list... so let me ask you this, wouldn't it be better to start with an 8man team buffed out, then first chance add another body, and build up from there?

Comes to personal preference. I'd rather take 2 naked bodies at start rather than one kitted out fighter with a lazgun. Naked fighters are useful too. Here's my logic:
- To inflict maximum damage to the opponent's killteam and to increase your chances for the next missions you need to take his fighters out of action to force injury rolls
- Shooting only puts someone out of action on a 6 or 5-6 for high impact weapons like plazmas. But if the opponent's fighter is down at the end of the game, he will just be ok and won't roll on damage table
- Lazguns are quite unlikely to take someone out of action or even inflict damage to someone other than an unarmored fighter
- You automatically take downed fighters out of action in mellee

Thus, i prefer more fighters at start that can do other jobs like running around with a knife and taking wounded fighters out of action, eat bullets instead of your more important fighters, bring up the numbers to start rolling for bottle tests later instead of earlier. And they're the ones more likely to get out of action themselves. No matter what you do, there will be blood. And it's better be blood of those who you haven't spent much resources on.

I love your knife cleanup idea gotta say... but just to clarify, in the campaign when you get to the Resupply step. Do you get 100 points to spend on Recruits and another 100 to spend on Rearming? ...or is it just 100 total that you have to choose where to spend? If the former, wouldn't you be loosing out on that 100points for Recruits in subsequent rounds when you already have 10 guys? This is primarily why I was thinking it would be better to beef up gear with less guys to start - but then of course you do need to win as well haha... I dunno, thoughts?

You have 100 pts to spend on new fighters, and another 100 that can be spent on equipment. You can spend a single promethium cache to add an additional 100 pts to either your recruiting or rearming.

If i got it right, it's either recruit or resupply.

 koooaei wrote:
If i got it right, it's either recruit or resupply.

Oh crap, no, koooaei has it right. Someone just pointed it out to me, it says in the Resupply section:

If your leader was not slain, you can choose one of the following actions:

At the moment, our campaign is four games in (I've missed one), and I've won three, against Tau, other Guard and Scouts. No camo cloaks, no gunsights, my leader has a boltgun and carapace armour and my three specialists have a frag grenade launcher, a flamer and a plasma gun. Of those, the flamer has been most useful. Unfortunately despite three wins I've only got three Promethium caches (2 from game 1, 1 from game 2 and none from game 3 - rolled a 1 on the D3 and then lost it because the Scouts destroyed the entrance in The Raid).

I've now pretty much maxed out the equipment on my models (apart from upgrading all the Combat Blades to Assault Blades - the Catachans' machetes are pretty huge, so they could be either and buying a couple more troopers frag grenades). We'll see how it goes in the next couple of games.

I played against Tau with a Skitarii kill-team, from that experience I found that the ranged advantage from the Galvanics and Arquebus Swings it heavily in my favor. Tau weapons hit hard and I'd rather not be in their firing lines.

That being said they're some of the worst shooters around.