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brumbaer wrote:
If you‘d increase the points limit to 200 pts, many teams would have to take a Elite choice to be competitive.
Because with 100 pts many fractions will already have reached their limit regarding specialisms and special/heavy weapons and „better“ models. The additional 100 points could only be spent on base troopers. Another 20 Guardsmen, yeah.

Pretty much all of my Kill-Team games since Commanders have been 200 point games, even the skirmishes. A good chunk of factions have a Commander unit over 100 points.

brumbaer wrote:
If you‘d increase the points limit to 200 pts, many teams would have to take a Elite choice to be competitive.
Because with 100 pts many fractions will already have reached their limit regarding specialisms and special/heavy weapons and „better“ models. The additional 100 points could only be spent on base troopers. Another 20 Guardsmen, yeah.

Could also do Scion spam with the extra points. Not saying it's a good idea, but it would be an option.

brumbaer wrote:
If you‘d increase the points limit to 200 pts, many teams would have to take a Elite choice to be competitive.
Because with 100 pts many fractions will already have reached their limit regarding specialisms and special/heavy weapons and „better“ models. The additional 100 points could only be spent on base troopers. Another 20 Guardsmen, yeah.

If, as has been implied, elites is an add on for commanders then it actually helps Guard dramatically because they have exactly that problem in commander.

I really hope the new Vanguard Infiltrators for Space Marines aren't Elites. Eliminators, and Supressors if they are included as well, should be Elites for sure, but I want to be able to make an Infiltrator Kill Team without too many restrictions!

Since we already have (by 40k terminology) many "Elites" in Kill Team (as well as a couple of "Fast Attack", and even a "Heavy Support"), it would be wise if the Elites expansion contained more options that could be fit into existing armies, or be used solely as them. Maybe more expensive, such as the Lictor or Tau Stealth Suits already are, but no more restrictive.

After all, if we're only allowed one Elite per team, how are the Custodes going to work? Better to make them limited by cost (aka a 4-lictor kill team) than impose a limit akin to "one commander per team".

alleus wrote:I really hope the new Vanguard Infiltrators for Space Marines aren't Elites. Eliminators, and Supressors if they are included as well, should be Elites for sure, but I want to be able to make an Infiltrator Kill Team without too many restrictions!

It would seem a bit odd for the space marine infiltration specialists to not be available as a base unit. It'd be like not having access to scouts.

Granted, for all we know this will just be a straight-up addition to the base rules, rather than something a little more optional (like commanders). The increased points level would be a sticking point, though, as you're not fitting many custodes in 100pts (unless they drop the basic grunts to 33 each, which isn't outside the realm of possibility considering the wargear reductions in KT).

hvg3akaek wrote:Since we already have (by 40k terminology) many "Elites" in Kill Team (as well as a couple of "Fast Attack", and even a "Heavy Support"), it would be wise if the Elites expansion contained more options that could be fit into existing armies, or be used solely as them. Maybe more expensive, such as the Lictor or Tau Stealth Suits already are, but no more restrictive.

After all, if we're only allowed one Elite per team, how are the Custodes going to work? Better to make them limited by cost (aka a 4-lictor kill team) than impose a limit akin to "one commander per team".

They've shown off KT-branded boxed teams of Flash Gitz and Scarab Occult Terminators, so it's definitely possible to field a whole team of "Elites".

hvg3akaek wrote:
After all, if we're only allowed one Elite per team, how are the Custodes going to work? Better to make them limited by cost (aka a 4-lictor kill team) than impose a limit akin to "one commander per team".

There's never been any suggestion of a one per team limit, quite the opposite.

I suspect we'll see elites only allowed in commander games (which are 200pts).

"It would seem a bit odd for the space marine infiltration specialists to not be available as a base unit. It'd be like not having access to scouts."
Like not having Striking Scorpions? Or Mandrakes?

Scott-S6 wrote:

hvg3akaek wrote:
After all, if we're only allowed one Elite per team, how are the Custodes going to work? Better to make them limited by cost (aka a 4-lictor kill team) than impose a limit akin to "one commander per team".

There's never been any suggestion of a one per team limit, quite the opposite.

I suspect we'll see elites only allowed in commander games (which are 200pts).

I doubt it'll be tied to commanders at all (no reason you couldn't use both at the same time, of course), but an increase in the game size seems pretty plausible. Five custodes (a previewed kt) at 150 or 200 points seems about right, assuming they end up at 30-40 points apiece with gear.

Bharring wrote:"It would seem a bit odd for the space marine infiltration specialists to not be available as a base unit. It'd be like not having access to scouts."
Like not having Striking Scorpions? Or Mandrakes?

Not having an old, resin elite choice isn't the same as not having a plastic troop choice for the flagship faction. Both should have made it in from a fluff point of view (though, honestly, I was more confused by the lack of wracks for DE, since they're plastic), but only the most iconic infiltrators, like rangers, made it in without a plastic kit.

 Trimarius wrote:

I doubt it'll be tied to commanders at all (no reason you couldn't use both at the same time, of course), but an increase in the game size seems pretty plausible. Five custodes (a previewed kt) at 150 or 200 points seems about right, assuming they end up at 30-40 points apiece with gear.

The back of the book says commanders is required to use it.

 Scott-S6 wrote:

 Trimarius wrote:

I doubt it'll be tied to commanders at all (no reason you couldn't use both at the same time, of course), but an increase in the game size seems pretty plausible. Five custodes (a previewed kt) at 150 or 200 points seems about right, assuming they end up at 30-40 points apiece with gear.

The back of the book says commanders is required to use it.

I'm assuming that's for the commanders that are going to be added, not for general use. Custodes are likely to get someone, at least, and there could easily be others (like all the terminator armored SM/CSM HQs, for example).

Yeah, hopefully because some of the new 'elites' missions will be 'elites + commanders', thus to get everything out of elites, you also need commanders.

I'm thinking this expansion might be a bit of a complication in Kill-Team, especially if they release anything similar to Rogue Trader- which required "Commanders" prior to the Commanders expansion.

I get the feeling that Kill-Team is deliberately designed to draw in new players, and the problem with that is that you're releasing new kits where players need 3 books.

However, I'm curious to see what they consider "Elites"- because I've got the feeling that it won't be specifically "Elites" in the standard 40k sense, considering Eliminators were shown.

That, and we already have over 20 "elites" in the game currently.

hvg3akaek wrote:
That, and we already have over 20 "elites" in the game currently.

And we have commanders that aren't HQs.

It's pretty obvious that KT classification does not care about 40K battlefield role.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

hvg3akaek wrote:
Yeah, hopefully because some of the new 'elites' missions will be 'elites + commanders', thus to get everything out of elites, you also need commanders.

Either way - the facebook commentary has been that it's an expansion like commanders, not a change to the base game so I'm expecting it to either be it's own unique game mode or it's going to be merged with commanders as an alternate game mode.

 Scott-S6 wrote:

hvg3akaek wrote:
That, and we already have over 20 "elites" in the game currently.

And we have commanders that aren't HQs.

It's pretty obvious that KT classification does not care about 40K battlefield role.[/qupte]Exactly

Automatically Appended Next Post:

hvg3akaek wrote:
Yeah, hopefully because some of the new 'elites' missions will be 'elites + commanders', thus to get everything out of elites, you also need commanders.

Either way - the facebook commentary has been that it's an expansion like commanders, not a change to the base game so I'm expecting it to either be it's own unique game mode or it's going to be merged with commanders as an alternate game mode.

Yep, I'd be surprised if it became the standard / most popular playing style (though, if it did, that would be good - it would mean it was balanced better than Commanders was!), but our group is pretty keen to play it (not half because one player plays Custodes in 40k, and has been less than satisfied with the KT game so far).

Im most interested in the expansion’s scenarios. A few elites against a horde of ‘nids or zombi cultists sounds fantastic.

Side note- the popularity of KT has me jazzed for 9th edition. If they really include expansions for every force org slot, it will be like playing mini 40k, with alternate activations. Not that 8th is bad, but this may catapult the game into another era if it were implemented. Anyone else think this is a possibility?

I think KT scales really badly, because of how morale works.
It's already a big issue at 200pts. If you don't take an expensive commander and only bring cheap models (and many factions don't have any other option), then you automatically fail every nerve test as soon as you loose like a quarter of your team.
150pts with access to somewhat big models (like ogryns) could really help horde factions not get destroyed by morale.
Anything above 200pts seems impossible under the ruleset, unless you bring custodes and 150pts commanders.

I'm a bit annoyed that nothing else has come out for this. I'd like a bit of information, at least something.

Like all this stuff GW teased was awesome, and the Chaos releases pushed it aside.

Thats a good point about morale

fresus wrote:I think KT scales really badly, because of how morale works.
It's already a big issue at 200pts. If you don't take an expensive commander and only bring cheap models (and many factions don't have any other option), then you automatically fail every nerve test as soon as you loose like a quarter of your team.
150pts with access to somewhat big models (like ogryns) could really help horde factions not get destroyed by morale.
Anything above 200pts seems impossible under the ruleset, unless you bring custodes and 150pts commanders.

I agree. The biggest issue I have with Kill Team is the way Morale works. Just like proper 40k, there are factions/teams that the Morale phase is a big issue while most factions kinda forget it exists or is barely an annoyance on a rare occasion. It doesn't help that it creates a fairly fast death spiral (at least it does in most the games I have played) for the factions that do worry about it, and the complete shutdown of a unit that fails its Nerve check only exasperates the issue. I understand the designers were trying to include it both because war games should generally take into account Morale as well as a way to regulate 'horde' kill teams vs. 'elite' kill teams. However, I don't think Kill Team's Morale Phase accomplishes either. I almost would prefer the Morale phase be dropped entirely if the designers can't develop a system that is mostly ignored by most factions and completely dismantles a couple that are already low-ish tier except in the missions (note: I am not talking about Arena here) where numbers, regardless of Morale, tend to win out anyways just being a sort of skew list.

Adeptus Doritos wrote:I'm a bit annoyed that nothing else has come out for this. I'd like a bit of information, at least something.

Like all this stuff GW teased was awesome, and the Chaos releases pushed it aside.

I would be annoyed as well, but I have been waiting a long time for a lot of the CSM units so I got a lot stuff to paint now that has nothing to do with Kill Team at the moment. Maybe some of them will be in Elites (Havocs), but that wasn't why I bought them anyways. I do want to hear more about what Elites is going to be about though. I still want to know how Commanders ties in at very least.

I would also like to get some of the new CSM kit special weapons (missile launcher, autocannon, chainsword, etc.) as options for Heretic Astartes now that their model kit actually has them. Well Shadowspear has the autocannon at least. They won't completely get CSM in Kill Team out of the low tier faction area, but at least they could give the faction a much better fighting chance against a wider range of other factions.

I am very curious on how this will fit in the game.
Also would love to see larger things like a dreadnought or Carnifex be single thing to fight.. Kind of a kill team sent in as a monster killer.

Any idea when Elites will hit store shelves?

 Saturmorn Carvilli wrote:

fresus wrote:I think KT scales really badly, because of how morale works.
It's already a big issue at 200pts. If you don't take an expensive commander and only bring cheap models (and many factions don't have any other option), then you automatically fail every nerve test as soon as you loose like a quarter of your team.
150pts with access to somewhat big models (like ogryns) could really help horde factions not get destroyed by morale.
Anything above 200pts seems impossible under the ruleset, unless you bring custodes and 150pts commanders.

I agree. The biggest issue I have with Kill Team is the way Morale works. Just like proper 40k, there are factions/teams that the Morale phase is a big issue while most factions kinda forget it exists or is barely an annoyance on a rare occasion. It doesn't help that it creates a fairly fast death spiral (at least it does in most the games I have played) for the factions that do worry about it, and the complete shutdown of a unit that fails its Nerve check only exasperates the issue. I understand the designers were trying to include it both because war games should generally take into account Morale as well as a way to regulate 'horde' kill teams vs. 'elite' kill teams. However, I don't think Kill Team's Morale Phase accomplishes either. I almost would prefer the Morale phase be dropped entirely if the designers can't develop a system that is mostly ignored by most factions and completely dismantles a couple that are already low-ish tier except in the missions (note: I am not talking about Arena here) where numbers, regardless of Morale, tend to win out anyways just being a sort of skew list.

Adeptus Doritos wrote:I'm a bit annoyed that nothing else has come out for this. I'd like a bit of information, at least something.

Like all this stuff GW teased was awesome, and the Chaos releases pushed it aside.

I think like many of the other aspects of the game such as specialists, the designers were trying to incorporate that effect from the XCOM games where if enough of your squad were killed, your troopers would panic and either fire blindly into the night or go hide in a corner doing nothing.

My regular opponent and I largely ignore the morale phase, usually out of forgetfulness than anything else. I have to say that many of our games probably turned out to be more fun than they would have otherwise.

witchdoctor wrote:

My regular opponent and I largely ignore the morale phase, usually out of forgetfulness than anything else. I have to say that many of our games probably turned out to be more fun than they would have otherwise.

We play in a group of 6 regular players plus some guys joining us now and then.
For us the morale phase is an important part of the game and works well enough.
It does make a difference and poses an additional element to consider. This works in both directions i.e. play so you do not get broken and play to break your opponent. As you can not re-roll the break test, even Necrons get broken once in a while. Advantages and disadvantages related to morale usually cancel themselves out. A mix of Elite and Horde models require the player to budget their cheap troops and not to waste them to avoid being broken by loosing to many of the cheap guys.

There are combinations of teams and missions which will make winning more difficult than others. You might find yourself in a situation where breaking the opponent is the only way to grab a win (not directly by breaking, but by enemy models getting shaken and not holding objectives anymore etc.)

And let's not forget - there are a bunch of missions where breaking the enemy team is NOT an automatic win. If you're sufficiently ahead on victory points and get broken that can still be a win for you.

I don't have an issue with how teams can become broken, I actually like it (but I always loved Mordheim, so I might be biased because of it).
What I don't like is the infinite stacking of negative modifiers from dead comrades.

If I had to redo it, I would keep the "broken team" system, and still have flesh-wounded models and models from broken teams take nerve tests every turn. But I would remove the -1 from friendly dead models, and just have a flat -1 if your team is broken. Then change the Ld to reflect that.
A Marine with a Ld of 5 and a flesh wound would fail its nerve test 3% of the time in an un-broken team, or 12% of the time if the team is broken.
A Ld 4 grunt would fail one third of the time, or half of the time if the team is broken, which seems okay for a low-morale model.

@fresus
Your method has IMHO major drawbacks.

You'll test starting with the first flesh wound (except high morale guys, who have to be broken first). As it is now. Many armies do not care about the first number of flesh wounds and kills, because without the -1 for a dead model they will alway pass. Also with only one or two dead models, they can prevent tests by pairing off models or buffing morale with abilities or tactics.

There can be no difference between different "high" morale troops, because if you give one of them 7 he is save for ever.

So you would need a second morale value. One for the individual, one for the team to be broken.

Also morale for a last man standing would be the same as the morale for a team that has lost only one guy, which feels wrong.

Applying boni to the morale would be difficult. If you already have a value of 5 and get a +1 by a tactic or ability, you'd be save.

In comparison to your proposal the original rules are IMHO much better.
They can easily mimic different morale behaviours. Guard, Marines, Nekron, Tyranids, Death Guard behave all different. That leads to a lot of whining from those feeling disadvantaged, but I do want to hear your Deathwatch player, being broken with the third flesh wound and rolling 3 sixes in the morale phase.
There is some escalation. The morale effect is low at the start and increases with attrition.
The morale system is flexible regarding boni and mali.

So no new info since mid-March?

I was really hoping the 40k update would include Kill Team errata.

 DarknessEternal wrote:
I was really hoping the 40k update would include Kill Team errata.

With the recent CSM model release, so was I. I am not really expecting use of the autocannon in Kill Team, but now that the CSM sprue has a missile launcher, I would like to have the option to switch out my heavy bolter. Also, I would like to be able to use chain and power axes for my Aspiring Champion without asking permission from my opponent or have them as count as sword versions.