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Agreed. Moving on, I'm looking forward to ordering the annual tomorrow.

Thanks

 Saturmorn Carvilli wrote:
I would imagine each data sheet will allow the same number of special/heavy weapons as a minimum woman sqaud including the sergeant options. So if two of the data sheets have those options that could be like 4 heavy/special weapons plus whatever sergeant has available.

BSS (5 to 15 women squads) have access to 2 special, or one special and one heavy.
Dominions and Retributors (5 to 10 women squads) have access to 4 special or 4 heavy weapons.
Repentia and Arcoflagellants don't get guns.
If I can bring two heavy flamers and two melta/multi-melta I'd be happy, that sounds brutal at this scale.

 Saturmorn Carvilli wrote:
As to Imperial Guard, the Imperial Guard can basically have 8 special/heavy weapons. Special/Heavy weapons are under-cost making factions that can bring more of them more powerful. The most competitive generic choices are usually 8 plasmaguns with 4 being on regular guardsmen and 4 on Scions, a cheap leader that hides, a Comms specialist to continually buff a plasma shot, and a sniper plasma to re-roll those supercharged 1s.

Oh. Well I own a bunch of guard models, but they all come with very basic guns.

 Saturmorn Carvilli wrote:
Also don't poo-poo mooks, I won against Death Guard (considered one of the top tier factions in Kill Team) with my classic Chaos Space Marnes list of an Apsiring Champion (Powersword and Plasma Pistol), Heavy Bolter marine, Plasmagun marine, flamer cultist, heavy bolter cultist and the rest regular cultists. By simple weight of fire the cultists kept plinking away of the Death Guard and eventually they hit and wounded and the Nurgle marine failed their save and FNP. However, just the same I was making use of every special/heavy weapon I have available in the Core rulebook.

What the usual model number difference between a mook-heavy kill team and an elite kill team? I guess you had 10 models, how many did the death guard had?

In general, a 5-man team is small. Grey Knights are essentially limited to 5 models in the core book. Losing even 1 model hurts, a lot.

A “normal” team focussed on maximizing upgrades, like loyalist marines, would usually be 7-8 models. If you try to include a couple of cheap, bare bones objective grabbers / campers, 10 models would be typical. I have an Ork team, half-upgrades and half basic boys with a pair of Gretchen. Pretty sure they’re 13 models all-in.

I’d say that 8-10 models would be a middle-of-the-road number. Fewer is a small team, larger is a horde team.

So you can get a kill team with more than 10 models! I thought you couldn't, but maybe I was mixing with Shadow War Armageddon.
You can play a 20/30 grots kill team, for instance?

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
So you can get a kill team with more than 10 models! I thought you couldn't, but maybe I was mixing with Shadow War Armageddon.
You can play a 20/30 grots kill team, for instance?

max 20 miniatures. min 3

Cool, I can get a 20 guards kill team!

Looks like we're starting to see some of the books out in the wild! A few quick notes on what I've seen so far:
(the video I'm getting these from is here)

Lots of missions and tactics from previous OOP products; not anything we didn't know already but nice to have it all in one place and available.

Chaos: Heavy weapon options are now Heavy Bolter, Missile Launcher, Autocannon. A reasonable list, although I was kinda hoping to see some of the ones from Havocs.

Sisters: The two Gunners have free pick from the list (so you can take two special weapons or two heavy weapons or whatever you want). Flamer, Meltagun, Storm Bolter, Heavy Bolter, Heavy Flamer.
Shield of Faith gives you a 6+ Invulnerable, plus you can try to Deny psychics with 1D6. A Simulacrum buffs the Invul to 5+ for everybody within 6". A decent spread of options for the Sister Superior, but they're laid out a bit weird (not a big surprise) so it looks like you can't take a combi-weapon and a power sword at the same time. Oddly though it looks like you could give her a Bolt Pistol and Plasma Pistol at the same time? A decent list of Specialisms for Battle Sisters.

Repentia are Max 1. Very strange. I have to wonder if that's a typo? I haven't seen the weapon stats so far, but Repentia don't seem so powerful that their numbers would have to be so limited (1W, T3, at best a 5+ Invul with Simulacrum and then 5+ FNP). They also have four different Specialisms (including Leader for some reason). Very strange.

Maybe it's to give you a reason to take Arco-flagellants, which strike me as too similar to Repentia to be really interesting. They pick up an extra wound, but lack any kind of save and just have the same 5+ FNP. They're worse at hitting too, but can take one upgraded guy with +1 Attack. It'll come down to weapon stats and points.

The Canoness looks to have quite good stats and a reasonable selection of weapons, although it looks like some of the weirdness around the equipment for the limited-edition Canoness has carried over from 40k (a bit too literally - the point that specifies the equipment for that variant is written in a very 40k style "one boltgun, one power sword..." where all the others (and all the others in Kill Team) are written less mechanically: "boltgun, power sword...")

Repentia Mistress is definitely the budget Commander option, not much in the way of options and looks to (unsurprisingly) best be paired with Repentia (but WHY only 1??). Again, without points cost and weapon stats we can't say how good any of this will be.

Taddeus (and probably Pious Vorne too?) from Blackstone Fortress have been updated so you can take them with Sisters.

and no points change ?

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

Oh. Well I own a bunch of guard models, but they all come with very basic guns.

For Imperial Guard, I believe they are 5points (yeah, in Kill Team IG are 5 and Chaos Cultist are 4) so a 20 man team is 100pts right there. If I haven't mentioned it already, special/heavy weapons are underpointed in Kill Team making them extra good. It is the main reason Imperial Guard is so good as their team are among the factions that can bring the most. I think playing an all lasgun guard team is okay to learn how the mechanics differ in Kill Team, but I think you will probably find that team doesn't hold up all that will against even mediocre teams save its skew list advantage for some missions or some early lucky kills. Even without scions (though I think scions are great), I would at least suggest some flamers since they auto-hit ignoring the range/cover penalties of Kill Team and the boards are that big. I also like grenade launchers myself, but krak grenades are a pale comparison to a plasmagun to tackle MEQs. However, grenade launchers come with the basic guardsmen kit and I can't remember if plasmaguns do. Only one if they do.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 Saturmorn Carvilli wrote:
Also don't poo-poo mooks, I won against Death Guard (considered one of the top tier factions in Kill Team) with my classic Chaos Space Marnes list of an Apsiring Champion (Powersword and Plasma Pistol), Heavy Bolter marine, Plasmagun marine, flamer cultist, heavy bolter cultist and the rest regular cultists. By simple weight of fire the cultists kept plinking away of the Death Guard and eventually they hit and wounded and the Nurgle marine failed their save and FNP. However, just the same I was making use of every special/heavy weapon I have available in the Core rulebook.

What the usual model number difference between a mook-heavy kill team and an elite kill team? I guess you had 10 models, how many did the death guard had?

My Black Legion kill team was an Aspiring champion with power sword and plasma pistol, heavy bolter marine, plasmagun marine, flamer cultist, heavy stubber cultists and autogun cultist x10. So 15 units in total. My team was built on the common idea that non-special/heavy marines aren't as good their points in cultists. His team had at least one blightlord terminator maybe two, a plague marine with a flail and what seemed like a bolter plague marine. Ultimately, the Death Guard had some very expensive units with very expensive weapons. He had 5 man team for a 125 point game.

As for the game, largely what the Death Guard hit they put Flesh Wounds at range. Flesh Wounds are something a unit gets when in full 40k they would be killed and the attacking player doesn't roll very high on their Injury Roll. In short, it is another player of protection to keep models on the board. In melee, the Death Guard killed any cultist they attacked especially that flail (it's why I remember it). However, I could afford keep feeding the Death Guard a cultist or two every round to largely tarpit them and buying myself more time. All the while focus firing with everything else to bring down a plague marine or blightlord. In a combination of weight of fire and the Death Guard being out in the open I eventually removed two of them opening up the board to capture the win conditions of that particular game.

pLeAsE sToP wItH tHe NeCrOmUnDa!

I swear to Christ, it's like some folks can't skim over content. Or that comparing a product to the topic is irrelevant. Let the mods delete it if it's a problem.

Also, really-

There's nothing new at all related to campaigns. Doesn't even look like the points were adjusted, just compiled.

Did they at least include the Blackstone Fortress missions?

The Repentia Superior's aura ability refers to multiple Repentia models. The '1' limit must be a typo, particularly given the unlimited access to arco-flagellants. I will certainly be treating it as '-.'

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:

I swear to Christ, it's like some folks can't skim over content. Or that comparing a product to the topic is irrelevant. Let the mods delete it if it's a problem.

This isn't just one giant chatroom. Things are sorted into threads so that folks can find and discuss topics that they find relevant. The best part is, if there's something you want to discuss and there isn't already a thread for it, you can just make one! It's free!
Bringing it up once in comparison to another product being discussed isn't a problem, but you just keep. banging. on. about. it. How many other people have to tell you that's not what they're in this thread to discuss? Mod deletion isn't the first line for keeping things on track, it's the last.

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:


There's nothing new at all related to campaigns. Doesn't even look like the points were adjusted, just compiled.

Did they at least include the Blackstone Fortress missions?

No new campaign rules, although with nothing mentioned regarding campaigns in the previews that's not surprising. A lack of points changes seems like a bit of a missed opportunity, but the state of points cost is (IMO) broadly decent so there's nothing glaring that absolutely needed fixing now.
I haven't seen the entire missions section yet, but I haven't seen any mention of the Blackstone Fortress missions. Playing KT with the Blackstone tiles always struck me as a niche within a niche, but it wouldn't hurt if they were included.

You know, I'm starting to think that maybe Kill Team isn't the game for you. Have you tried Necromunda? I've heard that it's great

callidusx3 wrote:
The Repentia Superior's aura ability refers to multiple Repentia models. The '1' limit must be a typo, particularly given the unlimited access to arco-flagellants. I will certainly be treating it as '-.'

I looked at that myself - I'm not 100% sure of the logic, since the way it's written would apply just as well to a single Repentia as it would to many (which is actually good rules writing, IMO). But there seems to be so much other stuff (Commander tactics, faction tactics, etc) that interact specifically with Repentia that it seems nonsense that you could only have one of them. I'm still going to paint up all four from the Army Box.

So I am hearing the missions are just reprints from the faction box sets.. So are the tactic cards in the book the same??.. So if you missed a faction set this book will give you that information?

But what about the terrain special rules that came with the kill zones box sets?? That would be the only information released so far not covered.

You can see the table of contents on the preorder page. It doesn't appear to have the killzone contents.

It also doesn't seem to have ever mission. Going through my cards for matched play, it seems to lack:
Fire At Will
Stealth Siphon
Burning Battlefield
Scavenge Supplies
Fearless Foraging
Make Your Escape
Under Bombardment
Seize the Bunker
Cover For the Storm
Shoot Out
Take the High Ground
Find the Relic
Destined One

I've also got 23 narrative missions, while the TOC only has 16 (since I don't have every expansion, the total is probably 5-10 cards higher)

I did notice that the non-included missions explicitly stated they were played on a specific killzone, while the included ones can be played with any terrain. I don't remember which cards went with which expansions, but it is possible these were the ones included with the killzones and not the unit boxes.

 Wasteland wrote:
Bringing it up once in comparison to another product being discussed isn't a problem, but you just keep. banging. on. about. it. How many other people have to tell you that's not what they're in this thread to discuss? Mod deletion isn't the first line for keeping things on track, it's the last.

Two and a half. Special emphasis on the half, and I'll need photographic evidence.

Also, I strongly beg to differ on it being the last. I've seen some... things.

 Wasteland wrote:
No new campaign rules, although with nothing mentioned regarding campaigns in the previews that's not surprising. A lack of points changes seems like a bit of a missed opportunity, but the state of points cost is (IMO) broadly decent so there's nothing glaring that absolutely needed fixing now.
I haven't seen the entire missions section yet, but I haven't seen any mention of the Blackstone Fortress missions. Playing KT with the Blackstone tiles always struck me as a niche within a niche, but it wouldn't hurt if they were included.

Sad that they weren't. KT and Necromunda have both been a reason for me to collect every 40k game board I could manage to get my hands on. Some were just the board/tiles, but overall I found that it's really cool doing claustrophobic battles where snipers aren't the top dogs.

 Wasteland wrote:
You know, I'm starting to think that maybe Kill Team isn't the game for you. Have you tried Necromunda? I've heard that it's great

Well, I was always capable of taking a 40k stat line and using an individual model from that squad, which is pretty much what KT did

Considering earlier articles advertised that KT was taking campaign ideas from Necromunda, you're probably right. Time frame was roughly July 2018 when they announced it. Still kind of irks me that they didn't put a bit more emphasis on it. I wouldn't be too horribly bothered if they added an expanded version of it later, with appropriate missions. I doubt it would ever be as complex, but a larger, structured system for it would be rather nice.

Kill Team is fine for what it is. They are very different games- I am much more confident playing KT with strangers, and Necromunda requires a degree of book-keeping and commitment to a campaign. I actually banged out a KT game today, and it was pretty fun. Used the Space Hulk tiles- and this was the jackpot, some dude brings that in and the box is damaged, the minis are missing/broken, and the rulebook is missing. Best 20 bucks I ever spent (he was trying to sell it for like 10, and I couldn't let him).

I was thinking i would pick up the book for the Daemons rules, but they seem so low effort on there own i not sure i want to bother for them on there own.
Maybe depends on what else the book offers, But i think i may use this as my jumping off point for the game.

I'm glad to see the Ambull rules are included in this annual and is included as a "random monster". It will be interesting to see how those rules play out...

SamusDrake wrote:
I'm glad to see the Ambull rules are included in this annual and is included as a "random monster". It will be interesting to see how those rules play out...

It'd be nice to see a mission.

...would also be nice to see it packaged without its rules for BSF, because the current price is a bit steep.

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:

SamusDrake wrote:
I'm glad to see the Ambull rules are included in this annual and is included as a "random monster". It will be interesting to see how those rules play out...

It'd be nice to see a mission.

...would also be nice to see it packaged without its rules for BSF, because the current price is a bit steep.

You can use an Umberhulk from D&D as a reasonable stand in, which is respectable for £5. Comes primed too so it gets to the tabletop that much quicker.

So according to the Tabletop minions guy there is no differentiation between the Ork boy boss nob and elites nob points cost for carrying a power klaw in the annual. Is this a mistake or did I miss an errata which changed the power klaw from the core book.

Coleslaw wrote:
So according to the Tabletop minions guy there is no differentiation between the Ork boy boss nob and elites nob points cost for carrying a power klaw in the annual. Is this a mistake or did I miss an errata which changed the power klaw from the core book.

Perhaps they lowered them all to the original KT book's price? There was no reason to take a klaw over a saw in Elites, as they were the same price and you got a bonus AP and reliable damage out of the saw.

There are a lot of pricing issues that I hope they took the opportunity to address with the annual. Just sticking with nobz as the example, cybork body needs to come massively down before anyone's ever going to think about using it. A 6+++ for a 33% increase in cost is insane.

Having seen the online reviews of the annual, I'm not as convinced now.

28 pages of points updates which have not been changed save for an ork weapon or two. The argument for this is "we have it all in one book", when there is only three books to be concerned about and there still needs to be a copy of Commanders or Elites if playing with such units. This is obviously a good thing for 40K for all its codex and campaign sups but for Kill Team its not quite a priority when the teams are much smaller.

If playing a Commanders game then Daemon players are not sharing in the love. Its true that the faction could take 200 points of Daemons, but its a bit disappointing that your opponent can have their snazzy HQs but you have to make do with only garden variety Daemons. The Sisters of Battle on the other hand have two commanders to enjoy, while the Kroots can at least have Dayak from BSF. A Skulltaker, Masque or Changeling are but some of the options that could have been included here.

Otherwise, its not bad. I'll probably get it just for the BSF and Sisters rules.

 Saturmorn Carvilli wrote:
Even without scions (though I think scions are great), I would at least suggest some flamers since they auto-hit ignoring the range/cover penalties of Kill Team and the boards are that big. I also like grenade launchers myself, but krak grenades are a pale comparison to a plasmagun to tackle MEQs. However, grenade launchers come with the basic guardsmen kit and I can't remember if plasmaguns do. Only one if they do.

My problem is that I don't use the guardsman kit, I'm using some very nice kits from Victoria Miniatures, but I didn't get any special weapon :(.

Thanks for all the info though. I'm sensing I'll just play a two heavy flamer Sister kill team .

Based on what I've seen so far, I have to say I'm feeling a bit disappointed with the rules for Sisters. Not that they don't seem reasonably competitive - as far as I can make out from some of the blurry videos (BoLS fails again!) a Battle Sister is 9 points base, which I think compares very favorably to Scions at the same points cost, even though Scions have access to more special weapons and access to Orders.

++EDIT: Going back over some of the footage, it's quite difficult to make out but it kind of looks like boltguns might be 1 point instead of free, making a standard Sister 10 points rather than 9. Considering Scions at 9pts and tac marines at 12pts, this seems reasonable).

What really brings me down is the absence of any interesting, faction specific rule to represent what makes Sisters unique and interesting. Guard have Orders, Tau have Markerlights, Tyranids have Synapse, Dark Eldar have Power from Pain, AdMech have Canticles, etc... I genuinely expected Sisters to have something along those lines with Acts of Faith or Miracle Dice or something more to set them apart beyond just being Marines with S3/T3. It doesn't need to be very powerful or even all that good (looking at you, Tau Markerlights) but something that's characterful and interesting. Shield of Faith isn't bad (especially with a Simulacrum) but it's primary bonus is no different than, say, bionics for Admech. The chance to Deny against pyskers is a nice bonus, but is pretty niche and with 1D6 you'll have to get pretty lucky to see any benefit.

Another of the problem also seems to be tied into other issues with the game. Certain (faction-specific and characterful) items like the Brazier of Holy Fire and the Condemnor Boltgun are specifically good against Daemons... but good luck actually finding an opponent with Daemons to play against, 'cause the daemon list is a slapped-together mess that they absolutely should have taken this opportunity to fix and add to. How hard would it have been to add rules for even just a couple Commander options? Literally every other faction in the game has at least one.

On a related note, the Sisters list clearly isn't fully up to speed compared to ones that started out in the Core book. While I'm glad they remembered to include Commanders, there's no Elites content here. No subfaction rules and no elite units (Dear God, at least I hope they don't think that Repentia and Flagellants count). The structure of the Sisters in the larger 40k context doesn't leave tons of room (since most of the elite or special units are variants on the regular Battle Sisters with more special weapons) but if Marines can have Vanguard Veterans flying around with Jump Packs, how would it hurt the game to have a few Seraphim in there?

I'm still buying the book and I'm still looking forward to finally building my Sisters of Battle kill team, but it stings to think of how much better things could have been with just a little bit more effort from GW.

++EDIT: A bit more info for those who don't want to pick through badly-shot video:

As mentioned Sisters are 9pts, with Sister Superior and Gunners 10pts
Arco-Flagellants are 13pts, 14 for your lone Extra Attack Man.
Repentia are also 13pts.
No video I've found so far shows the melee weapon points costs, but I think it's a reasonable assumption that Flagellants and Repentia won't pay extra for them.
Most heavy and special weapons are 3pts (pretty standard). Heavy Flamer is 4, Storm Bolter is 2.
The Canoness seems like an absolute steal for (pretty sure I'm reading this right) 40pts before gear. Can't see yet if the equipment would be really expensive to cancel that out a bit, but really does look like you'll get a lot for a little.
It's hard to see, but the Repentia Mistress looks to be 30pts. Not unreasonable, but I can't really imagine taking one when the Canoness is only 10 more.

The Repentia and Arco-Flagellant weapons are quite different, which I like - the Eviscerator is basically a Power Fist with a flat D2, while the Arco Flails have poorer strength, AP and damage but each attack becomes D3 attacks, a la Death Guard plague flail. I like how it pushes each unit into a bit of a different role and stand out a bit from each other.

 Wasteland wrote:


I'm still buying the book and I'm still looking forward to finally building my Sisters of Battle kill team, but it stings to think of how much better things could have been with just a little bit more effort from GW.

I have now been playing the current edition of Kill Team for over a year. Almost all of my games with CSM (I have only played Orks a little more than CSM) have been with my Heavy Bolter Gunner (pic in the Spoiler). That model has been an absolute beast on the table. Not because the rules are particularly good for heavy bolters (they aren't bad either), but because that model is apparently favored by Khorne. My new sculpt heavy bolter marine gets killed first round practically every game. What I am getting at is, for more than a year one of my two special/heavy weapons slots for Chaos Space Marines had to be the heavy bolter. Things could have always been better for a wide swath of the factions in Kill Team. That is just the nature of the game. Only so much effort is ever going in to it and factions/units rules are going to be limited by the model kit/their 40k rules by design. Still, I think Kill Team is still much tighter than regular 40k though.



I figure SoB will land somewhere in the middle (lower middle) of the pack in terms of power. They will probably be at least as good as Space Marine Scout only or Scion only team. Which I will admit isn't great, but it isn't too bad either unless you want to play on the bleeding edge of the power of the game. I could see them doing fine in my group. Depending on how many flamers they can have on hand, they might be downright scary since almost all players have a Tyranid team and it is rare no one is not running them any given Sunday.

I think you may have missed my point a little bit - I'm not especially concerned with how powerful the Sisters list is, but how interesting it is.

Sisters in 40k for years have had rules representing how their faith lets them do things that are beyond just their stat line. In many factions previously represented in KT, the designers have added interesting and characterful rules to show how that faction operates (I cited plenty of examples above). I'm very disappointed that giving Sisters some kind of rule to represent what makes the faction different and interesting (which they have, and have had for a very long time in 40k) was neglected. I don't care if it would have made Sisters more or less powerful on the tabletop (I would expect that if such a rule was significantly useful, it would entail an increase in points per model).

I don't think the comparison to the Chaos Heavy Bolter is all that applicable. At the time the rules were written, it made sense - the CSM kit of the time only included the Heavy Bolter. It should have been fixed sooner (when the new kit was released), but there was a reason for it in the first place.

It's also a much easier fix - one that could easily be done in a WD article (or indeed in a book like the Annual). All you have to do is add one more line and a points cost for a new heavy weapon. A faction-specific rule that can effect every model in the team is a much bigger fix. And frankly, they're not going to do it. This is the Sisters list we get, at least until GW decides to do some sort of "Kill Team 2nd Edition".

So yeah, I'm disappointed, and I don't think it's fair to just shrug and say "well, things are never perfect". I've been waiting for this ever since KT came out, and it's clear that GW just didn't spend a lot of time or care creating rules to represent Sisters in KT. I expected better.

I'll ask this here while the thread is fresh, rather than start a new thread...

I've not bought Commanders nor Elites, but aware that they increase the points limits to 200 and 125(is that correct?) respectively. But is it legal for one player to use Commander and Elite units while the other player sticks with core-manual units, so long as they adhere to the new point limits?

Also, I've heard that Commanders only allows the player to field only one unit from the list in the book, yet some Commanders are only 20 points while others are more than 100 points. Are there any exceptions to that rule?

Cheers.

I'm reasonably sure you can pick from any book and may take up to one commander when the scenario allows. I got caught by surprise myself first time I played, I've got one of the factions with 30 point commanders, so I brought two without having read much. But no, only one commander max, and I don't believe you're required to take one either.

Thanks for that YeOldSaltPotato( I enjoyed typing that! ).

One unit that definitely belonged in the core-manual was the Eldar Warlock. It seemed strange not to have a Psyker for the most psycially-inclined 40K race, and at only 20 points its on par with a Tyranid warrior. Especially when the Core manual has only 2 or 3 Psykers...not much point in having the psychic phase if you ask me!

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
Cool, I can get a 20 guards kill team!

I had success with just horde of 20 barebone guardsmen, no special weapons or fancy stuff. Replace one for Ogryn if you play on 125p.