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Probably a repackaging with a new box design for the new edition?

Yeah they said Kill Teams will now come with a QR code to get current rules online.

Repackaging usually involves a new SKU / product code, and is therefore considered a 'new' product by the website even though the contents are mostly the same as before.

Fluff article on the totally reasonable, practical and functional big gun:

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2024/09/03/kill-team-hivestorm-lore-what-is-it-like-to-live-under-a-cannon-the-size-of-a-mountain/

Yeah doesn't really make much sense. If it fired interstellar warp-capable warheads and could protect like an entire sector or whatever, sure that's be awesome. As it stands though the fluff is "we tried so hard to make it cool that we made it dumb"

chaos0xomega wrote:
Yeah doesn't really make much sense. If it fired interstellar warp-capable warheads and could protect like an entire sector or whatever, sure that's be awesome. As it stands though the fluff is "we tried so hard to make it cool that we made it dumb"

If we use the BFG scale given by Andy Chambers of 1 cm = 1000 km, then the article seems to say the gun has a range of 500 cm. The ROF is not known, and neither is the shell velocity.

The way it is described, it would only be effective in protecting the planet itself...and then only from single targets or single fleets at a time (if the fleet is bunched up). The description of warheads also means it is not a purely kinetic energy projectile.

I guess it is the artwork that looks off, with the cannon's proportions looking odd. The cannon bore diameter looks too big I think.

Something less disproportionate like this might have looked better but less over the top Imperial grimdark:

Being planetside, it can also only target one hemisphere of the world at best. An enemy fleet could be in geostationary orbit on the opposite side of the world and be totally immune.

Given ships can make stealth approaches by running dark and drifting, and the rotation and orbit of a planet are entirely predictable, it seems possible to completely avoid this weapon by sneaking up until you can sprint to the lee side before the gun rotates into arc of fire.

May also lack an arc of fire at all if attacking from the correct angle, this doesn't look like it can depress to horizontal, let alone below horizontal.

This highly impractical and not particularly useful weapon is a perfect explanation on why the powers-that-be don't want to lose the asset and yet don't want to allocate any real resources to protecting it. The weapon doesn't do anything beyond protect one planet, but is iconic enough to be a major blow to sector morale should it fall.

It doesn't even protect the one planet all that well, plenty of ways to avoid it.

It also lacks a good explanation for why anyone would bother to invest the resources to build something that impractical in the first place (though that's I guess somewhat covered with the handwashed "nobody has any clue who built it or when or how, it's just there").

Likewise I cut think of any reason why the rest of the sector would care. It's established lore that the imperium isn't really an interplanetary society. The vast majority of folks will never leave their home planet and the concept of other worlds is a barely known fact. Most citizens will know Terra as a world of some legend and maybe be familiar with a couple of key planets they may have heard of like Cadia to the extent that they recognize the name or know some random fact about it without really knowing much of anything specific as to what it is or why it's important... would folks across the sector know of a random planet with a too large to be believed orbital defense cannon that does nothing for them?

 alextroy wrote:
This highly impractical and not particularly useful weapon is a perfect explanation on why the powers-that-be don't want to lose the asset and yet don't want to allocate any real resources to protecting it. The weapon doesn't do anything beyond protect one planet, but is iconic enough to be a major blow to sector morale should it fall.

It says in the article it uses the planet's gravity to slingshot bullets at anything attacking on the other side of the planet. With it being able to straight up destroy the planet's moon it at least has the power to threaten anything that gets too close. Too close in this case being "twice the distance from the earth of the moon."

Maybe it was built in the Age of Darkness to quarantine a bacterial outbreak in the planets oceans?

since when has 40k been about realism or "what makes sense"

 cole1114 wrote:

 alextroy wrote:
This highly impractical and not particularly useful weapon is a perfect explanation on why the powers-that-be don't want to lose the asset and yet don't want to allocate any real resources to protecting it. The weapon doesn't do anything beyond protect one planet, but is iconic enough to be a major blow to sector morale should it fall.

It says in the article it uses the planet's gravity to slingshot bullets at anything attacking on the other side of the planet. With it being able to straight up destroy the planet's moon it at least has the power to threaten anything that gets too close. Too close in this case being "twice the distance from the earth of the moon."

A planetary body with a known orbit makes for an easier target compared to an actively maneuvering enemy ship.

 StudentOfEtherium wrote:
since when has 40k been about realism or "what makes sense"

at least in the past they tried to stay consistent within the unrealistic physics of the universe

I mean we had planetary defence guns in the past, they are not new and there is lore what they are, how they work and why they are the way they are.
which is all ignored to put numbers in that sound "big" but are not even of any practical use because the distance is too short to make any sense
twice the distance of earths moon means nothing as the shells either are fast enough to leave the gravity of the planet behind, than their range is the planetary system, or not and they are useless against anything that would be a danger

the same way they tried to make the biggest tank battle ever happened in the universe sound big and ended up with numbers that are less than we had in WW2

 kodos wrote:

 StudentOfEtherium wrote:
since when has 40k been about realism or "what makes sense"

at least in the past they tried to stay consistent within the unrealistic physics of the universe

I mean we had planetary defence guns in the past, they are not new and there is lore what they are, how they work and why they are the way they are.
which is all ignored to put numbers in that sound "big" but are not even of any practical use because the distance is too short to make any sense
twice the distance of earths moon means nothing as the shells either are fast enough to leave the gravity of the planet behind, than their range is the planetary system, or not and they are useless against anything that would be a danger

the same way they tried to make the biggest tank battle ever happened in the universe sound big and ended up with numbers that are less than we had in WW2

Largely agree, although the range limitation can be taken to mean a targeting limitation- beyond 500,000 miles it may be very unlikely to hit anything. I'm too lazy to do the maths, but at those kinds of ranges you probably have to rotate the turret by fractions of a mm to make targeting adjustments. That is a huge amount of precision required for a collassal machine.

Don't agree with the tank bit. The (first...) Battle of Kursk is generally taken as the largest tank battle with ~6000 tanks. For all of WWII something like 160000 tanks were produced, many of which did not fight. The Battle of Tallarn is stated as having over a million tanks fighting. It would be low if comparing to armoured vehicle production in general, but taken at face value to mean actual tanks, then Tallarn is a much bigger battle.

 kodos wrote:

 StudentOfEtherium wrote:
since when has 40k been about realism or "what makes sense"

at least in the past they tried to stay consistent within the unrealistic physics of the universe

I mean we had planetary defence guns in the past, they are not new and there is lore what they are, how they work and why they are the way they are.
which is all ignored to put numbers in that sound "big" but are not even of any practical use because the distance is too short to make any sense
twice the distance of earths moon means nothing as the shells either are fast enough to leave the gravity of the planet behind, than their range is the planetary system, or not and they are useless against anything that would be a danger

the same way they tried to make the biggest tank battle ever happened in the universe sound big and ended up with numbers that are less than we had in WW2

I think a more practical question is effective range against enemy ships. There would be an appreciable flight time and the true limitation might be the ability to predict and accurately target a moving enemy ship that could be actively evading. The description suggests there is a big blast radius, but even so, space is truly vast and trying to hit an erratically moving ship is different from trying to hit a moon that is moving along a known orbital path.

 Haighus wrote:
For all of WWII something like 160000 tanks were produced, many of which did not fight.

well, the classifications of "tank" might be different but all of WW2 was more like over 1 Million produced, with the allied forces had ~250k in combat and the axis 70k

and tank battles were mostly in Europe, having a Million tanks fighting over a planet is not impressive or even "large", but same as a million miles sounds big a million tanks does as well

 kodos wrote:

 Haighus wrote:
For all of WWII something like 160000 tanks were produced, many of which did not fight.

well, the classifications of "tank" might be different but all of WW2 was more like over 1 Million produced, with the allied forces had ~250k in combat and the axis 70k

and tank battles were mostly in Europe, having a Million tanks fighting over a planet is not impressive or even "large", but same as a million miles sounds big a million tanks does as well

That sounds like numbers for armoured vehicles in general, rather than tanks specifically. If I broaden out from tanks specifically, the major tank-producing nations produced tanks (and tank chassis for self-propelled weapons like assault guns) in the tens of thousands with only the Soviets topping 100000 (unless you count the Universal carrier and variants, which I doubt many people would but is a tracked armoured vehicle). These include true tanks and vehicles typically considered tanks by the general public, which is probably the closest comparison to what GW might refer to as a tank.

To get to a million you have to include halftracks and armoured cars, and start including trucks. I don't think GW is talking about unarmoured supply lorries when they say a million tanks fought at Tallarn.

Edit: the WWII numbers are also spread over 6 years vs 1 year for Tallarn. It really is a noticeably bigger tank engagement than anything Earth has seen.

tanks and SPGs, the most build axis tank was the StuG which was classified as SPG

armoured vehicles in total were close to 6 millions during WW2

and still, even over 6 years this was a limited geographical theatre
a million tanks, over 1 year on a whole planet sound bigger than it is

the same way having a gun shooting a million miles into space, sounds bigger than it really is

the same way we have a million Space Marines, which just sounds big without the context

In a way though the use of "million" as a number that sounds big is just effective in conveying to us the audience that it's just a really big battle. Most of the time 40k numbers don't really hold water.

I think with this big gun it's past my suspension of disbelief, but then again I DO kind of like the idea that the irrationality of the Imperium is so massive.

 kodos wrote:
tanks and SPGs, the most build axis tank was the StuG which was classified as SPG

armoured vehicles in total were close to 6 millions during WW2

and still, even over 6 years this was a limited geographical theatre
a million tanks, over 1 year on a whole planet sound bigger than it is

the same way having a gun shooting a million miles into space, sounds bigger than it really is

the same way we have a million Space Marines, which just sounds big without the context

I haven't encountered anything suggesting as many as 6 million armoured vehicles in WWII. I found about 4.5 million for all military vehicles including soft-skinned lorries and other logistics gear, and less than 400,000 for tanks and SPGs combined.

I don't think the single geographic region is that relevant. Tallarn was also focussed around a few geographic points, because only the deep storage bunkers survived the virus bombing.

Scale has always been something many a setting could not get right and 40k has made the concept of a "million" feel useless alright.

But let's get back on topic and take that all to a thread of its own, the dashboard has lit up with several reports of things going OT harrrrrrrrrd, oh my.

I guess this new starter will be announced for pre-order next Sunday then?

A look at the upcoming universal equipment and how they work: https://www.warhammer-community.com/2024/09/05/soar-above-the-killzone-and-blow-it-all-up-with-new-universal-equipment/

I don't predict much interest in this 1" blast stun grenade.

Is this why there are no more Tyranid kill teams?

They mention that each Kill Team will have their own equipment in addition to the generic stuff, and also poo-poo'd cardboard tokens. Does that mean we'll be getting Kill Team Equipment sprues for each faction?

 Shakalooloo wrote:
They mention that each Kill Team will have their own equipment in addition to the generic stuff, and also poo-poo'd cardboard tokens. Does that mean we'll be getting Kill Team Equipment sprues for each faction?

I'm assuming not for boxes already in existence but maybe for future teams?

 Olthannon wrote:

 Shakalooloo wrote:
They mention that each Kill Team will have their own equipment in addition to the generic stuff, and also poo-poo'd cardboard tokens. Does that mean we'll be getting Kill Team Equipment sprues for each faction?

I'm assuming not for boxes already in existence but maybe for future teams?

i think they meant a sprue for each faction, so that all the imperium teams get one, all the csm teams get one, all the craftworld teams get one, etc, and then those bits of universal equipment are shared between them

Nobody in here played Kerbal Space Program and it shows.

Once a projectile is in orbit there is a lot it can do using very small adjustments that may be made planetside or made once it is in space. For all we know, each warhead has an onvoard tracking device and a number of thrusters that allow it to track to targets all across the system, and, yes, even to the other side of the planet.

 StudentOfEtherium wrote:


i think they meant a sprue for each faction, so that all the imperium teams get one, all the csm teams get one, all the craftworld teams get one, etc, and then those bits of universal equipment are shared between them

It's funny that they say there is universal equipment, when all of us know that there is not a single thing created or used by Tyranids that looks even remotely like anything that the Imperium would use.

Sure, there might be stuff that serves the same purpose: there might be a smoke bug that can be thrown, there might be a living creature that functions like barbed wire (a tentacle mass or whatever; there could be a a bug with oversized plating that functions as a barricade. But for GW to suggest that using the sprue of supposedly "Universal Equipment" to represent the equipment used by Nids, even when the rules and effects of said gear are identical, is in fact the stupidest thing I've heard from GW in a long time.

And if the tyranid equipment sprue includes things meant to represent barbed wire or barricades, then it isn't really equipment that is unique to Nids... It's just barbed wire and barricades with a Nid makeover.

I'm not yet sold on this "New edition" of KT. I remain extremely skeptical. I think GW should use Specialist games to explore ways to make persistent edition games sell as well as their edition churn BS, in order to perfect a persistent edition business model for the more mainstream games.

Edition churn drives more existing players away from this game than any other factor. It is, and has always been the absolute worst aspect of GW products by a long shot. I suspect that just like it does with 40k, it will limit the amount of "new" that we see. How can a company put out anything new when the have to remake everything every three years? And for the record, I hate it just as much when D&D or World of Darkness pulls this crap too. In fact I stopped playing WoD specifically because of edition churn, and while I played fifth ed D&D, I refused to spend a single dime on it.

And finally, as anyone who reads my rants knows, my greatest fear is that all the new bells and whistles will push out the campaign play mode or compromise it. Anyone remember how boring, lackluster and dull campaign play in KT 2018 was? I suspect we're going back to that in order to make room for universal equipment, solo play and PVE. I will be incredibly happy if I'm wrong, but GW hasn't said anything at all about what campaign play will look like in KT 24, or even confirmed that it will continue to exist.

 PenitentJake wrote:

 StudentOfEtherium wrote:


i think they meant a sprue for each faction, so that all the imperium teams get one, all the csm teams get one, all the craftworld teams get one, etc, and then those bits of universal equipment are shared between them

It's funny that they say there is universal equipment, when all of us know that there is not a single thing created or used by Tyranids that looks even remotely like anything that the Imperium would use.

This is not a problem since there are no Tyranid Kill Teams in KT24 (yet anyway).

The Vespid Stingwings and Tempestus Aquilons from Kill Team: Hivestorm are just the start of an awesome new range of miniatures, but their peers from the current edition aren’t going anywhere. Almost every kill team released in a boxed set** from the Veteran Guardsmen of Kill Team: Octarius right up to the Hernkyn Yaegirs of Kill Team: Termination will have fully updated rules for the new edition and a pack of physical datacards to keep them close at hand, while those Kill Teams found in the Kill Team Annual 2022 – including the Elucidean Starstriders and the Gellerpox Infected – will receive updated digital rules.

** This does mean that kill teams from the Kill Team Compendium book will not have updated rules.