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This is a thread to talk about our games of KT24 that has replaced KT21.

KT21 was probably my most played game in 2024, which .... wasn't that much. I recently got to bring my Hand of the Archon out and try to play KT24. Honestly, I was not really sure why there was a new edition of Kill Team and what it did to improve the game much. However, I concede that I am not fluent enough in the new or old rules to really know.

It does seem like 3 APL vs 2 APL is even a bigger deal on KT24 than it was in KT21. In addition, in the older version I played against Chaos Legionnaires about half the time, with no real success. I was able to beat Imperial Space Marines with 2 APL teams on the missions, but the Chaos Space Marines were brutal to play, and kind of unfun because the special rules were so complex it took forever to get tabled!

So far, I see no reason to buy the new edition other than, because everyone locally will automatically move to it because.... reasons.......

I was excited... but the new version of Underworlds looks better handled, with perhaps the 40k team doing the balancing to Kill Teams... Also find the selection of teams odd.

Playing wait & see for the so-op stuff. Also, I'm looking more at MESGB these days, even if it is using older books.

Every week I get to hear about my buddy's Tau get wrecked by Chaos Legionnaires.

I'm still waiting for the rules to pop up for one of my armies, before I leap in. But even though he loses, they say the game is fun.

 Easy E wrote:


So far, I see no reason to buy the new edition other than, because everyone locally will automatically move to it because.... reasons.......

I hear you, and I wish it wasn't the case :( I have a lot of criticism for KT24 and I wish KT21 was still around. The main reason why I am not a fan of the change is that I considered KT21 really solid, it actually shocked me at the time that GW released a game designed so well. I only had 2 criticisms of it:
-very important Initiative totally random
-bad balance between Tac Op categories (S&D far too easy and convenient as you want to kill anyway)
-not MY criticism as I had no problem with it, but many people complained about Obscuring and misplayed it so I just accepted that I need to get it that others don't get it

These are still not solved in KT21 (Initiative band-aided at least) and a lot of other things I don't like were added:

-most importantly scoring. Scenario was very live, very interactive and very important in KT21 and I loved it. I loved several vectors of approach, changing focus between objectives, pressure from the start, both player competing on the same footing for the same, scarce resource.

With 3 objectives in KT24 these multiple lines of approach are gone. I sit on my objective, you sit on yours, let's meet in the only place where it makes sense to meet - the middle objective.

It reminds me of when I played Battlefield (4, but mostly 1, awesome!). On most maps you had so many options "We are losing objective B, are we going to defend it at all cost or regroup at objective A? Or maybe we lay low and take B back when the enemy moves on? Or shall we counterattack objectives C or D? Or objective E at the enemy's back seems unguarded, let's sneak up to there. Or take horses/bikes and circle the battlefield to get there quickly, or..."
And then, there was Metro, the map I disliked the most. 3 objectives on a metro station, two close to deployment zones, one in the middle where everyone met in an orgy of mindless explosions and blind shooting. Dumb, boring, shallow. All KT maps are Metro now. ITD from the book are particularly terrible but at least we now have assymetrical ITD maps that are going to be used at the LVO.

And another bad thing about scenario? You don't really need to push it that much. An easy, non-interactive, one-sided Tac Op in KT21 was bad, but it only gave you 2 Vps out of 22. Now this little thing you do without your opponent being able to interact much with it (like Surveillance) gives you 9 Vps out of 21. Forget interaction, battling for the same resource, jockeying for position, just do the thing and get half of your total points or more from doing that.

In more and more games I see players actually ignore the scenario for a huge part of the battle. And who can blame them? Whe make a risky move to get a point, when in many cases scenario allows it to be taken back by the opponent and in addition you may lose a point to the enemy when your operative who was sent to do the job is killed. It's better to safely get this 1,5Vp by doing your Tac Op thing like planting a beacon somewhere. There's nothing Critical about the Crit Op.

Adding Kill Op is my personal subjective dislike as I like the playstyle where you sacrifice your models for victory, throwing them under the bus in a gamibit after gambit. I played Cryx and Protectorate in Warmachine and Blooded were the first faction that attracted my attention in KT21. This playstyle is neutered when you lose Vps for losing models.

-quantum equipment. Whe have positioning and player agency affecting outcomes? Why have a duel of wits where one player tries to get this Dynamite guy into best position while the other tries to stop this operative? Now everyobdy can do it so you just need to push this Big Red Button and your Dynamite goes off! Such a relief, no thinking required.

-more randomness all around. 2+ hits on so many operatives - gone. AP that lets you mitigate probabilities - more imited. Obscuring - changed from a straight reward for good positioning to a roll modifier - feeling lucky? If you are, your opponent's positioning in Obscuring won't save him in KT24. My beloved Elite Points for Kasrkin - gone, in favour of a straight stat buff. Why have the Kasrkin player think on how to manage the resource? Why have tools for a player to use well or badly when you can just change how the dice roll...

-unnecessary granularity of ranges that comes from eliminating the superelegant uniformity of 1"-2"-3"-6" that I loved . Before you just knew that a short ranged weapon is 6" (bar 2 or 3 exceptions in the game that had 3"). Now it may be 6" but it may be 7" or 8" or 5". Does this skill work within 6" ? No this one is 7". But my, similar one is 5"! Don't you love a ruleset packed with exceptions that don't affect how players make decisions, just increase unnecessary mental load and create a perfect field for misplays? This is one way to do it.


On top of those we have these balance problems. Yes, I get it, they will be dealt with, but it pains me to think they were created in the first place out of a really well balanced landscape just to satisfy business needs.


All in all, a lot of the game is still solid, but I have this feeling that these are lucky things that survived a distaster intact, while I'd rather have new editions offer improvement and progress. Well, at least they didn't introduce random charge ranges ...yet


EDIT- oh, and the solo/co-op mode is really just the old "play both sides yourself" hex&counter wargamers who never find anyone to play with know all too well Way behind modern automa design that concentrate on simulating results of player actions without necessarily making the real player go through the entire process of getting to these results (spending more time operating automa than playing themselves).

EDIT2 - losing compendium doesn't affect me but is a sad turn of events.

I was also really disappointed with the change from 5 objectives to 3 as well.

I never much liked Tac-Ops too much because it took the focus away from the objectives and just added a lot of faffing around. There was all ready enough rules overhead, so no need to add a few more wrinkles to keep track of.

My biggest complaints with KT24:

The Elimination of Spec-ops:

It's more the progression system that I miss- the actual "Spec-Ops" themselves were never great- complete 5 games where you score points from this Tac-op and then 1 game where you score points from that Tac-op never seemed very narrative to me. But the progression system, particularly assets and requisitions, really did personalize a team and provide narrative potential.

Loss of Compendium teams:

Compendium teams, with their fire-team approach, really lent themselves to team diversity. We have Hand of the Archon now, and sure, it's great to have those fluffy little specialist models... But it is rocks-in-the-head STOOPID that you can't field a team of Wyches until GW gets around to making a bespoke Wych team.

Compendium teams in KT21 so that ANYONE could build a team from their collection, even if a bespoke team didn't exist, and once the bespoke team came, GW would tell you it replaced the compendium team... But you didn't have to follow that guidance if you could were able to make the case with your gaming group for WHY you needed to keep using the compendium team.

And that DID happen, specifically with Drukhari and GSC. Drukhari due to the afore-mentioned Wych issue: simulating Gladiatorial battle in the Wych Cult arenas of Commorragh is best represented by skirmish rules rather than full on 40k, and it's literally a part of the faction's culture that these events are used to feed the Drukhari Pain, Hate and Fear to prime for realspace raids.

GSC were different, because even KT 21 didn't get them right... But it did get them closer than KT 24.

When a cult begins, there's nothing in it but Purestrains. That's just the way the breeding cycle works. Once those 'Stealers have fought, incapacitated and implanted enough humans, Brood Brothers start to appear. Once BB have had time to breed and nurture offspring, Acolytes start to appear. Once Acolytes have enough time to breed and nurture, Neophytes start to appear, as do some of the hybrid character models- usually the Magus and the Primus first, with other characters coming in subsequent Brood Cycles, along with Metamorphs.

So in KT 21, you could fake this:

Game 1: 2 Purestrain fireteams using the Tyranid rules
Game 2: 1 Purestrain fireteam (tyranid rules), 1 Guard fireteam (using GSC rules)*
Game 3: 2 Guard Fireteams, GSC rules*
Game 4: 1 guard team (GSC rules), 1 Acolyte team
Game 5: 2 Acolyte Teams
Game 6: 1 Acolyte Team, 1 Neophyte Team
Game 7: 2 Neophyte teams.

Repeat the cycle again, but in the second iteration, the Wyrmblade team becomes availble game 8.

Repeat the cycle again, but Metamorphs may now appear instead of Acolytes.

*KT 21 DID eventually get a BB team, but that team couldn't coexist in the split fireteam environment, so even when it came- which was late- I didn't really want to use it.

In KT24, however, NONE of that is possible, without bending the rules even more than we were already bending them to include Purestrains and Guard (BB).

Now having said all of that: I do like having joint ops and solo (even though I agree that it's far too simple in its current form, and I hope those modes are expanded). But I would have FAR preferred that they just added to the edition, the way Necromunda just added Ash Waste content WITHOUT blowing up the game, and then went on to do it again, adding Hive Secondus content STILL without blowing up the game.

The other thing I like? Numbers for distance instead of shapes, which was the biggest and possibly only problem with KT 21 in the first place.

I am pretty surprised the balance patch didn't drop before the LVO. I don't envy players who bought tickets for such a huge event, expecting the game to have been somewhat fixed by then...

I also think removing Compendium teams was a bad business decision. If I buy say..... a box of Sisters of Battle..... I could use them in KT21 to play games, while I ramped up to a larger 40K army.

Now I can't. Nothing makes customers want to spend more on toys, than having fun with toys. Without Compendium teams, the ramp-up to have fun with toys is much longer.

Plus, someone like me who doesn't want to play 40K sized games can still be part of the GW eco-system. Compendium teams pretty much got me back into their eco-system when I was long gone.

From there, I spent money on 3 new Kill Teams and a Boxed set. I also started a local league and narrative campaign, that brought on several new players in my area. No Compendium teams, and that never would have happened.

Despite being told off for being wrong a lot, about half of the teams I saw up untilt he end of KT last edition were compendium teams. People liked the simple, straightforward set up they could use with existing models. Yes they weren't generating sales but they did provide new players with opponents.

I really do think telling people their stuff has an expiry date is a much bigger disincentive to ever playing than GW or some posters thought it was.

The psychology of it is fundamentally different from "your stuff might get replaced with something better some day but it's valid until at least then." It's just a ticking timebomb, and for people who are slow at painting and don't have a bunch of free time why would I invest time there?

Making KT a small scale hyper competitive game instead of making it a small scale casual entry game was a huge mistake IMO.

Just posting to agree with Phazer.

 Easy E wrote:
I also think removing Compendium teams was a bad business decision. If I buy say..... a box of Sisters of Battle..... I could use them in KT21 to play games, while I ramped up to a larger 40K army.

Now I can't. Nothing makes customers want to spend more on toys, than having fun with toys. Without Compendium teams, the ramp-up to have fun with toys is much longer.

Plus, someone like me who doesn't want to play 40K sized games can still be part of the GW eco-system. Compendium teams pretty much got me back into their eco-system when I was long gone.

From there, I spent money on 3 new Kill Teams and a Boxed set. I also started a local league and narrative campaign, that brought on several new players in my area. No Compendium teams, and that never would have happened.

I felt this way when KT'21 was introduced and they'd removed a lot of the Eldar models I'd enjoyed previously. Most of my collection would have sat on the shelf had it not been for Stargrave and Five Parsecs.

 The Phazer wrote:
I really do think telling people their stuff has an expiry date is a much bigger disincentive to ever playing than GW or some posters thought it was.

The psychology of it is fundamentally different from "your stuff might get replaced with something better some day but it's valid until at least then." It's just a ticking timebomb, and for people who are slow at painting and don't have a bunch of free time why would I invest time there?

.

Is this about the team "rotation"? But GW explicitely stated that this applies only to official competitive scene and has no bearing on casual environments. As long as they keep their promise of supporting older teams with balance updates, I see no way in which this rotation affects my KT gaming at all.

I think the feeling is that if it's not a current army, it will be lost and forgotten (ie. rarely, if ever, updated).

Cyel wrote:

 The Phazer wrote:
I really do think telling people their stuff has an expiry date is a much bigger disincentive to ever playing than GW or some posters thought it was.

The psychology of it is fundamentally different from "your stuff might get replaced with something better some day but it's valid until at least then." It's just a ticking timebomb, and for people who are slow at painting and don't have a bunch of free time why would I invest time there?

.

Is this about the team "rotation"? But GW explicitely stated that this applies only to official competitive scene and has no bearing on casual environments. As long as they keep their promise of supporting older teams with balance updates, I see no way in which this rotation affects my KT gaming at all.

Likewise.
Awhile back a friend was ranting on about this rotation. I'm like "Dave, what's it matter? You, me, + the 6 other people on this planet that we play KT with don't do tourneys. And we've downloaded + printed out everything. So GW can do/say whatever they like concerning older teams. It's not going to affect our games."





Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Lathe Biosas wrote:
I think the feeling is that if it's not a current army, it will be lost and forgotten (ie. rarely, if ever, updated).

Or messed up.
Sometimes the best thing GW could do is to just leave something alone.

Kill Team Update

https://www.warhammer-community.com/en-us/articles/r0gmsdh0/kill-team-balance-update-big-changes-to-chaos-and-beyond

 PenitentJake wrote:
My biggest complaints with KT24:



Compendium teams in KT21 so that ANYONE could build a team from their collection, even if a bespoke team didn't exist, and once the bespoke team came, GW would tell you it replaced the compendium team... But you didn't have to follow that guidance if you could were able to make the case with your gaming group for WHY you needed to keep using the compendium team.

I have thought about that recently and came to the conclusion that for many teams Compendium ...is not dead, actually. Well, I feel for Custodes and Tyranids, but there are these simple, regular operatives available in unlimited numbers in almost every team out there. A regular Kommando Boy, a regular Kasrkin Trooper, a regular Chaos Legionaire, a regular Dark Eldar Warrior, a regular Necron Immortal/Deathmark... the list goes on.

A player of almost any WH40K faction has these models in spades and can build a Kill Team to try out the game anytime they want. What's more, such a player likely has at least a couple of specialists or gunners to spice up the team, without going with a fully complicated roster of "everyone's different". A Nob, a Boy with a shoota, a Boy with a burna, a Boy with a Rokkit Launcha and 7 regular Slugga/Choppa Boyz is a totally viable, legal and playable roster for a bespoke Ork Kommando kill team.

Some armies can just use their models as they are, for example Eldar or Space Marines just take their Aspect Warriors or Intercessors and are done.

Some armies need to be a little creative, but without going too crazy with their counts-as. For instance a Daemon player can take a Khorne Herald and 7 Bloodletters and play with them using Goremonger rules for a very thematic experience. I would happily play such a team myself tbh!

A nice thing is that most of these "regular trooper" operatives now have a special rule of their own, so they are a viable alternative to their team's specialists and a are not just flavourless Normal Guys.

One could say that by foregoing some of the specialists these teams give up some of their strength, which is true, but was equally true for Compendium teams. At least making a simple bespoke team like that lets you use the team's special rule (like some resource management etc), which Compendium teams usually lacked.

And another thing that IMO makes trying KT for a WH40K player even easier than with Compendium? The rules are officially free. No need to buy the Compendium book, just download the app or pdfs with chosen teams and you can give KT a go.